"One of my guests?" demanded Lake scoffingly. "Oh, nonsense! Some young fellow has been in here yesterday, talking to the clerks, and dropped it. Who went as a football player, White? You know all these college boys. Know anything about this one?" "Not a thing." There Billy lied--a prompt and loyal gentleman--reasoning that Buttinski, as he mentally styled the interloper who had misappropriated the Quaker lady, would have cared nothing at that time for a paltry thirty thousand. Thus was he guilty of a practice against which we are all vainly warned--of judging others by ourselves. Billy remembered very distinctly that Miss Ellinor had not reappeared until the midnight unmasking, and he therefore acquitted her companion of this particular crime, entirely without prejudice to Buttinski's felonious instincts in general. For the watchman had been shot before midnight. Billy made a tentative mental decision that this famous noseguard had been brought to the bank later and left there purposely; and resolved to keep his eye open. "Oh, well, it's no great difference anyhow," said Lake. "Whoever it was dropped it here yesterday, I guess, and got another one for the masquerade." "Hold on there!" said Clarke, holding the spotlight tenaciously. "That don't go! This thing was on top of one of those pieces of the safe!" For the first time Lake was startled from his iron composure. "Are you sure?" he demanded, jumping up. "Sure! It was right here against the sloping side of this piece--so." "That puts a different light on the case, gentlemen," said Lake. "Luck is with us; and----" "And, while I think of it," said Clarke, making the most of his unexpected opportunity, "I made notes of all the costumes and their wearers after the masks were off--for the paper, you know--and I saw no football player there. I remember that distinctly." "I only saw him the one time," confirmed Alec, "and I stayed almost to the break-up. Whoever it was, he left early." "But what possible motive could the robber have for going to the dance at all?" queried Lake in perplexity. "Maybe he made his appearance there in a football suit purposely, so as to leave us some one to hunt for, and then committed the robbery and went back in another costume," suggested Clarke, pleased and not a little surprised at his own ingenuity. "In that case, he would have left this rubber thing here of design." "H'm!" Lake was plainly struck with this theory. "And that's not such a bad idea, either! We'll look into this football matter after breakfast. You'll go to the hotel with me, gentlemen? Our womankind are all asleep after the ball. The sheriff will send some one to guard the bank. Meantime I'll call the cashier in and find out exactly how much money we're short. Send Bassett in, will you, Billy? You stay at the door and keep that mob out." CHAPTER VIII ARCADES AMBO "What means this, my lord?" "Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief."