"What on earth can it be?"
"It pertains to heaven, not earth, my dear," said O'Gorman dryly. "Cragg was educated for the ministry or the priesthood—I can't discover whether he was Catholic or Protestant—but it seems he wasn't fitted for the church. Perhaps he already had in mind the idea of devoting his life to the land that gave him birth. Anyhow, he was a well versed theologian, and exceptionally brilliant in theses, so when his money gave out he began writing sermons for others to preach, doing a mail-order business and selling his products to those preachers who are too busy or too lazy to write their own sermons. He has a sort of syndicate established and his books, which I have examined with admiration and wonder, prove he supplies sermons to preachers of all denominations throughout the United States. This involves a lot of correspondence. Every week he writes a new sermon, prints a large number of copies and sends one to each of his clients. Of course he furnishes but one man in a town or city with his products, but there are a good many towns and cities to supply."
"Is he printing sermons now?" asked Josie.
"Perhaps so; or it may be he is printing some circular to be distributed to the members of the C. I. L. Jim Bennett, the husband of the postmistress here, was once a practical printer, and he is a staunch member of the Irish fraternity. Cragg has known of this underground cavern for years, and at one time it was a regular meeting-place for his order of Champions. So he bought a printing press and, to avoid the prying eyes of his neighbors, established it here. That is the whole story of Cragg's 'crime,' Josie, and it is very simple when once fully explained."
"Do you mean to say you've discovered all this in the two days since you've been here?" asked the girl, in amazement.
"Every bit of it. I came prepared to arrest a gang of counterfeiters, and stumbled on this very interesting but quite harmless plot."
"Where have you been hiding since Sunday?" she inquired.
"Why, I didn't hide at all," he asserted. "Don't you remember giving me a ride yesterday in the Hathaway automobile?"
Josie sat silent. She was glad it was so dark under that shelf of rock, for she would rather her father did not read her humiliation and self-reproach.
"Daddy," she said, with a despairing accent, "I'm going to study to be a cook or a stenographer. I'll never make a decent detective—like Nan, for instance."