Then Harry Bernard drew a small vial from his pocket and held it up to view. A small object, submerged in alcohol, was visible. When placed in the hand of Nell, the girl at once exclaimed:
"That is certainly the wart that once disfigured the hand of Harper Elliston!"
"Where did you get it?" questioned Dyke Darrel, now deeply interested at the links that were being rapidly forged in the chain of evidence.
"Dyke, you know that when I left Woodburg some months ago, I went from among you under a cloud?"
"I will not dispute you—"
"No explanation is necessary on your part, Dyke. I imagine I was as much to blame as anybody. Nell and I quarreled, and I imagined that the handsome, elderly New Yorker had stepped into my shoes, so far as she was concerned. I did not like the man, and so I resolved to investigate for myself, and if I found that he was not worthy of Nell, whom I loved and should always love while life lasted, I determined to expose him, and save your sister. During the past few months I have been making this investigation, to find that the supposed immaculate Harper Elliston is known in Gotham in certain circles as a gambler and villain of the deepest dye. He has committed some crimes that are worse than murder. Now, as to the wart: It was soon after I had heard of the murder on the express train, that while riding in the smoking car of an emigrant train in Iowa, I saw an old man deliberately slice a huge wart from his little finger with a keen-edged knife. The wart fell under the seat and rolled at my feet. The old man made no effort to recover it, but wrapped his bleeding hand in a handkerchief and muttered: 'THAT witness will never come up to trouble me.' There was something in the man's voice that sounded familiar, and the strange whiteness of his hands aroused my suspicions, for in dress and appearance the man was a laborer of the lower class. Curiosity, if nothing stronger, prompted me to take possession of the severed wart that had rolled at my feet. Soon after that I read the notice in a newspaper, to the effect that the assassin of the express train had left the imprint of a wart on the bosom of the dead man's shirt. Since that time I have regarded hands with no little interest, and have looked for the old man of the emigrant car in vain."
"An interesting recital," said the detective, when Harry Bernard came to a pause. "Knowing all this, you kept it from me at St. Louis."
"My reason for that was, that I did not care to arouse any foolish theories. Of course, the reporter's story might have been false. The wart on my own hand, somewhat similar to this, led me to keep my own council as a matter of personal safety. Although I suspected Elliston, I had no proof, since I had forgotten the fact of his ever having a wart on the little finger of his right hand. My principal hope has been in finding the old man of the emigrant train."
"You have not found him?"
"Not unless Elliston is the man."