“It’s awful—incomprehensible!” he whispered hoarsely, staring at the faces of the other men. “I can’t understand it.”
“Nor I,” snapped the little jeweler, rapping his knuckles sharply on the table and facing the cashier with a piercing eye. “If you can’t explain it, Mr. Timmick, I don’t know who can.”
“Why—why,” faltered the distressed cashier, “I hope—you don’t mean, sir——”
“I’m sure Mr. Sprague will not be hasty with an insinuation,” interrupted Urian Eliot. “I’m sure we all have the utmost confidence in your integrity, Timmick.”
It was noticeable, however, that none of the others said a word in support of this assertion, and Mr. Lucius Timmick looked very ill indeed by the white light of the shaded chandelier.
It was some time after daylight before the officials came forth from the bank and made inquiries concerning the search for the fugitive crooks. Later they learned of the remarkable capture by two boys of the wounded member of the gang, and when the prisoner had been attended by a physician they sought to obtain some information from him by giving him a mild sort of “third degree” treatment. The effort, however, resulted most unsatisfactorily. The prisoner, stretched on a cot in the lockup, grimly defied them and sullenly refused to answer a single question.
“Aw, go on,” he growled. “You couldn’t make me snitch if you skinned me.”
“Your accomplices are certain to be captured,” asserted Lemuel Hayden. “They can’t get away. It is your opportunity to obtain a little clemency by confessing before any of the others do so.”
“Bite it off,” advised the prisoner. “You’re wasting your wind, old geezer. I never ties up with squealers.”
About this time Roy Hooker, crowding down a breakfast rendered tasteless by his excitement, was telling his astounded mother a story that made her gasp and throw up her hands.