“We’re after a girl in a brown suit and hat—undersized girl. She was asking the way to Arden. Seen any one of that description?”
“What do you want with her?”
“Never mind,” growled the first man.
But the second volunteered meager information, “She’s a suspect. Stayed last night in the Inn and this morning a couple of thousand dollars’ worth of diamonds is missin’; that’s what we want her for.”
The tinker brightened perceptibly. “Guess she went by in a wagon half an hour ago—that way. I think I saw her,” and as the men turned southward down the road marked Arden he called after them, “Better hurry, if you want to catch her; the wagon was going at a right smart pace.”
He waited for their backs to be turned and for the crack of the whip that lifted the heels of the sorrel above the dashboard before she plunged, then, with amazing speed, of mind as well as of body, he wrenched every sign from the post and pitched them out of sight behind a neighboring stone wall.
The dust from departing wheels still filled the air when Patsy stepped out of the cross-roads church, peacefully radiant, and found the tinker sitting quietly with his back against the post.
“So ye are still here. I thought ye might have grown tired of my company, after all, and gone on.” Patsy laughed happily. “Now do ye know which road goes to Arden?”
“Sure,” and the tinker joined in her laugh, while he pointed to the straight road ahead, the road that ran west, at right angles to the one the runabout had taken.