Missing at Marshlands Part 23

"I thought you would; that's why I authorized him to go on. So now we'll have some more waiting. They're going to try again."

"Oh, I hope we have some luck this time," Terry remarked. "But whatever shall we do with ourselves while we're waiting?"

"That's a problem," Arden said thoughtfully. "Let's get our hair washed and waved. Mine could stand it. It's full of salt water."

"Great!" Sim exclaimed. "Of course, we know the beauty parlor here is nothing to write home about, but it will serve."

"It will serve us, little one," Terry declared, and they walked three abreast down the sunny street.

The girl operators were glad to have some new customers, and city folks at that, so they asked innumerable questions. The three girls were guarded in their answers, afraid they would give away their secret.

A none too gentle girl rubbed Arden's scalp with stubby fingers, keeping up her barrage of questions the while. What was the latest coiffure in the city? Was the long bob going out? What kind of a permanent did she have? Wearily Arden answered, wis.h.i.+ng the girl would keep quiet.

But at last it was over and they went back to haunt the drug store again.

No, the clerk told them, no message had yet come.

The girls sat down on the steps outside. This was not an unusual thing to do. In a small village one could sit for hours by the gas station, post office, or drug store without being thought queer.

In an agony of suspense, they waited fifteen minutes-twenty minutes. They reached a point where they were sitting silently, each busy with her own worrying and wondering thoughts.

An answer was almost too much to expect of the most kindly fate. But it was true there was no harm in trying. Dimitri was gone, and the snuffbox too. The situation, despite Chief Reilly's jovial acceptance of it, was taking on a serious character.

Sim was just about to ask if the state police should not be notified, when the phone in the store rang shrilly. They could hear it, for the booth door had been left open.

Arden jumped up. For a fleeting second she looked at her companions as though to plead with some unseen force that this call should bring results. Then she dashed inside with no thought of appearance. When she emerged from the booth this time her chums knew she had met with some success. Her face wreathed in smiles she burst out:

"We've got an answer!"

"Oh, what?"

"Tell us!"

"It was the telegraph manager again," Arden reported. "The boy finally located our man, and we owe a dollar and a quarter. It took a little longer than was expected."

"Pooh! Only an extra quarter!" exclaimed Sim.

"But did they deliver the telegram?" asked Terry.

"Yes, of course. To Serge Uzlov, and he wired an answer."

"Oh!" Sim and Terry exclaimed in unison. "What did he say?"

"'Leaving at once for Oceanedge,'" quoted Arden.

"How wonderful!" Terry almost shouted. "Then he was some relative of poor Dimitri?"

"It looks that way," admitted Arden. "Wait, we must pay that dollar and a quarter," she said quickly, for Sim and Terry evinced a desire to hasten away. They made up the money, though it rather taxed their purses after the beauty parlor treatment. But they didn't mind in the least.

"Now let's go and tell your mother, Terry," suggested Sim.

They started out of the drug store and almost bowled over Melissa Clayton, who was on the point of entering.

"Oh, Melissa, how are you?" Sim asked. "We haven't seen you for a long time."

"I'm all right," the girl replied noncommittally.

"Weren't sick, were you?" Arden asked.

"No, just a cold," Melissa replied.

"All better?" Terry inquired. They were anxious to be on their way, yet they could not pa.s.s by the poor child for whom they had so much sympathy.

"What a pretty pin," Arden remarked next, looking at a stick pin with a deep red stone which Melissa had thrust through the collar of an old middy blouse. "Where did you get it?"

Sim and Terry pressed closer; they could tell from Arden's tone that this was no idle question, and as they looked they started, for the pin, a man's, they had all seen Dimitri wearing the day of the little tea party.

CHAPTER XXII The Policewoman

"I found it," Melissa replied without hesitating.

"How lucky! Where?" Arden continued.

"On the beach," Melissa went on. Then she pushed past the girls and entered the store.

Arden did not question her further, fearing to make the girl suspicious.

But on the way home the three discussed the remarkable coincidence.

"Now, where on earth could Melissa have found that pin?" Sim asked. "Of course, it belonged to Dimitri, and I don't for a minute believe she found it on the beach."

"Nor I," Arden agreed. "My guess is that, if she found it at all, she found it on the houseboat. And that means she was there before we were, because we went over it pretty thoroughly by ourselves, and the chief didn't miss anything when he came with us."

"I suppose we ought to ask if he found out anything, just to keep up appearances," Terry suggested. "What do you think, girls?"

"Oh, of course, it would never do to let him think we had forgotten about him. We can stop in now and ask how the case is coming," Arden replied.

"But we don't need to mention the telegram."

The chief, when they pulled up by the garage, crawled out from under a car. With a comical show of secrecy he came toward them, glancing over his shoulder as he came.

"I ain't had a chance to do nothing yet," he said, wiping some grease off his hands. "My car broke down. But I'm a-studyin' it, and I'll let you know this afternoon. You heard anything?"

Arden hesitated before replying. After all, she had _heard_ nothing. That they had an answer to their telegram was just a bit of luck, and she thought it just as well if the chief did not know of it.

"No," she answered. "We haven't heard a thing."