you know” - to Hotchkiss - “that the police were here while we were at Cresson, and that they found the bag that I brought from the wreck?”
“Things are coming to a head,” he said thoughtfully “unless a little plan that I have in mind - ” he hesitated.
“I hope so; I am pretty nearly desperate,” I said doggedly. “I’ve got a mental toothache, and the sooner it’s pulled the better.”
“Tut, tut,” said McKnight, “think of the disgrace to the firm if its senior member goes up for life, or - ” he twisted his handkerchief into a noose, and went through an elaborate pantomime.
“Although jail isn’t so bad, anyhow,” he finished, “there are fellows that get the habit and keep going back and going back.” He looked at his watch, and I fancied his cheerfulness was strained. Hotchkiss was nervously fumbling my book.
“Did you ever read The Purloined Letter, Mr Blakeley?” he inquired.
“Probably, years ago,” I said. “Poe, isn’t it?”
He was choked at my indifference. “It is a masterpiece,” he said, with enthusiasm. “I re-read it to-day.”
“And what happened?”
“Then I inspected the rooms in the house off Washington Circle. I - I made some discoveries, Mr. Blakeley. For one thing, our man there is left-handed.” He looked around for our approval. “There was a small cushion on the dresser, and the scarf pins in it had been stuck in with the left hand.”
“Somebody may have twisted the cushion,” I objected, but he looked hurt, and I desisted.
“There is only one discrepancy,” he admitted, “but it troubles me. According to Mrs. Carter, at the farmhouse, our man wore gaudy pajamas, while I found here only the most severely plain night-shirts.”
“Any buttons off?” McKnight inquired, looking again at his watch.
“The buttons were there,” the amateur detective answered gravely, “but the buttonhole next the top one was torn through.”
McKnight winked at me furtively.
“I am convinced of one thing,” Hotchkiss went on, clearing his throat, “the papers are not in that room. Either he carries them with him, or he has sold them.”
A sound on the street made both my visitors listen sharply. Whatever it was it passed on, however. I was growing curious and the restraint was telling on McKnight. He has no talent for secrecy. In the interval we discussed the strange occurrence at Cresson, which lost nothing by Hotchkiss’ dry narration.
“And so,” he concluded, “the woman in the Baltimore hospital is the wife of Henry Sullivan and the daughter of the man he murdered. No wonder he collapsed when he heard of the wreck.”
“Joy, probably,” McKnight put in. “Is that clock right, Lawrence? Never mind, it doesn’t matter. By the way, Mrs. Conway dropped in the office yesterday, while you were away.”
“What!” I sprang from my chair.
“Sure thing. Said she had heard great things of us, and wanted us to handle her case against the railroad.”
“I would like to know what she is driving at,” I reflected. “Is she trying to reach me through you?”
Richey’s flippancy is often a cloak for deeper feeling. He dropped it now. “Yes,” he said, “she’s after the notes, of course. And I’ll tell you I felt like a poltroon - whatever that may be - when I turned her down. She stood by the door with her face white, and told me contemptuously that I could save you from a murder charge and wouldn’t do it. She made me feel like a cur. I was just as guilty as if I could have obliged her. She hinted that there were reasons and she laid my attitude to beastly motives.”
“Nonsense,” I said, as easily as I could. Hotchkiss had gone to the window. “She was excited. There are no ‘reasons,’ whatever she means.”
Richey put his hand on my shoulder. “We’ve been together too long to let any ‘reasons’ or ‘unreasons’ come between us, old man,” he said, not very steadily. Hotchkiss, who had been silent, here came forward in his most impressive manner. He put his hands under his coat-tails and coughed.
“Mr. Blakeley,” he began, “by Mr. McKnight’s advice we have arranged a little interview here to-night. If all has gone as I planned, Mr. Henry Pinckney Sullivan is by this time under arrest. Within a very few minutes - he will be here.”
“I wanted to talk to him before be was locked up,” Richey explained. “He’s clever enough to be worth knowing, and, besides, I’m not so cocksure of his guilt as our friend the Patch on the Seat of Government. No murderer worthy of the name needs six different motives for the same crime, beginning with robbery, and ending with an unpleasant father-in-law.”
We were all silent for a while. McKnight stationed himself at a window, and Hotchkiss paced the floor expectantly. “It’s a great day for modern detective methods,” he chirruped. “While the police have been guarding houses and standing with their mouths open waiting for clues to fall in and choke them, we have pieced together, bit by bit, a fabric - ”
The door-bell rang, followed immediately by sounds of footsteps in the hall. McKnight threw the door open, and Hotchkiss, raised on his toes, flung out his arm in a gesture of superb eloquence.
“Behold - your man!” he declaimed.
Through the open doorway came a tall, blond fellow, clad in light gray, wearing tan shoes, and followed closely by an officer.
“I brought him here as you suggested, Mr. McKnight,” said the constable.
But McKnight was doubled over the library table in silent convulsions of mirth, and I was almost as bad. Little Hotchkiss stood up, his important attitude finally changing to one of chagrin, while the blond man ceased to look
