“Yes; Brazilian diamonds,” confirmed 251 Powell Seaton. “Probably this prisoner’s share or proceeds from smuggling in diamonds. That business, then, was what the ‘Black Betty’ was used for.”
“Those are the diamonds I came down here to negotiate for,” broke in Dawley, wonderingly.
“You?” demanded Hunter, surveying the soft-voiced one.
“Yes; my father is Dawley, the big jeweler at Jacksonville,” explained the youth. “Here’s his card. I’m the buyer for the house, and your prisoner wrote that he had some fine stones to sell.”
“They’re fine, all right, or I’m no judge of Brazilian diamonds,” nodded Powell Seaton. “But I guess the United States Government owns them, now, as a confiscated prize.”
A carriage was brought around to the door, and Anson Dalton was driven to the county jail, eight miles away, to be locked up there pending the arrival of United States officers.
Dawley easily proved his innocence, and the truth of his own story. Despite his effeminate manners and soft voice, it afterwards developed that the youth was a skilled buyer of precious stones, and a young man of no little importance in the business community of his home town.
Following the swift succession of events at 252 the little Florida town, there came a lull in the long strain of excitement and danger.
Every now and then Dick Davis and Ab Perkins, aboard the Rio-bound “Glide,” found a chance to have a wireless message relayed back to the United States.
These messages came in veiled language, according to instructions, but they conveyed to Powell Seaton the joyous news that these two far-away members of the Motor Boat Club were proceeding safely on their long journey, and that no harm was happening to them, nor to the precious papers in their care.