at old story against
father. I sha'n't leave New York until I have cleared his name."

CHAPTER XIII

SADIE AGAIN

Mr. Starkweather appeared to recover his equanimity. He looked askance at
his niece, however, as she announced her intention.

"You are very young and very foolish, Helen--ahem! A mystery of sixteen or
seventeen years' standing, which the best detectives could not unravel, is
scarcely a task to be attempted by a mere girl."

"Who else is there to do it?" Helen demanded, quickly. "I mean to find out
the truth, if I can. I want you to tell me all you know, and I want you to
tell me how to find Fenwick Grimes----"

"Nonsense, nonsense, girl!" exclaimed her uncle, testily. "What good would
it do you to find Grimes?"

"He was the other partner in the concern. He had just as good a chance to
steal the money as father."

"Ridiculous! Mr. Grimes was away from the city at the time."

"Then you _do_ remember all about it, sir?" asked Helen, quickly.

"Ahem! _That_ fact had not slipped my mind," replied her uncle, weakly.

"And then, there was Allen Chesterton, the bookkeeper. Was a search ever
made for him?"

"High and low," returned her uncle, promptly. "But nobody ever heard of
him thereafter."

"And why did the shadow of suspicion not fall upon him as strongly as it
did upon my father?" cried the girl, dropping, in her earnestness, her
assumed uncouthness of speech.

"Perhaps it did--perhaps it did," muttered Mr. Starkweather. "Yes, of
course it did! They both ran away, you see----"

"Didn't you advise dad to go away--until the matter could be cleared up?"
demanded Helen.

"Why--I--ahem!"

"Both you and Mr. Grimes advised it," went on the girl, quite firmly. "And
father did so because of the effect his arrest might have upon mother in
her delicate health. Wasn't that the way it was?"

"I--I presume that is so," agreed Mr. Starkweather.

"And it was wrong," declared the girl, with all the confidence of youth.
"Poor dad realized it before he died. It made all the firm's creditors
believe that he was guilty. No matter what he did thereafter----"

"Stop, girl!" exclaimed Mr. Starkweather. "Don't you know that if you stir
up this old business the scandal will all come to light? Why--why, even
_my_ name might be attached to it."

"But poor dad suffered under the blight of it all for more than sixteen
years."

"Ahem! It is a fact. It was a great misfortune. Perhaps he _was_ advised
wro