"A reporter!" exclaimed Ray, all excitement.
"Dear me! I do hope he won't ask for our pictures. Mother would never permit it."
Ed smiled broadly. He looked a sort of assent, but did not otherwise express it.
Cora stepped up to the auto, whereat the man left his place, and, under pretext of walking along idly, and perhaps thus gaining Cora's "private ear," he was soon out of reach of those on the porch.
"It is like a double robbery," he said after exchanging some preliminary remarks, "and the child is disconsolate. Her mother is sure it was not stolen, but lost, while we feel otherwise. It seems there is a handsome young man, a cousin of the child's, interested. His father is a lawyer—the lawyer who has the case against Mr. Robinson. Now this book—the promise book—contained the names of those who visited the cottage on the day that the papers were taken out of the mailbag. It is comparatively easy to guess the sequence."
"You mean they might call on those whose names appear in the book?" asked Cora, beginning to see something of the complex situation.
"Yes, and more than that. They would obtain valuable information from that little book—a clear description of the missing table. If they can find it they will be able to keep the property where it is now—in the possession of Rob Roland, Wren Salvey's rival cousin."
"Rob Roland!" exclaimed Cora. "Why, he was in the party at Robinson's the other evening. He was even attentive to a friend of ours."
"To whom, may I ask?" inquired the detective politely.
"A Miss Thayer, a young student," she replied.