"Bless me!" Mr. Kingley stared unbelievingly into Joe Cary's excited face. "Queen Teresa kidnaped? Nonsense, Cary! Such things aren't done in Waloo in broad daylight. You say it's true? What a story! I must have Gray telephone the Gazette that we have a front page story for them. Bless me!"

"Never mind the publicity end of this now, Mr. Kingley!" exclaimed Joe, so disgusted that he could scarcely speak calmly. "Let's think of Tessie first and the Evergreen second for a change."

Mr. Kingley opened his mouth to say that the Evergreen must always come first, and people, no matter who they were, second, but as he looked at Joe, he suddenly decided that some explanations were better left unmade.

"The little queen is all right!" he insisted instead. "Of course she is! This is Waloo, the United States, not a savage island. Nothing could happen to Miss Gilfooly in Waloo. She's all right! What makes you think she was kidnaped? Who kidnaped her? Where was that frizzle-headed bodyguard? Why wasn't he on his job?" He shot the questions, one after another at Joe, and then was impatient because they were not answered.

"You forget that Ka-kee-ta disappeared first," Joe said, as quietly as he could when he was so full of disgust and impatience. "Tessie was trying to find him when she was carried off. I don't know who did it, but I'd be willing to bet that a tow-headed man with a big nose had a hand in it—a big hand!" He looked keenly at Mr. Kingley, as he described the man he thought had had a hand in kidnaping Tessie.

Mr. Kingley snorted contemptuously. "Bets won't get you anywhere," he said scornfully. "What you want are a few facts. Do you know where she was and what she was doing when she was kidnaped?"

"Her brother Johnny saw her get into a car, and as soon as the door was shut, the car dashed up the street and around a corner."

Mr. Kingley rubbed his hands together and nodded approvingly. "Now you're talking. You show you have something to work with. I don't suppose you have the number of the car?" There was considerable superiority in his voice because, of course, Joe did not have the number.

"Yes, I have! And a description, too. The car was a dark blue limousine and its license number was 13,023!" He moved closer to Mr. Kingley and eyed him oddly, but Mr. Kingley did not become at all excited when he heard the license number.

"13,023," he repeated slowly. "Well, have you found whose car that is? It seems simple enough now, Cary. Whose car is it?"

Joe looked at him. Was it possible that he didn't know whose car bore the license number 13,023? Joe watched him like a hawk as he told him whose car it was.

"The car is listed," he said slowly, "as belonging to Mr. W. A. Kingley—Mr. William A. Kingley!"

"No!" exclaimed Mr. William A. Kingley in a surprise that seemed genuine, although Joe could not believe that any man would be ignorant of the license number of his own car. "It can't be!"

"Owner of the Evergreen," went on Joe, with a thump on the table to drive the fact home.

"It's been stolen!" declared Mr. Kingley excitedly. "My car has been stolen! I don't know a thing about this! I don't even believe it!" he exclaimed shrilly.

"When I got the information from the police," Joe told him slowly, "I telephoned to your house to learn if your car was there."

"And it was!" insisted Mr. Kingley, leaning forward in his big chair. "Of course it was!"

"It was not!" Mr. Kingley sank back with a groan. "And your chauffeur was found in the garage, tied and gagged!"

"Bless me!" In the face of such facts Mr. Kingley could only stammer and sputter. "Who could—who could—who found him?" he demanded sharply.

"Your daughter telephoned to the garage for the car, and when it wasn't brought around, she went herself to see what was the matter. She found the chauffeur on the floor tied and gagged."

"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 Jap." He stopped and looked at Mr. Kingley significantly.

"A Jap!" 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 Jap in my life," he said hurriedly. "Not in any capacity!"

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

"A Jap 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 snatched 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 basement 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 God 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!"