“It is,” agreed Parkhurst, hastily. “It is, dear friend. That's why I never carry more than a couple of tooth-fillings with me, and—”
“Let me tell you,” cut in Stewart, full of his story. “So, being Sunday and no banks open, we arranged for him to keep the gold-dust down-stairs in the engine-room. And it is there now, a hundred and fifty boxes, worth, he says, about eight million—”
“Lead me to it before you hand in your bill,” entreated the reporter.
“There are eight Old Sleuths, with sixteen automatic pistols, on the job of keeping hungry newspaper men from the nice little paper-weights, Jimmy,” said Stewart. “I am so kind to Mr. Jerningham myself that I think he will remember me in one of those wills you fellows are always writing about—don't you know? How a fabulous fortune is left to the polite hotel clerk who was so nice to the stranger in the spring of eighteen seventy-four?”
“What's the full name?” asked the reporter. “There it is!” and Stewart pointed to the autograph in the hotel register.
“Alfred Jerningham. Nome and New York. Suite G.”
There followed the names of the eight bullion guards and his two personal servants.
“Looks like a school-boy's writing.”
“He is about forty,” said the clerk.
“Then it means he probably stopped writing for publication when he was about fourteen. That is the immature chirography of a man who is more at home with a pick than with a pen. And, furthermore—”