on would know that he could not have committed
the crime.

It was almost an hour later when he was taken back into the other room
again. Prale had spent the time standing before the window, smoking and
trying to think things out. The captain of detectives was before his
desk when Prale was ushered into the office.

"I've been investigating your story, Mr. Prale," the captain said,
looking at him peculiarly. "It always has been a mystery to me why a man
keen in business and supposed to possess brains goes to pieces when he
commits a crime and tells a tale that is full of holes."

"I beg your pardon!" Prale said.

"Sit down, Mr. Prale, over there--and I'll have some of the witnesses
in. I have not questioned them yet, but my men have, and have reported
to me what they said. They have discovered several other things, too."

"I'm not afraid of anything they may have discovered," Prale told the
captain.

"Last night, you told Jim Farland that you had had trouble with a bank,
and at the hotel where you first registered after you came ashore, did
you not?"

"Yes; don't those things bear out my statement about the powerful
enemies?"

"We'll see presently," the captain said.

He spoke to the sergeant in attendance, who immediately left the room,
and presently returned with the president of the trust company. He
looked at Prale with interest, and took the chair the captain
designated.

"You know this man?" the captain asked.

"I do," said the banker. "He is Sidney Prale."

"Ever have any business with him?"

"Mr. Prale transferred a fortune to our institution from Honduras," the
banker said. "Yesterday he called at the bank, satisfied me as to his
identity, and made arrangements concerning the money."

"Mr. Prale has said that, for some reason unknown to him, you told him
you did not care to handle his business and didn't want his deposit,"
the captain said.

"I scarcely think that was the way of it," the banker replied. "We would
have been glad to take care of the deposit, which was practically one
million dollars. But Mr. Prale told me he had other plans and that he
would remove the deposit during the day, which he did."

Sidney Prale sat up straight in his chair. "Didn't you tell me that you
didn't want anything to do with me and my money?" he demanded.

"Certainly not," lied the banker. "You said that you wished to put your
funds in other institutions."

Prale gasped at the man's statement. It was a ba