The Winning Clue Part 26

"Some uv you n.i.g.g.e.rs ain' got no sense."

"Yas; dat's so," Lucy agreed dully, and walked slowly away.

She moved as if she felt that there was something frightful behind her.

When she was half-way home, she broke into a run, and, moaning, ran the remainder of the distance. She threw herself on her bed and sobbed a long time.

She had talked, and for the present she thought she felt more sorry for Perry than she did for herself.

In the meantime, Bristow had gone into the bathroom to wash his hands.

"Pah!" he exclaimed, disgusted.

He dried his hands and walked, whistling, out to the living room. No matter how distasteful the scene with the sullen woman had been, the substantial fact remained that he had in his pocket an important doc.u.ment. After all, Lucy Thomas had talked--and signed.

"Mattie," he called, "fix me an orangeade, please. Mr. Greenleaf's late for dinner, and I need a little freshening up."

He went to the living room window again and gazed, with thoughtful, slightly sad eyes, out toward the mountains.

"These policemen!" he was thinking contemptuously. "They don't know how to make blockheads tell what they can tell. There are ways--and ways."

CHAPTER XIV

THE p.a.w.n BROKER TAKES THE TRAIL

Frank Abrahamson, p.a.w.n broker and junk dealer, responded at once to Braceway's warm smile. The Jew had his racial respect for keenness and clean-cut ability. He liked this man who, dressed like a dandy, spoke with the air of authority.

"The fellow with the gold tooth?" he replied to Braceway's request for information. "Was there anything peculiar about him? Why, yes. He was clothed in peculiarities."

The p.a.w.n broker, thin, round-shouldered, with a great hook-nose and cavernous, bright eyes, spoke rapidly, without an accent, punctuating his sentences with thrusts and dartings and waves of his two hands. His fifty-five years had not lessened his vitality.

"You see, Mr. Braceway, we p.a.w.n brokers, we have to observe our customers. We become judges of human nature. At the best, we have a hard time making a living." Somehow, with his smile, he discounted this statement. "And we come to judge men as closely as we examine jewels and precious metals. You see?"

Braceway saw. He lit a cigarette and stepped to the door to throw away the match. The Jew appreciated the thoughtfulness. Trash on the floor made the morning task of sweeping up harder.

"Now," continued Abrahamson, expressing with one movement of his arm tolerant ridicule, "this man with the gold tooth and the brown beard--he thought he was disguised. By gracious! it was funny. A fellow like me takes one look at him and sees the disguise. The gold tooth--that was false, fake. When he talked to me, it was all I could do to keep from reaching across the counter and pushing that tooth more firmly into his jaw. Gold is heavy, you see. I was afraid it might drop down on my showcase and break some gla.s.s."

Abrahamson laughed. So did Braceway.

"And his beard, Mr. Braceway? That was better. To the ordinary observer, it might have looked natural--but not to me. Oh, yes; he was disguised--too much.--Besides, the other afternoon was not the first time I had seen him--no."

"You saw him two months ago, then?"

"Yes, sir--two months ago, and one month before that."

"In here?"

"Yes."

"What did he want?"

"Money. Money for jewelry. Oh, he had the jewelry. And I gave him the money--a great deal; more, perhaps, than was good for me, when you remember I always try to make a reasonable profit. He argued. He knew about values."

This interested Braceway more than anything he had yet heard.

"That gave you an idea," he suggested.

"You are quick, Mr. Braceway. It did give me an idea. It made me think: well! This man, he has p.a.w.ned things before, these very same things.

He knew quite well what they should bring." Abrahamson shrugged his shoulders. "And he did know--and I let him have the money. That is, I mean, what happened the first two times. This last time, the three days ago, he was different, in a hurry, and he took only what I offered. He made no argument. I could see he was frightened. Yes--he was different this last time."

The detective, oblivious of the other for a moment, blew a cloud of smoke across the counter, causing the Jew to dodge and cough.

"Let me see," Braceway said. "You saw him three months ago, two months ago, and three days ago. Had you ever seen him before?"

Abrahamson laughed, and, reaching over, slapped Braceway on the shoulder gently.

"You are so quick, Mr. Braceway! I can't swear I had ever seen him before, but I think I had--not with the gold tooth and the beard, but with a moustache and bushy eyebrows, eyebrows too bushy."

"Where? Where did you see him?"

"Here, I think--but I'm not sure, you see. Sometimes I have traveled a little--to Atlanta, to Washington, to New York. I don't know; I can't tell whether I saw him in one of those places, or some other place, or here."

Braceway urged him with his eyes.

"If you only could! Mr. Abrahamson, if you could remember where you saw him when he wore the moustache, you would enable me to put my hands on him. You'd do more. You'd give me enough information to lead to the arrest of the murderer."

Abrahamson was silent, gazing through the shop doorway. He turned to the detective again.

"I bet you, Mr. Braceway, you will be glad to hear something. Chief Greenleaf was in here this morning, asking questions. But he asked so many that were worth nothing, so few that were good. And I forgot to tell him the whole story--the things of, perhaps, significance."

"Tell me. Significance is what I'm after."

"Well, you know Mr. Withers spent almost the whole day in here before the night of the murder. Once he went out. That was in the late afternoon to get some lunch. While he was out--understand, while he was out--in came the gold-tooth fellow.

"It was bad luck. I kept him as long as I could, but he was hurried, nervous. Half an hour, forty minutes maybe, after the gold-tooth fellow had gone, in came Withers again, out of breath, complaining that he had picked the man up just outside here and followed him, only to lose him when the gold-tooth fellow went through Casey's store to the avenue.

"I showed Withers the ring the fellow had p.a.w.ned for a hundred dollars.

"'Yes, yes!' he said; 'that's one of my wife's rings.'

"And he was all cut up.

"Now, here is what I have to tell." Abrahamson lowered his voice and, leaning low on his elbow, thrust his face far over the counter toward Braceway. "It is only an idea, but--it is an idea. I bet you I would not tell anybody else. Such things might get a man into trouble. But I like you, Mr. Braceway. I confide in you. Mr. Withers and that man with the beard and the gold tooth--something in the look of the eyes, something in the build of the shoulders--each reminded me of the other, a little.

And they were at no time in here together. Just an idea, I told you.

But----"