ther
ruthlessly into the valise, came out.

"I don't like that sort of detective work," mused the colonel, "but it
has its uses."

Viola Carwell, alone in her room, sat with a bundle of letters on a
table before her. They were letters she had found in a small drawer of
the private safe--a drawer she had, at first, thought contained nothing.
The discovery of the letters had been made in a peculiar manner.

Viola and Miss Carwell, going over the documents, had sorted them into
two piles--one to be submitted to the lawyer, the other being made up
of obviously personal matters that could have no interest for any but
members of the family.

Then Miss Carwell had been called away to attend to some household
matters, and Viola had started to return to the safe such of the papers
as were not to go to the lawyer.

She opened a small drawer, to slip back into it a bundle of letters her
mother had written to Mr. Carwell years before. Then Viola became aware
of something else in the drawer. It was something that caught on the end
of her finger nail, and she was stung by a little prick-like that of a
pin.

"A sliver-under my nail!" exclaimed Viola. "The bottom of the wooden
drawer must be loose."

It was loose, as she discovered as soon as she looked in the
compartment. But it was a looseness that meant nothing else than that
the drawer had a false bottom.

It was not such a false bottom as would have been made use of in the
moving pictures. That is to say it was very poorly made, and an almost
casual glance would have revealed it. All that had been done was to take
a piece of wood the exact size and shape of the bottom of the drawer,
and fit it in. This extra piece of wood covered anything that might be
put in the drawer under it, and then, on top of the false bottom other
things might be placed so that when they were taken out, and the person
doing it saw bare wood, the conclusion would naturally follow that all
the contents of the drawer had been removed.

But such was not the case. Beneath the smooth-fitting piece of wood,
which had sprung loose and been the means of driving a splinter under
Viola's nail, thus apprising her of the fact that there was something in
the drawer she had not seen, had been found some letters. And Viola had
not told her aunt about them.

"I want to see what they are myself, first," the girl decided.

Now they were spread out on her dressing table in front of her. She
sat with her gloriou