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 Dyke 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 Dyke 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 Dyke 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
assumed 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
assassin 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, assuring 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 Dyke Darrel, now deeply interested
at the links that were being rapidly forged in the chain of evidence.
"Dyke, 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, Dyke. 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 class. 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 assassin 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 principal 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.
Dyke 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!"
Dyke Darrel staggered to the window, while Harry Bernard rushed
swiftly from the farm-house.