Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist Part 20

"Not yet. Let's go around to Joey Loo's."

The two left the hotel, and pa.s.sed through a tangle of narrow, forlorn looking streets; then they turned into a cellar opening, with dirty wooden steps and a gla.s.s-paneled door upon which was painted some Chinese characters in brilliant red. The warm, moist breath of oriental cookery was thick around them as they sat down at one of the small tables, and Scanlon looked about. Some patrons of both s.e.xes were already there; the women were dejected, or hard; here and there were seen a few who were merely vacant. The men were of the meagre, pallid type, nervous of action and furtive of eye. Stoical Chinamen, with soft-falling feet, carried food about.

"Great chow in this dump," said Big Slim. "I spotted it one night when I was edging away from a 'bull.' The c.h.i.n.ks can cook, and that's more than you can say of a lot of the other folks who take it into their heads to run eating places."

A fat Chinaman with a smiling face and a greasy blouse came up to them, and the burglar began pointing out to Bat the high points of the cuisine. When they had given their orders Big Slim rolled a cigarette and leaned back in his chair. A newspaper which lay upon the table caught his eye and he grinned derisively.

"Gee," said he, "the cops are the solidest chunks of ivory I ever seen.

Some of the things you read about them doing are screams."

"What now?" asked Bat, the gleam in the green eyes of the other interesting him.

Big Slim chuckled, and his shifty look went from Scanlon to the region round about them, and then back again.

"There was a fellow shoved off the other night--out in the suburbs--maybe you saw something about it? Well, the bulls made an awful mess of that. I never seen them fall down so hard before--and believe me, that's saying something."

"That was the Burton case, wasn't it? I've been following it a little,"

said Bat.

Big Slim took a deep draught from the cigarette and then flung it away.

Slowly he exhaled the smoke; and then sat looking at his companion, and cracking the joints of his bony fingers.

"That guy Burton was a slick one," said he, admiringly. "You gotta hand him that."

"You knew him, did you?" said Bat.

"A little. He done the swell mobs. Society people and gambling were other things he worked at. And it's been whispered more than once that he was handy with a pen."

"Nice work," said Bat. "But dangerous."

"About the best things he pulled were his get-aways," said Big Slim.

"The cops never got anything on him, and he'd been fooling with the edge of the law for years. His son did not inherit any of the 'Bounder's'

talent; for here he is waiting on the grand jury, charged with pushing the old man over the edge." The burglar chuckled, highly entertained.

"The cops are a fine gang when you start 'em right," said he. "And when they do get a thing, you got to put it where they'll almost fall over it."

The fat Chinaman brought the food ordered, and set it before them with a comfortable air of appreciation.

"Good!" stated he. "Vel' fine."

When he had departed and they began to test his statement, Bat spoke carelessly:

"Is it your idea that young Burton didn't have a hand in this thing?"

Big Slim blew at the steam ascending from a dish of rice.

"Sure not," said he. "I seen that guy lots of times; he's as soft as mush. You couldn't get him to b.u.mp anybody that way on a bet."

"Funny!" said Bat. "Who could have done it?"

Big Slim shook his head with the air of one who could talk eloquently if he would. For a time they ate their food in silence; then the burglar resumed:

"You know what I told you last night about the phony fighter, Allen? How I expected to turn a trick that'd get me a roll, and be able to put it up for him in that match?"

"Yes," said Bat, interested.

"I've been doing work all over the United States for a good many years,"

stated the burglar, "and I've run into some funny jobs. But this one had them all faded. You could start a thousand times and never fall like I did that time."

"Tough!" Bat nodded sagely. "A fellow remembers those things."

"I'll remember that one, all right," promised the other. "Don't let that worry you."

"Diamonds, I think you said." The big athlete looked appreciative, and labored with the Asiatic cookery.

"Some of them were as big as that," and Big Slim grouped some grains of rice upon the edge of his plate. "Not bad, eh?"

"Extra special," replied the big athlete, promptly. "Diamonds like that are only to be mentioned with great respect."

"It was one of the easiest kind of tricks to turn," said the burglar. "A woman had 'em--but I think I told you that. She wore 'em every night--and I framed the whole thing so that it couldn't fail. She lives up town, and gets home about the same time every night There was a scaffolding up the side of the house--right under her window."

Bat laughed and reached for a salt shaker with a great a.s.sumption of carelessness.

"It might have been built for you, eh?" said he. "Easy is right."

"I slipped up the scaffolding before she got home," said Big Slim, drifting, perhaps, unconsciously into the narrative. "And I was outside when she came into the room. She pulled down the blind, and then I moved over right under the window. The blind wasn't all the way down; so I laid fiat on the boards, and could see into the room."

Bat made an indefinite sort of noise down in his throat; perhaps the burglar fancied it indicated interest; at any rate he went on:

"She stood for a while, thinking. Then she begins to take off the diamonds. There was a box there, to put them in--all open and ready.

"'Fine,' thinks I, to myself. 'When they are all gathered up nice and safe, that's when I'll reach for them--then I'll be sure to have them all.'

"She was still taking them off--out of her hair, from her breast, from around her neck; then suddenly she stopped and stood still, as though she'd heard something and was listening. And then the door opens and in walks a man, all smiling and smooth, and takes off his hat."

"I see--a man she knows?"

"Her husband," said Big Slim. "Her husband that she don't live with, and believe me, she wasn't any way tickled to see him. I couldn't hear much, but every now and then I got a word or so, and was able to string the thing together. He was broke, and wanted money. She wouldn't give up. He threatened her; but she called him, strong. Then he hits her and grabs the diamonds, and was off."

"And you were left!" said Bat, displaying a grin which cost him some effort.

"Left flat!" The lank burglar pulled at his fingers until the joints cracked. "He took the whole lay-out right from under my nose."

"What did you do then?" asked Bat.

"For a couple of seconds I hung fire," said Big Slim. "I had it in my mind to jump into the room, follow, and lay him out. But a better plan came to me. Why not skim down the scaffold, and get the lad as he left the house with the stuff?"

"Good!" said Bat. "That's it!"