“This isn’t like the other cases in which Josie has come to our rescue,” protested Mary Louise. “It’s more like open warfare--get your eye on the thief, or on the car, and you can raise the hue-and-cry as much as you care to.”
On their way to the police headquarters the two girls gossiped pleasantly concerning the events that had happened since they last saw each other, for there are other things in the world besides lost automobiles and strange young men. There are even winter coats, and how much fur it is good taste to trim them with this year. There were, also, round hats, three-cornered hats and four-cornered hats to discuss, as well as the broad-brimmed hats and matinee, church or street hats. And by the time they reached the police station they had scarcely touched upon shoes and stockings--never mentioned gowns at all!
They found Mr. Charles Lonsdale, Chief of Police, at his desk.
“Oh, here you are,” said Josie. “Good morning, Chief.”
“Good morning, I’ve been waiting for you for over an hour,” was his response.
“Yes,” said Josie, “I knew you’d wait, knowing I’d arrived on the morning train. You see, Chief, this is one of those peculiar cases that can begin or stop at any moment, as we may decide. I don’t know what the ‘dear little thing’--eh--eh--‘Queenie,’ I believe, is her proper name--is worth, but--”
“Without a ‘trade,’ and with the accessories we loaded it with, our poor little Queenie is worth thirty-two hundred dollars,” confessed Mary Louise.
The Chief looked astonished; Josie regarded her friend with amazement.
“Whatever its cost,” commented Lonsdale, “the thing has been stolen, and it’s my duty to try and find it. As for you, Josephine, you may tackle it or not, as it pleases you. Thirty-two hundred dollars is a good bit of money for a little automobile.”
“It isn’t entirely the money that bothers me or Gran’pa Jim,” remarked Mary Louise, with another deep sigh. “We’d have paid a thousand more, gladly, if necessary. It’s the thought that Danny would betray the confidence we held in him.”
There was a brief silence, during which Josie took out her memorandum book.
“What’s the record, so far?” she asked carelessly. “Well, I’ll answer myself: not much, although the whole town knows that Mary Louise’s new auto has been stolen and Danny Dexter has disappeared at the same time. Meantime certain details have reached my ears that lead me to believe that Danny Dexter is but one of half a dozen assumed names used by this ex-soldier. The fellow accepted his position with the Colonel as half-chauffeur and half-gardener so that, at the slightest warning, he could use the little auto in making a getaway. In other words, he’s playing a bigger game than we’ve given him credit for.”