Page:Tongues of Flame (1924).pdf/155

 The President of Boland Cedar, acting with his usual decision, gave his craft a push, leaped into it and was off. Harrington led the way down the forest path. Lahleet followed at a distance, as if reluctant to go but more reluctant to be left alone.

But when they reached that green bed among the ferns, it was mysteriously empty. Harrington ejaculated and stared.

"But you plunked him?" demanded Scanlon anxiously.

Harrington pointed to a crimson lacquer upon the ferns.

"There's more than one of them," he deduced. "This fellow was heavy. One man couldn't have carried him off."

"We'll get 'em, no matter how many there are," boasted Scanlon. "No bunch of crooks can get away with a thing like that on us. By the way, did you recognize the dead guy? Ever see him before?"

"It was Count Eckstrom!"

Scanlon's fat-imbedded eyes opened wide with amazement. "Eckstrom? The man you asked me about? One of this bunch of foreign nobility that's trailed Billie Boland home?"

"Fake nobility," corrected Harrington. "Lord, what a shock it will be to her to know!"

"Know?" queried the practical Scanlon, his hoarse, throaty voice throatier than ever as he lowered it to tones of cunning and mystery. "She don't never need to know. With the disappearance of the corpus delicti this killing's a myth. It never happened. Nothing's happened for that matter. You don't think we want it advertised that we sent twenty thousand dollars in