Even over the wire, the note of dismay in Ripley’s voice was plainly evident to Driggs, who chuckled.

“I can’t tell you, over the wire, all that I want to see you about,” Driggs replied.  “You’d better come over here at once.  I can promise you that it’s something interesting.”

“I—–­I don’t believe I can come over to-day,” Fred answered hesitatingly.  “The weather is too hot.”

“Mebbe the weather will get hotter, if you don’t come,” Hiram Driggs responded calmly.

“That’s a joke, eh?” queried Fred.  “Ha, ha, ha!”

“Depends upon the feller’s sense of humor,” Driggs declared.  “Well, you’re coming over, aren’t you?”

“Ye-es, I’ll come,” Fred assented falteringly, for his guilty conscience made a coward of him.  “You’re a fine fellow, Mr. Driggs, and I’m glad to oblige anyone like you.  I’ll be right over.”

“Thanks, ever so much, for the compliment,” drawled Driggs in his most genial tone.  “Such a compliment is especially appreciated when it comes from a young gentleman of your stripe.  Good-bye.”

That word “stripe” caused Fred Ripley to have a disagreeable chill.  He remembered that “stripes” are an important part of the design on a convict’s suit of state-furnished clothes.

“But he needn’t think he can prove anything against me,” Fred muttered to himself, as he started down the street.  “Of course, I know I lost that chisel last night, and Driggs may have found it in his boatyard.  But he can’t prove that the chisel belongs to me, or to our house.  There are lots more chisels just like that one.  If Driggs tries to bluff me he’ll find that I’m altogether too cool for him!”

Nevertheless, it was an anxious young man who walked into the boat builder’s office a few minutes later.  Hiram Driggs, smiling broadly, held out his hand, which Fred took.

“Sorry I wasn’t here when you called last night,” said Driggs affably.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Fred rejoined promptly.  “I didn’t call at your house last night.”

“Oh, no,” Driggs replied.  “I meant when you called here.”

“I didn’t call here, either.”

“Ever see this before?” asked Driggs, holding up the chisel.

“Never,” lied Fred.

“That’s curious,” said Driggs musingly.  “Officer Curtis, the man on this beat, found the chisel here, and it was wrapped up in part of this newspaper.”

Driggs brought forth from one of the drawers of his desk the newspaper in question.

“What has that scrap of paper to do with it?” asked Fred, speaking as coolly as he could.

“Why,” explained Driggs, turning the paper over, “here’s the mail sticker on this side, with your father’s printed name and address pasted on it just as it came through the post-office.”

Fred gasped audibly this time.  Driggs surveyed his face with a keen, tantalizing gaze.

“Mebbe ’twas your father, then, who was in the yard last night, and who refused to answer the policeman’s hail,” suggested the boat builder.  “I’d better go up to his office and show him these things and ask him, I guess.”