“It was a curious little slip,” he commented. “I thought Tarbell was on; never suspected for a moment that he wasn’t until he butted Connolly in here and shot him at you.”
“But you knew Connolly wasn’t the man? How on top of earth did you run it down, in a single day? I can’t surround it, even yet.”
“It wasn’t much of a nut to crack,” laughed the expert easily. “I hope you’ll have a harder one for me the next time I happen along. I got my pointer last night—before I knew anything at all about the nature of your trouble. You see, Bolton was the only man in the outfit who wasn’t sincerely jarred and horrified by that fake message. I saw it the minute I’d had a look into his eyes. From that on it was easy enough.”
“I don’t see it,” objected Maxwell.
“Don’t you? I merely argued backward from the results your wire-devil was trying to obtain and sent a cipher message to a friend of mine in New York. He put me next to a nice little plot in the Street to hamper Ford and break down your company credit. Then I loafed around your shack here until I found Bolton’s wire machinery. Bolton didn’t catch on, but he was suspicious enough of a stranger like me to take a little measure of precaution by slipping that incriminating letter into Connolly’s coat pocket. I supposed Tarbell knew that, or I’d have told him.”
Maxwell had been listening in appreciative admiration, but gratitude came quickly to the fore when Sprague paused.
“Calvin, there’s no telling how many lives you’ve saved by this little stop-over of yours here in Timanyoni Park!” he broke out. “You’ve done it. When that story, properly trimmed down, comes out in the Tribune to-morrow morning, the bare-nerves strain will go off like that”—snapping his fingers. “I wish I could show you.... By George! there’s the Limited pulling in. I’ve got to go down and meet the wife and kiddies!”
The big-bodied man who called himself a chemistry sharp and confessed to the riding of many hobbies rose up with a laugh.
“You want to show me? All right: take me downstairs with you and show me Mrs. Maxwell and the babies. As for the other, you know as well as I do that it’s all in the day’s work. Pitch out or we’ll miss the folks—and that would be worse than getting another message from the wire-devil.”