“I know all about the case. I helped work on it. We located Skem & Skim in Boston and they’re under arrest.”
“But about me? About the two hundred shares of stock that the inspector was talking about?” asked Ned anxiously.
“Two thousand shares was what he said I guess, but you probably misunderstood him,” Mr. Reilly went on. “Yes, there was a young fellow who was mixed up in the transactions. He was a holder of two thousand shares of the stock. All there was in fact, and he was one of the main ones in working the swindle. We’re looking for him still. Why, my boy, this paper isn’t worth anything. They cheated you. There isn’t any stock in the Mt. Olive Oil Well Company except the fake two thousand shares issued to John Denton, which is the name of the other swindler we want. And so you thought the inspector meant you?”
“I did, and that’s why I ran away. I didn’t want to be arrested and bring disgrace on my father.”
“You poor boy!” exclaimed Mr. Wilding. “But it’s all over now, Ned. How in the world did you manage to live in the meanwhile?”
Ned told them part of the story as they walked to his father’s hotel, and the remainder of it he related inside, from the time of his aunt’s departure until they found him scrubbing the lodging-house floor, including his escape down the rope.
“And we have your valise!” exclaimed Fenn. “It’s at our hotel.”
“I thought some one came along and stole it,” Ned replied. “I was afraid to ask about it for fear I’d be arrested. I didn’t even dare go for my trunk.”
“That’s safe at the depot,” said Bart, “but you’ll have to pay storage charges on it. Well, well, how this thing has worked out!”
“We’ve solved two mysteries instead of one,” Frank remarked. “Here’s William ready to go back to his mother,” and he told Ned who William was.