"Yes, I do. I believe Win Bannard is after that pin, so's he can find them jewels——"
"Oh, then you think the pin is a guide to the jewels?"
"Well, it must be, as you say so. 'Tenny rate, the murderer wanted something, awful bad. It never seemed like he was after just money, or he'd 'a' come at night, don't you think so?"
"Perhaps."
"Well, say it was Win, there's nothing to offset that theory. And everything to point toward it. Moreover, there's no other suspect."
"William Ashton? Rodney Pollock?"
"All the same man," opined Hughes, "and all—Winston Bannard!"
"Oh, I don't know——"
"How you going to get around that letter? Can't you see yourself it's Bannard's writing disguised? And not very much disguised, at that. Why, look at the capital W! The one in William and this one in his own signature are almost identical."
"Why didn't he try to disguise them?"