The Crimson Patch

ges, 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

nning abruptly, without a name, and signed at the end with only

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

F

e 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 w

e 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 detai

er as even more foolish and disjointed than at first. It really meant very little when boiled down to th

ng with a sudden shrillness that caused her to ju

far away. "Is that you, Patricia?" A

Where are you? Are you

led up to see whether you were all right. I was a

d her. Her father was having far heavier worries of his own. Why should she burden him with these lighter ones? It would help him

fiddle. But tell me, are you su

sibly 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, i

im in a voice from which she

, goo

f 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

ning held something sinister in it. She looked at her watch and took a sudden resolution. It was not yet quite ten. She must see Chest

he smiled rather ruefully, "but I don't very much care. This is too important." She

few minutes with the

!" he remarked, as he placed the 119tray on the table. "

be any sense to it, not even if one knew all the people an

about it. So I took it all to pieces, and put it together again, and turned it every which way, and

kly!" cried Patricia. "How

olmes, "there was just one word in the thing that made me sit up and

shook h

any one should 'see Hanford,' because there ain't nothin' in it to see! So I just shied at that, I did. An' I took Hanford as a startin' point, an' I turned and twisted that note inside out and upside down till, all off a sudden, I struck it! I gotta

word in the letter, underlined it, and feverishly copied down the sequence. The result caused her to drop her 121

here longer. Go to house in H

e communication w

door and Chet reappeared. He only glanced a

ou sit up and take

rms my worst suspicions. Do you suppose some one sent

it's that slick Peter Stoger, I can't guess. But as Peter has lit out too, we wouldn't be so far 122off to take it for Peter, I fancy. But say, Miss, will you pardon me if I

to do? It was plain that he knew a great deal about their affairs already, and was as honest and straightforward as even her father could wish. Perhaps, too, he mi

g at yesterday. I didn't know about it at the time, or I wouldn't have left it around; but sometime during that afternoon or evening it disappeared, and Father is almost frantic about it. He is off hunting for it now, a

ply for several moments. "Which sketch

on Patch," she replied. "

eer name and was such a purty one. Gee! that proves one thing, at least. It didn't disappear 1

ut she didn't take it, I know. I will n

on't you see? 'Cause if he's Franz, he sends a note afterward to the madame that he

ndered Patricia, distractedly. "Surely—surely she can't be

the dope about that little mam'selle an' never was. Sh

nervously. Patricia 125went to it and took down the receiver. The

ster. "Nobody seems to answer. And the voice tha

very well. Can't you speak a little louder?... You can't?... What is that you say?... You want to warn me.... What about? I don't understand.

istening boy. "She hung up the receive