“That’s an awful pretty tune you’re whistlin’, mister, but sad, and terrible long. What about the five? Do we trade?”
The car came to a stop. Digging into his pocket, Kent produced a bill which he handed over, and still whistling the long-meter China, took possession of Simon P. Groot’s “relic”. It was an embroidered silver star, with a few torn wisps of cloth clinging to it.
[CHAPTER VIII—RECKONINGS]
“Facts that contradict each other are not facts,” pronounced Chester Kent.
Fumes of tobacco were rising from three pipes hovered about the porch of the Nook where Kent, Sedgwick and Lawyer Bain were holding late council. A discouraged observation from the artist had elicited Kent’s epigram.
“Not all of them, anyhow,” said Bain. “The chore in this case is to find facts enough to work on.”
“On the contrary,” declared Kent, “facts in this case are as plentiful as blackberries. The trouble is that we have no pail to put them in.”
“Maybe we could borrow Len Schlager’s,” suggested the lawyer dryly.
Kent received this with a subdued snort. “It is remarkable that the newspapers haven’t sent men down on such a sensational case,” he said.
“On the contrary to you, sir,” retorted Bain, “so much fake stuff has come out of Lonesome Cove that the papers discount any news from here.”