“That’s enough, Fanning. Roy Prescott does not do such low-down things. He––”
“Oh, you mean to imply that I do, eh?”
Fanning came forward pugnaciously.
“I’ll tell you what it is, Jim Bancroft, you just take yourself away from this hangar as quickly as possible. I don’t want anything to do with you, do you understand? It’s none of my business if Roy goes off and forgets to tell you where to find him. How do you know he hasn’t gone off with those jewels?”
“What do you mean?”
Jimsy’s tone was as angry in reality now as Fanning Harding’s had been for effect a few seconds before.
But Fanning, in his bitter enmity toward Roy, could not see the danger signals in Jimsy’s honest gray eyes.
“What do I mean?” he drawled; “why, just this, that the investigation of the police has taken a new turn in the last few days, and that Roy is likely to be arrested within the next twenty-four hours for robbery. I’ll bet he got wind of it and skipped out. I’ll bet––”
“How dare you?”
Peggy, eyes aflame, stepped up. Her bosom heaved angrily.