The Springfield herald., 1912-04-26
CHAPTER xvI.-(continued.)

II have nothing further to say at
present than to repeat that you will
repent Of your idiocy later" was my
frigid comment. He laid aside the
card case as having been disposed of
and began toying with the bookma-
ker's ticket.
Being now thoroughly convinced
OF your guilt l began worrying my
head for good. tangible proof of 1t;
proof that would convince ~ men
who would be naturally prepossessed
in your favor at the beginning because
of your appearance and good record
! hated to believe you capable of a
thing like this, but was forced to;
and as you know when tackle a man
In any contest, friendly or otherwise.
am going to down him If | can; leav-
ing the matter of what | will do to
him after | have thrown him depend
ent good deal upon his own actions
If he yells quits I am always inclined
to help him up. but II he wants to
fight 1t out to the end of course am
not going to give up. Now your de-
votion to Mrs. Dace was well known
about town and when l became ad-
vised of 1t I began thinking hard. 1t
went without saying that 1t was cost
Ing you money to court her. and did
not believe that your salary was suffi-
Client for you to be able to keep up
tho pace long on that alone. There
fore naturally wondered where you
got the rest. When in tracing you back
wards / found out that you had been
to the Derby. another bright thought
occurred to me. You remember the
mysterious man who came to your
house with the forged note and got
the suit Of clothes you had worn on
that day? Well, that was another
artifice of mine. l wondered IL there
could possibly be any evidences in
your pockets of a gambling transac-
tion on that event. l know from per-
sonal experience how apt man Is to
carry around expired passes and
worthless truck of that kind for a
considerable period before destroying
them, so sent an employee of mine to
your house with an order written on
one of the cards l had found calling
for the Derby day suit. not knowing
how else to describe it, He got it
without trouble, and intercepted him
on the way to the tailor and searched
the pockets. In them l found your
worthless ticket on Eagle Boy. You
had bet $1,000 on that race In the
hope of winning ten thousand; had
lost and failed to destroy your good
for nothing ticket
II suppose in your infinite wisdom
you also know that had money left
me by my father which l was at lib
erty to use as I saw fit" broke in
cuttingly. He acknowledged that he
possessed that information.
Yes, found out that you had some
thing in reserve: but the most i'm
portant fact 1t conveyed to me was
that you had taken to secret gambling
In the hope of winning enough to en-
able you to keep up your new life.
And knowing somewhat of the nature
Of men, I knew 1t was improbable to
suppose that having made a big loss
you would stop without an attempt to
regain it. There is no public gam
bling to any extent going on in town
except on the board of trade and
stock exchange; SO the chances were
II you were doing anything along that
line It would be at one of those
places. By a few days of shadowing
you I ascertained that you went to a
certain brokers' office. and having
found that out 1t did not take me
long to learn what medium you were
backing. 1t was the same stock that
Bruce went broke on the day before
the robbery, and 1 knew in tho nature
of things that you had gone broke at
the same time he did. You were,
therefore, as hard hit as he, but
showed splendid nerve and never
turned a hair or let a hint drop. l
had now uncovered your sudden des-