“But how do you know, Mary Lou?” asked her father. “What proof have you?”
“I overheard him and Tom Adams talking in the hotel garage. They didn’t actually mention fires, but I’m sure they meant them. I have their conversation down in my notebook. I left it in my desk. It’s probably still there.”
“Suppose,” suggested Mr. Gay, “that you tell us the story of your suspicions—and clues—from the beginning.”
“While I’m getting lunch,” added Mrs. Gay.
Mary Louise ran into her bedroom and found the little notebook. “I’ll just change my dress,” she called laughingly, “and be with you in a minute.... But tell me where Jane and Freckles are.”
“Out hunting for you. With Silky!” was the reply.
A couple of minutes later she returned to the porch, looking more like herself in her own modern clothing. She sat down on the swing and opened her notebook.
“I first suspected Tom Adams the day after Flicks’ Inn burned down,” she began. “All of the people of Shady Nook were over on the little island that night on a picnic, and Hattie Adams told me she expected to have Tom take her. But he wasn’t anywhere to be found. And the boys saw a big fellow in the woods who answered his description.
“But I sort of gave up the idea of his being guilty when I heard he had lost some work by Flicks’ Inn burning down. It threw me off the track for a while; I really suspected his feeble-minded sister Rebecca.
“Then the Smiths’ house caught fire, and Rebecca gave us a warning—so I suspected her all the more. Finding that pack of Cliff’s cards in the can of water didn’t prove a thing to me. I never believed he was guilty.”