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 off 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 confide 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 straightforward as even her father could wish. Perhaps, too, he might be of infinite help in unraveling the tangle. 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 so to look at it, for it is only one of those pretty sketches 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 frantic 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 sketch 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. Gee! that proves one thing, at least. It didn't disappear before I come in, so the responsible party must have come afterward. Who was in here later?"