Part 28 (2/2)

Hallen turned to our friend Oakes and said: ”I never in my life saw anything like this--like you.”

Oakes, always ready to side-step praise in any form, answered, with one of his chilling glances: ”Oh, bother! You're young yet, Hallen; you need age.”

Hallen half resentfully yanked his cap on his head and strode to the door.

”Well,” he remarked, ”here's where I take a look at Maloney's arms--I am dead tired of theorizing.”

”Stop!” commanded Oakes; ”you'll spoil it all.”

”I won't spoil the cross on the arm--the cross of indigo--if it's there; and if it ain't there, it ain't. Hang it all, anyway.” And forthwith Hallen strode out the door, down the steps toward the hotel bar-room, with Oakes and the rest of us following in a vain endeavor to head him off.

When we reached the bar-room, Hallen was already in the side room. We rushed toward the little room door, expecting to see Maloney in the grasp of Hallen; but instead, we beheld the Chief gazing in stupefaction at his two men dead drunk, heads between their hands on the little round table.

”------------,----!” cried the Chief in a voice that shook the gla.s.ses on the shelves in the bar-room and brought the white-coated attendant with one bound to the door. ”h.e.l.l--en--Maloney's escaped.”

”Escaped!” cried the bar-keeper. ”Escaped!--nit. Why, he paid for the drinks and walked out half an hour ago--said he had a job at the Mansion. These fellows--gos.h.!.+” cried the man as he shook them--”drunk!

What's up--what does it mean, Chief?”

Then Quintus Oakes spoke in tones of dulcet and ineffable sweetness, cooingly, charmingly. ”It means that Chief Hallen pays for a round of the best you've got. In order to see a cross on a man's arm it becomes necessary first to catch the man--something like the bird's tail and the salt proposition.”

”Mix 'em up quick!” shouted Hallen, advancing to the bar. ”h.e.l.l--en--be d.a.m.ned! Get the two samples of Mona's police out into the air!

h.e.l.l--en----!”

_CHAPTER XX_

_A Man's Confession_

The a.s.sault upon Maloney was now the talk of the town. Hallen, who had enjoyed a respite from censure, was again furiously blamed for inability and incompetence. None but our select few discerned that Maloney was lying, for none knew as much of the intricacies of the case as did we.

All were crying out for the instant arrest of the one who had attempted to kill him, but none but the few who had heard Maloney's statement within headquarters knew that it was...o...b..ien he had accused--and only those few knew that his story was probably false.

Although the order had gone forth quietly, as we knew, to ”find Mike O'Brien,” still it was not known to any save Hallen's and Oakes's men.

The ma.s.ses were in ignorance of the strides we had made twards the solution of the horrible happenings at Mona, and, of course, Hallen was getting more than he deserved in the way of criticism.

Oakes told us that he momentarily expected some new developments in the case, as Hallen was endeavoring to find Skinner and bring him to the Mansion. His surmises proved true, for it was found an easy matter to locate the old man; and early in the evening Hallen arrived at the Mansion and joined us in the apartments upstairs, and with him were Martin and Skinner.

Dowd, the rival of the old man, was with us, having begged earnestly of Oakes to be allowed to follow as close to the action as possible, and having stuck by us like a veritable leech since the morning. Dowd was a nice fellow, and a newspaper man from start to finish, and he seemed to have developed a great liking for Oakes.

We were all upstairs when Martin ushered in the tall, rather slender, but powerful old man, Skinner. None of us, save Hallen, had seen him at close range before; but I saw a curious expression, half of defiance, half of dismay, in his face, that made me watch him most closely. Dr.

Moore was scanning his features carefully in a way that showed he had detected something, but Quintus Oakes, rising from his seat and advancing politely to meet the old gentleman, seemed neither to have seen anything nor to know anything. He was just the polished gentleman we all knew so well; but I noticed that, as he shook hands with Mr.

Skinner, he cast a quick glance at the man's arm and the wrist, and then at the old man's eyes.

Moore whispered: ”He has excluded Skinner as the criminal. Look! see him take it all in.”

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