Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist Part 38

The face of the broken-nosed man went white.

"What did they say?" he demanded. "They're liars. What did they say? I didn't do a thing!"

"Well, if you didn't, the best thing to do is to clear yourself of suspicion by telling all you know. I have had it from two different sources that you had business with the Bounder that night. What was its nature?"

Fenton hesitated a moment; his furtive mind was working desperately for a way to avoid admitting light upon his doings; but apparently he could think of none, for he said, slowly:

"I'd been acquainted with Tom Burton for years; sometimes I wouldn't see anything of him for a long time; and then," bitterly, "I'd know he was flush. He never came near me unless he was broke and wanted something done. A couple of weeks ago he showed up and handed me the details of a little game that looked like easy money; I was to work it and we were to split the proceeds, fifty-fifty."

"And this, I suppose, is the matter he came to see you about on the night he was killed?"

"Yes," answered Fenton, and he laughed as he said it. "That's the thing.

He came around like a lord and put his mitt out for his cut of the plunder. He had an easy way of doing things--so easy that he often took people by surprise and got by with it. But this time he was in wrong; I'd been dumped by him so often that I was cagy. I'd looked over the game he'd handed me--give it a good, careful look, mind you, and I found there was about twenty per cent. profit and eighty per cent danger. He was to cut the twenty with me, but I was to take all of the eighty."

"Just like them kind of people," said Hutchinson. "They're always looking for somebody to take their chances and feed them pap."

"So I called off on the thing," said Fenton; "and when he came around on the night he said he would, I laid him out--strong--for trying to get me into such a thing. When he found I'd side-stepped him and there was no easy money for him, he pulled back and hit me, and then walked out, expecting to get away with it. I dipped for my gun, I was so sore, but Hutchinson, here, stopped me. Then I knew that to gun him would be a b.o.o.b play; but I meant to get back at him, so I followed him for a chance to lay him out."

The man paused for a moment or two; the b.a.l.l.s clicked about the tables; the clouds of tobacco smoke drifted among the bright white lights overhead; the players talked monotonously among themselves.

"He went to an old-fashioned part of the town," said Fenton, "and before I had a chance had gone into a swell-looking house. He was inside for about half an hour and I waited for him. When he came out he'd no sooner hit the sidewalk than I knew something had happened to him. And it was something good. Before he'd gone in he pulled along pretty slow with his head down; but now he was chipper and feeling good. As he pa.s.sed where I was hid I heard him laugh. I wondered what it was that was doing it, and in a couple of minutes I found out. He stopped under a light and took something out of his overcoat pocket. I was near enough to get a slant at it, and saw he had a whole handful of diamonds."

Hutchinson drew in a long breath; Ashton-Kirk looked at Scanlon, and that gentleman nodded his satisfaction with the apparent straightforwardness of the story.

"So, after he had flashed a thing like that," said Fenton, "I altered my mind a little; I wouldn't do any strong-arm stuff; I'd try and stand it on the sparks. At first Burton didn't seem to know what to do; he stopped a couple of times as if he was thinking; then he seemed to grab at an idea and started off for the railroad station. He bought a ticket and boarded a local train, and I followed him. He got off at Stanwick and went at once to the house on Duncan Street.

"I walked into the side yard, for it was pretty dark there at first; but then the moon came out from behind some buildings and flooded all over the place, and I had to stick close to the side of the house where the shadows were."

"Didn't you go to the other side at all?" asked Ashton Kirk.

"Yes; a couple of times, but I couldn't stay long, for I was afraid some one would see me. Once I looked in at a window that was lighted up, and there was the Bounder talking to some one, and he was laughing and showing her diamonds."

"Is that all you saw?"

Fenton shook his head.

"No," said he, "it wasn't. I saw a woman a little while later; she was snooping around in the dark, and then she hid behind a kind of a thing that they grow vines over and watched the window."

"What else did you see?" There was a silence after this question; as Fenton squirmed and shifted his eyes like a trapped tiger, Ashton-Kirk went on: "Remember, there has been a direct charge against you--that you killed the man you followed from this place."

"That's a lie," said Fenton. "It's a lie! I didn't! It was that woman killed him. And I saw her do it!"

CHAPTER XXIV

MR. QUIGLEY IS INTERVIEWED

For a moment there was a halt; Ashton-Kirk, Hutchinson and Scanlon looked at the broken-nosed man without speaking, and the heart of the big athlete turned sick at what he had heard.

"You saw her strike the blow?" asked the investigator.

"Yes--with a big bra.s.s thing. I thought it was a poker; but the papers said afterward it was a candlestick, and I guess it was."

"What did you do after seeing this?"

"It got into my head that Duncan Street was no healthy place for me, and I'd have jumped out of sight, only for seeing the woman take the diamonds."

"She took them, then?"

"It was the first thing she did. I hung to the outside door waiting for her. But she fooled me. She must have gone out some other way, for I heard the gate click, and saw something in the shadow of the trees on the sidewalk. I hurried out there, but she was gone; I didn't get another peep at her."

Ashton-Kirk smiled.

"That is," said he, quietly, "not until to-day, at Quigley's."

Fenton's lower jaw dropped, and he stared at the investigator vacantly.

"At Quigley's!" said he.

"You saw her come down the hall while you were at the broker's door,"

said Ashton-Kirk. "And while she bargained with Quigley for a price on a diamond necklace, you were looking in once more. She wore a veil, but veils are not always dependable disguises."

"I don't know how you got that," said Fenton, at last, "but it's true, all right. I spotted her as soon as I saw her; the veil might as well not been there."

Ashton-Kirk drew on his gloves.

"Perhaps to-morrow you'll be called upon to repeat what you've said to-night. So hold yourself ready."

"All right," said the broken-nosed man, sullenly. "You know where to find me, I guess."

"Oh, yes." The investigator turned to Hutchinson, and continued: "I'm obliged to you: you have facilitated matters greatly, and perhaps saved Mr. Fenton from something rather serious. Good-night."

Followed by Scanlon, Ashton-Kirk left the place; a score of yards away the investigator gave a low whistle and a shadow flitted across the street to his side.

"There's a man inside there I want you to keep in sight, Fuller," said the investigator. "The name is Fenton, and he has a broken nose."

"Oh, yes, I know him," said Fuller, readily. "Used to be a tout in the old Sheepshead Bay days."

"Good!" said Ashton-Kirk. "Don't let him slip you. It's important."

Fuller at once started toward Gaffney's; and the investigator and Scanlon made their way out of the back-water into the swirling, high-colored avenue. At a druggist's Ashton-Kirk paused, and the two went in. A telephone book was flipped over until the letter Q was reached.

"Ah, yes," said the investigator. "Mr. Quigley lives at the Doric Apartments." Then as he closed the book: "I trust we shall find him at home."

Scanlon said nothing while the other called a taxi, and when the vehicle arrived, they got in, Ashton-Kirk giving the driver the address wanted.