The Winning Clue Part 17

"If she did, I didn't hear it. I just got the impression that they were both angry and mixed up in a terrific quarrel."

"Have you ever heard anything else like that at any other time?"

"Oh, we often heard them fussing. Miss Fulton did the fussing. Mrs.

Withers was almost always gentle and calm. One other time I did hear Mrs.

Withers say she'd lent Miss Fulton all she could afford."

"When was that?"

"Some time ago--a month or six weeks ago; maybe two months."

"Money, always money," the lame man said.

He was silent, thoughtful, for several minutes.

"I'm ever so much obliged, Miss Rutgers," he said at last. "Every bit of evidence we can get will help us--perhaps."

Miss Rutgers had risen.

"There's one other thing, Mr. Bristow," she volunteered. "There was a man hanging around Number Five last night; rather, it was early this morning."

"How do you know that?" His voice was at once urgent.

"Bessie--Miss Hardesty and I have our beds on the sleeping porch. Hers is the one nearest to Number Five. She told me about it this morning. At about one o'clock--or between one and two--she thought she heard a sloppy footstep near the sleeping porch. At that time it was raining, but not hard--just a fine drizzle.

"She went to the wiring that walls the sleeping porch on the end toward Number Five, and she made out the figure of a man coming from the front of Number Five and going toward the back fence. He had just pa.s.sed the sleeping porch. She turned on the little flashlight we keep out there and saw him."

"Who was it? Could she make him out at all?"

"She said it was a negro."

"Did she see his face?"

"Not enough to recognize him, but enough to make her sure he was a black man."

"She didn't try to identify him?"

"Well, she thought it was the darky Perry who does so much work in this neighbourhood. She said she thought so because the figure of the man she saw in the rain reminded her of Perry's general appearance."

"Did she call out to him?"

"No; and he didn't run. He just walked fast and was out of sight in a moment. When I heard of the murder early this afternoon, I was up at the sanitarium, and I went to the matron and told her what I've just told you. It was her advice that, as soon as I got off duty, I should come down here and telephone what I knew to the police. She didn't want me to do it from the sanitarium because the patients might have heard it and become too much excited."

"I see. Where's Miss Hardesty now?"

"This is her night on duty at the sanitarium."

"I see. Well, she'll have to testify at the inquest tomorrow. You might tell her that. Never mind, though. The police will notify her."

"I know she won't like that much," Miss Rutgers declared; "but, of course, she'll tell what she knows. How about me?"

"I can't say yet, but I don't think we'll need you at the inquest. We may need you later."

"Very well," she consented. "Let me know when the time comes. Good night, Mr. Bristow."

He went inside and picked up a novel. He wanted to "clear his brain" for the talk with the chief of police.

Greenleaf came in, looking downcast.

"What did you get from Withers?" Bristow asked.

"Nothing but a good bawling out," the chief said testily. "We won't get anything more from him for some time. He told me so. He said: 'You fellows have been carrying things with a high hand today, questioning and frightening everybody with your hidden threats and third degrees. Get out! I'll do my talking to Sam Braceway tomorrow.' But I did ask him one question--the thing you wanted to know. I asked him whether he had worn rubber shoes last night."

"What did he say?" Bristow was inwardly amused by Greenleaf's pertinacity.

"He said it was none of my business; and he flew into a rage about it--worse than he was in here this morning. He looked like a crazy man.

I watched him gesticulate and get red in the face and foam and splutter.

Why, he looked like a man who might commit murder any moment."

At that, Bristow started. The chief's words were strikingly like what Miss Rutgers had told him she had heard Mrs. Withers say: "He looked as if he might kill me, choke me to death, anything!"

"He's going to spend the night in Number Five," Greenleaf concluded; "he and Miss Fulton and the nurse, Miss Kelly."

Bristow tossed his novel into a vacant chair and spread out his hands.

"Well, chief," he said, "what do you make out of all this? What do you intend to do at the inquest tomorrow? By the way, here's something you'll need."

He related what Miss Rutgers had told him.

"I'm willing to take your advice," Greenleaf announced, "but this is my idea: we'll present all we have against Perry, and have him held for the grand jury. We've got enough to do that--the b.u.t.tons evidence, his failure to present anything like an alibi, the mark of the rubber sole on the front porch, the inability of the woman, Lucy Thomas, to say whether or not she gave Perry the kitchen key to Number Five."

"She can't remember that, can she?"

"No; not even when we've got her locked up in jail."

"Chief, do you think Perry killed and robbed Mrs. Withers?"

"I think this," he replied: "it's an even chance he did. If he didn't, it's a sure thing that his being accused of it and locked up for it may make the real criminal more careless and give us a better chance to catch him."

"Yes; you're right. What reports have you had on the mysterious man Withers says he saw, the fellow with the long-visored cap, long raincoat, and gold tooth?"

"A little something. Jenkins has scoured the town pretty well in the time he had, A clerk at Maplewood Inn thinks--_thinks_--he saw such a man in the lobby there about three weeks ago. And one of our patrolmen, Ashurst, says he's pretty certain he saw him two months ago near here, in fact down on Freeman Avenue near where Manniston Road branches off from it. It was at night, nearly midnight."

"Did Ashurst watch him?"

"Only carelessly. Says he saw him walk on down Freeman Avenue as if he intended going into the town."

"What did the clerk see? What did this fellow do in the Maplewood Inn lobby?"