“The fellow who went out through the front door probably isn’t feeling very well to-day. Your man was swinging this thing like a windmill.”
“I can’t understand it,” I muttered. “I can’t, for the life of me, see why he should have given battle to the enemy. They all belong to Pickering, and Bates is the biggest rascal of the bunch.”
“Humph! we’ll consider that later. And would you mind telling me what kind of a tallow foundry this is? I never saw so many candlesticks in my life. I seem to taste tallow. I had no letters from you, and I supposed you were loafing quietly in a grim farm-house, dying of ennui, and here you are in an establishment that ought to be the imperial residence of an Eskimo chief. Possibly you have crude petroleum for soup and whipped salad-oil for dessert. I declare, a man living here ought to attain a high candle-power of luminosity. It’s perfectly immense.” He stared and laughed. “And hidden treasure, and night attacks, and young virgins in the middle distance,—yes, I’d really like to stay a while.”
As we ate breakfast I filled in gaps I had left in my hurried narrative, with relief that I can not describe filling my heart as I leaned again upon the sympathy of an old and trusted friend.
As Bates came and went I marked Larry’s scrutiny of the man. I dismissed him as soon as possible that we might talk freely.
“Take it up and down and all around, what do you think of all this?” I asked.
Larry was silent for a moment; he was not given to careless speech in personal matters.
“There’s more to it than frightening you off or getting your grandfather’s money. It’s my guess that there’s something in this house that somebody—Pickering supposedly—is very anxious to find.”
“Yes; I begin to think so. He could come in here legally if it were merely a matter of searching for lost assets.”
“Yes; and whatever it is it must be well hidden. As I remember, your grandfather died in June. You got a letter calling you home in October.”