But George Warren failed to inform either Henry Burns or any one else about his discovery; for he went on a week’s cruise, next day, and when he returned it had passed out of his mind. At least, he didn’t think of it till about two weeks later. CHAPTER XVIII. TWO SECRETS DISCOVERED Squire Brackett sat in his office, deep in thought. To say that he was out of temper, would be putting it mildly. Something that he was trying to do baffled him; and, being thwarted, he was irritable and unhappy. Now when Squire Brackett was unhappy, he usually succeeded in making everybody else with whom he came in contact likewise unhappy. Therefore, when he betook himself to his office, of an afternoon, and sat himself down at his desk, to attempt to solve a certain puzzle, as he had done now for several weeks, at intervals, the members of his household kept discreetly aloof. Before the squire, on the shelf of his desk, lay the paper on which he had pasted the scraps of Mr. Carleton’s letter. The first effort at a solution of the puzzle had been one more of curiosity than aught else on his part. He had thought it would be rather a smart achievement, to discover something which another man had attempted to destroy, though it probably would be of no particular importance to the discoverer. But, from that condition of mind, he had progressed to a state wherein he thought he saw, hidden in the fragments of the letter, something of more than ordinary import. As Squire Brackett had arranged them, the words and parts of words now lay before him thus: lock ey must be sound mbers aboard yacht starboa still under ays third The squire’s increase of curiosity had resulted largely from his interpretation of the first two fragments. At a casual glance, he had decided that the first four letters were a part of the word, “locker,”—which would be natural if the writer were referring to a yacht. But he arrived at a different and more exciting conclusion, when it suddenly dawned upon him that the first word was really complete as it stood; that it was the word, “lock.” This, because the next two letters clearly were part of the word, “key.” “Of course,” he exclaimed. “If I hadn’t been stupid I’d have thought of that before. Aha! I have a whole sentence now, by simply supplying a few of the missing words.” He wrote as follows, picking out these words that the letter, as he had it before him, contained: “key — lock — must be still aboard yacht.” “That’s plain enough for a boy to read,” said Squire Brackett. “The sentence was, ‘The key to the lock must be still aboard yacht.’”