“Yes,” answered Mary Louise, and she told of the woman’s visit, with her husband and sister, to the moving-picture house—an alibi which the girl could easily check up on tomorrow.
“I hear Jane’s whistle!” exclaimed Mr. Gay. “The young people want you, dear. You better go out with them and forget all this sad business for the rest of the evening. I think you need a little diversion.”
Mary Louise thought so too, and dashed off joyously to join her friends.
CHAPTER XVII
The Empty House
Mr. Gay was seated at the telephone table in the dining room the following morning when Mary Louise came downstairs to breakfast. She waited breathlessly for the news, for she felt sure that he was talking to some of the police about the whereabouts of Elsie Grant.
“That’s strange,” she heard him say. “I can hardly believe it.... You checked up with the bus companies as well as the railroads?... O.K., then. Keep on searching,” he concluded.
Replacing the receiver, he turned to his daughter.
“Not a trace of Elsie anywhere,” he announced.
Mary Louise smiled: she was almost glad that the girl had not been found. It gave her more time to believe in Elsie’s innocence.
“Do you think she could have been kidnaped, Daddy?” she inquired. “People are, pretty often, nowadays.”