"And I've got a letter that Charlie Young wrote," Stone exulted. "I rather think that will go far toward freeing Mr. Bannard!"
"Oh, how?"
"I believe that Young wrote that letter signed William Ashton, and purposely made it look like the disguised hand of Winston Bannard."
"It was exactly like Win's writing, but different, too. The long-tailed letters were just like Win's."
"Yes, and that helps prove it. If Bannard had tried to disguise his own writing, the first thing he would have thought of would be not to make those peculiar long loops. Now their presence shows a clever trickster's effort to make the writing suggest Bannard at once, but also to suggest a disguised hand."
"That is clever! How can you ever catch such an ingenious villain? Shall you arrest him at once?"
"Oh, no, to suspect is not to accuse, until we have incontrovertible proof. But we'll get it! Lord, what a brain! And, yet, it may be easier to catch a smarty like that than a duller, more plodding mind. You see, he is so brilliant of scheme, so quick of execution, that he may well overreach himself, and tumble into a trap or two I shall set for him."
"Doubtless he knows you are here, doesn't he?"
"Surely; but that doesn't matter. If things are going as I hope, I'll bag him soon!"
"And yet you're not sure he's the murderer?"