She picked up the comb and then turned her attention to the wallet. Giving a quick glance around to see that she was unobserved the girl plunged her white fingers into the pocket case. They encountered something crisp and crackly. She drew the object out.
"A twenty-dollar bill!" she exclaimed wonderingly, "and nothing else. I wonder if this can have anything to do with——."
She was turning it over curiously as she spoke. Suddenly a red spot flamed up in her either cheek.
"It's marked with a red round O," she exclaimed, "what a bit of evidence. So Master Roy Prescott, you were planning to unmask me by that side-comb, were you? Well, I shall play the same trick on you with this bill."
Fanning Harding was coming back at that moment with the cup full of water. The girl checked him with an excited gesture.
"Fortune has played into our hands," she cried, "look here!"
"Well, what is it?" asked Fanning, rather testily.
"This bill. Don't you see it's one of the stolen ones. Look at the red circle upon the back."
"Jove! So it is. But, what, how——"
"Hush! Don't talk so loud. This wallet, which contained it, was jolted out of Roy Prescott's pocket when he was hurled from the machine. The wallet and—and something else. But don't you see what power that gives us?"