Bessie showed her discouragement.
"I'm afraid you're right there," she said. "I saw him yesterday, after I left you."
"You did? Whew! There's something queer here, Bessie. Now, try to remember just what was said and tell me all about it."
It was not hard for Bessie, guided by a few questions from Jamieson, to do that, and in a few moments she had supplied him with a complete review of her interview with the shyster, Brack, He nodded approvingly when she had finished.
"You did just right," he said, cheerfully. "I guess Mr. Brack won't get much change out of you, Bessie. There's one thing sure, you managed to acquire a lot of sense while you lived in Hedgeville. The sort we call common sense, though I don't know why, because it's the rarest sort of sense there is. Keep on acting just like that when people ask you questions and try to get you to tell them things."
"Do you think anyone else is likely to do that, Mr. Jamieson?"
"You can't tell. I'm all in the dark, you see. This thing acts just like a Chinese puzzle. They're simple enough when you know how to fit the pieces together, and you wonder why they ever stumped you. But until you do guess them—" He stopped, with a comical shrug of his shoulders to indicate his helplessness and his bewilderment, and Bessie laughed.
Then Eleanor came out, and the story of Brack's shrewdness had to be told to her.
"What are you going to do now?" she asked.