Jeanette looked wildly around to see if she could see a policeman, but there were none in sight.
“We know nothing about any of your affairs,” said Nancy firmly.
The man laughed unpleasantly.
“Maybe you don’t know me, but I know you; and your friends too. You’ve done me a couple of ill turns, and now to pay up a little you can tell me where Georgia is.”
Now Nancy knew where she had seen him before. The peculiar acting man in front of them in the theater that day so long ago; Georgia in tears in the lobby; the girls taking her to tea, and making up enough to send her home; the meeting with Georgia in the store at Christmas time; her months of boarding at Janie’s house. All this flashed through her mind, followed immediately by the picture of a man bending over her dresser one night at college; his capture by means of her flashlight; the room filled with girls; Tim’s entrance to take the man into custody.
“Georgia!” gasped Jeanette.
“Yes, Georgia,” repeated the man. “You tried to coax her away from me, by getting her to live at your house; but I fixed that! You didn’t want her any more after you found out about the brooch. Did you?”
The girls were so surprised and shocked by the man’s words that they were absolutely speechless.
“She came back with me for a while after that,” he continued, “and then gave me the slip again. Now what I want to know is, where is she? Where have you hidden her?”
“We know nothing at all about Georgia’s whereabouts,” said Nancy, finding her voice at last. “We only wish we did. We too have been looking for her for a long time.”