He smiled and waved his hand with friendly assurance. The state of feeling between Durbin and myself was evidently well known to him.
My enemy entered with a jaunty air, which changed ever so slightly when he saw me in close conference with the superintendent.
He had the book in his pocket. Taking it out, he handed it to the major, with this remark:
“You won’t find anything there; the gent’s been fooling you.”
The major opened the book, shook it, looked under the cover, found nothing, and crossed hastily to the drawing-room. We as hastily followed him. The district attorney was talking with Miss Tuttle; Mr. Jeffrey was nervously pacing the floor. The latter stopped as we all entered and his eyes flashed to the book.
“Let me take it,” said he.
“It is absolutely empty,” remarked the major. “The letter has been abstracted, probably without your knowledge.”
“I do not think so,” was Mr. Jeffrey’s unexpected retort. “Do you suppose that I would intrust a secret, for the preservation of which I was ready to risk life and honor, to the open pages of a book? When I found myself threatened with all sorts of visits from the police and realized that at any moment my effects might be ransacked, I sought a hiding place for this letter, which no man without superhuman insight could discover. Look!”
And, pulling off the outside wrapper, he inserted the point of his penknife under the edge of the paper lining the inside cover and ripped it off with a jerk.
“I pasted this here myself,” he cried, and showed us where between this paper and the boards, in a place thinned out to hold it, there lay a number of folded sheets, which, with a deep sigh, he handed over to the major’s inspection. As he did so he remarked: