Duff shuffled and coughed and took a fresh tooth-hold on his mangled dead cigar. Gildersleeve’s face remained a complete mask. “I’m sure we haven’t the slightest idea,” he observed with guileless indifference.
“_Some one_ undoubtedly has,” emphasised the inspector. “Furthermore, Stubbs must be quite confident of his backing, else he wouldn’t have the nerve to return to the limits in broad daylight.”
Gildersleeve almost jumped to his feet at that. “Stubbs back here,” he cried. “Impossible!”
“He was seen less than an hour ago back in the hills by some of our men out looking for the missing girl.”
Gildersleeve gave the inspector a glance that questioned his sanity. It was Duff who spoke first. “Did they get him?” he breathed.
“No, he disappeared in the bush as silently and completely as a timber wolf.” The inspector bent his eyes searchingly on Gildersleeve. “He was playing the _other rôle_ this time.”
“The other rôle?” The puzzled look on Gildersleeve’s face looked almost genuine to the police officer.
“Yes, that of Ogima Bush, the Medicine Man—the same disguise he wore the morning he and his gang abducted Miss Stone.”
“That’s all wrong—all pure piffle!” exploded Gildersleeve.
“Because—because, damn it, man, that camp preacher could never have played the role of the Medicine Man.”
The police inspector leaned forward, his eyes fixing those of the financier like steely points of light. “If you can furnish proof of that statement, Mr. Gildersleeve,” he said at last, “it would be very useful information for the police.”
Gildersleeve tightened up in a hurry. “Oh, I have nothing in the way of proof,” he laughed easily. “It was merely a conviction.”
“There’s a vast difference,” coldly observed Inspector Little. “A vast difference, Mr. Gildersleeve. Nevertheless, your assertion provides the germ of a new theory.”
He did not add as the pulp mill men were leaving his tent that that same new theory presented a worse tangle than the old one.
“Stubbs the camp preacher had two enamelled patches covered with talc powder under his eyes; Ogima Bush the Medicine Man has two red gashes under his and this man Gildersleeve has two tiny white scars in the same places.” Those observations kept recurring stubbornly in the inspector’s mind. “I wonder,” he mused, “if this part of the North Shore isn’t really under a hoo-doo as the Indians say it is—or, am _I_ getting old and losing my grip?”