As the car glided away, Merriwell was thinking over this new discovery. Randolph had certainly told them of getting in a large order of supplies from Pettigrew’s that afternoon, and yet the storekeeper had just declared most emphatically that the man had never bought a cent’s worth from him. Randolph must have been lying. Why had he done so? What possible reason could he have for wishing to deceive them?
The next instant he put his hand up quickly to his breast pocket.
“By Jove, what a chump I am!” he exclaimed in a tone of annoyance.
“What’s the matter now, pard?” the Texan inquired.
Dick stopped the car with a jerk.
“I’ve left my pocketbook back at Randolph’s,” he explained.
“Are you sure you left it there?” Brad asked. “Mebbe you dropped it in the car.”
“No; I left it in the library,” Merriwell returned positively. “I remember now taking it out to get Frank’s letter, which Randolph wanted to read. I laid it on the couch, intending to replace the letter when he had finished. Instead, I must have put it in my pocket and left the bill case lying there. We’ll have to go back. It contains all my money and a lot of other things.”
He jammed on the reverse and, by dint of careful manœuvring, turned the car around and started back. In a few minutes the path was reached, and they scrambled out and hurried along it as rapidly as they could.
Under the bright starlight they had no trouble in finding their way; but reaching the plateau and facing the grim, stone building, it seemed even more desolate and deserted than when they had left it half an hour before. Under the shadow of the towering cliffs, the house loomed up a vague, mysterious bulk.