“Wait a minute! Come to think of it, there was something else happened that day which I thought was rather queer,” cried the hotel proprietor suddenly. He was a bald-headed man, and he began to scratch his hairless head vigorously. “Seems to me it was just about half an hour or so before that train came in, too,” he added, nodding his head emphatically.
“What was the thing that happened?” questioned Roger quickly.
“There was a big touring-car came down the Kapton road yonder. A man dressed as a chauffeur was driving the machine. He stopped his car and asked for directions, and then the car swung around and came to a stop down there near our stables. I sent the boy out to see if anything was wanted—the stable man being off on an errand—and the boy came back and said they wanted to know when that train would get in. Then the car moved over to the other side of the street and stood there for five or ten minutes. The chauffeur turned around in his seat to talk very earnestly to a couple who were in the car. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but they all seemed to be rather excited. Then the car went back down the road, and that was the last I saw of it.”
“It wasn’t a car that belonged around here, so far as you knew?” asked our hero.
“No, it didn’t belong around here. It was a great big heavy enclosed affair, and looked as if it had seen pretty rough usage—one of the mud-guards being quite battered. That was one reason why I took notice of it—I thought maybe they had been in some sort of an accident, especially when the chauffeur and the people in the car got to talking so excitedly among themselves.”
“Did you notice what kind of people they were?” asked Dave.
“I think the chauffeur was a foreigner. He had heavy dark hair and a small dark mustache. He wore a regular cap and goggles, and also a dust-coat.”
“Who were the people in the car?” questioned the senator’s son.
“There were a man and a woman, and I should say they were rather elderly. The woman had a thick veil over her face, and the man wore a dust-coat buttoned up around his throat and a cap pulled far down over his forehead, and I think he had on smoked glasses. I thought the whole bunch might be foreigners, and that was another reason why I noticed them.”
“This is certainly interesting, but I don’t see how it connects up with the disappearance of the girls,” was Dave’s comment.