“Here I am,” said Varrell, opening the door of Melvin’s room just as the clock struck seven. “You don’t deserve to see me, but I’m here. Assault me like that again, and I’ll swear out a warrant for your arrest.”

“A lot you know about warrants,” sniffed Melvin; “though that may also be one of your specialties. Whatever a warrant may be, it won’t catch you as I’ll catch you in five minutes, if you don’t make a clean breast of the whole thing without any jollying.”

“Wind!” said Varrell, in good-humored contempt. “You remind me of Tommy, when he talks about Montana.”

“Come, Wrenn, this is a wrong way to begin,” warned Melvin. “Get down to business! You agreed to explain yourself. Now, out with it.”

“Where shall I begin? If you had any sense, no explanation would be required.”

“And if I haven’t, it’s my misfortune and not my fault, so don’t throw it at me. Begin at the beginning.”

Varrell stretched himself out in an easy-chair. “Well, you know that I am a little deaf.”

“I used to think so,” replied Melvin, “but these things that have occurred lately don’t seem to indicate it.”

“Three years ago I had the scarlet fever,” went on Varrell, paying no attention to the comment, “and it left my ears in bad condition. There is no use in going into the details of the case; it is enough to say that at one time the outlook was pretty bad and there was a general fear that I should become worse instead of better. My mother was greatly worried about me and consulted all sorts of people who are supposed to know about such cases. Some said that the deafness would increase, others that it might decrease if my general health improved. As the chances were apparently against me, they put me through a thorough course of lip-reading with the idea that if my deafness actually did increase, it would then be harder for me to learn. Luckily, my hearing gradually improved as I got better, and an operation put me ahead still farther, so that now I can hear, if not as well as you, at least decently well.”

“And you still kept up the lip-reading?”

“I had to. Much that I was not quite clear about, I could make out with the use of my eyes. I finally got a kind of mixed sense; my eye helped out my ear, and my whole impression was due to them both. So I’ve used it right along.”

“But is it a thing you can really count on?” asked Dick. “I’ve always supposed that lip-reading was a hit-or-miss guessing at what people were saying.”

“It is guessing as reading print is guessing, only in lip-reading there is greater chance for mistake, for two very different words are sometimes expressed with exactly the same appearance of the lips. Still, I’ve seen some very clever lip-readers. I knew a bank teller who had suddenly lost his hearing, who was able in three months to do all the work of his position in two or three languages. That’s where I’m handicapped. I’m used only to English. That’s why I can’t do anything in Pearson’s classes when he reads French aloud.”

“And Richardson’s mop of a mustache must be an obstacle.”

“You bet it is. I loathe mustaches.”

At this point Melvin’s questions seemed to have run out, for he lapsed into a meditative silence which lasted at least a minute. Then he suddenly jumped up, grabbed his quiet visitor by the shoulder, and glared threateningly into his eyes. “Come now, stop it and tell me the truth! You’re just trying to jolly me.”

“It’s the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” said Varrell, nodding his head in solemn accentuation of each phrase. “Go and sit down!”

Melvin dropped back into his chair.

“Do you remember,” continued Varrell, “when we went up to Boston together last week and I suddenly burst into a laugh? You asked me what was the matter, and I told you that a funny story had just come to me. The funny story was told by a drummer facing us three seats ahead. You certainly can’t have forgotten the time when we serenaded Masters, and he came out on his front porch and spoke, with the red fire playing on his face and the fellows yelling and blowing tin horns? Wasn’t I the only one who knew what he said?”

“That’s right,” said Melvin.

“And didn’t you see how I watched Flanahan this afternoon? I had to, I can tell you; those little short sentences are hard to get.”

“I suppose I’ll have to believe you,” said Melvin, reluctantly.

“You would have done it long ago, if you weren’t so blessed ignorant. Hello, Phil!”

Poole nodded cordially and sat down.

“Did you ever hear of lip-reading, Phil?”

“Why, yes. I know some one at home who is pretty good at it. Can you do it?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I’ve suspected you two or three times, but I thought I’d better not say anything till you spoke of it yourself.”

Varrell gave Melvin a reproachful glance.

“Dick here doesn’t believe in it. Did you ever see the shadow trick?”

“No,” replied Phil.

Varrell got up. “Give us a big sheet of paper,” he said. “That’s it. Come here.”

He pinned the white paper to the wall on a level with Phil’s head, placed Phil near it and adjusted the lamp on the shelf opposite so that a sharp profile of the boy’s face fell on the paper. Next he stationed Melvin two or three steps in front of the boy; and then, having bound a heavy handkerchief around his own ears, took a place just behind Phil.

“Now, Phil, without moving your head and in your ordinary tones, say something to Dick.”

Phil obeyed. Varrell watched the shadow of the moving lips on the screen.

“Repeat!” commanded Varrell.

Phil repeated.

“Flanahan has been fired,” said Varrell.

“Right!” cried the boy, delighted. “Try again!”

The experiment was repeated several times, and with one or two exceptions Varrell read correctly from the screen.^[1]

“Why, you’re a regular wizard!” cried Melvin, pulling the bandage from his friend’s head. “That’s the greatest stunt I ever saw.”

“It’s a pretty severe test. If I had known what you were talking about so that I could have had something to start with, I shouldn’t have failed the last time. That’s the funny thing about lip-reading; at one instant it’s a blank, and the next you get the key, and the whole thing flashes out clear.”

But even this amazing exhibition could not distract Dick’s mind from the robbery. “Now tell me, please,” he began, “what you really know by this method or any method about what Eddy said to Bosworth that Saturday morning in his room.”

Varrell looked significantly at Phil.

“Oh, you can trust him,” Dick made haste to say. “Phil is a lot safer than I am.”

“I hope you won’t think, Phil, that I’m in the habit of eavesdropping. A good many times I deliberately close my eyes to what people are saying, so as not to understand things they don’t mean me to know. But Bosworth is thoroughly bad and ought to be shown up, and since he has got hold of little Eddy again, I’ve kept my eyes peeled. Eddy was walking about in Bosworth’s room that Saturday morning before he went to Boston. I can see pretty clearly from my east window any one who comes near Bosworth’s window, and I was sure that I caught the words safe, door, and combination. The last I am positive about, for it’s a long word and easy to catch.”

“Do you suspect Bosworth of breaking into the safe?” asked Phil, quickly.

“Yes, I do,” answered Varrell; “but until it can be proved I don’t want the subject mentioned.”

“How could he get into the room?” persisted Phil, now deeply interested.

“By the passage door.”

“Do you think he got the housekeeper’s keys?”

“No, I don’t,” replied Varrell, “though it wouldn’t have been impossible for any one to get them. There was an easier way: the door opens out and fits very loosely. He probably pried it open.”

“With what?”

“With the flat ice-chipper that stands in the corner next to the stairs. It is strong, and has a wide blade that would not leave much of a mark. But mind, I guess all this; I haven’t any proof whatever.”

“Do you mean to try to get proof?”

“That’s exactly what I mean to do,” said Varrell, smiling. “I say, Dick, you’d better take lessons of Poole! He’s found out more in three minutes than you have in a week.”

Varrell’s hand was already on the door-knob, when he checked himself and turned: “By the way, Phil, if you want to stand well with Sands, be careful what you say about Flanahan. Sands is awfully cut up about the whole business, ashamed and mad and disgusted to think that he has been pushing such a mucker. Just say nothing to him about it, or you’ll get him down on you.”

“Thank you,” said Phil. “I’ll be careful.”