His throat was dry and parched, but he dared not lift his glass lest the shaking of his hand betray him. He swallowed and forced a laugh, but it sounded strained and unnatural in his own ears.
“Is that the big secret?” He was mortally afraid that his voice would crack, but it was evident that so far the others had noted nothing amiss; and emboldened he went on: “Good Lord, Millard, the criminals may be plain thugs, but are your friends at Headquarters such utter fools as to think they wouldn’t realize the bills were numbered? They won’t take any chances on them, you may be sure of that. It was the gold they were after! No attempt was made to check up on that, was there? I mean, it wasn’t a fresh coinage or anything of that sort, with some mark that could be traced?”
Ages seemed to pass before Millard slowly shook his head, crestfallen that his news had been so tamely received.
“No,” he admitted. “But there isn’t such a lot of gold in circulation, you know. Anyone trying to get rid of it in large quantities will be open to suspicion. Besides, there hasn’t been a line in the papers about the bills being spotted, and you can’t credit gangsters and highway robbers with the intelligence you or I would have. It is ten to one those bills will show up before long.”
Storm drew a deep breath and in a quick gesture raised his glass and drained it. How much of that hoard for which he had risked all was in the now useless banknotes and how much in precious gold? His whole future hung on the answer. He had counted it so carefully when he stored it away! Why couldn’t he remember?
He opened his lips to voice the query, but George forestalled him.
“I have maintained from the very beginning that Jack Horton was not assaulted by mere gangsters or thugs,” he remarked. “I don’t believe there was any struggle; I told Norman so. The condition of the body as the papers described it could have been due to its having been flung over the wall; all except the single blow on the back of the head which caused death, of course. I tried to see the body at the undertaker’s on Sunday, just to satisfy myself on that point, but it had already been shipped. I tell you, I think poor old Jack was taken unawares by that one foul blow when he thought he was safe among friends; or with one supposed friend, for that matter. It would have taken only one man to commit the crime, if Jack trusted him sufficiently to place himself in his hands.”
Millard had been listening with all his ears, and now he brought his hand down on the table with a blow which made the glasses tinkle.
“By Jove, I believe you’ve got it!” he exclaimed. “It’s hard to see how a man constantly on guard as he was could have been spirited off the train from Poughkeepsie against his will, and he wasn’t killed until hours later. Now if he had met a friend—— I must really suggest that at Headquarters!”
“Another cigar?” The urbane host, quite his old self again, smiled as he leaned across the table. “Try some of that 1812 brandy, Millard; you’ll appreciate it. Old George here has been full of theories since Horton’s murder, but I am afraid they are not practicable, and you won’t find much sympathy for amateur efforts at Headquarters. I think myself that the body was brought there in a machine from the Lord knows what distance and thrown over the wall, but beyond that who can tell?”