Penny read the message twice, scowling at the sentence: “Are you sure it is the same man?” It was clear to her that her father did not have a great deal of faith in her identification. And obviously, he did not believe that anything could be gained by making a special trip to Pine Top to see the hotel man.
Thrusting the paper into the pocket of her jacket she went out into the cold.
“No one seems to rate my detective work very highly,” she complained to herself. “But when Dad gets my letter telling him about the Green Door he may take a different attitude!”
Skis slung over her shoulder, she began the weary climb back to the Downey lodge. Before Penny had walked very far she saw that she was overtaking a man on the narrow trail ahead of her. Observing that it was Ralph Fergus, she immediately slowed her steps.
The hotel man did not turn his head to glance back. He kept walking slower and slower as if in deep thought, and after a time he reached absently into his pocket for a letter.
As he pulled it out, another piece of pale gray paper fluttered to the ground. Fergus did not notice that he had lost anything. The wind caught the paper and blew it down the slope toward Penny.
“Oh, Mr. Fergus!” she called. “You dropped something!”
The wind hurled her words back at her. Realizing that she could not make the man hear, Penny quickened her pace. After a short chase she rescued the paper when it caught on the thorns of a snow-caked bush.
At first glance Penny thought she had gone to trouble for no purpose. The paper seemed to be blank. But as she turned it over she saw a single line of jumbled letters:
YL GFZKY GLULFFLS