Only a large blotch of oil on the cracked concrete floor revealed where the automobile had stood.
“Have you no idea who took the car?” Penny inquired.
Grimly the Widow Jones closed the shed door and slammed the hasp into place.
“Maybe I have an’ maybe I han’t! Leastwise, I larned forty years ago to keep my lips shut less I could back up my words with proof.”
In silence the widow started back toward the house. Midway to the house, she suddenly paused, listening attentively.
From a nearby tree an owl hooted, but Penny and Salt sensed that was not the sound which had caught the woman’s ear.
She blew out the lantern and wordlessly motioned for the pair to move back into the deep shadow of the tree.
Holding her shirt to keep it from blowing in the night breeze, the woman gazed intently toward a swamp road some distance from the boundary of her land. For the first time, Salt and Penny became aware of a muffled sound of a running truck motor.
“Sounds like a car or truck back there in the swamp,” Salt commented. “Is there a road near here leading in?”
“There’s a road yonder,” the widow answered briefly.