“What is this you claim, my boy?” asked Mr. Eliot. “Do you pretend to say that you know who robbed the bank?”
“Yes, sir,” answered Sleuth positively, “I’m dead certain I can point out the man. He’s in this very room.”
While the electrified assemblage gasped over this statement, there came a sudden disturbance outside the door, which was violently flung open to admit Captain Quinn, who was threatening with his cane the door-man as the latter tried to collar him.
“Keep away, you swab!” roared the old sailor. “I tell you I’ve got business in here. Put your hands on me and I’ll mop the deck with you!”
“He—he would come in, gentlemen,” said the door-man, seeking to excuse himself for the interruption.
“You bet I would!” rasped Quinn. “And if I’d had a marlin-spike instead of this cane, I’d busted your head when you tried to put your dirty hooks on me! I guess I’ve got something that belongs aboard this here craft. I caught my monkey, Jocko, hiding it in my bunk. I reckon the little rat must have come in here through the busted winder and swiped the stuff, and I suppose in the excitement nobody saw him. Here it is.”
He pulled a thick package from his pocket and flung it down upon the table. Timmick, leaping from his chair, seized the package and took one look at it. Then he uttered a joyful shout.
“The missing securities!” he cried. “Here they are! That lets me out.”
It likewise let Sleuth Piper out. At any rate, in the midst of the confusion attendant upon the return of the securities Sleuth slipped through the open door and made all possible haste to leave the bank.
Some time later Rod Grant found Piper leaning on the railing of the bridge and gazing gloomily down at the icy waters of the river. Sleuth did not even look around when Rod slapped him on the shoulder, crying: