The detective nodded miserably. All the way to the school he had been congratulating himself on his cleverness and now it turned out to be but a mockery.
“Then he must have the thing in his suitcase!” he cried. “But I distinctly heard Gates tell him to take the cup in the black bag.”
“It looks very much as though they both knew you were on the trail and switched the cup to the suitcase,” Hudson remarked.
“If that is the case, the cup is lost, for it is on its way to Canada,” the colonel declared.
“I don’t see how they could have gotten onto me,” the detective cried. “I never did a better job in my life.”
“I have just thought of something,” ventured Don. “Do you remember the night you called up the school here and told the colonel all about it, Mr. Proctor?”
“Yes,” replied the man.
“Was Arthur Gates at home when you called?”
“Yes, but he was upstairs, for I made sure of that. Oh, he couldn’t have heard me!” the man protested.
“When I was at that house, on the night we took Mr. Gates home from the accident, I noticed a telephone upstairs. Do you suppose—”