"Sure it would be sufficient," said Peaches. "But then I'd have to give myself away pretty badly, wouldn't I? And there might be a roughhouse. Pa is a dead shot and I'd rather get him out of shooting distance before I break the information to him. At present he just about thinks I'm crazy in the head."
"Well, I'll do what I can to persuade him that this is the twentieth century and not the middle ages!" I responded. "This indignity certainly cannot be allowed to continue. But suppose you—we do get away from here to-day, what then? How do you propose to find a thief that the police will have a hard time discovering?"
"I don't propose," said Peaches. "I intend. That's a whole lot stronger. How, I haven't the remotest idea. But it's plain enough I can't do anything while they've got me cooped up like a marketable yearling, can I? Let's get out of this, that's the first thing to accomplish."
"Very well," I agreed, gathering up my reticule and taking up the house-telephone receiver.
I asked to speak with Mr. Pegg. The request was at once attended to by the footman who responded, and in a tone which brooked no delay I commanded the Citrus King to come upstairs and release me. My tone must have foreshadowed the mood I was in, for he responded as if by magic. In less than five minutes I was face to face with him in the hall.
"Come on over and sit down in the conservatory, Miss Free," he entreated as soon as he saw my face. "We want to keep the servants out of this much as we can, you know!"
"All right, Mr. Pegg," I agreed, for this was my own thought. "All right. But if you allow the situation to continue you will have a hard time in doing that!"
Accordingly we repaired down the corridor to a little glass room full of plants, where we could talk in seclusion. Mr. Pegg, as usual, chewed upon an unlighted cigar and looked at me thoughtfully over the top of it, his shrewd eyes half closed.
"You've got awfully pretty hair, Miss Free," said he unexpectedly. "I'm glad you've took back to them curls again."