“I cannot say that he has ever aroused my feelings in any way,” he answered. “He has had work to do for me and has done it well and silently. I have looked upon him somewhat as an automaton, although a valuable one. And yet——” he added musingly.
“Yet what?” I interrupted.
“Well, sometimes I have half fancied that he was playing a part, that his interest in our work was a little strained. He gave me the idea of a man working steadily forward towards a set purpose, and I have never seemed able to reconcile that purpose with the completion of our task. His sudden absences, too—for this is not the first of them,—are strange.”
“I should think so,” I assented. “Has he taken anything away with him this time?” I asked bluntly.
A very grave look came into my father’s face and he did not answer me at once. When he did so his tone was low and anxious.
“Yes, he has. About a fortnight ago we came to the end, virtually, of our long task. There was only a little revision wanted, which he was to have left for me. The night that he disappeared the manuscript disappeared also. Evidently he took it away with him.”
“Perhaps he has taken it to the publishers,” I suggested. My father shook his head doubtfully.
“Only this morning I have heard from them, begging me to forward it without delay,” he said.
I was silent. Even if he had taken the manuscript, what use could he make of it? How could it profit him?
Suddenly I stood still in the path. My heart gave a great leap and a cry broke from my lips. For the first time an idea, the vague phantom of an idea, swept in upon me, carrying all before it, and casting a brilliant, lurid light upon all that seemed so dark and mysterious.