“Me? I was just waiting for the drawbridge to go down.”
Mr. Parker, Salt, and the policemen he had brought to the scene, rushed to the edge of the bridge. A police boat had drawn up beside the badly listing cruiser, and three men prisoners and a girl were being taken off.
“How bad is it?” Penny called anxiously.
“All captured alive,” answered her father. “Salt, get that camera of yours into action! Where’s Jerry? He would be missing at a time like this! What happened anyhow? Can’t someone tell me?”
Penny had fully recovered the power of speech, and with a most flattering audience, she recounted her adventures.
“Excuse me just a minute,” she interrupted herself.
Turning her back, she pulled a sodden photograph from the front of her dress and handed it to her father.
“This picture is in pretty bad shape,” she said, “but it’s clue number one. You see, it’s a photograph of Miss Kippenberg, and on the back is written, ‘To Father, with all my love.’ I found the picture this afternoon in Room 381 at the Colonial Hotel.”
“Then you’ve located Kippenberg?” one of the G men demanded.
“I have. He’s been masquerading as the Kippenberg gardener, coming back here no doubt to witness the marriage of his daughter.”