NUMBER THREE COMES IN
Joyce opened the door to the knock of the young men. At sight of them her face lit.
"Oh, I'm so glad you've come!" she cried, tears in her voice. She caught her hands together in a convulsive little gesture. "Isn't it dreadful? I've been afraid all the time that something awful would happen—and now it has."
"Don't you worry, Miss Joyce," Bob told her cheerfully. "We ain't gonna let anything happen to yore paw. We aim to get busy right away and run this thing down. Looks like a frame-up. If it is, you betcha we'll get at the truth."
"Will you? Can you?" She turned to Dave in appeal, eyes starlike in a face that was a white and shining oval in the semi-darkness.
"We'll try," he said simply.
Something in the way he said it, in the quiet reticence of his promise, sent courage flowing to her heart. She had called on him once before, and he had answered splendidly and recklessly.
"Where's Mr. Crawford?" asked Bob.
"He's in the sitting-room. Come right in."
Her father was sitting in a big chair, one leg thrown carelessly over the arm. He was smoking a cigar composedly.