The men shuffled to the case and bent down over the corner that was covered with the pasted sheets. Look as they did, they could find no evidences of a break or tear in the paper. And it had not been removed and put back again. The men admitted that.
"Then you have to admit that I didn't get out of the box by means of a secret panel in that corner, don't you?" asked Joe, when the two had asserted that the paper was intact.
"Yes, I guess you win," said the first man. "But there's some trick about it!"
"Oh, I admit that!" laughed Joe. "It is a trick, and if you discover it you get ten thousand dollars. But not to-night. Red Cross is richer by a hundred dollars."
"Um!" grumbled the man, as he walked off, and many in the audience laughed. Joe had won.
The circus performance went on to its usual exciting close in the chariot races, and when preparations were being made to travel on to the next city, Helen had a chance to speak to Joe.
"It was a narrow escape," she said.
"Just what it was!" he replied. "If he had picked the other corner—the left instead of the right—he would have had me. But luck was with us."
"I'm glad," said Helen. "But how did he happen to select any corner? Some one must know more about your trick box than you think."
"I'm afraid so," admitted Joe ruefully. "I wouldn't be a bit surprised but what this was some of the work of Bill Carfax."