for her, and the uncle was accusing the father of having spirited her
away. The paper said that private detectives were trying to trace her.
Then it was that we remembered the mysterious reappearance of the Frog.
We hadn't much doubt that he was a detective. But if he were a
detective, why had he attempted to steal the Glow-worm? The only reason
could have been the one which Sahwah suggested, namely, that he wanted
to cut us off from following him. He had probably carried away the
wrong girl in the excitement of the fire and did not discover his
mistake until later and then had let her go. This accounted for the
fact that there was no girl in the red roadster when it loomed up ahead
of us in the road that morning.

But why had he run away from us when we tried to overtake him? That was
a baffling question, and the only way we could explain it was that he
was afraid we would accuse him of theft. That he had not gone very far
away from us was shown by the way he had appeared in the picture
theatre that afternoon. But if he was a detective, why did he not
boldly march up to Margery and attempt to take her away from us?

Between the heat and the puzzle we were reduced to a frazzle. We
carefully hid the paper so Margery wouldn't see it when she woke up and
went down to supper. The house was on a corner and it seemed to me, as
I sat at the table that I saw the Frog walking down the side street.
But it was growing dark and I was not sure, so I said nothing about it.
Margery was very weak when she woke up and still unable to eat
anything, and I believe she had a touch of sunstroke along with her
ptomaine poisoning. She was clearly not a strong girl. The room seemed
stuffy and close and we fanned her to make her feel cooler. But we were
still thankful that we were not in the hotel, with its crowd of
delegates and its band continually playing.