"Father, you must go back to bed!" she commanded uselessly. He would not stir yet. A servant, at her call, brought a robe which she put over him, and she drew slippers on his feet. "They came, at least some of them came,"--Santoine had risen, fighting down his grief over his cousin's death; he stood holding the robe about him--"for what was in your safe, Harriet." "I know; I saw it open." "What is gone?" Santoine demanded. He heard her picking up the contents of the safe from the floor and carrying them to the table and examining them; he was conscious that, having done this, she stood staring about the room as though to see whether anything had escaped her search. "What is gone?" Santoine repeated. "Why--nearly all the formal papers seem to be gone; lists and agreements relating to a dozen different things." "None of the correspondence?" "No; that all seems to be here." Santoine was breathing quickly; the trust for which he had been ready to die--for which Blatchford had died--seemed safe; but recognition of this only emphasized and deepened his perplexity as to what the meaning had been of the struggle which an instant before had been going on around him. "We don't know whether he got it, then, or not!" It was Avery's voice which broke in upon him; Santoine merely listened. "He? Who?" He heard his daughter's challenge. "Why, Eaton. It is plain enough what happened here, isn't it?" Avery answered. "He came here to this room for what he was after--for what he has been after from the first--whatever that may have been! He came prepared to force the safe and get it! But he was surprised--" "By whom?" the blind man asked. "By whomever it is that has been following him. I don't attempt to explain who they were, Mr. Santoine; for I don't know. But--whoever they were--in doing this, he laid himself open to attack by them. They were watching--saw him enter here. They attacked him here. Wallace switched on the light and recognized him; so he shot Wallace and ran with whatever he could grab up of the contents of the safe, hoping that by luck he'd get what he was after." "It isn't so--it isn't so!" Harriet denied. Her father checked her; he stood an instant thoughtful. "Who is directing the pursuit, Donald?" he asked. Avery went out at once. The window to the south, which stood open, was closed. The blind man turned to his daughter. "Now, Harriet," he commanded. He put a hand out and touched Harriet's clothing; he found she had on a heavy robe. She understood that her father would not move till she had seen the room for him. She gazed about again, therefore, and told him what she saw. "There was some sort of a struggle near my safe," she said. "Chairs--everything there is knocked about." "Yes." "There is also blood there--a big spot of it on the floor." "I found that," said Santoine. "There is blood behind the table near the middle of the room." "Ah! A man fired from near there, too!"