"Here! Here!" exclaimed Curlie, thrusting his head out of the window. "What millionaire's son? Give me one of those papers." He tossed the boy a nickel and received a tightly wrapped paper. Sent through the window as if shot from a catapult, it landed with a bump on the floor.
His hand trembled so he could scarcely unroll the paper. His head whirled.
"Murdered?" he said to himself. "Millionaire's son murdered? Can it be Vincent Ardmore? Did a bullet from my automatic, glancing from the wheel, inflict a mortal wound?"
He saw himself behind prison bars in murderer's row.
Cold perspiration stood out on his brow as he read in staring headlines:
"J. ANSON ARDMORE'S SON BELIEVED MURDERED."
"Believed?" He caught at that single word as a camel in a desert snaps at a straw. So they were not sure.
Hastily he read the column through, then dropped limply into a chair.
"Oh! What a shock!" he breathed.
He was vastly relieved. The article stated that the car belonging to the millionaire's son had been found by a laborer employed on the estate as he came to his work very early in the morning. The car, which was badly smashed up, bore the mark of a bullet in a rear tire and one in the lower part of the body. It was believed that the young man, being pursued by bandits and having attempted to escape, had had his car riddled by bullets and had been thrown into the ditch.