"Where did you put it?" asked Leopold, when he had heard all the particulars the steward could give in relation to his loss.
"There isn't any cupboard in this room, and I hadn't any good place to keep it; so I just tucked it into the flue of that fireplace," drawled Harvey, with the frequent hacking which impeded his utterance.
"That was a queer place to put it," added Leopold.
"I know it was; but I hadn't any better one. I thought it would be safer there than in any other place."
"Are you sure that you put it there?"
"Am I sure that I am a living man at this moment?" demanded Harvey. "That diary is worth more to me than all the rest I have in the world, and I shouldn't forget what I did with it."
But Leopold searched the room in every nook and corner, in spite of the protest of the sick man that it was useless to do so, for he had looked everywhere a dozen times himself. The young man was no more successful than others had been who had looked for the diary.
"Though you value it very highly I suppose the diary is not really worth very much," suggested Leopold.
"There are secrets written out in that book which might be worth a great deal of money to a bad man," replied Harvey, in a confidential tone.