“Come down here, Chick, and look around,” he directed.
The ground below the window had been newly sown with seed, and as yet was only sparsely covered with grass. Mr. Bentham intended to have a small patch of lawn there eventually. So soft was the soil that the footprints of sparrows who had been digging up the grass seed were plainly revealed.
“No footprints, so far as I can see, chief,” remarked Chick. “If any one had been here, his heels would sink in a couple of inches.”
“That’s true, Chick. I agree with you. But I guess we’ll make sure no one has been in the garden. Look[Pg 18] all over it on that side, and I’ll do the same on the other.”
In about ten minutes both of them were in the library again, with the window closed.
“Now will you show me the place in which you hid the papers?” asked Nick Carter, in a businesslike way. “But, if you don’t wish my assistant to know, he will step outside the room.”
“I don’t wish him to do so,” interrupted Bentham. “Why should I? This is a confidential affair, and certainly Mr. Chick is in my confidence when I know he has proved himself worthy of yours.”
He pulled down the window shade, and added to his precaution by closing a solid, wooden shutter inside. Then he hung a velvet jacket he generally wore in the library on the handle of the door, so that it covered the keyhole.
“I am not afraid of anybody eavesdropping,” he explained. “But I do not want you to feel that it is possible. We are quite sure nobody can peek in here now.”
He pulled out the drawer of his massive, mahogany library table and laid it on a chair. Then he thrust his hand into the opening and pressed in a certain spot. His next move was to replace the drawer, following this by clasping with fingers the thick, round leg on his right as he sat at the table.