CHAPTER THIRTEEN


My first impulse was to hide myself in some obscure corner where I
could vent my feelings without fear or favour. I composed my face
as well as I could before leaving the 'phone booth; then I sidled
across the lobby and slipped out of the side door. I found my way
into the stable, where good old Peg was munching in her stall. The
fine, homely smell of horseflesh and long-worn harness leather went
right to my heart, and while Bock frisked at my knees I laid my head
on Peg's neck and cried. I think that fat old mare understood me.
She was as tubby and prosaic and middle-aged as I--but she loved the
Professor.

Suddenly Andrew's words echoed again in my mind. I had barely
heeded them before, in the great joy of my relief, but now their
significance came to me. "In jail." The Professor in jail! That was
the meaning of his strange disappearance at Woodbridge. That little
brute of a man Shirley must have telephoned from Redfield, and when
the Professor came to the Woodbridge bank to cash that check they
had arrested him. That was why they had shoved me into that mahogany
sitting-room. Andrew must be behind this. The besotted old fool! My
face burned with anger and humiliation.

I never knew before what it means to be really infuriated. I could
feel my brain tingle. The Professor in jail! The gallant, chivalrous
little man, penned up with hoboes and sneak thieves suspected of
being a crook... as if I couldn't take care of myself! What did they
think he was, anyway? A kidnapper?