"That's a very decent suitcase and you can hand it to a bell hop and bid him fly with it to your room. You were a little short of linen and made a few purchases—the thing explains itself. Who could challenge us, Archie! We'd make a plausible front in Buckingham palace."
They followed the suitcase upstairs, where the Governor unlocked it with an implement that looked like a nut pick. Archie's last vestige of doubt as to the Governor's powers vanished when he saw that the bag was filled with packages of bank notes in small denominations.
"One might object to so many of the little fellows," remarked the Governor, "but on the whole we have no reason to complain of Leary's work. The rascal is anxious to settle down in some strictly moral community and open a confectionery shop—one of these little concerns where the neighborhood children bring in their pennies for sodas and chewing-gum, with a line of late magazines on the side. A kind, genial man is Leary, and he swears he'll abandon the road for good."
Archie picked up several bundles of the bills and turned them over, reflecting that to his other crimes he had now added the receipt and concealment of stolen money.
"Dinner in an hour, Archie," said the Governor, who was drawing a diagram of some sort on a sheet of inn paper. "The evening meal is rather a ceremonial affair here and as I notice that you carry a dress suit we shall follow the conventions. Meanwhile I wish you would look in at Barclay & Pedding's garage, just around the comer, and ask if a car has been left there for Mr. Reginald H. Saulsbury. You needn't be afraid of getting pinched, for the machine was acquired by purchase and I'm merely borrowing it from Abe Collins, alias Slippery Abe, the king of all con men. Abe only plays for suckers of financial prominence who'd gladly pay a second time not to be exposed and he's grown so rich that he's retiring this summer. He was to send a machine to me here so I could avoid the petty annoyances of travel in a stolen car We'll leave here like honest men, with the landlord bowing us away from the door."
That there should indeed be a handsome touring car at Barclay & Pedding's, awaiting the pleasure of Mr. Saulsbury, increased enormously Archie's respect and admiration for the Governor. It was a first-class machine worth four or five thousand dollars as it stood, and Archie was cheered by the thought that he enjoyed the friendship of a man who satisfied all his needs with so little trouble.
When he returned the Governor was dressing and manifested no surprise that the car awaited his pleasure.
"Yes, of course," he remarked absently. "You can always rely on Abe. It's time for you to dress, and we must look our prettiest. I caught a glimpse of Miss Seebrook strolling through the garden with her papa a bit ago. It may be necessary for you to cultivate her a trifle. A little flirting now and then is relished by the wisest men."
"If you think—" began Archie warily.
"Of course I think!" the Governor interrupted. "We've got fifty thousand dollars of nice new bills here and we're not going to the trouble of staining and mussing them up for safe circulation if we can dispose of them en bloc, so to speak, in all their pristine freshness. There's to be a dance in the dining hall as soon as dinner is over. The house is quite full and we shall mingle freely in the merry throng. I'll go down ahead of you and test the social atmosphere a little."