Finally she freed herself laughingly from their embraces and introduced them to Miss Stone. The boys looked questioningly at the woman. If she had been responsible for the kidnaping of Mary Louise, why was the girl so polite to her?
Max took a revolver from his pocket, just to be prepared in case of violence.
Mary Louise laughed merrily.
“You don’t need that, Max,” she said. “Miss Stone won’t do anything desperate. She is a nurse.”
“A nurse? Is this a hospital?” Alarm crept into Max’s voice. “Oh, Mary Lou, you’re not hurt, are you?”
“No, not a bit. Don’t you know what kind of place this is, Max? It’s an asylum for the insane! I’m supposed to be crazy.”
Horrified, Max sprang forward and seized Miss Stone by the arm.
“What kind of diabolical plot is this?” he demanded. “Whose accomplice are you?” He pulled a newspaper out of his pocket and shook it in the nurse’s face. “The whole country’s frantic over the disappearance of Mary Louise Gay!”
Miss Stone gazed at the picture in the paper with increasing fear. Had she—and the rest of the staff at the asylum—been accomplices to a hideous crime?
But Mary Louise replied for her reassuringly.