"Good Lord, hasn't our family had notoriety enough?
Here's Nan eloping with the overseer, and Jeff the scandal of the county for five years.
I can't turn around but some malicious interpretation is put on it, and now that the family ghost has taken to cracking safes gossip will never stop.
Get a detective down here who goes nosing about the neighborhood in search of information and there's no telling where the thing will end.
Those bonds can't be far.
Aren't we more likely to get at the truth, if we lie low and don't let on we're after the thief?"
"Radnor," I said, "will you tell me the absolute truth?
Have you any suspicion as to who took those securities?
Do you know any facts which might lead to the apprehension of the thief?"
He remained silent a moment, then he parried my question with another.
"What time did all that row occur in the night?"
"I don't know; I didn't think to look, but I should say it was somewhere in the neighborhood of three o'clock.
I didn't go to sleep again, and it was about half an hour later that you drove in."
"You heard me?"
"I heard you go and I heard you come; but I did not mention that fact to the Colonel."
Rad laughed shortly.
"I can at least prove an alibi," he said. "You can swear that I was not Mose's devil."
He remained silent a moment with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands studying the floor; then he raised his eyes to mine with a puzzled shake of the head.
"No, Arnold, I haven't the slightest suspicion as to who took those securities.
I can't make it out.
The robbery must have occurred while I was away.
Of course the deeds and insurance policies and coin may have been taken as a blind; but it's queer.
The money was in five and ten cent pieces and pennies—we always keep a lot of change on hand to pay the piece-workers during planting season.
There was nearly a quart of it altogether and it must have weighed a ton.
I can't imagine anyone stealing Government four-per-cents and pennies at the same haul."
"Did you get any light from Mose?" I asked.
"No, I can't make head nor tail out of his story.
He isn't given to seeing visions, and as you know, he isn't afraid of the dark.
He saw something that scared him; but what it was, I'll be darned if I know!"
"Then why not get a detective down and see if he can't find out?"
Radnor lowered his eyes a moment, then raised them frankly to mine.
"Oh, hang it, Arnold; I'm in the deuce of a hole!
There's something else that I don't want found out.
It's absolutely unconnected with the robbery, but you bring a detective down here and he's certain to stumble on that instead of the other.
I'd tell you if I could, but really I can't just now.
It's nothing I'm to blame for—my conduct lately has been immaculate.
You get my father to abandon this detective plan, and we'll buckle down together and root out the truth about the robbery."
"Well," I promised, "I'll see what I can do; but as the Colonel says, five thousand dollars is a good deal of money to let slip through your hands without making an effort to get it back.
You and I will have to finish the business if we undertake it."
"We will!" he assured me. "We can certainly get at the truth better than an outsider who doesn't know any of the facts.
You switch off the old gentleman from putting it in the hands of the police and everything will come out right."
He went off actually whistling again.
Whatever had been troubling him for the past two weeks had been sloughed off during the night, and all that remained now was the danger of detection; with this removed he was his old careless self.
The loss of the securities was apparently not bothering him.
Radnor always did exhibit a lordly disregard in money matters.
I lost no time in taking my errand to the Colonel, but I could discover him in none of the down stairs rooms nor anywhere else about the place.
It occurred to me, after half an hour of searching, to see if his horse were in the stable; as I had surmised it was not.
He had ordered it saddled immediately after breakfast and had ridden off in the direction of the village, one of the stable-men informed me.
I had my own horse saddled, and ten minutes later was riding after him.
It surprised me that he should have acted so quickly; the Colonel was usually rather given to procrastination, while Rad was the one who acted.