had he kept the rooms arranged and ready for her return and her picture
so that he would see it. He would have done one or the other of these
things, Alan thought, if it were she his father had wronged--or, at
least, if it were only she.

Alan reclosed the case, and put the picture down; then he went into the
room with the desk. He tried the cover of the desk, but it appeared to
be locked; after looking around vainly for a key, he tried again,
exerting a little more force, and this time the top went up easily,
tearing away the metal plate into which the claws of the lock clasped
and the two long screws which had held it. He examined the lock,
surprised, and saw that the screws must have been merely set into the
holes; scars showed where a chisel or some metal implement had been
thrust in under the top to force it up. The pigeonholes and little
drawers in the upper part of the desk, as he swiftly opened them, he
found entirely empty. He hurried to the cabinet; the drawers of the
cabinet too had been forced, and very recently; for the scars and the
splinters of wood were clean and fresh. These drawers and the drawers
in the lower part of the desk either were empty, or the papers in them
had been disarranged and tumbled in confusion, as though some one had
examined them hastily and tossed them back.

Sherrill had not done that, nor any one who had a business to be there.
If Benjamin Corvet had emptied some of those drawers before he went
away, he would not have relocked empty drawers. To Alan, the marks of
violence and roughness were unmistakably the work of the man with the
big hands who had left marks upon the top of the chest of drawers; and
the feeling that he had been in the house very recently was stronger
than ever.

Alan ran out into the hall and listened; he heard no sound; but he went
back to the little room more excited than before. For what had the
other man been searching? For the same things which Alan was looking
for? And had the other man got them? Who might the other be, and what
might be his connection with Benjamin Corvet? Alan had no doubt that
everything of importance must have been taken away, but he would make
sure of that. He took some of the papers from the drawers and began to
examine them; after nearly an hour of this, he had found only one
article which appeared connected in any way with what Sherrill had told
him or with Alan himself. In one of the little drawers of the desk h