The Penny Parker Megapack: 15 Complete Novels (265 page)

“Try to sit up,” the girl urged. “If you lie on the ice your clothes will soon freeze fast.”

Eckenrod’s eyes opened and he stared blankly at her.

“Who are you?” he muttered. “How did you get down here?”

“I fell, the same as you. I’m Penny Parker, the girl you met yesterday at the monastery.”

With her help, the artist pulled himself up on an elbow.

“I remember you now,” he mumbled. “Did you see that hunchback push me down here?”

“Yes, I did. It was a brutal thing to do. I think now he may have gone for a rope.”

“Don’t you believe it!” Eckenrod said bitterly. “He wouldn’t help us if we were freezing to death! The man is a thief! He was stealing my wood! I’ll have the law on him!”

“First we have to get out of here,” Penny reminded him. “That’s not going to be easy.”

Eckenrod became sober as he studied the sharp walls of the crevasse. The only possible handhold was a ledge well above their heads.

“If you can boost me up, I think I can make it,”Penny said. “Then I’ll go for help.”

Eckenrod attempted to get to his feet, but his left leg crumbled beneath him. Pain and despair were in his eyes as he gazed at his companion.

“Broken,” he said. “Now we are in a fix.”

Trying not to disclose fright, Penny said the only thing to do was to call for help. However, after she had shouted until she was nearly hoarse, she too was filled with despair.

“Winkey isn’t coming back,” she acknowledged. “And no one else is close enough to hear our cries!”

In an attempt to ease Mr. Eckenrod’s pain, Penny tore strips of cloth from her underskirt, and used the broken skis to make a splint.

“There’s nothing wrong with my right leg,” the artist insisted. “It’s good and strong. If only I could get up on it, I think I could boost you to the ledge. We’ve got to do something!”

“Could you really do it?” Penny asked, hope reviving.

“I’ve got to,” the artist replied grimly. “Night’s coming on. We’ll freeze if we’re here an hour.”

With Penny’s help, Mr. Eckenrod after several attempts, managed to struggle upright on his good right leg. He weaved unsteadily a moment, then ordered:

“Now onto my shoulders!”

She scrambled up, grasping the icy ledge above. It broke in her fingers.

“Hurry!” muttered Mr. Eckenrod, gritting his teeth.

With desperate haste, Penny obtained another handhold which seemed fairly firm. She could feel Mr. Eckenrod sagging beneath her. Knowing it was then or never, she heaved herself up and rolled onto the ledge. Miraculously, it held her weight.

Relieved of the burden of the girl’s weight, Mr. Eckenrod collapsed on the floor of the crevasse again, moaning with pain.

“Oh, Mr. Eckenrod!” Penny was aghast.

“Go on!” he urged in a stern voice. “You can make it now! Climb on out and bring help! And be quick about it!”

CHAPTER 10

MR. ECKENROD’S SECRET

Thus urged, Penny scrambled up the slippery, sloping side of the wall and reached the top safely.

Completely spent, she lay there a moment resting.

“Don’t give up!” she called to Mr. Eckenrod. “I’ll get back as fast as I can!”

The closest house was the artist’s own cabin in the woods. Plunging through the big drifts, the girl pounded on the door.

Almost at once it was opened by a middle-aged woman with graying hair and alert, blue eyes. Seeing the girl’s rumpled hair and snow-caked skiing suit, she immediately understood that something was wrong.

“You’re Mrs. Eckenrod?” Penny gasped.

“Yes, I am. What has happened?”

“Your husband has had a bad fall and his leg may be broken! We’ll need a rope and a sled.”

Mrs. Eckenrod won Penny’s admiration by the cool manner with which she accepted the bad news. After the first quick intake of breath, she listened attentively as Penny told her what had happened.

“You’ll find a long rope in the shed,” she directed.

“And a sled?”

“The only one we have is a very small one my grandchildren use when they come here to play. It will have to do. You’ll find it in the shed too. While you’re getting the things, I’ll telephone a doctor to come right out!”

“We’ll need a man to help us!”

“No one lives within miles except those folks who moved into the monastery.”

“We’ll get no help from there!” Penny said bitterly.

“I’ll call Riverview for men!”

“We don’t dare wait, Mrs. Eckenrod. Your husband is half frozen now. We’ll have to get him out ourselves somehow.”

“If we must, we can,” replied the woman quietly. “I’ll telephone the doctor and be with you in a moment.”

On her way to the shed, Penny looked hopefully across the darkening hills for a glimpse of the lone skier she had seen earlier in the afternoon. He was nowhere visible.

By the time Penny had found a rope and the sled, Mrs. Eckenrod joined her. The woman had put on a heavy coat, galoshes, and carried woolen blankets.

“How did the accident happen?” she asked, as they plodded through the drifts together.

Penny related the unfortunate argument involving the theft of firewood.

“Oh, dear! It’s Vernon’s dreadful temper again!”Mrs. Eckenrod exclaimed. “He is a wonderful man, but ready to quarrel if anyone crosses him!”

“In this case, I think he was in the right,” Penny replied, helping her companion over a big drift. “I saw the hunchback take the wood, and I heard the argument.”

“When those new people moved into the monastery, I was afraid we would have trouble with them. Something queer seems to be going on there.”

“How do you mean?” Penny asked, recalling that she had expressed the identical thought at home.

“Well, the house is so quiet and deserted by day. Come night, one hears all sorts of weird noises and sees roving lights. Last night I distinctly heard a woman scream twice. It was most unnerving.”

“Have you noticed anyone except the hunchback and his master leaving the building?”

“Only a young girl.”

“Then I didn’t imagine it!” Penny exclaimed.

Mrs. Eckenrod stared at her, puzzled by the remark.

Penny did not take time to explain, for they now had reached the crevasse. Anxiously, the rescuers peered down into the darkening hole.

“Vernon!” his wife cried.

At sound of her voice, he stirred and sat up.

Relieved that he was still conscious, Penny stretched out prone at the lip of the crevasse. Rapidly, she lowered the rope.

“Knot it around your waist!” she instructed.

Mr. Eckenrod obeyed and with a supreme effort, got up on his good leg.

“Now up you come!” Penny shouted encouragingly. “If you can help just a little, I think we can make it.”

Mrs. Eckenrod was a solidly built, strong woman. Even so, it was all the two could do to pull the artist up onto the overhanging ledge. Completely spent, he lay there for a while as his rescuers recaptured their breath. Then, the remaining distance was made with less difficulty.

Penny and Mrs. Eckenrod rolled the man onto the sled, covering him with warm blankets. Even then, their troubles were not over. To pull the sled through the drifts to the cabin, took the last of their strength.

“We did it!” Penny cried jubilantly as they made a saddle of their arms to carry the artist into the warm living room.

Mrs. Eckenrod threw a log on the fire and went to brew hot coffee. Penny sponged the blood from the artist’s head but did not attempt to bandage it, knowing a doctor was on the way.

Twenty minutes later, Dr. Wallace arrived from Riverview. After carefully examining the artist’s leg, he placed it in a splint and bandaged it.

“You’ll be on crutches for a few days,” he told Mr. Eckenrod. “The bone may be cracked, but there is no break.”

“That’s the best news I’ve heard today!” Mr. Eckenrod declared in relief. “I’ve got some important business to take up with a certain party!”

“Vernon!” remonstrated his wife.

After the doctor had gone, Mr. Eckenrod was put to bed on the davenport. But he refused to remain still. As the pain in his leg eased, he experimented walking with the aid of a chair.

“I’ll be using my pins in three days at the latest!” he predicted. “Just as soon as I can get around, I’m going to the monastery and punch that hunchback’s nose!”

“Vernon!”

“Now don’t ‘Vernon’ me,” the artist glared at his wife. “The man richly deserves it! He’s a thief and bully!”

Penny gathered up her mittens which had been drying by the hearth. “You may have trouble getting into the monastery,” she remarked. “If Winkey sees you first, he’ll probably lock the gate.”

“You think that would stop me?”

“How else could you get in? Over the fence?”

“I know a way,” the artist hinted mysteriously.

“Not another gate?”

“No.”

“A secret entrance?”

Mr. Eckenrod’s quick grin told Penny that her guess had been right.

“You did me a good turn today, so I’ll let you into the secret,” the artist said. “Help me hobble into the studio, and I’ll show you something that will make your eyes pop!”

CHAPTER 11

MAP OF THE MONASTERY

“Here, lend me a shoulder!” Mr. Eckenrod ordered as Penny hesitated. “Or aren’t you interested?”

“Oh, I am—but your leg.”

“Stuff and nonsense! The doc said it wasn’t broken, didn’t he? I’ll be walking as well as ever in a few days.”

Supported on one side by Penny and on the other by his wife, the artist hobbled to the adjoining studio.

On easels about the room were many half completed paintings. Several fine pictures, one of the artist’s wife, hung on the walls. A paint-smeared smock had been draped carelessly over a statue.

“Vernon,” sighed his wife, reaching to retrieve the garment, “you are so untidy.”

“Without you, my dear, I should live like a pig in a sty and revel in it,” chuckled the artist.

At a desk, amid a litter of letters and papers, were several large sheets of yellowed drawings.

“These are the original plans of the monastery,”Mr. Eckenrod said, placing them in Penny’s hands. “They show every detail of the old building before it was remodeled by later owners.”

“How did you get these plans, Mr. Eckenrod?”

“The present owner of the building let me have them to study at the time I planned to buy the property. He would have sold the place to me too if that soft-talking fellow who calls himself Father Benedict hadn’t come along!”

“Vernon, you mustn’t speak that way of him!” reprimanded his wife in a shocked tone. “I’m sure he’s a good, kind man of religion. Just because you had a quarrel with his servant—”

“Father Benedict has less religion than I’ve got in my little finger!” the artist growled. “You said yourself only last night that something’s wrong at the place! What of those screams we heard?”

“It was explained to me that a simple-minded woman named Julia works at the monastery,” Penny volunteered. “She is supposed to be easily upset.”

“Humph!” muttered Mr. Eckenrod. “All I can say is, Father Benedict surrounds himself with mighty queer people.”

“It’s really none of our affair, Vernon,” said his wife mildly.

“What goes on there is my business until the paintings are finished! But Father Benedict and ten hunchbacks can’t keep me away! With these plans I can always outwit them!”

“What do they show?” Penny could not make much from the dim lines.

“The building is built on the pattern of Sherborne in England,” Mr. Eckenrod explained. He pointed out the main part of the church with nave, south and north transepts, choir and chapel. “This section is a ruin now, but could be restored. Unfortunately, the roof has caved in and all paintings and statues were long ago destroyed.”

“Show me the cloister,” requested Penny.

“Here it is.” The artist pointed with a stubby thumb. “Passages radiate from it. One leads to the old chapter house. North of the cloister is the refectory, used as a dining room. Behind is the abbey’s kitchen.”

“The sleeping rooms?”

“They’re above the refectory and also to the west of the cloister. Under the refectory are the cellars. They also extend beneath the old chapel.”

“Have you ever visited them, Mr. Eckenrod?”

“The cellars? I have. Also the burial crypt. A few of the old tombs remain in fairly good state of preservation.”

“But where is the secret passageway?” asked Penny.

“Through the crypt. It leads into the churchyard to the west of the building.”

“Do many people know about it?”

“I rather think I’m the only one. The building owner never bothered to study the plans, because he wasn’t interested. Father Benedict may have learned the secret, but if so, he stumbled onto it by accident.”