to be otherwhere. And after thinking a little, he suddenly turned to me confidentially.
"I told you I'd tell you something," he said. "You're a dependable chap, Craye—I showed that by leaving the girl in your charge. She likes you, too, and I suppose you two young people will fall in love with each other if you haven't done so already, and if you have, my lad—all right! You'll make a big name in your art—but never mind that; I'll tell you a bit about this box. Not how it came into my possession; the time for that is not yet. But when I did get it it was locked, and I had no key to it, and never bothered to get one found or made. When it got a wee bit damaged, I took it to Bickerdale, here in this town, and asked him to put it right. He was a bit wary of dealing with it, but said he knew a man who would, so I left it with him, and, incidentally, asked him, while they were about it, to have it unlocked. And now, Craye, now I think that while it was in Bickerdale's hands, or in the other man's hands, something was abstracted from that box—something that I never knew was in it. Abstracted then—unless———"
