CHAPTER 1 THE PLUMED SERPENT

Smoothly and with accurate aim, the slim girl in blue sweater and swinging skirt sent the heavy ball crashing down the polished floor of the bowling alley.

“Another strike, Penny!” cried her school companion, Louise Sidell, watching the tenpins topple helter skelter and vanish out of sight. “You’re certainly going like a house afire today!”

“Lucky, that’s all.” Penny Parker’s friendly grin widened as she chalked up the score. Brushing aside a sandy-gold lock of hair which had dropped over one eye, she suddenly squinted at the wall clock. “Ten minutes until four o’clock!” she exclaimed. “Lou, unless we call it a day, I’ll be late for work!”

“You and your work!” scoffed Louise, but she quickly sat down to remove her bowling shoes. “Why spend all your spare time at that old newspaper?”

“The Riverview Star is the best daily in the city!” Penny shot back proudly. “Anyway, I like being a reporter.”

“I’ll give you no argument on that point, my pet. You love it! Especially poking that freckled little nose of yours into every big story or mystery that comes along! Confess now, isn’t it the excitement you like, rather than the work?”

A twitch of Penny’s lips acknowledged the truth of her chum’s observation. Off and on for several years she had served in many capacities on the Star, a daily Riverview newspaper owned by her father, Anthony Parker.

Many of the publication’s best stories had carried her name. Now that school had started again, she was unable to work full time, but on this particular Saturday afternoon she had promised Editor DeWitt she would report at two o’clock. She had no intention of being late.

“Let’s go,” she urged, picking up her coat.

Louise trailed Penny to a desk where the cashier was absently listening to a short wave radio. As they paid their bill, the instrument suddenly blared a police order:

“Patrol 34—First National Bank, Main and Front Streets. Repeating, First National Bank, Main and Front Streets. See complainant. Patrol 34 in service.”

To Louise it was only a meaningless jumble of words but Penny instantly pricked up her ears.

“Front and Main is just around the corner! Maybe there’s been a robbery, Lou!”

“I hope not,” laughed Louise. “The First National’s where I keep my money. All $28.50 of it!”

Sweeping her change from the counter, Penny glanced again at the clock and came to a quick decision. Doubtless, the Star office would send a reporter to check the police call, but considerable time might elapse before anyone reached the bank.

“Let’s jog over there and see what’s doing,” she proposed.

Louise nodded, hastily pulling a tight-fitting hat over her dark curls. Penny was already out of the door, walking so fast that her chum was hard pressed to overtake her.

Rounding the corner at Main and Front Streets, the girls were just in time to see a patrol car park at the curb in front of the bank. A police sergeant was at the wheel, but before Penny could hail him, he and a companion vanished into the building. A third man posted himself at the door of the bank.

Penny walked over to him. “Anything doing?” she inquired in a friendly, off-hand way. “A robbery?”

“I wouldn’t know,” he replied curtly.

Fishing in a cluttered purse, Penny came up with a press card. “I’m from the Star,” she added, waving her credentials before him.

“You’ll have to talk to the sergeant if you want to get any information,” he said, relaxing slightly. “Go on in, if you want to.”

Louise kept close to Penny’s side as they started into the bank. But the policeman brought her up short by saying: “Just a minute, sister. Where’s your card?”

“She’s with me,” said Penny with careless assurance.

“So I see,” observed the patrolman dryly. “She can’t go in without a card.”

Argument was useless. Decidedly crestfallen, Louise retreated to wait, while Penny went on into the darkened building. Curtains had been drawn in the big marble-floored bank, and the place appeared deserted. Teller cages were locked and empty, for the bank had closed to the public at noon.

Pausing, Penny heard the faint and distant hum of voices. She glanced upward to a second story gallery devoted to offices, and saw two policemen talking to a third man who leaned against the iron railing.

“Apparently this is no robbery,” Penny thought, taking the marble steps two at a time. “Wonder what has happened?”

Breathlessly, she reached the top of the stairs. A short, thin man with glasses and a noticeably nervous manner stood talking to the two policemen. The sergeant, his back to Penny, started taking down notes.

“I’m Sergeant Gray,” the policeman said. “What’s your name?”

“Albert Potts,” the man replied.

“A clerk here?”

“Secretary to Mr. Hamilton Rhett, the bank president. I called the police because a situation has developed which worries me. This afternoon I talked to Mrs. Rhett who gave me no satisfaction whatsoever. I said to myself, ‘Albert Potts, this is a case for the police.’ But there must be no publicity.”

“What’s wrong?” Sergeant Gray asked impatiently.

“Mr. Rhett has disappeared. Exactly nine days ago at three o’clock he put on his hat, walked out of the bank and hasn’t been seen since.”

Here indeed was news! Mr. Rhett was socially prominent and a very wealthy banker. His disappearance would be certain to create a sensation in Riverview.

“So Mr. Rhett walked out of here nine days ago,” Sergeant Gray commented. “Why wasn’t it reported earlier to the police?”

“Because at first we thought nothing of it. If you will excuse me for saying so, Mr. Rhett never has taken his bank duties very seriously. He comes and goes very much as he pleases. Some days he fails to show up until afternoon. On several occasions he has been absent for a week at a time.”

“Then why does it seem so unusual now?”

“Yesterday I telephoned Mrs. Rhett. She said she had no idea what has become of her husband. I suggested notifying the police, but she discouraged it. In fact, she hung up the receiver while I was talking to her. Altogether, she acted in a most peculiar manner.”

“That was yesterday, you say?”

“Yes, I told myself, ‘Albert Potts, if Mrs. Rhett isn’t worried about her husband’s absence, it’s none of your business.’ I should have dismissed the matter thereupon, except that today I learned about the missing bonds.”

“Missing bonds?” inquired the sergeant alertly. “Go on.”

“Mr. Rhett handles securities for various trust funds. At the time of his disappearance, $250,000 in negotiable government bonds were in his possession.”

“You’re suggesting robbery?”

“I don’t know what to think. Mr. Rhett should have returned the securities to our vault in the basement. I assumed he had done so, until this morning in making a thorough check, I learned not a single bond had been turned in. I can only conclude that Mr. Rhett had them in his portfolio when he walked out of the bank.”

“So you decided to notify the police?”

“Exactly. It was my duty. Understand I wish to bring no embarrassment to Mrs. Rhett or to cast reflection upon my employer but—”

Albert Potts broke off, his gaze focusing upon Penny who had edged closer.

“Now who are you?” he demanded suspiciously.

Stepping forward, Penny introduced herself as a Star reporter.

“You have no business here!” the secretary snapped. “If you overheard what I just said, you’re not to print a line of it! Mrs. Rhett would never approve.”

“I did hear what you told Sergeant Gray,” replied Penny with dignity. “However, any report to the police is a matter of public record. It is for our editor to decide whether or not to use the story.”

Behind thick glasses, Mr. Potts’ watery eyes glinted angrily. He appeared on the verge of ordering the girl from the bank, but with an obvious effort regained control of his temper, and said curtly:

“If you must write a story, mind you keep the facts straight. Mr. Rhett hasn’t been seen in nine days and that’s all I know. He may return tomorrow. He may never appear.”

“Then you believe he’s been kidnapped?” Penny asked.

“I don’t know. There’s been no ransom demand.”

“Perhaps he absconded with the $250,000 in bonds.”

“Don’t quote me as making such a statement even if it should prove true! Mr. Rhett is a wealthy man—or rather, he acquired a fortune when he married a rich widow who set him up here as bank president. But don’t quote me on that either!” he exclaimed as Penny jotted down a few notes. “Leave my name out of it entirely!”

“Let’s have a look at Mr. Rhett’s office,” proposed Sergeant Gray.

“Follow me, please.”

His poise regained, Albert Potts led the way down the gallery to a large, spacious office room. On the polished mahogany desk rested a picture of an attractive woman in her early forties whom Penny guessed to be Mrs. Rhett. A door opened from the office into a directors’ room, and another onto a narrow outdoor balcony overlooking Front Street.

Sergeant Gray and the patrolman made a thorough inspection of the two rooms and Mr. Rhett’s desk.

“When last I saw the bonds, Mr. Rhett had them in the top drawer,” the secretary volunteered eagerly. “He should have returned them to the vault, but he failed to do so. Now they’re gone.”

“Then you examined the desk?”

“Oh, yes, I considered it my duty.”

While Penny remained in the background, Sergeant Gray asked Mr. Potts a number of questions about the bank president’s habits, and particularly his recent visitors. The secretary, whose fund of information seemed inexhaustible, had ready answers at the tip of his tongue. He even produced a memo pad upon which the names of several persons had been written.

“These were Mr. Rhett’s visitors on his last day here,” he explained. “So far as I know, all were business acquaintances.”

Writing down the names for future checking, Sergeant Gray inquired if Mr. Rhett had disagreed with any of the callers.

“A quarrel, you mean?” Mr. Potts hesitated, then answered with reluctance. “Only with his wife.”

“Mrs. Rhett came to the bank the day your employer last was seen?”

“Yes, they were to have had lunch together. She came late and they quarreled about Mr. Rhett’s work here in the bank. Finally she went away alone.”

“You heard the conversation between them?”

“Well, no,” Albert Potts said quickly. “Naturally I tried not to listen, but I did hear some of it.”

“Mrs. Rhett may be able to explain her husband’s absence,” commented Sergeant Gray.

“She refused me any information when I telephoned. That was one reason I decided to notify the police. The loss of $250,000 could be very embarrassing to the bank.”

“Who owns the bonds?”

“They belong to the Fred Harrington estate, 2756 Brightdale Avenue. If they aren’t produced soon, there will be trouble. I’ve worked here for 15 years. You don’t think anyone could possibly blame me, do you?”

The sergeant gave him a quick glance, but made no reply as he reexamined the mahogany desk. Finding nothing of interest, he slammed the top drawer shut.

From the back of the desk, a piece of paper fluttered to the floor, almost at Penny’s feet. Evidently it had jarred from the rear side of an overflowing drawer, or had been held between desk and plaster wall.

Without thinking, Penny stooped to retrieve the sheet. She glanced at it carelessly, and then with a shock of surprise, really studied it. Drawn across the center of the paper in black and red ink was a crude but sinister-looking winged serpent.

Raising her eyes, Penny saw Albert Potts’ cold gaze upon her. Was it imagination or did his shriveled face mirror fear?

“What have you there?” he demanded.

Penny gave the paper to Sergeant Gray. Mr. Potts moved quickly forward, to peer over the man’s shoulder.

“A plumed serpent!” he exclaimed.

“And read the words beneath it,” directed Penny.

Under the drawing in a cramped hand, had been scribbled: “This shall be the end.”