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--"