“All better?” Terry inquired. They were anxious to be on their way, yet they could not pass by the poor child for whom they had so much sympathy.
“What a pretty pin,” Arden remarked next, looking at a stick pin with a deep red stone which Melissa had thrust through the collar of an old middy blouse. “Where did you get it?”
Sim and Terry pressed closer; they could tell from Arden’s tone that this was no idle question, and as they looked they started, for the pin, a man’s, they had all seen Dimitri wearing the day of the little tea party.
CHAPTER XXII
The Policewoman
“I found it,” Melissa replied without hesitating.
“How lucky! Where?” Arden continued.
“On the beach,” Melissa went on. Then she pushed past the girls and entered the store.
Arden did not question her further, fearing to make the girl suspicious. But on the way home the three discussed the remarkable coincidence.
“Now, where on earth could Melissa have found that pin?” Sim asked. “Of course, it belonged to Dimitri, and I don’t for a minute believe she found it on the beach.”
“Nor I,” Arden agreed. “My guess is that, if she found it at all, she found it on the houseboat. And that means she was there before we were, because we went over it pretty thoroughly by ourselves, and the chief didn’t miss anything when he came with us.”