“Perhaps God sent you this way because He means us to find Mariette for you. Did you notice the little grey church near the cross-roads?”
“Yes, yes,” said the tramp, “that was why I felt I must take the path. I saw the statue of St. Antony over the door—St. Antony, the saint who finds lost things.”
“Yes,” said Danny, “I thought of that, too.”
The tramp stood up. Then suddenly he laughed an almost happy laugh. “‘Danny the Detective,’ the Cubs called you,” he said. “Well, Danny, it’s done me good to talk to you. And I believe between you and St. Antony I shall get my little fairy back again. God is very good.”
So Danny led the mysterious tramp through the wood to a deserted cottage that a gamekeeper had once lived in. He gathered some dry bracken and with this and his own camp blankets made him a bed. A good supper of steak pie and potatoes and roly-poly pudding had been kept hot for Danny by the kind old cook. That night the tramp enjoyed the best meal he had had for seven years; but he did not know that Danny went to bed on a supper of biscuits left over from tea.
Danny led the mysterious tramp to a deserted cottage.
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A bottle made a fine candlestick, and the old cottage looked quite cosy by the time Danny had finished arranging it.
“Good night, sir,” he said at last. “I hope you’ll sleep well. To-morrow we must have a proper pow-wow about things. My word, the Cubs won’t half be pleased to find you here.”