had gone out.

"Will you gentlemen please wait outside!" requested Mr. Haddon, sharply.

"We've got to hurry to catch the afternoon editions," one spoke up. "Can't you give us the main facts right now? You've got 'em all—I just heard you say the money wasn't here."

"I'll see you in a few minutes," answered Mr. Haddon, and brusquely pressed them before him into the corridor.

When he reëntered the study he looked at them all grimly. "There's absolutely no keeping this from the papers," he said.

"But there must still be another place the money can be!" Helen cried.

"I've investigated every other place," returned Mr. Haddon, in the calm voice of finality. "The safe was the last possibility."

They all three stared at each other. It was Dr. Thorn that spoke the thought of all. "Then the worst we feared—is true?"

Mr. Haddon nodded. "It must be."

David could not speak, nor think—could only lean sickened against the desk. The exposure of Morton—and a thousand times worse, the ruin of St. Christopher's—both inevitable!

"Won't you please look again!" Helen cried, with desperate hope. "Perhaps you overlooked something."

Mr. Haddon knelt once more, and slowly fluttered the pages of the books and scrutinised each scrap of paper. Soon he paused, and studied a slip he had come upon. Then he rose, and David saw at the head of the slip, "Cash Account of Boys' Summer Home." It was the paper he had prepared to hide Morton's embezzlement.

Mr. Haddon's steady eyes took in David and Dr. Thorn. "Could anybody have been in the safe since Mr. Morton's death?"

"It's hardly possible," returned Dr. Thorn. "Mr. Aldrich has been in the study almost constantly."

Mr. Haddon's eyes fastened on David; a quick gleam came into them. David, unnerved as he was, could not keep his face from twitching.

There was a long silence. Then Mr. Haddon asked quietly:

"Could you have been in the safe, Mr. Aldrich?"

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