The Orchard Secret Page 18

  CHAPTER XVIII In Hiding

  The tall, slim figure, like a black ghost in the white fog, wasapproaching with measured stride, characteristic of Rev. Dr. HenryBordmust.

  The three girls, toward whom he was unwittingly walking, looked wildlyaround for a place to hide. The platform was clear except for somebenches, now holding only dripping fog drops.

  "Inside--quickly! Perhaps he won't notice us!" whispered Arden.

  "Perhaps he will, though, and we mustn't take a chance!" objected Terry."Don't forget, we're over here without permission."

  Forward stalked the tall black figure, splitting the fog into damp,swirling masses of mist as he trudged along.

  "Come on, girls!" hissed Sim. "He's almost here! We can hide in thebaggage room at the end of the station."

  Quickly the girls scurried around the corner of the building toward thebaggage room. Fortunately the door was open. Inside, showing beneath asmall incandescent lamp, hung high, festooned with cobwebs and dust, wereseveral trunks, valises, suitcases, and boxes. Some of the pieces ofbaggage and express seemed to have been forgotten, uncalled for or lost along time. Dust was thick on them.

  "It isn't very bright," whispered Terry. Which was true. The high littlelight only made the gloomy shadows and corners more gloomy. "I wonder ifthere are rats here?" Terry breathed in alarm.

  "Oh!" gasped Arden. "Why do you have to think of things like that? Stopit!"

  "Hush!" cautioned Sim. "I hear footsteps coming this way."

  "Shut the door!" begged Terry.

  Arden pushed it so that it was almost tight in the frame. There it stuck.It would close no farther.

  "Look!" she murmured. "The light will show around the cracks and thesill. We can't shut it off. Oh, what'll we do? If he comes in here he'llbe sure to see us. We were better off outside. Then we could run andvanish in the fog."

  "He may not come in here," spoke Sim hopefully.

  "Oh, but he's coming--or someone is--right this way!" gasped Terry.

  They were in real panic now--fluttering about seeking concealment. OnceArden and Terry bumped together in their mad race around the little room,but they hadn't a giggle among them.

  "Here--in here!" Sim suddenly hissed from a distant corner. "I've foundsome kind of a big packing box with a hinged cover like a trapdoor. Wecan hide in that."

  "Can we all get in?" asked Terry. "I don't want to be left standingoutside like this."

  "I think we can make it," Sim answered. "We must try, anyhow. Here,Arden----" She held out her hand, and Arden grasped it. "Now, Terry! I'llguide you. It's very dark in this corner, but I can make out the box.I'll climb in first and you two follow."

  Terry and Arden half heard, half saw Sim partly climb and partly fallover the side of a great box in one corner of the dim room.

  "Come on, Arden," Sim urged. "It's easy."

  Arden put one leg over the side and raised herself up by her hands as ifclimbing a fence. As she did so there was a ripping, tearing sound.

  "My good stocking and part of my leg, too! Oh, dear!" lamented Arden.

  "Get in quickly. Never mind about that!" urged Sim. "All right. Cuddledown. Now, Terry!"

  "Oh, this is awful!"

  "Don't talk! Climb in! Shrink a little, Arden!" commanded Sim. "Shethinks she's in bed and taking more than her half."

  "I'm not!" Arden affirmed. "But I'll shrink all I can!"

  "That's better," voiced Sim. "Now, Terry!"

  "Here I come! Oh! Oh!" Her voice indicated lamenting terror.

  "What is it?" Sim wanted to know.

  "I can see out through the crack in the door. The station agent is headedright for this place, and Henny is with him. Oh, they'll find us, sure!"

  "Not if we stoop down and keep still!" declared Sim. "Why don't you comein, Terry?"

  "I can't! I'm caught--or something."

  "Well, pull yourself loose! You've just got to!"

  "Here goes!"

  Again the ripping, tearing sound.

  "My best skirt on a big nail!" sighed Terry. Then she flopped over theside and down upon Sim and Arden.

  Despite the discomfort of their positions and the imminent danger ofdetection, Terry began to giggle. It was quickly infectious, and Ardenand Sim held grimy hands over their mouths to stifle the dangerous soundsof hysterical mirth.

  They could hear the voices of the chaplain and the station agent justoutside the baggage-room door. They were surely coming in, the girlsthought, though whether to detect the culprits or for some other reasoncould not yet be determined.

  Suddenly Sim reached up and pulled down the large, hinged cover of thepacking case. It was light but strongly made.

  "Oh, we'll smother!" protested Arden in a whisper.

  "No, we won't! There are plenty of cracks for air," said Sim.

  Hardly was the cover down, shutting the girls inside the now very darkcase, than the door of the baggage room was pushed open and, throughcracks in the packing case the girls could see Rev. Dr. Henry Bordmust,dressed neatly in black, step in ahead of the agent in his blue coat withbrass buttons. With the two men wisps of fog drifted into the room.

  In the closeness of the box, Arden tried vainly to push Sim's left elbowaway from her ribs. Terry was slowly settling down, half on Arden, withher legs twisted around Sim's neck. Sim had the best position, as she wasthe smallest. Her eyes were on a level with a crack between the lid andthe top edge of the box. She squinted to accustom her eyesight to thedimly lighted room. She saw the chaplain looking at a tag on a worn anddusty trunk.

  The reason for his visit now seemed obvious. He wasn't after the girls.

  "Have you any trace of that trunk of mine yet?" asked the chaplain.

  "No, sir, I haven't," the agent answered, following the example of theclergyman and looking at several labels on various pieces of baggage."But that there trunk ought to be around some place, if it was shippedwhen you say it was."

  "Of course it was shipped when I say it was!" testily replied the Rev.Henry. "Why would I say it was if it wasn't, my good man? This is thethird or fourth time I've been over here looking for it. I've beenexpecting it over a week now. Come, be a little quicker! You ought to beable to find it for me!"

  "Yes, sir, I am looking. It might have got over in behind this herepacking case. Lots of things get behind these cases. They are shipped uphere filled with raw silk for the factory over at Tumeville. Butsometimes the drivers take the silk out here and leave the empty cases tobe shipped back. I'll have a look back of this case."

  With hearts that beat faster than ever, the girls could look through thecracks in their prison and see the agent approaching their hiding place.

  "Somebody musta left this case unfastened when they emptied it," mutteredthe agent. "It's dangerous, with the nails sticking out of the cover likethe way they do. I'll tap 'em in."

  With an iron weight from the platform scale near him, the man hammereddown the nails projecting from the lower side of the lid into the frontrim of the box.

  He had nailed the girls in! With just a couple of whacks!

  Hardly daring to breathe, lest they betray their presence, Arden, Terry,and Sim listened speechless.

  "Nope, nothing behind this case 'ceptin' some old valises nobody evercalled for," reported the agent, peering behind the big box after hisnailing work.

  "How about this pile of trunks?" asked the chaplain, his voice, thistime, coming from a distant corner of the room.

  "I'll help you look there, sir, but I don't believe what you want'sthere," the agent replied, as he shuffled away.

  The girls breathed more freely, and Sim hoarsely whispered:

  "Heavens! We're nailed in!"

  "Oh, Arden! What a pickle you got us into!" gasped Terry.

  "Hush! They'll hear us! Wait until Henry goes out," counseled Arden."Then we'll try to force the cover up with our shoulders."

  There was a sudden silence as the agent and the clergyman pee
red atanother pile of trunks. The girls could hear their hearts beating andTerry, interested in the phenomenon, inquired cautiously whether it wasSim's heart she heard or her own.

  "It's your own, silly!" replied Sim. "I'm almost smothered! I wish they'dgo out so we could breathe! Don't hiss so; they'll hear you."

  "That there trunk of your'n might have got over in th' freight office bymistake," said the agent. "S'posin' we look there."

  "Suppose we do," agreed the chaplain, who was fast losing what littlepatience he had.

  Then the two men left the baggage room, and on his way out the agentpulled the switch controlling the dim and dirty ceiling light.

  The imprisoned girls were left in darkness!