“Well, to make a long story short, Hugh, something tempted me to move softly along the hall and look in past the partly open door. Hugh, would you believe me, I was shocked to see Benjy, whom I once believed the soul of honor, actually rummaging in my trunk.”
“Do you keep your trunk locked?” asked Hugh quickly.
“Not as a rule,” replied Tom, “unless I happen to have something in it I don’t want a servant to see, or some Christmas presents I’ve hid away. I guess it wasn’t locked to-day, in fact, I know it wasn’t.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear that,” said the scout master, really relieved. “Younger brothers often think they have a right to rummage when the notion strikes them, I understand. Why should you think it so strange, Tom?”
“Perhaps I wouldn’t have felt so badly about it some time ago,” admitted Tom; “but so many suspicious things have happened, you see, to make me think Benjy is going along the fast road. There was his taking that money from his savings bank, and answering me so impudently when I asked him what he was spending it for, instead of waiting till the Fourth of July. Hugh, I keep my own savings bank lying in my trunk, along with a lot of other stuff!”
“Do you think he meant to open that, and extract some of the contents?” asked Hugh, feeling uncomfortably chilly at the thought.
“I’d hate to say what terrible thoughts chased through my brain when I saw him turning things upside down as though he couldn’t find what he was looking for,” the grieved Tom went on to remark.
“What did you do?” inquired Hugh.
“The first thing I thought of doing was to step right in and ask him what he meant by getting in my trunk while I was away. But somehow, Hugh, I just couldn’t bring myself to do that, so I slipped down to the head of the stairs, and then started to whistle, and make a noise with my feet, as if I might be coming up from the lower floor.”
“Yes,” said Hugh, greatly interested, as Tom paused to gulp again.