"
Peabody caught hold of her right hand suddenly.
"What you carrying?" he demanded suspiciously. "A trunk key? Looks
mighty funny, doesn't it, to be packing up with something pretty
valuable missing? The law would likely give me the right to search
your trunk."
"What a dreadful old man you are!" cried Betty, involuntarily,
shrinking from the sinister face that grinned malevolently into hers.
"You have no right to touch my trunk."
"Well, no call to look like that," muttered Peabody, turning toward
the door. "I knew that other young one took it, and I aim to make it
hot for him."
"Bob didn't take any deed!" stormed Betty to Mrs. Peabody, her
packing forgotten for the moment. "Why does he keep insisting Bob
stole it? And why, oh, why did that poorhouse man have to tell where
Bob had gone?"
Mrs. Peabody's natural curiosity had to be satisfied, and as it was
no longer a secret Betty told her of Lockwood Hale and Bob's
determination to find out more about himself.
"He doesn't want any deed," she finished scornfully. "Can't you make
Mr. Peabody see how foolish such an accusation is?"
Mrs. Peabody leaned against the kitchen table wearily.
"I know what he's thinking," she said dully.
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