“Honey,” she said, “you and your little friends came up to see Mr. Stratford’s wrecked aeroplane at my house, didn’t you?”
“And it wasn’t much more of a wreck than your canoe,” said the sharp little thing. “I guess you’ll have to walk back to Roselawn, Miss Jessie, and you’re all wet, too.”
Amy laughed, but Jessie said:
“That doesn’t trouble me much, Henrietta. Our skirts will dry. What I wanted to ask you about is your being up at Roselawn the other evening with your friends. I didn’t see you but a minute. But you had been there some time, hadn’t you?”
“Before that chauffeur came out and chased us? Yes’m, we was.”
“Of course you didn’t touch anything?”
“What, me?” cried Henrietta. “Sure I touched things. I wanted to see what that flying plane was made of. I never got so near one—not even a smashed one—before. Course I touched it.”
“But you didn’t pick anything up and carry it away?” Jessie asked earnestly.
“What you meaning, Miss Jessie? Do you think we stole something? That chauffeur did.”
“I do not think you stole anything, Henrietta,” Jessie assured her. “But something of value has been lost by the young man who fell in the plane. Some of you might have seen it and taken it. And it may still be up there at my house.”