Patricia took the crumpled scrap of paper to the table and smoothed it out under the lamp. It was a single sheet and was torn almost in two, one way across and partially along all its edges, as if an attempt had been made to destroy it, an attempt that had not been totally successful, probably because the paper was rather thick and tough. It looked very much as if some one had tried at first to tear it in pieces, and, not having succeeded in this, had simply crumpled it and thrown it away. The writing was in a fine, cramped, almost foreign-looking hand. And the note, for such it appeared to be, was un-addressed, beginning abruptly, without a name, and signed at the end with only an initial. 113Patricia read it through wonderingly. It ran thus:

"Mary and George have arrived. Heard they got home yesterday. Can it be true? Let no circumstances detain you. Need I say more to you? If they stay in town while here, I can no longer visit them. We go out every week to see cousins. Their house is quite new in the suburbs. See Hanford before you leave. At a store there once had good cream. Meet Mary soon and you will find Josephine there.
"F."

"Well of all the silly letters!" thought Patricia, after the first reading. "What can it all mean? Of course, it refers to people and circumstances I don't know anything about, but even so, it sounds sort of scrappy. I wonder why Chet wanted me to read it? I suppose I really shouldn't have done so. I feel as if I'd been prying into some one's affairs in a rather horrid way, reading the letter they thought they 114had destroyed. I suppose it was one of Madame Vanderpoel's. It isn't in the least interesting, anyway, and I do wonder why Chet saved it and asked me to read it. All I get from it is that somebody 'arrived' and she had to go, probably to meet them. Perhaps that explains why they left so suddenly. Well, Chester will have to explain later why he thought it worth showing to me."

Then her mind reverted to the strange, unnerving revelations the boy had made concerning her father, the unknown pair who had known so much about his affairs and had left before they arrived, and the terrible Franz and Hofmeyer who had doubtless been spying on them all the time, and who, even now, were probably in possession of the Crimson Patch. And Peter Stoger—spy without doubt and a disguised one at that—confirming her worst suspicions of him! By what a hideous net they were surrounded! And her father did not even know all these details. How helpful they 115might be to him in his search, if she could only put him in possession of the facts. But that was impossible till he was with her again in person. And meantime, there was all this long night to be got through, without her father to share her anxiety.

She took up the crumpled note once more and read it again, critically. At the second reading it struck her as even more foolish and disjointed than at first. It really meant very little when boiled down to the bare facts. It seemed scarcely possible that Madame Vanderpoel could find any very informing news in it.

While she was still studying it, the telephone rang with a sudden shrillness that caused her to jump, and she hurried over to take down the receiver.

"Hello! hello!" she heard from very far away. "Is that you, Patricia?" And she recognized her father's voice.

"Oh, yes, yes, Daddy! Where are you? Are you coming back to-night?"

116"No, I cannot do that," came the answer. "I called up to see whether you were all right. I was a little worried about you. How are you getting on?"

Patricia was on the point of telling him all her troubles and her loneliness and the absence of Mrs. Quale, when something stopped her. Her father was having far heavier worries of his own. Why should she burden him with these lighter ones? It would help him far more if she put a brave face on everything and answered him cheerfully, so she summoned all her courage and answered brightly:

"I'm all right, Daddy. Fine as a fiddle. But tell me, are you succeeding? Have you had any luck?"

"We've struck something that looks very important," he returned. "But I'll have to tell you, dear, that it may keep me away another whole day, and possibly even over another night. You must get along somehow. Keep Mrs. Quale close to you. Tell her it's very 117urgent. I'll call up to-morrow night, if possible, but I may not have another chance before that. Now I must stop, for this is long distance and costing like Sancho. Can you manage, honey?"

"Yes, oh, yes!" she assured him in a voice from which she tried to keep a quaver of fear.

"Then, good-bye!"

Patricia hung up the receiver and walked back to the table in a daze. Not a single chance had she had to tell her father some of the important details revealed by Chester Jackson; and even if the chance had presented itself, she doubted if it would have been wise to divulge them over the telephone. But if her father were on the track of any important discovery, perhaps it was just as well that she had not. And by the way, he had said, "we've struck something!" now what in the world could he mean by "we?" She had not supposed that he would admit any one else into the secret. Well, it was all very mysterious, and 118it was growing more so every moment. And he was to be away at least twenty-four hours longer!

Again her glance fell on the foolish and disjointed little note lying on the table, and it vaguely disturbed her. Its very lack of meaning held something sinister in it. She looked at her watch and took a sudden resolution. It was not yet quite ten. She must see Chester Jackson once more before he went to his own home for the night, and she remembered that he had said he went off duty at ten-thirty.

"I don't know what the hotel people will think of my wanting so many things," and she smiled rather ruefully, "but I don't very much care. This is too important." She went to the telephone and ordered a glass of milk and some crackers to be sent up.

Jackson arrived in a few minutes with the tray and a broad grin.

"I thought you'd be needin' something else after a while!" he remarked, as he placed the 119tray on the table. "Make anything out of the nice little note I handed you?"

"Why no. It seems to me simply crazy. There doesn't seem to be any sense to it, not even if one knew all the peop............