“That’s just it!” I broke in. “If you’ll stop to think, you’ll see that I really don’t know a solitary thing about the affairs except that the man ahead of us yonder is wanted. The offense is all in the dark. Don’t you think yourself that I’d be likely to enter into the thing with more spirit if I were shown a little more light?”
He eyed me narrowly for a moment, as though he were deciding with himself just how far he would go in explanation. Finally he reached his decision with a grunt.
“You know about the robberies of country places along Long Island Sound?” said he shortly.
He really needn’t have said another word to quicken me to the most intense interest.
“I should say I did!” I ejaculated. “Why, it was just from overzeal in one of those cases that the chief gave me the can.”
Pawlinson smiled.
“I told Garth I didn’t want the game flushed quite then,” he explained.
“Then you were back of that, too?” I cried, trying to get through the fog.
“Yes. And the man we are after is Stroth, Carl Stroth.”
“Stroth?” I queried dubiously, for the name carried no memory. “I never heard of him.[Pg 44]”