Somewhere, valuable papers waited to be found; bank-books, certainly;
very likely stock or bonds or certificates of deposit; please God, a
will. Somewhere--but where? From his father's significant remark during
their last conversation, he would have staked his life that all these
things were here, in easy reach. And yet--
Standing precariously on the loose-piled bricks of the fireplace, he
looked over the ravaged room. He felt profoundly discouraged. Success in
this search meant more to him than he liked to think about, and now his
chance of success had shrunk to the vanishing point. The bowels of the
room lay open before his eye, and there was no hiding-place in them. He
knew of nowhere else to look. The cold fear seized him that the money
and the papers were hidden beyond his finding--that they lay tucked away
in some safety-deposit vault in New York, where his eye would never hunt
them out.
Surface's son leaned against the elaborate mantel, illimitably weary. He
shifted his position ever so little; and thereupon luck did for him what
reason would never have done. The brick on which his right foot rested
turned under his weight and he lost his foothold.
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