"Yes," he said, "I agree with you. The furniture is very handsome and good, but I should not care, if it were mine, to spoil it with that safe."
"He told me he had lost a valuable lot of papers once, and had determined that he would never run such a risk again, and so he got a safe that could be neither carried off nor broken into."
The next day Roland returned to Brownsville and informed Mr. Fernlea of the progress that he had made.
"Capital, Roland! I shall certainly employ you in any detective work that may in future come into the office. The two next steps to be taken are clear enough, but it is not so easy to see how we are to take them. In the first place, we shall have to obtain a list of the missing securities, and the next to find out whether any of them are still in that safe. Those are the steps, but how on earth are we to take them? Your father would hardly be likely to remember the numbers of the missing bonds, and I could not ask one of the directors without taking him into our confidence, which I am averse to doing, for they all hold Johnstone in such respect that our idea would seem to them altogether preposterous."
"At any rate I could write to my father and ask him," Roland said. "He may not remember the numbers; it is hardly possible that he should, when there are such a lot of them missing; but he might be able to give us some hint how to set about it."
Accordingly Roland wrote a letter to his father informing him of the steps which he had taken and the discoveries which he had made.
"You see, father," he wrote, "that while Mr. Fernlea has no more doubt than I have that Johnstone stole the securities which he accused you of taking, it is very difficult to bring the matter home to him; and as a first step it is absolutely necessary to get the numbers of the bonds, and that without there being a possibility of its coming to his ears that I am moving in the matter. Can you suggest any plan?"
A week later, when Roland had returned to his lodgings after dark, a man was standing at the gate.
"Roland, my boy, is that you?"
"Good heavens, father, how you startled me! I am glad indeed to see you again, but it is surely imprudent to venture back just at this moment, for were your presence here discovered it would upset all our plans. But come in. I have a key, and you can go up with me. But even if the woman of the house saw you, she would hardly be likely to recognize you, for she has not been settled in the town very long."