“Thank you, Algy,” replied Average Jones gravely. “But I think you’d better stay here in case anything turns up at this end. Suppose,” he added with an inspiration, “you trace this Mortimer Morley through the general delivery.” “All right,” agreed Spofford innocently satisfied with this wild-goose errand. “Lemme know if anything good turns up.” Average Jones took train for Harwick, and within a few hours was rubbing his hands over an open fire in the parsonage, whose stiff and cheerless aspect bespoke the lack of a woman’s humanizing touch for the Reverend Mr. Prentice was a widower. Overwrought with anxiety and strain, the clergyman, as soon as he had taken his coat, began a hurried, inconsequential narrative, broke off, tried again, fell into an inextricable confusion of words, and, dropping his head in his hands, cried: “I can’t tell you. It is all a hopeless jumble.” “Come!” said the younger man encouragingly. “Comfort yourself with the idea that your son is alive, at any rate.” “But how can I be sure, even of that?” Average Jones glanced at a copy of the advertisement which he held. “I think we can take Mr. Morley’s word so far.” “Even so; fifty thousand dollars ransom!” said the minister, and stopped with a groan. “Nonsense!” said Average Jones heartily. “That advertisement counts for nothing. Professional kidnappers do not select the sons of impecunious ministers for their prey. Nor do they give addresses through which they may be found. You can dismiss the advertisement as a blind; the second blind, in fact.” “The second?” “Certainly. The first was the clothing on the shore. It was put there to create the impression that your son was drowned.” “Yes; we all supposed that he must be.” “By what possible hypothesis a boy should be supposed to take off coat and waistcoat and wade off-shore into a winter sea is beyond my poor powers of conjecture,” said the other. “No. Somebody ‘planted’ the clothes there.” “It seems far-fetched to me,” said the Reverend Mr. Prentice doubtfully. “Who would have any motive for doing such a thing?” “That is what we have to find out. What time did your son go to his room the night of his disappearance?” “Earlier than usual, as I remember. A little before nine o’clock.” “Any special reason for his going up earlier?” “He wanted to experiment with a new fishing outfit just given him for his birthday.” “I see. Will you take me to his room?” They mounted to the boy’s quarters, which overlooked the roof of the side porch from a window facing north. The charred ruins of a barn about, half a mile away were plainly visible through this window. “The barn which the meteor destroyed,” said the Reverend Mr. Prentice, pointing it out.