Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist Part 35

"All right," said Big Slim, grinning appreciatively. "The job's in your hands. Don't be too long, for Bohlmier's waiting, and it was his idea in the first place."

"It might come off in an hour,--who knows?" said Bat. "But," with a glance at Fenton, "it does seem a pity to crush all that enthusiasm. He must be happier at this minute than he's been for years."

The broken-nosed man's excitement seemed to increase; he talked with many gestures; now and then he laughed in a delighted sort of way and slapped Hutchinson on the shoulder. The latter smoothed his waved hair and looked vastly interested; now and then when an opportunity came in Fenton's flood of talk he asked a question, and after each answer he seemed to advance a key toward the high pitch of the other.

"In a second or two," remarked Bat, in a low voice, "he'll be rumpling his hair; and if he ever does that, he'll never get over it."

For at least a half hour the talk went on between the two; at the finish Hutchinson was quite as excited as Fenton.

"It's a pipe," Bat heard him declare in an exultant tone; "a regular pipe. All we got to do is to----" Here the voice sank and he went on, his hands clutching Fenton's arms in a strong grip. The intense eagerness of the two, the excitement which one had imparted to the other, interested Bat. So many curious and unaccountable things had happened of late that he had gotten into the habit of looking for them, and it was with difficulty that he separated even ordinary occurrences from the matter which had been so growing in his mind. It might be, so ran his thought, that this incident had its place in the chain he had seen making--a tangled, hopeless chain to him, without beginning or end.

"But then again--and it's a thousand to one against--it might be nothing at all," was Bat's next judgment. "I'm getting all mixed in my signals and----"

Here he became aware that Big Slim was talking to him; the burglar had run the game out and had put away his cue.

"As you've taken on this thing for me," he was saying, "I'm going across the river to look up some prospects."

"All right," said Bat, nodding. "Go ahead. I'll stick around a while."

With a wink and a gesture of the thumb toward Fenton, Big Slim went away. Bat carelessly stepped nearer to the two men and seemed greatly interested in a racing chart posted upon the wall.

"I told you there was a chance," Fenton was saying. "Didn't I? I knew the thing would pull up at Quigley's some time or another, didn't I?"

"I didn't think much of it," said Hutchinson, with the air of one who was wrong, and is quite delighted with his bigness in acknowledging it.

"But I can see now that I didn't look at it right."

"Leave it to me," said Fenton, smiling expansively. "Little tricks like this are right in my line. And now I'll tell you what we'll do; we'll----"

But Hutchinson stopped him.

"Wait," said he. "Don't be in a rush. This ain't the kind of a thing to hurry through. You've got to take your time; you've got to think it out." The broken-nosed man seemed impressed by both the manner and the words of the other; and, noting this, Hutchinson went on: "Sleep on it.

That's a good way. And I'll do the same. Then I'll run in to your place to-morrow afternoon, and we can put your ideas into good shape."

Fenton seemed to consider this quite a sober, steadying notion, and after a few moments more of conversation the man with the ornamental hair went back to the superintending of his pool tables, and the other took his departure.

Bat followed him. The big athlete was not at all sure but that Big Slim would be lurking somewhere outside in order to see if he made any move to carry out his promise against Fenton; and to be seen close upon the trail of the broken-nosed man would be excellent testimony of his good faith.

"And then," he told himself as he went along, Fenton in plain sight, "I want to locate this party, anyway. It will be useful in the show-down."

Fenton stepped out of the little back-water in which Gaffney's place lay, and into the full flood of the glittering, high-smelling avenue.

Here there was a danger of losing him in the press and Bat increased his speed, working his way nearer to his quarry. In a few blocks there was another turn, this time into an unfrequented street which had a familiar look. Bat fell back here, and took to the opposite side, holding close to the buildings and walking upon the b.a.l.l.s of his feet so as to avoid the usual ringing heel strokes. At the mouth of an alley, Fenton slackened his speed and then disappeared. Bat, from the other side of the street, inspected the place, with mouth twisted awry.

"I've got it," said he. "That's the alley I slipped into the night I tagged after Bohlmier and his pal. And in the said alley is located the house they went into. I wonder," and here he stroked his jaw, "if this fellow with the broken nose has anything to do with the room they broke into through the wall?"

The more he considered this point, the more likely it seemed to be true; and if it were, then Ashton-Kirk had known of Fenton long since.

"Yes, he was onto him," mused Scanlon, his thoughts turning to that night's meeting with the disguised investigator in the same building.

"Kirk's had him spotted."

He lingered for some time looking into the gloom of the alley; then it occurred to him that nothing further could be done there, and that a great deal might be done somewhere else. Instantly he started along the street, heading for the same cab stand which Ashton-Kirk and himself had patronized on the night of which he had just been thinking. Here he secured a taxi, and in a short time drew up at the investigator's door.

Stumph admitted him, and as he mounted the stairs toward the study, he heard the voice of Ashton-Kirk.

"h.e.l.lo! Glad to see you." The investigator greeted him with a hand-shake. "Do you know that your office staff is also here?"

"Danny?" said Bat. "No, is he? What's the idea?"

"Came to make a report, I suppose. Didn't you get my note saying I had borrowed him for a while?"

"Oh, yes," said Bat. "That's so."

He followed the other into the study, and there they saw Danny, his red hair glowing under the lights and deep in the pages of some ill.u.s.trated papers. But he got up and stood looking at his employer with a grin.

"h.e.l.lo, Mr. Scanlon," said he. "I hope you ain't mad or nothin' for my going away and leaving the office."

"I've explained all that, Danny," said Ashton-Kirk, and Bat nodded good-humoredly. "And now let's hear what you have to tell."

"I tried to get you on the telephone an hour ago," said Danny, as they all three sat down at the table. "Maybe it was longer than that. But Mr.

Stumph said you wasn't in, and then I told him I was coming around to wait till you got here."

"Quite right," smiled the crime specialist, approvingly.

"When we left the office," Danny told Scanlon, "we took a taxi. And we went to the Chandler Building. And up on the sixteenth floor we went into an office which was empty. Mr. Ashton-Kirk told me I was to stay there and was to watch things that happened in the place across the hall."

"A sort of speculator in precious stones," said Ashton-Kirk, to Bat. "He buys and sells; and his buying is not always aboveboard. He is also a p.a.w.nbroker in a large way."

"I see," said Bat.

"There is a gla.s.s in the door of the place," proceeded Danny, eagerly, "gla.s.s that you can see through. And I could look through the keyhole of the office I was in right into Mr. Quigley's."

"Quigley's!" said Bat, anxiously, for this was the name he had caught in the excited conversation between Fenton and Hutchinson.

"That's the name of the man who keeps the diamond place," Danny informed him. "There was little boxes, like stalls, right up at a counter, and all with doors on them. People went into these, and then n.o.body could see who they were. Mr. Quigley would stand back of the counter and talk to them; you could see _him_, all right, and the safe where he keeps his money and watches and things. There was a good many people went in--some of them ladies--and I thought I'd get a sore eye from peeping through the keyhole; but there wasn't anybody," to Ashton-Kirk, "like the one you told me about."

"You are sure?" asked the investigator.

"Now wait!" begged Danny, who had no desire to spoil the effect of his story by over-haste. "At noon time the waiter from the lunch place came up and handed me in the eats you said he would. While I was feeding myself, I stood up close, to the door so's I could hear if any one stopped at the shop across the way. If they didn't, then I didn't have to peep."

"A good idea," approved Ashton-Kirk.

"So that's what I done after that," said Danny. "When I heard anybody open Quigley's door I looked out to see if it was the lady you wanted.

After a while I heard somebody walk down the hall and stop outside my door. They didn't go in at the diamond place, and they didn't go on along down the hall, so I peeped to see who it was. I knowed it would be a man, because he walked so heavy.

"But he stood so close up to my door that I could see only a piece of his back; after a bit, though, he got across the hall, and I had a good shot at him; he was kind of bent over and was looking into Quigley's, too. While he was there I heard somebody else coming, and this time it was a lady, because she came click-click-click like ladies do with their high heels. And as soon as he heard the noise, the man at the door of the diamond place beat it along the hall in a hurry. And then the lady went into Quigley's."

"What sort of a lady?" asked Ashton-Kirk.

"I don't know," replied Danny, apologetically. "She had a veil on that covered over her face; but she was a young lady; I could see that by her dress and her shoes and her hat. She went into one of the little stalls, and Mr. Quigley commenced to talk to her. And then the man who had been looking in at the door came back and began to look in again, only this time he seemed like he was excited about something. He was afraid to stand up and look straight in like he did before; he only peeped in at one edge, and so I could see in, too. After Mr. Quigley talked to the lady a while I seen her hands, with gloves on them, reach out of the stall toward him, and they had a necklace in them that I'll bet was diamonds."