Monday morning Fleming Stone came down to the dining room in a hopeful frame of mind, and announced the fact.
“Why are you hopeful?” queried Pete, not with undue curiosity, but with deep interest.
“First, because I feel pretty sure we’ll get Miss Duane back, and, too, because I hope to track down the villain who is responsible for her absence.”
“Have you any idea who he is?”
“Frankly, no. But I hope to find out. I don’t mind admitting it is the strangest case I have ever been up against. It presents the most seemingly incongruous features, and has some apparently inexplicable conditions. But, it is an axiom among detectives that the more bizarre a case is, the easier it is of solution. I’m not ready to agree with that, unqualifiedly, but there’s a lot in it.”
After breakfast, they hel
