“Let’s look a little deeper, then,” Nick continued. “We know nothing definite about Verona Warren, and there may be something under the surface. She may not be all that is supposed, judging from her relations with Garland and with Senator Barclay’s daughter, who should be above suspicion, of course, and naturally not distrustful of her intimate friend, this Warren girl.”
“I get you,” Chick nodded.
“It would have been possible, no doubt, for Verona Warren to have had the dummy portfolio concealed under her cloak, or some outside garment, when she went with Miss Barclay to the railway station,” Nick went on. “It would have been much more difficult, as well as risky, however, if she succeeded in substituting the dummy and getting the other, for her to have retained both portfolios in the car. They are about fourteen inches square and an inch thick.”
“I admit that, Nick, also.”
“Naturally, then, she would have got rid of the one she had stolen. That could have been done, perhaps, by stealthily handing it to some one who passed near the touring car before it started, unobserved, in the stir and confusion outside of the station. Or it might have been done by dropping it from the moving car at some point agreed upon, where a confederate was to be waiting to pick it up.”
“You certainly are figuring out a very clever job, all right,” remarked Chick, laughing.
“Gee whiz! it listens good to me,” said Patsy, with an expressive shake of his head. “I’ll bet money to marbles that it hits somewhere near the truth.”
“Let’s see what more we find in support of it,” continued Nick, glancing again at the newspaper. “A disguise said to have been worn by one of the thugs was found near Dillon’s body after the assault.”
“What do you deduce from that?”
“Why was it torn from the face of the thug?” Nick questioned argumentatively. “How could that have occurred? There surely was no great struggle, if Dillon was struck down so quickly that he could not identify, nor even determine the number of his assailants. There was no reasonable occasion for one of the thugs to have lost his disguise, nor to have left it there, even if it was torn from his face. He could easily have picked it up before he fled.”