"Mary and George have arrived. Heard they got home yesterday. Can it be true? Let no circumstances detain you. Need I say more to you? If they stay in town while here, I can no longer visit them. We go out every week to see cousins. Their house is quite new in the suburbs. See Hanford before you leave. At a store there once had good cream. Meet Mary soon and you will find Josephine there.
"F."
"Well of all the silly letters!" thought Patricia, after the first reading. "What can it all mean? Of course, it refers to people and circumstances I don't know anything about, but even so, it sounds sort of scrappy. I wonder why Chet wanted me to read it? I suppose I really shouldn't have done so. I feel as if I'd been prying6 into some one's affairs in a rather horrid7 way, reading the letter they thought they 114had destroyed. I suppose it was one of Madame Vanderpoel's. It isn't in the least interesting, anyway, and I do wonder why Chet saved it and asked me to read it. All I get from it is that somebody 'arrived' and she had to go, probably to meet them. Perhaps that explains why they left so suddenly. Well, Chester will have to explain later why he thought it worth showing to me."
Then her mind reverted8 to the strange, unnerving revelations the boy had made concerning her father, the unknown pair who had known so much about his affairs and had left before they arrived, and the terrible Franz and Hofmeyer who had doubtless been spying on them all the time, and who, even now, were probably in possession of the Crimson9 Patch. And Peter Stoger—spy without doubt and a disguised one at that—confirming her worst suspicions of him! By what a hideous10 net they were surrounded! And her father did not even know all these details. How helpful they 115might be to him in his search, if she could only put him in possession of the facts. But that was impossible till he was with her again in person. And meantime, there was all this long night to be got through, without her father to share her anxiety.
She took up the crumpled note once more and read it again, critically. At the second reading it struck her as even more foolish and disjointed than at first. It really meant very little when boiled down to the bare facts. It seemed scarcely possible that Madame Vanderpoel could find any very informing news in it.
While she was still studying it, the telephone rang with a sudden shrillness11 that caused her to jump, and she hurried over to take down the receiver.
"Hello! hello!" she heard from very far away. "Is that you, Patricia?" And she recognized her father's voice.
"Oh, yes, yes, Daddy! Where are you? Are you coming back to-night?"
116"No, I cannot do that," came the answer. "I called up to see whether you were all right. I was a little worried about you. How are you getting on?"
Patricia was on the point of telling him all her troubles and her loneliness and the absence of Mrs. Quale, when something stopped her. Her father was having far heavier worries of his own. Why should she burden him with these lighter12 ones? It would help him far more if she put a brave face on everything and answered him cheerfully, so she summoned all her courage and answered brightly:
"I'm all right, Daddy. Fine as a fiddle13. But tell me, are you succeeding? Have you had any luck?"
"We've struck something that looks very important," he returned. "But I'll have to tell you, dear, that it may keep me away another whole day, and possibly even over another night. You must get along somehow. Keep Mrs. Quale close to you. Tell her it's very 117urgent. I'll call up to-morrow night, if possible, but I may not have another chance before that. Now I must stop, for this is long distance and costing like Sancho. Can you manage, honey?"
"Yes, oh, yes!" she assured him in a voice from which she tried to keep a quaver of fear.
"Then, good-bye!"
Patricia hung up the receiver and walked back to the table in a daze14. Not a single chance had she had to tell her father some of the important details revealed by Chester Jackson; and even if the chance had presented itself, she doubted if it would have been wise to divulge15 them over the telephone. But if her father were on the track of any important discovery, perhaps it was just as well that she had not. And by the way, he had said, "we've struck something!" now what in the world could he mean by "we?" She had not supposed that he would admit any one else into the secret. Well, it was all very mysterious, and 118it was growing more so every moment. And he was to be away at least twenty-four hours longer!
Again her glance fell on the foolish and disjointed little note lying on the table, and it vaguely16 disturbed her. Its very lack of meaning held something sinister17 in it. She looked at her watch and took a sudden resolution. It was not yet quite ten. She must see Chester Jackson once more before he went to his own home for the night, and she remembered that he had said he went off duty at ten-thirty.
"I don't know what the hotel people will think of my wanting so many things," and she smiled rather ruefully, "but I don't very much care. This is too important." She went to the telephone and ordered a glass of milk and some crackers18 to be sent up.
Jackson arrived in a few minutes with the tray and a broad grin.
"I thought you'd be needin' something else after a while!" he remarked, as he placed the 119tray on the table. "Make anything out of the nice little note I handed you?"
"Why no. It seems to me simply crazy. There doesn't seem to be any sense to it, not even if one knew all the people and circumstances it referred to. Can you make anything of it?"
"I didn't at first," he replied; "but I just naturally doped it out that there was something shifty about it. So I took it all to pieces, and put it together again, and turned it every which way, and all at once I got on to it. You can just bet it means something, and something pretty slick at that!"
"Oh, tell me. Tell me quickly!" cried Patricia. "How did you find it all out?"
"Well," began Chet, plainly enjoying very much his r?le of Sherlock Holmes, "there was just one word in the thing that made me sit up and take notice. And that word was 'Hanford.' Do you know what Hanford is?"
Patricia shook her head.
120"Well, it's a little two-cent hole of a town about ten miles from here. Nothin' special to it at all, just a little, one-horse country town with about thirty houses and a couple of hundred inhabitants. There ain't any reason on this livin' earth why any one should 'see Hanford,' because there ain't nothin' in it to see! So I just shied at that, I did. An' I took Hanford as a startin' point, an' I turned and twisted that note inside out and upside down till, all off a sudden, I struck it! I gotta go now. I got another call to tend to on this floor. But you just take that note and put a pencil mark under every fourth word and copy them out afterward19 an' see what you get. I'll be back after a while to get this tray. Don't forget—every fourth word!"
When he was gone, Patricia got a pencil and paper and did as he had instructed her. She counted off every fourth word in the letter, underlined it, and feverishly20 copied down the sequence. The result caused her to drop her 121pencil and sit staring at the paper, while a shiver of fear ran icily down her spine21. The reconstructed letter ran:
Have got it. No need to stay here longer. Go to house in Hanford at once. Meet you there.
F.
The meaning of the communication was only too clear.
Ten minutes later there was a knock at the door and Chet reappeared. He only glanced at the sentences she had written and remarked:
"Guess that made you sit up and take notice, didn't it?"
"Oh, Chester," she moaned. "It's awful! It just confirms my worst suspicions. Do you suppose some one sent it to Madame—Vanderpoel? Who—who could it have been?"
"We can be pretty plum sure of one thing," remarked Chet. "The note is signed 'F' an' it don't take much guessin' to dope out that F stands for Franz; but who Franz is, unless it's that slick Peter Stoger, I can't guess. But as Peter has lit out too, we wouldn't be so far 122off to take it for Peter, I fancy. But say, Miss, will you pardon me if I ask an awful personal question? Did you folks lose anything or miss anything before last night? If you haven't, I don't quite get what it means by those words, 'Have got it.'"
Patricia thought hard for a moment. Should she or should she not confide22 in this boy the secret she had been guarding for her father? What would her father wish her to do? It was plain that he knew a great deal about their affairs already, and was as honest and straightforward23 as even her father could wish. Perhaps, too, he might be of infinite help in unraveling the tangle24. She would risk it. She would risk all and tell him. But she felt firmly convinced that the risk was not very great.
"Yes, Chester," she acknowledged. "We have missed something—the most important thing my father has. You wouldn't think 123so to look at it, for it is only one of those pretty sketches25 of butterflies that you were looking at yesterday. I didn't know about it at the time, or I wouldn't have left it around; but sometime during that afternoon or evening it disappeared, and Father is almost frantic27 about it. He is off hunting for it now, and has been ever since morning. I—oh, I just hate to think that Madame Vanderpoel or Mademoiselle de Vos took it or were in any way concerned with it. I—I think an awful lot of Mademoiselle Virginie. We—we were friends."
Chet scratched his head and thought deeply for several moments. "Which sketch26 was it, if I may ask?" he said at length.
"The one called the Crimson Patch," she replied. "Do you remember seeing it?"
"You bet I do!" he cried enthusiastically. "I remember that one particular because it had a queer name and was such a purty one. Gee28! that proves one thing, at least. It didn't disappear 124before I come in, so the responsible party must have come afterward. Who was in here later?"
"Why, only Peter Stoger and Virginie. But she didn't take it, I know. I will never, never believe such a thing of her!"
"Sure she didn't!" agreed Chet. "It must have been Peter. Of course it was Peter, don't you see? 'Cause if he's Franz, he sends a note afterward to the madame that he's got it, an' they all beat it out of here. Can't get it any straighter than that!"
"But what has poor little Virginie to do with all this?" wondered Patricia, distractedly. "Surely—surely she can't be working with a lot of horrid spies. What is the explanation?"
"You can search me!" rejoined the boy. "I ain't on to the dope about that little mam'selle an' never was. She's a plum deep mystery, she is. But one thing is sure—"
At that moment the telephone bell rang again, and they both jumped nervously29. Patricia 125went to it and took down the receiver. There was a faint, "Hello!" to which she responded, and then silence.
"Why, that's queer!" she said in an aside to Chester. "Nobody seems to answer. And the voice that said hello first seemed so faraway and scared—"
"Hello! hello!" she exclaimed again, turning to the receiver. "Yes, yes, this is Patricia.... Oh, Virginie! is it you?... Oh, I can't hear you very well. Can't you speak a little louder?... You can't?... What is that you say?... You want to warn me.... What about? I don't understand.... There is danger?... Who is in danger?... I am?... We both are?... Oh, can't you tell me more plainly? Where are you?... You are ... where?"
"Oh!" cried Patricia, turning to the listening boy. "She hung up the receiver without telling me!"
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1
crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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partially
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| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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prying
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| adj.爱打听的v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的现在分词 )；撬开 | |
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7
horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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8
reverted
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| 恢复( revert的过去式和过去分词 )； 重提； 回到…上； 归还 | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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shrillness
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| 尖锐刺耳 | |
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lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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13
fiddle
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| n.小提琴；vi.拉提琴；不停拨弄，乱动 | |
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daze
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| v.(使)茫然，(使)发昏 | |
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divulge
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| v.泄漏(秘密等)；宣布，公布 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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crackers
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| adj.精神错乱的，癫狂的n.爆竹( cracker的名词复数 )；薄脆饼干；（认为）十分愉快的事；迷人的姑娘 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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feverishly
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| adv. 兴奋地 | |
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spine
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| n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊 | |
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confide
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| v.向某人吐露秘密 | |
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straightforward
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| adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的 | |
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tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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25
sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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28
gee
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| n.马；int.向右！前进！，惊讶时所发声音；v.向右转 | |
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29
nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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