We walked on in silence for a time, but at last she suddenly said:
"Oh, there was something I was near forgetting to tell you. I’ve been sitting by uncle, almost all day, and for the most of the time he has lain there more like a log than a man. But sometimes he has talked--not to know what he was saying, you understand--but some ideas are bothering his poor head. I am supposing that they have to do with his business. A dozen times in the day he spoke your name, and seemed to be trying to tell you something. He told it over and over, but the only words I could make out were ’notes,’ ’million,’ and ’five hundred and sixteen.’ The figures seem to mean something to him, for he has repeated them oftener than anything else."
She paused for comment, and I submitted my guesses:
"The notes are probably those that Peter Bolton presented to-day. The million is roughly the amount we are short in the business, counting the deficit in the syndicate fund. I can’t imagine what the ’five hundred and sixteen’ can mean. It is not the number of his office, for that is in the four hundred block. There doesn’t seem to be anything in the business that it could signify."
Laura Kendrick halted me, and looked up in my face.
"I am not given to intuitions," she said, her tone thrilling with earnestness, "but I have one now. As sure as you stand there, uncle made provision for paying the notes and raising the rest of the money you have had to find, and the number ’five hundred and sixteen’ has something to do with it. Find the five hundred and sixteen and you’ll find the million dollars." And with a nod of conviction she walked forward once more.
"It may be one of the banks," I ventured to suggest, "but I can’t remember that any of them are at that number."
"Mightn’t it be the place of business of some friend, where he has left this money?"
I shook my head at this improbable guess, and turned the problem over in my mind without result. Then I ventured to propose that I should see Wharton Kendrick.
"My presence might stir his thoughts to some more definite speech," I argued.
"Well, I’ll let you in for just a minute. But Doctor Roberts said that nothing must be done to excite him, and I don’t know as it is right to take the risk."