CHAPTER XIII
JOSIE VISITS CHIEF CHARLEY
Before Mary Louise moved to the Higgledy Piggledy, Josie felt it to be prudent to go see her old friend, Captain Charley Lonsdale, the chief of police.
“It isn’t exactly my business, Chief,” she had said as she seated herself opposite the important man in his sanctum sanctorum. “That is, nobody has put the case in my hands, but, somehow, I feel that I must make it my business and I am sure you will think it is your business as well.”
“Well, I’m listening,” smiled the chief.
The chief usually listened when Josie had anything to say. He was an old-fashioned man who felt and freely stated that “woman’s place was in the home” and so forth and so on, but he had to confess that Josie had proved herself to be as able a detective as any he had even seen and perhaps an exception should be made in her favor and she should not be made to remain in a home, especially since she did not have one that could be rightly called by that name. It would take a blind reactionary, indeed, not to admit that Josie had managed the affair with the rascally Markles with a genius worthy of her father’s daughter.
Josie now took up the tale of the mysterious disappearance of Colonel Hathaway’s fortune. Captain Lonsdale had heard a rumor of there not being as large an inheritance for Mary Louise as her friends had hoped but the news of the absolute dissolution of the fortune was a blow to Colonel Hathaway’s old friend.
“It seems impossible!” he exclaimed. “Why didn’t Peter Conant come to me with the matter himself?”
“He is leaving no stone unturned and perhaps he felt he would do all he could do first before he gave the case over to you. I have looked in every cranny in the house, and even in the garage, but can find no clue to anything.”
“What does your majesty think I had better do?” laughed the chief.
“First you must see that the house is watched. I am sure such a thing as this will get out sooner or later, perhaps is already known, and, in a short while, the treasure seeking will begin. I am anxious to get Mary Louise out of the house and tonight she will be safely moved to my quarters. She must not be made more nervous than she is already.”