“I thought during the night that I heard a noise in the cellar. But laying it to the cat, I didn’t get up, though now I wish I had.”
“But what would a burglar be doing in your cellar?” I further stared at him.
“That’s the queer part. Nothing was taken. But every jar of pickles that we owned was opened and the pickles dumped into a pile in the middle of the floor.”
Again I raised the “Stop!” signal on him.
“Make it ketchup,” I grimaced.
“Come to think of it,” he laughed, “it was ketchup. But I’d like to have you tell me,” he went on, serious again, “why a burglar should break into our cellar and destroy our canned pick—I mean our ketchup.”
As I have written down in other books, mentioned in the preface of this book, I have had a good bit of experience solving unusual mysteries. At one time I really called myself a Juvenile Jupiter Detective. That was in my “Whispering Mummy” book. So I’m right at home on the “mystery” dope.
“The burglar was looking for something,” says I, showing my stuff. “And if you’re half as smart as I think you are you ought to guess what that something is.”
“Diamonds?” says he.
“Nothing else but.”