Mary Louise turned her head and saw the woman at her side, clutching the child in her arms and sobbing hysterically.
Other people had arrived by this time. Mr. Frazier had come over from the Royal Hotel, accompanied by Cliff Hunter, David McCall, and several other young people who were staying there, and Mr. Reed and all the Robinsons had gathered from Shady Nook. In another minute the fire engine from Four Corners came, and the volunteers got the flames under control. The front of the house was saved; only the wooden structure at the back was completely destroyed.
“How did it happen?” Frazier was asking the Smiths’ chauffeur, half an hour later, when the crowd had finally gathered about Mary Louise.
“Nobody knows,” replied the man. “Everybody here was in bed and asleep. No signs of any prowler, either. The fire just started with the back shed—and spread. I was the first to wake up.”
David McCall looked knowingly at Mary Louise.
“No signs of anybody?” he asked the chauffeur. “No clues at all?”
“Maybe this is a clue,” interrupted one of the volunteer firemen, coming forward with a small box in his hand. “I found this pack of cards right where the fire must have started. But it had dropped into a pail of water—that’s why it wasn’t burned.”
“Maybe the boys were playing cards and smoking corn silk,” suggested Cliff Hunter lightly.
The chauffeur took the box from the fireman.
“No, they ain’t our cards,” he said as he examined them. “I know ours, because I’ve bought them for the kids.”