Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist Part 40

Scanlon needed only one glance.

"They are," returned he; "I'd know this necklace among a thousand."

"The lady who left them with me," said Quigley, still hopeful, "was quite respectable. I'd vouch for that at any time. She is a widow and was once in good circ.u.mstances."

"You know her, then?" said Ashton-Kirk.

"Oh, yes; we have had a number of small----" But here the man paused abruptly; then he began a fit of coughing which was unquestionably intended to cover the break. "Oh, yes," he resumed, "I know her quite well."

"You were about to say," spoke Ashton-Kirk, coolly, "that you have had a number of small transactions with her. How recent were these?"

Quigley blew his nose violently and cleared his throat, as though the coughing spell had left him in an obstructed condition.

"Why," he gasped, trying to a.s.sume a most confidential manner, "that would be rather difficult to say. You see, I keep a very neglectful run of these people, and my memory is really very poor."

"The necklace was not the only jewel stolen at Stanwick," said Ashton-Kirk, quietly. "There were a number of other pieces, and I must really insist that you cudgel your mind for the facts. You must have entries somewhere in your books. I am asking this as a favor; of course, if the police were requested to appear in the matter they would use methods entirely different from----"

"It is barely possible that my clerk has some record of these things,"

said Quigley, hastily. "Just one moment, please, and I will ascertain."

He went into an inner office, took a book from a desk drawer and began turning the leaves with a moistened thumb. Scanlon, catching the eye of the investigator, winked knowingly.

"Why, to be sure," said Quigley. "Of course! Here it is, fortunately.

She has been in the office three times in the past week."

Ashton-Kirk stepped behind the counter and into the inner office, and coolly looked over the broker's shoulder.

"Do you see?" asked Quigley. "Right here. There are three rings in one item; and there is a brooch in another. And then, of course, the necklace."

Ashton-Kirk examined the entries and made some memoranda in a small book; then he began asking some questions in a voice so low that Scanlon caught only a word here and there. He recognized "woman," also "veil,"

and in another place "this afternoon." It were as though Ashton-Kirk were urging the man to accompany him somewhere, which Quigley seemed loth to do. Then the investigator took something from his pocket and showed it to the other. Bat caught a flash of it; it was a photograph--of Nora Cavanaugh, and the broker was now nodding his head eagerly as he gazed at it.

"They're going to Nora's," was what flashed through Bat's brain. "This hound of a p.a.w.n-broker'll try and put something on her whether it's true or not." His mind seethed with this for a moment, and then came another idea. "But they'll not take her by surprise; I'll get there before them, and tell her."

And silently Mr. Scanlon slipped through the hall door and was gone.

CHAPTER XXV

NORA TALKS AND SCANLON LISTENS

As Bat Scanlon stepped out of the street car which took him to Nora Cavanaugh's house, he looked at his watch. It was almost midnight.

"She'll have had time to get home," he said to himself, "but maybe it'll be too late to see her."

But he set his jaw at this thought, and shook his head with a bull-like motion. He sprang up the steps and pulled at the bell viciously. To his surprise the door opened at once, and he saw Nora in her coat and furs, a veil over her face, standing in the hall.

"Bat!" she said, and stood staring at him.

"Just come in?" he asked.

"No," was the answer. "I--I----"

"Just going out, then. I see."

There was something in his manner and tone which caused her to look at him steadily. Then with a little gesture she said:

"Will you come in?"

He entered and she closed the door; as he stood there turning his hat about in his hands, he looked very big and stubborn--and, if you understood him very well, as Nora did--very much afraid.

"It is late," she said. "Is anything wrong?"

"There will be," said Bat "There will be unless something is done to head it off."

Without a word she led the way into a room at one side; and after they had sat down, she asked:

"And now, what is it?"

"I've just been with Ashton-Kirk to see a man of the name of Quigley--a sort of p.a.w.nbroker." His eyes were upon her, but she continued to regard him steadily without any change of expression. "A necklace had been taken to him to-day by a woman--a diamond necklace." Her eyes wavered at this, and an expression of fear came into her face. There was a pause, and then Bat leaned forward and said in a lowered voice: "What made you say that you had put your jewels away in a vault?"

She arose and went to his side.

"Bat," she said, "I felt sure your friend Mr. Ashton-Kirk would find me out. I knew from the first that I was not cunning enough to conceal anything from him."

"Nora," said Scanlon, as he, too, arose, "why did you try?" Again there was a pause, and again the big athlete broke the silence. "As I have told you more than once," said he, "I believe in you; nothing can shake me from that. There are a great many things you have said and done that I do not understand; others of them I see through, though you did not intend that I should. Why was all this? Why didn't you tell me the facts as they stood?"

"Bat," she said, "I didn't dare; I was afraid."

"Afraid? Of what?" He looked down at her; her face was pale; her gloved hands were clasped, tremblingly. "That night when Tom Burton came here, he struck you. We saw the mark, but you said it was caused by something else. He also stole your jewels, but you said nothing. Nora, was there any good reason why you should have misled us like that?"

She reached out and touched his arm.

"I can see," she said, "that it will be useless to carry the thing any further. I did think I could manage it myself, but I see now that it was hopeless from the start. Will you sit down?" There was a certain sweet humbleness in her voice which turned the big man's heart to water. "I'll tell you everything now, and so you may judge me for yourself."

Once more they sat down; Nora drew the veil still further from her face and began to speak in a low voice, but steadily, and with no hesitation.

"Tom Burton did strike me that night, and I would not tell the truth about it, Bat, because I was ashamed. I could not bring myself to admit that the man I had chosen for my husband would do such a thing. Other misdoings of his I could speak of--but that one I felt I must always keep to myself. His taking of my jewels I would not have held from you if I had not been afraid--afraid as I never was before."

"Of what?" asked Scanlon.

"Tom Burton was killed in his son's house; I knew that son; I knew what he had suffered all his life because of his father. I had heard the story in all its pitiful details. As a child he had been affronted and mishandled--as a boy--as a young man. He could never forget what his mother had been forced to endure; in his mind was always the fact that his sister was an invalid, perhaps for life, owing to the poverty brought on them by their father's neglect. With all this before me, can you wonder that I was afraid--afraid that the boy, in a moment of madness, had struck his father down?"

Bat drew in a long breath; in it there was a vast relief and a certain wonder.