Page:Rover Boys Down East.djvu/186

176 in secret, for, as the letter said, Mr. Rover "wanted to make an investment of great importance, but one which must be kept from the general public, or the chance to buy stock at a low price would be lost." The communication had been signed in the name of the Rover boys' father.

Rather ignorant of business affairs, Mrs. Stanhope had taken the first boat she could get for Ithaca and gone to the trust company and gotten from her private box the whole fortune—her own share and also that of the Lanings. There she had gone to the office of the Adrell Lumber Com pany, where, so the letter stated, Mr. Rover was to meet her.

The Adrell company's office proved to be a smaH affair on a side street, and on entering Mrs. Stanhope had met the messenger who had delivered the letter to her the day before. He had said that Mr. Rover was expected every minute and had requested her to sit down.

While the lady was waiting, with the fortune in her valise, a telephone had rung and the man in the office had gone to answer the call. He said Mr. Rover wished to speak to her. She had answered the telephone, and someone had spoken to her in a voice she believed to be Anderson Rover's. The party at the other end of the wire had said he was then dickering for some valuable