The scarlet car, full of young girls, was no longer an unusual sight in the town of West Haven, and people had ceased now to turn and stare at the “Motor Maids,” as Captain Brown had christened them one morning when they had taken him for a drive in the automobile.
Through the town they sped and out to the open road. The crisp autumn air nipped their cheeks and brought the color to their faces. As they passed Boulder Lane they looked curiously at the fisherman’s house in the distance.
“I am certain those men who took your car were smugglers,” announced Nancy. “Father says there are lots of them.”
“Perhaps,” said Billie, “and I am certain of another thing: that it was the same one-armed man who was on the roof of the hotel the night of the fire.”
“But there are lots of one-armed men in the world, child,” replied Nancy.
“Perhaps, but there was something familiar about him. And, besides, why did he ask me those questions about the girls at the hotel in the red automobile?”
“And, ‘curiser and curiser,’ what did he want with the box of jewels? And how did he know we had them?” said Elinor.
“I really couldn’t say,” answered Nancy. “Ask me something easier.”
Seeing nothing ahead of them in the road, Billie had let the car go full speed. It was what they all loved, even Mary Price, who had gradually got over a certain timidity she used to feel when the car shot through the air like a sky-rocket, and it was Mary Price now, grown unusually bold from familiarity with speeding, who suddenly jumped up and cried in her high, sweet voice:
“I’ve got it! I’ve got it!”