“Is there one bit of use for either you or me working on this case any longer?” she inquired. “If there is, I’m willing to stay and help, but if there isn’t, I guess there’re more important things for both of us in Washington.”
“You’re right, you are,” agreed Crocker most definitely. “I hate like the devil to give up the case but the man could hide here in the dunes indefinitely, and I haven’t time to wait.”
“Of course,” added Josie, “the auto theft solved itself; they didn’t really need me.”
“I’m not so sure, you gave them confidence and courage when they needed it,” said Crocker, kindly, and reaching out a huge hand in friendly farewell, “you’re a game youngster and I hope I run across you often.” And Crocker strode down the front stairs to the waiting Lonsdale.
Josie turned back into the hall, glancing at Danny’s cap that had been left on the hall tree, and at the little parasol of Mary Louise’s leaning near it. A whimsical smile flashed over her face.
“Well,” she soliloquized, “I’ve not made very much out of this case, but at least I’ve detected one thing—and that is the way the wind blows in that quarter.”
With an all-inclusive glance at the parasol and cap she fled up the stairs.
CHAPTER XVII
THE BIRTHDAY BREAKFAST
The sun was away up in the sky and was flooding her room with a warm radiance when Mary Louise awoke. The soft twitter of the birds and the clip-clip of a lawn mower next door came in through the windows. Stretching her slender body and yawning prodigiously, she clambered out of bed. The breeze was softly fluttering the curtains, and a tiny moss rosebud which had climbed that high, tapped alluringly against the sill of the open window.