“It’s typewritten!” Judy exclaimed. She couldn’t help thinking of Holly’s stolen typewriter.
“Danny,” Peter asked, his voice grave, “have you any idea what this business is?”
The boy shook his head. He seemed as confused as they were. “I hope it’s farming, but it doesn’t sound much like it. Whatever it is, he wants me to help him.”
“Have you helped him, Danny?”
“No-oo,” was the reply to Peter’s question. Danny sounded a little uncertain. He couldn’t be the boy who ran off with Holly’s typewriter. Horace had judged that boy to be about sixteen or seventeen. Judy thought of the matron’s car. Could it have been “borrowed” by Danny’s father that day Miss Hanley and the Jewell sisters were picking apples? Certainly someone had taken it and then returned it.
“Are you sure you haven’t seen your father since he left this note?” Peter continued his questioning.
“Maybe I have. Maybe he was the man I was trailing,” Danny admitted. “I thought that man had no right to go in our house, and so I spied on him. I didn’t speak to him. I didn’t say one word.”
“Did he know you were there?”
“I don’t think so. I heard him muttering something about the beavers. It wasn’t a very nice thing to say. I don’t think my father would talk like that. He—”
If Danny finished answering Peter’s question, Judy failed to hear what he said. The sentence was suddenly drowned out by the shrill sound of a siren that grew increasingly louder. Danny rushed to the window with Judy following him. Peter joined them as soon as he had paid for their lunch.