Page:Frank Stockton--Adventures of Captain Horn.djvu/449

ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN HORN gazed anxiously toward the door, and for a few moments the three men stood in silence.

The situation was a peculiar one. The professor thought of sending to the Hôtel Grenade, but he hesitated. He said to himself: "The lady's testimony would be of no avail. If he is the man the bandit says he is, of course she does not know it. His conduct has been very strange, and for a long time she certainly knew very little about him. I don't see how even his banker could become surety for him if he were here, and he doesn't seem inclined to come. Anybody may have a bank-account." The professor stood looking on the ground. The captain looked at him, and, by that power to read the thoughts of others which an important emergency often gives to a man, he read, or believed he did, the thoughts of Barré. He did not blame the man for his doubts. Any one might have such doubts. A stranger coming to France with a cargo of gold must expect suspicion, and here was more—a definite charge.

At this moment there came a message from the banking house: Mr. Wraxton had gone to Brussels that morning. Fuguet did not live in Paris, and the captain had never seen him. There were clerks whom he had met in Marseilles, but, of course, they could only say that he was the man known as Captain Horn.

The captain ground his teeth, and then, suddenly turning, he interrupted the conversation between the magistrate and Barré. He addressed the latter and asked, "Will you tell me what this officer has been saying about me?" 433