“What’s the record, so far?” she asked carelessly. “Well, I’ll answer myself: not much, although the whole town knows that Mary Louise’s new auto has been stolen and Danny Dexter has disappeared at the same time. Meantime certain details have reached my ears that lead me to believe that Danny Dexter is but one of half a dozen assumed names used by this ex-soldier. The fellow accepted his position with the Colonel as half-chauffeur and half-gardener so that, at the slightest warning, he could use the little auto in making a getaway. In other words, he’s playing a bigger game than we’ve given him credit for.”
“Who told you all this?” inquired Mary Louise, in amazement.
Josie O’Gorman laughed, but before she could answer, there burst into the room from a side closet a big man with the marks of smallpox scattered about his face, a broad, sensitive nose, and shrewd eyes. It was evident at once that he was interested in their discussion.
“Anyone could see that with half an eye,” he made answer. “I’ll buy you half a dozen better automobiles than ‘Queenie’ if you’ll find its driver for me.”
“What about him?” asked Josie staring at him.
“Well, one name’s as good as another, just now, so we’ll still call him Danny Dexter,” responded the detective, leaning back in the chair so as to rest his feet against the wall. “For instance, I’m from Boston, and my name’s Crocker. Understand?”
Josie shook her head. She’d met a lot of detectives at one time or another, and this one seemed familiar, in a way.
“Then it’s a Boston case, after all,” she said in a disappointed voice.
“No, it’s just a Danny Dexter case, let us say,” responded the big man, also in a disappointed voice. “They gave him up in Boston as a bigger crook than they had time to handle, and the Bank was unwilling to spend more money on so elusive an individual. But I had some information of a floating character that came back to me time after time from the war zone that justified me in resigning from the government deal and taking up the case personally. So I’ve been in Dorfield ever since its famous regiment arrived—for the truth is that the Dorfield boys put up as game a fight as any Americans in the Expeditionary Force. Your boys had no press agent, nor any motion picture concern to back them up, so the truth will never be heralded broadcast in newspaper headlines, but take it from me, Dorfield comes under the A-No. 1 class.”
They regarded him a time in silence.