Page:Waylaid by Wireless - Balmer - 1909.djvu/178

Rh has just been telling us that even you could not connect him with murder!" she added.

"No," the Englishman replied. "But—ah—you have not heard, I see," he comprehended. "Ah—I understand now. You had not heard. It is not murder!"

"Nor—murderous assault?"

"Nor even murderous assault, Miss Varris. No; nor anything else but another cleverer, bolder, and more adroit robbery in which the thief had exercised his greatest care to prevent the violence which was feared. In short, it is nothing in the least inconsistent with or at all prohibitive of our holding our—our original ideas of the personality and identity of the remarkable Mr. Manling! For this last crime does not prove him an unbred, brutal ruffian, but only a more scrupulous and clever operator!"

"What's that, Mr. Dunneston?" Young Preston leaned forward quickly, as the others fell back before the Briton's quiet assurance. "What do you mean, sir?"

The Cornwall Express had already cleared 156