“It seems to me this whole affair is a tempest in a teapot,” he said, rather hotly. “I’ve been chased up here on a fool’s errand. I’m sorry to have intruded.”
“A strangely timely visit,” said Dick, laughing, when the inspector had gone. “You would almost think that some one who knew that letter was going to be found wanted to make sure that we shouldn’t conceal the discovery, wouldn’t you? Now, Jim, I want to know who could have dropped that envelope in this room? It must have been done while you were here, for I have had the room watched in your absence, and no one has been here. Tell me every one who has been here since dinner time last night. It must have been done since then.”
Jim had no difficulty in supplying the list. He had just three visitors. Harry Maxwell, Bill Brady, and Carpenter made up the list.
“Carpenter again,” said Brady, with a sarcastic laugh. “He’s very careless. He was here when the letter disappeared—he is the only one, eliminating Harry Maxwell and myself, who could have restored it—with the money gone.”
“Exactly,” said Dick Merriwell. “There are a lot of things I should like to have Carpenter explain. But being sure of a man’s guilt and proving it afterward so that other people will be sure also, are two very different things. We’re not in a position yet to accuse Carpenter of anything, or to try to make him answer any questions. In fact, it would be dangerous to try it. We would simply put him on his guard, if he has anything to do with it, and make it harder than ever to straighten things out. And our time is getting so short that we can’t afford to make any sort of a move without being absolutely sure.”
He waited a minute to think over the new facts.
“There’s one thing we can do, though,” he said. “Our friend Chetwind has had time to do some thinking. And I imagine that with what we can tell him now, he may decide that it’s time he told us who served as his agent in those remarkable negotiations of his with Jim by which he agreed to pay for the services of a pitcher in that wretched baseball game.”
“That’s so, too,” said Brady. “Let’s go to it.”
The three of them, accordingly, taking the letter as mute but convincing evidence, took their way to Chetwind’s office. Dick Merriwell, on the way, examined the letter very closely.
“The man who opened this made one bad mistake,” he said. “He should have torn it open with his fingers, as nine men out of ten open a letter. He didn’t. And he may be sorry before we get through that he did not. If he did that with this letter, the chances are that he makes a practice of it—and that practice may give us some very valuable information yet.”