“Oh, she stopped you?” repeated Linden, with withering sarcasm. “Then, perhaps, you will tell me where the money is gone?”
“He hasn’t discovered about the will,” thought Curtis, congratulating himself; “if the boy has it, I must manage to give him a chance to escape.”
“You can search me if you want to,” continued Dodger, proudly. “You won’t find no money on me.”
“Do you think I am a fool, you young burglar?” exclaimed John Linden, angrily.
“Uncle, let me speak to the boy,” said Curtis, soothingly. “I think he will tell me.”
“As you like, Curtis; but I am convinced that he is a thief.”
Curtis Waring beckoned Dodger into an adjoining room.
“Now, my boy,” he said, smoothly, “give me what you took from the secretary, and I will see that you are not arrested.”
“But, sir, I didn’t take nothing—it’s just as I told the old duffer. The girl waked up just as I’d got the secretary open, and I didn’t have a chance.”
“But the money is gone,” said Curtis, in an incredulous tone.