“If you’d not been here, Miss Haldane,” said the book store proprietor, “I never should have known what he was after. I couldn’t make out at all.”
“What kind of laboratory is this?” I asked, determined not to be thrown off the scent.
The old man laughed. “I fancy my clerk must have been telling you some queer things. I’ve never told him all I knew. I don’t mind keeping him wondering. This is my brother’s laboratory, and as to what he does, look here!”
He threw open the second door and we gazed in. Sets on sets of false teeth, boxes of dentist’s supplies and dental machinery met our view. I suddenly began to laugh. Tom looked at me for a moment and burst into peal on peal of laughter, while the whole crowd, even the assistant, who had been gazing anxiously at us meanwhile, finally joined in. At last, weak with laughter, I asked, “Why did the assistant shut us up?”
“He thought you were burglars,” explained the book shop man, “and as my brother is out of town, he ran for me. My brother is a little careful whom he lets in, as he does his main business in another place, and this is a side affair.”
And so the incident of the false teeth laboratory closed.
The outer air had never seemed so good to me save twice before,—when I left the New York prison in Tom’s motor car headed for Dorothy, and when I came up from the bottom of Portsmouth Harbor. I took in long breaths of it, as we walked towards the carriage and as we drove towards the hotel. Dorothy sat silent beside Tom, but every now and then I met her eyes, and they fell. The old look seemed gone. There was a change, a new and very sweet timidity.
As we entered the hotel, Tom drew a long breath. “A good night’s sleep,” he said, “and we’ll tackle clipping number three.”