"But what did he say? What did he say?" Mr. Kingley had jumped up from his big chair and was tramping up and down the office with quick excited steps.

"He said he had the car all ready to drive out, when two men came in and threatened him with a gun. They gagged him, tied him up and drove the car out of the garage. He didn't know either of them, he said. Never saw them before. They were both masked, but he thought one of them, at least, was a j.a.p." He stopped and looked at Mr. Kingley significantly.

"A j.a.p!" repeated Mr. Kingley aghast. He stared at Joe, and he tried with all of his might to understand what Joe so plainly wanted him to understand. "I never employed a j.a.p in my life," he said hurriedly. "Not in any capacity!"

"Didn't you?" questioned Joe, with even more of that puzzling significance.

"A j.a.p kidnaping the Queen of the Sunshine Islands," Mr. Kingley said slowly. His eyes brightened. "Such pub--I mean," as he caught the indignant flash in Joe's eyes--"I mean, I hope it won't lead to any international complication."

"I hope not," agreed Joe, wishing he could raise the top of Mr.

Kingley's head, with its shining scalp and fringe of pepper-and-salt hair, and take a look at his mental machinery. "You can't tell me anything more then, Mr. Kingley? You don't know anything about this?"

His eyes seemed to be boring into Mr. Kingley's very soul.

"Know? How should I know anything?" demanded Mr. Kingley, and he looked insulted.

"Several little things made me think that possibly you might know more about the Sunshine Islands and their queen than you admit," Joe told him with more of that disagreeable significance. "Maybe you know more about the Sons of Sunshine than I do," he added, as Mr. Kingley turned away with a muttered exclamation.

"Yes, yes," he said hastily. "Bill told me about them, that they had threatened to make trouble for Miss Gilfooly. I told Bill then that she should ask for police protection, but Bill laughed at me and said Ka-kee-ta with his ax was worth a platoon of police."

"I thought you would know about them," Joe went on completely ignoring what Mr. Bill said. "And perhaps you know about the special representative--I believe his name is Pitts? The Sons of Sunshine claimed they had him a prisoner."

"I don't know a word about him!" Mr. Kingley seemed pained to hear that Joe thought that he did. "I don't see why you come here, Cary, and talk to me as if I were implicated in this kidnaping. Why aren't you running down this clue you have? Did Ethel telephone to the insurance company?

Who got the number anyway? Are you sure that it's correct?"

"I'm sure. Johnny Gilfooly took the number, and he's a Boy Scout and trained to observe."

"Why wasn't he looking after his sister? Aren't Boy Scouts trained to take care of their sisters?" Mr. Kingley sounded quite as unreasonable as he looked.

"Tessie sent him into the Bon Bon Box for some chocolates----"

"Then he didn't see his sister kidnaped?" Mr. Kingley interrupted quickly.

"Yes, he did. He was just coming out when he saw Tessie get into the car. It dashed away, but not before he had s.n.a.t.c.hed his pencil from his pocket and written the number on the box of candy. He did it mechanically, and when Tessie didn't come home, we were glad he did.

It's the only clue we have. It is mighty strange that she should have been carried away in your car, Mr. Kingley!" he insisted.

"Very, very strange," agreed Mr. Kingley with a frown. "And very strange that I didn't hear about the car until you came in. Why didn't Ethel telephone to me?"

"Your line was busy. And Bill-- Where is your son Bill, Mr. Kingley?" he asked sharply.

"My son Bill! Why--why--" What on earth was Joe Cary driving at. No wonder he stammered.

It seemed to Joe that he was just stammering to gain time.

"Yes, your son Bill!" he repeated sharply.

"What do you mean?" demanded Mr. Kingley.

"Just what I say. Where's young Bill Kingley?" insisted Joe, growing more suspicious every minute.

"Who wants Bill Kingley?" asked a voice from the doorway, and Mr. Bill himself came in. He looked excited and worried. "I say, dad, have you heard? Queen Teresa has been kidnaped! We've got to find her! There are three reporters out here."

"Reporters! Why should they come to me?" wondered Mr. Kingley, chafing under the fiery gaze of Joe Cary.

"Tessie was carried off in your car," Joe reminded him. "I should think the police, as well as the reporters, would want to talk to you. The Queen of the Sunshine Islands was found in the bas.e.m.e.nt of your store, and now she has been carried off in your car. It sounds----"

"How!" interrupted Mr. Bill, stepping in front of his shrinking father and facing Joe. "How does it sound to you, Cary?" he asked thirstily.

"Queer!" Joe told him flatly. "Darned queer! But if you don't tell all you know now, Mr. Kingley, you'll have to come through some day!" He regarded Mr. Kingley with an odd combination of eager hope and hot defiance. Would Mr. Kingley tell all he knew now?

But Mr. Kingley had stood all he was going to stand from Joe Cary.

"You--you--" he stammered furiously and had to stop for breath. "You're discharged! Discharged! Do you hear? I won't let any employee talk to me as if I were a kidnaper and a thief!"

"Yes, you will!" Joe dared to say to his purple face. "Unless you prove you aren't a kidnaper and a thief! And you'd better not discharge me! I suspect too much! When I'm ready to leave, I'll resign. You had better go now and talk to your reporters," he added with contempt. "You'll miss the afternoon papers if you don't. And that would be too bad, when you have some more publicity for the Evergreen."

"What do you mean, Joe?" asked Mr. Bill, who could not make anything of the eager words that Joe was uttering, and that made his father so apoplectic that he could only gasp and gurgle and shake his fist at Joe as he left the room. "What do you mean?" Joe seemed to mean so much more than he said.

"I haven't time to tell you now!" Joe exclaimed brusquely. "I must find Tessie!" He would have brushed by Mr. Bill, as if Mr. Bill were only a part of the office furniture, but Mr. Bill clutched his arm.

"I'm going to find her, too!" he insisted. "I'm going to find her! Where do you suppose she is? What could have happened to her?" He shivered as he thought of what might have happened to Tessie. "I don't suppose those Sons of Sunshine would stop at anything, would they?" His voice shook as he asked the question.

Joe stood still and looked at him curiously. "Yes," he said as if he knew what he was talking about. "I think there are some things the Sons of Sunshine will not attempt--not in Waloo. Come on, if you're going with me. Do you happen to know," he stopped as a thought flashed through his brain, "do you happen to know if Tessie had the Tear of G.o.d with her?"

Mr. Bill shook his head, and the anxious look in his face deepened.

Would it make it better or worse for Tessie if she had the royal jewel with her?

"I don't know," he confessed. "She usually did have it around her neck or somewhere else in a safety-bag. Mrs. Gilfooly would know," he suggested when Joe frowned and said nothing.

"Of course," Joe shrugged his shoulders and threw back his head. "Of course, Granny will know!"

XIX

When Tessie came out of the big building which housed the offices of Marvin, Phelps Stokes and told Johnny to run into the Bon Bon Box for some chocolates, she saw a big blue limousine draw up to the curb beside her. She recognized the car at once. She had driven in it too many times not to know that it was the Kingley car. When the chauffeur jumped out and came toward her, she did not recognize him, and she thought carelessly that Mrs. Kingley had done what she had threatened to do, hired a j.a.panese chauffeur.

"They look so smart," Mrs. Kingley had said. "And they are so clever."

"And so unreliable," Mr. Kingley had added, and he had insisted that when all the American men were employed, it would be time enough to hire a j.a.p.

But Mrs. Kingley had evidently had her way, and Tessie smiled as the chauffeur stopped beside her, bowed humbly, and asked her if she would please come to the car. Tessie turned at once. She naturally thought that Ethel Kingley, or possibly Mrs. Kingley--young Mr. Bill's mother--wanted to speak to her. And although she knew that it is not the thing to order a queen to come here or go there, still the Kingleys were more than queens to her, and with a thumping heart she went to the car. She even entered it without a question, all aglow with curiosity to hear what Ethel Kingley or Mrs. Kingley--the lordly Mr. Bill's mother--had to say to her.

Before she really realized that there was no one in the car, the chauffeur had sent the machine leaping forward. It rounded a corner on two wheels, and if the traffic policeman had not been engaged in a warm argument with two men in small cars, each of whom wanted the right of way at the same time, it would never have gone any further, for it was breaking the traffic laws with every revolution of its red wheels.

Tessie could have pounded on the gla.s.s which separated her from the chauffeur, but it never occurred to her to do that. She thought she had misunderstood the chauffeur and that Ethel Kingley or Mrs. Kingley had asked her to come to the Kingley residence. She was sorry she had not had time to tell Johnny where she was going, but Johnny would take the box of chocolates home and would tell Granny that she had gone to the Kingleys, so that Granny would not worry. If Ka-kee-ta had returned, he would make a fuss because she had the Tear of G.o.d. She felt for it in its safety bag around her slim waist. But if Ka-kee-ta wanted to go with her, he should not take all day for a little errand which should have required only half an hour.

She wondered if Ka-kee-ta had returned. Perhaps she should stop at the Waloo and inquire. She leaned forward to speak to the chauffeur. She never could remember to use the silken tube which hung at the side of the car. But the limousine swerved to the left and dashed down a mean little street, which was not on the way to the Kingleys' big plaster-and-timbered mansion. She knew it wasn't. She had never gone that way before. Why--Why----