Of course, Griswold confided none of this to the man before him. Instead, with the instinct of the reporter, which had never deserted him since his early days of struggle, he surprised Simpson with a question.
“Well, what do you make of it?” he asked.
The thieving treasurer’s mind had reverted to his own troubles, and it was with some difficulty that he pulled himself together sufficiently to answer.
“Why, I—I hardly know what to think, Mr. Griswold,” he replied. “It’s pretty hard to reconcile that sort of thing with what I’ve always heard and read about Nick Carter, but I have to believe my own ears, don’t I? The money seems to have looked good to Carter, just as it did to me, but that wasn’t all of it, I’m sure.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I’m thinking about that whisper of the other fellow’s,” Simpson explained. “I told you, remember, that he said something about ‘green-eyed.’ We use that expression in only one connection, don’t we, in speaking of ‘green-eyed jealousy?’ Don’t that look as if Cray was accusing Carter of turning on him because he was jealous of him for some reason?”
Griswold was impressed. “That sounds plausible enough,” he admitted.
He was unconsciously allowing himself to be led still further astray, and it began to look as if the outcome might be decidedly unpleasant for the great detective, for the owner of a chain of great newspapers is not an accuser who can be ignored or despised.