“All right, Briggs,” he said, and I saw how the others stared in astonishment at a tone which I knew to be his natural one. “What’s it for, this time?”
“This,” answered the detective, and drew a roll of new greenbacks from his pocket. “The best you’ve done yet,” he added. “And a fine plant you’ve got out there at that little place of yours. We’ve been all through it.”
“Is this one of them?” asked Mr. Chester, and produced the counterfeit which had been passed on him the day before.
“Yes, that’s a sample,” answered Briggs, glancing at it. “They worried us for a while, I tell you. Of course we knew right away it was Jim’s work.”
“You’ll have to prove it’s mine,” pointed out the prisoner.
“Oh, we can do that easily enough. Your fingers give you away.”
And, looking at them, I saw again the curious stains I had noticed a few days before. And I also suddenly understood the odour which filled Mr. Tunstall’s parlour.
“But we’ve lost track of you,” went on the detective. “It’s nearly a year since we heard of you—you’d buried yourself so well down here—and we hadn’t the least idea where to look for you. One of my men has been shadowing your house off and on for some time, because we had heard some rather curious stories about one Silas Tunstall, and we wanted to find out something more about him. But we never suspected it was you. That spiritualistic dodge was an inspiration and that disguise is a work of art.”
“Yes,” agreed the captive complacently, “I’m rather proud of it, myself. There was just one person it did not deceive.”
“Who was that?” asked the detective.