As the commercial traveler moved toward the dining room, the detective stepped into a side apartment, used in the winter as a conservatory. He saw Thomas Ostrello make an examination of several places, including a sideboard. Then the woman who had been placed in charge of the downstairs portion of the mansion entered.
"Won't you have a bite to eat, Mr. Ostrello?" she asked.
"Perhaps so, later on. I do not feel like eating now. Can I take a look at my mother's room?"
"Why, yes. I suppose you know where it is?"
"Certainly; I often visited her there when she was not feeling well."
He passed out without another word, and was soon mounting the heavily-carpeted stairs. Once in the room, he closed the door tightly. Coming up softly after him, Adam Adams tried the door and found it locked. More interested than ever, the detective, just avoiding Mrs. Morse, who was passing through the hallway, slipped into the adjoining room, and finding, as he had imagined, a door between the two, applied his eye to the keyhole.
This might mean nothing, and it might mean everything. He saw Mrs. Langmore's son moving around the dressing room precisely as he had moved around the library. He heard the bureau drawers opened and shut, and then heard the squeak of a small writing desk that stood in a corner, as the leaf was turned down. Then came a rattle of papers and a sudden subdued exclamation. The desk was closed again, and the man came out of the room, leaving the hall door partly open.
"Whatever he was looking for, he must have found it," reasoned the detective. "Now, what was it?"
He waited in the hallway and heard Thomas Ostrello enter the dining room. A minute later came the rattle of dishes. Then Mrs. Morse confronted him.
"Back again, I see," she said rather sharply.