“All a daydream, though,” murmured Arden.
As the bell rang, marking the end of the French period, Arden recovered herself with a start. Quickly gathering up her books and papers, she hurried to her class in mathematics.
This was worse than the preceding session. Now she was absolutely unable to concentrate in the least. Her poor brain whirled with visions of geometric figures punctuated with policemen in the disguise of gardeners. She flunked miserably and heard, with a sigh of relief, the ringing of the bell for which she had waited so impatiently.
When the mathematics class was dismissed, Arden left hurriedly, for once getting away without Sim or Terry. She took a short cut across the hockey field and crawled through a hole in the hedge after a hasty and fearsome glance backward to observe if anyone might be observing her.
“Not yet, anyhow,” she sighed with relief.
This route brought her much nearer her destination.
Arden hastened along the peaceful main street of the suburban town still clutching her books. In front of a two-story building of mellowed red bricks, partly overgrown with dull green and bronzed ivy, she stopped. Two bright green lamps on each side of the doorway were in readiness to leap into emerald illumination of the sign POLICE HEADQUARTERS which caught and held her attention.
“Dare I go in?” she mused.
She dared. Gathering together all her courage, she opened the heavy door, its knob of bright brass, and entered. Inside a rather large bare room all was serene. The dark wooden floor was scrubbed immaculately clean. Behind a heavy desk of light oak, around which high lights played on a glaring brass rail of heavy proportions, a man was reading a paper. Arden could see him around one end of the desk, his two thick-soled shoes elevated and his hands holding the paper.
“Ah—a-hem!” she coughed when, after several seconds, he did not seem aware of her presence.