CHAPTER XXII
WHAT DANNY SAW AT QUIGLEY'S
Bat Scanlon touched the cue ball, deftly; the ball it struck broke awayat a sharp angle and vanished into a pocket.
"I'm getting case hardened," was the big athlete's mental comment. "Aday or two ago this news would have rocked me to the foundations; nowI'm not even jarred."
But, as he straightened up, he said to the burglar:
"So friend husband went out under the care of the lad with the concaveface! Well, well! That is some startling tidings."
"I could send him to the chair if I wanted to," said Big Slim,longingly. "But I never hook up with the 'bulls' for anything. So I'lljust either 'gun' him, or you'll slug him, whichever way it turns out."
"Keep the gun hid," advised Bat. "You can't get away with that stuff.I'll take this fellow on, and in a morning or two you'll hear how he'sholding down a bed in a neighboring hospital with enough bruises andcontusions to fill a peach basket."
"All right," said Big Slim, grinning appreciatively. "The job's in yourhands. Don't be too long, for Bohlmier's waiting, and it was his idea inthe first place."
"It might come off in an hour,--who knows?" said Bat. "But," with aglance at Fenton, "it does seem a pity to crush all that enthusiasm. Hemust be happier at this minute than he's been for years."
The broken-nosed man's excitement seemed to increase; he talked withmany gestures; now and then he laughed in a delighted sort of way andslapped Hutchinson on the shoulder. The latter smoothed his waved hairand looked vastly interested; now and then when an opportunity came inFenton's flood of talk he asked a question, and after each answer heseemed to advance a key toward the high pitch of the other.
"In a second or two," remarked Bat, in a low voice, "he'll be rumplinghis hair; and if he ever does that, he'll never get over it."
For at least a half hour the talk went on between the two; at the finishHutchinson was quite as excited as Fenton.
"It's a pipe," Bat heard him declare in an exultant tone; "a regularpipe. All we got to do is to----" Here the voice sank and he went on,his hands clutching Fenton's arms in a strong grip. The intenseeagerness of the two, the excitement which one had imparted to theother, interested Bat. So many curious and unaccountable things hadhappened of late that he had gotten into the habit of looking for them,and it was with difficulty that he separated even ordinary occurrencesfrom the matter which had been so growing in his mind. It might be, soran his thought, that this incident had its place in the chain he hadseen making--a tangled, hopeless chain to him, without beginning or end.
"But then again--and it's a thousand to one against--it might be nothingat all," was Bat's next judgment. "I'm getting all mixed in my signalsand----"
Here he became aware that Big Slim was talking to him; the burglar hadrun the game out and had put away his cue.
"As you've taken on this thing for me," he was saying, "I'm going acrossthe river to look up some prospects."
"All right," said Bat, nodding. "Go ahead. I'll stick around a while."
With a wink and a gesture of the thumb toward Fenton, Big Slim wentaway. Bat carelessly stepped nearer to the two men and seemed greatlyinterested in a racing chart posted upon the wall.
"I told you there was a chance," Fenton was saying. "Didn't I? I knewthe thing would pull up at Quigley's some time or another, didn't I?"
"I didn't think much of it," said Hutchinson, with the air of one whowas wrong, and is quite delighted with his bigness in acknowledging it."But I can see now that I didn't look at it right."
"Leave it to me," said Fenton, smiling expansively. "Little tricks likethis are right in my line. And now I'll tell you what we'll do;we'll----"
But Hutchinson stopped him.
"Wait," said he. "Don't be in a rush. This ain't the kind of a thing tohurry through. You've got to take your time; you've got to think itout." The broken-nosed man seemed impressed by both the manner and thewords of the other; and, noting this, Hutchinson went on: "Sleep on it.That's a good way. And I'll do the same. Then I'll run in to your placeto-morrow afternoon, and we can put your ideas into good shape."
Fenton seemed to consider this quite a sober, steadying notion, andafter a few moments more of conversation the man with the ornamentalhair went back to the superintending of his pool tables, and the othertook his departure.
Bat followed him. The big athlete was not at all sure but that Big Slimwould be lurking somewhere outside in order to see if he made any moveto carry out his promise against Fenton; and to be seen close upon thetrail of the broken-nosed man would be excellent testimony of his goodfaith.
"And then," he told himself as he went along, Fenton in plain sight, "Iwant to locate this party, anyway. It will be useful in the show-down."
Fenton stepped out of the little back-water in which Gaffney's placelay, and into the full flood of the glittering, high-smelling avenue.Here there was a danger of losing him in the press and Bat increased hisspeed, working his way nearer to his quarry. In a few blocks there wasanother turn, this time into an unfrequented street which had a familiarlook. Bat fell back here, and took to the opposite side, holding closeto the buildings and walking upon the balls of his feet so as to avoidthe usual ringing heel strokes. At the mouth of an alley, Fentonslackened his speed and then disappeared. Bat, from the other side ofthe street, inspected the place, with mouth twisted awry.
"I've got it," said he. "That's the alley I slipped into the night Itagged after Bohlmier and his pal. And in the said alley is located thehouse they went into. I wonder," and here he stroked his jaw, "if thisfellow with the broken nose has anything to do with the room they brokeinto through the wall?"
The more he considered this point, the more likely it seemed to be true;and if it were, then Ashton-Kirk had known of Fenton long since.
"Yes, he was onto him," mused Scanlon, his thoughts turning to thatnight's meeting with the disguised investigator in the same building."Kirk's had him spotted."
He lingered for some time looking into the gloom of the alley; then itoccurred to him that nothing further could be done there, and that agreat deal might be done somewhere else. Instantly he started along thestreet, heading for the same cab stand which Ashton-Kirk and himself hadpatronized on the night of which he had just been thinking. Here hesecured a taxi, and in a short time drew up at the investigator's door.Stumph admitted him, and as he mounted the stairs toward the study, heheard the voice of Ashton-Kirk.
"Hello! Glad to see you." The investigator greeted him with ahand-shake. "Do you know that your office staff is also here?"
"Danny?" said Bat. "No, is he? What's the idea?"
"Came to make a report, I suppose. Didn't you get my note saying I hadborrowed him for a while?"
"Oh, yes," said Bat. "That's so."
He followed the other into the study, and there they saw Danny, his redhair glowing under the lights and deep in the pages of some illustratedpapers. But he got up and stood looking at his employer with a grin.
"Hello, Mr. Scanlon," said he. "I hope you ain't mad or nothin' for mygoing away and leaving the office."
"I've explained all that, Danny," said Ashton-Kirk, and Bat noddedgood-humoredly. "And now let's hear what you have to tell."
"I tried to get you on the telephone an hour ago," said Danny, as theyall three sat down at the table. "Maybe it was longer than that. But Mr.Stumph said you wasn't in, and then I told him I was coming around towait till you got here."
"Quite right," smiled the crime specialist, approvingly.
"When we left the office," Danny told Scanlon, "we took a taxi. And wewent to the Chandler Building. And up on the sixteenth floor we wentinto an office which was empty. Mr. Ashton-Kirk told me I was to staythere and was to watch things that happened in the place across thehall."
"A sort of speculator in precious stones," said Ashton-Kirk, to Bat. "Hebuys and sells; and his buying is not always aboveboard. He is also apawnbroker in a large way."
"I see," said Bat.
/> "There is a glass in the door of the place," proceeded Danny, eagerly,"glass that you can see through. And I could look through the keyhole ofthe office I was in right into Mr. Quigley's."
"Quigley's!" said Bat, anxiously, for this was the name he had caught inthe excited conversation between Fenton and Hutchinson.
"That's the name of the man who keeps the diamond place," Danny informedhim. "There was little boxes, like stalls, right up at a counter, andall with doors on them. People went into these, and then nobody couldsee who they were. Mr. Quigley would stand back of the counter and talkto them; you could see _him_, all right, and the safe where he keeps hismoney and watches and things. There was a good many people went in--someof them ladies--and I thought I'd get a sore eye from peeping throughthe keyhole; but there wasn't anybody," to Ashton-Kirk, "like the oneyou told me about."
"You are sure?" asked the investigator.
"Now wait!" begged Danny, who had no desire to spoil the effect of hisstory by over-haste. "At noon time the waiter from the lunch place cameup and handed me in the eats you said he would. While I was feedingmyself, I stood up close, to the door so's I could hear if any onestopped at the shop across the way. If they didn't, then I didn't haveto peep."
"A good idea," approved Ashton-Kirk.
"So that's what I done after that," said Danny. "When I heard anybodyopen Quigley's door I looked out to see if it was the lady you wanted.After a while I heard somebody walk down the hall and stop outside mydoor. They didn't go in at the diamond place, and they didn't go onalong down the hall, so I peeped to see who it was. I knowed it would bea man, because he walked so heavy.
"But he stood so close up to my door that I could see only a piece ofhis back; after a bit, though, he got across the hall, and I had a goodshot at him; he was kind of bent over and was looking into Quigley's,too. While he was there I heard somebody else coming, and this time itwas a lady, because she came click-click-click like ladies do with theirhigh heels. And as soon as he heard the noise, the man at the door ofthe diamond place beat it along the hall in a hurry. And then the ladywent into Quigley's."
"What sort of a lady?" asked Ashton-Kirk.
"I don't know," replied Danny, apologetically. "She had a veil on thatcovered over her face; but she was a young lady; I could see that by herdress and her shoes and her hat. She went into one of the little stalls,and Mr. Quigley commenced to talk to her. And then the man who had beenlooking in at the door came back and began to look in again, only thistime he seemed like he was excited about something. He was afraid tostand up and look straight in like he did before; he only peeped in atone edge, and so I could see in, too. After Mr. Quigley talked to thelady a while I seen her hands, with gloves on them, reach out of thestall toward him, and they had a necklace in them that I'll bet wasdiamonds."
"A necklace! Was that all?"
"I didn't see anything else. So they talked about it for a long while; acouple of times Mr. Quigley give it back to her and shook his head likeas if he didn't want to give that much money for it. But she always gotit back to him, and then he put the necklace in the safe and gave hersome money. The man that was looking in at the door blew away again asthe lady came out. She still had her veil on, and as she went up thehall I opened the door, making believe I was just going out on anerrand, or something, for my boss. And when I got in the hall I seen theman come from around a corner and stare after the lady like as if shewas the only one in the world."
"Did you notice anything about this man that would make you know himagain if you saw him?" asked Ashton-Kirk.
"Sure," said Danny. "I'd know him all right. He's got a broken nose--theflattest one I ever saw."
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