“Stole it?” He stared.
“Yes. He stole it. Can’t be any doubt of it. I saw it in his private room. I took it for the rightful owner. This—this camera was behind it. Was it—”
“It was his beyond a doubt.” Danby was staring harder than ever.
At that moment the girl thought she caught some stealthy movement about the ivy outside the window. She looked quickly. Did she catch sight of a face? She could not be sure. If so, it was gone on the instant.
“Hugo!” Danby’s voice rose. “Hugo! He is our spy! Who would believe it!”
He pounded hard on an electric button. Mark Sullivan, the day watchman, appeared at the door.
“Mark,” Danby said in a steady tone, “go find Hugo. Bring him here. If he refuses to come, use force—but bring him!”
But Hugo was not to be found. He was gone. He had flown in the truest sense of the word. Strangest of all, it was the little French girl, Petite Jeanne, who aided in his escape. This may not seem so strange when we recall that Jeanne had never seen Hugo and that Hugo surely had a way with the ladies.
It was late afternoon of that same day. Petite Jeanne sat in the door of her dragon fly airplane. The door faced the sun. She was basking in its warmth. She loved the sun, did this little French girl. She had once heard an aged gypsy say the sun was the smiling face of God. A rather fanciful remark this, yet it had stayed in her mind. “At least,” she told herself, “God made the sun and everything He created is good, so surely He means us to enjoy the sunshine.”
All day long, without presuming to call upon the busy Danby Force, or even upon Florence, Jeanne had wandered through the town and had come to love it.