“Perhaps not,” replied the girl coldly; “but really I can’t see that it is——”
“I don’t have to guess twice as to where you got it,” broke in Hines eagerly. “It was that crook, Sheridan, of course. So that’s where the money went to!”
Dallas flushed angrily. “What do you mean by that?” she demanded, in astonishment. “What money? And how dare you refer to Owen Sheridan as a crook?”
Hines grinned broadly. “Because it’s the truth. I’m only callin’ him what everybody else will be callin’ him after the next edition of the evening papers comes out. That reminds me that I came here to tell you a piece of news which ought to interest you. I guess that you ain’t heard yet that your letter-carrier friend Owen Sheridan was arrested two hours ago at post office X Y.”
The girl turned pale. “Arrested!” she gasped. “For what?”
“Robbing the mails,” Hines replied cheerfully. “He swiped a gold watch from a registered package yesterday, and pawned it for forty dollars. They found the pawn ticket in his trunk up at the boarding house.”
Dallas stared at him incredulously.
“You don’t have to take my word for it, little one,” he said. “The evening papers will be on the streets soon, and you can read for yourself.”
“Or, if you can’t wait that long,” he added, with a malicious smile, “why don’t you put on that pretty picture hat of yours and take a run around to Branch X Y? The boys there will tell you all about Sheridan’s arrest. The inspectors nabbed him right in the post office when he returned from the noon delivery.”
Dallas leaned weakly against the tall back of her typewriter chair. She looked as if she were about to faint. “But, anyway, he isn’t—guilty,” she faltered. “He can’t be guilty!”