Solon brightened wonderfully.
"I have to admit that my first suspicion was incorrect. He ain't the one that done that Lima, Ohio, job and carried off them eight hundred dollars' worth of stamps—"
"But what did he do?"
"Well, I got a clew to another past of his—"
"What is it? Let's have it!"
Billy was still not to be driven faster than a detective story should move.
We heard, and dimly saw, him engaged with a metallic object which he drew from under his coat. We were silent. Then we heard him say:—
"My lamp's went out—darn these matches!"
At last he seemed to light something. He unfolded a bit of paper before us and triumphantly across its surface he directed the rays of a bull's-eye lantern. This was his climax. We studied the paper.
"Billy," said Solon, after a pause, "this looks like a good night's work. True, it may come to naught. We may still be baffled, foiled, thwarted at every turn—and yet something tells me that the man is in our power—that by this precious paper we may yet bring the scoundrel to his knees in prayers for our mercy, craven with fear at our knowledge."