"You—you don't think it will get in the papers, do you?" she quavered.
Charlie Sands looked at her with gloom. "I shall have to send it myself, Aunt Tish," he said; "it is my duty to my paper. Even my family pride, hurt to the quick and quivering as it is, must not interfere with my duty."
It was Bettina who suggested a way out—Bettina, who had sat back as pale as Tish and heard that her Mr. Ellis was, as Charlie Sands said later, as crooked as a pretzel.
"But Jasper was not—not subsidized," she said. "If he wins, it's all right, isn't it?"
The county detective turned to her.
"Jasper?" he said.
"A young man who lives here." Bettina colored.
"He is—not to be suspected?"
"Certainly not," said Bettina haughtily; "he is above suspicion. Besides, he—he and Mr. Ellis are not friends."
Well, the county detective was no fool. He saw the situation that minute, and smiled when he offered Bettina a peanut. "Of course," he said cheerfully, "if the race is won by a Morris Valley man, and not by one of the Ellis cars, I don't suppose the district attorney would care to do anything about it. In fact," he said, smiling at Bettina, "I don't know that I'd put it up to the district attorney at all. A warning to Ellis would get him out of the State."