“That’s right,” agreed Ben. “The men spoke of him as a publisher. I don’t like to accuse him outright, because I’ll be suspected of trying to get even with a man I hate.”
Light came swiftly to Penny. Into her mind leaped many facts hitherto puzzling, but which now seemed suddenly clear. The open skylight—the building adjoining the Star—Webb Nelson’s call upon the editor of the Mirror.
“Ben, you don’t need to accuse anyone!” she cried. “I’ll do it myself. The man is Jason Cordell, and I think we can prove it too!”
CHAPTER
25
PICTURE PROOF
“Yes, Jason Cordell is the man responsible,” Ben agreed soberly. “I can’t prove it, but in my own mind I’m sure.”
“You used to work for him, didn’t you?” the police captain inquired, the inflection of his voice implying that he thought the former reporter might be prejudiced.
“I was fired,” Ben admitted readily. “Cordell let me go and blacklisted me everywhere to prevent me from exposing him. He wanted to discredit me, so that anything I might say would carry no weight.”
“Why were you really discharged, Ben?” Penny asked. “What did you learn about Mr. Cordell?”
“That he had pulled off no end of crooked deals and that he was mixed up with this outlaw labor group. Over a period of three or four years, Cordell has made a mint of money, and not from his paper either!”
“We’ll question Cordell tonight,” Captain Bricker promised. “The trick now is to get you to the station for first aid treatment. Then we’ll want you to look through the police morgue and identify the pictures of as many of the Snark’s crew as you can.”