“There you are!”
“Still I think Mr. Holmes must be a whole lot richer than Farmer Weeks, or than all the other people in Hedgeville put together. And it doesn’t seem as if there was any money he could make out of Zara or me that would tempt him to do what he’s done.”
“Do you know what I’ve noticed most, Bessie, about the way he’s gone to work?”
“No. What?”
“The way he has spent money. He’s acted as if he didn’t care a bit how much it cost him, if only he got what he wanted. And people in the city never spend money unless they expect to get it back.”
“Who’s the detective now? You called me one a little while ago, but it seems to me that you’re doing pretty well in that line yourself.”
“Oh, it’s all right to laugh, but, just the same, I’ll bet that when we get at the bottom of all this mystery, we’ll find that the chief reason Mr. Holmes was in it was that he wanted to get hold of some information that would make it easy for him to get a whole lot more than it cost him.”
“Well, maybe you’re right, Dolly. But I’d certainly like to know just what he has got up his sleeve.”
“I think he’ll be careful for a little while now, Bessie. He never knew that Miss Eleanor had that letter he’d written to the gypsy. And it must have damaged him a lot to have as much come out about that as did.”
“I expect a lot of people who heard it didn’t believe it.”