"Certainly. Come out here to the summer house." They walked in silence to the little rustic house on the lawn and sat down side by side on the rough wooden seat. Bob was excited, but still determined that the best thing for him to do was to tell his father the whole story. He knew his father would understand and see things from his point of view; they were more like two brothers than a father and son. "Hugh and I had the car out last night," said Bob, and then he began at the beginning and related the entire story through to the end. He told of their visit to the armory, their meeting with Harold on the bridge, the narrow escape with the bomb, their decision to watch the Wernbergs' house, their trip to the deserted house, the disappearance of the automobile, and finally its strange return. Mr. Cook listened intently throughout the whole narrative, one exclamation as Bob told of the bomb episode being his sole interruption. "That card must have been sent by the one that brought the car back," said Bob. "It would seem so," his father agreed, and fell silent, thinking. "That was a close call you boys had with that bomb," he said finally. "Yes, sir," said Bob. "What have you planned to do to-day?" "We were going to report the loss of the car to police headquarters and then go out to the deserted house again, to see what we could find." "You weren't going to say anything to the police about it?" "No, sir." "That might be dangerous, you know." "Yes, sir," said Bob. "We wanted to solve the thing ourselves if we could though." "I don't know about that," said Mr. Cook musingly. "I hate to think of you two boys fooling around out there with a lot of desperate men around." "Don't do anything until this afternoon anyway," Bob pleaded. Mr. Cook thought for a minute. "All right," he agreed. "Ill wait until after luncheon. Do you and Hugh expect to go out there this morning?" "Yes, sir." "Have you got a gun?" "No, we haven't." "Well, there's an automatic pistol and two boxes of cartridges in the second drawer of my bureau. Go up and get them before you start, for I think you ought to be armed. And above all don't say anything about it to your mother." "Certainly not," exclaimed Bob, much excited that his father was helping them. "Be careful," warned his father. "I'll be home for luncheon and we'll talk more then." Heinrich appeared with the car and Mr. Cook got in and was soon on the way to his office. Bob hurried into the house to telephone to Hugh and possess himself of his father's automatic pistol. Hugh promised to hurry over as fast as he could, and he could tell from the tone of Bob's voice that something stirring was on foot. Bob had answered his question about the car evasively and he was anxious to hear the latest developments. Consequently by the time that Bob had tucked the pistol safely in his back pocket and had gone to the garage for his bicycle, Hugh appeared.