“’Tisn’t either.” Hamish pulled off the string of the package. “You see, I noticed as soon as I saw this fellow Trout that he was goin’ bald. So naturally when I ran into a fellow peddlin’ hair tonic——”
“Hair tonic!” came in a chorus from Eve and me.
“Yup.” Hamish held up a large black bottle. Somehow I knew what the label would say before I read it—“Harry’s Hair Restorer”!
“Hamish,” I demanded tensely, “where did you get it?”
“Why, I just been tellin’ you, on the street in Millport. A fellow was peddlin’ it—said it was his own secret formula that he’d used for twenty years. And, boy, you oughta seen his hair!”
“Golly!” said Michael, swallowing half a sandwich at a gulp. “Can you beat that?”
“Well, what’s eatin’ you?” Hamish’s gaze traveled from him to Eve’s face and mine. “You all look ’sif I’d committed a crime or sumpin! I guess the stuff isn’t poison and anyhow nobody’s going to drink it. The way I figure with a head like Trout’s, anything he can do—even if it only grows him a couple of hairs—is better than leavin’ things go the way they are!”
“Look here,” asked Michael. “This fellow you bought the stuff of, is he still in Millport?”
“How do I know? I didn’t ask him where he was going. Say, what’s all the excitement anyway?”
“The excitement is,” I said, “that our Mr. Bangs, in addition to carrying cryptic documents in his suitcase, also carried a cargo of hair tonic which I guess we forgot to tell you about—bottles labeled ‘Harry’s Hair Restorer’ and so forth.”