"We have none to give out at present," said Grace coldly. "We are having a number made,
showing him as he looked when he went away, and they will be ready in a few days. The lawyers will attend to that, if my father is not found in the meanwhile."
"We've got to have a picture now!" exclaimed Peter.
"You shut up!"—thus in a whisper, from another reporter who stood near the representative of the Scorcher. "You don't know when you've been treated decent. Half the millionaire families in New York wouldn't even let us inside the door, let alone telling us all we wanted to know. Dry up!" And Peter desisted after that rebuke.
Larry managed to be the last one of the reporters to leave the house. He lingered in the hall, and when he and Grace were there alone he said:
"One thing I forgot to ask. When you got back to the house was there any evidence that your father had been here ahead of you? Was the house shut up while you were in Europe?"
"I'm glad you spoke of that," the girl replied. "I had forgotten about it. Yes, the house was closed all the while we were away, and opened the day mother and I got back. But, now that you speak of it, I recollect something that seemed strange at the time. We were a little worried when father did not meet us at the pier, and I had an idea that he might have spent some nights in the house, pending our arrival, though he had said in his letters that if he came over ahead of
us he was going to stop at a hotel. I went to his room——"
She broke into tears again, and Larry waited, looking out of the big front doors, for he was embarrassed.
"When I looked over his room," continued Grace, going on bravely, "I saw something was missing, that I knew was on his dresser when we left for Europe."