The next moment he was on the veranda and had slipped through the window. A sound came from the dining room on the other side of the hall which made him stiffen like a hound on the scent. Three strides took him past the stairs and into the sitting room. A second later he stood in the doorway of the dining room. He was just in time. The slab had been removed from the hearth, and before the opening knelt Andrew Jellison. Near him was a large suit case, and he was busily engaged in lifting the packages of bank notes from the hole and stowing them away in the case. He was so absorbed in what he was doing that he did not hear the soft approach of the Yale man, nor see him pause in the doorway. “Caught with the goods, Jellison!” McCormick said, in a tone of triumph. “You pretty near turned the trick, but not quite.” Andrew Jellison jerked up his head swiftly and drew his breath with a quick, sharp intake. His face turned the color of chalk, the package of bank notes dropped from his limp hand into the hole, and for an instant he gazed at the Yale man with a kind of horror-stricken fascination. Then he leaped to his feet. “Pretty clever, but not quite clever enough,” McCormick went on. “You didn’t know I heard you steal downstairs last night and followed you. You didn’t see me standing behind this very door while you opened up your hiding place to make sure the stolen money was still there. But I was here, Jellison. I watched you put that slab back and slip upstairs again. I even waited a full half hour, though it was the hardest thing I ever did, so that you might have time to go to sleep, before I went to find what you had hidden here. It must have worried you a lot, Jellison, to have to leave it here two years and never have a chance to see whether any one had found it or not.” The Yale man paused and gazed with brightly gleaming eyes at the sullen face of the man before him. “How do you think I felt, Jellison,” McCormick went on swiftly, “when I saw the label on the wrappers around those notes? The Metropolis Bank, of New York, Harlem Branch. Your bank, Jellison, and—my brother’s!” The black-browed man gave a sudden start, and a look of amazed incredulity leaped into his eyes. “Yes, my brother’s,” Archie repeated. “You didn’t know that I was a brother of the man you ruined and sent to prison, did you? You didn’t know that I had sworn to ferret out the man who was responsible for his disgrace and bring him to justice, if it took all my life. You played your cards cleverly. The evidence you faked deceived even the judge who tried the case. You didn’t neglect a single step to throw the blame from your guilty shoulders to those of an innocent man. I wonder if you’ve ever thought since then about that life you ruined, that reputation you blackened beyond repair. But, thank God, I’ve found you out! All your devilish plotting has come to nothing. Jim will be cleared, and you’ll have a taste of Sing Sing yourself. I hope you’ll like it.”