The younger man smiled.
"I am afraid that I didn't realize that my answers had to be to your liking, whatever the facts might be."
The doctor returned to the papers; he looked as if he could have said something vigorous, but refrained. After a while he had to admit that his researches, so far, had been without result.
"Well, there seems to be nothing here, and that's a fact. These papers seem to contain material for a history of the Cloverlea estate since it came into Lindsay's possession; and that's all. Now for the safe."
"I've gone through that."
"I'll go through it also; though from the look of it, it doesn't seem as if there were much to go through." He pulled out one of the small drawers at the bottom. "Hallo, what have we here?" He took out an oblong wooden box. "What's this on the lid? 'Peter Piper's Popular Pills.'"
"What!"
The exclamation came from Nash.
"Here it is, large as life, in good bold letters; there ought to be something valuable in here." He opened the lid. "An envelope with papers in it; what's this writing on it? 'Analyses of the constituent parts of Peter Piper's Popular Pills by leading analytical chemists.' What fools those fellows are! Lindsay's writing; he doesn't seem to have had a high opinion of some one; let's hope there's nothing libellous. What's here besides? A bottle purporting to contain Peter Piper's Popular Pills; the man seems to have had them on the brain. And--other bottles containing the ingredients of which they're made; so it says outside them; as I'm alive! and the man kept this stuff inside his safe! Nash, why are you looking at me like that?"
Mr. Nash was regarding the doctor with a somewhat singular expression on his face; when the doctor put the question to him he started, as if taken by surprise.