"Is it?"
"Why, would you think that Mr. Berial would steal?"
"Who knows? We're all honest, till we're caught."
"Tell me this. If Mr. Berial keeps that screw-driver always in his own possession, how could any one have a duplicate of it made?"
"Dead easy. If you can't see that, you're as soft as the old man."
"Perhaps I am. But tell me how it could be done."
"Why, just see. That tool is double-ended. But one end is just a common, ordinary screw-driver. You don't need to imitate that. The other end is just a screw that fits into the thread at the end of the bolts. Now old Berial keeps his precious screw-driver locked up, but the bolts lay around by the gross. Any man about the place could take one and have a screw cut to fit it, and there you are."
This was an important point, and Mr. Barnes was glad to have drawn it out. It now became only too plain that the patented device was no hindrance to any one knowing of it, and especially to one who had access to the bolts. This made it the more necessary to find the man Jerry.
"There was another man besides yourself who assisted at the Quadrant funeral, was there not?" asked Mr. Barnes.
"There was another man, but he didn't assist much. He was no good."