"Oh, nothing much." Tom decided not to tell her about the Cunningham matter or the discovery of the two men tampering with the motor. "The new House on Wheels is coming on pretty well, though."
"That's good. Am I to get a ride in it?"
"Of course!"
"Tell me about it," she suggested, and Tom launched into an enthusiastic description of the interior of the new van-like vehicle, telling of the rooms, the electric stove, the little pantry and ice box until Mary exclaimed in delight:
"I can hardly wait until it's finished!"
"Which won't be long," commented the young inventor. "If the motor tests out all right, and I think it will, all that remains to be done is to put it in place and see how the whole affair works—I mean whether I have designed it properly so that it will keep to the road at high speeds."
Then they talked of other matters until some uneasy movements on the part of Mrs. Nestor, in the house, warned the young man that the hour was getting late and that he had better leave.
"I'll see you to-morrow, Mary," said Tom, as he started down the drive to where he had left the runabout.
"Yes—I guess so," said Mary, and it was not until afterward that Tom noted and remembered the curious hesitancy in her voice. But now he was thinking of other matters.
It was when he was half way along the road that lay between Mary's house and his own home that, passing along a lonely stretch of highway at moderate speed, Tom saw, thrown across the road in front of him, in bold relief by the brilliant rays of the moon, a gesticulating shadow of a man.