“He wears the lodge emblem as a watch charm.”
“And how do you know his favorite author is Dickens?”
“On three separate occasions that I met Mr. Norton I noticed that he was carrying a book. Once it was Oliver Twist . Another time it was A Tale of Two Cities . The third time it was David Copperfield . So I judge that his favorite author must be Dickens. Am I right?”
“He always talks Dickens to us at school,” said Frank.
“It’s simple enough, once you get the habit,” remarked Mr. Hardy. “You must train yourselves to be observant, so that in time you will automatically remember little details about people you meet and places you’ve visited. Now, if Harrity and Mr. Brown had been at all observant, in spite of the fact that they were surprised and frightened, they would have been able to give the police a very thorough description of the man who tried to hold up the steamboat office. And if the man happened to be a professional thief the description would have helped the officers ascertain who he was, because once a man has served a prison term his description is kept on file. As it is, all we know about him is that he is probably redheaded. That isn’t very much to go on.”
“I’m afraid Chet hasn’t much chance of recovering his roadster,” said Joe.
“You never can tell,” remarked his father. “It may turn up sometime. Perhaps the thief will get himself into trouble yet. Keep your ears and eyes open. And now, if you don’t mind, I have some reports to write—”
Frank and Joe took the hint and left their father to his work. But although they talked long into the night on possible ways and means of recovering Chet’s car, they were able to devise no plan for tracing the thief.