Clue of the Silken Ladder Part 14

"Drop in again whenever you can. And you, too, Penelope."

Driving home through the rain, Penny stole a quick glance at the housekeeper who seemed unusually quiet.

"Do you suppose Jenny could be right?" Mrs. Weems presently ventured. "I mean about Cousin David and the inheritance?"

"Of course not!" laughed Penny. "Why, your cousin died a long while before Mrs. Hodges discovered that she was psychic. It's all the bunk!"

"I wish I really knew."

"Why, Mrs. Weems!" Penny prepared to launch into a violent argument. "I never heard of such nonsense! How could Mrs. Hodges have psychic powers?

Everyone realizes that communication with the spirit world is impossible!"

"You are ent.i.tled to your opinion, Penny, but others may differ with you.

Who can know about The Life Beyond? Isn't it in the realm of possibility that Mrs. Hodges may have had a message from Cousin David?"

"She didn't speak of it."

"Not in words, Penny. But those strange rappings, the arrival of the letter--it was all very strange and unexplainable."

"I'll admit it was queer, Mrs. Weems. However, I'll never agree that there's anything supernatural connected with it."

"You close your mind to things you do not wish to believe," the housekeeper reproved. "What can any of us know of the spirit world?"

Penny gazed at Mrs. Weems in alarm. She realized that the seamstress'

story had deeply impressed her.

"I'll stake my knowledge against Mrs. Hodges' any old day," she declared lightly. "I met one ghost-maker--Osandra--remember him?"

"Why remind me of that man, Penny?" asked the housekeeper wearily.

"Because you once paid him good money for the privilege of attending his seances. You were convinced he was in communication with the world beyond. He proved to be an outrageous fraud."

"I was taken in by him as were many other persons," Mrs. Weems acknowledged. "Mrs. Hodges' case is different. We have been friends for ten years. She would not misrepresent the facts."

"No, Mrs. Hodges is honest. I believe that the money was sent to her. But not by a ghost!"

"Let's not discuss it," said Mrs. Weems with finality. "I never did enjoy an argument."

Penny lapsed into silence and a moment later the car swung into the Parker driveway. The housekeeper hurried into the house, leaving the girl to close the garage doors.

Penny snapped the padlock shut. Unmindful of the rain, she stood for a moment, staring into the night. Nothing had gone exactly right that day, and her disagreement with Mrs. Weems, minor though it was, bothered her.

"There's more to this psychic business than appears on the surface," she thought grimly. "A great deal more! Maybe I am stubborn and opinionated.

But I know one thing! No trickster is going to take advantage of the Hodges or of Mrs. Weems either--not if I can prevent it."

CHAPTER 9 _MRS. WEEMS' INHERITANCE_

The clock chimed seven-thirty the next morning as Penny came downstairs.

She dropped a kiss on her father's forehead and slid into a chair at the opposite side of the breakfast table.

"Good morning, Daddykins," she greeted him cheerfully. "Any news in the old scandal sheet?"

Mr. Parker lowered the newspaper.

"Please don't call me Daddykins," he requested. "You know I hate it.

Here's something which may interest you. Your friends the Kohls were robbed last night."

"You're eight hours late," grinned Penny, reaching for the front page. "I was there."

"I suppose you lifted the pearls and the diamond bracelet on your way to the theatre."

"No," said Penny, rapidly scanning the story which Jerry had written, "but I think I may have seen the man who did do it."

She then told her father of having observed a stranger note the license number of the Kohl car, and mentioned the events which had followed.

"You may have been mistaken about what the man wrote down," commented her father.

"That's possible, but he was staring straight at the car."

"I doubt if the incident had any connection with the burglary, Penny.

With the Motor Vehicle Department closed, he would have had no means of quickly learning who the Kohls were or where they lived."

"Couldn't he have recognized them?"

"In that case he would have no need for the license number. You didn't see the man note down the plates of other cars?"

"No, but he may have done it before I noticed him standing by the theatre."

Turning idly through the morning paper, Penny's attention was drawn to another news story. Reading it rapidly, she thrust the page into her father's hand.

"Dad, look at this! There were two other burglaries last night! Apartment houses on Drexel Boulevard and Fenmore Street were entered."

"H-m, interesting. The Kohls occupy an apartment also. That rather suggests that the same thief ransacked the three places."

"And it says here that the families were away for the evening!" Penny resumed with increasing excitement. "I'll bet a cent they were at the theatre! Oh, Dad, that man in gray must have been the one who did it!"

"If all the persons you suspect of crime were arrested, our jails couldn't hold them," remarked Mr. Parker calmly. "Eat your breakfast, Penny, before it gets cold."

Mrs. Weems entered through the kitchen door, bearing reenforcements of hot waffles and crisp bacon. Her appearance reminded Penny to launch into a highly entertaining account of all that had transpired at the Hodges'

the previous night.

"Penny!" protested the housekeeper. "You promised Mrs. Hodges to say nothing about the letter."

"Oh, no, I didn't promise," corrected Penny. "I was careful to say that I couldn't tell what I didn't know. Years ago Dad taught me that a good reporter never agrees to accept a confidence. Isn't that so, Dad?"