"How did Moth come to be mixed up with it?" I asked, wondering at the fate that always brought this man to the front in every trouble of my life.
"He happened to be in Rock Island when news of the robbery reached there, and being the attorney of the party to whom the money belonged, was brought along to help hunt down the criminal. Now he is to act as the prosecuting attorney."
"The villain! And he is glad of the chance I'm sure," was all I could say.
"Perhaps; but there is some one else, we can't tell who, that occupies himself creating suspicions and suggesting this and that. It doesn't matter, however, the thing for us is to disprove the charge; but how this is to be done I can't see," Mr. Seymour answered, as if the question were one he had asked himself many times before.
"Is no one thought to be concerned except Uncle Job?" I asked, feeling the ground sinking beneath my feet.
"No; and the worst of it is he insisted on guarding the money himself that night. Rathe volunteered to do it, but your uncle wouldn't have it that way."
"Couldn't the money have been taken without uncle's knowing it, while he was asleep? Surely there would be nothing strange in that," I asked, believing it to be so.
"Yes, and your Uncle Job claims that is how it was; that he was drugged, in fact. I am sure that is the way it happened; but how could any one have drugged him when he was locked in his room? they say."
"How did he happen to have the money?" I asked.
"It was a collection he had made for a client."
"Did any one know he had it in his office?" I asked.
"Only Rathe and I, so far as we know, though of course there might have been others."
"He stopped here, and never left the house. He appears greatly worried, claiming the loss will ruin his business and discredit him forever."
"The sneak! I don't believe he cares--or if anything, is glad of it. How much money was there?" I asked, feeling that every inquiry made the case look the worse for Uncle Job.
"Ten thousand dollars," he answered, reflectively; "a fortune here."
"How could he hide so much money?" I asked, remembering the great stacks of bills my father used to bring home and the trouble mother and he had in secreting them about the house.