“Nothing.” She spat out the blade of grass. “There’s nothing wrong with my eyes, either. Haven’t I seen you? Half the time you’ve been darting into places where you couldn’t possibly have lost a card case or anything else. When we came down the bank to the brook I expected you to start looking under stones.” She waved a hand. “There’s thousands of ’em. Go to it.” She sprang to her feet and shook out her skirt. “But carry me home first. And on the way you’ll tell me what you’ve been looking for or I’ll tear your picture out of my scrapbook.”
“Maybe we can make a deal,” I offered. “I’ll tell you what I’ve been looking for if you’ll tell me what your idea was Tuesday afternoon. You may remember that you might have seen or heard something Monday evening that could have given you a notion about someone using my car, but you wouldn’t tell me because you wanted to save your father some dough. That reason no longer holds, so why not tell me now?”
She smiled down at me. “You never let go, do you? Certainly I’ll tell you. I saw Webster Kane on the terrace that time, and if he hadn’t used the car himself I thought he might have seen someone going to it or coming back.”
“No sale. Try again.”
“But that was it!”
“Oh, sure it was.” I got to my feet. “It’s lucky it happened to be Kane who signed that statement. You’re a very lucky girl. I think I’ll have to choke you. I’ll count three. One, two—”
She sprinted up the bank and waited for me at the top. Going back up the drive, she got fairly caustic because I insisted that all I had come for was the card case, but when we reached the parking plaza and I had the door of the car open, she gave that up to end on the note she had greeted me with. She came close, ran a fingertip gently down the line of my scratch, and demanded, “Tell me who did that, Archie. I’m jealous!”
“Some day,” I said, climbing in and pushing the starter button. “I’ll tell you everything from the cradle on.”
“Honest?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I rolled away.