The servant withdrew.
Santoine waited. Presently the door again opened, and he heard his daughter's step.
"Have you listed what was taken from the safe, Harriet?" Santoine asked.
"Not yet, Father."
The blind man thought an instant. "Day before yesterday, when I asked you to take charge for the present of the correspondence Avery has looked after for me, what did you do?"
"I put it in my own safe—the one that was broken into last night. But none of it was taken; the bundles of letters were pulled out of the safe, but they had not been opened or even disturbed."
"I know. It was not that I meant." Santoine thought again. "Harriet, something has been brought into the house—or the manner of keeping something in the house had been changed—within a very few days—since the time, I think, when the attempt to run Eaton down with the motor-car was made. What was that 'something'?"
His daughter reflected. "The draft of the new agreement about the Latron properties and the lists of stockholders in the properties which came through Mr. Warden's office," she replied.
"Those were in the safe?"
"Yes; you had not given me any instructions about them, so I had put them in the other safe; but when I went to get the correspondence I saw them there and put them with the correspondence in my own safe."