“How did you get here so soon, Mr. Eckert?” asked Dot. “We only wired yesterday.”
“We started immediately, sensing your trouble. And flew day and night. But I see that we got here just in time.”
“Ten minutes later I’d have been wearing prison stripes!” returned Linda, now almost herself again. “Oh, Mr. Eckert, I can never thank you enough.”
“I was only too thankful to be of use, my dear child,” said the kind-hearted man.
“What shall we do first?” inquired Dot, as the policeman made a move to slip away.
“Catch the thief,” announced Chief Brenan. “If she has forged a check for five thousand dollars already, she must have gone away as fast as she could.” He turned to the Los Angeles policeman. “Go and inform your station of this as fast as you can.... And meanwhile, we’ll go straight to the studio of the Apex Film Corporation and find out what we can about her from the director.”
The policeman departed, and Linda asked Mr. Eckert whether he weren’t terribly hungry and tired.
“Hungry, yes, but I haven’t had time to think about being tired yet. I want to get things all straightened out for you first, before I consider sleeping. We will arrange for a couple of rooms and order a meal before we go to Hollywood.”
In an incredibly short time the men reappeared from their rooms and ate a hasty meal that was both breakfast and lunch. Then the whole party, the two girls, and the two older men chartered a car for Culver City.
“Won’t it be fun to stick out our tongues at that Sprague insect?” laughed Dot, now enjoying herself hugely. “He was so condescending—so sure that the other girl was the real thing!”