The Case of the Vanishing Boy Read Free

Ginny.”
    â€œGinny? Oh, the little blind girl. She’s really and truly quite—” Father Dancy stopped abruptly, his attention caught by something in the rain beyond the open door. “Now what can Sergeant Bricker be wanting? I’m sure he isn’t coming to confess anything.”
    Jan glanced quickly through the door, and chilled as he made out a figure in a raincoat coming around the side of a police car at the curb. He managed to control an impulse to dash madly through the church in the hope of finding some way of escape at the rear. Instead he forced himself to say quietly, “Father, I’d like to use the washroom, if you have one here.”
    â€œOh, yes. Of course. Down at the end of the aisle here you’ll see a door on the right. The washroom is the second door on the other side.”
    Jan sped down the aisle, and made it to a small door just as Father Dancy stepped forward to meet Sergeant Bricker. He caught a glimpse of the two as he eased the door shut behind him, then he leaped down the dimly lighted hall and jerked open the first door he saw, to a tiny office lined with bookshelves. Behind the desk was a window, and to the left of it a narrow door obviously used as a private exit.
    In seconds he was in an alley outside, staring in dismay at the building in front of him and the high wall to the left that prevented him from reaching the area behind the church. The only avenue of escape was to the street. It meant going directly past Sergeant Bricker’s car, which he could see through the lessening rain.
    He swallowed and ran cautiously to the mouth of the alley, then flattened against the side of the church when he heard voices around the corner. The entrance, where he had stood hardly a minute ago, was only a few feet away.
    â€œAre you sure?” Father Dancy was saying.
    â€œNo question of it! It has to be the Riggs boy.”
    â€œ Riggs , did you say? May the good Lord help him! He did tell me his name was Riggs, but it meant nothing for I hadn’t heard of him. Honestly, I can hardly believe—”
    â€œYou can’t go by looks these days. I’ve seen some angel faces whose deeds would make your skin crawl. Now, stay well away from me, Father, when I go after him. I understand he has a knife, and I don’t want you too close if he turns violent.…”
    Shock held Jan motionless. Something told him he ought to run, that his very life might depend upon it, but for long seconds he was incapable of movement. Then a rippling flash of lightning restored him to his senses and spurred him to flight.
    It had been his intention to locate Ginny in the hope that her family could help him. But how could he do that now if he was a wanted criminal?
    He put Ginny out of his mind and concentrated on escape. The rain helped, for there was very little traffic on the streets at the moment and the sidewalks were almost empty. The few people passing on foot paid no attention to him, for who looks at a running boy in the rain? But cars were another matter.
    Several times in the next half hour he recognized the approach of a police car by the way it crept along and made use of a spotlight. He evaded each by hiding behind trees or shrubbery, or by slipping into an alley and hurrying to the next street.
    Presently the houses thinned and the street lights were left behind. Then he was on a winding dirt road, moving uncertainly through the dripping dark while his eyes searched a little desperately for shelter. The patched blackness around him was formless, but parts of it seemed blacker than other parts, and instinctively he headed for the blackest patch of all for it made him think of a cave.
    It was a cave of sorts, for entering it took him miraculously out of the rain. Then a final, feeble display of lightning showed him that he was in a shed housing farm machinery.
    He sank down in a corner in his sodden clothes, as miserable, it seemed, as he had ever been