“It’s a good deal more than a coincidence,” Clara declared impatiently. “Wait till you hear what he said——”
“Yes,” Jim prompted sharply, as she hesitated. “What did he say?”
“It was at the railroad station at Liberty—the second station from Riverside, you know. I had gone over there to take some things to Aunt Lydia——”
“Yes, but what about McCarney?” It was Jim’s turn to be impatient.
“McCarney was there on the station platform,” Clara hurried on. “He was talking to another man. I couldn’t see them at first—I was around a corner of the station, but I could hear their voices.”
“Yes?” Jim said again, as once more Clara hesitated, her glance roving uneasily about the almost-emptied grandstand as though she were afraid of being overheard.
“They were talking in whispers,” she said then, leaning closer to Jim while Mabel and Reggie also came a little nearer. “I didn’t hear what they were saying till suddenly one of them, McCarney, it was, raised his voice and said, quite distinctly, ‘We ought to be able to make fifty thousand out of this, maybe more.’”
“Great Scott!” cried Jim, his startled glance fixing the girl’s. “Are you sure it was McCarney who said that, Clara?”
“Yes,” said the latter, a little frightened at the effect of her revelation. Jim looked suddenly fierce. “When he said that about the fifty thousand dollars I was curious and strolled around the corner to see who it was who expected to make a fortune so easily.”
“Who was the man with him?” Jim’s question came like a pistol shot. “Did you get a good look at him, too?”