“Could you identify either of the men if you should meet him on the street?”
“I could not, unless I was allowed to examine his back, where the stone landed.”
“Then there’s no use of telling anyone else, for no one could help you. You had better carry a pistol, and take a safer route home after this. One of these days, perhaps, the whole thing will be explained, but I own that it is altogether too much for any fellow to find out just now.”
It was natural that I should feel nervous the entire day, for there was every reason to believe we were close upon exciting incidents, in which fate had ordered that Ben Mayberry and myself would have to make the initial movements.
Neither Burkhill, the tramp-like looking individual, nor any character to whom the least suspicion could attach, put in an appearance at the telegraph office during the day; this was another disappointment to Ben and myself.
The mayor also was disposed to be uncommunicative, for when I dropped in on him during the afternoon, he was short in his answers, barely intimating that everything was in a satisfactory shape. When asked whether Detective Maxx had revealed himself, he said:
“I have seen nothing of him, and do not care to see him. His help is not needed.”
I am convinced that the action of the famous detective had a great deal to do with the ill-humor of the mayor, who was generally one of the most affable of men.
I was pretty well used up, and at eleven o’clock I closed the office and went home, separating as usual from Ben Mayberry, who, I was satisfied, intended to know whether anything was amiss before he lay down to slumber.
Although the impression was general that it was the Mechanics’ Bank which was the objective point of the conspirators, yet the chief of police, as I have intimated, had stationed his men so as to be ready for instant use, should it prove to be any one of the moneyed institutions.