"This Stover claimed that Babcock was indebted to him?"
"Yes. Babcock has been trying to remember what became of his money. He thinks that he has recalled the combination to the safe and that the man to whom he showed the combination robbed him."
"I must be going. My wife will be waiting supper for me. I would like to talk longer with you. Could you come back to the office later in the evening?"
"Yes, I can come any time."
"How will eight o'clock be?"
"That will be all right."
When Watson reached his little cottage at the edge of the mining camp, his wife, a slender, blue-eyed girl scarcely twenty years of age, met him on the porch. "Dick, you are late tonight. I have been waiting dinner for twenty minutes. Why, what is the matter?" she asked, noticing that he had a worried look on his face. "Are you ill?"
"No, just worried," he replied.
"What has gone wrong?"
"I will tell you after a while."