"
"Not so's you'd notice it," declared Charlie. "He knew it was Alix
all right. She isn't in any doubt on that score."
"It begins to take shape," mused Gilfillan. "He didn't wait for
her, that's all."
"What say?"
"I was just thinking," replied the other. "Where is Thane at the
present moment, Webster?"
"He just went off in an automobile with Dick Hurdle and a couple
of fellows to stretch one of Joe Hart's big fish nets across the
river down at the Narrows, five or six miles below here."
"Would you mind inviting me up to your room at the Tavern for a
little while, Webster?"
"Well, I was going down to the ferry. There are half a dozen skiffs
down--"
"See here, Webster, as I understand it, my real job is to find out
all I can about this chap Thane. I am really working for you, not
for Miss Crown, although she is putting up the money. I am just
as thoroughly convinced as you are that Thane staged that masked
robber business himself. It's an old gag, especially with lovers--and
occasionally with husbands."
Charlie grinned sheepishly, a guilty flush staining his rubicund
face.
"I guess I might as well confess that I was guilty of something of
the sort when I was about seventeen," he said. "That's how I came
to figger out that maybe he was up to the same kind of heroism."
"Nearly every kid has done the same thing. It's boy nature.
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