"Huh. Wasn't valuable, was it?" asked Simon impatiently.
"Well, I don't care about losing it—thanks for your kind and sympathetic interest!" retorted his sister-in-law tartly. "Thank you, Bates, that's all."
"Yes, Miss Ocky." The old man bowed. "Good night, sir," he said, for the third time that night.
"I'll be off, too," said Miss Ocky, moving toward the door, where she lingered for a parting shot. "If I were you, Simon, I'd either have my locks seen to or else have my more valuable possessions nailed down. Good morning!"
She was gone before he could think of an effective retort. He occupied himself briefly in dragging a heavy chair against the broken window, then put out the lamp and went into his study. Bed seemed to make no appeal, though there was a suggestion of weariness in the way he dropped into his chair before the desk. He was mentally tired.
Who had dealt him this latest blow—a shrewder one than he had confessed to Ocky. That notebook full of formulas, the results of a lifetime of experiment and research, would be worth more than a gold mine to a competitor. There were men in the business who would pay handsomely for the picking of Simon Varr's brain! But who had known that, and turned his knowledge to advantage by the crooked way of burglary?
Two names kept bobbing up in the back of his brain. Copley was one; Graham the other. Either might have done it, or they might have entered into an unholy partnership of crime. Both knew the value of the notebook, and both had seen it in his desk that evening. Where had they been since? He had not noticed either of them at the fire; had they been robbing his desk while they knew him safely absent?
No sentiment played any part in these cogitations. He measured the possibility of his son's guilt as coldly as if the young man had been a complete stranger—or an ex-convict. Measured it, perhaps, unconsciously, by his own standards of behavior. He had done things in his time that would have made a self-respecting burglar blush.
There was a third possibility. The Monk. Simon tried to shake off that thought. There was no sense in it. Queer how anything like that masquerader's mischief-making could get under a sensible man's skin—dig its way into his brain until it became an obsession! Suppose he had set fire to the tannery—was that any reason to believe he had proceeded to further activities the same night? There was not a shred of proof connecting him with the burglary.
He yielded to the fascination that the scrap of brown paper was beginning to exercise over him and drew it from the pigeonhole. He opened it and let his eye travel over the illiterate text to the threat at the end that was already known to him by heart: "Take heed to thy ways and mend them, lest thou be destroyed by the thunderbolts of wrath!" Then he started violently in his chair, for he had come upon the very proof he had thought lacking.