Dorothy Dixon Solves the Conway Case Read online

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  DOROTHY DIXON SOLVES THE CONWAY CASE

  BY

  Dorothy Wayne

  Author of Dorothy Dixon Wins Her Wings Dorothy Dixon and The Mystery Plane Dorothy Dixon and the Double Cousin

  THE GOLDSMITH PUBLISHING COMPANY CHICAGO

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  COPYRIGHT, 1933 THE GOLDSMITH PUBLISHING COMPANY

  MADE IN U. S. A.

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  To

  RUTH KIRBY

  she says my books are "neat"....

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  CONTENTS

  I OUT OF LUCK II TO THE RESCUE III IN THE CONWAY HOUSE IV VISITORS V THE MOTIVE VI CORNERED VII RAVEN ROCKS VIII THE CHIMNEY IX OVER THE TOP X OL' MAN RIVER XI MR. JOHN J. JOYCE XII VOICES FROM BELOW XIII THE WAY OUT XIV THE LION'S DEN XV IN THE TOILS XVI THE BOOK XVII THE TEST

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  DOROTHY DIXON SOLVES THE CONWAY CASE

  Chapter I

  OUT OF LUCK

  Above the speeding airplane, lowering black of approaching night andstorm; below, the forest, grim and silent, swelling over ridges, dippinginto valleys, crestless waves on a dark green ocean.

  "We can't make it, Betty."

  Dorothy Dixon, at the controls, spoke into the mouthpiece of herheadphone set.

  Betty Mayo, in the rear cockpit, glanced overside and shuddered.

  "But you can't land on those trees!" she cried shrilly. "We'llcrash--you know that!"

  "Maybe we will--and maybe we won't!" returned Dorothy, gritting herteeth. "Keep your eyes peeled for a pond or a woodlot--anywhere youthink we can land."

  "What--what's the matter?" called back her friend, steadying her wobblynerves with an effort.

  "Matter enough. We're nearly out of gas--running on reserve fuel now.When the rain starts, it'll be pitch dark in no time."

  "Oh, Dorothy--do try to stay up! We can't crash and be killed--that'swhat it will mean if you try to land here!"

  "Betty, be-have, will you? This is my funeral." The pilot in heranxiety, had struck upon an unhappy choice of words.

  "Oh, you must do something--this is terrible--" the frenzied girl in therear cockpit almost shrieked.

  Dorothy ripped off her headphone set. She could no longer allow herattention to be distracted by Betty's excited whimpering.

  The small amphibian, flying low, topped a crag-scarred ridge. At thefoot of the cliff she saw a tiny woodland meadow.

  Action in the air must be automatic. There is never time to reason. Withthe speed of legerdemain the young pilot sent her plane into a steepright bank and pushed down hard on the left rudder pedal. The result wasa sideslip, the only maneuver by which the amphibian could possibly bepiloted into the woodlot. Tilted sideways at an angle that brought ascream from terrified Betty, the heavy mass of wood and metal droppedlike a plummet toward the earth.

  This was too much for little Miss Mayo. Convinced that her friend hadlost control of the plane, she closed her eyes and prayed.

  With uncanny accuracy, considering the rainswept gloom, Dorothyrecovered just at the proper instant. Hard down rudder brought thelongitudinal axis of the plane into coincidence with its actual flightpath again. At the same time she brought the up aileron into play,thereby preventing the bank from increasing. Then as the amphibian shotinto a normal glide, she leveled the wings laterally by use of aileronsand rudder.

  Their speed was still excessive, so for a split second or two, Dorothyleveled off and fishtailed the plane. That is, she kicked the rudderalternately right and left, thereby swinging the nose from side to side,and did so without banking and without dropping the nose to a steeperangle.

  Taking the greatest possible care that her plane was in straight flightprior to the moment of contact with the ground, she gave it a briefburst of the engine, obviating any possibility of squashing on withexcessive force. The airplane landed well back on the tail, rolledforward over the bumpy ground and came to a stop at the very edge of thelittle meadow, nose on to the line of trees and underbrush.

  Dorothy switched off the ignition, snapped out of her safety belt andturned round.

  "Hail, hail, the gang's all here," she said cheerfully. "Wake up, Betty!We've come to the end of the line."

  Betty opened her eyes and looked about in startled amazement.

  "Why--why we didn't crash, after all!"

  "Certainly not," snorted Dorothy. "D'you think I'd let _Wispy_ mash upmy best friend? Come on, dry your eyes. Good thing it's so dark and noneof the boys are with us. You'd be a fine sight," she teased.

  "I think _Will-o-the-Wisp_ is a silly name for a plane." Betty's remarkwas purposely irrelevant. She wanted to change the subject.

  "Then don't think about it. Turn your mind upon the answer of that dearold song, 'Where do we go from here?'"

  "Where are we?" Betty could be practical enough when her nerves were nottried too severely.

  "Mmm!" murmured her friend. "That's the question. I'm not quite sure,but I think we're on the New York State Reservation over on Pound Ridge.A good ten miles or more from home, anyway."

  "If we're on the reservation we're certainly out of luck," sighed Betty."It's a terribly wild place--nothing but rocks and ridges and woods andthings. They keep it that way on purpose."

  "Nice for picnics on sunny days, I guess," affirmed Dorothy. "But not sogood on a rainy night, eh? Here, put on this slicker before you're wetthrough. Then get down. We've got to move out of here."

  Betty stood up, caught the coat Dorothy threw into the cockpit, andafter slipping into it, she stared fearfully about.

  "What are you waiting for?" Dorothy inquired from below.

  "I'm going to stay where I am," announced Miss Mayo in a quaveringvoice. "It's safer."

  "How safe?" Dorothy turned on her flash light. Its moving beam broughtinto bold relief the jungle of scrub oak and evergreens that walled thelittle pasture.

  "Listen, Dorothy! I remember Father saying that they preserved game onthe Pound Ridge reservation. There are sure to be bears and--and otherthings in these woods. Turn off the light--quick--they'll be attractedto us if we show a light--"

  "Bears--your grandmother!" said Dorothy's mocking voice and the lightflashed full on Betty. "Don't be so silly. Come down here at once!"

  "No, I won't. I'm going to stay up here. I--I'm sure it's safer."

  "Then you can be 'safer' by yourself. If you think I'm going to stickaround this woodlot all night, you've got another guess coming. Snap outof it, won't you, Betty?"

  "But you wouldn't leave me all alone out here!"

 
"Watch me." The light began to move away from the plane.

  "I'll come--I'll come with you, Dorothy--wait!"

  The light came back and Betty scrambled to the ground in a fever ofhaste.

  "Now, then, stop being a goop and take this flash," directed Dorothy."Hold it on the plane so I can see. We've got to make _Wispy_ secure,before we get under way."

  "I s'pose you get that Navy lingo from Bill Bolton." Betty felt ratherpeevish now. "You talk just like him ever since he taught you to fly."

  "I wish he was here now," retorted her friend, and climbed into thecockpit. "Here--take these wheel blocks and stop grouching. And forgoodness' sake, please don't wobble that light! I want to get thesecockpit covers on before everything is flooded."

  A few minutes later she climbed down again and after adjusting the wheelblocks, took the flashlight from Betty.

  "All set?" she inquired briskly. "Got your knitting and everything?'Cause it's time we were moving."

  Betty began to cry.

  "I think you're mean--of course I want to get out of here, but--but youn-needn't--"

  Dorothy put her arm about the smaller girl's shoulders.

  "There, there," she comforted, "cheer up. I won't be cross any more.Here's a hanky, use it and come along. Gee, I wish this rain would stop!It's coming down in bucketfuls."

  "I'm sorry, too, for sniveling," said Betty meekly. She made a strenuouseffort to be brave as they walked away from the dark shape of the plane."But don't you think you'd better get out your revolver, Dorothy?Honestly, you know, we're likely to run into anything out here in thesewoods."

  Dorothy burst into a peal of laughter. "Bless you, honey," she chuckled."I don't carry a gun when I go calling--or any other time if I can helpit. We'll get out of this all right, don't worry. I should have lookedat the gas before we left home, but I thought there was plenty to takeus over to Peekskill and back. _Wispy_ eats the stuff--that's theanswer!"

  They stumbled along on the outskirts of the woodlot, Dorothy keeping herlight swinging from side to side before them.

  "But I thought you _always_ carried a gun--" insisted Betty, her mindstill on the same track--"you ought to, after all you went through withthose bank robbers and then the gang of diamond smugglers!"

  "Well, you've got to have a license to tote a revolver--I'll admit I'vecarried 'em now and then--but not to a tea!" replied her friend. "Do tryand help me now, to find a way out of this place."

  "But maybe there is no way out. We can't climb those cliffs, and thismeadow's hemmed in by the woods. Oh, dear, I wish I knew where we are!"

  "I'm not certain," mused Dorothy, more to herself than to her companion,"but I think I caught sight of the fire tower on the ridge just beforewe sideslipped. That would mean that this meadow is on the eastern edgeof the reservation--and that there's a road on the hill across from theridge. There must be a trail of some kind leading in here. They couldnever get the hay out or the cattle in, otherwise; this place must beused for something."

  They trudged along, keeping the trees on their left until the fartherend of the meadow was reached. As they rounded the corner the light fromthe flash brought into view a narrow opening in the trees andundergrowth.

  "What did I tell you?" sang out Dorothy. "There's our trail! Thiscertainly is a lucky break!"

  "Where do you suppose it goes?" Betty's question was lacking inenthusiasm.

  "Oh, it's the tunnel from the Grand Central to the new Waldorf-Astoria,"said Dorothy, squinting in the darkness. "I'm going to take a room witha bath. You can have one, too, if you're good!"

  Betty stumbled into a jagged wheel rut and sat down suddenly. "Oh, mygoodness!" she moaned. "My new pumps are ruined--and these nice newstockings are a mass of runs from those nasty brambles!"

  "Humph! Just think how lucky you are to be alive," suggested Dorothycallously. "Look--we're coming into another meadow. Yes--and there's alight--must be a house up there on the hill."

  "What if they won't let us in?" wailed Betty.

  They were heading across the meadow, now, toward the hill. Dorothystopped and turned the flashlight on her friend.

  "You certainly are a gloom!" she declared angrily. "Do you think I'menjoying this? _My_ shoes and stockings are ruined, too, and this duckydress I'm crazy about has a rip in the skirt a yard long. It willprobably be worse by the time we get through the brush on that hillside.But there's absolutely no use in whining about it--and there's not adarned thing to be scared of. Is that clear to you, Betty?" She paused,and then went on more gently. "Come on, old thing, you'll feel muchbetter when we've found a place to get warm and dry."

  "I know you think I'm an awful baby." Betty tried her best to make hervoice sound cheerful, but her attempt was not a brilliant success. "ButI'm just not brave, that's all," she went on, "and I do feel perfectlyterrible."

  "I know. You're not used to this kind of an outing, and I am, more orless. But I can see how it would upset you. Here's a stone fence. Giveme your hand, I'll help you over. Fine! Now save your breath for thehill. We've got a stiff climb ahead of us."

  For the next fifteen or twenty minutes they fought their way up thesteep slope through a veritable jungle of thickets and rock. In spite offrequent rests on the boulders that dotted the hillside, both girls wereexhausted by the time they came to another delapidated stone wall thatacted as a low barrier between the brush and an over-grown appleorchard. Through the gnarled trunks, they could dimly see the shape ofthe house whence came the light.

  Dorothy sat down on top of the wall, and pulled Betty to a place besideher. Then she switched off her flash.

  "Some drag, that!" Her breath came in labored gasps.

  Betty was too weary to make any reply. For a time they sat, silently.Then Dorothy slid painfully off the wall into the orchard.

  "You stay here, Betty. I'm going over to the house and reconnoiter."

  "Say! You don't go without me!" Betty sprang down with suddendetermination.

  "Then walk carefully and don't make any noise."

  A tone of startled surprise came into Betty's voice.

  "What--what are you afraid of, Dorothy?" she whispered excitedly.

  "Not a thing, silly. But there may be watch dogs--and I want to get someidea of the people who live in that dump before I ask 'em forhospitality. I've got myself into trouble before this, going it blind. Iknow it pays to be careful. If you must come with me, you must, Isuppose. But walk behind me--and don't say another word."

  She stalked off through the orchard with Betty close at her heels.

  As they neared the house, which seemed to be badly in need of repair, itwas plain that the light came from behind a shaded window on the groundfloor. Dorothy stopped to ponder the situation. A shutter hanging by onehinge banged dully in the wind and a stream of rain water was shootingdown over the window from a choked leader somewhere above. She felt agrip on her arm.

  "Let's don't go in there," whispered Betty. "It's a perfectly horridplace, I think."

  "It doesn't look specially cheerful," admitted Dorothy. "But there maynot be another house within a couple of miles. There's a porch around onthe side. Maybe we can see into the room from there."

  Together they moved cautiously through the rank grass and weeds to theedge of the low veranda. There was no railing and the glow from two longFrench windows gave evidence that the floor boards were warped androtting. The howl of the wind and driving rain served to cover the soundof their movements as they tiptoed across the porch to the far window.Both shades were drawn, but this one lacked a few inches of reaching thefloor.

  Both girls lay flat on their stomachs and peered in. Quick as a flash,Dorothy clapped her hands over Betty's mouth, smothering her suddenshriek of terror.