Ruth saw the man whose voice was like Legrand’s, but whose facial appearance was nothing at all like that suspected individual. But it was his companion that particularly attracted the attention of the girl of the Red Mill.
This was a slight, dark man, who hobbled as he walked. His right leg was bent and he wore a shoe with a four-inch wooden sole.
“Who is that, I wonder?” Ruth murmured, looking at the crippled man.
“That is Signor Aristo,” Clair said. “He’s an Italian chef I am told.”
Signor Aristo was, likewise, smoothly shaven; but Ruth remarked that he looked much like the Mexican, José, who had worked with Legrand at the Red Cross rooms in Robinsburg.
CHAPTER XIII—THE NEW CHIEF
Ruth Fielding was troubled by her most recent discovery. Yet she was in no mind to take Clare into her confidence—or anybody else.
She was cautious. With nothing but suspicions to report to the Red Cross authorities, what could she really say? What, after all, do suspicions amount to?
If the man calling himself Professor Perry was really Legrand, and the Italian chef, Signor Aristo the lame man, was he who had been known as Mr. José at the Robinsburg Red Cross headquarters, her identification of them must be corroborated. How could she prove such assertions?
It was a serious situation; but one in which Ruth felt that her hands were tied. She must wait for something to turn up that would give her a sure hold on these people whom she believed to be out and out crooks.