“It’s my sympathetic nature struggling with an innate sense of justice,” he explained. “But justice triumphs. I know now why you made that mysterious trip to Hartford. On this scrap of paper placed providentially before my eyes—redeemed thus from the ignomy of being a mere wrapper of plebeian pickles, I see a horrible—an appalling—thing.”
He paused again, dramatically, and Buckhart, exasperated beyond endurance, made a sudden dive for him. The slim chap leaped from the table and slipped around behind it.
“Peace, creature!” he declaimed. “Listen to my news. The Second National Bank of Hartford was robbed last night of thirty thousand dollars in cold cash!”
For a moment there was silence. Then a roar of laughter went up.
“You’re pinched, Mac,” Dick gasped. “Desperate Desmond has found you out.”
“Yes, bucko,” the Texan exclaimed; “better confess and divvy up the swag.”
McCormick flushed a little, and the smile on his pleasant face grew a bit forced.
“Looks that way, doesn’t it?” he said, in a bantering tone. “I didn’t know he was so smart.”
At that moment Merriwell, happening to glance at Percy Joblots, noticed that he was watching McCormick covertly, but with a strange intentness. In his eyes was that curious look of keenness which Dick had seen once before that night.
But even as he looked, the expression disappeared and the dapper fellow’s face resumed its customary repose.