“Of course I sha’n’t,” answered Harry indignantly. “Don’t you suppose I know more about—about detecting than that? I’ll just make believe that I’m a visitor looking around the school. And maybe I’ll meet him and ask him some questions. Wouldn’t that be funny?”
“He’d know your voice in a minute,” said Roy.
“I’d disguise it, like this,” Harry replied, sinking her voice until it sounded like the croak of a raven. “You couldn’t tell it was me, could you?”
“I should say not!” Roy declared with emphasis. “You sound the way Methuselah did the time he had a sore throat!”
“You’re not very complimentary,” said Harry with a pout. “But I suppose detectives mustn’t mind that. Now I think we’d better go, don’t you?”
Roy agreed and Harry carefully lowered her veil. At the door she turned.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” she said. “I found that book last night after you went, and my name is Estrella De Vere. Isn’t it lovely?”
“Fine and dandy!” answered Roy. “It sounds almost real.”
He remained inside until Harry had passed down the steps and was sauntering with elaborate unconcern toward School Hall. Then he went out on to the porch and watched. Harry, her blue skirt trailing regally behind her, stopped in front of the entrance, leaned on her umbrella and studied the architecture of the building. A group of boys on the porch stopped talking and viewed her curiously. Presently, with a nod of approval, Harry turned and walked slowly up the path toward the Cottage, pausing at length to take in the details of that modest structure quite as thoroughly. The boys on the porch, Roy observed, were laughing and making fun of the queer figure. At that moment the door of School Hall opened again and Dick hurried out and along the path toward Harry, who had now turned and was sauntering back toward the hall. As he went he cast a quick and cautious glance about him and Roy, although he tried to draw back out of sight, knew that Dick had seen him. Dick’s gaze now was on the person in the black veil. When he reached the place where the path to the Cottage branched off from the road to the barn he seemed to hesitate an instant. Then he turned to the right toward the Cottage and Estrella De Vere.