Her father looked at her a moment and a slow smile spread over his face, in spite of the anxiety still in his eyes. “Kitten, you show remarkable talent for becoming a first-class detective.”
She pursed her lips. “Too nerve-racking, Dad.”
“Is that all you’ve picked up about Beeson?”
“Beth Gilcrist, a Canteen worker over in Bayport, who meets all the troop trains, told me Beeson meets most of them, too.”
“Hm-m, so he does, eh? He seems to have no scarcity of gas for these trips back and forth.”
Mr. Carter sat down on the couch, and stared into space, as he thought over what she had told him.
“And another thing. Brad found out from the man who looks after the incinerator that repair parts have come for it twice, and were not what he ordered.”
“Hm-m, looks like somebody at the factory may be cooperating in keeping it out of order,” Mr. Carter surmised.
“That’s exactly what Brad and I figured out. That’s why we feel so certain the barge goes into the marshes for more reasons than to haul off garbage.”
Mr. Carter made no reply to this but just sat staring ahead of him. Kitty recalled what he had said as they were coming home that evening. The inspector was coming down and there was a shortage in his department. She had thought when he mentioned it that he meant a financial shortage. Now an appalling possibility entered her mind.