“The poor little thing! There is a lot in that. How should we like to wear nothing but second-hand clothes?”
“‘Hand me downs’,” giggled Amy. “But mind you! A cape-coat suit! Can you beat it?”
“I saw pictures of ’em in a fashion book Mrs. McGuire sent for,” went on Henrietta. “They are awful taking.”
Little Henrietta proved to be an interesting specimen for the Norwood family that evening. Momsy took her wonted interest in so appealing a child. The serving people were curious and 132 attentive. Mr. Norwood confessed that he was much amused by the young visitor.
A big dictionary placed in an armchair, raised little Henrietta to the proper height at the Norwood dinner table. Nothing seemed to trouble or astonish the visitor, either about the food or the service. And Jessie and Momsy wondered at the really good manners the child displayed.
Mrs. Foley had not wholly neglected her duty in Henrietta’s case. And there seemed to be, too, a natural refinement possessed by the girl that aided her through what would have seemed a trying experience.
Best of all, Henrietta could give a good description of her missing cousin. Her name was Bertha Blair, and that was the name of the girl Mr. Norwood’s clerk had interviewed before she had been whisked away by Martha Poole and Sadie Bothwell.
In addition, Mr. Norwood had brought home photographs of the two women, and both Jessie and Amy identified them as the women they had seen in Dogtown Lane, forcing the strange girl into the automobile.
“It is a pretty clear case,” the lawyer admitted. “We know the date and the place where the missing witness was. But the thing is now to trace the movements of those women and their prisoner after they drove away from Dogtown Lane.” 133
Nevertheless, he considered that every discovery, even a small one, was important. Detectives would be started on the trail. Jessie and Amy rode back to Dogtown in the Norwoods’ car with the excited Henrietta after dinner, leaving her at the Foleys’ with the promise that they would see her soon again.