"Um-m," grunted Griffith, his face as emotionless as a piece of crackled wood.
"Young Ashton was my secretary. He resigned the next day. Said he had been secretly working on plans for the Michamac cantilever; thought he had solved the problem of the central span; might go ahead and put in his plans if none of the competitors were awarded the bridge. Within a month he did put in plans."
"Well?" queried Griffith.
"Don't you make the connection?" demanded Mr. Leslie. "Blake handed his plans to Ashton, and took no receipt. The plans disappeared. Ashton leaves; comes back in a month with plans that he hasn't the skill to apply in the construction of the bridge—plans include an entirely new modification of bridge trusses—stroke of inventive genius, you called it."
Griffith's lean jaw dropped. "You—you don't mean to say he—the son of George Ashton—that he could—God A'mighty, he's heir to twenty millions!"
"You don't believe it? Suppose you knew he was about to be cut off without a cent? George had stood about all he could from the young fool. Those bridge plans came in just in time to prevent the drawing of a new will."
The hand in which Griffith held his pipe shook as if he had been seized with a fever chill, but his voice was dry and emotionless. "That accounts for those queer slips and errors in the plans. He couldn't even make an accurate copy, and was too much afraid of being found out to take time to check Tom's drawings. Jammed them into his fireplace soon's he'd finished. The thief!—the infernal thief!—the—!" Griffith spat out a curse that made even Mr. Leslie start.
"Good Lord, Griffith," he remonstrated. "That's the first time I ever heard you swear."
"I keep it for dirt! … Well, what you going to do about it?"
"I am going to have you show Ashton's plans to Blake. If he recognizes them as a copy of his own—"