Burke gave his father a glance from scornful eyes.
"My best friend! She'd be apt to go to him, wouldn't she, if she were running away from me? Besides, we've had three or four letters from him since we've been gone. Don't you suppose he'd tell us of it, if she'd gone to him?"
"Yes, yes, of course," frowned John Denby, biting his lips. "It's only that I was trying to get hold of some one—or something. Think of it—that child alone in Boston, and—no friends! Of course she had money—that is, I suppose she cashed it—that check?" John Denby turned with a start.
"Oh, yes. I asked Brett about that. I hoped maybe there'd be a clue there, if she got somebody to cash it for her. But there was nothing. She got the money herself, at the bank here, not long after we went. So she must have come back for a time, anyway. Brett says Spawlding, at the bank, knew her, of course, and so there was no question as to identification. Still it was so large a one that he telephoned to Brett, before he paid it, asking if it were all right—you being away. Brett evidently knew you had given her such a check—"
"Yes, I had told him," nodded John Denby.
"So he said yes, it was. He says he supposed she had come down from Wenton to get it cashed, and that she would leave the bulk of it there in the bank to her credit. Anyway, all he could do was to assure Spawlding that you had given her such a check just before you went away."
"Yes, yes, I see," nodded John Denby again.
"She didn't leave any of the money, however. She took it all with her."
"Took it all—ten thousand dollars!"
"Yes. The detective, of course, is still working on the case. He got to Boston, but there he's up against a blank wall. He's run a fine-tooth comb through all sorts of public and private institutions in Boston and vicinity without avail. He's made a thorough search at the railroad station. He can't find a person who has any recollection of a young woman and child answering their description, arriving on that date, who seemed to be troubled or in doubt where to go. He questioned the matron, ticket-men, cabbies, policemen—everybody. Of course every one had seen plenty of young women with babies in their arms—young women who had the hair and eyes and general appearance of Helen, and who were anxious and fretted. (They said young women with babies were apt to be anxious and fretted.) But they didn't remember one who asked frantic questions as to what to do, and where to go, and all that—acting as we think Helen would have acted, alone in a strange city."