“Why! Why!” gasped Clarke, “there was a man at the masquerade togged out as a football player!”
“I saw him,” said Alec. “And he wore one of these things. I saw him talking to Topsy.”
“One of my guests?” demanded Lake scoffingly. “Oh, nonsense! Some young fellow has been in here yesterday, talking to the clerks, and dropped it. Who went as a football player, White? You know all these college boys. Know anything about this one?”
“Not a thing.” There Billy lied—a prompt and loyal gentleman—reasoning that Buttinski, as he mentally styled the interloper who had misappropriated the Quaker lady, would have cared nothing at that time for a paltry thirty thousand. Thus was he guilty of a practice against which we are all vainly warned—of judging others by ourselves. Billy remembered very distinctly that Miss Ellinor had not reappeared until the midnight unmasking, and he therefore acquitted her companion of this particular crime, entirely without prejudice to Buttinski’s felonious instincts in general. For the watchman had been shot before midnight. Billy made a tentative mental decision that this famous noseguard had been brought to the bank later and left there purposely; and resolved to keep his eye open.
“Oh, well, it’s no great difference anyhow,” said Lake. “Whoever it was dropped it here yesterday, I guess, and got another one for the masquerade.”
“Hold on there!” said Clarke, holding the spotlight tenaciously. “That don’t go! This thing was on top of one of those pieces of the safe!”
For the first time Lake was startled from his iron composure.
“Are you sure?” he demanded, jumping up.
“Sure! It was right here against the sloping side of this piece—so.”