Jess and Bobby were both disappointed and disturbed over the interview with Professor Dimp. Laura said so little about it that Jess was really suspicious.
“Can you see through it?” she demanded. “What do you think the Dimple means?”
“I haven’t the least idea,” said her chum, frankly.
But there was another thought which Laura Belding was not so frank about. She spoke of this to neither Jess nor Bobby.
They agreed, as they went back toward their camp, with Barnacle, that they would take nobody into their confidence about the professor being up here at Lake Dunkirk, fishing. Suspicious circumstances had attached themselves to the old gentleman’s presence here; yet the girls could not believe that Professor Dimp had anything to do with the raid on their larder, or the frightening of Liz Bean the evening previous. 160
However, Laura took Liz aside when they arrived at the camp and endeavored to get the truth out of her.
“Liz,” she said to the sad-faced girl, who seemed gloomier than ever on this morning, “who was the man who scared you in the rain last evening?”
The maid-of-all-work did not look startled. Perhaps she had nerved herself already for just this question.
She merely stared at Laura unblinkingly and asked. “What, Ma’am?”
“Don’t pretend that you don’t know what I mean, Liz,” said Laura, impatiently. “I found the man’s tracks and the Barnacle found his camp for us. The man came right into this tent last evening in all that storm, and you let him out at the back and laced down the flaps.