Joe took matters into his own hands at the Waloo. He sent peremptory orders over the telephone, and received unsatisfactory reports from the policemen, who were scouring the city for the Queen of the Sunshine Islands. Granny fluttered helplessly about, blaming herself for ever letting Tessie be a queen, and scolding Johnny, when he told her to stop worrying and leave Tessie to the Boy Scouts. They would find Tessie.

Granny pushed Johnny aside and fluttered over to Joe to ask him if it wasn't time to hear something from Mr. Bill, who was driving frantically here and there, following up every clue. The Kingley limousine had been abandoned in Southeast Waloo, but it could not tell where it had been, and so did not furnish any help at all.

Norah Lee tried to soothe Granny, to tell her that Tessie was all right. Of course she was all right! Nothing could happen to Tessie in Waloo in broad daylight! But Norah's heart did not feel half so hopeful as her lips sounded. Norah read the daily papers, and she knew that many things can happen to a pretty girl in a big city in broad daylight. But she kept on patting Granny's arm encouragingly, and told her again that Tessie was all right. It was the only thing Norah could do.

"It doesn't seem possible that a good little girl like Tessie could disappear without some one seeing her," moaned Granny. The almost continuous whir of the telephone made her so nervous that she jumped now, when it rang louder than before. She ran over to stand by Joe when he answered the call.

"A Boy Scout master is coming up!" Joe turned to Granny, and there was a flicker of hope in his face. "He thinks he has a clue!"

"What did I tell you?" crowed Johnny, dancing up and down triumphantly. "Didn't I tell you the Scouts would help? If you'd let me look I bet I'd have found her long ago!"

"Don't bother me now, Johnny!" Granny brushed him aside as he danced up to her, and went to stand at the door beside Joe and Norah Lee.

Mr. Bill came in, tired and discouraged, for his frantic driving had produced no results. Close on his heels was Charlie Deakin, who showed Granny the beaded bag and told her where Neddie Blake had found it.

"I tried to tell you on the 'phone," Charlie said. "But your line was so busy that I got an officer to watch the house and came right down. I thought it would be quicker when your line was so busy."

Mr. Bill had jumped to his tired feet, and he grasped Charlie by the shoulder.

"Come and show me that house!" he ordered. "My car is outside!" And he pulled Charlie to the door.

"Hold on, Bill! I'm coming, too!" called Joe.

"I'm going!" exclaimed Johnny, dashing after them. "Tessie's my sister, and I'm going!"

Granny caught his arm. "No, you can't go, Johnny Gilfooly! You got to stay here with me! I've got to have something left!" And then she changed her mind and went thudding down the corridor, Johnny's hot little hand clasped tight. She was in the car before Mr. Bill, Johnny close beside her.

"You can't go, Granny!" frowned Joe.

"I shall go!" Granny's voice was quite as determined as Joe's. They seemed to be made from the same piece of adamant. "I guess Tessie is my own granddaughter! I have a right to go. And Johnny's Tessie own brother! I guess he has a right to go, too. Tessie'll want to see us!"

Joe did not waste any time debating the question, but jumped in beside Mr. Bill. Norah Lee had run to them, and was sitting beside Granny, holding Granny's hand. Charlie Deakin squeezed in between Mr. Bill and Joe and told Mr. Bill where to go. Mr. Bill forgot there were any speed laws or any traffic laws in Waloo as he sent his car forward. Granny gasped for breath. She declared they were in Northeast Waloo before they left the hotel.

"Stop at the corner, Bill," suggested Joe, as they drew near the red brick house, before which a curious policeman was sauntering, and Neddie Black was still playing ball. "We don't want them to know we're coming."

"I was going to!" muttered Mr. Bill indignantly. Joe should credit him with a little sense.

"You'll stay here, Granny!" hissed Joe, as he jumped from the car. "And Johnny, you mind your grandmother and don't make any more trouble for us. Come on, Bill!"

"I'll go with you," offered Charlie Deakin, his teeth chattering in his excitement.

"I—" began Johnny, but Joe turned to him fiercely.

"You shut up!" he said so sharply that Johnny did not dare to say another word.

"There's a policeman!" Granny told them in a hoarse whisper, and her gnarled finger pointed tremblingly to the officer. "I suppose you'll let him go with you," she added with much scorn. She was shivering with excitement and fear.

Accompanied by the officer, Joe and Mr. Bill went up the steps. Mr. Bill rang the bell, and when no one answered it, Joe tried to open the door. Mr. Bill kept his finger on the bell. Granny shivered at its shrill peal. But there was no response to it. Joe and Mr. Bill and the officer tried to break in the door, but its fibers and hinges were stronger than their muscles. Mr. Bill tried a window, and when he could not open it he shattered the glass with one blow of his hand. Granny and Norah and Johnny heard the clatter. They caught each other's hands. And still there was not a sound in the house.

"She can't be here!" Joe said hopelessly. "There isn't any one here!"

"We must make sure!" exclaimed Mr. Bill between his teeth, and he climbed through the window.

In a moment he had the door open, and Joe and the officer were clattering in. It was not worth while now to be quiet. The officer's flashlight showed them only empty rooms. Joe lighted matches and threw them aside as they flared out. He led the way through the lower floor.

"Some one has been here!" He pointed to a heap of cigar ashes beside a big chair.

"And here for some time if he smoked cigars enough to make that much ash," added the officer wisely.

"Come upstairs," begged Mr. Bill. "Never mind the ashes now!"

At last they reached the room in which Tessie had been locked. They were able to break in the door and the flashlight, the flaring matches showed them the bed, the old wardrobe and the bureau, which had been pulled from the wall. Mr. Bill ran to look behind it.

"Great Scott!" he exclaimed when he saw the open window. "Great Scott!" he cried again when he saw a piece of blue crepe caught on a nail in the sill. It was from a woman's frock, and Mr. Bill stared at it. Tessie had been wearing a blue crepe when she disappeared. "She's been here!" he shouted to Joe, although he had no way of proving that the bit of blue crepe had ever been a part of Tessie's frock.

"And she got away!" Joe read the story of the open window, as he looked out and saw the roof of the porch below it. "She got out this way!" He dropped from the window, as Tessie had dropped, struck the porch roof, and slid down the post to look carefully over the yard. "Tess!" he called softly. "Tess! It's Joe Cary! She isn't here," he looked back to tell Mr. Bill. "But she must have got away all right!" He went around to join the others at the front door.

Another man joined them also, the irate owner of the red brick house, who wanted to know what the dickens they were doing breaking into his place and making such a commotion?

"Who lived here?" demanded Mr. Bill before he answered one of the questions.

"I rented it day before yesterday to a man by the name of Smith," returned the owner, who never would have answered Mr. Bill if he had not been accompanied by a policeman. "A fat, white-headed fellow who wanted a quiet place for his sister. She had been at a sanitarium," and the owner touched his head significantly. He was the most surprised landlord in Waloo when he was told that the Queen of the Sunshine Islands must have been a prisoner in his house, and he exclaimed quickly that he knew nothing about any Frederic Pracht. He had rented the house to a man who had said his name was Smith—John Smith. He had taken it for an indefinite period and paid a month's rent. The house was furnished, so the new tenant had only to bring his personal baggage. John Smith had seemed like a pleasant, honest man, and had talked in a nice way about his sister.

"And all the time he must have meant the Queen," he said, as if he could not believe the story Joe and Mr. Bill told him. "Sure, I read about her in the papers! She used to work in the Evergreen. My niece, Susie Blakeley, works there, too. She was all excited when they found a queen in the store. I wonder what she will say to this!" He took the money Mr. Bill offered him to repair the broken window, and said again it was all right, and he was glad they hadn't found anything worse than they had. He stared at his old house with dazed eyes. "Well, can you believe it," he murmured as they drove away and left him with Charlie Deakin and Neddie Black, who were more disappointed than they could ever say.

"What's the matter? Isn't Tessie there?" called Granny impatiently. She jumped out and ran heavily toward them. She could not wait in the car another second. "Where's Tessie?" she demanded.

"She got away!" explained Joe. "She got away from Pracht!"

"She did? Then why don't we go right back to the hotel and ask her where she's been?" Granny scuttled to the car. That was the sensible thing to do, not stand here and talk indefinitely. "Why are you waiting here when Tessie's gone home?"

"Why, indeed?" They tumbled into the car, and Mr. Bill drove back to the Waloo as he had driven away from it, without any regard for traffic laws or speed laws. They hurried into the hotel and up in the elevator, chattering excitedly. They ran along the corridor and into the royal suite.

"Tessie, you bad girl!" began Granny at the door. But she did not sound as if Tessie really had been a bad girl—she sounded loving and excited. When she ran into the room she stopped. "She isn't here!" she exclaimed, frightened because Tessie was not there. "She isn't here!"

"She must be!" declared Mr. Bill, and he ran through the other rooms. But Tessie was not in one of them. Mr. Bill's eager face fell. He had been so sure that Tessie would be there that he felt bewildered and indignant as well as frightened.

"Perhaps she hasn't had time to get here," suggested Joe forlornly, although he knew that Tessie had had plenty of time. All she had to do was to jump on a car, and she would be at the hotel in twenty minutes. They had taken more than twenty minutes to search the house and drive back. He called up the hotel office to learn if any one had seen Tessie. No one had. He turned to Mr. Bill with a questioning stare. Where was Tessie Gilfooly?

Mr. Bill shook his head. He wished he knew. And then he shook his broad shoulders and stared at Joe. "I'll find her!" he declared fiercely, with a confidence which was based on nothing sounder than desire.

"I'll find her!" contradicted Joe as fiercely.

"Deary me, where can she be?" wailed Granny. "It isn't like the Gilfoolys to go away like this! It never was like one of them but Pete! I wish Tessie had never heard of this queen business!"

"So do I!" fervently agreed Joe. He looked at Mr. Bill, as if in some way he blamed him!

Mr. Bill said never a word, but he did flush quickly. Deep, in his heart, he did not wish that Tessie had never heard of the queen business. Although Tessie had been kidnaped and might be in danger he did not wish that, for if Tessie had never been a queen, there was every chance that Mr. Bill would never have known her. When she was selling aluminum, she was just one of the hundreds of girls who poured into the Evergreen every morning and out of the Evergreen every evening. She was lost among the hundreds. But when Fate plucked her out of the industrial army, and showed her to Mr. Bill as a queen, he saw that she was fair and sweet and dear—how dear Mr. Bill had not quite realized until now. It made him furious to think of it now. You bet, he would find her!

"You go to bed, Granny, you and Johnny," suggested Joe. "We'll call you the minute we hear anything. You go to bed. You're dead tired!"

Granny was tired, but she could not go to sleep until she knew where Tessie was. She allowed Norah to lead her to her room and tuck her into the bed. She was too tired to resist. She was an old woman, she told Norah pitifully, and had lost her husband and seven children, but never in all of her life had she had had to go through anything like this. Why couldn't she have been kidnaped instead of Tessie?

Norah patted her wrinkled hand and crooned; "Poor Granny!" until Granny did fall into a troubled sleep.

Johnny refused to go to bed, but consented to lie on the davenport. His head had scarcely touched the pillow before he was asleep, too. Joe tramped up and down the room, while Mr. Bill slumped in a chair, his head in his hands. As Norah came out of the bedroom, the telephone rang and she caught the receiver. The two men jumped beside her.

"It's your mother." She nodded to Mr. Bill. "No, no news," she said through the transmitter. "Yes, we are all terribly anxious. We will let you know when we hear anything," she promised, for Mrs. Kingley had told her that she could not sleep unless she knew the little queen was safe.

"We were so fond of her, she was so pretty and simple and honest. I don't know any girl now who is so unaffected. You couldn't help but be fond of her. It doesn't seem possible that any one could carry her off in Waloo, does it? And in our car! It makes me frantic! I can't think what the police are doing. Mr. Kingley is frantic, too!"

"I should think he would be," Joe said dryly, when Norah had told them what Mrs. Kingley had said.

Mr. Bill dropped back in his big chair with a groan, but in a flash, he jumped up and went out. Norah's eyes followed him.

"He's worried," she told Joe.

"We're all worried!"

"I know. I'm so—so sorry for you!" She just touched Joe's sleeve to let him know how sorry she was.

He looked up suddenly. How sympathetic she was! What a good friend she had been to Tessie. There was no one quite like Norah Lee. His heart thumped a bit as he thought how unusual Norah Lee was.

"You go to bed, too!" he insisted huskily. "I'll call you the minute we hear anything. But if you don't get some sleep you won't be much help to-morrow. I'll just stay here beside the telephone. We may hear something. We must hear something!" he insisted, because he so desperately wished to hear something. "But I shan't let you stay up any longer. You're all tired out!"

She hesitated as if she were going to insist on staying with him, and then she said good night softly and went away. Joe's eyes followed her until she was out of sight. What a splendid girl she was, he thought, as he tramped up and down the room before he threw himself into a chair beside the telephone. He had always known she was splendid. And what a good friend she was to Tessie! How different they were! Norah was the kind of a girl a man would have to reach up to. He would always have to be right on his toes, for she would be a little ahead—always. While Tessie—a man would have to put back his hand and pull Tessie up to him. Tessie was all sweetness and tenderness. She made a man contented and happy while Norah—Norah—

Joe's heart gave a sudden leap which almost choked him. He jumped to his feet and looked about him bewildered. "Gosh!" he exclaimed, puzzled at this emotion which had gripped him so suddenly. He tramped up and down the room again. "Norah!" The name made him tingle. "Norah!" He dropped weakly into a chair and put his hand to his forehead. What on earth was the matter with him? Why should he feel smothered and limp and exhilarated when he thought of Norah Lee? He did not understand why, but he discovered that when he thought of Norah, he forgot Tessie. But he must not forget Tessie—Tessie was lost. It must be because he was so tired. Lord, how tired he was! He slouched down in his chair and relaxed his tired muscles. Tessie—Norah— The lids dropped over his weary eyes, and he began to dream—strange, sweet, new dreams.

Downstairs, Mr. Bill had settled himself in a chair beside the telephone switchboard and lighted a cigarette.

"Give me any message about Queen Teresa," he told the telephone girl.

"Ain't it awful about her?" she shuddered. "I used to wish I could change places with her, when I'd see her go in and out with that black fellow with his ax, but now— Say, where do you suppose she is?"

"I wish you would tell me," Mr. Bill said wearily. "Don't forget to give me any message that comes in. Everybody upstairs is asleep, and I don't want them disturbed."

"The old lady ought to get a good night's rest," agreed the telephone girl. "You just shut your own eyes, and I'll call you the first thing."

Mr. Bill could close his eyes, but he could not sleep. He smoked cigarette after cigarette, and listened unconsciously to the uninterrupted chatter of the girl who had envied Tessie until Tessie had been kidnaped. When the telephone operator went off duty, and the switchboard was turned over to the night clerk, Mr. Bill went over to police headquarters, where there was no news at all.

"We have all our men out, Mr. Kingley," the sergeant told him. "Even the chief's working on the case. We're trying to round up that Pracht—Smith, he called himself, didn't he?—and make him confess. But we don't know anything about those Sons of Sunshine. They sound like anarchists or Black Hands to me. But we oughta hear something pretty soon."

The minutes dragged into hours and there was no news. Mr. Bill dropped into a troubled doze and woke to find himself in another day. He went drearily back to the hotel. Joe was furious because he had fallen asleep over his strange new dreams. Granny, with a face that was gray and worried, instead of happy and rosy, was talking to him and to Norah Lee. The Boy Scout was splashing in the bathroom.

"You heard anything?" demanded Granny as Mr. Bill entered.

Before he could answer, the telephone rang sharply. Joe and Mr. Bill dashed to answer it, but Joe caught the receiver. He pushed Mr. Bill away.

"Yes," he said impatiently through the transmitter. He waved his hand to them. "It's Tess!" he cried chokingly. "Yes, Tessie! Where are you?" He listened eagerly. "Where are you?" he demanded fiercely. "Where—" He shook the instrument and turned to them in exasperation. "Isn't that the limit? Central broke the connection before Tessie could tell me where she was."

"What did she say?" demanded Mr. Bill.

"She said she was all right, and that Granny wasn't to worry. She isn't coming back for a while. She's going to hide until Pitts comes and straightens everything out. She said Granny wasn't to worry, nobody was to worry." But Joe looked worried. "Do you suppose she did get away?" he asked Mr. Bill. "Is this message a plan to call off the police?"

Mr. Bill had taken the receiver from Joe and was calling Central and ordering her for heaven's sake to get a move on and trace the call she had just given them. Several days later, it seemed to all of them, Central reported that the call had come from a pay station. Hadn't they heard the nickel drop? Central couldn't say which pay station. She would try and find out if they wanted her to, she added obligingly.

"You'd better!" advised Mr. Bill. "And immediately!" He swung around and faced the others. "We know she's alive and well. That's something! Did she talk as if she were frightened?"

"No," remembered Joe. "She said she would have called before but she fell asleep. She said she was awfully tired."

"She wouldn't have fallen asleep if she had been frightened," Norah said with a wise nod of her head.

Granny contradicted her flatly. "I went to sleep and I was frightened," she said with a deep, deep sigh. "I never was more frightened in my life. I don't think I can wait until this Pitts comes. I've got to find Tessie right away and see for myself if she's all right."

"We'll find her," promised Joe, as he had promised a hundred times since Tessie had disappeared. "And we know she's all right. She'll call us again soon. Sure she will! She's still a little afraid. She'll call us again," he repeated.

Granny whimpered softly. It was such a relief to hear from Tessie. "I'm not going to wait here!" she said with a sudden determination. "I don't like it here without Tessie. I don't feel I have any right here without her. I'm not the queen. I'm going home with Johnny and wait for Tessie there!" She had a quick dislike to the luxury of the hotel. She wanted her little cottage where there was work for her to do while she waited, and where she had always had Tessie.

"Tessie won't like that," objected Joe.

"I don't care! I shan't stay here without her!"

"Let her go," whispered Norah. "It will be better for her to be where she can be busy. She has nothing to do here but think."

Norah helped Granny pack a bag, and Mr. Bill drove them to the cottage. They were very quiet, and Mr. Bill remembered the traffic laws and did not dash up the street as he had the night before. They were very quiet when they stopped in front of the shabby little house. Granny murmured a wish that they had never left it as she hurried up the walk and up the steps, but at the door she paused.

"Tessie always had the key," she faltered.

Joe had a key and unlocked the door. When they went in, Granny raised her head. It was as if she sensed a presence. Her nostrils twitched, and her ears strained. She sent a swift glance around the shabby living-room and went on to the kitchen. There was a coffee pot on the stove and an opened package of cereal on the table while in the sink was a cup and saucer and a bowl.

"Tessie's been here!" cried Granny, and she sat down suddenly on a chair. "She's been here! Thank heaven I didn't give away that coffee and breakfast food when we left. Even if we were queens I kept it. Tessie came here when she ran away from that wicked man." She waved her hand to show them her proof.

"Well I'll be darned!" muttered Mr. Bill, and he sat down suddenly on the kitchen table.

"Why the dickens didn't I come home last night?" demanded Joe in disgust. "If I had come home I would have found her."

"Perhaps she's upstairs asleep?" suggested Norah. "She said she was tired."

They trooped up the narrow stairs—Granny first. It was Granny who went into the bedroom alone, and at her disappointed exclamation the others ran in, although Granny's disappointed exclamation had told them that Tessie was not there.

"She's gone!" wailed Granny. "She's gone! And look!" She pointed to Tessie's royal raiment on a chair. "She took off her queen clothes!" She pulled the closet door open, and searched among the shabby dresses which had belonged to Tessie Gilfooly. There was something pathetic and ghostlike about the little frocks. Mr. Bill tenderly stroked a sleeve. "She's taken her old black sateen," announced Granny from the closet. "The dress she used to wear to the store. She's left her queen clothes and gone off in her old working clothes! Can you believe it? Deary me!" She sat down on the bed and looked from one to the other. "I'd like to know what it all means?" she said helplessly.

"I bet I know!" Mr. Bill's downcast face had been growing brighter and brighter. If Mr. Bill had been a barometer you would have seen at a glance that he promised fair weather. "I bet I know the hunch that made her change her clothes! You just wait, Granny! I'll find her now!"

"Just a minute!" Joe put a forceful hand on Mr. Bill's arm as he would have dashed away. "Tessie's safe now. We know that if we don't know where she is. But before you follow your hunch you'll take me to your father!"

"Father!" Mr. Bill stared at Joe. Had Joe lost his mind? "Sure," he said soothingly. "That's on my way. Come on!"