A full quarter of an hour had passed. Her nerves were all but at the breaking point, when of a sudden, without a sound, the lady of the island stood beside her.
“O. K.,” she said in a low tone. “Let’s go.”
They were some distance from the island when at last the lady spoke again.
“That,” she said in a very matter-of-fact tone, “is Gamblers’ Island. And I am a lady cop from Chicago.”
“A—a lady cop!” Florence stared at her as if she had never seen her before.
“A lady policeman,” the other replied quietly. “In other words, a detective. Women now take part in nearly every field of endeavor. Why not in this? They should. Men have found that there are certain branches of the detective service that naturally belong to women. We are answering the challenge.
“But listen!” She held up a hand for silence.
To their waiting ears came the sound of a haunting refrain. The sound came, not from the island they had just left, but from the other, the supposedly uninhabited one.
“They say—” into the lady’s voice there crept a whimsical note, “that this island was once owned by a miser. He disappeared years ago. His cabin burned long since. Perhaps he has returned from another world to thrum a harp, or it may be only a banjo. We must have a look!”
She turned the prow of her boat that way and rowed with strength and purpose in the direction from which the sound came.