It looked more
than mysterious. It was suspicious.

Tom looked all around the summer-house. Of course, after this hard
downpour it was impossible to mark any footsteps. Nor, indeed, did the
raider need to leave such a trail in getting to and departing from the
little vine-covered pavilion. The sward was heavy all about it save on the
river side.

The young man found not a trace. Nor did he see a piece of paper anywhere.
He was confident that Ruth's papers and notebooks and pen had been removed
by some human agency. And it could not have been a friend who had done
this thing.

CHAPTER III

THE DERELICT

"Didn't you find anything, Tom?" Ruth Fielding asked, as Helen's twin
re-entered the summer-house.

His long automobile coat glistened with wet and his face was wind-blown.
Tom Cameron's face, too, looked much older than it had--well, say a year
before. He, like Ruth herself, had been through much in the war zone
calculated to make him more sedate and serious than a college
undergraduate is supposed to be.

"I did not see even a piece of paper blowing about," he told her.

"But before we came down from the house you said you saw a paper blow over
the roof like a kite."

"That was an outspread newspaper. It was not a sheet of your manuscript."

"Then it all must have been stolen!" she cried.

"At least, human agency must have removed the things you left on this
table," he said.

"Oh, Tom!"

"Now, now, Ruth! It's tough, I know----"

But she recovered a measure of her composure almost immediately. Unnerved
as she had first been by the disaster, she realized that to give way to
her trouble would not do the least bit of good.

"An ordinary thief," Tom suggested after a moment, "would not consider
your notes and the play of much value."

"I suppose not," she replied.

"If they are stolen it must be by somebody who understands--or thinks he
does--the value of the work. Somebody who thinks he can sell a moving
picture scenario."

"Oh, Tom!"

"A gold mounted fountain pen would attract any petty thief," he went on to
say. "But surely the itching fingers of such a person would not be tempted
by that scenario."

"Then, which breed of thief stole my scenario, Tom?" she demanded. "You
are no detective. Your deductions suggest two thieves."

"Humph! So they do. Maybe they run in pairs. But I can't really imagine
two light-fingered people around the Red Mill at once. Seen any tramps
lately?"

"We s