SIX MINUTES LATER AT THE OLD FARM GROUNDS, THEY were stunned at what they saw. The big ginseng beds were bare! Someone had pulled up every last ginseng plant and root, leaving raw, freshly turned patches of earth.
“Not only to hide evidence,” Hal muttered. “The racketeers must be taking the ginseng with them, so they can start up their racket in a new location,” Hal guessed.
“To poison more people! Oh, Hal! Let’s find them so Food and Drug can stop them.”
They looked around for Floyd’s jalopy or the “sportsmen’s” car with the St. Louis license plates. They saw no cars here, not even any car tracks.
“Well, if they’re in the house, they could have heard our car,” Hal said. “We’ll go in cautiously.”
At the door they peered in and listened. The house was silent. Hal took a step or two down the hallway and motioned Cherry to stay behind. She shook her head and followed him. A floor board creaked. They both halted as if frozen. Nothing happened, no one came. They started to move again.
The living room was empty as they passed it. Hal took a few long strides to look into the kitchen. His lips formed the word “Nothing.” Cherry gained the doorway to the dining room, and nearly cried out in surprise. She drew Hal to look into the dining room. The long, tall, heavy, oak buffet, which stood against the wall adjoining the living room, was awry. Out of place, with one end dragged forward—someone had moved it! Why?
“Look at that!” Cherry whispered.
Hal did not understand what the buffet’s being out of place meant. Cherry ran soundlessly across the dining room and felt along the wall behind the buffet. Under the old wallpaper she touched what might be a joining. She applied a little pressure, then more pressure, and a narrow section of the wall slowly swung in an arc on inside hinges. The opening was barely wide enough for one person to slip through. Cherry saw a narrow, oblong, windowless room.
“Cherry!” Hal whispered. “Don’t go in there!”
“It’s empty. Come on. But what a smell!”
The hidden chamber smelled overpoweringly of ginseng. A kerosene stove was in here. Was this where Floyd, or whoever, had brewed the remedy? Cherry looked around at the empty, stained shelves and the one old stool, with rings where pots and jars must have rested. Everything else was gone.
“Say”—Hal nudged her and whispered—“what’s the reason for a concealed room in a farmhouse?”
“The Underground Railway—it had hiding places and escape routes,” Cherry whispered back. “Look! Look down at the floor! A trap door!”
Cherry knelt and grasped its rusted iron ring. The trap door opened easily. Down below she saw only blackness.
Hal’s hand came down on her shoulder. “Oh, no, you don’t go down there!” Cherry furiously shook her head. “At least let me go first.”
“Leave the trap door open,” Cherry whispered, “so Paul Short and the sheriff can find us—if they come.”
Hal eased his long length down through the opening in the floor. She heard a soft thud as he landed.
“It’s black as pitch in here,” he muttered. “Like a cave. Like the far end of the cave we found—”
“Must be a tunnel leading into the cave!”
Cherry crouched, then eased herself through the open trap door. Hal helped her down. Her foot slipped and landed on something softer than the earth floor. Cherry bent and picked up the thing and held it under the trap door where a dim light filtered through, from up in the dining room.
“Why, it’s a book!” she whispered in surprise. “I can just make out the title page.” It read: The Compleat Housewife, 600 Receipts for Cooking and Remedies, by E. Smith, London, 1753. “Hal, it’s Mrs. Barker’s old home-remedy book! Floyd took it—” She found a marker at the page with a formula for a ginseng remedy.
“Hang on to it.” Hal took her hand. “Hold fast so we won’t get separated in the dark.” He started slowly ahead. After a minute’s silence he said, “This is the other end of the tunnel, all right. But how’ll we get past that pile of dirt and the blockade, into the cave and then into the open again?”
Suddenly they both grasped what must have happened down here. Someone had put up or retained the old barn door as a blockade, to prevent anyone in Riverside Park from entering the old farmhouse through the cave and tunnel. Floyd—or whoever had set up the blockade—evidently had dug earth out of the cave walls in order to accommodate the barn door. That would account for the pile of earth Hal had seen.
“Watch for daylight up ahead,” Hal said softly to Cherry. “If we see daylight, we have a direct route for getting out of here. But if the passageway is still closed, we’ll have to retreat back to the house. It won’t be easy to scramble up through the trap door.”
He meant that if the three men were in the tunnel, they’d need to get away from them fast. Cherry’s heart pounded in alarm, but she said nothing and followed Hal. Presently she whispered:
“Listen! Do you hear something? A muffled sound—”
Hal paused. Cherry could not see him except as a blacker blue in the darkness. Then he said:
“Yes, I hear something. And I think I see a big patch of daylight. Scared? Want to turn back?”
“I’ll go farther ahead if you will,” Cherry whispered. “At least we could edge up closer and see what’s going on. Though I’d rather not come face to face with—”
“Quiet!”
Hal and Cherry shrank back against the tunnel wall as someone—a man, judging by his heavy tread and breathing—ran past them on his subterranean way back to the farmhouse.
Farther down in the tunnel, at the open cave end, judging by the echo, a man’s voice called roughly:
“Where you going?”
The man near them shouted back, “I dropped the formula book somewheres in here! I got to find it!”
It was Floyd’s voice. He struck a match, hunting on the earth floor, his back to them. Hal pulled Cherry away from the light of the matches. They stumbled into a shallow natural niche in the tunnel’s earth wall and flattened themselves against it.
“Barker!” The same surly voice called. “You got the formula in your head by now! Come back here!” His voice echoed and re-echoed in the cave, and carried clearly up the tunnel.
“I got to find that book!” Floyd yelled back. He was far up the tunnel by now. “I’m just going back into the house for a minute—”
Cherry began to tremble. If Floyd went back into the house and noticed that the trap door was open, he’d be alerted to their presence.
“Barker!” This time Cherry and Hal saw the figure of one of the men silhouetted in front of the cave’s opening. “We got to get away before those nosy kids bring the Food and Drug dick here! Do you want me to come and drag you back?”
“Okay, Benny, coming,” Floyd called back. “I guess I can remember the formula all right.”
In another minute he passed them again in the dark. Only then did Cherry let out a long breath in relief.
“Hurry up!” a second man’s voice shouted. “I got the boats waiting, but we ain’t finished loading. Give us a hand!”
Hal beside Cherry muttered, “So they’re going to make their getaway down the river. With all the evidence! I want to see what direction they’ll be going.”
He moved nearer the cave, silent as a cat, half pulling Cherry after him. At one place Hal whispered:
“Look out—the old barn door and the pile of dirt should be about there. Don’t stumble on them.”
They picked their way, feeling for every step. But there was no pile of dirt. The passageway was clear.
They moved through the cave toward the glimmer of daylight. All was quiet at the far end of the cave—the three men must be busy loading the boats. Or already gone—? Hal and Cherry took advantage of these few quiet minutes to feel their way rapidly along the craggy cave walls. They came close to the cave’s low, rocky opening.
Here, illuminated by daylight, they saw cardboard cartons full of jars of the fake remedy, burlap bags stuffed with ginseng plants and dried ginseng roots, and some ledgers. Here was the evidence!
“We can still turn back or get away,” Hal said. “Or at least you can.”
“No. I’m staying with you. If we can detain these men until Mr. Short gets here—”
Hal drew her back into shadow as the three men straggled into the cave. Floyd said, “Ezra will notice when we don’t bring back two of his rented rowboats.”
“He won’t notice before five o’clock,” the heavier of the two St. Louis men said scornfully. Cherry recognized the voice; he was Benny. “By then we’ll be in the car and a long ways from here. Let him go find his boats adrift. Now hurry up with the loading.”
The other man grunted. “Hurry! Hurry! I told you we should’ve beat it right after Barker saw the nurse prying around the house. But no, we had to stick around while Barker makes more of the stuff. We wait around to find out how well Snell can sell it in the towns. So now, it’s hurry, hurry!”
“Shut up, Jake!” the heavy man growled. “Get a move on!”
The three men moved around the cave, picking up the heavy cartons and bags, stumbling a little on the cave’s uneven floor. Hal and Cherry drew back as far as they could, trying to keep out of their way. Floyd, struggling with a load of medicine jars, stepped back a few paces, and brushed against them.
Floyd let out a howl. “Somebody’s in here, Benny! In back of us—right here! I touched someone!”
Discovered, Hal sprang and gave Floyd a forceful shove toward Jake. “Cherry!” he yelled. “Run!”
Floyd stumbled into Jake. Jake staggered, dropping the bags of ginseng. He yanked a flashlight from his pocket and set its beam probing along the cave wall.
“Cherry, huh?” Benny repeated in the half-dark. “So it’s the doctor and nurse!”
Hal aimed a kick at the spot of light shining in the darkness, but too late—the beam focused on Cherry, standing flattened and white-faced against the damp cave wall.
“Couldn’t mind your own business,” Benny rasped, reaching for his gun. Hal kicked again and this time the flashlight went flying. Still lighted, it bounced off the cave roof, then fell to the ground near Cherry. It struck a rock, and the light went out in a tinkling of shattered glass.
In the half-dark, Benny crouched with drawn gun—but the three indistinct figures blended together as Jake and Floyd descended on Hal from opposite sides, fists swinging. Hal sank quickly to the ground, and in the gloom the other two men traded hard blows before their gasps revealed them as allies. Cherry bolted for the cave opening.
Benny raced after her. Cherry stumbled, but regained her balance and kept running. A few more strides, and she was in daylight. “Help!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. She heard, away off in the distance, the high-pitched whine of a fast-moving car.
A moment later Benny had her by the arm. “Shut up!” he ordered. He dragged her roughly back toward the cave. “Save your breath. Nobody’s around the park today except Ezra. He won’t hear you—he’s calking boats at the far end of the park. And nobody driving on the highway’ll hear you, neither!” He thrust her into the cave.
Cherry saw Hal’s lithe, rangy figure weave in and out between the two older, heavy men. One of them gasped in pain, as Hal’s fist found his jaw. The second tallest figure, Floyd’s, staggered back from the group. Jake swung, his flashy ring hitting Hal’s forehead and cutting it open just above Hal’s eye. Hal threw himself in a fury on Jake, aiming at the indistinct face before him with his clenched fists. Jake covered his face, then kicked viciously at Hal.
Hal dodged—and found Floyd’s arm crooked around his throat from behind, pulling his head back. The grip tightened.
“Good!” Benny croaked. “Hold him. Jake, grab his knees.”
Jake made a sudden lunge for Hal’s knees and wrapped his arms around them. With Floyd and Jake holding him that way, Hal was helpless. Benny walked slowly toward Hal, pistol hanging loosely in his hand.
“You’re not going to shoot him, are you?” Cherry gasped.
“No,” Benny said agreeably, “just rough him up a little, that’s all.”
Cherry went cold, then desperately she searched with her foot on the dark floor of the cave. Her shoe touched the heavy metal flashlight.
She grabbed down for it, reached Benny’s back at a run, and swung the flashlight crashing against the side of his head. He lurched crazily, then levelled his pistol at Cherry, shaking with anger.
A new voice rang out. “Drop your gun!” it commanded. “Put your hands up. Higher!”
Benny held fast to his gun. A shot rang out, loud as a blast of dynamite in the echoing cave.
Out of the shadows of the cave walked two highway patrolmen, each levelling a gun. Paul Short walked beside them. One patrolman was Tom Richards. A tendril of smoke floated from his gun.
Benny cursed and slowly lifted his arms. Jake and Floyd stood dejectedly with their hands raised. Ginseng plants and jars of medicine littered the cave floor.
“The sheriff’s office relayed your telephone message to us,” Richards said to Hal and Cherry. “We saw the open trap door. You shouldn’t have come here by yourselves.”
The highway patrolmen handcuffed Floyd to the two men. Richards prodded them at gunpoint out of the cave. At Inspector Short’s request, the other patrolman collected the medicine jars, ginseng, ledgers, and old book as evidence. Mr. Short affixed a seal over the lid of one jar, signed and filled out the Food and Drug form on the seal.
Then he came over to Cherry and asked if she were all right. “Yes,” she said, “and you certainly got here fast!”
Hal reported that the racketeers had two rowboats waiting at the riverbank, and a getaway car parked upriver. The highway patrolman turned to the Food and Drug inspector, and asked where he wanted to talk with the three men.
Mr. Short answered, “Well, the first thing we have to do is to give them a preliminary hearing before the United States commissioner at Des Moines. He will decide whether they are to be held for a grand-jury investigation.”
It was decided they would all drive to Des Moines that morning. Before undertaking the long drive, Hal and the three prisoners would receive medical care from Dr. Clark at his house.
“Hal,” Cherry said, “you were terrific!”