"Herman didn't find what he was after, I know. You remember he accused Walter of stealing the letters."
"Yes, but he denied the charge."
"Walter might have been lying, but he acted sincere," Penny said slowly. "Anyway, when I looked in the trunk—that was after Herman had visited the cottage—a package of letters was still there. However, I doubt that it was the right packet or Herman would have taken it with him."
"Yet you told me that when you went to the attic the second time, the letters were gone," Susan reminded her chum.
"That is right. If the letters wouldn't stand as damaging evidence against Herman I don't see who would want them."
"Mightn't it have been that man who tried to break into your cottage at night?"
"It could have been all right," Penny admitted, "but I didn't hear the fellow in the attic. I was under the impression that he had just entered the cottage when I awoke."
"It seems to me that there is a great deal which isn't explained."
"The part about the letters is still a deep mystery," Penny acknowledged. "But we do know that Old Herman cheated his nephew out of a fortune, and that fate has caught up with him at last."
"I suppose the old man deserves everything he gets," Susan commented. "I don't like him a bit, but for that matter there's something about Walter Crocker that gives me the creeps too. He has such a snakey look!"