Horace was asking questions too fast for Judy to answer, but she did her best. When she told him they’d found the whole lady table refinished and looking like new, he was really surprised.
“Only one leg is missing. It must be the one that was in the beaver dam. I’m sorry now that you didn’t take it,” declared Judy. “It must have been stolen right after you and I left to take Danny back to the orphanage. It was his father who let us into the house. He said the orphans could stay there, but that was before he saw all that loot from the Roulsville flood.”
“It was his own house. He must have known the stuff was there.”
“No, Horace, I don’t think he did. Danny knew it, though. He watched the beavers drag some of that stolen furniture out of the house and build it into their dam. Then, when he saw a man open the door with a key, it was easy for him to believe his father might be the thief.”
“That sounds logical,” Horace commented when Judy stopped to spoon cereal into the mouth of one of the babies. “What do you think?”
“Well, six years ago, Mr. Anderson gave a key to the carpenter he hired to board up the windows. I guessed the carpenter’s name was John Beer. You know he was doing business with Sammis, or trying to. It all hangs together, but Danny’s father can’t see it. He chased us out and called the police the minute I mentioned John Beer’s name. Peter went back there with them, and that’s all I can tell you until I see him,” Judy finished.
All the time she had been talking she had been busy feeding the baby. Its mouth opened and closed as if it were a hungry baby robin. Sister fed her own baby brother, holding the bottle so carefully that he drank every drop. The other two babies already were sleeping.
“What about that picture you took?” Horace questioned when they finally sat down to a late dinner. “You told me over the telephone that I’d have to see it to believe it.”
“Well, here it is,” Judy said, handing him the print. “Peter’s having the film blown up and separated—”
“Holy cow!” Horace interrupted. “I’ve seen the picture, but I still don’t believe it. The beaver dam shows right through this man’s body. Or is it a man? He has a lady’s face. Did our lady table leg come to life and decapitate him?”