With Billy went the sheriff and Alec, the latter with a sheaf of telegrams.

“Now ... how did Buttinski’s noseguard get into this bank? That’s what I’d like to know,” said Billy to the doorknob, when the other committeemen had gone their ways. “I didn’t bring it. I don’t believe Buttinski did.... And Policeman Lake certainly saw us quarreling. He noticed the football player, right enough,—and he pretends he didn’t. Why—why—why does Policeman Lake pretend he didn’t see that football player? Echo answers—why?... Denmark’s all putrefied!”

The low sun cleared the housetops. The level rays fell along the window-sill; and Billy, staring fascinated at the single blotch of dried blood on the inner sill, saw something glitter and sparkle there beside it. He went closer. It was a dust of finely powdered glass. Billy whistled.

A light foot ran up the steps. There was a rap at the door.

“No entrance except on business. No business transacted here!” quoted Billy, startled from a deep study. A head appeared at the window. “Oh, it’s you, Jimmy? That’s different. Come in!”

It was Jimmy Phillips, the chief deputy. Billy knew him and liked him. He unbarred the door.

“Well, anything turned up yet?” demanded Jimmy. “I stopped in to see Lars. Him and me was old side partners.”

“How’s he making it, Jimmy?”

“Oh, doc said he had one chance in ten thousand; so he’s all right, I guess,” responded that brisk optimist. “They got any theory about the robber?”

“They have that. A perfectly sound theory, too—only it isn’t true,” said Billy in a low and guarded tone. “They’ll tell you. I haven’t got time. See here—if I give you the straight tip will you work it up and keep your head closed until you see which way the cat jumps? Can you keep it to yourself?”

“Mum as a sack of clams!” said Jimmy.

“Look at this a minute!” Billy pointed to the tiny particles of glass on the inner sill. “Got that? Then I’ll dust it off. This is a case for your gummiest shoes. Now look at this!” He indicated the opening where the patch of glass had been cut from the big pane. Jimmy rubbed his finger very cautiously along the raw edge of the glass.

“Cut out from the inside—then carried out there? A frame-up?”

“Exactly. But I don’t want anybody else to size it up for a frame-up—not now.”

“But,” said Jimmy good-naturedly, “I’d ’a’ seen all that myself after a little if you hadn’t ’a’ showed me.”

“Yes,” said Billy dryly; “and then told somebody! That’s why I brushed the glass-dust off. I’ve got inside information—some that I’m going to share with you and some that I am not going to tell even you!”

“Trot it out!”

“Lake had the key of this front door in the policeman’s uniform that he wore to the dance. Isn’t that queer? If I were you I’d very quietly find out whether he went home to get that key after he got word that the bank was robbed. He was still in the ballroom when he got the message.”

“You think it’s a put-up job? Why?”

“There is something not just right about the man Lake. His mind is too ballbearing altogether. He herds those chumps in there round like so many sheep. He used ’em to make discoveries with and then showed ’em how to force ’em on him. Oh, they made a heap of progress! They’ve got evidence enough up in there to hang John the Baptist, with Lake all the time setting back in the breeching like a balky horse. It’s Lake’s bank, and the bank’s got burglar insurance. Got that? If he gets the money and the insurance, too—see? And I happen to know he has been bucking the market. I dropped a roll with him myself. Then there’s r-r-revenge!—as they say on the stage—and something else beside. Has Lake any bitter enemies?”

“Oodles of ’em!”

“But one worse than the others—one he hates most?”

Jimmy thought for a while. Then he nodded.

“Jeff Bransford, I reckon.”

“Is he in town?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Well, I never heard of your Mr. Bransford; but he’s in town all right, all right! You’ll see! Lake’s got a case cooked up that’ll hang some one higher than Haman; and I’ll bet the first six years of my life against a Doctor Cook lecture ticket that the first letter of some one’s name is Jeff Bransford.”

“Maybe Jeff can prove he was somewhere else?” suggested Jimmy.

Billy evaded the issue.

“What sort of a man is this Bransford? Any good? Besides being an enemy of Lake’s, I mean?”

“Mr. Bransford is one whom we all delight to humor,” announced the deputy, after some reflection.

“Friend of yours?”

Jimmy reflected again.

“We-ll—yes!” he said. “He limps a little in cold weather, and I got a little small ditch plowed in my skull—but our horses was both young and wild, and the boys rode in between us before there was any harm done. I pulled him out of the Pecos since that, too, and poured some several barrels of water out o’ him. Yes, we’re good friends, I reckon.”

“He’ll shoot back on proper occasion, then? A good sport? Stand the gaff?”

“On proper occasion,” rejoined Jimmy, “the other man will shoot back—if he’s lucky. Yes, sir, Jeff’s certainly one dead game sport at any turn in the road.”

“Considering the source and spirit of your information, you sadden me,” said Billy. “The better man he is, the better chance to hang. Has he got any close friends here?”

“He seldom ever comes here,” said Jimmy. “All his friends is on Rainbow, specially South Rainbow; but his particular side partners is all away just now; leastways, all but one.”

“Can’t you write to that one?”

The deputy grinned hugely.

“And tell him to come break Jeff out o’ jail?” said he. “That don’t seem hardly right, considerin’. You write to him—Johnny Dines, Morningside. You might wire up to Cloudland and have it forwarded from there. I’ll pay.”

Billy made a note of it.

“They’ll be out here in a jiffy now,” he said. “Now, Jimmy, you listen to all they tell you; follow it up; make no comments; don’t see anything and don’t miss anything. Let Lake think he’s having it all his own way and he’ll make some kind of a break that will give him away. We haven’t got a thing against him yet except the right guess. And you be careful to catch your friend without a fight. When you get him I want you to give him a message from me; but don’t mention any name. Tell him to keep a stiff upper lip—that the devil takes care of his own. Say the devil told you himself—in person. I don’t want to show my hand. I’m on the other side—see? That way I can be in Lake’s counsels—force myself in, if necessary, after this morning.”

“You think that if you give Lake rope enough——”

“Exactly. Here they come—I hear their chairs.”

“Blonde or brunette?” said Jimmy casually.

“Eh? What’s that?”

“The something else that you wouldn’t tell me about,” Jimmy explained. “Is she blonde or brunette?”

“Oh, go to hell!” said Billy.

CHAPTER IX