“Yes, we were! But we didn’t stay long. Before we had ordered our dinner, my husband remembered an important appointment he had made. We had to leave suddenly. It was awfully disappointing. I never went to a night club before and I wanted to see the show!”
Mrs. Potts paused, obviously waiting for Penny to leave. “I’ll tell my husband you called,” she said. “You didn’t give me your name.”
Edging out of the door, Penny pretended not to hear the latter remark. Calling over her shoulder that she would try to see Mr. Potts at the bank next day, she retreated before the woman could learn her identity.
Walking toward the bus stop, the girl reflected upon what she had learned. The financial good fortune of the Potts’ family was very puzzling. Apparently the bank secretary’s salary had been increased since the disappearance of his employer, Mr. Rhett.
“It seems a queer time to raise the man,” she mused. “If his duties have become so much heavier, I suppose the bank board may have granted a compensating wage increase. But it must have been an enormous one to enable him to buy everything in the stores!”
As Penny waited at the street corner for a home-bound bus, she saw one approaching which was headed for the outlying section near the Rhett estate area. Impulsively, she decided to go there to see Lorinda.
“I may not get into the house,” she thought. “My luck is running badly today. Anyway, I’ll give it a try.”
It was nearly four o’clock by the time Penny alighted from the bus and walked to the Rhett estate. Her heart sank as she noticed that curtains were drawn in nearly all of the front windows of the house.
“No one here,” she thought. “Lorinda and her mother may have left town to escape questioning by reporters and the police.”
Because she had come so far, she knocked on the front door. No one came. Giving it up, she wandered around the house, into the garden.