"To tell me?" asked her father wonderingly.
"Yes! Come!" Nan seized his hand and pulled him into the alley. On the way she explained a little of the mystery.
"Dear me! it's the most wonderful thing, Papa Sherwood. You know, I told you Jennie was working for a moving picture company that was making a film at Tillbury. She had a boy's part; she looks just like a boy with a cap on, for her hair is short.
"Well! Now listen! They took those pictures the day before, and the very day that you came back from Chicago to Tillbury and that awful Mr. Bulson lost his money and watch."
"What's that?" demanded Mr. Sherwood, suddenly evincing all the interest
Nan expected him to in the tale.
As they mounted the stairs Nan retailed how the company had gone to the railroad yards early in the morning, obtaining permission from the yardmaster to film a scene outside the sleeping car standing there on a siding, including the entrance of Jennie as the burglars' helper through the narrow ventilator.
"Of course, the sleeping car doors can only be opened from the inside when it is occupied, save with a key," Nan hastened to say; "so you see she was supposed to enter through the ventilator and afterward open the door to the men."
"I see," Mr. Sherwood observed, yet still rather puzzled by his daughter's vehemence.
Jennie Albert, however, when he was introduced to her by Nan, gave a much clearer account of the matter. To take up the story where Nan had broken off, Jennie, when she wriggled through the window into the car, had seen a big negro man stooping over a man in a lower berth and removing something from under his pillow.
The man in the berth was lying on his back and snoring vociferously.
There seemed to be no other passenger remaining in the car.