"Bless ye, no, Miss Lorny! But 'tis evident—an' so Tobias says—that one o' the burgulars tore it off his watch chain when he scrambled in over the winder-sill."
"Oh! It was a gold penknife? And he wore it on a watch chain like——"
Again she halted in the middle of a sentence. She paled and then flushed, flashing a sly glance at Degger. He seemed not to have noticed what she said. He was not even looking at her.
"Oh!" she whispered again, and was glad that Jackson saw her waiting and that he hurried back to the car.
"Good-day, Mr. Degger. Good-day, Mr. Crouch," she said, as Jackson got in and started the engine.
Lorna did not show Degger her face again. She continued to think about that gold penknife that had been found under the bank window. Ralph Endicott wore such a knife on his watch chain. And Degger said he had seen Ralph in town last evening—long after he was supposed to have left Clinkerport by train.
Of course, any thought linking Ralph with the mysterious penknife was ridiculous. It could not be that the most evil-intentioned tongue would dovetail Ralph's movements with the Clinkerport Bank robbery. Yet—Lorna did not trust Conway Degger!
What would Degger say, in his sneering way, if he learned the Endicotts were impoverished and that Ralph probably had very little money left?
Ralph had been seen by Degger in the village late the previous evening—too late to have left town by train thereafter. Suppose that awful Devine girl was pressing Ralph for money and threatening to disgrace him if he did not produce it?
Was that why Ralph had left home so suddenly and mysteriously? Did he fear disgrace? Was it because he could not satisfy Cora Devine, and so close her lips?