Tom stared at them as if fascinated. They seemed to be written in letters of fire. He stooped and picked up the piece of the torn letter.
"The alarm clock!" murmured Tom. "I'll wager anything Lenton was writing about our clock, and yet Bascome said the letter didn't have a thing in it about our mystery. I wonder—I wonder if he expects me to believe that—now."
For a moment he paused, half inclined to go back and have it out with Bascome. Then he realized that this would not be the wisest plan. Besides, he wanted to talk with Phil and Sid.
"I'll tell them," he thought. "Maybe they can see through it, for I'll be hanged if I can. 'The alarm clock!' I wonder if I would be justified in picking up the rest of the pieces, and seeing what I could make of them? No! Of course I couldn't read another fellow's letter, even to solve the mystery. It's not serious enough for that."
Then Tom, after another look at the scrap he had, thrust it into his pocket, as much for the sake of preventing it from falling into the hands of curiosity seekers, as for any other reason.
"We'll see what Phil and Sid can make of it," he mused, and then, hearing someone approaching, Tom hastened on to his own room.
"It certainly is queer," said Phil, when Tom had told him the result of his little excursion. "I think I'd almost have picked up the whole letter.
