"Anyway you look at it," Bristow smiled pleasantly, his manner tinged with patronizing, "you've a hard job to get away with."
"If," the other ruminated, "the jewels pawned yesterday were not Mrs. Withers', why wouldn't the man who pawned them come forward and say so? If there wasn't anything crooked about them, why should he hide himself? The papers are full of it this morning. It's public property."
Bristow, looking at his watch, saw that it was nine o'clock and time for him to go to the railroad station.
They said good-bye, each confident that the other was on the wrong trail.
"I'm leaving you," the lame man declared, "to run to your heart's content around the clever circles you've outlined, and to beat off the newspaper reporters."
"It's not for long," Braceway returned seriously. "I hope to be in Furmville next week with an armful of new facts. I'll see you then."
He went to the desk and got his mail. In addition to reports from his Atlanta office, there was one letter in a big, square envelope. He recognized the writing and opened that first.
"Dear Mr. Braceway," it said: "I hope Mr. Bristow repeated to you everything I told him. He is quite brilliant, I have no doubt, but I talked to him in the belief and hope that he would tell you everything. I know what you can do, and I trust you more than I do him. You see, you have successes behind you.
"If he did not tell you all, I shall be glad to do so at any time."
It was signed, "Sincerely yours, Maria Fulton."