This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
VII

I closed the door upon Pete and myself.

"Well," I started, "he practically admits it."

"Why not?" asked Pete. "We know about it; they all know; they're all in it."

"She's not," I said; and Pete laughed at me, who thereupon added; "She told me she didn't know about it."

"I heard her," said Pete; and I knew there was no use of argument with him. He argued, instead, with me. "Who sat as model for the dummy?" he demanded of me. "Isn't it she?"

"It's she," I admitted. "But I don't know yet what it means."

"What what means?"

"The effigy."

Once more Pete laughed at me. "Pretty place," he turned the subject, picking up a cigarette from a tray on a table. We went to the window together and witnessed our biplane being drawn up on the beach, across the lake, beside the three blue monoplanes.