The Winning Clue Part 41

"Naturally. There you have the motive and the murder--the proof that he said he would rob, and the indisputable evidence that he did rob and kill. Why, he brought away with him particles of the victim's body! What more do you want?"

For a long moment their glances interlocked and held. In a sharp, intuitive way Braceway felt that Bristow suspected his concern about George Withers. He did not know why he suspected it, but he did. He was convinced that the other, with his darting, a.n.a.lytical mind, had gone to the secret unerringly.

"Oh, well," he laughed, rising from the table, "if you're so fond of your own ideas, Bristow, you won't be of much use to me in questioning Morley tonight."

"On the contrary," the other returned quickly, "I'm just as anxious as you are to get the truth out of him. As long as one man's story is left vague and indefinite, just that long you run the risk of somebody's coming forward with facts or conjectures to overthrow the theory you've advanced. It applies to my idea as well as to yours."

"No doubt."

"You know as well as I do," the lame man continued, "that, if Perry Carpenter isn't guilty, the next one to suspect logically is Withers."

"What makes you say that?" The question was put sharply.

"I've two reasons. In the first place, the facts and Withers' own story; in the second, common sense."

The telephone rang. When Bristow answered it, a man's voice asked for Braceway. Major Ross himself was on the wire.

"I had the man in Baltimore interviewed," he reported. "Here is his story in a few words: some years ago Morley's father bought from his shop a pair of earrings, each one set with an unusually valuable pigeon's-blood ruby, and gave them to Mrs. Morley. Young Morley, now in trouble, took him this morning the two stones and asked him to buy them back. He explained that it must be done secretly because he might be suspected of having been implicated in a murder.

"He denied any guilt, but said it would embarra.s.s him if the deal became known. The owner of the shop--you understand who--could not buy them back, but promised to raise money on them, something he'd never done before. He was greatly affected by Morley's grief and despair. He says the rubies are the ones he sold years ago."

"Did he raise the money?"

"He tried, but couldn't get the sum Morley wanted, seven hundred dollars.

Finally, he did advance it from his own pocket."

"And the stones? How do they compare with those on the list of Withers'

stuff?"

"Identical."

"All right; thanks. We'll see you at eight."

Braceway repeated the report to Bristow, eliciting the comment:

"Is somebody trying to make fun of us--or what is it? If those rubies belonged to Mrs. Withers, one thing at least is certain: Morley was in the bungalow the night of the murder, and after the murder had been committed. Miss Fulton distinctly told me the only jewelry that had ever pa.s.sed between her and Morley was the ring found in his room in the Brevord that morning."

Braceway laughed aloud.

"At last," he said, "You're beginning to see the light--or to appreciate the jungle we're running around in."

He had arranged for them to meet Major Ross at the station house of No. 7 police precinct. Since it was off the princ.i.p.al beats of police reporters, Morley was detained there.

Bristow went into his bedroom, where Miss Martin gave him another dose of strychnine. He asked her to await his return--not that he expected to be in need of her, he said, but just to be on the safe side. He waved aside Braceway's solicitousness about his strength.

As they stepped into the corridor, a boy handed Braceway a telegram. He read it, and, without a word, handed it to Bristow. It said:

"Two diamonds and two emeralds, unset, apparently part of Withers jewelry, p.a.w.ned here about two-thirty this afternoon by medium-sized man; a little slim; black moustache; high, straight nose; bushy eyebrows; very thin lips; gray eyes; age between thirty and forty; weight 140 pounds. Two p.a.w.nshops used. No trace of him yet."

It was signed by the chief of the Baltimore plain-clothes force.

"What do you think of that?" asked Braceway, his voice hard.

"This Morley," answered Bristow, his voice equally hard, "must have lost his mind."

They went down and took a cab.

"That description," the lame man was thinking, as they rolled through the streets toward the northwest part of the city, "fits Withers perfectly, except for the moustache and the colour of the eyes. But that's absurd.

I'd like to----"

He began again to wonder what, in addition to the capture of the guilty man, had brought Braceway to Was.h.i.+ngton. With his highly sensitized brain, he had received the impression that there was joined to the case some event or interest of which he had not the slightest inkling. How was Morley hooked up with the hidden phase of the affair? He intended to know all they knew about the whole business.

If Morley knew the secret--there was Maria Fulton! Incredulous for a moment, he considered an entirely new idea. His incredulity vanished--and he knew!

He lay back against the cab cus.h.i.+on and laughed, silently. His mirth grew. His laughter was almost beyond control. This was the thing that had bothered him, the "hidden angle" that had escaped him. He laughed until he shook. He had to put his hand to his mouth to prevent bursting into prolonged, riotous guffaws.

That was it--Withers and Fulton, and Braceway of course, were afraid of Morley, afraid of what he might say; not about events of the night of the murder, but what he might reveal concerning----

He struggled again with his consuming mirth. He saw now that he had handled everything exactly as it should have been handled.

Now, more than ever before, he was interested in what the embezzler would say under their examination and cross-questioning. It was like a game in which he, Bristow, was the a.s.sured winner before even the first move was made. He knew already the very thing they were so intent on concealing.

CHAPTER XXII

A CONFESSION

Bristow, satisfied now that he had fathomed Braceway's reluctance to accept as final the case against Perry Carpenter, had not been the only one mystified by the detective's course. Practically every other detective and police official in the country was wondering what secret motive had impelled Braceway to keep public attention focused on the tragedy after a flawless case against the real murderer had been established.

They knew that he was in the employ of the husband and father of the murdered woman, and that, therefore, his acts had the endors.e.m.e.nt of her family. What, then, they asked, was the true situation back of the pursuit and persecution of the bank clerk, Henry Morley?

What possible interest could they have in running him down, in ruining his standing? What contingency was powerful enough to compel their approval of Braceway's forcing the conclusion upon the mind of the public that an ugly scandal had touched Mrs. Withers?

And this question, at first whispered in the gossip in Furmville, had crept into the newspaper dispatches. The result was a morbid curiosity generally, and, in the minds of many, a belief that Braceway would fasten the crime on Morley. There were, however, a few who took the position that Morley, even if he had not committed the murder, had knowledge of some fact or facts even more terrible than the crime itself.

Major Ross awaited the two men in a large, bare-walled room on the second floor of the station house. The night was oppressively warm, and the tall, narrow windows were thrown open. Like Braceway, Bristow took off his coat, the absence of it showing plainly the outline of his heavy belt and steel brace.

Morley was ushered in and given one of the plain, straight-backed chairs with which the room was furnished. The only other furniture was a deal table, behind which Braceway, Bristow, and Major Ross sat in lounging att.i.tudes. The major, aside from his interest in the case, was there merely as a matter of courtesy, a compliment to Braceway's reputation.

The prisoner, a few feet from them across the table, was suggestive of neither resistance nor mental alertness. Above his limp collar and loosened cravat, his face looked haggard and drawn. It was without a vestige of colour save for the blue shadows under his eyes. There was a tremor on his lips almost continuously.

Once or twice throughout the whole interview, his eyes brightened momentarily with a hint of cunning or attempted cunning. Except for these few flashes, he was manifestly beaten, unnerved, suffering from a simultaneous desire and inability to weigh and ponder what he said.

Braceway began, in quick, incisive sentences: