The other laughed.
“You must hate the henpecked old man, Jerry, to suggest a thing like that. For what Mrs. Samantha Ann Danver Doane would do to him, huh? Boy, oh boy! No, let’s keep his secret. Then by watching him, and finding out why he’s doing these things, we ought to quickly clear up the mystery.”
I saw what Poppy meant. We knew what the old man was doing, but we weren’t wise to his object. And to get wise was to be our job.
“Do you suppose,” was the theory I then brought out, “that the old geezer is working with the spy, and that he came downstairs to-night to let the other man in the house?”
“That’s a good guess. But it so happened that I had the door key. See? Hence disappointment for old Ivory Dome, and possibly, as you say, for the other guy, too.”
“You didn’t get a look at him?”
“No. I was within a few feet of him once, but he gave me the slip. I think he lit out for New Zion.”
“Anyway,” says I, “you wouldn’t have known who he was if you had seen his face. For the people around here are all strangers to you.”
“I could have described him to Mrs. Doane.”
Having dried Poppy’s clothes beside the kitchen fire, we went to bed, at one o’clock, and slept until breakfast time.