Page:O'Higgins--The Adventures of Detective Barney.djvu/205

 “Well, chiefly, for the Van Amberg estate.”

Babbing turned to Barney, who had seated himself at the left of the desk. “Mr. Harper,” he explained, “is being annoyed by anonymous letters. He wants us to find out who ’s sending them.” And again there was evidently concealed, behind his placid spectacles, some private thought which the boy could not decipher.

Harper said: “They don’t come to me. To my wife.”

“What put the Van Amberg estate in your office?”

“My wife was the only daughter of old Jacob Van Amberg?”

“Had he any other children?”

“A son.”

“Are you his financial adviser, also?”

“No. He handles his own property.”

“And you handle your wife’s?”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you handle your brother-in-law’s too? Smoke?”