r, Elliston ruined a young girl of
Burlington, and, it may be, murdered her father, wealthy Captain
Osborne. It would be strange indeed, should the trail that ends with
the capture of the express robber also bring to punishment the
assassin of the Burlington Captain."

"It seems likely to end in that way," returned Harry.

"Let us hear what Nell has to say with regard to the wart," said the
detective, turning to his sister.

"It will require but a few words to do that," said Nell Darrel. "I
always noticed a peculiarly shaped wart on the finger of Mr.
Elliston's shapely right hand, and once he remarked upon it to me,
saying that it was a disfigurement, and that he meant to have it
removed sometime. I think it was the first time I met Mr. Elliston
after the terrible news of the mid night express tragedy that I
noticed the absence of the wart, and a bit of surgeon's plaster
covering the spot. I laughed over his having undergone such a severe
surgical operation, and he seemed to take it in good part, assuring me
that HE was the surgeon who amputated the excrescence with a razor. Of
course I thought nothing strange of it at the time."

"You said the wart had a peculiar shape? How is that?" questioned
Harry Bernard.

"It was large, and was composed of two crowns. I think, perhaps two
warts had grown together at the roots."

"Exactly. Would you know the wart if you should see it again?"

"I think I should."

"So would I," cried the detective.

Then Harry Bernard drew a small vial from his pocket and held it up to
view. A small object, submerged in alcohol, was visible. When placed
in the hand of Nell, the girl at once exclaimed:

"That is certainly the wart that once disfigured the hand of Harper
Elliston!"

"Where did you get it?" questioned Dyke Darrel, now deeply interested
at the links that were being rapidly forged in the chain of evidence.

"Dyke, you know that when I left Woodburg some months ago, I went from
among you under a cloud?"

"I will not dispute you--"

"No explanation is necessary on your part, Dyke. I imagine I was as
much to blame as anybody. Nell and I quarreled, and I imagined that
the handsome, elderly New Yorker had stepped into my shoes, so far as
she was concerned. I did not like the man, and so I resolved to
investigate for myself, and if I found that he was not worthy of Nell,
whom I loved and should always love while life lasted, I determined to
expose him, and save your sister.