Part 35 (1/2)

”Not follow him,” the detective answered smilingly. ”I'm going with him.

That is, I'll take the same train he does.”

”Greenleaf told you, I suppose, that he'd given Morley permission to leave tonight?”

”Yes--said you suggested it. And I think you're right. There's no use in losing time unnecessarily. Are you going, too?”

”Oh, by all means,” Bristow said quickly, ”and against my doctor's orders. That is, if you don't object--if you don't think I'd be in the way.”

Braceway was clearly aware of the lame man's desire to accompany him so as to be a.s.sociated with every phase of the work on the case, and to make it stand out emphatically in the long run that he, Bristow, pitting his ingenuity against Braceway, had gathered the evidence establis.h.i.+ng the negro's guilt beyond question. The idea amused him, he was so sure of the accuracy of his own theory.

”Not at all,” he said heartily. ”I want you to come.”

”How about avoiding him on the train? We don't want him to know we're his fellow-travellers.”

”Oh, no. He'll get aboard at the station here. I have a machine to take me--and you, of course--to Larrimore, the station seven miles out.

They'll flag the train. We'll get into a stateroom and stay there; have our meals served right there. You see, we don't get into Was.h.i.+ngton until dark tomorrow night.”

”Yes; I see. The scheme's all right.”

They were silent for several minutes.

”I've been thinking,” said Bristow, ”about Mrs. Withers having kept all her jewelry in the bungalow--unprotected, you know--n.o.body but her sister and herself there. It was risky.”

”Yes,” agreed Braceway. ”What do you get from that?”

”Perhaps she was waiting--knew demands for money might come at any time--and was afraid to be caught without them.”

”Exactly. That's the way I figured it.”

They were silent again.

Braceway was the first to speak. He narrated all the facts he had learned from Abrahamson and Roddy, and concluded with the story Withers had told him on the station platform. He held back none of the details. Evidently, his irritation toward Withers had subsided. When Bristow handed him the watch Maria Fulton had found, he said laughingly:

”It's a good thing George told me about it, isn't it? Otherwise, we might have had to devote a lot of time to showing that he had nothing to do with the crime itself.”

”And yet,” qualified Bristow, ”he said nothing to explain why the watch should have been so far back in the gra.s.s and to the side of the steps in this direction. According to his story, he must have dropped it on the other side, the down side.”

”What do you mean?”

”I don't see how it could have fallen where Miss Fulton found it unless somebody had actually picked it up and thrown it there. He told you he was all the time down on the sidewalk, and, when the other man flung him off, he reeled down-hill, not up.”

”That's hair-splitting,” Braceway objected good-humouredly. ”Nothing could make me think George responsible for the murder.”

Bristow repeated then everything Maria Fulton had said that afternoon, and gave a fair, clear idea of her strong suspicion that the murder had actually been done by either Withers or Morley. It had no effect on Braceway.

”Miss Fulton,” he said, ”told you, of course, what she had seen and heard and, in addition, what she had guessed. But I don't see that it changes anything. I can't let it make me suspect Withers any more than I can accept as valuable Abrahamson's quite positive opinion that the man wearing the disguise was Withers. Things don't fit in. That's all. They don't fit into such a theory.”

”Have you ever thought,” persisted Bristow, ”why Withers told Greenleaf and me yesterday morning that he was in the p.a.w.nshop when the man with the gold tooth was in there? Why should he say that when Abrahamson contradicts it at once by telling you they were at no time in the shop simultaneously?”

”Did Withers say to you outright, flat and unmistakably, that he saw the fellow inside the shop?” Braceway's voice had in it the ring of combativeness.