Though it was only March there was more than a hint of spring in the balmy night air, and the stars seemed close and warm in a sky like deep purple porcelain. Neither of them spoke while they walked the first block.
Then Brad said, “You wanted to ask me about something?”
“Yes, I did. But somehow it seems absurd to be suspicious of anyone on a night like this.”
“Well, forget it.” After an interval he asked, “Think you’re going to enjoy the Canteen work?”
“I’m crazy about it. But really it seems so little to do when there’s so much to be done.”
“It’s all the little bits put together that’s going to help us win this war.”
“And prepare us to live in a more wonderful peace afterward. It’s learning to work together that’s so important.”
“One person pulling in the wrong direction can upset the whole works.”
Kitty made no reply, but she thought he must know what was on her mind even before he added, “I figure you’ve been wondering why Krome and Cary seem so intimate.”
“We’ve both put a big question mark behind Cary, and when we see Krome buddying with him he gets a question mark, too.”
“That chap, Punaro, you were asking about?”
“I’ve hesitated a long time about mentioning it. It may seem I’m straining at a gnat.”
“You do hate to suspect people of being spies and saboteurs, especially when they’re right in the hospital with your own father.”
“All the more reason you shouldn’t take any chances.”
Quickly Kitty gave Brad an account of the little incident on the bus three weeks earlier. “It seems sort of absurd now that I’m talking about it for the first time to think the boy might have had anything to do with the fire at the oyster cannery, but that’s exactly what I have been thinking.”
“I don’t think your suspicions are unfounded.”
“If he used gasoline or kerosene to start that fire it was still fresh enough to flame up from those cigar ashes. And he certainly did get on the bus right at the cannery station.”
“If that fire was the work of saboteurs the objective was no doubt the shipyards, not the cannery.”
They walked on to Kitty’s door in silence. Then Brad said, “I sure wish you’d told me about this when it happened.”
“Why? I can’t see that we can do anything.”
“Maybe I could have managed to get a squint at Punaro’s shoes.”