"They'll get wise to us! You're queering yourself, King. Let me up, quick! I can hear some one coming."
"We'll both be prisoners of Jurgens and his gang if you don't take a tumble to the rights of this. Let me up, I tell you, or----"
Just then the hurrying steps outside reached the door.
"What's going on here, Matt?" came the excited voice of Dick Ferral, as he and Carl flung into the room.
"I've just captured that double of mine," answered Matt. "If we hang onto him possibly we can make him tell us something about Jurgens and the diamonds."
"Oh, sister!" mumbled Dashington, "wouldn't that give your thinker a twist? Pass it up, King. If you won't take your knees off my chest, then give me a chance to heave a little of the straight guff at you."
"Pick up that revolver, Dick," said Matt, nodding toward the weapon. "Keep it in your hands and don't let this fellow lose your eyes for a moment. He wants to talk, and we're going to let him, but if he tries to bolt, he's going to wish that he had thought twice before he tried it."
Dick hurried to the weapon and gathered it in, then Matt got up and let Dashington regain his feet.
"You blokes are wise guys--I don't think," grinned Dashington. "Motor Matt is cracked up to be such a phenom. that I had a warm guess he'd know who wrote that letter first crack out of the box."
"What letter are you talking about?" demanded Matt.
"The one you found in your mail this morning. My stationery wasn't the sort they use in polite correspondence, but I was in luck to have even that. An old letter of Bangs', Bangs' notebook and Bangs' pencil helped me out. I'll bet eight big iron louies you never once suspected me of dropping that letter in the mails; and yet, who else was there for you to suspect? Didn't think Jurgens would do it, did you? Or Whistler? Or Bangs? Get wise, Motor Matt, get wise. There's work ahead for the lot of us, and the longer we hang off about it, the harder it's likely to be."
Matt and his friends listened to this line of talk with a good deal of wonder, but they were not disposed, just then, to take Dashington's word for anything.
"You say you wrote that letter?" queried Matt, noting how the youth's talk harmonized with the letter's contents.