On the following Saturday, Frank and Joe decided to take an outing.

“I want to get out of this city for a few hours,” said Frank. “We’ve been so busy worrying about the Tower Mansion case that we’ve forgotten how to play. Let’s take the motorbikes and go out for a run.”

“Good idea!” his brother replied. “Mother will make us up some lunch.”

Mrs. Hardy, who was in the kitchen with the cook, smiled when they made known their request. Fair-haired and gentle, she had been tolerantly amused by her sons’ activities in the Tower affair, but she was glad to see them return to their boyish ways.

“You’ll be getting too grown-up altogether,” she had said to them a few days previously. And now, when they said they were going on a day’s outing with the motorcycles, she hastened to prepare a substantial lunch for them.