“Here, wait a minute, Loosh,” he cried. “There is one thing more you haven't told us. Why on earth did you buy Hallett's four hundred shares?”
Galusha put his hand to his forehead.
“Oh, yes, yes,” he said. “Yes, of course. That was very simple. I was—ah—as one may say, coerced by my guilty conscience. Captain Hallett had learned—I don't know precisely how, but it is quite immaterial—that Miss Phipps had, through me and to you, Cousin Gussie, as he supposed, sold her shares. He wished me to sell his. I said I could not. Then he said he should go to your office in Boston and see you, or your firm, and sell them himself. I could not allow that, of course. He would have discovered that I had never been there to sell anything at all and—and might have guessed what had actually happened. So I was obliged to buy his stock also and—and pretend that you had bought it. I lied to him, too, of course. I—I think I have lied to every one.... I believe that is really all. Good-night.”
“One more thing, Loosh. What did you do with the certificates, Hallett's and Miss Phipps'? You got them, I suppose.”
“Eh? Yes, oh, yes, I got them. I don't know where they are.”
“WHAT? Don't know where they ARE?”
“No. I took them to your office, Cousin Gussie. I enclosed them in a large envelope and took them there. I gave them to a person named—ah—Taylor, I think that was the name.”
“Taylor? There is no Taylor in our office.”
“It was not Taylor. It may have been Carpenter, although that doesn't seem exactly right, either. It was the name of some one—ah—a person who does something to you, you know, like a tailor or a carpenter or a—a butcher—or—”
“Barbour! Was it Barbour?”