The policeman came up.
"What's all this?" he asked, gruffly.
Theodore turned to him and spoke a few words in a low rapid tone, and he moved hastily away. Then Theodore came back to Pliny.
"Will you go and spend the night with me at my rooms, Pliny?" he asked, gently.
"Well," said Pliny, trying to rouse himself from his half stupor, "I did promise Doralinda Mirinda that I'd come home, but seeing the street has taken such a confounded notion to go round and round, why I guess she will excuse me and I'll oblige you."
"This boy will call a carriage for you and make you comfortable, and I will be with you as soon as possible. I have a little business first."
He gave a little shiver of relief as he saw Pliny stagger quietly away with Tommy. All this time, and indeed it was but a very little time, although it seemed hours to the young man whose every nerve was in a quiver, his ear had been strained ready for the slightest sound that might occur in the room over which he was keeping guard; but the utmost quiet reigned. Winters evidently suspected nothing, and was biding his time. "The villain means to escape hanging if he can," muttered Theodore, under his breath.
And now the dim moonlight showed the tall forms of three policemen approaching. He advanced and held a brief whispered conversation with them, then the four ascended the steps. Theodore applied his night-key, and with cat-like tread they moved across the hall, and the library door swung noiselessly open. They were fairly inside the room before Mr. Stephens, intent upon his papers, observed them. When he did he sprang to his feet, with a face on which surprise, bewilderment and consternation contended for the mastery. "Theodore," he gasped, rather than said; and it was Mr. Stephens' sorrow ever after that for one little moment he believed that his almost son had proved false to him. The next the whole story stood revealed. From the moment that Mr. Stephens uttered his exclamation all attempt at quietness was laid aside. A policeman strode across the room, flung wide the closet door, and said to the cowed and shivering mortal hiding therein, "You are my prisoner, sir," and from his pocket produced the handcuffs and proceeded to adjust them, while another disarmed him. Theodore went over and stood beside the gray-haired startled man.
"Don't be alarmed, sir," he said, gently and quietly; "the danger is quite over now. His pockets must be searched," this to the policeman. "He has twenty thousand dollars about him somewhere that belong to us."
"My boy," said Mr. Stephens, tremulously, and with utmost tenderness in his tones, "what does all this mean? How did you learn of it?"