“Under the supposition of a confederate in the store, might he not have dropped it by accident when down here on his regular business?” asked Mr. Leonard.
He took the paper again, and attentively read it.
“What does it mean? It is all Greek to me,” said Mr. Leonard.
“It means that an appointment for a meeting of the gentlemen who have been visiting you has been made. The Monday night has passed, or it might be next Monday. The meeting is fixed for Black-eyed Joe’s, wherever that is. ‘The swag is safe.’ That is your silk, which they are trying to dispose of by samples. ‘Fighting shy’ simply means that you are keeping the affair quiet, and it is their plan to sell the goods to some innocent buyer, before the robbery is made public. If I but knew who J. P. was, and where to find Black-eyed Joe, I would sleep easier.”
Will, who happened to overhear this remark, smiled intelligently to himself.
“Bet what you dare that I find him first,” he muttered. “Got a notion in my top-knot that I’ll ’tend that meetin’ next Monday.”
Jennie Arlington sat disconsolately at a window in Mr. Leonard’s library. She was not alone. Mr. Augustus Wilson occupied a chair by her. They had been conversing for a short time.
“It is a distressing affair to Mr. Leonard,” he said. “This thing of finding himself robbed of valuable goods on every side, and quite unable to trace the thief, is a source of great annoyance, and may prove ruinous in the end.”
“I know it, Mr. Wilson,” she replied, “and wish I could help it.”
“You may be able to do something to help it,” he said, significantly.
“What do you mean?” she exclaimed, with a sudden flashing up.
“Simply that Mr. Leonard saw a piece of the lost silk in your possession. He seems to think that you got it from the boy, Will Somers.”
Her visitor’s sharp glance could detect a nervousness beneath her apparent ease.
“Yes. I might have given him a different idea of the case, but thought it best to keep silent. I know, Miss Arlington, as well as yourself, that you did not get the silk from the boy. I know, as well as you, where it came from. I can appreciate your wish to keep silent, but something is due to Mr. Leonard.”
“You assume to know a great deal,” she said, defiantly.