“I had them once, and that was enough,” said Tom. “But, doctor, perhaps I had better call another time.”
Tom thought that if he went away, and came back, he would have a chance to speak to the physician alone, and warn him.
But the doctor did not seem to understand. He knew he had been looking for something, and that he had not found it. He appealed to the housekeeper, and Tom began to fear that all his plans would miscarry.
However, Mrs. Sandow, likely thinking that with such a poor memory to depend on she could obtain no information from the doctor, or else recollecting that her kitchen was covered with water from the burst pipe, hurried from the room. Tom saw his chance, and took it.
“I didn’t want to speak of the papers before her,” he said. “She might——”
“Oh, yes, it was papers we were looking for,” interrupted the doctor. “I remember now. We couldn’t find them. But they must be here somewhere. I’ll look in some other valuable books.”
But the papers were not to be found. Search as the two did, in all likely and unlikely places, the missing documents were not disclosed.
“I guess we can’t find them,” spoke Tom.
“It does look that way,” admitted the doctor. “I wonder what we had better do next?”
The aged physician seemed quite helpless in the face of this emergency.