Bill, who had risen and was looking over the detective’s shoulder, saw her point unhesitatingly to a large photograph at the top of the page, which portrayed two men, one middle-aged and the other old and wrinkled, seated in garden chairs on a lawn. Both were familiar faces, and the older was undoubtedly the man Deborah had just described. The picture was captioned: “President lunches with savant.”
Below, he read: “The President visited Professor Fanely on the latter’s ninetieth birthday, when he was the principal guest at the ‘Great Old Man’s’ birthday luncheon.”
“‘Great Old Man’ is right,” snorted Bill. “It takes some doing to run away with a young girl at ninety!”
“Do keep quiet, Bill!” Deborah’s pale face was serious. “Why, it seems impossible, doesn’t it, Mr. Davis? Of course I know Professor Fanely’s reputation as a scientist, everybody does, it’s world wide. Yet impossible as it may seem, I’m surer than ever that the old gentleman in the photograph there, sitting beside the President of the United States, was the man I unmasked early this morning!”
Mr. Davis took her hand in his. “I believe you, young lady,” he said kindly. “But Bill and I have a first class job on our hands. And I must ask both you and nurse over there not to breathe a word of this matter. What was formerly a serious affair has become a hundred-fold more so now. To know the truth is one thing: to be able to prove that truth quite another. And believe me when I say that if I am able to prove Professor Fanely, who is respected and loved the world over, the man who abducted you and tried to kill you, Bill and Osceola—I shall consider that I, too, am a world beater! Only I might as well say now that I haven’t the ghost of a show.”
Chapter XII
ARGUMENT
“Before we can think of arresting Professor Fanely,” remarked Mr. Davis, “we must have indisputable evidence that we can put before a jury.”
“But surely, Mr. Davis,” argued Osceola, “Deborah’s description of the old man—her recognition of his photograph should be sufficient to convict him.”
“On the contrary,” declared Bill. “Although it has put us wise to the old buzzard, it really is no evidence at all. Am I right, Mr. Davis?”
“You certainly are, Bill. We’d be hooted out of court in no time; and probably have countercharges of criminal libel brought against us by old Fanely into the bargain.”