the search for a single missing bond (if a search was ever made) would be abandoned. There probably would never be any search at all. Mr. Fairchild was such a careless man in regard to his property.
Felix had buried in the overcoat what remained of the bond, in twenty-five-dollar bills, spreading them out in a sort of padding. As he required money for more gasoline, or for other luxuries for Sheilah (she really ought to have a telephone, and for years had wanted twin-beds) he had only to make up more stories of sales for his furniture, which when completed and carried away in his bag, he could destroy (it would be easy to get rid of the little pieces down sewers and drain-pipes) and thus build up for himself a fictional demand for his furniture. Why not? And why wouldn't he thus be paying for the bond bit by bit with his labor—wiping out his crime, if crime it was?
He never seemed to be able to think of it as a crime. In fact what he was about to do to the doll-house seemed to him much more criminal. He'd best get it over with. He descended slowly into the pit, carrying a can of kerosene with him and a roll of newspapers.
Awful to see the smoke creeping up the little carved stairway Sheilah had designed, each tread
