"Don't know. They've taken them up to the office. That's what makes the case rather weak in my eyes; no man would carry a packet of implicating papers in the pocket of his overcoat all this time. Such a package was handed to him as he left the tavern there by the landlord's wife, and she got it from the rebel spy who escaped back across the Potomac the next morning. He's the man your Colonel Putnam so nearly captured. Doctor Warren broke down on the back trip, it seems, and was delirious here for some days; but even then I should think he would hardly have kept these papers in an overcoat pocket, unless they were totally forgotten, and that would look vastly like innocence of their contents, which is what he claimed."
"Do you mean that he knows it? Has he been accused?" asks Abbot.
"Certainly. That's what I came down here for; he wanted his daughter. He is perfectly rational and on the mend now, and as the physicians said he would be able to travel in a day or two, it was decided best to nail him. There are scores of people hereabouts who'll stand watching better than this old doctor, to my thinking; but we are like you soldiers, and have our orders."
"Was my father up there when he was notified of his arrest," asks Abbot.
"No; Mr. Abbot has gone over to Senator Wilson's. He was met by a messenger while standing in the office a while ago."
The major tugs his mustache in nervous perplexity a moment. He needs to see the doctor. He cannot rest satisfied now until he has called upon him, assured him of his sympathy, his faith in his innocence, and his desire to be of service. More than that, he longs to tell him that he believes it in his power to explain the whole complication. More and more it is dawning upon him that he has had an arch-enemy at work in this missing Hollins, and that his villainy has involved them all.
"Can I see Dr. Warren?" he suddenly asks.
"I don't know. I am not directly in charge, but I will ask Hallett, who is up at the room now."
"Do; and come to my room and let me know as soon as you can."
In less than five minutes the officer is down at his door.