"I certainly do. And it's because I don't know just what it is they're after. There's something funny here, something we don't know about at all yet. Maybe her father could tell us, but he isn't ready to do it. And I don't blame him much. I guess, from all I've heard, that he's had about as bad a time here with spies and enemies as he could have had anywhere in Europe."
"You hear that, Zara? You must be very careful. Don't go out alone, and if anyone tries to speak to you, no matter what they tell you, you pay no attention to them. If they keep on bothering you, speak to a policeman, if there's one around, and say that you want him to stop them from bothering you."
"Good idea," said Charlie Jamieson. "And if you do have to speak to a policeman, you mention my name. They all know me, and I guess most of them like me well enough to do any little favor for a friend of mine."
Then Jamieson turned to Bessie.
"We've got to think about your case, too," he said. "Miss Mercer tells me that you don't know what's become of your father and mother. Just what do you know about them?"
"Not very much," said Bessie, bravely, although the disappearance of her parents always weighed heavily on her mind. "When I was a little bit of a girl they left me with the Hoovers, at Hedgeville, and I lived with them after that. Maw Hoover said they promised to come back for me, and to pay her board for looking after me until they came, and that they did pay the board for a while. But then they stopped writing altogether, and no one has heard from them for years."
"H'm! Where did the last letter they wrote come from?"
"San Francisco. I've heard Maw Hoover say that, often. But that was years and years ago."
"Well, that's better than nothing, anyhow. You see, the Hoovers wouldn't have known how to start looking for them, even if they'd been particularly anxious to do it."
"And I don't believe they were," said Eleanor Mercer, indignantly. "They treated her shamefully, Charlie—made her work like a hired girl, and never paid her for it, at all. Instead, they acted, or the woman did, anyhow, just as if they were giving her charity in letting her stay there. Wasn't that an outrage?"