"We had started to take off some of our things when some one—we supposed, of course, he was from the office, for we had just rung, and he asked at once for the box—knocked at the door. I handed the box out to him through the crack of the door without seeing him well—in fact, without seeing him at all, as the hall was entirely dark. And then, when we sent for our things this morning, we discovered that—that—"
"We discovered this morning, Mr. Preston," Mrs. Varris took it up again quietly, as she placed her hand reassuringly over her daughter's "that the bell wire—it runs exposed just along the moulding in the hall—had been cut just outside our door, so that the office could never have received our signal at all. The hall lights had been tampered with so that they would not burn, and—"
"And in short," young Preston carried it on himself, "some one who knew both that you were carrying a good deal in funds and that you would probably send the box to the office
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