“Miss Stone’s innocent, Max,” she explained. “Please let her go. So are the others here. They’re just obeying orders. Tom Adams put me in here, calling me his feeble-minded sister Rebecca. He really does happen to have one, you may have heard, and I understand her papers for confinement were filed once before. Mr. Frazier signed my commitment too, pretending to be a cousin. Those two men are the only guilty ones.”
“Tom Adams!” repeated Max and Norman at the same time, and Norman added:
“Yes, that’s what Freckles said. They’re looking for Tom Adams. He ran away from Shady Nook—or wherever it is he lives. The police are after him.”
“How about Frazier?” demanded Mary Louise.
“Is he guilty?” asked Max.
“More so than Tom,” replied the girl. “Oh, I must get back to tell the police before Frazier sneaks away!” She turned to the nurse. “May I go with the boys now?”
“I’ll have to ask the doctor,” replied Miss Stone, hurrying inside to the office.
It took no persuasion at all, however, to obtain the doctor’s consent. As soon as he read the account in the newspaper and saw that Tom Adams was a fugitive from the law, he gladly agreed to let Mary Louise go free. In fact, he was anxious that she should, lest he be blamed for participation in the crime.
So Mary Louise jumped into the car between the two boys, and in less than an hour she saw the dear familiar trees of Shady Nook in the distance. As the car approached her own bungalow, she could distinguish her mother—yes, and her father—sitting on the porch in an attitude of hopeless despair.
Oh, what fun it was going to be to surprise them so joyfully!