Benno pointed to a small cabinet in a corner of the room. "You will find there everything that I possess of my father's," he said, sadly. "Here is the key. Look through it; I----"
"I trust you will help me. You are the interested party. Why do you hesitate?"
The doctor was hesitating, in fact, but Veit had already opened the cabinet, and in a few minutes the rather meagre collection of papers belonging to the late engineer was spread out on the table. His old friend and comrade looked through them with the utmost care; every drawing was closely examined, every leaf turned, but in vain! There was nothing that bore any reference to the matter in question,--no sketch, no note, no memorandum, nothing that could confirm Gronau's suspicions. Benno, who had undertaken the search unwillingly, breathed a sigh of relief, while Veit pushed the papers aside in great dissatisfaction.
"Fools that we are! We might have known it! Nordheim never would have played his rascally trick had anything existed that could betray him. He must have borrowed the plan from his friend upon some pretext and then insured himself against discovery. My old Benno was not the one to unmask such a fox unless he had been in possession of convincing proof of his treachery; and I, the only one cognizant of the truth of the case, was off in the wide world no one knew where. But I am here now, and I will not rest until the affair is brought to light."
"But why?" Benno asked, gently. "Why rake up the old forgotten quarrel? It can do my poor father no good, and should you find the proof you speak of, it would be a terrible blow for--the president's family."
Gronau stared at him for a moment speechless, as if he could not understand his words; then he burst forth, angrily, "Upon my word this is going too far! Any one else would be almost wild with such a discovery, would move heaven and earth to find out the truth and to brand the guilty, and you would fain restrain me because, forsooth, the engineer-in-chief is your friend,--because you are afraid of troubling the family of your worst enemy. You are the true son of your father; he would have done the very same thing."
He was not quite right in his surmise. Benno had not thought of Wolfgang: a very different face had risen in his mind and gazed at him with brown eyes filled with troubled questionings, but not for worlds would he have revealed what made the confirmation of Gronau's suspicions so terrible to him, and why he would rather bury the whole affair in oblivion.
Veit Gronau turned away, saying, in a tone expressing discontent and pity, "There is nothing to be done with you, Benno. Such unpractical sentimentalists are good for nothing in a matter of this kind. Fortunately, I am on hand. I am now upon the trail, and, cost what it may, I shall pursue it. My old friend shall have in his grave the recognition that was denied him while living!"