Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist Part 24

"I'm merely pointing out these facts to you," he said. "Of course you can do with them what you like."

With a nod to Scanlon, he was ready to go. Osborne stopped them at the door and asked a half dozen questions, all bearing pointedly upon what the investigator had just told him.

"All right," said he. "Thanks. This looks as though it'd be of little use; but then it doesn't do any harm to know all you can about a case."

Bat Scanlon heard the investigator chuckle as they got into the waiting taxi.

"It would be a safe gamble that he will be out at Stanwick in the morning looking over those places he has neglected heretofore," laughed Ashton-Kirk, as the driver slammed the door shut after them and started toward the destination given him.

Bat, anxious of eye, and with lips grimly pressed together, was silent for a s.p.a.ce, and then he said:

"What was the idea of telling the 'bulls' those things? You don't give your clues away as a rule."

Again Ashton-Kirk laughed.

"I don't think headquarters will go very far on what indications they get from the lawn at this stage," said he, drily. "So I don't antic.i.p.ate much interference from them. And," with a nod of the head which told Scanlon everything and nothing, "I have a little theory which I desire to try out. And I expect an answer within twenty-four hours."

CHAPTER XV

SCANLON STATES HIS POSITION

It was a fall Sunday, misty and with a fine rain falling; the mean street in which Ashton-Kirk's house stood--once the street of the city's aristocracy, but now crowded with the hordes of East Europe--looked sodden and cheerless. Bat Scanlon, as he mounted the wide stone steps and rang the bell, looked about and philosophized.

"Funny how things have their ups and downs--men as well as streets. And this is one of my days for being down. Down at the bottom, too,"

disconsolately; "at the bottom, with all my vexations piled up on top of me."

Stumph, grave of face, and altogether the very model of men-servants, opened the door.

"Yes, sir," said he, in reply to Scanlon's question. "Mr. Ashton-Kirk is at home. You are to go up, sir."

Scanlon made his way up the familiar staircase; from the high walls, the rows of painted faces looked down on him from their dull gilt frame.

"A fellow must feel a kind of a pressure on him to have an a.s.sorted gang of ancestors looking down on him this way all the time," said the big man, mentally. "I don't know whether I'd like it or not."

Stumph knocked at the study door, and when a voice bade them come in, he opened it and stood aside while Scanlon entered. Ashton-Kirk sat upon a deep sofa with his legs wrapped in a steamer-rug, smoking a briar pipe, and going over some closely typed pages.

"How are you?" greeted he. "Take a comfortable chair, will you? You'll find things to smoke on the table. And pardon me a moment while I finish this."

Scanlon lighted a cigarette and sat down. The criminologist plunged once more into the typed sheets, and while he was so engaged, Bat's eyes roved about the room. Through the partly open door at one end he had a detail of the laboratory with its s.h.i.+ning retorts and racks of gleaming apparatus; in the study itself were rows of books standing upon everything that would hold them; cases were stuffed with them; they littered the tables and stands, some spotless in their fresh newness, others dingy and old, with warping leather backs and yellowed pages.

Ashton-Kirk put the sheets down at last and sat for a s.p.a.ce smoking in thoughtful silence, the singular eyes half closed. Then he threw aside the rug and arose; pressing a call b.u.t.ton he began pacing the room.

"This little case of ours is gaining in interest," said he. "Its scope is widening, too. I put one of my men, Burgess, on a detail which I wanted thoroughly searched, and it led him to New Orleans."

Scanlon elevated his brows.

"No!" said he. "Is that a fact?"

There were a number of newspapers scattered about the floor. Ashton-Kirk kicked one of them out of the way as he turned the table in his pacing.

"I suppose you've seen the afternoon editions," said he, with a smile at the corners of his mouth.

"Not yet," said Scanlon. "It's a bit early."

"I had Stumph get me some of them," said the investigator, "and it's just as I expected it would be. My plan of last night worked perfectly."

"You mean what you gave Osborne at headquarters."

"Yes. One of the first things he did was to call in the reporters and tell them of the new clues. He neglected to state, evidently, by whom they had been found, and the reporters naturally took it for granted that he was the person."

"Of course," criticized Bat, "that's the regular way for 'bulls' to work. They grab off everything they can."

"Listen to this!" Ashton-Kirk took up one of the newspapers and turned to the first page. "The head-lines read:

"'CLUE TO STANWICK PUZZLE A WOMAN FIGURES IN MURDER OF BURTON _Clever Work by City Sleuth_ _He Finds Evidence Overlooked by Others_'"

"Stuff of that kind is like steam coal to a boiler," spoke Mr. Scanlon.

"It'll keep the reporters going for days."

"The body of the article is shot full of fanciful matter," said the investigator, as he tossed the paper aside. "It must have been a youth of considerable imagination who wrote it; the casual reader would take from his printed remarks that the city authorities have the woman who made the footprints directly under their eyes--that only an order is necessary, and she'll be taken into custody."

Scanlon looked at the graying end of the cigarette with uneasy eyes; he s.h.i.+fted in the big chair and crossed one leg over another.

"That fellow Osborne'll never find out anything unless some one tells him," said the big athlete. "And no one's going to do that--not yet, anyway, eh?"

There came a knock upon the door.

"Come in," called Ashton-Kirk.

A short man entered; he had big shoulders and remarkable girth of chest, and he carried a black, hard hat in his hand.

"Sit down, Burgess," requested the investigator. The man with the bulging chest nodded to Scanlon and took a seat upon the edge of the sofa. "I've just been going over that report of yours," went on Ashton-Kirk. "You have done very well. And I thank you."

Burgess fingered the rim of the black hat, and seemed gratified.

"I never saw a job develop so," said he. "Didn't look like much at first; but it was all over the place in a day or two. I had to jump clean to Cleveland almost at once. I guess Fuller told you." And as the investigator nodded, the big-chested man proceeded: "I squeezed Cleveland dry, and followed the lead to Milwaukee, then to Nashville, and finally to New Orleans. I got most of my leads in Cleveland; she was married there and quite a lot of people knew her."

Ashton-Kirk picked up the typed sheets and glanced through them as though to refresh his memory.

"They seem to speak very highly of her," said he.

"Couldn't be better," replied Burgess. "But there was one little drawback. There wasn't any of them that knew her very well--except professionally. And to know a person only professionally is no guarantee that you know the facts about her."

"Very true," said Ashton-Kirk. His eyes were still going over the sheets. "You say here that Parslow was rather negative concerning her."