“You must see,” he said, “that the theft of the papers presupposes a thief. I have been certain from the start that some one was in the room after the murder. What he was after I haven’t known until now. He was at the safe, which he must have found open. Some one who wanted those papers wanted them enough to induce him to commit this murder, and then to enter the room and search the safe, while the dead man lay at the door. It was a terrible risk--as terrible as that of the murder itself. Suppose Oldbeg had been a half-hour later in coming home. He would unquestionably have found the murdered man with the murderers in the room. By just that narrow margin this perplexing mystery escaped proving a mere blundering crime.” CHAPTER IX “You are My Mother” Three men sat in conference in the small library at Henry Matthewson’s residence at Waterville, the morning after the bridge incident. These were Henry Matthewson himself, three years younger than his brother Charles, opposite whom was the man who had come from Millbank by the midnight train, Frank Hunter, brother of Charles Hunter and himself an attorney in the late Mr. Wing’s office. “The papers are not in the office,” Hunter was saying. “I was nearly certain he did not keep them there, but I made the search carefully.” “How about his private safe at home?” Henry Matthewson asked. “Of course I’ve had no opportunity to examine that----” “You should have made one,” said Charles Matthewson sternly. The remark threw a chill over the talk, that made it a little difficult to break the embarrassed silence that followed. At last, Hunter said: “It was too dangerous to risk turning any general question in that direction. Besides, Trafford had the first shy at that.” “Mr. Hunter is right,” Henry Matthewson said, with that tone that men described as “masterful,” and which generally prevailed with Charles, in part because it so much resembled his mother’s. “It would have been too much risk.” “What are you going to do?” demanded Charles; “let the papers fall into Trafford’s hands, to be used against us, or sold back to us at an enormous price? Wing’s death came at a strangely opportune time; are we going to throw the chance away?” “If there were papers,” Henry affirmed, “McManus or Trafford had them almost before we heard of the murder. We want to know whether there were papers or not, but we don’t want to advertise their existence. If we get a chance to buy, we may think ourselves lucky.” “Trafford!” said Hunter with a touch of scorn in his voice. “We owe them thanks for putting him on to the job.” “Are you certain of your grounds for judgment, Mr. Hunter?” Charles Matthewson asked. “I’m a little afraid you underrate his ability.” “Why, what’s he found out in his fortnight’s work?” demanded Hunter. “That’s just what I’d like to find out, but can’t,” said Matthewson. “Whatever he’s after, he acts as if he’d get it first and do his crowing afterwards.”