“Rip ahead.”
“But they think it mighty queer, you know, that your dad should come into money just at the time that Simeon Pace’s money disappeared.”
Sam was on his feet.
“Say!” he gasped, “I don’t understand.”
“They say,” went on Dick, gulping with distress, yet determined to finish the whole story then and there, “that Simeon Pace carried his money in his hollow tin arm, and that your father took that arm from Simeon Pace’s body, and helped himself to the money. Now, there you are, and—dang it, Sam,—you’ll have to try to forgive me for telling you.”
Sam sank into his seat again and sat staring. The little clock on the mantel shelf ticked off the seconds briskly—ticked on and on, and still Sam sat and stared, and Dick waited, hardly daring to breathe. He could see that Sam was going over the whole situation—was balancing this against that, thinking over the things he had noticed, “sizing up” the situation with his good clear brain.
Suddenly he got up and seized his suit case.
“Where you going?” shouted Dick.
“Home,” said Sam quietly. “I’m going home.”
Dick ran forward and, grasping Sam’s hand, wrung it with all his strength.