To which Babie made no answer, and the next minute her mother, who had become intent on the davenport, exclaimed, “I suppose you haven’t got the key of this in your doll’s bed?”
“Don’t you remember, mother,” said Barbara, “you sent it home to Janet, and it was lost in her bag on the crossing?”
“Oh, yes, I remember! And it is a Bramah lock, more’s the pity. We must have the locksmith over from Kenminster to open it.”
The man was sent for, the davenport was opened, desk, drawers, and all. Caroline was once more in possession of her papers. She turned them over in haste, and saw no book of Magnum Bonum. Again, more carefully she looked. The white slate, where those precious last words had been written, was there, proving to her that her memory had not deceived her, but that she had really kept her treasure in that davenport.
Then, in her distress, she thought of Barbara’s strange behaviour, went in quest of her, and calling her aside, asked her to tell her the real reason why she had thought fit to secure the davenport in the closet.
“Why,” asked Babie, her eyes growing large and shining, “is anything missing?”
“Tell me first,” said Caroline, trembling.
Then Babie told how she had wakened and seen Janet with the desk part raised up, reading something, and how, when she lay watching and wondering, Janet had shut it up and gone away. “And I did not feel comfortable about it, mother,” said Babie, “so I thought I would lock up the davenport, so that nobody could get at it.”
“You did not see her take anything away?”
“No, I can’t at all tell,” said Babie. “Is anything gone?”