"Oh, sugar!" muttered Tobias, with disgust. "I’d forgot all about that feller." CHAPTER XXX A SILVER-BANDED PIPE Instinctively Ralph Endicott drew away from the shabby man, but stared at him curiously. "I beg your pardon," he said. "If you wish to speak with me, come up to the house later. Anybody will tell you where I live." "Say, young fellow, don’t you get flossy with me," snarled the detective. "I been waiting for you some time. We want to know what you know about that bank burglary." "About what bank burglary?" repeated the young man, and his surprise was so genuine that Lorna sighed her audible relief. "The Clinkerport Bank. You know well enough. Don’t make it worse for yourself by denying knowledge of it. You’ve got to go to town with me and see Mr. Arad Thompson." "Arad Thompson?" Ralph repeated. "At the bank? Why——" The detective turned to shout to Rafe Silver: "Hey, you Portuguese! Get that car. You can get her around the hole in the road now. Come alive!" Ralph stared wonderingly from Tobias to Lorna. "What does the fellow mean?" he demanded, as the detective moved away to hasten Silver’s movements. "I cal’late you ain’t heard the news, then," said the lightkeeper slowly. "The bank’s been robbed." "Well? What has that to do with me?" "I give it as my opinion, Ralph, that some folks think you had a deal to do with it—yessir!" "Nonsense!" "Oh, Ralph! it is true. That—that man is a detective," gasped Lorna. The young man reddened angrily. He demanded: "Why do they pick on me? Tell me about it. Where is the evidence?" A good deal can be said in a few moments, and Lorna gave the particulars of the discovery of the robbery and the evidence pointing to Ralph’s complicity in it briefly and succinctly. "Why, I haven’t seen that address book of mine, nor the penknife, for a week," finally said Ralph, shaking his head. "Where did you have ’em last, for sure?" was Tobias’s shrewd question. "I—I—— Well, I lost them." "You did, heh? Do you know where you lost ’em?" "Oh, I suppose so," grumbled the young man. "Oh, sugar!" ejaculated the lightkeeper. "Out with it! This here has gone too far for you to dodge any questions, boy. I tell ye folks really think you know more’n you ought to about that burglary. Every little thing has got to be explained." Ralph glanced at Lorna sheepishly. "I got into a fist fight with a fellow out on the road to Harbor Bar two days before I started to join the crew of the _Nelly G._" "With Conny Degger!" murmured Lorna. "Yes, it was with him," admitted Ralph. "After I got home I saw my watch chain had been broken and the knife was gone. The address book had fallen out of my vest pocket, too. When I went back there the next morning I could find neither, of course. Right on the public road, you see. Anybody might have picked them up."