The four about the table stared at her in unfeigned amazement.
“Where?” they cried in chorus.
“I’ll give each of you three guesses,” she went on mischievously.
“Oh, don’t be horrid,” pleaded Betty.
“You know we’re absolutely up a tree—” chimed in George.
“Come on and tell,” invited Bill.
“How did you find out?” added Terry.
“Simply by keeping my eyes and ears open,” retorted the object of this wordy bombardment, “and by knowing that two and two make four, not sometimes, but all the time. Every one of you has heard as much about this as I have tonight, and every one, excepting Stoker, has kidded me because I found out some things about the bank robbery and that smuggling gang this summer. Now you won’t even take the trouble to think for yourselves. The whereabouts of that letter is clear enough; to be able to put our hands on it, is something quite different.”
“Well, I apologize for us all,” Bill leaned across the table, “we were only kidding you—weren’t we, Betty?”
“Why, of course—she knows that, she’s only trying to—”