“You can’t do anything of the sort!” he snapped. “Are you boys trying to make a fool out of me? I knew mighty well you wouldn’t find anything in the old tower.”

“And we were pretty sure we would,” answered Frank. “Listen, Mr. Applegate⁠—we’ll be fair with you. We’ll tell you exactly why we wanted to make this search.”

“Go ahead and tell me. Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“Because we wanted to work this out ourselves, as far as possible. But the information we had came from the man who stole the jewels and the bonds.”

“I don’t believe it,” sniffed Adelia Applegate. “Nothing will ever convince me that it wasn’t that rascal Robinson.”

“Jackley confessed the whole business,” Frank persisted. “And on his deathbed he said that he hadn’t been able to get away with the loot. That he had hidden it.”

“Where?”

“In the old tower.”

“And it isn’t there?”

“Joe and I have just searched the place high and low. The stuff isn’t there. And from the fact that there are no footprints or marks of any kind in the dust, I don’t think anyone has been in the place for a long time.”

“The old tower has been closed for years.”

“So we thought,” Joe interjected, “that he might have been mistaken and that he had really hidden the stuff in the new tower instead.”

Hurd Applegate rubbed his chin meditatively. His manner toward the boys had undergone a change, and it was evident that he was impressed by their story.

“So this fellow confessed to the robbery, eh?”

“He admitted everything. He was a man who once worked around Bayport and he knew this locality pretty well. He had been hanging around the city for some days before the robbery.”

“Well,” said Applegate slowly, “if he says he hid the stuff in the old tower and it isn’t there, he must have meant the new tower, just as you say.”

“Will you let us search it?”

“I’ll do more than that. I’ll help you. I’m just as anxious to get the jewels and bonds back as anybody.”

“All nonsense!” declared Adelia Applegate. “It’s all a pack of falsehoods. I don’t believe a word of it.”

“Now, now, Adelia,” said her brother soothingly, “these boys may be right after all. It won’t hurt to take a look around, at any rate.”