“He does see me. I’m sure of it.”
“That’s strange!” Drew Lane did not appear to be shamming.
“Can it be,” she asked herself, “that this young man is not the Whisperer, and that he knows nothing about it?”
As for Drew, he stood there considering the advisability of inviting this girl to the Captain’s Christmas party. He left without having arrived at a definite decision. Some hours later he was to be devoutly thankful that he had not given the invitation.
Christmas Eve came. By nine o’clock the tracks of two large automobiles might have been seen winding through the freshly fallen snow before the Captain’s boyhood home, and from there away to the shed serving as a garage at the right of the house.
From the windows there stole a mellow light. Caught and flung high, curls of blue wood smoke rose from the chimneys.
The guests were seated in the tiny parlor of their beloved Captain’s old home. There were two young detectives, Drew Lane and Tom Howe, with their youthful understudies, Johnny Thompson and Spider. Madame LeClare was there too with Alice, her daughter, and Joyce Mills. Quite a jolly party they were on this Christmas Eve. Only one thought marred their pleasure—the Captain was not with them.
“It’s tough,” he had said to them at the last moment. “Something big just broke. I’ve got to get on the trail while it’s hot. But you folks go right along out. Hang your stockings up behind the old stove like good little children, and maybe you’ll catch me filling them when you get up in the morning. And if you don’t—may that Christmas turkey be tender!”
Those had been his words. Now, as Johnny sat dreaming beside the cracked stove that, despite its age, sent forth a cheering glow, he imagined the Captain skulking down some dark alley in quest of those who would disturb the tranquillity of Christmas Eve.
“Almost wish I were with him,” he thought. “And yet—”