“I don’t know; but he was the only one left behind when they carried us off, and that looked very suspicious to me.”
“Well,” said the superintendent, “from all accounts this Manning is a fellow who will bear pretty close watching. I won’t say yet that he robbed my safe, but I must confess things begin to look that way. I wish you would show me your room, Ben, and the one Manning occupied while he was here.”
So the superintendent, his nephew, and the landlord went up to No. 16, where Ben showed the corner of a bureau drawer in which he said the key had been hidden. Then they went to the room that had been Myles’, only three doors away. In answer to their knock Billings’ voice shouted: “Come in!” He now occupied it, and was sitting up by the window writing.
“Excuse the intrusion,” said the landlord, “but these gentlemen have a particular reason for wishing to see this room, and I thought perhaps you would not mind.”
“Oh, not at all,” answered Billings, scowling at Ben. “I will leave and let them have it all to themselves if they say so.”
They did not say so, and he did not leave, but sat watching them closely and wondering what they were up to.
Ben in particular seemed anxious to examine every article of furniture in the room very closely. He looked behind the bureau and peered under the wash-stand.
“What do you expect to find?” asked his uncle.
“I don’t expect to find any thing, but I thought it just possible that he might have hidden the envelope somewhere in this room if he took it. Of course he didn’t, though. He wouldn’t do such a thing. Hello! what’s this?”