“And I don’t know what I’m looking for!” he thought. “This really promises to be a worse job than opening the safe.”
However, he resolutely set to work examining the contents. By good fortune, all the packets were labelled plainly, so that he was not forced to open any.
“It’s a saving of time and my feelings,” thought the cracksman. “I have no desire to investigate Mr. Farbush’s affairs any farther than they concern me.”
Paper after paper, packet after packet, passed through his hands, but still no sign of anything that had the slightest interest to him.
“And yet, how can I be sure of that?” he asked himself. “I never felt so helpless and incompetent to deal with a situation in my life. This,” and he turned a heavy envelope over in his hands, “might be exactly the thing I’m searching for; but how am I to know one way or the other?”
The envelope was large, made of stout manila paper and sealed with two huge splotches of black wax. Across the face of it was written in a large, running hand:
ESTATE OF STEPHEN AUSTIN.
“This might be it,” thought Kenyon; and he shrugged his shoulders and laughed. “And when I come to think of it, somehow, it seems to me that this name is familiar to me. It is just as though—by George, yes! It is just as though I had heard it on the night of my adventure in Selden’s Square.”
He looked at the envelope, swift eagerness in his eyes.
“I’ll chance it,” he muttered. He was about to tear it open when suddenly a small white hand darted over his shoulder and snatched it from his grasp. He turned with a startled exclamation and caught a glimpse of a dark, cloaked figure; but at the same instant the lights were switched off. As he sprang up, he heard the door thrown open, and heedless of the darkness he darted toward it. Soft feet were running on the stairs.