And now there returned to him something that the dead old Colonel had told him long ago, and to-day he saw it for truth.  However his father had wronged him, he would always have this, at least, to bless his memory for.  For it was his father who had called him to live in this city where dwelt, as the strong voice that was now still had said, the kindest and sweetest people in the world.

* * * * *

Henry G. Surface died at half-past two o’clock on the afternoon of March 24.  At one o’clock that night, while the Post’s startling story was yet in process of the making, his son stood at the mantel in Surface’s sitting-room, and looked over the wreck that his hands had made.  That his father’s treasures were hidden somewhere here he had hardly entertained a doubt.  Yet he had pulled the place all to pieces without finding a trace of them.

The once pretty sitting-room looked, indeed, as if a tornado had struck it.  The fireplace was a litter of broken brick and mortar; half the floor was ripped up and the boards flung back anyhow; table drawers and bookcases had been ransacked, and looked it; books rifled in vain were heaped in disorderly hummocks wherever there was room for them; everywhere a vandal hand had been, leaving behind a train of devastation and ruin.

And it had all been fruitless.  He had been working without pause since half-past six o’clock, and not the smallest clue had rewarded him.

It was one of those interludes when early spring demonstrates that she could play August convincingly had she a mind to.  The night was stifling.  That the windows had to be shut tight, to deaden the noise of loosening brick and ripping board, made matters so much the worse.  Surface was stripped to the waist, and it needed no second glance at him, as he stood now, to see that he was physically competent.  There was no one-sided over-development here; Klinker’s exercises, it will be remembered, were for all parts of the body.  Shoulders stalwart, but not too broad, rounded beautifully into the upper arm; the chest swelled like a full sail; many a woman in that town had a larger waist.  Never he moved but muscle flowed and rippled under the shining skin; he raised his right hand to scratch his left ear, and the hard blue biceps leaped out like a live thing.  In fact, it had been some months since the young man had first entertained the suspicion that he could administer that thrashing to Mr. Pat whenever he felt inclined.  Only it happened that he and Mr. Pat had become pretty good friends now, and it was the proof-reader’s boast that he had never once made a bull in “Mr. Queed’s copy” since the day of the famous fleas.

In the quiet night the young man stood resting from his labors, and taking depressed thought.  He was covered with grime and streaked with sweat; a ragged red stripe on his cheek, where a board had bounced up and struck him, detracted nothing from the sombreness of his appearance.  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—­