The man gave her a quick look, then sprang to his feet. The next instant he was scrambling over the rocks.
When he arrived at the spot where the girl had been, she was nowhere to be seen. It was as if the lake had swallowed her up; which, perhaps it had.
Apparently the man believed it had, for he sat down upon the rocks to wait. Ten minutes passed. Not a ripple disturbed the surface.
He looked toward the windlass and the net. Snowball, too, had vanished.
“Crooks!” he muttered. “All crooks out here!”
At that, after picking his way across the breakwater, he took to the stretches of sand and soon disappeared.
* * * * * * * *
When, later that same day, Petite Jeanne started away, bent on the joyous business of returning a lost cameo to a dear old lady, she expected to come upon no fresh mystery.
“Certainly,” she said to Florence, who, because of her work, could not accompany her, “in the bright light of day one experiences no thrills.” Surprise came to her all the same.
She had reached the very street crossing at which she was to alight before she realized that the address the little old lady had given was in Chinatown.