"Cæsar's pineapples!" he cried. "It's gone, Dick!"
"Yes, and I expect Mr. Brockhurst, or whatever his name happens to be, is bemoaning his poor luck. Score another miss for Uncle Ezra."
"Be careful, though, Dick," warned Paul. "Three times and out, you know."
"That's right, old man. I've got to be careful. We'll have to adopt some new system of hiding it, I guess."
"But say, Dick, how did you get onto that fellow's curves?" inquired Innis. "You didn't tip us off."
"No, I wanted to see just how far he would go, and I didn't want him to get suspicious. I knew I had the game in my own hands as long as I held the papers. You see it was this way:
"When I first saw his stalled car I didn't think anything but that he was a fellow motorist in hard luck. But when he told that yarn about a piece of iron in the road flying up and cracking the steering knuckle I knew he wasn't telling the truth. No piece of iron could fly up with sufficient force to do that. Besides, the dent of the blow was inside, where no flying missile, unless it could turn a corner, could hit. So I deduced that a hammer had been used."
"Regular detective," laughed Paul.
"I should say so," agreed Innis.
"Well," went on Dick, "then I noticed his limp. He had a no more sprained ankle than I had."