He appeared frightened when he saw the Imp on your desk!" Penny
recalled.

"Yes, he turned and fled without revealing his mission."

"And directly after that your office was ransacked."

"Yes, but that may or may not have had any connection."

"Then I noticed a man prowling about the house," Penny continued. "He
must have been the one who stole the Imp!"

"You weren't able to furnish a very good description of the man."

"No, I caught only a fleeting glimpse of his face."

"It wasn't Max Lynch?"

"I'm sure it wasn't, Dad. I'd have recognized him instantly, for his
appearance is distinctive."

Mr. Nichols bent down to examine a footprint in the soft earth beneath
the rose trellis. He measured it with his hand.

"The thief must wear about a size eleven shoe," he mentioned, "and a
gray suit of excellent quality. Other than that, I'm afraid we have no
clues."

"Why should anyone want my copy of the Black Imp?" Penny repeated in a
bewildered tone. "Dad, you don't suppose Hanley Cron considered it his
property and dared to take it?"

"That's a possibility," Mr. Nichols agreed after a moment of thought.
"From the first his connection with the Imp has been odd to say the
least. I'll have a talk with him tomorrow and see what I can learn."

When Penny and her father entered the house, Mrs. Gallup was still
searching the lower floor.

"Anything more missing?" the detective asked.

"Not that I can discover. The silver is all here."

"Apparently only the Black Imp was taken," Mr. Nichols said musingly.
"That little figure must guard some important secret."

"I never dreamed it could be valuable," Penny said. "I liked it only
because it was a copy of Amy's statue. I thought the work rather
crude."

"I doubt that the figure has any intrinsic value," Mr. Nichols answered
slowly, "but for some unknown reason, it's highly important to the man
who stole it."

That evening Penny accompanied her chum, Susan, to a moving picture
show, but although the bill was an exceptionally good one, she found it
difficult to center her attention upon the screen. She kept thinking
of the Black Imp and wishing that she could recover it or at least
solve the mystery of its strange disappearance.

"I'm afraid I'll just have to forget it," she thought gloomily, "but at
least I'm making a little headway in tracing the persons who may know
something about the stolen Rembrandt."

Penny was convinced that if only she could ma