"What did you tell them?"

"Nothing."

"Why not?"

"Henry telephoned I was to tell them nothing."

"You mean Henry Spearman?"

"Yes."

"Do you take orders from him, Judah?"

"I took that order, Alan."

Alan hesitated. "You've been here in the house all day?"

"Yes, Alan."

Alan went back to the first floor and into the smaller library. The
room was dark with the early winter dusk, and he switched on the light;
then he knelt and pulled out one of the drawers he had seen Spearman
searching through the night before, and carefully examined the papers
in it one by one, but found them only ordinary papers. He pulled the
drawer completely out and sounded the wall behind it and the partitions
on both sides but they appeared solid. He put the drawer back in and
went on to examine the next one, and, after that, the others. The
clocks in the house had been wound, for presently the clock in the
library struck six, and another in the hall chimed slowly. An hour
later, when the clocks chimed again, Alan looked up and saw Wassaquam's
small black eyes, deep set in their large eye sockets, fixed on him
intently through the door. How long the Indian had been there, Alan
could not guess; he had not heard his step.

"What are you looking for, Alan?" the Indian asked.

Alan reflected a moment. "Mr. Sherrill thought that Mr. Corvet might
have left a record of some sort here for me, Judah. Do you know of
anything like that?"

"No. That is what you are looking for?"

"Yes. Do you know of any place where Mr. Corvet would have been likely
to put away anything like that?"

"Ben put papers in all these drawers; he put them up-stairs, too--where
you have seen."

"Nowhere else, Judah?"

"If he put things anywhere else, Alan, I have not seen. Dinner is
served, Alan."

Alan went to the lavatory on the first floor and washed the dust from
his hands and face; then he went into the dining-room. A place had
been set at the dining table around the corner from the place where, as
the worn rug showed, the lonely occupant of the house had been
accustomed to sit. Benjamin Corvet's armchair, with its worn leather
back, had been left against the wall; so had another unworn armchair
which Alan understood must have been Mrs. Corvet's; and an armless
chair had been set for Alan between their places. Wassaquam, having
served the dinner, took his place behind Alan's chair, ready to pass
him what he needed; but the Indian's si