"People from the East to keep things moving, of course. What I have here and those left me at the inn ought to be enough to run through the summer with. Don't you think so?"
I thought so, and was moving off when he called me back.
"Is the judge locked up, old man?" he demanded.
"He's under rather close surveillance," I replied, smiling.
"Crocker;" he said confidentially, "see if you can't smuggle him over here some day soon. The judge always holds good cards, and plays a number one hand."
I promised, and escaped. On the veranda I came upon Miss Thorn surrounded by some of her uncle's guests. I imagine that she was bored, for she looked it.
"Mr. Crocker," she called out, "you're just the man I have been wishing to see."
The others naturally took this for a dismissal, and she was not long in coming to her point when we were alone.
"What is it you know about this queer but gifted genius who is here so mysteriously?" she asked.
"Nothing whatever," I confessed. "I knew him before he thought of becoming a genius."