As she spoke she unlocked the manacles and dropped them with a slight click into a concealed pocket of her dark skirt.

“I imagine Agatha isn’t real brilliant,” returned Sarah; “but neither am I. When I’m your age, Nan, I hope to be half as clever.  Just now you can twist me around your finger.”

Nan regarded her seriously.

“I wish I knew what you are up to,” she remarked suspiciously.  “You can scarcely conceal your joy, my girl, and that proves I’ve overlooked something.  You’ve puzzled me, youngster as you are, but you must remember that I’m working in the dark while some mysterious gleam of knowledge lights your way.  Put us side by side, on the same track, and I wouldn’t be afraid of you, Sarah Judd.”

“Don’t apologize, Nan; it makes me feel ashamed.”

Nan’s frown, as she looked into the blue eyes, turned to a smile of appreciation.  Sarah also smiled, and then she said: 

“Let me make you a cup of tea before you go.”

“A good idea.  We’re friends, then?”

“Why not?  One friend is worth a thousand enemies and it’s absurd to quarrel with one for doing her duty.”

“That’s what O’Gorman is always saying.  Ever hear of O’Gorman?”

“Yes; he’s one of the old stand-bys in the secret service department; but they say he’s getting old.  Slipped a good many cogs lately, I hear.”

“He’s the Chief’s right hand man.  O’Gorman used to have this case—­the branch of it I’m now working—­but he gave it up and recommended the Chief to put me on the job.  Said a woman could trail Mary Louise better than any man and with less chance of discovery; and he was right, for I’ve lived half a block from her in Dorfield and she never saw my face once.  But O’Gorman didn’t suspect you were coming into the case and the thing’s getting altogether too complicated to suit me.”

Sarah was brewing the tea and considered an answer unnecessary.  The conversation drifted away from the Hathaway case and into less personal channels.  When Nan Shelley finally rose to go there was sincere friendliness in Sarah’s “good-bye” and the elder woman said in parting: 

“You’re the right sort, Sarah.  If ever you drift into Washington and need work, come to me and I’ll get the Chief to take you on.  I know he’d be glad to get you.”

“Thank you, Nan,” said Sarah meekly.

But there was a smile on her freckled face as she watched her recent acquaintance walk down the road, and it lingered there while she returned to her kitchen and finally washed and put away the long neglected lunch dishes.

Bub dashed into the yard and tooted his horn.  Sarah went out to him.

“Ye kin call me lucky, ef ye don’t mind,” he said with a grin.  “Sent yer tel’gram, found out the tenner ye guv me were good, an’ got back without the folks gett’n’ a single blink at me.”

“You’re some driver, Bub, and you’ve got a wise head on your shoulders.  If you don’t talk about this trip, and I don’t, no one will ever know, except we two, that the car has been out of the garage.”