I
wonder if this can have anything to do with----."
She was turning it over curiously as she spoke. Suddenly a red spot flamed
up in her either cheek.
"It's marked with a red round O," she exclaimed, "what a bit of evidence.
So Master Roy Prescott, you were planning to unmask me by that side-comb,
were you? Well, I shall play the same trick on you with this bill."
Fanning Harding was coming back at that moment with the cup full of water.
The girl checked him with an excited gesture.
"Fortune has played into our hands," she cried, "look here!"
"Well, what is it?" asked Fanning, rather testily.
"This bill. Don't you see it's one of the stolen ones. Look at the red
circle upon the back."
"Jove! So it is. But, what, how----"
"Hush! Don't talk so loud. This wallet, which contained it, was jolted out
of Roy Prescott's pocket when he was hurled from the machine. The wallet
and--and something else. But don't you see what power that gives us?"
"No. I confess I'm stupid, but----"
"Oh, how dense you boys are," exclaimed Regina, with an impatient stamp of
the foot, "don't you see that this bill will come pretty close to proving
Roy Prescott a thief, if we want to use it that way? You are a witness
that I found it in his wallet which had been jerked out of his pocket.
Isn't that enough?"
"Well, men have been sent to prison on less evidence," said Fanning, with
a shrug; "but I've got to hurry up with this water or they'll suspect
something.
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