The box was filled with jeweler’s cotton, from the center of which he drew a revolver cartridge. Around it, fastened by a rubber band, there was a small sheet of note paper. The others gathered close as he smoothed out the paper.
Blocked in capitals with a red crayon was the smugglers’ message.
“LAY OFF! THIS MEANS BOTH OF YOU.”
“Aha! And if we don’t lay off, we’ll be plunked with a bullet from a cartridge like this!” Dorothy summed up. “This affair is likely to get exciting before we finish it.”
Mr. Bolton studied the paper then returned it to the box with the cartridge.
“Has it struck you oddly,” he said quietly, “that these people should know that Bill was mixed up in this? That message, of course, is for Dorothy and Bill.”
“Yes, I was thinking of that,” admitted Bill.
“Strange—” cogitated Mr. Dixon. “You two flew from Babylon back here without a stop—and you both went straight to bed. Neither you, nor I, Bolton, have spoken to anyone about their exploits, I’m sure.”
“Somebody must have found out from the servants that our offspring flew back together,” his friend decided. “It could not have happened any other way. Then that fact, added to the glimpse they must have caught of a young man in the Mary Jane with Dorothy, when they rammed the smugglers’ motor sailor off the lightship, gave them a simple line of reasoning. And the joke of the matter is that their warning has done just the reverse from what they figured it would do!”
Mr. Dixon looked puzzled.