The Diamond Master Part 12

"About forty or fifty miles out'n Jersey" said Haney.

"I know the place," remarked Mr. Birnes.

"You are sure, Haney?" said the chief after a pause. "You are sure you don't know this other man's name?"

"I don't know it, Boss."

"Who was the man you robbed?"

"I don't know."

The chief arose quickly, and the prisoner cringed in his seat.

"I don't know," he went on protestingly. "Don't hit me again."

But the chief had no such intention; it was merely to walk back and forth across the room.

"What kind of man was he--a tramp?"

Haney faltered and thoughtfully pulled his under-lip. The cunning brain behind the bleary eyes was working now.

"I wouldn't call him a tramp," he said evasively. "He had on collar an' cuffs an' good clothes, an' talked sort o' easy."

"Little, skinny man you said. What color was his hair?"

The chief turned in his tracks and regarded Haney with keen, inquiring eyes. The prisoner withstood the scrutiny bravely.

"Sort o' blackish, brownish hair."

"Black, you mean?"

"Well, yes--black."

"And his eyes?"

"Black eyes--little an' round like gimlet holes."

"Heavy eyebrows, I suppose?"

"Yes," Haney agreed readily. "They sort o' stuck out."

"And his nose? Big or little? Heavy or thin?"

Haney considered that thoughtfully for a moment before he answered.

Then:

"Sort o' medium nose, Boss, with a point on it."

"And a thin face, naturally. How much did he weigh?"

"Oh, he was a little feller--skinny, you know. I reckon he didn't weigh no more'n a hundred an' twenty-five or thirty."

Some germ had been born in the fertile mind of Mr. Birnes; now it burst into maturity. He leaned forward in his chair and stared coldly at Haney.

"Perhaps," he suggested slowly, "perhaps he had a scar on his face?"

Haney returned the gaze dully for an instant, then suddenly he nodded his head.

"Yes, a scar," he said.

"From here?" Mr. Birnes placed one finger on the point of his chin and drew it across his right jaw.

"Yes, a scar--that's it;" the prisoner acquiesced, "from his chin almost around to his ear."

Mr. Birnes came to his feet, while the official police stared. The chief sat down again and crossed his fat legs.

"Why, what do _you_ know, Birnes?" he queried.

"I know the _man_, Chief," the detective burst out confidently. "I'd gamble my head on it. I knew it! I knew it!" he told himself. Again he faced the tramp: "Haney, do you know how much the diamonds you had were worth?"

"Must 'a' been three or four hundred dollars."

"Something like fifty thousand dollars," Mr. Birnes informed him impressively; "and if you got fifty thousand dollars for your share the other man got a million."

Haney only stared.

CHAPTER XIII

MR. CZENKI APPEARS

Half an hour later Mr. Birnes, Chief Arkwright and Detective Sergeant Connelly were on a train, bound for Coaldale. Mr. Birnes had left them for a moment at the ferry and rushed into a telephone booth.

When he came out he was exuberantly triumphant.

"It's my man, all right," he a.s.sured the chief. "He has been missing since Friday night, and no one knows his whereabouts. It's my man."

It was an hour's ride to Coaldale, a sprawling, straggly village with only four or five houses in sight from the station. When the three men left the train there, Mr. Birnes walked over and spoke to the agent, a thin, cadaverous, tobacco-chewing specimen of his species.

"We are looking for an old gentleman who lives out here somewhere,"

he explained. "He probably lives alone, and we've been told that he has a little cottage somewhere over this way."

He waved his hand vaguely to the right, in accordance with the directions of Red Haney. The station agent scratched his stubbly chin, and spat with great accuracy through a knot-hole ten feet away.

"'Spect you mean old man Kellner," he replied obligingly. "He lives by hisself part of the time; then again sometimes his grand-darter lives with him."

Granddaughter! Mr. Birnes almost jumped.