hand of the law is likely at any moment to close upon him from some
unexpected quarter. The Hopper knew this, and knew, too, that in yielding
to the exhilaration of the hour he was likely to come to grief. Justice
has a long memory, and if he again made himself the object of police
scrutiny that little forty-thousand dollar affair in Maine might still be
fixed upon him.

When he reached the house from whose gate he had removed the roadster with
Shaver attached, he studied it with the eye of an experienced strategist.
No gleam anywhere published the presence of frantic parents bewailing the
loss of a baby. The cottage lay snugly behind its barrier of elms and
shrubbery as though its young heir had not vanished into the void. The
Hopper was a deliberating being and he gave careful weight to these
circumstances as he crept round the walk, in which the snow lay
undisturbed, and investigated the rear of the premises. The lattice door
of the summer kitchen opened readily, and, after satisfying himself that
no one was stirring in the lower part of the house, he pried up the sash
of a window and stepped in. The larder was well stocked, as though in
preparation for a Christmas feast, and he passed on to the dining-room,
whose appointments spoke for good taste and a degree of prosperity in the
householder.

Cautious flashes of his lamp disclosed on the table a hamper, in which
were packed a silver cup, plate, and bowl which at once awoke the Hopper's
interest. Here indubitably was proof that this was the home of Shaver, now
sleeping sweetly in Humpy's bed, and this was the porridge bowl for which
Shaver's soul had yearned. If Shaver did not belong to the house, he had
at least been a visitor there, and it struck The Hopper as a reasonable
assumption that Shaver had been deposited in the roadster while his lawful
guardians returned to the cottage for the hamper preparatory to an