Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist

by John Thomas McIntyre

  CHAPTER XI

  DENNISON TALKS ONCE MORE

  By noon next day, Bat Scanlon had gotten into communication withAshton-Kirk; the two had lunch in the quiet depths of a rathskeller,where they ate and talked, and afterward smoked, to the drone of somestringed instruments.

  Scanlon told of his experiences of the previous night, and thecriminologist listened with the keenest interest.

  "So," said he, at length, "our friend, Big Slim, proves to be a personof some parts. I must meet him. And the Swiss!" Here Ashton-Kirk uttereda little clicking sound, expressive of great admiration. "If criminal hebe, he is of the superlative sort. As you have just remarked, when thatkind _are_ crooked, their angles are of the deadliest. It will be mygood fortune, perhaps, when meeting the burglar, to encounter thisgentleman also."

  "But Nora," questioned Bat, coming to the point which was of mostinterest to him, "what of her? What about her being in that place?"

  Ashton-Kirk bent his brows, and one well kept hand smoothed the shavenchin.

  "You say," and there was an inquiring glint in his eyes, "she was ratheron friendly terms with the burglar."

  "Why," replied Bat, reluctantly, "I wouldn't say friendly, exactly. Shewas laughing and did seem very much at her ease while she talked to him,I'll admit that. But what of the other things? What of the creepingacross the room with the gun in her hand--of her listening at the wall?And what of the look of fear I saw on her face when that fellow openedthe door for her to go out?"

  Ashton-Kirk nodded.

  "Of course," said he. "We must not overlook anything." Glancing at hiswatch, and apparently dismissing this particular point from his mind, headded: "It's now two-thirty, and I want to run around to the Polo Club.Will you come along?"

  Mr. Scanlon was willing, and so they made their way from the rathskellerinto the sunlight. The Polo Club occupied a magnificent modern buildingin a prominent location. They passed in at a door which was opened by aman in uniform, ostentatious in its soberness; at the end of a room,rich in rugs and paintings, they encountered another man, stout andimpassive.

  "Is Mr. Dennison here, do you know, Hocking?" asked Ashton-Kirk.

  "Yes, sir, in the smoking-room," replied the man, impassively, but withcertainty.

  In the smoking-room they came upon Dennison, purple of jowl, with hiswhite fat hands folded across his paunch, smoking a cigarette andlooking out at a window.

  "Oh, how are you?" lifting his eyes, but never stirring. "How do,Scanlon?"

  "Quite comfortable here of an afternoon," said Ashton-Kirk as he droppedinto a chair at the other side of the window. "I had no idea."

  "How could you have?" complained Dennison; "you drop in only once ortwice in a year, and then only of a night, and when old Hungerford is intown."

  Ashton-Kirk smiled as he thought of those rare nights with Hungerfordover the chess board--nights when he matched himself against anintelligence almost mystical, and out of each contact with which heemerged, drenched with new understanding.

  "I suppose that's so," he admitted. "But I should get here oftener." Helooked interestedly at the other, and added: "Get over your little joltof the other night all right?"

  "I'm pretty shaky." Dennison looked at Bat who had possessed himself ofan easy chair. "I don't know if Scanlon knows anything about how I'mdoing or not. He's giving me confounded little attention. Never in, itseems, when I get there, and one of his understrappers must put methrough."

  "It all depends on yourself at this point in the race," spoke Scanlon,easily. "In a week or so _I'll_ be ready to take you on. I'll be able tosee what I'm doing then."

  "Oh, I say, I'm not so beastly fleshy as all that!" protested Dennison,indignantly.

  "Don't pay any attention to him," said Ashton-Kirk, smiling. "A thingsuch as you went through would be likely to upset any one."

  "Of course it would," agreed Dennison, eagerly. "Tom Burton and myselfwere pretty intimate, and to find out suddenly that he'd gone down likethat! Of course it would upset any one."

  "You knew Burton for a long time, did you?"

  "Not so very; maybe for seven or eight years. I met him at Danforth'splace one night when he was playing roulette in big luck. That was abouta year before he married Nora Cavanaugh, the actress." Dennison lighteda flat Turkish cigarette and inhaled a deep draught of smoke. "I waskind of surprised to hear about him being married, for he'd alwaystalked against that state. He said it got a man into a great lot oftrouble."

  "Where was it you saw him on the night of his taking off?" asked theinvestigator.

  "Why, at Danforth's. Things were a little dull," as though feeling anexplanation of his presence in the gambling-house were necessary, "and Ithought I'd drop around and get a little excitement out of the game if Icould. Burton was there and had just been cleaned out; he was in animpatient sort of humor and was damning things at a tolerable speed.Nothing vicious, you know, but just enough to show his ginger."

  "Had you much of a conversation with him?"

  "Yes; quite a long one." Dennison puffed at his cigarette, quite pleasedthat he had an interested audience for his, for the time, favoritetopic. "You see, when Tom was in hard luck, he was a great fellow forgoing back and calling up a lot of disagreeable things that had happenedto him. Maybe that doesn't sound very cheerful, but it wasn't so bad tolisten to. Burton had a past that was a bit different, you see. WhileI'm sure he was a first-class sport in all essential things, still hehad mingled with a lot of people such as one seldom hears of outsidenovels. His comments upon his family were also rather frequent. Usually,if a fellow dislikes his family, he keeps it to himself, but Burton,when he was in the dumps, talked about it. His son, Frank, who draws thesporting cartoons for the _Standard_ came in for an especially strongdressing down that night. It seems he makes a remarkable salary--forhe's devilish clever, I think--and yet, when his father was broke, andcalled on him at odd times, over the telephone, for a little tide tocarry him over the bar, he always turned him down flat. Tom regardedthis as rank ingratitude. He was the boy's father, he said, and wasentitled to certain consideration and respect. He boiled over the thingand said he meant to square the account some day."

  "Burton as the wronged father is funny," observed Scanlon. "Why didn'the have a little quivery music, and some paper snow flakes to fall onhim? That would have increased the effect."

  "Maybe he wasn't altogether wrong," said Dennison, as though feelingbound to defend his friend. "A son has certain duties toward his father,I believe. But Burton couldn't expect much of that sort of thing fromhis children; for it seems they weren't trained right. You know theirmother must have been a queer sort; set in her ways, and alwayscomplaining. She had the country school teacher's idea of life, and whatpart of it should be lived; and Burton never hit it with her properly.She brought up her children with the same views as her own; their fatherwas always pointed out as the kind of person they must avoid. And withthat sort of thing sounded in their ears continually, of course theirattitudes, as they became older, were to be expected."

  "Well, from all accounts," said Scanlon, "they have a pretty goodargument on their side--neglect and all that. Burton wasn't your idea ofa family man, was he?"

  "Well, no, not exactly," confessed Dennison. "But then, I don't putmyself up as a judge of such things. However, I've got a notion it wouldbe hard to live with a silent, religious wife, a son you knew hated you,and a daughter who had--er--well--spells."

  Ashton-Kirk bent his head forward a trifle and a look of interestglinted in his keen eyes.

  "Spells?" asked he. "What do you mean?"

  Dennison smiled broadly.

  "That's an expression I got from an old colored man who used to work formy father years ago. Queer how such things stick to one, isn't it? But Idon't just know how to describe what Burton told me about his daughterin any other way. She wasn't an epileptic. That's a thing one goes downunder; and _her_ case was just the reverse. She was, as a rule, proppedup in a chair, as weak as a kitten; but when these
things took her, shegrew immensely strong and sort of wild."

  "I see," said Ashton-Kirk. And Scanlon, as he watched, saw him, so tospeak, store the fact carefully away in his memory. "Can you rememberanything else Burton talked about that night?"

  "Why, yes, to be sure." Dennison looked at the still figure of theinvestigator through the light rifts of smoke. "You seem to have afair-sized interest in the matter," he added.

  Ashton-Kirk nodded.

  "Yes," he replied. "There is more to it than the police have shown; andI'm interested in the son's predicament."

  "Nasty mess for him," agreed Dennison, pursing up his thick lips."Terrible kick up, that's a fact. Glad I'm not in it." He smoked for amoment or two and then proceeded. "What was on Tom's mind most of allthat night was the condition of his pocketbook. According to hisstatement it was pretty flat. He'd come into Danforth's with about fiftydollars--all he had--hoping for a little luck at the wheel; but eventhat slipped away from him."

  "Did he have anything in mind, do you know, that would get him out ofhis difficulties?"

  "I suggested that he try his son once more," said Dennison. "But hedidn't seem to take kindly to the notion. After a while he began to hintat some little matter--I couldn't quite get its nature." Ashton-Kirk'seyes narrowed as Dennison proceeded: "And he seemed to have someconfidence in its turning out well."

  "You say you couldn't _quite_ get its nature." Ashton-Kirk was stillregarding the man steadily. "Am I to take from that that you _did_understand a part of it?"

  Dennison stirred uneasily.

  "Why, yes," he replied. "I think I did. As I said a while ago, I'vealways believed him to be a sport who was strictly on the level--thoughI'll admit there are a lot of men I know who think just the other wayaround. But, though I do believe it, I'll agree, as I said before, he'dbeen a little different and had mixed with a queer lot of characters.Well, from what he dropped, the matter he had in hand that night had oneof these people somewhere in the background."

  "You got no details?"

  "Not any. Part of the time he talked _at_ me--not _to_ me, at all. Hewas regretting certain things; how he'd given up opportunities of profitso as to hold a place for himself in the society he moved in. He arguedthat if a man could bet on the turn of a card, or a wheel, in a placelike Danforth's--which is an illegal establishment--why could he not docertain other things, which were also merely illegal, without losingcaste. He had a habit of arguing this way when he was broke; but I nevertook him quite seriously. As a matter of fact, I never was sure as towhat he meant; once or twice I asked, but he always turned the matteroff, and began to talk about something else.

  "He was always close about details or confidences in things like that,"proceeded Dennison. "I've sometimes thought this reticence is what madethe talk about him. But he was very angry that night; he stormed up anddown," and here Dennison gestured with his cigarette, with the manner ofone who is determined to hold back nothing. "And he did drop something,after a little, something, I'll admit, that made me wonder what was up."

  "Have you any objections to telling what that was?" asked Ashton-Kirk,smoothly.

  "No, of course not." Dennison looked exceedingly virtuous. "If it'll doany good, it ought to be known. I think I told you, last time we met,that when Tom Burton left me that night he said he was going to see aman on some business--something that would bring a profit. Remember?Well, he didn't mention the man's name; but without realizing it, rightin the middle of the talk he let out the nature of his occupation."

  "What was that?" asked Scanlon.

  "The man was a burglar."