“What, chief?” shouted Patsy Garvan, in delight. “Did you get him?”
“By hooky,” roared Bonesy Billings. “There’s two of ’em! They look just alike! Now I know how you told the truth, Mr. Carter, while it looked like—like the other thing.”
The detective only nodded, as he put a large chair for the pale-faced invalid, and forced him into it gently.
The belligerence had gone from the face of the newcomer. He seemed to be wondering—that was all.
The most peculiar thing in the whole affair was that the man who had been set forth as the real owner of the Milmarsh estate, and who had appeared so dazed and in such terror of Powers and Lampton, now held up his head and actually smiled, as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
Louden Powers scowled at him, but he replied only by a stare of defiance.
“That mug is going to give the whole snap away,” muttered Andrew Lampton, in the ear of his fellow conspirator.
“I’ll kill him if he does,” whispered back Louden Powers.