“If it fits at all, my guess is that Sam and Mattie are buying illegal tires—perhaps from the same men who stripped my car and threatened Dad.”
Driving slowly toward Riverview, Penny reviewed what she had seen. She was convinced the information was valuable, yet she scarcely knew how to use it.
“If Salt suggests that I report to the police, that’s what I’ll do,” she decided.
Enroute home, Penny stopped at another garage to make arrangements to have her stripped coupe hauled into the city.
“How about the Icicle?” Louise asked, thinking her chum had forgotten the iceboat.
“It will have to stay where it is for the time being,” Penny replied. “If it’s stolen, I won’t much care.”
At the Sidell home, the girls separated. Thanking Louise for the use of the car, Penny returned afoot to the Star office. Salt Sommers was absent on assignment, so she did not linger long. As she rounded a street corner on her way home, a newsboy for a rival paper blocked her path.
“Read all about it!” he shouted. “Anthony Parker Believed Kidnaped! Paper, Miss?”
Penny dropped a coin into the lad’s hand and hastily scanned the front page. The story of her father’s disappearance was a highly colored account, but contained not a useful item of information. Tossing the sheet into a street paper-container, she moved on.
She was passing the Gillman Department Store when her attention was drawn to a woman who waited for a bus.