A circle of light from the green-shaded desk-lamp beat down on the three singular exhibits. Sharlee studied them with bewilderment mixed with profound melancholy.
"Is it conceivable," said she, hesitatingly—"I only suggest this because the whole thing seems so extraordinary—that somebody is playing a very foolish joke on you?"
He stared. "Who on earth would wish to joke with me?"
Of course he had her there. "I wish," she said, "that you would tell me what you yourself think of them."
"I think that my father must be very hard up for something to do."
"Oh—I don't think I should speak of it in that way if I were you."
"Why not? If he cites filial duty to me, why shall I not cite paternal duty to him? Why should he confine his entire relations with me in twenty-four years to two preposterous detective-story letters?"
Sharlee said nothing. To tell the truth, she thought the behavior of Queed Senior puzzling in the last degree.
"You grasp the situation? He knows exactly where I am; evidently he has known it all along. He could come to see me to-night; he could have come as soon as I arrived here three months ago; he could have come five, ten, twenty years ago, when I was in New York. But instead he elects to write these curious letters, apparently seeking to make a mystery, and throwing the burden of finding him on me. Why should I become excited over the prospect? If he would promise to endow me now, to support or pension me off, if I found him, that would be one thing. But I submit to you that no man can be expected to interrupt a most important life-work in consideration of a single twenty-dollar bill. And that is the only proof of interest I ever had from him. No—" he broke off suddenly—"no, that's hardly true after all. I suppose it was he who sent the money to Tim."
"To Tim?"