This came as a revelation to both the detective and his sister.

"I have had suspicions," said Dyke Darrel, "but never anything
definite regarding the villainy of this man Elliston. He has played
his cards well, but I became undeceived not long after this great
railroad crime. That he was not my friend I discovered, and then I
resolved to watch him. I have reason to believe that it was to him I
owe my arrest in Burlington, Iowa. I now see the truth, that under the
assumed name of Hubert Vander, 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."