The scout master understood that poor Tom was like a drowning man clutching at a straw in hopes of keeping himself afloat. Hugh himself might have been inclined to look at the matter from much the same standpoint only for that strange incident of the afternoon, which he could not explain, try as he might, save along very unpleasant lines.
“Let’s hope so, Tom,” he hastened to say, “though now you’re about it, in order to ease your mind, and leave no stone unturned, I should think you had better make a clean sweep in here.”
“Do you mean search every drawer in my chiffonier and dresser, Hugh?” demanded Tom. “I can do that easily enough, but surely he wouldn’t think to take any of my clothes. I might tell if he’d mussed around in the drawers searching for my savings bank, though, because I keep everything just so; and the clean shirt I expect to wear to-morrow morning I placed on the top of the pile. That’s my habit as a scout to have things kept as neat as wax. Why, Hugh, my mother laughs at me, and calls me a fussy old maid, you know, all on account of those habits of thrift and preparedness.”
He started in at the bureau drawers for some reason or other, and as he opened each one and ran his eye over the contents, Tom continued to talk.
“Seems like nothing has been bothered that I can notice, Hugh. Here’s another drawer containing some of my surveying instruments, for, with Bud Morgan, I’m still interested along those lines, though of late I haven’t been out afield with him. I was a little afraid one of these instruments might be gone. You see, they’re worth considerable money, and were made a present to me by an old uncle who’s interested in my career. But, so far as I can see, not a single thing is missing, Hugh.”
There was a positive air of relief in Tom’s voice when he said this. Undoubtedly the contents of that drawer of instruments had been giving him more anxiety than he had confessed, and he was glad that no unpleasant discovery had developed.
“The rest will be just an apology of a search, Hugh, because, you see, there’s absolutely nothing worth taking besides these things. Still, to satisfy my mind as you say, perhaps I’d just better run through the drawers of the chiffonier.”
He started at the top one. Hugh indolently watched his progress downward, never dreaming that there would come anything out of the ordinary. Suddenly, as Tom started to open the drawer that he said contained his clean shirts, the scout master saw him give a big start.
“Why, what’s this?” Tom stammered, at the same time taking out a long package carefully tied up, and with something written on the outside. Hugh also noticed that an envelope was pinned on to the paper covering.
Somehow or other Hugh experienced a thrill. It was as if he had a premonition that something in the nature of a great surprise was coming. Tom was staring hard at what he saw written on the paper. Then he snatched the note, and with trembling hands commenced to get at the enclosure, while the scout master strove to analyze his feelings from the flitting expressions that chased each other across his face.