“Think Porky was coming clean?” I asked.
“Chances are—but you can’t gamble on him.”
“Is Orrett acquainted here?”
“Doesn’t seem to be. Knows where he wants to go but has to ask how to get there. Hasn’t spoken to anybody that seemed to know him.”
“What’s he like?”
“Not the kind of egg you’d want to tangle with offhand, if you ask me. He and Cudner would make a good pair. They don’t look alike. This egg is tall and slim, but he’s built right—those fast, smooth muscles. Face is sharp without being thin, if you get me. I mean all the lines in it are straight. No curves. Chin, nose, mouth, eyes—all straight, sharp lines and angles. Looks like the kind of egg we know Cudner is. Make a good pair. Dresses well and doesn’t look like a rowdy—but harder than hell! A big game hunter! Our meat, I bet you!”
“It doesn’t look bad,” I agreed. “He came to the hotel the morning of the day the men were killed, and checked out the next morning. He packs a rod, and changed his name after he left. And now he’s paired off with The Darkman. It doesn’t look bad at all!”
“I’m telling you,” Dick said, “this fellow looks like three killings wouldn’t disturb his rest any. I wonder where Cudner fits in.”
“I can’t guess. But, if he and Orrett haven’t connected yet, then Cudner wasn’t in on the murders; but he may give us the answer.”
Then I jumped out of bed.
“I’m going to gamble on Porky’s dope being on the level! How would you describe Cudner?”
“You know him better than I do.”
“Yes, but how would you describe him to me if I didn’t know him?”
“A little fat guy with a red forked scar on his left cheek. What’s the idea?”
“It’s a good one,” I admitted. “That scar makes all the difference in the world. If he didn’t have it and you were to describe him you’d go into all the details of his appearance. But he has it, so you simply say, ‘A little fat guy with a red forked scar on his left cheek.’ It’s a ten to one that that’s just how he has been described to Orrett. I don’t look like Cudner, but I’m his size and build, and with a scar on my face Orrett will fall for me.”
“What then?”
“There’s no telling; but I ought to be able to learn a lot if I can get Orrett talking to me as Cudner. It’s worth a try anyway.”
“You can’t get away with it—not in San Francisco. Cudner is too well known.”
“What difference does that make, Dick? Orrett is the only one I want to fool. If he takes me for Cudner, well and good. If he doesn’t, still well and good. I won’t force myself on him.”
“How are you going to fake the scar?”
“Easy! We have pictures of Cudner, showing the scar, in the criminal gallery. I’ll get some collodion—it’s sold in drug stores under several trade names for putting on cuts and scratches—color it, and imitate Cudner’s scar on my cheek. It dries with a shiny surface and, put on thick, will stand out just enough to look like an old scar.”
It was a little after eleven the following night when Dick telephoned me that Orrett was in Pigatti’s place, on Pacific Street, and apparently settled there for some little while. My scar already painted on, I jumped into a taxi and within a few minutes was talking to Dick, around the corner from Pigatti’s.
“He’s sitting at the last table back on the left side. And he was alone when I came out. You can’t miss him. He’s the only egg in the joint with a clean collar.”
“You better stick outside—half a block or so away—with the taxi,” I told Dick. “Maybe brother Orrett and I will leave together and I’d just as leave have you standing by in case things break wrong.”
Pigatti’s place is a long, narrow, low-ceilinged cellar, always dim with smoke. Down the middle runs a narrow strip of bare floor for dancing. The rest of the floor is covered with closely packed tables, whose cloths are always soiled; and the management hasn’t yet verified the rumor that the country has gone dry.
Most of the tables were occupied when I came in, and half a dozen couples were dancing. Few of the faces to be seen were strangers to the morning line up at police headquarters.
Peering through the smoke, I saw Orrett at once, seated alone in a far corner, looking at the dancers with the set blank face of one who masks an all-seeing watchfulness. I walked down the other side of the room and crossed the strip of dance-floor directly under a light, so that the scar might be clearly visible to him. Then I selected a vacant table not far from his, and sat down facing him.
Ten minutes passed while he pretended an interest in the dancers and I affected a thoughtful stare at the dirty cloth on my table; but neither of us missed so much as a flicker of the other’s lids.
His eyes—grey eyes that were pale without being shallow, with black needlepoint pupils—met mine after a while in a cold, steady, inscrutable stare; and, very slowly, he got to his feet. One hand—his right—in a side pocket of his dark coat, he walked straight across to my table and sat down opposite me.
“Cudner?”
“Looking for me, I hear,” I replied, trying to match the icy smoothness of his voice, as I was matching the steadiness of his gaze.
He had sat down with his left side turned slightly toward me, which put his right arm in not too cramped a position for straight shooting from the pocket that still held his hand.
“You were looking for me,
