“What are you doing here?” demanded the lieutenant, trying hard to appear angry with the boy.
“Why, I just come over to tell Frank—”
“Never mind that now,” said the lieutenant, interrupting. “If this is the way you obey orders you can’t go to the Canal Zone with me.”
“Well, you see,” Jimmie began, in a contrite tone, “I thought of something, after you left, that I wanted to say to Frank, and I knew he’d have asked for me if he’d ’a’ thought of it, so I just run over.”
“What was it you wanted to say to Frank?” asked the lieutenant, with a smile in Ned’s direction. The persistence of the boy pleased him, to say the least.
Just then the door was opened, saving Jimmie the exertion of manufacturing a smooth tale to tell the lieutenant, and the three entered the great hall of the fine residence, where they found Frank awaiting them.
“I was afraid you’d both left the clubroom and couldn’t be found,” he cried, as he took his friends by the hand. “Come right up to my room, and I’ll show you just how the thieves got the emerald necklace.”
“Perhaps we ought to see your father first,” Lieutenant Gordon suggested, thinking of something much more important, to him at least, than the bauble.
“Father is with Doctor Benson just now,” was the reply.
“Was he seriously injured?” asked Nestor, anxiously.