Very gingerly, holding it in the tips of his fingers, he lifted a red leather notebook from its nest of brown wrappings and showed it to Krech. The big man nearly dropped the torch which he had taken from his friend.
"Varr's notebook!" he cried. "It must be!"
"It is," confirmed Creighton, who had lifted one cover with the tip of a finger nail and glanced at the contents of a page. "Now, isn't this lovely! Who says we can't recover loot? The thief may have to hand it to us on a tray, but it's only results that count! Say, Krech—there goes your melodramatic theory of a plot to bump me off."
"I suppose so."
"He lured me down this trail so I'd find it, and to make sure I didn't miss it, he strung that wire where it would throw me with my face almost on the darn thing! You'd have seen it if you hadn't been knocked silly, and I'd have seen it if I'd been thinking of anything but you."
"He went to a lot of trouble that he could have spared himself for all of me!" grunted Krech, feeling his forehead. "I must look like the happy end of a barroom brawl. Why didn't he mail it?"
"By golly, I don't know. That's a mighty pertinent question, Mr. Krech. We'll get the answer when we get the crook, I expect. I'm not so fearfully surprised at getting back this notebook; did it ever strike you that there might be another explanation of its disappearance other than simple theft?"
"N-no. If there's another reason, I missed it."
"The dagger wasn't used to further the looting of Varr's desk. Just the contrary is the truth, I believe. The notebook was stolen to cover the theft of the dagger."
"Gee Joseph!" Krech whistled softly. "That checks up with the theory of an inside job! Creighton—who?"