"Who was here in this house?" Stone went on. "Nobody. It was locked up all day." "Has anyone a key to it, excepting yourself?" "No, nobody. Oh, yes, my brother has, but he's in Chicago." "Was he in Chicago then?" "Why, yes, I s'pose so. I don't know. Why?" "Could he have come here that day, without your knowing it?" "Of course he could have done so, and now you speak of it, I remember my wife said she smelt cigar smoke when we came home. I didn't notice it myself." "What's your brother's name?" "Young, Charlie Young. Is he up to anything wrong?" "Is he apt to be?" "Well, I wouldn't put it past him. Charlie's a case! I've tried to do well by him, but he's been a thorn in my side for years. I'm always expecting to have him turn up in trouble of one sort or another. Yes, if you ask me, he might have been here that day, and cut up any sort of monkey-shines!" "Do you know any young lady named Flossie?" "Nope, never heard of any, that I remember. But Charlie has queer friends, if that's what you're getting at. Say, tell me more about the Pell case, if you're from Berrien. How did the murderer get out?" "I haven't discovered that yet, but I hope to do so. I understand your father was an expert carpenter and joiner?" "Yes, sir, he was that. He died some four years ago, but I've many examples of his fine work. Want to see some?" But Stone could not stay to gratify the son's pride in the paternal accomplishments and the two callers left and went back to Pellbrook. "There's the man," said Stone, briefly. "Charlie Young is the master mind behind all this deviltry." "Did he kill Aunt Ursula?" asked Iris with angry eyes. "I don't say that, yet," Stone said, cautiously, "but he's the man who is after the pin and----" The detective fell into a deep study and Iris, busy with her own thoughts, did not interrupt him. She positively identified the house as the one to which she had been taken, and if Mr. Stone said that Charlie Young was the villain who had directed the kidnapping, though he did not appear himself, she had no doubt Stone wad right. "And I've got a letter that Charlie Young wrote," Stone exulted. "I rather think that will go far toward freeing Mr. Bannard!" "Oh, how?" "I believe that Young wrote that letter signed William Ashton, and purposely made it look like the disguised hand of Winston Bannard." "It was exactly like Win's writing, but different, too. The long-tailed letters were just like Win's." "Yes, and that helps prove it. If Bannard had tried to disguise his own writing, the first thing he would have thought of would be _not_ to make those peculiar long loops. Now their presence shows a clever trickster's effort to make the writing suggest Bannard at once, but also to suggest a disguised hand." "That is clever! How can you ever catch such an ingenious villain? Shall you arrest him at once?"