"Mr. Thompson said you would know if anybody did. He says you are a great chum of this fellow's—that he hangs about the lighthouse here a good deal.
"Now, there is no possibility of the book's having been left there before the vault door during banking hours. That fellow was never inside the cage for any purpose whatsoever."
Tobias finally regained his voice.
"You don't mean to say you think he'd be foolish enough to leave this book right in sight if he was one o' them burglars?"
"But I tell you it was found there. And you yourself found the knife under the window. Isn't that his, too?"
"I wouldn't go so far as to say it was, nor I wouldn't say it wasn't," announced the old lightkeeper with emphasis. "But it looks right senseless for him to have left the book there—let's see where you say he marked down the combination? That looks right silly, too. If he knowed the combination well enough to open the safe, why bother to write it down?"
"There it is," said the detective, pointing, and with emphasis. "Those figures in pencil. That is the bank vault combination. Or it was. Of course, it will be changed now."
"Yes. I see. Lockin' the garage door after the tin Lizzie's been stole," commented Tobias.
He squinted a long time at the row of numbers and letters written across the otherwise blank page. He turned back a leaf or two, and appeared to study the addresses written thereon.
"Yes," he muttered. "Writ down in pencil. All the rest in ink. He most always does carry a fountain pen."