It is just because it is connected with the case that he did not tell me.
I will tell you, however, where he spent the night; he drove to Kennisburg—a larger town than Lambert Corners, where an unusual letter would create no comment—and mailed the bonds to a Washington firm of brokers with whom he has had some dealings.
He took the bag of coin and several unimportant papers in order to deflect suspicion, and his opening the safe the night before for the hundred dollars was merely a ruse to allow him to forget and leave it open, so that the bonds could appear to be stolen by someone else.
Just what led him to commit the act I won't say; he has been in a tight place for several months back in regard to money.
Last January he turned a two-thousand dollar mortgage, that his father had given him on his twenty-first birthday, into cash, and what he did with the cash I haven't been able to discover.
In any case his father knows nothing of the transaction; he thinks that Radnor still holds the mortgage.
This spring the young man was hard up again, and no more mortgages left to sell.
He probably did not regard the appropriation of the bonds as stealing, since everything by his father's will was to come to him ultimately.
"As to all this hocus-pocus about the ha'nt, that is easily explained.
He needed a scapegoat on whom to turn the blame when the bonds should disappear; so he and this Cat-Eye Mose between them invented a ghost.
The negro is a half crazy fellow who from the first has been young Gaylord's tool; I don't think he knew what he was doing sufficiently to be blamed.
As for Gaylord himself, I fancy there was a third person somewhere in the background who was pressing him for money and who couldn't be shaken off till the money was forthcoming.
But whatever his motive for taking the bonds, there is no doubt about the fact, and I have come to you with the story rather than to his father."
"It is absolutely impossible," I returned. "Radnor, whatever his faults, is an honorable man in regard to money matters.
I have his word that he knows no more about the robbery of those bonds than I do."
The detective laughed.
"There is just one kind of evidence that doesn't count for much in my profession, and that is a man's word.
We look for something a little more tangible—such as this for example."
He drew from his pocket an envelope, took from it a letter, and handed it to me.
It was a typewritten communication from a firm of brokers in Washington.
"Radnor F.
Gaylord, Esq.,
"Four-Pools Plantation, Lambert Corners, Va.
"Dear Mr. Gaylord:
"We are in receipt of your favor of April 29th. in regard to the sale of the bonds.
The market is rather slow at present and we shall have to sell at 98?.
If you care to hold on to them a few months longer, there is every chance of the market picking up, and we feel sure that in the end you will find them a good investment.
"Awaiting your further orders and thanking you for past favors,
"We are,
"Very truly yours,
"Jacoby, Haight & Co."
"Where did you get hold of that?" I asked. "It strikes me it's a private letter."
"Very private," the young man agreed. "I had trouble enough in getting hold of it; I had to do some fishing with a hook and pole over the transom of Mr. Gaylord's door.
He had very kindly put the tackle at my disposal."
"You weren't called down here to open the family's private letters," I said hotly.
"I was called down here to find out who stole Colonel Gaylord's bonds, and I've done it."
I was silent for a moment.
This letter from the brokers staggered me.
April twenty-ninth was the date of the robbery, and I could think of no explanation.
Clancy, noticing my silence, elaborated his theory with a growing air of triumph.
"This Mose was left behind the night of the robbery with orders to rouse the house while Radnor was away.
Mose is a good actor and he fooled you.
The obvious suspicion was that the ghost had stolen the bonds and you set out to find him—a somewhat difficult task as he existed only in Mose's imagination.
I think when you reflect upon the evidence, you will see that my explanation is convincing."
"It isn't in the least convincing," I retorted. "Mose was not acting; he saw something that frightened him half out of his senses.
And that something was not Radnor masquerading as a ghost, for Radnor was out of the house when the robbery took place."
"Not necessarily.
The robbery took place early in the evening before all this rumpus occurred.
Even if Mose did see a ghost, the ghost had nothing to do with it."
"You have absolutely no proof of that; it is nothing but surmise."