THREE TIMES RUNNING.
Shagarach's office was a hive of industry the next time Emily Barlow called. Walter Riley, installed in Jacob's place, looked smartly clerical, with a pen over one ear, docketing some papers, and Aronson was knitting his brows over a decision in the digest. But the lawyer himself, she thought, did not appear to have profited greatly by his fortnight's vacation. His cheek was worn and his manner betrayed an unusual aberration at times.
He had returned only the evening before. When she entered the parlor to greet him his mother found the padlock chain of the Persian poets torn through their edges, and her son face down on the carpet buried in a volume of Hafiz, with Sadi and Firdusi scattered near. She trembled, but she did not disturb him.
"Our cause progresses," he said, in answer to Emily's query. "Important links have been discovered since we last conferred."
The sweet girl lifted her eyebrows and waited.
"In the first place we shall put Harry Arnold on the stand. I have traced him to the door of the study a moment before the fire was set."
Emily bit her lip just a trifle in disappointment, for her own cherished theory would only be embarrassed by the presence of Harry Arnold there.
"The other points?" she asked.
"You remember the peddler in the green cart, alluded to in Ellen Greeley's letter, who carried messages to some person unknown?"
"Perfectly."