“But on a dreary day of rain and fog, of leaden skies, dripping trees and dull gray waters, one needs a friend.”
Florence nodded.
“If you were to be a detective, a lady detective,” Miss Weightman asked quite abruptly, “what sort would you wish to be, the sort that stays about courts, prisons and parks, looking after women and children, or one who goes out and tracks down really dangerous wrongdoers?”
“I’d want to go after the bad ones.” Florence squared her shoulders.
“Of course you would,” her hostess approved. “I’m after a dangerous one now, a man who is known from Maine to Florida, from Chicago to San Francisco. And he’s up here right now.”
The last declaration burst upon the girl with the force of a bombshell.
“In—in a quiet place like this!” She could not believe her ears.
“It’s a way crooks have of doing,” the other explained. “When they have committed a particularly dangerous crime, or are in possession of stolen goods difficult to dispose of, when the police are after them, they hide out in some quiet place where you’d least expect to find them.
“Besides,” she added, “this location is particularly advantageous. The Canadian border is not far away. In a speed boat, it is but a matter of an hour or two, and you are over the line. He has a speed boat. He has some young men with him. Perhaps they are his sons. Who knows?
“But this—” she checked herself. “This is starting at the wrong end of my story. It can do no harm for you to know the facts from the beginning. I need not pledge you to secrecy. Through my work I have learned to judge character fairly accurately.”