Mary Louise wrote all these facts in her notebook and kept the drawing.
“That’s fine, Mrs. Hilliard,” she said as she opened the door. “I’m going out now, and I’ll be back for lunch.”
“Good-bye and good luck!”
Mary Louise went to her room, and from the telephone book beside her bed she listed the addresses of all the pawnshops in the neighborhood. This was going to be fun, she thought—at least, if she didn’t lose her nerve.
She hesitated for a few minutes outside of the first shop she came to. The iron bars guarding the window, the three balls in the doorway, seemed rather forbidding. For Mary Louise had never been inside a pawnshop.
“I can say I want to buy a watch,” she thought. “I do, too—I certainly need one. But I’m afraid I’d rather have a brand-new Ingersoll than a gold one that has belonged to somebody else. Still, I don’t have to tell the shopkeeper that.”
Boldly she opened the door and went in.
She had expected to find an old man with spectacles and a skullcap, the typical pawnbroker one sees in the moving pictures. But there was nothing different about this man behind the counter from any ordinary storekeeper.
“Good-morning, miss,” he said. “What can I do for you today?”
“I want to look at ladies’ watches,” replied Mary Louise steadily.