to retrace her steps. She waited another fifteen minutes, and still the stranger did not appear.
“I guess I’ve lost him,” Nancy told herself, in disgust. “He probably saw that I was following him and decided to give me the slip. No use waiting any longer.”
Because she was not willing to give up easily, she entered several of the pawnbroker shops on the street and inquired if a man answering the description she gave had been seen. Usually her polite question was answered with an indifferent shrug of the shoulders, and at last Nancy decided that she was wasting her time.
“Just the same, I believe that man went into one of those places,” she thought, as she slowly made her way back to the interurban station. “If only I had been a trifle more alert I might have found out something important.”
Reaching the station, Nancy consulted a timetable and found that a train for River Heights would leave in ten minutes. She bought her ticket and sat down to wait, discouraged at the turn her adventure had taken.
“Well, I don’t consider the time wholly wasted, anyway,” she defended herself. “I’m more than ever convinced that I’m on a track that will get me somewhere. Tomorrow I’ll drive to Dockville and see Mary Mason. And if she isn’t willing to tell me what I want to know, I’ll find a way to make her tell. I must solve that mystery of Lilac Inn!”