Chapter XVI. Grant Falls Under Suspicion - Page 2

nervousness.

The other drawers were opened and were thoroughly searched, but, of course, the bonds were not found.

Mrs. Estabrook seemed near fainting.

"I have been robbed," she said. "I am ruined."

"But who could have robbed you?" asked Ford, innocently.

"I-don't-know. Oh, Willis! it was cruel!" and the poor woman burst into tears. "All these years I have been saving, and now I have lost all. I shall die in the poorhouse after all."

"Not while I am living, mother," said Willis. "But the bonds must be found. They must be mislaid."

"No, no! they are stolen. I shall never see them again."

"But who has taken them? Ha! I have an idea."

"What is it?" asked the housekeeper, faintly.

"That boy--Grant Thornton--he lives in the house, doesn't he?"

"Yes," answered Mrs. Estabrook, in excitement. "Do you think he can have robbed me?"

"What a fool I am! I ought to have suspected when---"

"When what?"

"When he brought some bonds to me to-day to sell."

"He did!" exclaimed Mrs. Estabrook; "what were they?"

"A five-hundred-dollar and a hundred-dollar bond."

"I had a five-hundred and five one-hundred-dollar bonds. They were mine--the young villain!"

"I greatly fear so, mother."

"You ought to have kept them, Willis. Oh! why didn't you? Where is the boy? I will see Mr. Reynolds at once."

"Wait a minute, till I tell you all I know. The boy said the bonds were handed to him by an acquaintance."

"It was a falsehood."

"Do you know the number of your bonds, mother?"

"Yes, I have them noted down, somewhere."

"Good! I took the number of those the boy gave me for sale."

Mrs. Estabrook found the memorandum. It was compared with one which Willis Ford brought with him, and the numbers were identical. Four numbers, of course, were missing from Ford's list.

"That seems pretty conclusive, mother. The young rascal has stolen your bonds, and offered a part of them for sale. It was certainly bold in him to bring them to our office. Is he in the house?"

"I'll go and see."

"And bring Mr. Reynolds with you, if you can find him."

In an excited state, scarcely knowing what she did, the housekeeper went downstairs and found both parties of whom she was in search in the same room. She poured out her story in an incoherent manner, inveighing against Grant as a thief.

When Grant, with some difficulty, understood what was the charge against him, he was almost speechless with