"Well," I said, "you said Miss Fraenkel had tried them and found them guilty, Mac."
"What I meant was, Miss Fraenkel had formed her own opinion of the business."
"Yes," she said, "I have."
"Now we shall hear something," chirped Bill.
"Listen," said Miss Fraenkel. "It's very likely an assumed name."
It was our turn to look bewildered.
"Yes?" said Bill. "What then?"
"And——" went on Miss Fraenkel, making little motions with her hands as though she were trying to catch something that eluded her grasp. "And—oh! he's being held for some game in New York. She's got away with it, you see."
Miss Fraenkel waited for this appalling development to sink into our minds. I don't think it was given to any of us at the moment to divine just what had happened to Miss Fraenkel. Even seven years in the country were not sufficient training in American psychology to realize it at once. We sat and looked at her, temporarily dazed by what we took to be a story built upon exclusive information. And she sat and looked at us, as pleased as a child at the success of her manœuvre.
"Why," stammered Bill, blankly through her glasses, "how do you know?"