“Sagon, whose purpose from the first was murder, was not at all averse to combining it with something else. He took the room at Mrs. Marx’s place, after he had perceived that an entrance could probably be made at Hume’s by way of the scuttle. The well dressed ‘business guys’ that the machinist on the first floor spoke about to us, were no doubt Locke, who frequently called upon Sagon, and Mr. Morris here, whom the man did not suspect of being a lodger.
“To prove a theory that I had formed, and which I have mentioned in a vague sort of way,” went on Ashton-Kirk, “I asked Sagon why he had used a bayonet. And it turned out as I had thought. Sagon and Hume had first met at Bayonne; the greater part of their operations had been carried on there; the band had been finally rounded up and convicted there. The bayonet, so legend has it, was first made in Bayonne, and Sagon conceived that it would be a sort of poetic justice if the traitor were to die by a weapon so closely connected with the scene of his treachery.”
There was a pause after this, and then young Morris got up slowly and painfully.
“I don’t want it to be thought,” said he, “that I was directly responsible for Miss Vale’s adventure of last night—or for any of the others, for the matter of that. If I had known at the time that she proposed visiting Locke’s, or Hume’s, either upon the night of the murder, or last night, I would have prevented it.”
Ashton-Kirk nodded kindly; the young man’s position evidently appealed to him. But Pendleton sat rather stiffly in his chair and his expression never changed.
“I will now come into possession of whatever value there is in my father’s invention,” went on Morris, “and added to that, it turns out that the—the other thing, of which I stood so much in fear, has turned out favorably. But,” in a disheartened sort of way, “I don’t care much, now that my engagement with Miss Vale is broken.”
“Broken!” exclaimed Pendleton.
“I saw her this morning,” said Morris. “During the past week,” he continued, “it gradually came to me that I was not the sort of man to make her a fitting husband. I hid like a squirrel while she faced the dangers that should have been mine. I knew that she realized the situation as well as I, and I did what I could by making it easy for her.”
He paused at the door.
“If there is anything that I can do, or say in the final settlement of this case,” he added, to Ashton-Kirk, “I will gladly place myself at your services, sir. Goodbye.”
XXVI
The Finish
“For the first time,” said Pendleton, as the door closed upon Allan Morris, “I can feel sorry for him. To lose a girl like Edyth Vale is indeed a calamity. Think of the courage she’s shown—of what she was willing to do. Why, Kirk, she’s one in ten thousand.”
But Ashton-Kirk only nodded; he had arisen upon the departure of Morris, and was now drawing on a pair of gloves. The splendid qualities of Miss Vale apparently had little appeal for him at that moment.
“Are you ready?” he asked, in a businesslike way.
“Ready?” repeated Pendleton, surprised.
“To be sure. We can scarcely call this case complete until something has been done in the matter of Locke.”
“That’s so. But, somehow, I had the notion that your men had already attended to him.”
“I always prefer to finish my work in my own way,” said the investigator. “Osborne, as soon as he heard of Locke, through Sagon, wanted to take up the trail. But I convinced him that he’d better leave it to me.”
Pendleton clapped on his hat.
“I’m with you,” said he, “but where do you expect to find him?”
Ashton-Kirk rang for Stumph and ordered the car; then he replied:
“We’ll more than likely find him at home. Burgess followed him back to Cordova, last night.”
They went down and climbed into the car, and were soon on the road.
A little distance from the Mercer Institute they came upon a compact looking man seated upon the top rail of a fence, chewing at a straw. He wore heavy, much-splashed boots and a sun-scorched suit of clothes.
“Ah,” said Ashton-Kirk, “I see Burgess is still on the job.”
“Burgess,” echoed Pendleton. He looked at the man upon the fence in surprise; except for the very broad shoulders there was no resemblance.
However, Burgess grinned amiably through a rather neglected growth of beard.
“I expected you along about this time,” said he, to the investigator.
“Is everything all right?” asked Ashton-Kirk.
“He’s still there,” answered Burgess, and he nodded toward a house with a peaked and slated roof which stood some little distance up an intersecting road. It was the same house through the window of which Pendleton had seen Edyth Vale some nights previously, but, somehow, it seemed strange and unfamiliar in daylight.
“I can see three sides of it from here,” went on Burgess. “And if he dropped out of one of the windows on the fourth side I could sight him before he’d gone fifty yards. You may be sure he’s there, all right.”
“You’ve heard of what took place last night, I suppose?”
Burgess tapped a folded newspaper at his breast pocket.
“So has Locke,” said he. “Apparently his orders are to furnish him with the papers as soon as they arrive. A man from the Institute building brought one to him more than an hour ago.”
Just then Ashton-Kirk noted far up the road upon which Locke’s house stood, a very small buggy, drawn by an equally small horse. In the buggy sat a man whose huge bulk seemed
