Read "The Mystery of Crocksands" by Fred M. White online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Stone arrived back quite unexpectedly from Manchester with a budget of news for his employer. Everything had gone well so far but the ex-lawyer was not a little uneasy and disturbed as he listened to Wrath's boastful statement of the way he had managed to deceive Inspector Wilder. It was no doubt a most heroic thing to do, but Stone's trained legal mind could see pitfalls and dangers where Wrath could only see his own amazing strategy and bold diplomacy. If the thing came off, all well and good, but supposing that Wilder had not been deceived at all!
"Oh, you can make your mind quite easy on that," Wrath laughed. "He was like a child in my hands. Besides, they can't do anything. I was quite candid over my connection with Blatton and Company, and I told Wilder that if there was any scandal I would make it good out of my own pocket. You see, they haven't been able to lay their hands on the money which they think is still in Bucharest, and Wilder must know that the Bucharest people are not in the least likely to play into his hands by consigning any cash to Manchester now. When I told him that I was the winner of the sweep, and showed him the ticket, which I had filled in myself in my bedroom, he had nothing more to say. You never saw a man more startled and astonished in your life."