porarily the memory of her call at the Inter-City office and her message to Mr. Donaldson. It now came back vividly to her.
"My grandfather here—"she indicated Pop—"owns the Crosstown Railways, Mr. Donaldson. We thought—at least, our friend Mr. Swift here thought—that you might be able to explain some mysterious things that have been happening to my grandfather's property during the past few days."
Jane was confused. But a certain native shrewdness, even amid her agitation, told her not to indicate any suspicion that the Inter-City might be interested in purchasing the Crosstown franchise.
Speedy was more direct and precipitate. "What Miss Dillon means," he explained, "is that a man named Carter has been pulling off a lot of dirty work up here and we have reason to suspect that he is in some way connected with your company. First he tries to have Mr. Dillon here bumped off. Then he hires the Callahan gang and orders them to put us all out of business. Finally he has the horse and car stolen, so we can't make our run and risk losing our franchise, or so he hoped."
"I can't believe that," Mr. Donaldson shook his head. This statement was not quite true. He had never completely trusted Carter.
"Then I'll prove it," promised Speedy. "Let's all sit down."
They did. Speedy told the whole story of Carter's nefarious career from the time of his arrival in De Lacey Street.
