"I don't know," admitted Penny. "It just came to me all at once. Walter Crocker mysteriously disappeared—"
"You mean he went back to the city."
"We don't know that at all," Penny argued. "Did anyone except you and me see Walter Crocker? No! He went to talk with his uncle, Herman Crocker, and was seen no more. His automobile mysteriously appears in Crocker's barn—"
"Not so loud!" Mr. Nichols warned. "I think Mrs. Masterbrook is standing by the dining room door."
Penny subsided into hurt silence. She felt that her theories were logical and she did not like to have her father tease her.
"Well, anyway I didn't think up the toy lantern clue!" she muttered under her breath.
"That reminds me, I must telephone Inspector Harris," said Mr. Nichols. "I hope he thinks more of my theory than you do."
Penny could tell that her father was growing deeply interested in the Kirmenbach robbery case and following his talk with Inspector Harris, he admitted that he had promised to do further work.
"It's likely to be a tough case," he told Penny the next morning. "Harris thinks we'll have no luck in tracing the toy lantern. I'm driving over to the Kirmenbach place again this morning."
"I believe I'll stay here this time," she replied.