The breakfast food magnate came directly toward the high, locked desk belonging to the dead and gone physician, who had been a kind friend and patron of this quack medicine man when he was a boy.
'Phemie had heard all the particulars of Spink's connection with Dr. Polly Phelps. The good old doctor had been called to attend the boy in some childish disease while he was an inmate of the county poorhouse. His parents--who were gypsies, or like wanderers--had deserted the boy and he had "gone on the town," as the saying was.
Dr. Polly had taken a fancy to the little fellow. He was then twelve years old--or thereabout--smart and sharp. The old doctor brought him home to Hillcrest, sent him to school, made him useful to him in a dozen ways, and began even to train him as a doctor.
For five years Jud Spink had remained with the old physician. Then he had run away with a medicine show. It was said, too, that he stole money from Dr. Polly when he went; but the physician had never said so, nor taken any means to punish the wayward boy if he returned.
And Jud Spink had never re-appeared in Bridleburg, or the vicinity, while the old doctor was alive.
Then his visits had been few and far between until, at last, coming back a few months before, a self-confessed rich man, he had declared his intention of settling down in the community.
But 'Phemie Bray believed that the false professor had come here to Hillcrest for a special object. He was money-mad--his avariciousness had been already well displayed.
She believed that there was something on Hillcrest that Jud Spink wanted--something he could make money out of.
She was not surprised, then, to see a short iron bar in the professor's hand. It was flattened and sharpened at one end.
By the light of the hand-lamp the man went to work on the locked desk. It was of heavy wood--no flimsy thing like that one which he had burst open so easily the day of the Widow Harrison's vendue.
The man inserted the sharp end of the jimmy between the lid and the upper shelf of the desk. 'Phemie heard the woodwork crack, and this time she did _not_ suppress a gasp.
Why! this fellow was actually breaking open the old doctor's desk. Aunt Jane had not even sent _them_ the keys of the desk and bookcases in this suite of rooms.