"The right eye!"
"Exactly! The green patch was over Bunce's right eye, in the picture of the robbery, which we just saw; but when we had our several encounters with Bunce, a few days ago, the patch was over the mariner's left eye."
McGlory straightened up in his chair and stared at his chum through the electric light that shone over them from the porch ceiling.
"Glory to glory and all hands round!" he exclaimed. "You're right, pard. When we were trotting that heat with Bunce, here in the Catskills, it was his left eye that was gone. Now, in the picture, it's his right eye. How do you explain that?"
"The explanation seems easy enough," answered Matt. "Bunce must have two good eyes, and he simply covers up one for the purpose of disguise. Either that, or else some one represented him when the moving pictures were taken, and got the patch over the wrong eye."
"What good is a green patch as a disguise, anyway?" demanded McGlory.
"Give it up. The difference in the position of the patch merely led me to infer that Bunce might not have really been in that moving picture. And if Bunce wasn't in it, then it's possible that Grattan wasn't in it, either. Two men might have been made up to represent the two thieves. I can't think it possible that Grattan and Bunce, as you said a moment ago, should want to publish their crime throughout the country by means of these moving pictures. The films are rented everywhere, and travel from place to place."
McGlory heaved a long breath.
"Well, anyhow, I don't want to bother myself any more with the Eye of Buddha," said he. "It's a hoodoo, and I never went through such a lot of close shaves, or such a series of rapid-fire events, as when we were helping Tsan Ti, the mandarin, recover the ruby. Let's forget about it. We can't understand how those pictures came to be shown, and we're completely at sea regarding the green patch. But it's nothing to us, any more. We're for New York by the night boat, and then it'll be 'Up the river or down the bay, over to Coney or Rockaway' for the motor boys. Sufferin' cat naps! A spell of pleasure in the metro-polus is all that brought me East with you, anyhow. It's us for the big town, and with you along to see that no one sells me a gold brick, I reckon I'll be able to pan out a good time."
The prospect of a week or two in New York, with a little rest and a little motoring, was also appealing powerfully to Matt. He had not been in the big town for some time, and he longed to renew his acquaintance with its many "sights" and experiences.