“Dear Mary Louise:
“Will be with you to-morrow morning at eight o’clock. Remind Aunt Sally of my insatiable appetite as that’s usually your breakfast hour. With love,
“Josie.”
“Aha! that’s one thing off my mind,” cried Mary Louise, crushing the paper and then spreading it out the full size of the sheet. “It’s well for us that Josie is at home and willing to pick up a case of such a character. There is too much mystery about the case for us to undertake it without the help and backing of that clever girl, and if she is unable to solve the mystery, her father will give her all the necessary help to find both the automobile and Danny Dexter.”
By the time they had adopted Josie O’Gorman’s leadership and decided to depend upon it, the three had left the police office and started for home. It was very annoying both to the Colonel and to Mary Louise to travel on foot after constant use of an automobile. The Chief, having urgent business in another part of the city, was unable to take them in his auto. As they slowly walked toward home, they discussed the mystery and rejoiced that Josie was going to help them solve it.
“She isn’t much of a detective,” remarked the old Colonel, “but she wins as often as she loses, and she’s earnest and hard-working; more-over, she has her father’s brains to appeal to, and there are no more skillful ones in all Washington than those of John O’Gorman.”
“To be sure,” said Mary Louise, as she clung to her grandfather’s arm. “They first sent him to France to take charge of the Secret Service bureau there, but he was recalled because there were more important duties here. Josie wrote me there were a thousand suspects in America to one abroad. Besides, each nation has its corps and band of detectives and some are especially clever.”
“It’s a good thing for us,” declared the old gentleman, “for it gives us Josie, and with her the advice of the shrewdest secret service man in America.”
CHAPTER VIII
THE ARRIVAL OF JOSIE O’GORMAN
Josie O’Gorman did not bother to ring the doorbell next morning. She went around to Aunt Sallie’s outside kitchen door, which always stood open at this hour, and after a word of greeting to the black mammy, made her way to the cosy little room which she always occupied when visiting there. Afterward she quietly unpacked the contents of her suitcase. This being accomplished Josie went downstairs to find Colonel Hathaway there alone, sipping his coffee behind his newspaper while awaiting Mary Louise.
“Good mornin’,” she said, and threw her arms around her old friend and heartily kissed him.