“Yes, indeed, and stay to supper,” Rose said brightly, adding as an afterthought: “Gerry and Alfred can go with us, can’t they? Then the Colonel won’t have to come after them.”
“Sure thing,” the good-natured boy replied. “So long!”
“There now,” Merry announced when they were sitting about the fire five minutes later, “we have a good two hours, if nobody interrupts us, and we ought to be able to delve deeply into our mystery. Peg, will you or Doris review the facts in the case?”
“Shouldn’t we call them clues?” Bertha inquired.
“O, I don’t know. I haven’t been a sleuth long enough to be sure about anything,” the president smilingly admitted. Then Doris reminded them that it was a ranchman in Arizona named Caleb K. Cornwall who was searching for a young and pretty sister named Myra, who had married a ne’er-do-well and supposedly had settled in some small community near Dorchester, in New York State.
“Well, Sleuth Bertha, you look wise. What would you suggest that we do first?” Merry had turned toward the tall maiden, whose expression was habitually serious and thoughtful.
“I was just wondering if there is any woman in town named Myra. Our mothers might know, for I suppose this lost person is about their age.”
“How come?” Peg asked. “There is no mention of age in the letter. Merely that she was a young and pretty girl when she was sent East to school.”
“That might have been ten years ago or twenty, thirty, or any number,” Rose reminded them.
“True enough,” Merry conceded. “Wait a moment. Mother is in her sewing-room, I think. I’ll ask her if she ever heard of a woman in Sunnyside named Myra.”