“Absurd!” he cried.
But Billy Walker was prepared to maintain his contention with arguments, and forthwith he did so. And, at the last, Billy made a shrewd suggestion, which, by a totally different method, arrived at the conclusion already reached by Roy through his vaunted sixth sense.
“You may have wondered a little,” the oracle said, “that I should have made no particular remonstrance when you incontinently gave up the search commanded by immutable logic. Well, as a matter of fact, I myself would have suggested the uselessness of further effort along those lines. You see, the affair lies thus.” He paused for a moment, and pursed his lips, as one preparing for didactic discourse. “This chap, Masters, is on terms of considerable intimacy, I judge, with the girl who was the secretary of the late Mr. Abernethey. Moreover, he was here, on the spot. There can be no question that, sooner or later, he learned the facts from her concerning the last will and testament of the eccentric miser. Thereupon, he determined to go treasure-hunting on his own account. He was on the job instanter, so to speak. In fact, I’m quite willing to eat my hat, which is an especially indigestible variety of Stetson, if the cottage has not already been searched with great thoroughness by our industrious antagonist.” Billy stared at his two friends contentedly out of his small, dull eyes, and his heavy face wrinkled into a smile.
The result of his words was all that he could have desired.
“The infernal sneak!” Roy exclaimed, violently. His eyes grew hard, his mouth set, with the slight forward push of the jaw. In Saxe’s face, too, anger was plain. “To think of a nice girl being fooled like that!” Roy continued furiously, after an interval of silence. “But we’ll land the robber somehow. If we don’t, I’ll find some excuse for beating him up.”
“Never mind the pummeling,” Billy counseled. “Just you keep your eyes open that he doesn’t beat you—to the money. For the present, that’s more important than jealous rows.” At this remark, which showed that the scholar was more observant than might have been supposed in a field so foreign to his usual investigations, Roy blushed for the first time in many years, and Saxe was so rude as to titter aloud.
It was at this moment that David appeared from around the north end of the cottage. Forthwith, he was made familiar with all that had happened during the period of his absence, together with the lively suspicions entertained against the engineer. When the tale had been told, David took a few minutes for reflection before he spoke.
“I’m willing to believe anything against that ornery critter,” he remarked at last, with his big eyes twinkling; “but I am, before all else, a just man. You’ve got to leave Masters out on this last deal. As a matter of fact, he has a perfectly good alibi; I wanted a line on the rapscallion, and so I fairly forced myself on him this morning—to his disgust. But he didn’t think it quite prudent, I guess, to be out-and-out rude to me. For the last two hours Masters and I have been together, strolling chummily over the hills and far away.”