“Another fond hope blasted,” he complained. “I never loved a bug or flower but what ’twas first to fade away.”
The children looked at him in astonishment.
“No,” he replied to their look of inquiry. “I’m not crazed with the heat, but I was just dead sure we should find something. Let’s tackle the other two closets.”
The exploring party moved on and made a thorough search of the other closet ends, and the open spaces under the eaves, but without result. One empty and extremely dirty pasteboard box was all they got for their pains.
“There’s no other place about the house where anything could be hidden, is there?” asked Dick Harding of Mrs. Morton.
“I have never heard of any secret cupboards, Mr. Harding. The people who lived here before we bought the house might have found letters and destroyed them. But Alice said her mother, at the time of her father’s death, searched every place where business letters or papers could possibly be concealed.”
“Well, I suppose I’ll have to give up,” said Dick. “The worst of it is I’m afraid Alice can’t hold the stock without further evidence.”
“I am glad Alice has her Uncle Joseph to protect her,” said Mrs. Morton. “But what black faces and hands, children! Go wash up immediately.”
The party did seem a little the worse for wear. It was a warm day and trickles of perspiration had mingled with the dust till their faces resembled a cross-roads map.
Dick Harding looked from one grimy face to another with a twinkle in his eye.