“My dear George!” Storm laughed, but his hand shook as he refilled Millard’s glass so that a drop or two of the pale golden liquid fell on the cloth. “Don’t try to endow the Department with supernatural powers of divination! You and I have taken many a midnight stroll on the Drive since I took over Potter’s rooms here. Would you have had a policeman dog our footsteps to see that we didn’t murder each other? It is inconceivable that it could have been Jack Horton; remember that his bag, with the hat and pistol inside, were found in the Grand Central Station. If he had been killed out there where he was found it would have been far simpler for his murderers to have left them there with the body and just made away with the money.”
To this George found no answer, but Millard smiled a trifle crookedly as he set down his glass, and a knowing leer spread over his flushed countenance.
“Something more was found in the bag besides the hat and pistol,” he observed. “This isn’t supposed to be known, but I’ve got inside dope on it straight from Headquarters. Lot of old newspapers were wadded around the pistol. You might say there would be nothing in that, but there was something funny about those newspapers; the outside sheet was missing from every one of them!”
Storm drew a deep breath that was almost a sob and a great fear gripped him. Only three nights before when they were packing the trunk to be sent back to Greenlea, they had used the outer sheets of those same newspapers, and the old doubt returned to him. Had George noticed? He had said nothing, and his manner as Storm recalled it conveyed no intimation that his thoughts had been even momentarily distracted from the discussion then under way. Storm stole a furtive glance at him, but George seemed not to have heard. He was playing idly with the cigar-lighter, and his face wore a frown of labored concentration.
If it were only possible to silence Millard! But the latter continued with evident relish:
“And why was it missing? Because those papers weren’t bought haphazard at a news-stand; they’d been delivered from day to day by a regular vendor, and the outer sheets had been removed because they bore the name of the person to whom they had been consigned.” Millard produced a small notebook from his pocket and ruffled its pages importantly. “Look here! I jotted down the dates of those papers: May twenty-eighth, thirtieth, thirty-first, and June first, third and fourth, of this year, too! Not so old, eh? They come down to within a day or two of the murder! I guess that’s bad evidence! Those newspapers had been delivered to the person who packed that bag, old chap, or he wouldn’t have been so infernally careful, and he is one of those who murdered Horton!”
“You cannot trace parts of newspapers if they have no distinguishing mark on them!” Storm said hastily, casting about in desperation for a change of theme. “Your friends at Headquarters are remarkably painstaking, but have they considered the possibility that Horton may have stopped over in New York to see this girl in whom he was interested, and been waylaid——?”
“There’s not a chance of that.” Millard shook his head. “She has told all she knows, and it has been proven that he never went near her; never even communicated with her, although so many hours elapsed between the time his train reached the city and the murder. Oh, it’s a poser, all right, but they’ll solve it. I’ll win my wager yet, old chap.”
He cast a wavering and reluctant eye upon the clock and rose.
“You’re not going yet?” Storm asked mechanically. “Have another smoke——?”