“Not for the present. If we can crack this story I’d like to get it ahead of the Record.”
“I wish you would send me to Kano’s instead of Jerry.”
“Dorr Street is no place for you, Penny,” Mr. Parker replied, dismissing the matter. “Shall we get to bed now? It’s nearly midnight.”
After the doors had been locked once more Penny went to her room, but she did not immediately fall asleep. Instead, she kept mulling over the events of the night. The more she thought about it the more firmly she became convinced that both the Kohl home and her own had been entered by the same person.
“The telephone was ringing when I came from the movie,” she recalled. “Now I wonder who called? It may have been a trick of the thief to learn if anyone were in the house. When no one answered, the assumption would be that the coast was clear.”
Penny felt rather well satisfied with the way matters had developed. In one bold stroke she had saved Mrs. Weems’ inheritance, convinced the housekeeper that Al Gepper was not to be trusted, and had made definite progress in gaining evidence to be used in her father’s campaign against the charlatan invaders of Riverview. Yet it annoyed her that the story, now that it had reached an active stage, was to be turned over to Jerry.
“I have a notion to visit the Kano Curio Shop ahead of him,” she thought. “That’s exactly what I’ll do!”
Having made up her mind, she rolled over and promptly fell asleep.
In the morning Penny ate breakfast and wiped the dishes with a speed which astonished Mrs. Weems. Shortly after her father left for the office, she backed her own maroon car from the garage, and offering only a vague explanation, departed for Kano’s Curio Shop.
Dorr Street was quite deserted at such an early hour, and the Japanese shop owner had just unlocked his doors. He was sweeping the floor as Penny boldly entered.