It was a large roll of money. The Thinking Machine ran over it lightly--$70,000--scanning the numbers of the bills. At last he held forth half a dozen. They were among the twenty-seven reported to have been burned in the bank fire in Butte.
Harrison and the woman were led away. Subsequently it developed that he had been systematically robbing the bank of which he was president for years; was responsible for the fire, at which time he had evidently expected to make a great haul; and that the woman was not his wife. Following his arrest this entire story came out; also the facts of the gigantic copper deal, in which he had rid himself of Bell, who was his partner, and had sent another man to Honolulu in Bell's name to buy up options on some valuable copper property there. This confederate in Honolulu had sent the cable dispatches to the wife in Butte. She accepted them without question.
It was a day or so later that Hatch dropped in to see The Thinking Machine and asked a few questions.
"How did Bell happen to have that $10,000?"
"It was given to him, probably, because it was safer to have him rambling about the country, not knowing who he was, than to kill him."
"And how did he happen to be here?"
"That question may be answered at the trial."
"And how did it come that Bell was once known as Harry Pillsbury?"
"Bell is a director in United States Steel, I have since learned. There was a secret meeting of this board in Pittsburg three years ago. He went incog. to attend that meeting and was introduced at the Lincoln Club as Harry Pillsbury."
"Oh!" exclaimed Hatch.