“Lady, you’ve been parked here half an hour, right under that sign. Can’t you read either?”
“Why, yes, a little,” replied Patricia, with a suspicious glance at Katharine. “But those signs are placed so high that if you’re in a low car, you really have an awful time seeing them at all. You can see for yourself that this one is directly over the top of the car. Get in and see.”
“Of course it is if you drive directly under it!” grumbled the man. “And the next time I see this car where it doesn’t belong, it gets a tag right away; whether your passengers can’t read, or you think the signs are too high, or—or anything else.”
“Thanks for your patience, and assistance,” replied Patricia, smiling at him in such a friendly fashion that he had a hard time maintaining his expression of outraged dignity. He was still a bit doubtful as to whether or not the girls were making fun of him. These women!
“Goodbye,” called the irrepressible Katharine, as Patricia stepped into the car and started the engine. “Hope I meet you again sometime.”
The officer strode away without comment, while Katharine reported her encounter to the girls.
“I’m an absolute wreck!” she declared in an injured tone, as her companions laughed heartlessly. “I’ll never keep car for you again.”
“Your own choice,” retorted Patricia flippantly. “We wanted you to come with us.”
“That’s all the thanks I get,” sighed Katharine, “for risking my life to protect your property.”
“Policeman, spare this car; touch not an ancient wheel!” giggled Anne.
“In youth it carried me,” continued Jane.
“And I’ll protect it now,” carolled the three.
“I’ve a good mind to dump you all out,” declared Patricia in mock indignation. “I know it’s not exactly a latest model, but it really isn’t so ancient as all that.”
“Never mind, Patsy,” said Katharine. “We’ll ride in it, even if it is old.”
“There’s where we’re going this afternoon,” remarked Patricia a few minutes later, pointing down a side street; “you can see the baseball park from here.”
Long before the game started, they were in their seats watching the crowds pour into the stands.
Patricia, who sat beside Craig, soon noticed that he was scanning faces with more than casual interest. When he pulled out a pair of opera glasses with which to view the opposite stands, her curiosity got the better of her.
“Looking for someone special?” she inquired, making pleats in her handkerchief.
“Yes.” He moved closer, put his head down, and spoke softly. “We got a tip that the principal in the Brock affair might be around here, and my chief sent me out to see what I could pick up. Keep it under your hat, though.”
“Of course,” breathed Patricia, quivering with excitement.
“Come home to dinner with us?” asked Patricia, when the game was over and they were headed for the parking station.
Craig shook his head. “Like to a lot, but I want to look around a bit more tonight; so I’ll eat in a one-arm lunch that I know about where perhaps I’ll overhear something. Thanks a lot.”
“If you’d care to come, suppose you make it tomorrow instead. We have dinner at one on Sundays.”
“I’ll be glad to come then.”
“Any luck?” Patricia inquired, as she met Craig in the hall of her own home the next noon.
“Not a bit,” looking so dejected that Patricia could hardly keep from smiling.
“Too bad; but don’t be quite so downcast.”
“Good advice; perhaps I’ll run across something on the train. You get into a conversation with strangers, and oftentimes a clew slips out.”
Dinner was a hilarious affair. Craig exerted himself to be entertaining, and Katharine had a silly streak which kept the company in gales of laughter.
“Hate to break away,” said Craig, looking at his watch after they finished their coffee before the fireplace in the living room.
The day had turned cool, and a wood fire was very welcome. “This is awfully cozy,” he went on; “but my train goes in twenty minutes.”
“Why don’t you let Pat tuck you into her machine, and go back with the girls?” suggested Mr. Randall.
“Like nothing better,” replied Craig, unfolding his long body slowly as he rose reluctantly from a big easy chair; “but I have my return ticket, and ‘Waste not, want not’ is one of my mottoes.”
“See you when you get back to town,” were his last words to Patricia, after taking leave of the rest of the party.
“Very likely,” she replied carelessly.
Had she been wise in inviting the boy to her house? She wondered, closing the door. He was inclined to be a bit possessive and might think she was more interested in him than she really was. But the end of the college year was fast approaching, and with it a breaking off of many Granard associations. Her face was very sober as she rejoined the group in front of the fire; for the fear of not being able to go back next fall was a very poignant one.
“What’s the matter, Pat?” inquired Katharine bluntly. “You look as if you’d just buried your last friend.”
“Haven’t,” replied the girl, perching on the arm of her father’s chair, and twisting his hair into a Kewpie knot.
“Pat always looks like that when it’s time to leave home,” commented Mrs. Randall, after a searching glance at her daughter.
“I don’t mean to appear inhospitable—” began Mr. Randall.
“But you think we should be on our way,” finished Patricia, “so as not to be on the road long after dark.”
“Well, you know it always takes longer than you expect.”
“Yes, darling; we’ll get started. Come, girls, get your things together.”
When they were about twenty-five miles from home, Patricia gazed anxiously ahead at a bank of dark clouds, rapidly spreading all across the sky. “Afraid we’re going to run into a storm, girls.”
“As long as it isn’t a thunder storm,” began Anne, in a worried tone.
“Safe enough in a car if you keep out from under trees,” commented Katharine.
“Can’t, if you happen to be in the woods,” objected Jane, who was watching the clouds gathering so rapidly.
“We’re not going to be in the woods,” said Patricia. “We’ll strike the storm long before we reach them.”
As she spoke a wave of chill wind swept across the country as the darkness shut down like the cover of a box, and huge hailstones began to bounce off the hood and patter on the top of the car with such force that it seemed as if they must break through.
CHAPTER XIX
A WEIRD EXPERIENCE
“I’ll have to pull off the road and stop for a while,” declared Patricia. “Trying to drive in this is too nerve racking.”
The shoulder was wide and smooth; so she had no difficulty in finding a safe place to park. In fact, almost any place would have been safe, so far as traffic was concerned; for nearly all drivers stopped to await the end of the storm. For three-quarters of an hour the sky was dark, while hailstones, big and little, pelted down covering the ground