“Do you think you can make her beautiful?” I inquired, grinning at our leader.
“I can’t see how we can possibly fail,” he laughed, “with such wonderful soap to use on her as this.” He squinted into one of his pink boxes and smelled of its contents. Then he added, serious: “Selling her beauty soap, though, is the least important part of our errand. What I want more [[54]]than her money is a chance to peep into the old Matson Bible.”
This recalled to my mind that the murdered puzzle maker and Mrs. Kelly had been related, which explains how the family Bible had come into her possession, together with a number of other things that had belonged to the old man.
“What do you want to read her Bible for?” I inquired, puzzled to understand our leader’s motive.
“Well,” he countered, “if the miser had a brother, there would be a record of it in the family Bible, wouldn’t there?”
“A brother?” I repeated.
“Jerry, didn’t you notice anything familiar about the soap peddler?”
“No,” I said.
“Then you better have your eyes tested,” grunted Scoop. “For he looks a lot like old Mr. Matson. The same thin face; eyes set close together. Don’t you remember how the old puzzle maker looked?”
I did remember, for the miser had been dead but two years. And now that Scoop had directed my thoughts to it, I could acknowledge to a distinct resemblance between the soap peddler and the dead man. Certainly, I checked off in my [[55]]mind, the two men had the same kind of shifting, close-set eyes.