d Porton, got the
miniatures from my mother. Crapsey sent a very badly written
letter to my father, stating that he and Porton had parted
company, but that he had the most of the miniatures,--in fact, all
but six of them.

"Crapsey wrote that he was in the city of New York, and had the
miniatures in a safe place, and that he would return them to us
for fifteen thousand dollars. We were to insert a personal
advertisement in one of the New York newspapers if we were willing
to accept his offer, and then he would send us word how the
exchange of money for the miniatures could be made.

"Of course, as you know, my father is still sick. He didn't have
anything like fifteen thousand dollars in cash to offer Crapsey,
and besides that Mr. Wadsworth and your Uncle Dunston thought it
was altogether too much money to offer a thief like that. In fact,
your uncle was of the opinion that they should only try to lead
Crapsey on, so that they could capture him. But my father, backed
up by Mr. Wadsworth, at length agreed to put up five thousand
dollars in order to get the miniatures back, and an advertisement
was inserted in the newspapers to that effect.

"We waited two days for a reply, and then came a scrawl on a bit
of paper signed by Crapsey, stating that he was having trouble of
another kind and could not for the present keep on with his
negotiations. After that my father inserted another advertisement
asking for more information, but up to the present time no
additional word has come in.

"My father does not know what to make of it. Your folks and Mr.
Wadsworth are of the opinion that either Crapsey was trying to
fool them and got scared or else that the rascal has been caught
by the police for some other crime and is trying to conceal his
identity. They are divided on the question as to whether to
believe Crapsey when he wrote that he and Porton had parted
company--they are half inclined to believe that Porton is still
with him, and that the whole scheme was framed up by Porton."

"That is certainly interesting news," remarked Roger, after both had
perused the letter a second time. "And it settles one thing--and that
is that Tim Crapsey must have been in New York with Ward Porton at the
time we saw the latter."

"Exactly, Roger. And it also proves beyond a doubt that that pair were
really the thieves. Previous to this we only supposed such to be the
fact-