Then she turned around again, and swept haughtily into the hotel, while Fritz walked away toward the beach in meditation.
"She vas sharper ash lightning," he mused, "und dot makes me t'ink some more dot for some reason or odder she vil bear watching."
He took a bath in the ocean, and then went back to the hotel. He was not quite satisfied to drop the matter where it was. Something urged him to pry further into the affairs of this young lady, whose case had struck him as being singular.
On examining the register, he found that she was registered as Miss Madge Thurston, and assigned room 43.
As nothing more offered, he sat down on the veranda, and watched the stream of people that surged in and out of the hotel, and to and from the beach—men, women, and children by the hundred, and yet there were scarcely two faces alike.
During the afternoon an elegant close carriage, drawn by a superbly harnessed pair of high-stepping bays, which were in turn driven by a liveried negro, came dashing down the avenue, and drew up before the Brighton.
A man of some thirty-five years of age leaped from the carriage, and entered the hotel—a man with a sinister yet handsome face, ornamented with a sweeping mustache, and a pair of sharp, black eyes. He was attired in spotless white duck, with patent-leather boots, and a white "plug" hat, and was evidently a person of some importance!
He soon came out of the hotel, accompanied by the young woman Fritz had defended, and entering the carriage, they were whirled away down the avenue out of sight.
"Dot settles dot! My game's gone und I don'd got some professional detective gase, there," Fritz growled, as he watched the receding carriage. "I'll bet a half-dollar I neffer see dem again."
But he was mistaken.