“Sure thing,” said Danny. “I see the point.”
Twenty minutes served to land Patsy at his destination. He sprang from the car a block south of the Duffy place, still in disguise, and then directed Danny to return home with the car.
“I have no further use for it, and the chief may need it,” he added, lingering for a moment. “I’m to be guided by what I discover.”
Sauntering into a corner grocery store near which they had stopped, Patsy inquired where Duffy lived, merely to pave the way for further questions. He then learned, without incurring suspicion that Duffy was a dabbler in stocks, that he had no other business, that he had a wife and one son, Margaret and Jimmie, the latter a lad of ten years, also that the youngster had fiery-red hair.
“The danger hue. He’s in the peril zone, all right,” thought Patsy, sauntering out. “This is good enough for me. I’ll now find out who is in the Duffy house, if possible, and then I’ll phone the chief another pointer.”
Instead of approaching it from in front, however, Patsy walked round the square and viewed the rear of the dwelling.
It proved to be an attractive wooden house on a corner lot, somewhat back from the avenue and with a driveway entrance from the side street, leading to a stone garage and a cement yard in front of it. The garage door was open and the car gone.
“Gee! that looks a bit bad,” thought Patsy. “Windows all down and some of the shutters closed. No one at home but the cook, perhaps, and she is in the soup. No, by gracious, I’m wrong. There’s a woman heading for the front door.”
Glancing furtively through one of the side windows while he passed, Patsy caught sight of her skirts fluttering through the main hall. He timed his steps so as to[Pg 21] pause at the corner of the house just as the woman emerged from the front door.
It was the woman he was seeking—Kate Crandall.