VICKI WAS NOT A VERY satisfactory guest at the Fletchers’. She felt guilty at not having brought Dean’s mother a hostess gift, at failing Howdy and Chips in their desire to play cops and robbers, at dodging stern Mr. Fletcher’s engineering disquisitions. But the Fletchers, who had heard from Dean about the Purnell family’s troubles, told Vicki not to stand on ceremony, but to go ahead with her urgent business.
Vicki’s concern here in Charleston was to trace that hickory and ash, and to find out anything else she could about Jim Badger. Dean’s father had kindly supplied her with introductions to lumbermen, a freight agency, and exporters, where she might make inquiries. In particular, Mr. Fletcher had telephoned a Mr. Cargill in Vicki’s behalf. She started out early in the morning, walking
