"My hand is indeed a duplicate of
the assassin's. It is a wonder that I have not been arrested ere this
by some of the detectives who are engaged in working up this case."

"Why so?"

"Because you are not the only one who made the discovery of the wart
that adorned the hand of the assassin. A reporter got hold of the
story and published it. Don't you remember?"

"I haven't read the papers closely since the murder."

"But I have, and so has the man who killed Nicholson."

"Indeed?"

"He soon learned that officers of the law were all looking for a man
with a large wart on the second joint of the little finger of the
right hand. This fact made him nervous, and one night he severed the
wart, and flung it from him, since which time he has breathed easier."

A low exclamation from the lips of Nell startled both men.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE STORY OF A WART.

"Nell, what is it?" questioned the surprised detective.

Harry regarded the girl with a queer smile. Perhaps he knew what had
brought the exclamation to the lips of Miss Darrel.

"I know a man who has lost a wart," she said, slowly, a deepening
pallor coming to her cheeks.

"His name?" questioned Dyke Darrel, eagerly.

But the girl did not immediately answer. It seemed that something
moved her deeply.

"Was it Professor Ruggles?" questioned Harry, in order to help the
young girl out.

"No," she said.

"Who then?"

"Harper Elliston!"

A grave look chased the smile from the face of Harry Bernard.

The girl's announcement seemed to prove a revelation to him, even as
it did to Dyke Darrel.

"I did not know the man who severed the wart from his hand," said
Harry Bernard, after a brief silence, "but suspected that it was
Darlington Ruggles. It seems now that I was correct."

"How is that?"

"Have you not guessed the truth," queried Harry Bernard. "I made the
discovery some time since that the red-haired man and Harper Elliston
were one and the same."

This came as a revelation to both the detective and his sister.

"I have had suspicions," said Dyke Darrel, "but never anything
definite regarding the villainy of this man Elliston. He has played
his cards well, but I became undeceived not long after this great
railroad crime. That he was not my friend I discovered, and then I
resolved to watch him. I have reason to believe that it was to him I
owe my arrest in Burlington, Iowa. I now see the truth, that under the
assumed name of Hubert Vande