“Why, are we going to have another?” inquired Anne nervously.
“Can’t tell for sure; but the sky looks pretty black ahead of us. Maybe it’s only rain though.”
She was right. Five miles farther on they struck rain which was falling steadily as if it meant to continue indefinitely. The road was crowned and slippery, which made careful driving advisable.
“Good thing your father can’t see us now,” remarked Katharine, as Patricia turned on her headlights.
“Yes, isn’t it? Going to be dark awfully early tonight. I don’t like night driving any better than he does.”
None of the girls liked the prospect of driving the rest of the way in rain and darkness. The little party became a very silent one as time went on, and even Katharine had almost nothing to say. Only the windshield wiper squeaked regularly as it swept back and forth across the wet glass. At Braggs Corners a couple of Boy Scouts stood in the middle of the road directing traffic from Main to Pearl Streets.
“What’s the matter?” inquired Patricia, sticking her head out of the window.
“Bridge washed out. Have to go around by Millersville,” replied the boy.
“At least twenty miles longer than this route,” groaned Patricia; “and not so well traveled. But, no help for it, I guess.”
The new route was indeed a lonesome one—a country road through flat, drenched farm lands, alternating with stretches of dripping woods.
“What’s the matter with the lights, Pat?” inquired Katharine, after they had covered about ten miles.
“Something, certainly, but I don’t know what,” was the worried reply. “They keep going out. I’ll just have to drive as fast as possible while they’re on, and slow down when they go off.”
“Hope they’re on the job while we’re in these woods we’re coming to,” remarked Anne, eyeing the dark tree shapes ahead with no inconsiderable apprehension.
“They probably will,” said Patricia encouragingly; “and I think Millersville must be on the other side of them. I’ll stop there and have the lights fixed.”
The girls sat with bated breath as they plunged into the gloomy woods, but all went well until they had nearly reached the last of the trees. Suddenly the lights flickered out, and there was a terrific bump which jarred startled cries out of all of the passengers.
“What on earth was that?” demanded Jane, as Patricia slowed up.
“A hole, I suppose,” replied Patricia with feigned carelessness.
“Then it must have been an out-growing hole,” said Anne, rubbing her elbow which had come into sharp contact with the window frame. “It felt as if we went over an elephant.”
“More likely the limb of a tree,” declared Katharine.
“Well, whatever it was, it can stay there,” declared Patricia. “I’m not going back to see. There are lights ahead, and I’m quite sure we’re almost in Millersville.”
“Hurrah!” cried Katharine, clapping her hands.
With great care Patricia drove her dark car into the little town, and stopped at the first garage she came to.
“Drive right in,” directed the mechanic who came out to see what they wanted.
Inside the garage, the girls all got out of the car and walked around while Patricia explained her difficulties. After a hasty examination, the man stood up facing Patricia sternly.
“Lady, there’s blood and part of a man’s clothing on your car! You must have run over someone.”
“Of course I didn’t!” began Patricia indignantly; then stopped short, clutching the fender to steady herself.
“Look here!” persisted the man.
Patricia forced herself to walk around to the other side of the car, and saw a strand of grey cloth twisted in the wheel, and stains on the body of her car. They were partly washed off by the rain, but enough remained to show that it was blood.
“That awful bump,” offered Anne incoherently.
“Didn’t feel big enough for a man,” objected Katharine.
“What shall I do?” cried Patricia, biting her lips to keep from crying.
“Better report it at the station, and get an officer to go back with you,” advised the man. “I’ll fix your lights; then you drive on one block and you’ll see the station.”
“Would you go up with us and tell your part of the story?” begged Patricia, feeling very much in need of male support in such an emergency.
“Sure,” was the hearty response. “I’ll walk up and be there as soon as you are.”
“Never mind, Pat,” said Katharine consolingly. “You’ve got to run over somebody sometime, and now it’s over.”
Patricia shivered.
The mechanic was as good as his word, and when the frightened girls entered the police station, he was leaning on the desk in earnest conversation with the officer on duty. The few questions which were put to Patricia and her friends were answered so promptly and frankly that they made a most favorable impression; and in twenty minutes, Patricia, was driving back to the woods with a pleasant young policeman sitting beside her. The mechanic and the coroner followed in a small truck.
“There is something!” cried Katharine, as they approached the scene of the jolting, and the headlights showed a dark bundle toward one side of the road. Patricia shuddered as she saw that it was the figure of a man. As soon as she had come to a stop, the policeman leaped out and bent over the prone figure. With the help of the coroner he rolled the body onto its back, and made a hasty examination while the white-faced, trembling girls watched from the car.
“You ran over him all right,” called the officer.
Patricia gave a frightened gasp and clutched the wheel tightly to save herself from succumbing to a wave of dizziness which swept over her.
“But,” he continued, “you didn’t kill him. Somebody evidently stabbed and left him here. His partner, no doubt. Probably took whatever he had on him, too.”
Patricia breathed a prayer of thanksgiving.
“I thought so,” continued the officer, as he hastily ran his fingers through the pockets of the dead man, and found nothing. “Cleaned out.”
“We’d better get him on the truck and take him to the morgue,” said the coroner. “Give us a hand, Jones,” to the mechanic. “Drive ahead a little, lady, and give us more room.”
Patricia moved on a few feet and discovered that there was not space enough in that particular spot to turn around; so she proceeded slowly until she came to a place where the trees were a little farther back from the road.
“Think you can make it?” inquired Jane, lowering the window to watch the tree trunks on her side of the car.
“By going off the road a bit; it looks fairly level here.”
It took some maneuvering to get the car headed in the opposite direction, and Patricia’s arms ached before the feat was finally accomplished. Suddenly she stopped the machine, opened the door, and jumped out.
“What on earth is the matter now?” called Jane, sliding over the driver’s seat and sticking her head out of the open door.
Patricia, who was stooping over something a few feet ahead, in the glare of the headlights, made no reply.
“Don’t tell me there’s another man!” wailed Anne, covering her face.
“No, no!” assured Katharine, patting Anne soothingly.