The officer could hardly believe his ears.
“Of course I have suspected Jarrold all along, and cannot be too grateful to this young man for his vigilance,” he said; “but the diabolical ingenuity of the man is beyond me.”
“He ought to be in irons at this minute,” asserted the doctor, “but so far as I can see, he has covered up his tracks so cleverly that we have nothing upon which to base a complaint against him.”
“At the present time, no, unfortunately,” said the colonel reluctantly. “And if it had not been for Mr. Ready, here, the whole plot might have proved a complete success.”
“I think it is reasonably certain that when you awakened, which might not have been till late to-morrow morning, you would have found your papers gone,” said the doctor.
“But in that case, I should have instantly suspected Jarrold,” was the reply. “And exercising my authority as an officer of the United States army, I could have had him detained under suspicion while his baggage and his person were searched.”
“I am afraid that that would have been very much like looking for a needle in a haystack,” said Dr. Flynn. “A rascal as clever as he is would have found some way to dispose of the papers, where it would be highly improbable that they could be found.”
“You are right,” agreed Colonel Minturn. “Well, gentlemen, I think that for the sake of all concerned, we had better keep this secret among us three and await developments.”
“But Jarrold knows that Ready suspects him,” objected the doctor.
“Oh, well, for that very reason, he won’t do any talking,” was the colonel’s response. “We must watch and wait, and the next time catch him red-handed.”