"You're wrong there, Penny. Did you notice the wick?"
"Why, it was just an old piece of cloth."
"Exactly. When the old wick tore away, some ingenious child fashioned another from a piece of clothing."
"And you hope that it will be possible to trace the cloth?" Penny asked in amazement.
"That is what I shall try to do."
"You surely don't think that a child committed the robbery, Dad?"
"Hardly, Penny. But the thief may have a child of his own or a small brother. There is a slight chance that the lantern was left deliberately, but I rather doubt such a possibility."
Turning in at their own cottage, Penny and her father noticed a strange car standing by the picket fence.
"It looks as if we have a visitor," the detective observed.
Penny saw a man in a light overcoat standing by the porch talking with the housekeeper. As she and her father came up the walk, he turned to stare at them.