“I know!” the lad exclaimed to himself, as he tossed on his bed in the darkness; “he’s the man who came up while I was talking to Peter. He’s the man who kept his gloves on when he came to see mother. He’s the blue-handed man!”
Once he had established this fact to his satisfaction, Larry’s mind worked quickly. That there was some connection between the blue-handed man’s operations, the safe-robbery, and the theft of the deed, Larry had no doubt.
“Things are getting into a strange mix-up,” thought the young reporter. “As soon as I think I am on the track of one part of the mystery it gets all tangled up with another part. I would like to catch that blue-handed man. Then, I believe, I would have one of the safe-robbers, I might get the deed back, and learn what is behind this land matter. It might make us wealthy. I wish it would.”
Finally, after much thinking over of the problems without result, Larry dropped off into a doze. When he awoke it was broad daylight, and the only thing to remind him of the night’s excitement was a heavy odor of smoke in the rooms. The whole house smelled as though someone had been curing hams in it.
Larry made a hasty breakfast, for it was getting late. Before he started for the office he made a search of the rooms, hoping against hope that he might come across the box of papers. But it was nowhere to be seen. He crawled under the bed, and lighted a match.
There in the dust, close to the wall, was the mark where the box had stood. Close by was a small, dark object.
“I wonder what that is,” thought Larry.
He reached for it. It was soft. Wonderingly he carried it to the light and examined the article. It was a man’s glove.
“I don’t remember losing any of mine,” he thought.
He looked at the glove more closely. It was too large to have ever fitted his hand. He turned it inside out. To his surprise the lining was streaked with blue, and there was a peculiar odor.