The Governor turned the gold disk to the light and then flung it sharply on the wooden end of the counter, where it rang musically. He handed it back with a smile.
"The real thing, all right! Wish I had a couple of million just like it."
"It's a good thing you haven't!" the man remarked with a grin.
He resumed his talk with the clerk, speaking in a low tone, while the Governor loitered at the magazine counter. Archie went to the desk for their keys and received a bundle of mail for Mr. Saulsbury, who walked slowly toward him apparently absorbed in the periodical he had purchased.
"It doesn't seem possible we can lose!" he said when they reached their rooms. "There will be cross-currents yet; but a strong tide has set in, bearing us on."
He threw the magazine with well-directed aim into a desk in the corner, and meditatively smoothed his hat on his sleeve.
"That chap was Dobbs, a Government specialist in counterfeiters, and that twenty-dollar piece had almost the true ring, but not quite. The man who turned it out showed me the difference only yesterday. Perky? Certainly! He said Eliphalet Congdon had taken a bagful to pass on the unwary. The old boy had changed a lot of them in New England and the Government is not ignoring the matter. Eliphalet Congdon presents just such a case as we find occasionally where some perfectly sound conservative country banker feels the call of the wild and does a loop of death in high finance."
"You don't think old man Congdon has been here lately?" asked Archie.
"Only a day or two ago! I picked that up while I was buying my magazine. Congdon bought some stogies at the cigar stand and changed that twenty. We're all loaded for Eliphalet, Archie. After you told me your kidnaping story, I telegraphed to Perky for all the possible places where the old man might be. Perky has ranged the country with him and from his data we can keep tab on the old boy. Dobbs knows nothing of the kidnaping; it's the gold piece that interests him. I overheard enough to know we're on the right track. Eliphalet Congdon owns a farm in Ohio. Perky spent a month there boring out gold pieces. What we've got to do, Archie, is to find the Congdon child and turn her over to your Isabel and my Ruth. A very pretty job, demanding our best attention."
He paced the floor for a moment, his hands thrust deep in his trousers pockets, his silk hat tipped rakishly on one side of his head.