The Winning Clue Part 39

"I really don't know," she smiled. "There may be. It all depends on his courage, his nerve. Anyway, he won't be able to do much, to exert himself."

"He's got the nerve," Braceway said admiringly; "got plenty of it. By the way, how did it happen? How do you happen to be here?"

"It seems that at about a quarter to ten Mr. Bristow called the downstairs operator and asked her to send a bellboy to his room, number seven-seventeen. When the boy came in here, Mr. Bristow was lying across the foot of his bed, pressing to his mouth a towel that was half-saturated with blood.

"He had dropped his saturated handkerchief on the bathroom floor. And he evidently had been bleeding when he was at the telephone. He was awfully weak, so weak that the boy thought he was dying. He couldn't speak. The boy remembered having seen the house physician, Dr. Carey, at a late breakfast in the cafe, and got him up here at once. Dr. Carey called me to take the case as soon as he had seen Mr. Bristow.

"I think that's all. Of course, the bed that was in here and all the other soiled things had been removed by the time I came in; and the management insisted on his taking the extra room."

"Thank you," said Braceway. "I'm glad to get the details. You'll see that he has everything he needs, won't you?"

A few minutes later, when Miss Martin entered the bedroom to lower the window shade, Bristow told her:

"I think I'll sleep now. Shut the door and, on no account, let--anybody, doctor or anybody else--wake me up. You call me at six, please. What time is it now? Twelve-fifteen? Remember, you'll let me sleep?"

Braceway went to his own room to brush up for lunch. Although he had not taken the trouble to tell Bristow, he had already arranged with Golson to have the "extra man" on the job. He was taking no chances. He smiled when he thought of the sick man's eagerness to give him advice.

It occurred to him that he should have communicated with George Withers.

The funeral was over; had been set for yesterday. He would send him a wire as soon as he went downstairs.

"By George!" Braceway communed with himself. "If I hadn't been his friend, I probably would have worried him. Even if Morley has embezzled from the bank, how closely have I coupled him with the crime? Not very closely unless he tries to p.a.w.n, or produces, some of the stolen stuff--not any more closely than George has coupled himself with it!

George acted like such an a.s.s!"

He was about to leave the room when, for the first time, he looked the situation squarely in the face and made an important acknowledgment to himself. There had been in his mind, ever since that train had pulled out of Furmville with George's rattling whisper still sounding in his ear, the desire and the plan to safeguard George. He had felt, on this trip, that, if his theory about the case broke down, it might be advisable, even necessary, to produce all the evidence possible to shield his friend either from ugly gossip or from the down-right charge of murder. He did not believe for a moment that Withers was guilty.

If things went wrong in the next eight or ten hours, if it was proved that Morley had nothing to do with the murder, the thing he wanted above all else was a story from Morley that he, Morley, had seen the struggle in front of No. 5 as Withers had described it. Somehow, that story about the struggle had struck him as the weakest link in George's whole story.

He had resolutely refused to consider it up to now, but he no longer could dodge it. He had come to Washington to catch the criminal. But he also had come with the subconscious plan of getting at anything that would help Withers.

He stood for an instant, jangling the room key in his hand. A frown drew his brows together. The frown deepened. He unlocked the door, went back into the room, and put down his cane, leaning it against the wall near the bureau.

He reached the lobby in time to hear a callboy paging him. There was a telegram for him. It read:

"Mr. S. S. Braceway, Willard Hotel, Washington, D. C.

"Here.

(Signed) "Frank Abrahamson."

"What the devil does he mean?" he asked himself several times. "What's this 'here' about?"

He thought a long time before he remembered having asked the Furmville p.a.w.n broker to try to recall where he had seen the bearded man in another disguise, a disguise which, apparently, had consisted of nothing but a black moustache and bushy eyebrows. And Abrahamson had promised to wire him if he did remember. The "here" meant it was in Furmville that he had seen the moustached man.

He went to the telegraph desk and wrote out a message:

"Mr. Frank Abrahamson, 329 College Street, Furmville, N. C.

"Silence.

(Signed) "Braceway."

"One-word telegrams!" he smiled grimly. "Thrifty fellows, these chosen people."

He found the telephone booths and called up Golson.

"Got anything from Baltimore?" he inquired.

"Just been talking to Delaney on long-distance," Golson answered without enthusiasm.

"Well! What is it?"

"Your man gave him the slip a quarter of an hour ago, and he wants----"

"Gave him the slip!" shouted Braceway. "What are you talking about?"

"I don't like it any more than you do," snapped Golson. "But that's what happened: gave him the slip."

"How?"

"I didn't get that exactly. Delaney merely said he lost him in the hotel.

Your man was evidently waiting there for a message or phone call. If he received it, Delaney was fooled. Anyway, he's gone now; and Delaney wants to know what he's to do. What'll I tell him?"

"Tell him to go to h.e.l.l!" Braceway said hotly. "No! Tell him to go back to Eidstein's and wait there until Morley shows up. That's his only chance to pick him up again."

"O.K.," growled Golson.

"Say! Put somebody on the job of watching for the incoming trains from Baltimore, will you? Right away?"

"Platt's just come into the office. I'll send him to the station at once."

"What time did Delaney lose sight of Morley?"

"Twelve forty-five."

Braceway hung up the receiver and looked at his watch. It was ten minutes past one. He had fifty minutes to kill before keeping an appointment he had made with Major Ross, chief of the Washington police.

After a quick lunch, he strolled over to the news-stand and picked up the early edition of an afternoon paper.

The first headlines he saw were:

STOLEN GEMS FOUND IN SUSPECT'S YARD

Under these lines was a dispatch from Furmville giving the information that plain-clothes men of the Furmville police force had discovered the emerald-and-diamond lavalliere worn by Mrs. Enid Fulton Withers the night she was murdered. The jewelry had been found in the yard of the house where Perry Carpenter had lived. The lavaliere was concealed in tall gra.s.s immediately beneath the window of Carpenter's room, and thus had at first escaped the eyes of the police. When found, it was intact except for the six links that had been broken from the chain and dropped the night of the murder.

Braceway threw down the paper and went to the Pennsylvania Avenue door.

"d.a.m.n!" he addressed mentally the top of the Washington monument. "More grist for Bristow's mill! I'm not crazy, am I? I'm not that crazy, that's sure!"

He set out to keep his appointment with Major Ross. After all, he felt reasonably sure of himself, and he had made up his mind to carry things through as he originally had intended. His shoulders were well back, his step elastic and quick. He flung off discouragement as if it had been an over-coat too warm for that weather.