“Like some of the mansions in Farringdon?” asked Honey.
“No doubt. They were all built around 1880 and if you ask me they weren’t beautiful, even then. Most of them ought to be torn down. They’re regular firetraps besides being so hideous that nobody wants to live in them. Modern houses like the new ones going up in Roulsville are more to my taste.”
“Mine, too,” Honey whispered, and a look passed between them that made Judy wonder if Honey might not be forgetting her employer’s handsome young son for Judy’s own not so handsome but lovable brother.
Honey was having a hard time choosing between her two suitors and seemed in no great hurry to make up her mind. Judy knew how it was. She had once faced the same problem. If she had married handsome Arthur Farringdon-Pett instead of Peter Dobbs, her home might have been one of the mansions they were talking about. Judy did not consider them hideous.
“I like old houses,” she told her brother. “I guess Grandma knew it when she left me her house and gave you the land. You can build your modern house on it whenever you’re ready. I like all houses, both old and new, if they’re real homes and not built just for show.”
“The Riker mansion used to be called a show-place. I’m sure I don’t know who would look at it way back there in the woods,” Horace said, “but I’m told that before the robbery it was filled with art treasures, including a world-famous collection of jade.”
“A museum of Oriental art, according to your article,” quoted Judy. “I don’t see the sense of keeping such valuable things in a private home.”
“For once,” Horace said, “we agree on something. Paul Riker needed a flock of servants just to take care of all the stuff he collected. The police estimate the loot as being worth a quarter of a million dollars and maybe more. An actual evaluation can’t be made until Mr. Riker returns from his travels. The police are trying to get in touch with him, but nobody seems to know where he is.”
“That must have made it convenient for the robbers,” Judy commented. “Do you really think the caretaker might be involved?”
“I’ll have to talk with him before I know what to think,” replied Horace. “How would you girls like to drive out there with me this afternoon? We might pick up a few clues, maybe run into Peter—”