“Well, I’m sure he wouldn’t want to. Now, if it were that man Frazier’s place, the Royal Hotel, I mean, it would be possible. You know what Cliff said about the way he’s losing money. The hotel is practically empty, except for the Hunters and their friends.”
“Maybe it will give Mr. Frazier an idea,” remarked Mary Louise, “and his hotel be the next to burn!”
“You seem to feel sure that something is coming next!”
“I’m afraid so. And I only hope it won’t be our bungalow!”
Mary Louise sighed and closed her notebook.
“It’s much more difficult than that mystery at Dark Cedars,” she said. “Because there you had only one place to watch. If I knew which cottage would be the next to burn, I could hide there and spy. But Shady Nook’s a mile long, and I can’t be everywhere.”
“No,” agreed Jane. “And you don’t like to stay home from all the parties just on a chance that there will be a fire. Has it occurred to you, Mary Lou, that both fires started when everybody from Shady Nook was off on a party?”
“Yes, it has. That’s why it seems like a planned crime to me—not just an accident. As if the criminal picked his time carefully.”
The familiar “chug-chug” of a motorboat interrupted the girls’ discussion. Clifford Hunter shut off his engine and threw the rope around the Gays’ dock.
“Hello, girls!” he called, with his usual grin. “I haven’t had time to work up any new card tricks, but I hope I’ll be welcome just the same.”