Ashton-Kirk, Investigator Part 47

"But here's a thing I've not been able to puzzle out. According to your notion--and you may have proved it since, for all I know--Locke was not in the showroom during or after the murder. And yet it should have been he who dropped the little particle from the railroad ticket upon the desk."

"It would seem that way," admitted Ashton-Kirk, "but the fact is that Sagon visited Locke at the Inst.i.tute and rode to the city with him that afternoon. The particle may be accounted for in that way."

"Yes," mused the other, "that's so. But, one thing more. I should have asked this of Morris himself if he had not been in such a confoundedly miserable way. Why did he take to hiding immediately after the murder?"

"He spent the night in his lodgings at Christie Place; next day the papers told him that he was suspected. He knew that if he appeared he'd be arrested; and as he desired to recover the plans before the murderers escaped with them, he felt that this would be fatal to his chances. Of course, I am not sure of this; but I think it more than likely."

"Speaking of taking chances on the plans," said Pendleton, "you were willing enough to take pretty long ones on them last night. Why, Sagon actually had them in his hands."

Ashton-Kirk drew a flat packet from his pocket. Opening it he showed that it contained nothing but blank paper.

"This is what Sagon found behind the portrait," said he, with a smile. "The real papers I was very careful to remove two days ago. One moment--that's the telephone."

Pendleton sat rolling a cigarette and wondering, while Ashton-Kirk took down the receiver.

"Well?" said he. Then in a moment his expression changed. "Oh, is it you? Well, how are you after your exciting experience?"

Here Pendleton dropped the completed cigarette and listened.

"You may consider yourself very fortunate to escape with a slight headache," said Ashton-Kirk. Then there was a pause, and he said, apparently in answer to a question: "Oh, yes, he's with me now. Will you speak with him?"

Pendleton arose and took a step toward the stand. But he halted as if shot when his friend continued in the transmitter:

"No?" Pause. "Oh, very well. Good-by."

Ashton-Kirk hung up the receiver and turned to his friend.

"So," said Pendleton, in a queer sort of voice, "she doesn't wish to speak to me."

"Not over the wire--no. But she wants you to come to her--at once. She desires to hear all about what she calls the wonderful way we have handled this case, and she wants to hear it--from you." Ashton-Kirk looked at his watch. "It is now 10:45. You can get there by eleven if you rush."

"Do you call doing that little distance in fifteen minutes rushing?"

The young man's face was radiant and he was making for the door as he spoke. "If I don't do it in half that time, I'm a duffer."

Then the door slapped behind him, and Ashton-Kirk heard him bounding down the stairs.