CHAPTER XXIV
MARY LOUISE LOSES HER SLIPPER
When the party had about given up the search, Danny at last found an excuse to get Mary Louise by herself in the shadows of the small garage.
“Let’s sit down a moment by this queer old tank,” he said, “for I’ve something most important to show you, Mary Louise.”
Danny handed her the small gold pencil with its monogram “J. O’H.” Startled, Mary Louise took it from him. “Why—why—Danny, then it is certain that your uncle has been here, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” answered Danny grimly, “and it’s certain he was here yesterday if Josie saw three men!”
“Mary Louise,” he added, “I don’t like this place at all. I can’t tell you how distressed I feel about Uncle Jim. Why, any person on this spot—that beautiful woman included—would kill as indifferently as they’d tell lies!”
Mary Louise was white with horror and her hands were clasped in despair. She was digging with the heel of her little pump into the packed sand as though to tear up the secret of O’Hara’s whereabouts.
Suddenly a strange thing happened. Her toe caught in a running root and pulled the pump from off her foot, and then, wonder of wonders, the pump completely disappeared! Amazement was written wide upon the faces of the two as they stood up to hunt for it. But look as Danny might, with Mary Louise hobbling after him as best she could, there was not a single trace of the missing slipper.
“I sympathized with Cinderella,” ruefully remarked Mary Louise, as she very carefully placed her stocking foot upon some twigs crossed loosely on the ground.
Then she gave a little scream of fright. Her foot had broken through the twigs and she sank to the ground caught in a good-sized hole.