Penny wiped her cheek and saw that her hand was covered with black soot. Sally too was a sight. She had ripped the hem from her skirt, her hair was an untidy mess, everything about her was pungent with smoke.
"Where were we when all this excitement started?" Penny asked presently. "If my memory serves me correctly, we had sent out a police call for Claude Harper and his pals to be arrested. It all seems vague in my mind, as if it occurred a million years ago."
"Why, I had forgotten too!" Sally gasped. "I hope the police went there and caught those men before they made a get-away."
Scrambling to their feet, the girls moved to the starboard side of the Queen, which permitted a view of the Harper house far upriver. They were startled and dismayed to see tongues of flame shooting from a window.
"That place has caught on fire too!" Sally exclaimed, then corrected herself. "But sparks from the Florence never could have been carried so far!"
"The house has been set afire on purpose!" Penny cried. "Oh, Sally, don't you see? It's a trick to destroy all the evidence hidden there! The Harpers intend to skip town tonight, and they're taking advantage of this fire to make it appear that destruction of the house is accidental!"
