He turned away and walked slowly down the veranda toward Marston lounging in a corner.
As Dick followed him with his eyes, there was a slightly puzzled look in them.
Stovebridge was so cool and self-possessed, so utterly different from the man who had shown such agitation barely half an hour before, that for an instant Merriwell was staggered.
“Either I’m wrong and he’s innocent,” he thought to himself, “or he has the most amazing self-control. There isn’t a hint in his manner that the fellow has a trouble in the world.”
Then the Yale man’s intuitive good sense reasserted itself.
“He’s bluffing,” he muttered under his breath. “I’ll stake my reputation that, for all his pretended indifference, Brose Stovebridge is either the guilty man, or he knows who is. And I rather think he’s the one himself.”
Roger Clingwood pulled out his watch.
“Well, boys, it’s about time for lunch,” he remarked. “Suppose I take you up to your rooms and, after you’ve brushed up a bit, we’ll go in and have a bite to eat.”
“I’ll get the bags out of the car and be with you in a minute,” Dick said as they stood up.
“Wait, I’ll ring for a man to take them up,” proposed Clingwood.