“Yes—but I don’t understand,” said Carpenter feebly.
“Never mind about understanding,” snarled Parker. “Have the letter with you, in your pocket. Then, when he isn’t looking, slip it into some place where it will stay hidden until they make a more thorough search. You can bet they’ve hunted through that place pretty carefully already——”
Suddenly Shesgren, his blue eyes flashing behind his heavy spectacles, cried out.
“What are you talking about?” he cried. “What letter do you mean? Do you mean to tell me that Phillips never really got that letter that they’re making all the fuss about? Why, he signed the receipt!”
“Yes, he signed the receipt,” said Parker mockingly, “but your friend Carpenter here got the letter.”
“But that—that’s stealing,” cried Shesgren, horrified. “There was money in that letter.”
“There still is,” said Parker, with a sneering grin. “And we’ll see that Phillips gets his letter in due time, with the money still in it. Stealing that is not what we’re after.”
Shesgren, confused, and slow, even when he was at his best, to understand complicated things, took some time to grasp the idea.
“Then Phillips isn’t crooked at all!” he exclaimed. “This was just a plan of yours to put the blame on him and make it look as if he’d taken money to play in that game when you knew all the time that he hadn’t.”
“What of it?” asked Parker, sneering again. “You knew what we were going to do—what the whole plan was.”