Ashton-Kirk, Investigator Part 33

At once the big gla.s.s swept around in that direction.

"A house," added the watcher, with great satisfaction.

The building was almost buried in a thick growth of trees; its white sides and red roof shone in the sun through branches abud with April.

Suddenly, in the midst of her labor, Miss Vale paused; her manner changed, the tools were dropped, the parts lost interest. Facing the house, she yawned, with arms thrown wide after the manner of one much wearied with a task; then she took off the gloves, unpinned her hat and smoothed her hair. This was gone through with careful elaboration and afterwards there was a pause; the girl then gathered up the things, got into the machine, placed the hat upon the seat beside her, went careening away with never a backward glance.

But the man in the tree seemed in no haste to follow; instead he covered the distant house with his gla.s.s and waited patiently. Five, ten, fifteen minutes pa.s.sed, then half an hour and finally an hour. At the end of that time, however, a figure emerged from the trees about the house and walked hastily toward the road; the eyes of the watcher glistened, his fine teeth shone in an appreciative smile.

Reaching the road where the car had stopped, the newcomer, who was young, well-dressed and rather good-looking, suddenly paused, stooped and lifted something from the ground. He held in his hands the work gloves of Miss Vale, which she had dropped after taking them off. For a moment the young man stood looking at them as though hesitating what to do; then he turned, went to the roadside and placed them carefully upon the top rail of the fence. Then trudging along on his way, he unsuspectingly pa.s.sed beneath the maple which concealed the man with the gla.s.s.

When he was out of sight, the Italian slipped down the tree and ran lightly along the road to the place where the gloves lay. He took up one and looked within; but it was empty. However, in the thumb of the next was a slip of paper which bore a single line of writing:

"Tobin Rangnow."

Studying this for a moment, the Italian made a copy of it. Then he slipped it back into the thumb of the glove and replaced both exactly as they were; after which he made his way back to the motor cycle, and mounting, went flying toward the city.

CHAPTER XVIII

ASHTON-KIRK TELLS WHY

It was about four in the afternoon, and young Pendleton sat in Ashton-Kirk's big chair, reading the newspapers and waiting. Finally he rang a bell and Stumph gravely appeared.

"Are you sure that he said three?" asked Pendleton.

"_About_ three, sir," replied the man.

"Oh! I suppose he's been detained then. That will be all, Stumph!"

When the man disappeared, Pendleton lighted a cigar and resumed his reading. The Hume case was still holding its place as the news feature of the day. Nothing had occurred to equal it in sensation; and the huge headings flared across the front pages, undiminished and undismayed.

"Why," screamed the _Standard_, in a perfect frenzy of letter press, "did Miss Edyth Vale visit Hume on the night of the murder?"

The girl's name had crept into the paper on the day before; with each edition it appeared in larger type; and that afternoon the _Standard_ was printing it in red ink. Allan Morris was not neglected; on the contrary, he figured a very close second to his betrothed in the types.

"_Where is Allan Morris?_"

One paper asked this question perhaps fifty times on each page. It peered at one in square, heavy-faced type from the bottoms of columns and between articles. There were interviews with his clerks; the opinions of his stenographer were given in full, together with her portrait; and what his man servant had to say was treated as being of great consequence.

Another sheet, which made a point of appealing to the tastes of the vast foreign element of the city, grew very indignant as to the arrest of Antonio Spatola.

"Why," it inquired, "is this man detained and no attempt made to take those higher up into custody? If the Police Department is so ready to incarcerate a poor musician, why should it hesitate upon the threshold of the rich man's mansion?--or the rich woman's, for the matter of that?"

This item incensed Pendleton beyond measure; he threw the paper aside and stormed up and down the room.

"Of all the blatant wretched twaddle I ever did read," he exclaimed, "this is positively the worst. Why, the rag would have the police arrest Edyth--arrest her for--"

"Well," demanded a sharp, aggressively pitched voice, "what for you make-a da blame, eh? Da cops pinch-a Spatola, and for why, eh? Because he's da wop, da Ginney, da Dago and got-a no friends."

At the first word Pendleton had whirled about in astonishment, and faced the speaker, who stood in the doorway, pointing with one hand in the att.i.tude of melodrama.

"Well," asked the young man, "who the deuce are you?"

By way of an answer the other burst into a laugh that showed his brilliant teeth; then he threw off his battered soft hat and gayly colored handkerchief, after which he sank into the chair which Pendleton had lately vacated.

"Pen," said he, in an altered voice, "if you appreciate my friends.h.i.+p at all, give me one of the blackest cigars in the case over there."

Pendleton stared for a moment; then a grin crept over his face and he said:

"Oh, it's you, is it?" He went to the cabinet and took out a box.

"Here's a brand that looks like black Havana," he said. "And now, what the d.i.c.kens are you doing in that rig?"

"I've been taking a long ride in the country--on a motor cycle,"

answered Ashton-Kirk, crossing his shabbily clothed legs and striking a match. "Any time you feel disinclined to face your meals, Pen, I recommend you heartily to do the same. It is a greater bracer. At this moment I really believe I could do complete justice to even the very best culinary thoughts of our friend, Dr. Mercer."

Pendleton sat down and regarded his friend with questioning eyes.

"It wasn't to acquire an appet.i.te that you made up this way. You've been working."

Ashton-Kirk comfortably blew one smoke-ring through another before he answered.

"Will you be surprised to hear that I have been following Miss Edyth Vale on a little voyage to the neighborhood of Cordova?"

"Again!"

"But this time she did not pay a visit to Professor Locke. To-day the favored one was Allan Morris."

"Morris! Then she knows where he is?"

"So it would seem."

"But she told you the other day that she did not."

Ashton-Kirk shrugged his shoulders.

"Things happen swiftly and unexpectedly," said he. "Perhaps she did _not_ know it then."

"And perhaps she did not know Locke or his whereabouts, either," said Pendleton, with bitter irony.

"Who knows?" replied Ashton-Kirk, composedly. "At any rate, it was just a supposition that led to my labors of to-day."

"I don't think I understand," said Pendleton, after a moment.

"Last night," said the investigator, "you asked me if I had learned anything from Professor Locke. And I replied to the effect that I thought I had. Now," after a pause, devoted to the grateful smoke, "when one sees a girl circ.u.mstanced as Miss Vale a.s.suredly is in this case, paying a secret visit to a man who is rather more than suspected of the murder, what does one suppose?"