“Man’s job!” she interrupted, with a scornful snort.
“Well he felt that girls around would sort of gum things up. He sent us packing in pretty short order.”
“Then he came?” she asked with curiosity. “Did anything happen?”
I told her about Aunt Cal’s interruption of the vigil and then about the departure of the mysterious stranger from the house next door.
“My goodness,” she exclaimed when I had finished. “Then there is something to it. The man’s a crook or he wouldn’t sneak off like that in the dead of night. I certainly am glad Hamish wasn’t there to see him, though. Why he might have been trailing the man yet, he might even have followed him onto a ship and gone to sea!”
“Well, you know persistence is a fine quality,” I remarked.
“Oh, yes, it’s all very well for you to stand up for him but you didn’t spend the night under lock and key. I kept waking up and thinking what I would do if there was a fire, and I thought how Hamish would feel when he gazed at my charred body!”
“Oh, well, there wasn’t any fire and you spent a comfortable night in bed instead of on the damp ground,” Eve said soothingly.
Hattie May seemed to be thinking. “I do think it’s a crime that a man like that should be allowed to escape,” she said at last. “I wonder if Hamish knows about it?”
“Well, since you’re not on speaking terms with him,” I giggled, “I don’t see how you’re going to find out. Besides if you’re leaving on the afternoon train——”