Last, but not least, was the presence of this hoard of bank notes concealed under the stone hearth downstairs. Dick felt sure that they had not belonged to the late occupant of the place. Whatever other eccentricities he might have had, Hickey was not a miser, but a very shrewd old man with a decided belief in the safety of banks. He was not the sort who would keep his savings in the house, and, besides, Merriwell had noticed that the packages of notes had been all neatly tied up just as they had come from the bank. And if they were not the spoil from the late robbery, what were they? Lying there in the dark, Dick heard McCormick come stealthily back upstairs and slip into his room. And, after that, hour after hour passed as he thought over the problem from every conceivable point of view. He did not wish to believe his friend guilty. Some how, he could not quite bring himself to that point, and yet every scrap of evidence was strongly against him. He began to remember little things which he had scarcely noticed at the time, but which now, in the light of this new discovery, came vividly back into his mind. Archie had not taken Fitzgerald’s joshing about the robbery with anything like his usual good grace. He had been palpably annoyed, and his assumption of careless laughter had seemed a little forced. Then there was Joblots. Where did he come in? It did not seem possible that any human being could be such an absolute ass, though once or twice in his life Dick had met fellows with mannerisms of which the dapper little fellow had made a very good copy. But Merriwell had an instinctive feeling that he was nothing but a copy. For some reason he was playing a part, and Merriwell felt sure that the real man was something far different from his outward appearance. He had been interested in McCormick from the very first. All evening he had been watching him—covertly, to be sure, but none the less constantly. Was it possible that he could be following Archie? Jellison, too, was a puzzle. The absurdity of a man’s coming alone to such a deserted spot as this and landing there late at night, simply because he wanted to take a few days’ rest, was palpable. There must be some ulterior motive, and a very strong one at that, to cause him to do what he had done; but, try as he would, Dick could not fathom it. Presently his mind left Jellison and leaped back to McCormick. Archie’s only brother had been sentenced to two years in State’s prison. He had been at liberty for six months. To be sure, both Archie and his brother swore that the latter had been wrongly convicted, that some one high up in the bank had in reality stolen the money and then succeeded in weaving such a web of false evidence around the innocent man that he had been convicted and sentenced, the thief himself escaping scot-free.