So the days passed, each one bringing so much of interest into the life of Helen Morrell that she forgot to be lonely, or to bewail her lot. She was still homesick for the ranch—when she stopped to think about it. But she was willing to wait a while longer before she flitted homeward to Big Hen and the boys.
CHAPTER XXV
THE MISSING LINK
Helen met Dud Stone and his sister on the bridle-path one morning by particular invitation. The message had come to the house for her late the evening before and had been put into the trusty hand of old Lawdor, the butler. Dud had learned the particulars of the old embezzlement charge against Prince Morrell.
“I’ve got here in typewriting the reports from three papers—everything they had to say about it for the several weeks that it was kept alive as a news story. It was not so great a crime that the metropolitan papers were likely to give much space to it,” Dud said.
“You can read over the reports at your leisure, if you like. But the main points for us to know are these:
“In the two banks were, in the names of Morrell & Grimes, something over thirty-three thousand dollars. Either partner could draw the money. The missing bookkeeper could not draw the money.
“The checks came to the banks in the course of the day’s business, and neither teller could swear that he actually remembered giving the money to Mr. Morrell; yet because the checks were signed in his name, and apparently in his handwriting, they both ‘thought’ it must have been Mr. Morrell who presented the checks.