CHAPTER 23 IN THE PRESSROOM
“You have made a mistake,” the man mumbled. “I am not Mr. Rhett. My name is Brown—Edgar Brown.”
Penny, none too certain of the identification, gazed at the man’s hands. They were soft and white as if unaccustomed to hard work, but he wore no serpent ring on any of his fingers. She felt certain this was the man she had met at the steamship office.
The stranger pulled gently away from her grasp, ready to start out into the howling wind once more.
“You’ll be swept off your feet if you try to battle that storm!” Penny protested. “You must stay here until the worst of it is over!”
“But I am not Mr. Rhett.”
“Never mind about that,” said Penny. “I mistook you for someone else. Just come inside and I’ll close the doors.”
The man peered outside once more, and noting the intensity of the storm, lost all desire to leave the shelter. He moved away from the entrance, and Penny closed the big, heavy door.
“Come along with me into the pressroom where it is warm,” she invited.
Without comment, the man followed her across the cement toward the loading docks. At the other end of the drive, someone opened the doors for a moment to allow a truck to roll inside. A great gust of wind tore through the passage, and sent the stranger’s hat careening into a corner.
He darted to recapture it. As he stooped to pick it up, an object on a string which he wore about his neck, swung from beneath his sport shirt. Quickly he pushed it out of sight again, but not before Penny had seen the ring and recognized the serpent design.
“He is Mr. Rhett!” she thought, her pulse pounding.
Wisely, she pretended to have observed nothing, and invited him into the pressroom where Jerry was waiting. Celeste, still locked in the storage closet, was rattling the door knob and kicking on the panel with all her strength.
“Jerry,” said Penny, dropping her bombshell. “This is Mr. Rhett.”
The reporter’s mouth dropped agape, while the stranger plainly showed his annoyance.
“I told you I am not Mr. Rhett.”
“Then kindly explain the significance of that ring you wear around your neck. I saw it only a moment ago.”
The stranger became confused. “My ring—” he stammered. “Oh, that! An heirloom. I have had it for years.”
“Please tell us the truth,” pleaded Penny.
“I know nothing about this man you call Mr. Rhett,” he replied, avoiding her direct gaze. “Evidently you have someone locked up here. Suppose you explain the meaning.”
“Gladly,” replied Penny. “We do have someone imprisoned in the storage room ready to turn over to the police as soon as the storm lets up. It is Celeste.”
“Celeste!” The stranger’s amazed expression betrayed him. Although he added: “And who is she?” it was unconvincing.
“Mr. Rhett, why pretend?” Penny demanded. “We know who you are.”
“Very well,” said the man, smiling faintly. “So I am Mr. Rhett! I assume you two are reporters for the Star.”
“Right,” agreed Jerry.
“And you want a story. Well, there’s no story. Since you have me dead to rights as they say, I’ll not deny I am Hamilton Rhett. However, my identity is my own affair. I stepped out of my old life—the bank and my home—because I was tired of a very boring existence. I never was cut to the cloth of a banker. I dislike being shut up indoors even for an hour. Probably I shall return to South America.”
“You say it is your own affair,” Penny remarked pointedly. “I am afraid it isn’t. Aren’t you forgetting a little matter of $250,000?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I refer to that sum in negotiable bonds which you had in your possession at the time you left the bank.”
Mr. Rhett did not seem to understand for a moment. Then he exclaimed: “Oh, the bonds! I was to have returned them to the vault, but it slipped my mind. You will find them in the top desk drawer in my office.”
“The desk has been carefully searched. The bonds are not there.”
“Not there?” For the first time Mr. Rhett seemed disturbed. “But they must be, unless they were stolen after I went away!”
“The bonds have not been found, and the bank trustees are pressing your family to make restitution. Furthermore, your wife is dangerously ill.”
“My wife sick? What is wrong?”
“The doctors do not know. However, Lorinda burned an effigy doll made in your wife’s image—she found it in the house. Two burned match sticks tied together also were found by Mrs. Rhett. For some reason she became obsessed with the idea she was doomed to a lingering fatal illness. She began to refuse food and since then has gone steadily downhill.”
“The work of Celeste!”
“We think so. Tonight she stole the Zudi drum, and Lorinda and I found her with Antón and other followers celebrating their rites in a cave near the beach.”
“Then they have reverted to their heathen ways!” the banker exclaimed. “My wife always said Celeste hated her, but I, like a blind fool, refused to see it. Once during the years I spent in the jungle, Celeste saved my life and I always felt grateful to her. Now I must forget that, for she is a dangerous woman if she seeks to practice her jungle magic.”
“You don’t actually believe Celeste could make your wife ill merely by suggestion?” Jerry inquired in amazement.
“In the jungles I have seen a native die from superficial wounds. If told the spear which struck him had been sung over by an enemy, the native would simply lie down, refuse food and pine away. My wife is in great danger!”
“Can nothing be done?” cried Penny.
Mr. Rhett’s face tightened into hard, grim lines. “A great deal can be done,” he said. “But Celeste must be fought with her own jungle weapons. To turn her over to the police will not be sufficient. She is inside the closet you say—let me talk to her.”
“Okay,” agreed Jerry, “but Celeste in her present mood is a pretty brisk customer. To make sure she doesn’t get away, I’ll lock the pressroom door before letting her out of her cage.”
As the reporter went to the exit, Penny heard the pressmen at the other end of the room shout that the storm had abated.
“The hurricane has not passed,” corrected Mr. Rhett quietly. “This lull merely marks the end of the first phase. The wind will return harder than ever in a few minutes from another quarter.”
Jerry returned, and taking the key to the storage room from his pocket, cautiously unlocked the door. Celeste, blinking like an owl as she staggered out under the electric lights, gasped as she saw Mr. Rhett.
“Master!” she exclaimed worshipfully. “You come back!”
Mr. Rhett’s face showed no trace of the affection he had felt for his servant. “Celeste,” he said, “you’ve been dabbling in magic again! What’s this nonsense about my wife being ill and going to die?”
“The truth, Master. Antón and I try hard to save her, but no use. She die next month. Maybe sooner.”
“Get this through your head, Celeste. My wife will not die. She will be as well as you are within two days. All your incantations over the doll were wasted. You plotted to no avail. I am home now, and if you persist in your wickedness, I will meet your so-called magic with stronger magic of my own!”
“Celeste sorry,” the old woman whimpered. “Do it only to get money for master.”
“I need no money and want none. You have been very wicked, Celeste, and must be turned over to the police for safe keeping.”
“Oh, no, Master! Not the police!”
“Yes, and now is the time to take you there during this lull in the storm.”
Celeste’s wild eyes darted about the room, searching for a means of escape. With a savage lunge, she reached the door only to find it locked.
As Jerry and Mr. Rhett bore down upon her, she scurried frantically along the outer room wall, coming to the metal paper chute through which packages of freshly-printed papers were tossed for delivery.
Quick as a cat, Celeste scrambled into the chute, crawling through on all fours. At the chute’s exit on the sheltered cement drive, stood the waiting paper truck, its rear door ajar. Already loaded, the driver awaited only this lull in the storm before setting off to deliver his cargo.
Even as Celeste crawled through the chute, the man started the truck engine. The woman did not hesitate. Leaping into the rear of the vehicle, she slammed the door.
Hearing it close, the driver assumed another workman had shut it as a signal for him to pull out. Shifting gears, he drove away with his cargo of papers—and Celeste.
