The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car/Chapter 19
CHAPTER XIX
MYSTIFIED
"What can I do for you? What seems to be the trouble?" inquired the man whom Betty and the others had hailed as they rushed to the door of the strange house, and peered out into the darkness.
"We're in a haunted mansion, and the ghost has taken Mollie away!" cried Grace, hysterically. "Please make him give her up. Oh, please do!"
But Betty paid no heed to her chum. Instead she exclaimed:
"Mr. Blackford! It's Mr. Blackford—the man who lost the five hundred dollar bill!"
"What!" cried Amy.
"I certainly am that same Mr. Blackford," answered the young man, "and if these aren't the Outdoor Girls, I miss my guess!"
"That's who we are—all but one of us," spoke Betty. "Oh, it's true. Some one has Mollie a prisoner here! We tried to open the door, but it's locked. Will you come and help us try to batter it down?"
"I certainly will. But what are you doing here? Are you camping?"
"Camping in a haunted house? I guess not!" exclaimed Grace. "The idea! Oh, but it's to good have—a man!"
"Thank you!" laughed Mr. Blackford, who, it will be remembered, was so fortunate as to recover his lost money through the efforts of our heroines, as told in the first volume of this series.
"You—you aren't afraid; are you?" asked Amy.
"Afraid of what?"
"The ghost!"
"Ghost!" and he laughed heartily.
"Well, there really have been some strange goings-on here," said Betty, standing in the doorway with her chums. She looked out at the weather. It was not raining much now, and the thunder and lightning had about ceased.
"Suppose you explain," proposed Mr. Blackford. "I happened to be in this part of the country looking after some of my business interests. I was delayed longer at one place than I expected to be, and got caught in the storm. When I came past this house I thought I would see if I could not be accommodated over night, for my horse was tired and needed stabling. Instead I"
"You are appealed to to help lay a ghost and find a missing girl," broke in Betty. "But, oh, the last is most important! Please come and get Mollie out!"
"Yes, I guess that is the most important. You can tell me about it later. But I surely was astonished to meet you girls again—glad of it, though. Now for the prisoner. Lead the way, Miss Nelson."
Flashing her lantern, the other girls keeping at her side, and Cousin Jane bringing up in the rear, Betty advanced to the locked door. Mr. Blackford tried the knob, and then called:
"Stand back, whoever is in there. I'm going to burst this door open!"
Grace cried out.
"Quiet!" commanded Betty. "It is the only way."
Mr. Blackford placed his shoulder down near the lock. There was a cracking and splintering of wood, and the door suddenly flew open with a crash.
"Mollie! Mollie!" cried Betty, as she flashed the rays of her lamp inside.
But the room was empty! Mystified, the girls, their chaperone and Mr. Blackford, stared about it. No Mollie was there!
"But I'm sure she was thrust into this room by that figure in white," declared Betty. "We all saw it."
"Are you sure?" asked Mr. Blackford, slowly.
"Positive. She was put in this room for some unknown purpose, and she can't have gotten out, for we have been in the hall all the while, and the door was locked."
"There is the window," said Mr. Blackford, as he took the lantern from Betty. Walking over to the casement he uttered an exclamation, as he saw the bent bars.
"This explains it!" he cried. "She has escaped!"
"Or else the—the ghost—came in here and took her away," faltered Amy.
"Well, we'll have a look about outside," suggested the young man. "There may be marks that will aid us, especially as the ground is soft now."
They all went outside. The rain was but a mere drizzle now. The fury of the storm had passed, and the night was becoming calm. The old house, and the mansion beyond it, which could now be seen dimly back of a fringe of trees, was silent and seemingly deserted, even by the ghost. There were no more queer blue flames, no more hollow groans and clanking noises.
"I didn't think to look and see if the other auto lamp was in that room where poor Mollie was," said Grace. "Did you?"
"Yes," spoke Betty. "I looked. It was gone."
"We had better not all go under that window at once," suggested Mr. Blackford, as they neared the casement with the bent bars. "Let me go alone, with the light, and I'll see if I can make out any footprints."
Carefully he examined, and then he gave a joyful exclamation.
"It's all right!" he cried. "There are the marks of but one person's shoes, and they are your friend's, I'm sure—for they are small. It plainly shows where she let herself down out of the window."
"Oh, how glad I am!" cried Betty. "But where is she now? Can you tell which way she went?"
"Only for a short distance," answered Mr. Blackford, as he flashed the rays of the lamp to and fro. "Then comes grass, and I am not sufficiently good on the trail to track a person over grass. However, ve are sure of one thing—that she got out of the room herself, and ran off. She was not carried away."
"That is everything," murmured Grace. "Oh, what a relief!"
"But where can she be now?" asked Betty, in bewilderment. "Why did she not come back to us?"
"Probably she thought you, too, had left the place," suggested Mr. Blackford. "We must make further search. But suppose you tell me all that happened. I am interested in this—ghost."
The girls told all that had occurred—told it in gasps—by exclamations—by "fits and starts," as Betty expressed it. At first Mr. Blackford was amused—then he was more interested—finally he was impressed.
"I don't like this," he said, when he had been informed of the failure of Mr. Lagg to dispose of the property because of the "ghostly" manifestations. "It looks to me as though some trick was being perpetrated here. Possibly something more than a trick. There may be crimes contemplated. The authorities should be notified.
"Of course I don't believe in ghosts—neither do you—and, from what you say, it must have been a very human one who caught Miss Billette. But she is our most important consideration now. We must find her! We must search outside, for clearly she is not in the house, though it will do no harm to take another look."
"Go back there!" cried Grace, aghast.
"Why not?" asked Betty, coolly. "You forget we have a man with us now."
"Certainly we'll go back there and look," spoke Mrs. Mackson, in business-like tones. "Though I don't believe Mollie would go back, unless it was to look for us. And how can she have gone in without us seeing her?"
"There may be many entrances to an old, rambling place like this," said Mr. Blackford. "It will do no harm to look about in it again, and then we can search up and down the road."
Rather gingerly the girls entered the old house again. The light was flashed in all the rooms downstairs, but the girls balked at going to the upper floors, though Mr. Blackford proposed it.
"Mollie would not go up there," said Betty, positively.
"Perhaps not," admitted Mr. Blackford.
"I think we ought to go back to where we left the auto," said Mrs. Mackson. "That would be the most likely place for Mollie to go."
"I agree with you!" exclaimed the young man, quickly. "We'll go to the stalled auto."
As they were leaving the place there burst upon them a shrill, weird cry, like that of some animal, and it was followed by that deep groan that vibrated through the vacant rooms.
"The ghost! The ghost!" cried Grace, clutching Mr. Blackford's arm.