He led the detectives up a path to the house and when they were seated in the kitchen, his big, fat wife, Dinah, bustled around and soon had a savory breakfast set before them.
The detectives praised her cooking and paid the old servants so well for their attention that the faithful pair voted them as fine gentlemen.
Soon afterward the detectives started for Swamp Angel.
"The action of Ronald Mason in coming here so oddly with his uncle's valet strikes me very strangely," remarked Old King Brady, as they trudged along the road toward the station. "In fact, it is a most singular proceeding. He evidently poses before his rich uncle as a paragon of virtue. Behind the old man's back he is evidently a high roller."
"Then he must be a deceitful man," said Harry.
"Of course, for he's deceiving his trusting uncle."
"You are suspicious of him, ain't you?"
"Well, yes. It takes plenty money for a young man to lead a riotous life. If Mason draws a big salary in his uncle's office, where he is employed as a clerk, he may be able to afford it. If he is poorly paid, he may be at the bottom of the mail robberies we were called upon to investigate. See the point?"
Harry nodded and smiled; then he thought for a moment.
"You're pretty keen," he remarked. "It's a fair presumption, though."