“I’m certain I saw you in his office,” Penny insisted.
Realizing that his loose talk was building up trouble for himself, Webb would say no more. At the sheriff’s office, he repeated practically the same story, insisting that he had been hired by Professor Bettenridge on a wage basis, and that he was in no way implicated in the plot to defraud Mr. Johnson.
“Your story doesn’t hang together,” Mr. Parker said severely. “Naturally you knew that the professor’s machine was worthless?”
“Not at first,” Webb whined. “He only told me he wanted a mine exploded at a certain time. It was only by chance that I learned he intended to cheat Mr. Johnson.”
“Considering the conversations I overheard between you and the professor, that is a little hard to believe,” Penny contributed.
“It might go a little easier with you, if you come through with the truth,” a deputy sheriff in charge of the office, added. “Anything you want to say before we lock you up?”
Webb hesitated a long while, and then in a subdued voice said: “Okay, I may as well tell you. Sure, I knew the professor and his wife were crooks. They offered me a split on the profits if Johnson bought the secret ray machine.”
“Where did you obtain your mines?” Salt asked curiously.
“I don’t know,” Webb answered, and for once spoke the truth. “Professor Bettenridge had a friend hooked up in a munitions plant who supplied him with a few which were defective.”
“Now tell us the truth about the Snark,” Penny insisted. “You said those men were mixed up in the dynamiting of the Conway Steel Plant. Was that one of the professor’s jobs?”