Page:Waylaid by Wireless - Balmer - 1909.djvu/179

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A LIBEL ON THE THIEF

Plymouth, and, as the Englishman looked out the window at his side, the wheels roared over the great iron spans of Royal Albert bridge and the Tamar, which holds Devonshire off from Cornwall, glistening below in the morning sun.

The Briton waited patiently till the train rushed again over the silent, solid ground, and the bright copses and spinneys of the extreme county of Southern England flashed by.

"I mean, Mr. Preston," he said then, "that Mr. Manling has not only claimed the credit of the crime last night for himself, but also—"

"But also, Mr. Dunneston?"

"But also this time, Mr. Preston, he has at last overreached himself."

"Overreached himself?"

"Oh, only apparently, perhaps!" the Englishman qualified cautiously. "Apparently only, I must say; for I have thought that he had overreached himself many times before and he had not. But now it seems certain that

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