“Here’s something!” he cried, as he pulled out some torn fragments of paper. “Maybe it’s the note.”
“By Jove!” exclaimed the detective. “I am a dumb one! Say, I never stopped to think that Parloti wouldn’t make a getaway in his smoking jacket. He had that on when he got the note. He tore the paper up, and stuck the pieces in the pocket. I saw him do that. Then I sat down to watch. When I looked again he was gone. And I just passed over that jacket in the closet as if it didn’t amount to anything. Say, put me back in the baby class, will you?” he asked Larry. “I don’t belong on the police force.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” said the young reporter. “Any one would make that mistake, and it was only by luck that I happened to think of it. But maybe, after all, this isn’t the note we want.”
“We can soon tell,” said the detective, clearing a space on the bureau.
Together they began fitting together the pieces of the torn note. It was very soon evident that it was not all there.
“He took most of it with him,” said Mr. Nyler. “Even in his hurry he thought of that. He must have reached his hand in the pocket of this jacket, and grabbed up the pieces as he was leaving. But he did not get them all.”
“There are only a few words I can make out,” said Larry, “and they don’t seem to be connected. This is the best we can do.”
They peered at the pieces of the torn note. The words that confronted them were these:
boy
ocated
come
ot.