"I wonder?" said Josephine, with a side glance at Forrester. Then added, "Of course, Mrs. Prentice does not realize what a rival Miss Sturtevant will be for Diana."
Forrester glared at Josephine. Until she had taken up his recent meeting with Mary Sturtevant, it had been her custom to tease him about Diana, Prentice's daughter. Josephine had professed to believe that a genuinely serious affair was developing, at least on Diana's part.
"Josephine," remonstrated Mrs Forrester, "you must not make light of Bob's interest in Diana. I should be most pleased to see Bob select her as his life's partner. Miss Sturtevant is here only for a brief visit, and they have met but once; simply by chance. One cannot be so much attracted to a chance acquaintance as to one who has been a friend since childhood."
"Very wisely spoken, Mother," approved Forrester, with a triumphant look at Josephine.
"I am satisfied to await the developments of Saturday evening," returned Josephine, and finished her breakfast in silence, while his mother explained to Forrester the details of the day's plans.
The knowledge that the solution of the case was now practically out of his hands left Forrester with a sensation of loss. Never before had he felt so thoroughly bereft of an object in life. He rather welcomed, therefore, the information that the household moving would take place on Friday instead of Saturday as originally planned. Throughout the morning he was busily engaged in assisting his mother and sister to pack, in the securing of a motor truck to carry their trunks and bags, and the various other little details connected with the removal of the household for the summer season.
Shortly after luncheon his mother, sister and the servants left in the big car. It was a dark, gray day with low-hanging clouds and a chill wind blowing off the lake. As Forrester stood by the curb watching the car disappear down the street, he found that a light, misty rain was falling. The weather affected him strongly under the circumstances and he returned to the house with a feeling of depression. Forrester seemed to find something sinister about the deserted house. The closing of the front door behind him echoed through the lonely rooms, and the thud of his feet was uncannily loud as he passed down the hall to the library.
Forrester laughed, shook himself and hunted up his pipe.
"The truth is," he said, aloud, as the tobacco glowed under the match, "my nerves are getting ragged."
In spite of the fact that the detectives had assured him that the solution of the mystery was close at hand Forrester could not fully convince himself that the matter was to be settled in so commonplace a way. The discoveries which he had made must surely possess some significance. It did not seem possible that a band of West Side Italians, far away from the oak tree on the North Shore, could be back of the so-called ghostly manifestations of which he had heard so many rumors, and which Green claimed to have actually witnessed. If these apparitions had no connection with the "Friends of the Poor," then what was their purpose?