ng my best."

"Did he appear to be satisfied with the explanation?"

"Yes, sir."

"You are friendly with the other members of the family?"

"Yes, sir; though I hardly think Mrs. Cameron likes me. She thinks her
husband favors me above his own sons."

"Then she would not be apt to believe you innocent of this crime if the
police should arrest you? She would not come to your assistance?"

"With Mr. Cameron unconscious and likely to die--no, sir."

"There was silence for a moment, and then Fremont asked:

"Do you think they will lock me up, sir?"

"The police will want to do something at once," was the reply. "They
like to make a flash, as the boys say on the Bowery."

"Suppose I send for a man high in authority, here now, and tell him the
truth?" suggested Fremont. "Wouldn't I stand a better show than if the
matter passed through the hands of some ambitious detective?"

"They are all ambitious," was the non-committal reply.

"You keep the whole matter out of the hands of the cops until you know
just what you want to do," advised Jimmie. "I don't like the cops.
They pinched me once for shootin' craps."

After further talk, Fremont decided to leave the course to be taken
entirely to his new friends, and that point was considered closed. Then
Nestor turned to another phase of the matter. Mr. Cameron needed
immediate attention, but the office must be looked over before others
were called in, so he set about it, Fremont and Jimmie looking on in
wonder.

First Nestor went to the door opening into the corridor and examined
every inch of the floor and rug until he came to the front of the safe.
Then he went through the big desk, carefully, and patiently. Three or
four times the boys saw him lift something from the floor, or from the
desk, and place it in a pocket. He spent a long time over a packet of
papers which he took from a drawer of the desk.

One of the papers he copied while the boys looked on, wondering what he
was about, and from another he cut a corner. This scrap he wrapped in
clean paper and placed in his pocketbook. During part of the time
spent in the investigation Fremont sat by the side of the unconscious
man in the north room.

"Now," asked Nestor, presently, "do you know what business brought Mr.
Cameron to his office to-night?"

"Yes; he was closing up the Tolford estate."

"He asked you to come and go home with him?"

"That is the fact, but how did you know it?"

"Because he