"Shall I nab her?" called Joe, eager for action.

Penny's reply was surprisingly calm.

"No, let her go," she decided. "While that woman is away, I'll get into the house. I think Dad is in there alone, and I'm going to find him!"

CHAPTER 18 _THROUGH THE CELLAR WINDOW_

Penny returned to the front porch and rang the doorbell many times. No one came to admit her. She tested the door, finding it locked. Windows above the porch level could not be raised.

"I'll try the back door," she said, refusing to accept defeat.

Louise and Joe followed her to the rear of the dwelling, but remained on the outside of the fence.

As Penny had feared, the back door also was locked. She tested eight windows. Finally she found one which opened into the cellar. To her delight the sash swung inward as she pushed on it.

"Here I go!" she called to Louise. "You and Joe stay where you are and keep watch."

Penny crawled through the narrow opening and swung herself down to the cellar floor. She landed with a thud beside a laundry tub. The room was dark. Groping her way toward a stairway, she tripped over a box and made a fearful clatter.

"I've certainly advertised my arrival!" she thought ruefully.

At the top of the stairway Penny found a light switch and boldly turned it on. The kitchen door was not locked. She opened it and stepped out into another semi-dark room.

A doorbell at the front of the house began to ring. Penny was dumbfounded. Then she became annoyed, thinking that Louise and the cab driver were trying to get in.

Groping her way through the house, she unlocked the door and flung it open.

"For Pity Sakes!" she exclaimed, and then her voice trailed off.

A uniformed messenger boy stood on the porch.

"Mrs. Botts live here?" he asked, taking a telegram from his jacket pocket.

Penny did not know what to answer. Thinking quickly, she replied: "This is the Deming estate."

The messenger boy turned the beam of his flashlight on the telegram.

"Mrs. Lennie Botts, Stop 4, Care of G. A. Deming," he read aloud. "This is the place all right."

"But Mrs. Botts isn't at home now."

"I've had a lot of trouble getting here," the boy complained. "Even had to climb over the gate. How about signing for the telegram?"

"Oh, all right," agreed Penny, accepting the pencil. "I don't know why I didn't think of that idea myself!"

In return for the telegram she gave the boy a small tip. The moment he had gone, she closed the front door and switched on a table lamp.

Penny found herself in a luxuriously furnished living room. The rug underfoot was Chinese, the furniture solid mahogany, hand carved.

However, she had no interest in her surroundings. Rather tensely, she examined the telegram. Dared she open it?

"What's ten years or so of jail in my young life?" she cajoled herself.

"I'm willing to spend it in Sing Sing if only I can find Dad!"

Penny ripped open the envelope. The message, addressed to Mrs. Lennie Botts was terse and none too revealing:

"HAVE CHANGED PLANS. WILL RETURN THE TWENTY-SEVENTH BY PLANE. PLEASE HAVE EVERYTHING IN READINESS."

The telegram was signed by the owner of the estate, G. A. Deming.

"Today is the twenty-seventh of the month," thought Penny. "This message must have been several hours delayed."

The telegram had provided little information. Evidently the woman who had refused to tell her name was Mrs. Lennie Botts. Regretting that she had opened the message, Penny tossed it carelessly on the table.

Footsteps sounded on the floor directly above. Penny had taken no pains to be quiet. Nevertheless, her pulse quickened as she heard someone pad to the head of the stairway. A m.u.f.fled voice called: "Who's there?"

Penny's heart leaped for she was sure she recognized the tones. Fairly trembling with excitement, she darted to the foot of the circular staircase. On the top landing in the heavy shadows stood a man whose face she could not see.

"Dad!" she cried. "I'm Penny."

"Penny?" the man demanded impatiently as if the name meant nothing to him. "Where is Mrs. Botts?"

"Why, she went away."

"And how did you get into the house?"

"Through a cellar window."

"I thought so! Young lady, I don't know what you're doing here in Mrs.

Bott's absence. Unless you leave at once I'll summon the police."

Penny was not to be discouraged so easily. She started slowly up the stairway.

"Stand where you are!" the man ordered sharply. "I've been sick, but I'm still a match for any house-breaker. I have a revolver--"

So dark was the stairway that Penny could not know whether or not the man was bluffing. His voice, startlingly similar to her father's, sounded grim and determined. Knowing that a stranger would have good reason to treat her as a burglar, she was afraid to venture further.

"Dad--" she began.

"Don't keep calling me Dad!" he snapped.

"Who are you?" asked Penny, completely baffled.

"Who am I?" the man repeated. "Why, I'm Lester Jones, a salesman. I room here."

The answer dumbfounded Penny. "Then you're not being held a prisoner by Mrs. Botts?" she faltered.