After some further consideration Tobias Bassett came to the conclusion that the startling suspicion regarding Ralph Endicott’s connection with the burglary of the Clinkerport Bank was no joke. That Lorna should actually fear there was truth in the accusation was disturbing enough. But the lightkeeper believed that by revealing to her his own ill-advised deceit in the matter of the Endicotts’ financial situation, he could assuage Lorna’s anxiety. It seemed, however, that the public in general—and Clinkerport folk in particular—were likely to jump to the same conclusion that the bank detective and Arad Thompson held. "It looks right silly, knowing the Endicotts as everybody about here does, and all," muttered the matchmaking lightkeeper. "But if ever that story I told Lorny gets spread abroad—— "Oh, sugar! Telling even a white lie is just like dropping oil on a woolen garment. It spreads, an’ spreads—— "I give it as my opinion that if ever Heppy hears tell of my interferin’ as I have in these young folks’ love troubles, I won’t never hear the last of it. Unless Heppy dies before I do—the Lord forbid!" He sat there and watched the detective come away from the Endicott bungalow after a while. Rafe Silver had turned the car about and waited for the man at the foot of the lane. From where Tobias sat it looked as though the detective had not gained much by his visit. "I doubt if he even see Henry Endicott," considered the lightkeeper, "he’s that dissatisfied. I’d give something to know what that shabby looking sleuth thinks he’ll do now. Trying to tie such a thing to Ralph Endicott. Oh, sugar!" The big blue limousine went back to Clinkerport. The inhabitants of the town by this time were in a ferment. Thirty hours had elapsed—or thereabout—since the discovery of the burglary. The bank had not opened its doors nor had Arad Thompson made a public statement. Rumor and surmise scuttled through the narrow streets of the port like thunder-frighted fowl. Shopkeepers stood at their street-doors and housewives on their side porches. Gossip was rife and suspicion was bound finally to pounce hawklike on some victim. Who first tarred Ralph Endicott’s name with the brush of suspicion seemed a mystery. Only Silas Compton and Ezra Crouch had seen the little gold penknife Tobias had found under the bank window. The bank president had spoken to nobody save the detective about the toy, and the sleuth was as close-mouthed as a clam. Yet when the latter arrived back at Clinkerport the whole town seemed to know about that knife, and most of the excited inhabitants were quite positive that it belonged to Ralph Endicott. "You kin believe it or not, as ye see fit," Ezra Crouch was saying to a group of soap-box warmers in Compton’s store, "his going away the other day was all a bluff. Just a bluff. He was back again that night." "Prob’bly. If he was one of the burglars," commented the storekeeper.