Ashton-Kirk, Investigator Part 20

CHAPTER X

ASHTON-KIRK ASKS QUESTIONS

For some time after Miss Vale had gone, Ashton-Kirk stood at one of the windows and looked down at the sordid, surging, dirty crowd in the street. The worn horses went dispiritedly up and down; the throaty-voiced men clamored strangely through their beards; children played in the black ooze of the gutters; women bundled in immense knitted garments and with their heads wrapped in shawls, haggled over scatterings of faded, weak looking vegetables. The vendors grew frantic and eloquent in their combats with these experienced purchasers; their gestures were high, sharp and loaded with protest.

Then Pendleton came. He was burdened with newspapers and wore an excited look.

"I brought these, thinking that perhaps you had not seen them," he exclaimed, throwing the dailies among the others upon the floor. "But I note that your morning's reading has been very complete. Now tell me, Kirk, what the mischief do you think of all this?"

"I suppose, you refer to the published reports of the Hume case?"

"Of course! As far as I am concerned, there is not, just now, any other thing of consequence on earth." Then he struck the table with his fist. "And it's all the fault of that cur--Allan Morris! Every bit of it! There is not a s.p.a.ce writer or amateur detective on a single paper in the city that hasn't his nose to the ground at this minute, hunting the trail. They are all at it. I stopped at the Vale's on my way here, but they told me she was not at home. From the top step to the curb, on my way out, I was stopped four times by stony-faced young men all anxious to make good with their city editors. 'Was I a friend of the family? Did Miss Vale seem at all upset by the matter? Where was Allan Morris? What brought him so frequently, as Brolatsky said, to see Hume?' I believe they'd have come over the back of my car even after I started, if I had given but an encouraging look."

"The evening papers will be a trial to Miss Vale for the next few days."

"Well, don't neglect the morning issues, if you are going to mention any. In to-morrow's _Star_ there will be a portrait of Edyth four columns wide and eight inches high. I'll expect such expressions as 'beautiful society girl,' 'a recent debutante,' 'heiress to the vast fortune of the late structural steel king,' 'charming manner and brilliant mind.' And at those odd times when they are not praising her gowns, her wealth or her good looks, they'll be rather worse than insinuating that she knows all about the crime--if she didn't commit it herself!"

He paced up and down the floor, his huge motoring coat flapping distressfully about his legs. His face was flushed.

"If I had Morris here," he threatened, "I'd show him a few things, the pup!" Then suddenly he stopped his tramping and faced his friend. "But now that it is as it is," he demanded, "what are we going to do about it?"

"There are quite a number of very sensible things for us to do,"

replied Ashton-Kirk, good-humoredly. "And the first of them is to keep our tempers--the second to keep cool."

"All right," sulked Pendleton. "I know well enough that I need to do both. But what next?"

"Is your car still outside?"

"Yes."

"Good. We'll have a little use for it to-day, if you're not otherwise engaged."

"Kirk," said Pendleton, earnestly, "until this matter is settled, don't hesitate to command me. I know that I'm not generally credited with much serious purpose; but even the lightweight feels things--sometimes."

Within half an hour, Ashton-Kirk, in a perfectly fitting, carefully pressed suit of gray, tan shoes and a light colored knock-about cap, led the way down to the car. As they got in, he said:

"We'd better go to Bernstine's first. It's the nearest and on our way to the station."

A twenty minute's run through a baffling maze of vehicles brought them to the curb before a store with a very conspicuous modern front of plate gla.s.s and metal. Inside they inquired for one of the Messrs.

Bernstine; and upon one of the gentlemen presenting himself, Ashton-Kirk handed him his card. Mr. Bernstine was stout, bald and affable.

"I have heard of you, sir," said he, "and I am delighted to be of service!"

"Within the last few weeks," said Ashton-Kirk, "you have had a sale of rifles and other things condemned by the military authorities of Bolivia."

Mr. Bernstine wrinkled his smooth forehead in reflection.

"Bolivia?" said he. "Now let me see." He pondered heavily for a few moments and then sighed. "You see," he explained, "we sell so many lots, from so many different places, that we can hardly keep the run of them. But our books will show," proudly; "everything we do is in our books."

He looked down the long, table-crowded store and called loudly:

"Sime!"

Sime instantly put in an appearance. He was small, sandy-haired and freckled; he wore an alert expression and carried a marking pencil behind his ear.

"This is our s.h.i.+pping and receiving clerk," said Mr. Bernstine. "He's up to everything around the place." Then he lowered his voice and jerked his fat thumb toward the newcomer secretly, addressing Pendleton: "Clever! Just full of it."

Sime listened to Ashton-Kirk's question attentively.

"Yes," he said, in answer, "we had some of that stuff lately. Sold well, too, considering the time of the year." He pulled open a drawer and took out a fat, canvas-covered book. "Two gross rifles; one hundred gross cartridges." He closed the book, tossed it into the drawer and then slid the drawer shut. "There were a few bayonets, too.

About half a dozen."

With his round, fat countenance s.h.i.+ning with admiration, Mr. Bernstine once more caught Pendleton's eye.

"Just full of it," he murmured, sotto voce. "As full as he can be."

"The bayonets," said Ashton-Kirk, "are what we are after. They were all sold, I suppose?"

"Yes," replied Sime. "I remember, when the last one went, saying to one of our men that we were lucky. You see, bayonets don't sell very well except to military companies; and _they_ are not organizing every day."

"Do you know who bought them?"

Sime took the marking pencil from behind his ear and proceeded to scratch his head with its point. Mr. Bernstine watched him anxiously.

But when the s.h.i.+pping clerk pulled open the drawer once more, the employer's face lighted up.

"Ah!" said he to Pendleton. "The books! Now we'll have it."

"They were all taken away by the people who bought them," announced Sime, after a great flipping of ink spattered pages, "All except one."

"And that one--"

"It went by our boy. It was sold to Mr. Cartwright the artist, and was sent to his studio up here in Fifth St. But there was another--the last one that we had," suddenly, "and now that I get thinking of it, I remember we had some trouble about it. The man that bought it was a Dago."

Pendleton darted a swift look at Ashton-Kirk, but the investigator's expression never changed. He looked steadily at the clock.

"When he asked for the bayonet," proceeded Sime, "I knew we had one left, but I could not just lay my hands on it. He paid for it and I said we'd send it to him. He started to give me his address, and then changed his mind and said he'd come back again."

"And he did?"

"Yes; the same afternoon. I had found the thing by that time and he took it with him."

"You don't recall the address?"

To his employer's evident mortification, Sime shook his head.

"Look in the books," suggested Mr. Bernstine with confidence. "Look in the books."