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CHAPTER XXI. TOMMY MAKES A DISCOVERY

FOR a moment or two they stood staring at each other stupidly, dazed with the

shock. Somehow, inexplicably, Mr. Brown had forestalled them. Tommy accepted

defeat quietly. Not so Julius.

How in tarnation did he get ahead of us? That's what beats me!" he ended up.

Tommy shook his head, and said dully:

"It accounts for the stitches being new. We might have guessed...."

"Never mind the darned stitches. How did he get ahead of us? We hustled all we

knew. It's downright impossible for anyone to get here quicker than we did. And,

anyway, how did he know? Do you reckon there was a dictaphone in Jane's

room? I guess there must have been."

But Tommy's common sense pointed out objections.

No one could have known beforehand that she was going to be in that house--

much less that particular room."

That's so," admitted Julius. "Then one of the nurses was a crook and listened at

the door. How's that?"

"I don't see that it matters anyway," said Tommy wearily. "He may have found out

some months ago, and removed the papers, then----No, by Jove, that won't wash!

They'd have been published at once."

"Sure thing they would! No, some one's got ahead of us to-day by an hour or so.

But how they did it gets my goat."

I wish that chap Peel Edgerton had been with us," said Tommy thoughtfully.

Why?" Julius stared. "The mischief was done when we came."

Yes----" Tommy hesitated. He could not explain his own feeling--the illogical idea

that the K.C.'s presence would somehow have averted the catastrophe. He

reverted to his former point of view. "It's no good arguing about how it was done.

The game's up. We've failed. There's only one thing for me to do."

195

The Secret Adversary