e sat in thoughtful
silence. Then the woman spoke.

"What d'ye think of it all, Wally?"

"Dunno." The gentleman addressed drew from his pocket a blackened,
odoriferous pipe and sucked upon it. "Must be some lay, of course.
I'll go up to the bank and find out what I can, but I don't think that
young feller, Hicks, is in on it. I've been in the game for forty
years, and if I'm a judge, he's no 'tec. Fool kid spendin' more'n he
earns and out for what coin he can grab. I'll look up that landlady of
his, too, Mame; and if he's on the level there, and at the bank--"

"And if those securities are at the bank, he ought to be willin' to
come in with us on a share," the wife supplemented shrewdly. "But it
seems like some kind of a gag to me. You knew all Jimmy Brunell's jobs
till he got religion or somethin', and turned honest--I can't think of
any old crook who'd turn over that money to him, two hundred thousand
cold, because his conscience hurt him, can you? You know, too, how
decent and respectable Jimmy's been livin' all these years, putting up
a front for the sake of that daughter of his; suppose this was a
put-up game to catch him--what do the bulls want him for?"

"I ain't no mind-reader. I'll look up this business of securities, and
then if the young feller's talked straight, we'll try to work it
through him, if we can get to him, and I guess we can, so long as I
ain't lost the gift of the gab in twenty years. We'll be as good,
sorrowing heirs as ever Jimmy Brunell could find anywheres."

Before Walter Pennold could reach the bank, however, an unimpeachably
official letter arrived from that institution, confirming the news
imparted by the bank-clerk concerning the securities left for James
Brunell. Pennold, going to the bank ostensibly to assure those in
authority there of his cordial willingness to assist in the search for
the heir, incidentally assured himself of Alfred Hicks' seemingly
legitimate occupation. A later visit to Mrs. Lindsay of 46 Jefferson
Place convinced him that the young man had lived there for some months
and was as generous, open-handed, easy-going a boarder as that
excellent woman had ever taken into her house. Just what price was
paid by Henry Blaine to Mrs. Lindsay for that statement is immaterial
to this narrative, but it suffices that Walter Pennold returned to the
sharp-tongued wife of his bosom with only one obstacle in his thoughts
between himself and a goodly share of the coveted two hu