Page:Tongues of Flame (1924).pdf/219

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first, then fondling the bills. "Henry!" Her tone was tremulous with gratitude. "I will pay you back."

"You've done that already, Lahleect," answered Henry; "with your friendship—with your trust. Run along now and get Stacey Thompson hooked up. There isn't a jury in the world will convict Adam John of raurder with Stacey defending."

In the course of the same morning, two leaders of the marine division of the sheriff's army drifted upstairs to talk with Harrington, perhaps to make sure he had been entirely innocent in turning their expedition into a wild-goose chase. Henry had satisfied them as easily as the others and listened to them casually.

"What do you know, Henry!" blurted Bingo Ellis. "Some of the gang found a grave on the island. Not exactly fresh, but not so old, neither."

"'Twas me saw it first," explained Ivan Olson. "'Somebody's been digging here, sometime; wonder what for,' I says, and begun scratching just with one of those entrenchment spades that some guy brought along out of his army kit. Well, we went down and there was a blue flannel shirt, and a fellow inside of it."

"Fellow with a lot of yellow whiskers."

Harrington was considerably excited by this information but concealed any unnatural interest admirably. "Yellow whiskers?" he observed as in wonderment, remembering the blond goatee of Count Eckstrom and his mysterious double.

"Nothing left but bones and whiskers, flannel and corduroys, just like a lumber jack, but silk underclothes. What do you know about that?"

"Did you examine the body for identifications of any kind?" asked Henry, yet managed to ask it casually.