The other wrote hastily and returned the scrawl.
“Who do you think it is?”
Merriwell hesitated. The ferocity had quite gone from the boy’s face, and its place been taken by a look of intense pleading. The Yale man wondered whether it would be right for him to give voice to his suspicions. And yet, they were more than mere suspicions. In his mind there was no doubt whatever that Stovebridge was the guilty man, but the difficulty was to get absolute proof.
As he watched the play of emotions on the mobile face of the lad before him, a sudden thought leaped into Dick’s brain which made his eyes sparkle and brought a half smile to his lips. What a solution that would be—to make this fellow whom Stovebridge had fooled and played with the means of bringing the clubman to justice!
“I think it is Stovebridge,” he said aloud; “but I am not sure. I want you to find out the truth. Can you read the lip talk at a distance—say at fifty feet?”
Hanlon nodded emphatically.
“Good! Well, this is what I want you to do. Stovebridge and this Marston are great pals, and I believe Marston knows all about the accident. They are likely to talk it over to-morrow—probably on the veranda; for Marston always sits there. Of course, they would not talk loud enough for any one sitting near them to hear, but they would never suspect you, if you were out raking the drive. Yet you could read their lips and understand. You get my meaning?”
There was a look of admiration in the boy’s eyes as he nodded.
“You’ve sure got a head on your shoulders, pard,” the big Texan said enthusiastically. “That’s a jim dandy scheme.”
Dick only smiled and looked at Hanlon.