"It ain't so easy as it looks," he told her. "Well, here comes the Missuz now and we're all ready for her. Last time she came along I was weedin'

out my corn patch and was she mad?"

As the black limousine rolled up to the drawbridge Penny turned her face away so that Mrs. Kippenberg would not recognize her. She need have had no uneasiness, for the lady gazed neither to the right nor the left. The car crept forward at a snail's pace causing the steel structure to shiver and shake as if from an attack of ague.

"Dear me, I think this bridge is positively dangerous," Louise declared.

"I shouldn't like to drive over it myself."

As the old watchman again raised the cantilevers, Penny studied his every move.

"For a girl you're sure mighty interested in machinery," he remarked.

"Oh, I may grow up to be a bridgeman some day," Penny said lightly. "I notice you keep the gear house locked part of the time."

"I have to do it or folks would tamper with the machinery."

The old man snapped a padlock on the door.

"Now I'm goin' to mosey down to my garden and do a little hoein'," he announced. "You girls better run along."

Thus dismissed, Louise started away, but Penny made no move to leave. She intended to ask a few questions.

"Th.o.r.n.y, are you any relation to the Kippenberg's head gardener?" she inquired with startling abruptness.

"Am I any relation to that old walrus?" Th.o.r.n.y fairly shouted. "Am I any relation to _him_? Say, you tryin' to insult me?"

"Not at all, but I saw the man this morning, and I fancied I noticed a resemblance. Perhaps you don't know the one I mean."

"Sure, I know him all right." Th.o.r.n.y spat contemptuously. "New man. He acts as know-it-all and bossy as if he owned the whole place."

"Then you don't like him?"

"There ain't no one that has anything to do with him. He's so good he can't live like the rest of the servants. Where do you think I seen him the other night?"

"I haven't the slightest idea. Where?"

"He was at the Colonial Hotel, eatin' in the main dining room!"

"The Colonial is quite an expensive hotel at Corbin, isn't it?"

"Best there is. They soak you two bucks just to park your feet under one of their tables. Yep, if you ask me, Mrs. Kippenberg better ask that gardener of hers a few questions!"

Having delivered himself of this tirade, Th.o.r.n.y became calm again. He shifted his weight and said pointedly: "Well, I got to tend my garden.

You girls better run along. Mrs. Kippenberg don't want n.o.body hangin'

around the bridge."

The girls obligingly took leave of him and walked away. But when they were some distance away, Penny glanced back over her shoulder. She saw Th.o.r.n.y down on his hands and knees in front of the gear house. He was slipping some object under the wide crack of the door.

"The key to the padlock!" she chuckled. "So that was why he wanted us to leave first. We'll remember the hiding place, Lou, just in case we ever decide to use the drawbridge."

CHAPTER 17 _A SEARCH FOR JERRY_

After leaving the Kippenberg estate, Penny and Louise motored to Corbin.

More from curiosity than for any other reason they dined at the Colonial Hotel, finding the establishment as luxurious as the old watchman had intimated. A full hour and a half was required to eat the fine dinner which was served.

"Our friend, the gardener, does have excellent taste in food," remarked Louise. "What puzzles me is where does he get the money to pay for all this?"

"The obvious answer is that he's not a gardener."

"Maybe he has rooms here too, Penny."

"I've been wondering about it. I mean to investigate."

Louise glanced at her wrist.w.a.tch. "Do you think we should take the time?"

she asked. "It will be late afternoon now before we reach home."

"Oh, it won't take a minute to inquire at the desk."

Leaving the dining room, the girls made their way to the lobby. When the desk clerk had a free moment Penny asked him if anyone by the name of Peter Henderson had taken rooms at the hotel.

"No one here by that name," the man told her. "Wait, I'll look to be sure."

He consulted a card filing system which served as a register, and confirmed his first statement.

"The man I mean would be around sixty years of age," explained Penny. "He works as a gardener at the Kippenberg estate."

"Perhaps you have come to the wrong hotel," said the clerk aloofly. "We do not cater to gardeners."

"Only to people who employ gardeners, I take it."

"Our rates start at ten dollars a day," returned the clerk coldly.

"And does that include free linen and a bath?" Penny asked with pretended awe.

"Certainly. All of our rooms have private baths."

"How wonderful," giggled Penny. "We thought this might be one of those places with a bath on every floor!"

Suddenly comprehending that he was being made an object of sport, the clerk glared at the girls and turned his back.

Penny and Louise went cheerfully to their car, very much pleased with themselves for having deflated such a conceited young man. They drove away, and late afternoon brought them to Riverview, tired and dusty from their long trip.

After dropping her chum off at the Sidell home, Penny rode directly to the newspaper office. Finding no parking place available on the street, she ran her car into the loading area at the rear of the building, nosing into a narrow s.p.a.ce which had just been vacated by a paper-laden truck.

"Hey, you lady," shouted an employee. "You can't park that sc.r.a.p iron here. Another paper truck will be along in a minute."