CHAPTER 8Fredericka never remembered how she got back into the house after her midnight adventure. She knew only that she locked and bolted the door and went at once to the telephone.
A sleepy voice answered when she finally got through to the police station and asked for the chief of police. The sergeant on duty explained that the chief had not been there all evening. Was it urgent?
Fredericka was about to say that it was urgent—very—and then thought better of it. In the warm circle of lamplight by the office desk, she felt her fears recede. It couldn’t possibly have been anyone but Margie—the mad prank of a mad child. Moreover, Margie or anyone else would certainly by now have put considerable distance between herself, or himself, and the bookshop.
“No. No, it isn’t important,” she sa
