"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 d.y.k.e 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 d.y.k.e 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 d.y.k.e 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 a.s.sumed name of Hubert Vander, Elliston ruined a young girl of Burlington, and, it may be, murdered her father, wealthy Captain Osborne. It would be strange indeed, should the trail that ends with the capture of the express robber also bring to punishment the a.s.sa.s.sin of the Burlington Captain."

"It seems likely to end in that way," returned Harry.

"Let us hear what Nell has to say with regard to the wart," said the detective, turning to his sister.

"It will require but a few words to do that," said Nell Darrel. "I always noticed a peculiarly shaped wart on the finger of Mr.

Elliston's shapely right hand, and once he remarked upon it to me, saying that it was a disfigurement, and that he meant to have it removed sometime. I think it was the first time I met Mr. Elliston after the terrible news of the mid night express tragedy that I noticed the absence of the wart, and a bit of surgeon's plaster covering the spot. I laughed over his having undergone such a severe surgical operation, and he seemed to take it in good part, a.s.suring me that HE was the surgeon who amputated the excrescence with a razor. Of course I thought nothing strange of it at the time."

"You said the wart had a peculiar shape? How is that?" questioned Harry Bernard.

"It was large, and was composed of two crowns. I think, perhaps two warts had grown together at the roots."

"Exactly. Would you know the wart if you should see it again?"

"I think I should."

"So would I," cried the detective.

Then Harry Bernard drew a small vial from his pocket and held it up to view. A small object, submerged in alcohol, was visible. When placed in the hand of Nell, the girl at once exclaimed:

"That is certainly the wart that once disfigured the hand of Harper Elliston!"

"Where did you get it?" questioned d.y.k.e Darrel, now deeply interested at the links that were being rapidly forged in the chain of evidence.

"d.y.k.e, you know that when I left Woodburg some months ago, I went from among you under a cloud?"

"I will not dispute you--"

"No explanation is necessary on your part, d.y.k.e. I imagine I was as much to blame as anybody. Nell and I quarreled, and I imagined that the handsome, elderly New Yorker had stepped into my shoes, so far as she was concerned. I did not like the man, and so I resolved to investigate for myself, and if I found that he was not worthy of Nell, whom I loved and should always love while life lasted, I determined to expose him, and save your sister. During the past few months I have been making this investigation, to find that the supposed immaculate Harper Elliston is known in Gotham in certain circles as a gambler and villain of the deepest dye. He has committed some crimes that are worse than murder. Now, as to the wart: It was soon after I had heard of the murder on the express train, that while riding in the smoking car of an emigrant train in Iowa, I saw an old man deliberately slice a huge wart from his little finger with a keen-edged knife. The wart fell under the seat and rolled at my feet. The old man made no effort to recover it, but wrapped his bleeding hand in a handkerchief and muttered: 'THAT witness will never come up to trouble me.' There was something in the man's voice that sounded familiar, and the strange whiteness of his hands aroused my suspicions, for in dress and appearance the man was a laborer of the lower cla.s.s. Curiosity, if nothing stronger, prompted me to take possession of the severed wart that had rolled at my feet. Soon after that I read the notice in a newspaper, to the effect that the a.s.sa.s.sin of the express train had left the imprint of a wart on the bosom of the dead man's shirt. Since that time I have regarded hands with no little interest, and have looked for the old man of the emigrant car in vain."

"An interesting recital," said the detective, when Harry Bernard came to a pause. "Knowing all this, you kept it from me at St. Louis."

"My reason for that was, that I did not care to arouse any foolish theories. Of course, the reporter's story might have been false. The wart on my own hand, somewhat similar to this, led me to keep my own council as a matter of personal safety. Although I suspected Elliston, I had no proof, since I had forgotten the fact of his ever having a wart on the little finger of his right hand. My princ.i.p.al hope has been in finding the old man of the emigrant train."

"You have not found him?"

"Not unless Elliston is the man."

"Did you suspect this before now?"

"I did; now I am convinced."

Just then Harry Bernard chanced to raise his eyes and gaze out of the open window.

He came suddenly to his feet with a startled exclamation.

d.y.k.e Darrel glanced out of the window to notice a bent old man, with white hair and beard, moving away from the vicinity of the house.

Evidently he had been looking into the room, if not listening to the conversation of the trio.

"Saints of Rome! there is the old man of the emigrant train now!"

d.y.k.e Darrel staggered to the window, while Harry Bernard rushed swiftly from the farm-house.