“I’ve been up in the room where the man lay while he was unable to get away, and there is nothing there. But I found what may be a possible clue in the dust heap.
“Mrs. Carter tells me that in unpacking his grip the other day she took out of the coat of the pajamas some pieces of a telegram. As I figure it, the pajamas were his own. He probably had them on when he effected the exchange.”
I nodded assent. All I had retained of my own clothing was the suit of pajamas I was wearing and my bathrobe.
“Therefore the telegram was his, not yours. I have pieces here, but some are missing. I am not discouraged, however.”
He spread out some bits of yellow paper, and we bent over them curiously. It was something like this:
Man with p-Get- Br—
We spelled it out slowly.
“Now,” Hotchkiss announced, “I make it something like this: The ‘p.-‘ is one of two things, pistol - you remember the little pearl-handled affair belonging to the murdered man - or it is pocketbook. I am inclined to the latter view, as the pocketbook had been disturbed and the pistol had not.”
I took the piece of paper from the table and scrawled four words on it.
“Now,” I said, rearranging them, “it happens, Mr. Hotchkiss, that I found one of these pieces of the telegram on the train. I thought it had been dropped by some one else, you see, but that’s immaterial.
Arranged this way it almost makes sense. Fill out that ‘p.-‘ with the rest of the word, as I imagine it, and it makes ‘papers,’ and add this scrap and you have:
“‘Man with papers (in) lower ten, car seven. Get (them).’
McKnight slapped Hotchkiss on the back. “You’re a trump,” he said. “Br-is Bronson, of course. It’s almost too easy. You see, Mr. Blakeley here engaged lower ten, but found it occupied by the man who was later murdered there. The man who did the thing was a friend of Bronson’s, evidently, and in trying to get the papers we have the motive for the crime.”
“There are still some things to be explained.” Mr. Hotchkiss wiped his glasses and put them on. “For one thing, Mr. Blakeley, I am puzzled by that bit of chain.”
I did not glance at McKnight. I felt that the hand, with which I was gathering up the bits of torn paper were shaking. It seemed to me that this astute little man was going to drag in the girl in spite of me.
CHAPTER XVIII
A NEW WORLD
Hotchkiss jotted down the bits of telegram and rose.
“Well,” he said, “we’ve done something. We’ve found where the murderer left the train, we know what day he went to Baltimore, and, most important of all, we have a motive for the crime.
“It seems the irony of fate,” said McKnight, getting up, “that a man should kill another man for certain papers he is supposed to be carrying, find he hasn’t got them after all, decide to throw suspicion on another man by changing berths and getting out, bag and baggage, and then, by the merest fluke of chance, take with him, in the valise he changed for his own, the very notes he was after. It was a bit of luck for him.”
“Then why,” put in Hotchkiss doubtfully, “why did he collapse when he heard of the wreck? And what about the telephone message the station agent sent? You remember they tried to countermand it, and with some excitement.”
“We will ask him those questions when we get him,” McKnight said. We were on the unrailed front porch by that time, and Hotchkiss had put away his notebook. The mother of the twins followed us to the steps.
“Dear me,” she exclaimed volubly, “and to think I was forgetting to tell you! I put the young man to bed with a spice poultice on his ankle: my mother always was a firm believer in spice poultices. It’s wonderful what they will do in croup! And then I took the children and went down to see the wreck. It was Sunday, and the mister had gone to church; hasn’t missed a day since he took the pledge nine years ago. And on the way I met two people, a man and a woman. They looked half dead, so I sent them right here for breakfast and some soap and water. I always say soap is better than liquor after a shock.”
Hotchkiss was listening absently: McKnight was whistling under his breath, staring down across the field to where a break in the woods showed a half dozen telegraph poles, the line of the railroad.
“It must have been twelve o’clock when we got back; I wanted the children to see everything, because it isn’t likely they’ll ever see another wreck like that. Rows of - ”
“About twelve o’clock,” I broke in, “and what then?”
“The young man upstairs was awake,” she went on, “and hammering at his door like all possessed. And it was locked on the outside!” She paused to enjoy her sensation.
“I would like to see that lock,” Hotchkiss said promptly, but for some reason the woman demurred.
“I will bring the key down,” she said and disappeared. When she returned she held out an ordinary door key of the cheapest variety.
“We had to break the lock,” she volunteered, “and the key didn’t turn up for two days. Then one of the twins found the turkey gobbler trying to swallow it. It has been washed since,” she hastened to assure Hotchkiss, who showed an inclination to drop it.
“You don’t think he locked the door himself and threw the key out of the window?” the little man asked.
“The windows are covered with mosquito netting, nailed on. The mister blamed it on the children, and it might have been Obadiah. He’s the quiet kind, and you never know what he’s about.”
“He’s about to strangle, isn’t he,” McKnight remarked lazily, “or is that Obadiah?”
