“And he works for Mr. Amasa Culpepper, too!” continued Tom, placing such a decided emphasis on these words that his companion started and stared in his face.
“That’s all true enough, Tom, but tell me what you mean by saying that in the way you did? What could Mr. Culpepper have to do with the vanishing of that paper?”
“Oh! perhaps nothing at all,” pursued the other, “but all the same he has more interest in its disappearance than any other person I can think of just now.”
“Because his name was signed at the bottom, you mean, Tom?” cried the startled Carl.
“Just what it was,” continued Tom. “Suppose your mother could never produce that receipt, Mr. Culpepper would be under no necessity of handing over any papers. I don’t pretend to know much about such things, and so I can’t tell just how he could profit by holding them. But even if he couldn’t get them made over in his own name, he might keep your mother from becoming rich unless she agreed to marry him!”
Carl was so taken aback by this bold statement that he lost his breath for a brief period of time.
“But Tom, Amasa Culpepper wasn’t in our house that morning?” he objected.
“Perhaps not, but Dock Phillips was, and he’s a boy I’d hate to trust any further than I could see him,” Tom agreed.
“Do you think Mr. Culpepper could have hired Dock to steal the paper?” continued the sorely-puzzled Carl.
“Well, hardly that. If Dock took it he did the job on his own responsibility. Perhaps he had a chance to glance at the paper and find out what it stood for, and in his cunning way figured that he might hold his employer up for a good sum if he gave him to understand he could produce that receipt.”