Now we’ve got enough to put us all on easy street if Tom has gumption enough to convert the jewels into cash.”
“I’ll get rid of ’em in a few days,” the man promised. “Give me time. I can’t walk into the first pawnshop I come to and dump forty thousand dollars’ worth of jewels on the counter—not unless we all want to land behind the bars. Now if we can get to Birmingham I know a fence there who’ll turn the trick for us.”
“How far is Birmingham?” Mary demanded.
“Less than a hundred miles. We can make it easy tonight.”
“In this storm?”
“Sure!” Tom Tozzle laughed. “I ain’t been a riverman for nothing. I know every crook and turn of this old stream. We’d better get started too, ’cause the storm’s getting worse every minute.”
“Will you agree about the shares?”
Tom Tozzle hesitated and Nancy saw him study the girl craftily. Evidently he realized that he could not hope to gain his point, for he shrugged his shoulders indifferently.
“Have it your own way.”
Nancy decided to wait for no more. She had heard enough to prove that Mary Mason had stolen the Crandall jewels and that her brother and Tom Tozzle were confederates. From their conversation she gathered that they were all seasoned criminals and had engaged in a number of questionable deals.
“This will clear Mrs. Willoughby and every other person who has been under suspicion,” she thought with satisfaction. “I must get away from here as quickly as I can and bring the police.”