Page:The Whisper on the Stair by Lyon Mearson (1924).djvu/121

 “Good night, sir,” He went to his room.

Val turned to the books again. Carefully he went through the one he held in his hand, page by page. It was a volume of E. P. Roe’s.

“Imagine finding anything worth while in this!” he muttered, and threw it aside to pick up another. For half or three quarters of an hour he sat before his fire, going through book after book. Not knowing what he was looking for, he found nothing. He could not seem to get on the track of anything that looked promising.

It was a puzzle, but he did not have the key. It would have been hard enough even if he had known what he wanted, but he did not know even that. He had decided that the books had something to do with the money that old Peter Pomeroy had cached somewhere—but in what way? That he could not tell, and the books he had examined left him just as much in the dark.

Now, if he only could unearth that money and hand it over to Jessica Pomeroy! The thought of the name brought him around to her, and he smiled gently. Was there ever a girl like her before? There was not, he decided. She was the recapitulation of the eternal beauty of the world.

And the way she had smiled at him to-night at times! Why, it was like spring coming suddenly on a cold winter’s day, the sun breaking through a bleak cloud, flowers poking their gay heads through the snow blankets, stars in June skies, oases—was that the proper plural?—in the Sahara, a fugitive moment of happiness⸺

At this stage the telephone rang insistently. He