“Got anything of value in that drawer?” his friend inquired, pointing to a flat-top table desk between the windows. “Somebody’s been fooling with the lock. I can see the scratches on the wood—”
“Nothing but some papers, worth nothing to anybody but me. Old newspaper clippings, Navy orders, my honorable discharge and the like. By gosh!” he cried, “the lock’s busted! And somebody’s messed up the entire drawer. Look here—these things were in piles with rubber bands around them. Now they’re scattered all over the place—”
“Anything gone?”
“Wait, I’ll see.” Hurriedly he sorted out his possessions, then shook his head. “Not a thing. What under the sky-blue canopy do you suppose that dollar-dropping buzzard was after?”
“You haven’t said anything to anyone about the new job, have you?”
“You and Dad are the only ones outside of the people in Washington who know about it.”
“But this doesn’t look like it, Bill.”
“You don’t mean that the goop who got in here last night was in the know! Why, I haven’t been assigned any work yet. What could he expect to find among my papers?”
“Perhaps,” mused Osceola, “he, or whoever sent him, has an idea that you’ve been put to work already, and they want to know how much you’ve found out or what your instructions are.”
“Some gang the government is after, you mean?”