Page:Burton Stevenson--The marathon mystery.djvu/250

224 “Good boy!” Godfrey commended when I had finished. “You’re worth all the rest of us put together. You see, we’re beginning to get the threads in hand. Now bring the clippings over here to the desk under the light.”

I laid them on the desk and he sat down before it.

“But here,” he said, starting up again, “you’ll want to see them, too”

“No, no,” I protested. “Sit down. I have seen them,” and then suddenly I remembered how I had been disappointed. They contained no secret, they gave us no clew…

“So,” he said, sitting down again; “so you’re in the secret, then?”

“I’ve looked them over,” I repeated despondently, “but I’m not in the secret. They don’t tell any secret, or anything else that concerns this case. I don’t believe they’ll help us a bit, Godfrey. They’re about everything under the sun but the one thing we’re interested in.”

I went back to my chair and applied myself to my cigar; I hardly dared look at Godfrey, his disappointment would be so intense. A silence of three or four minutes followed, broken only by the rustling of paper and the howling of the wind about the building.

Then I glanced at Godfrey. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes were beaming with triumph…

“What!” I cried, starting up, “do you think”

He looked up with a little nod.

“Yes,” he said; “they tell us the whole story, Lester.”