The judge sat up suddenly and rubbed his eyes.
"God bless my soul!" he began, and then subsided into silence. The
eyes of young Sir Nigel Merriton nearly leapt from their sockets with
astonishment; and every man in the crowd was gaping.
Cleek laughed.
"Rather of a surprise, I must admit; isn't it?" he said, with a slight
shrug of the shoulders. "And no doubt you're wondering what all this has
to do with the case in hand. Well, that'll come along all in good time.
Golden sovereigns, you see, carefully stacked up to fill the little
tubing to its capacity--and thousands of 'em done the same, too! There's
a perfect fortune down there in that factory at Saltfleet! Mr. Narkom,"
he turned round and surveyed the Superintendent with mirthful eyes, "what
about these bank robberies now, eh? I told you something would crop up.
You see it has. We've discovered the hiding-place of the gold--and the
prime leader in the whole distressing affair. The rest ought to be easy."
He whipped round suddenly toward the line of witnesses, letting his eyes
travel over each face in turn; past Tony West's reddened countenance,
past Dr.
Pages:
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308