“But—”
“Smelled it when I came into the house just now.” Then he continued, laughingly:
“Have been hankering for corned beef all day, and that’s the reason I invited myself over.”
“You know you’re always welcome, Charlie,” said the Colonel, highly pleased, “and we’ll have a couple of these fine ‘Cannel’ cigars after the meal,” promised the Colonel. “I keep a few of them on hand just for guests like you.”
“This don’t seem much like finding my car—and poor Danny Dexter,” pouted Mary Louise. “That machine can easily go sixty miles an hour, so we may be fifty miles farther away from it since you arrived, Chief Lonsdale.”
“Possible,” admitted the Chief, “and it’ll take an hour more to eat supper and—I may stay with you all night. Still we didn’t fix any time limit on capturing the thief, so there’s no hurry that I can see.”
Irene and the Colonel were nervous and—to an extent—so was Mary Louise, but the latter girl was more composed than the others. As for the Chief, he seemed to have forgotten all about the task on which they had embarked—after he had telephoned to some man in his office.
CHAPTER VII
A TELEGRAM
“What do you think of telegraphing to Josie O’Gorman?” asked the Colonel, after taking his granddaughter into a corner after dinner.