There could be no doubt that he was telling the truth. “Probably you were in a deep, exhausted sleep when they found Cray,” he said. “The yard seems to have been full of people then.”
“I did hear a dog barking,” Simpson admitted finally. “It partially aroused me, but I dropped off again. Maybe that was the time.”
“Then you haven’t the slightest idea of what happened after you were locked up here?” persisted Griswold.
“Why, I guess I could explain that,” the thief replied slowly, as if he were just beginning to realize what it all meant. “It must have been Nick Carter who——”
“Who did what?”
“Who put the other fellow out of business.”
CHAPTER XXXIII.
SUSPICION FALLS ON NICK.
“For the love of Heaven!” exclaimed Lane Griswold, in a shocked voice. “You are crazy, Simpson, or lying! Do you actually mean to charge Carter, who is one of the greatest detectives we have in this country, and a man who is absolutely above suspicion in every way, with having turned on his friend and associate, Cray, and then made off with the money?”