Another fifteen minutes and Dapple, having crossed the tracks, turned into a narrow side street where the houses were small, with many evidences of poverty. Merry had found the address in the telephone book, and when the right number was reached, Dapple was brought to a standstill.
“This house looks real neat,” Betty Byrd commented. “Clean white curtains at the windows and a big backyard, and a lot of washing hung out.”
Doris patted their youngest as she approved: “Observation is surely an excellent trait for a sleuth to develop.”
“Won’t our victim think it queer that it takes seven girls to deliver one bundle of wash?” Geraldine paused to inquire as they trooped through the gate.
“What care we?” Merry was already up on the step and turned to knock on the door, when it was opened by a girl of about their own age.
“How do you do, Miss Angel,” she addressed Bertha, whom she knew by sight. “Won’t you all come in?”
They entered a small but spotlessly clean sitting-room and Doris asked, “Is Mrs. Myra Comely here?”
“No, Mother isn’t here just now. Won’t you be seated?”
Doris hesitated. “I—er—wanted to ask her a few questions about—well, about her methods of laundering.”
The girl had a pleasant face and she seemed not at all abashed to have so many of the town’s “aristocracy” calling upon her at once.