“I confess that I do. A man would be half a dozen kinds of a fool to forge the name of the president of a bank and present the check for payment at the latter’s own bank. Still what evidence we have against Stanley is strong. We can account for the flight of Derrick Ames on the simple elopement theory. We can explain the levanting of Ralph Felton on the theory that he refused to establish an alibi because it would necessitate the confession of an acquaintance with ‘Isabel Winthrop,’ when he was an ardent suitor for the hand of Helen Hathaway, and on the further supposition that he has gone to hunt for the woman he insanely loved. We can explain the nervous condition of Cyrus Felton on the assumption that he fears his son was implicated in the bank robbery and trembles for his safety. But we cannot explain why Ernest Stanley fled from Raymond the night of Memorial Day and hurried over mountain and stream and through forest, chased like a wild beast, until he found a haven of refuge. The open bank door is the break in the chain of evidence against him, and that may be mended by assuming that the cashier forgot to lock the door behind him when he entered the bank.
“We must find Stanley,” Ashley promptly declares.
“And there are others to be found,” the detective rejoins dryly. “But especially must we run down Stanley. I am convinced that he is the key to the mystery, and when we have located his position in this puzzling case I believe that the rest of the race will be plain sailing.”
“I fear it will be a long, stern chase.”
“Such chases usually are,” remarks Barker, composedly. “I have already set the machinery in motion, and the police of the entire country are on the lookout for a chap answering Stanley’s description. What makes our task the harder is the probable fact that Stanley is not a member of the criminal class, and so a comparatively easy channel of pursuit is closed. He presumably made for New York, and somewhere in that busy human hive we may run across him.”
“Then our labors at this end of the road are about completed?”
“Nearly so. To-morrow morning, before the village is astir, we will go a-fishing. If we find what we expect the case may be precipitated a bit. Otherwise we will shift the scene of our operations to New York, after I have pumped the servants in the Felton family and inquired as far as is possible into the affairs of the bank. Is your vacation about wound up?”
“It will be in a day or so. I have nothing to keep me here longer except a pleasant duty that I owe to myself.”
“And that is—”
“To make an unprofessional call upon Miss Louise Hathaway.”