“Going to Washington! Man, you’re mad—mad! You’ll have a hemorrhage or something, and die—die, I tell you!”
“Nevertheless,” Bristow insisted, “I must go.”
“About this murder?”
“Yes.”
“Very well!” snorted Mowbray, rising like a jumping-jack. “Go—go to the North Pole if you wish. I’m through! I can’t treat a man who defies my orders and advice. Good morning, sir.”
Bristow gave him no answer, and he ran down the steps and threw himself into his car.
“Mistuh Bristow, Lucy’s done come,” said Mattie, at the living room door.
Bristow started to leave his chair, but changed his mind.
“Tell her to wait a few minutes,” he said.
He began to think and to determine just what he wanted to find out from Lucy, what she would say and what he wanted her to say. It would not do to question her before he felt sure of what she knew and what she must confess. He rocked gently in his chair, going over several times the evidence he desired. His face was hard-set, almost like marble, as he stared at the mountains. He was thinking harder at that moment than he had done at any time since the murder.
He had it now. She had given Perry the key to the Withers kitchen—or, better still, Perry had taken it from her—and she remembered every detail of it, his departure from her house and his return with the key. That was what she had to confess. Inevitably, he argued, that would be her story, or else she would have no story at all.
He thought of Braceway. He made now no secret of the fact that a struggle between himself and the Atlanta man was on—not openly, but thoroughly understood by both of them—a fight for supremacy, a contest in which he sought to convict Perry while Braceway worked for the conviction of Morley.
Braceway had the added incentive of wanting to run down the man who had destroyed his friend’s home life; and Braceway believed that Morley and Morley’s money entanglements had, in some way, caused the tragedy.
Well, he, Bristow, would see about that! He knew he had the best of the argument so far—and he looked forward to a double pleasure: the applause that would come to him as the result of Perry’s conviction, and his own personal gratification at besting Braceway at his own game.
He went into the unused bedroom and told Mattie to send Lucy Thomas to him there. While he waited, he closed the two windows.
CHAPTER XIII
LUCY THOMAS TALKS
Lucy came slowly into the room and stood near the door. She was of the peculiar-looking negress type sometimes seen in the South—light of complexion, with hard, porcelain-like blue eyes and kinky hair which, instead of being black, is brown or brownish red. After her first startled glance toward Bristow she stood with her head lowered and with an expression of sulky stubbornness.
“Sit down!” he ordered after a few moments’ silence, indicating a chair near the wall.
She took her seat while he stepped to the door and closed it.
“Now, Lucy,” he said, pulling at his lower lip as he stood in the middle of the room and looked down at her, “I’m not going to hurt you, and there’s nothing for you to be afraid of. All I want you to do is to tell me the truth.”
In spite of his reassuring words, the woman caught the full meaning of the goading sharpness in his voice. She immediately became more sullen.
“’Deed, I ain’ got nothin’ to tell ’bout you white folks,” she said, with a touch of insolence.
“This isn’t about white folks,” he corrected her, resisting his quick impulse to anger. “It’s about coloured folks.”
“Nothin’ ’bout dem neithuh,” she continued in the same tone. “I don’ know nothin’ ’cep’n I wuz drunk. I done tole all dat down at de p’lice station.”
“Listen to me!” he commanded, a little pale, “You know perfectly well what I want to find out. I want you to tell me everything you remember about Perry Carpenter’s actions and words last Monday night—the night before last.”
She raised and lowered her eyes rapidly, the lids working like the shutter of a camera.
“I knows what you wants, an’ I knows I don’ know nothin’ ’tall ’bout it,” she objected, her sullenness a patent defiance.
He stared at her for a full two minutes. She could hear the breath whistling between his teeth; the sound of it frightened her.
“Don’t lie to me!” he said, now a trifle hoarse. “It isn’t necessary, and it doesn’t do anybody any good—you or Perry either.”
She began to whimper.
Looking at her, he was conscious of being absorbed in the attempt to keep his temper instead of eliciting what she had to tell. He smiled.
“Stop that sniffling, and tell me what you know about Monday night! Don’t you remember that Perry told you he was going to Mrs. Withers’ house and steal her jewelry?”
“I done tole you I don’ remembuh nothin’.”
He took a step toward her and lifted his open hand as if to strike her in the face. Without waiting for the blow, she slid from the chair and fell sprawling to the floor, where she lay, moaning.
“Get up!”
She obeyed him, her arms held folded over her head as a shield against expected blows. She was still sullen, uncommunicative, her head down.
He limped swiftly to the door, left the room and went to the front part of the house. He paced the length of the living room several times, his fists clenched, his protuberant lip grown heavier.
He called to Mattie, who was in the kitchen.
“I wish,” he directed, “you’d go down to Sterrett’s and get a dozen oranges.”
“Yes, suh. Right now, Mistuh Bristow?”
“Yes; hurry. I want some orangeade.”
He returned to the bedroom and closed the door. Lucy was bent forward on the chair, moaning.
“Stop that!” he said, feeling now that he had himself and her under control. “If you don’t stop, you’ll have something real to sniffle about before I’m through with you! Now begin. What about Perry last Monday night?”
“Please, suh,” she changed her tone, “lemme go. I ain’ got nothin’ to say. I feels like I might say somethin’ dat ain’ so. I’se kinder skeered you might make me say somethin’ whut I don’ mean to say.”
Moving deliberately, a fine, little tremor in his fingers, he took off his coat and vest and hung them on the back of a chair. He had just noticed that it was warm and close in the shut-up room. There was a ringing in his ears. He kept repeating to himself that, if he lost his temper, she would never become communicative.
He began all over again, patient, persistent—
When Mattie came back with the oranges, she met Lucy just outside the kitchen door. There were no tears in the Thomas woman’s eyes, but she seemed greatly distressed.
“Whut’d he want offen you?” Mattie asked, with the negro’s usual curiosity.
“Nothin’ much,” replied the other, looking blankly out across Mattie’s shoulder. “He jes’ axed me whut I knowd ’bout Perry dat night.”
“I tole you dar warn’t nothin’ to be skeered uv him foh,” said Mattie. “Some uv you blacks ain’ got no sense.”
“Yas; dat’s so,” Lucy agreed dully, and walked slowly away.
She moved as if she felt that there was something frightful behind her. When she was half-way home, she broke into a run, and, moaning, ran the remainder of the distance. She threw herself on her bed and sobbed a long time.
She had talked, and for the present she thought she felt more sorry for Perry than she did for herself.
In the meantime, Bristow had gone into the bathroom to wash his hands.
“Pah!” he exclaimed, disgusted.
He dried his hands and walked, whistling, out to the living room. No matter how distasteful the scene with the sullen woman had been, the substantial fac
t remained that he had in his pocket an important document. After all, Lucy Thomas had talked—and signed.
“Mattie,” he called, “fix me an orangeade, please. Mr. Greenleaf’s late for dinner, and I need a little freshening up.”
He went to the living room window again and gazed, with thoughtful, slightly sad eyes, out toward the mountains.
“These policemen!” he was thinking contemptuously. “They don’t know how to make blockheads tell what they can tell. There are ways—and ways.”
CHAPTER XIV
THE PAWN BROKER TAKES THE TRAIL
Frank Abrahamson, pawn broker and junk dealer, responded at once to Braceway’s warm smile. The Jew had his racial respect for keenness and clean-cut ability. He liked this man who, dressed like a dandy, spoke with the air of authority.
“The fellow with the gold tooth?” he replied to Braceway’s request for information. “Was there anything peculiar about him? Why, yes. He was clothed in peculiarities.”
The pawn broker, thin, round-shouldered, with a great hook-nose and cavernous, bright eyes, spoke rapidly, without an accent, punctuating his sentences with thrusts and dartings and waves of his two hands. His fifty-five years had not lessened his vitality.
“You see, Mr. Braceway, we pawn brokers, we have to observe our customers. We become judges of human nature. At the best, we have a hard time making a living.” Somehow, with his smile, he discounted this statement. “And we come to judge men as closely as we examine jewels and precious metals. You see?”
Braceway saw. He lit a cigarette and stepped to the door to throw away the match. The Jew appreciated the thoughtfulness. Trash on the floor made the morning task of sweeping up harder.
“Now,” continued Abrahamson, expressing with one movement of his arm tolerant ridicule, “this man with the gold tooth and the brown beard—he thought he was disguised. By gracious! it was funny. A fellow like me takes one look at him and sees the disguise. The gold tooth—that was false, fake. When he talked to me, it was all I could do to keep from reaching across the counter and pushing that tooth more firmly into his jaw. Gold is heavy, you see. I was afraid it might drop down on my showcase and break some glass.”
Abrahamson laughed. So did Braceway.
“And his beard, Mr. Braceway? That was better. To the ordinary observer, it might have looked natural—but not to me. Oh, yes; he was disguised—too much.—Besides, the other afternoon was not the first time I had seen him—no.”
“You saw him two months ago, then?”
“Yes, sir—two months ago, and one month before that.”
“In here?”
“Yes.”
“What did he want?”
“Money. Money for jewelry. Oh, he had the jewelry. And I gave him the money—a great deal; more, perhaps, than was good for me, when you remember I always try to make a reasonable profit. He argued. He knew about values.”
This interested Braceway more than anything he had yet heard.
“That gave you an idea,” he suggested.
“You are quick, Mr. Braceway. It did give me an idea. It made me think: well! This man, he has pawned things before, these very same things. He knew quite well what they should bring.” Abrahamson shrugged his shoulders. “And he did know—and I let him have the money. That is, I mean, what happened the first two times. This last time, the three days ago, he was different, in a hurry, and he took only what I offered. He made no argument. I could see he was frightened. Yes—he was different this last time.”
The detective, oblivious of the other for a moment, blew a cloud of smoke across the counter, causing the Jew to dodge and cough.
“Let me see,” Braceway said. “You saw him three months ago, two months ago, and three days ago. Had you ever seen him before?”
Abrahamson laughed, and, reaching over, slapped Braceway on the shoulder gently.
“You are so quick, Mr. Braceway! I can’t swear I had ever seen him before, but I think I had—not with the gold tooth and the beard, but with a moustache and bushy eyebrows, eyebrows too bushy.”
“Where? Where did you see him?”
“Here, I think—but I’m not sure, you see. Sometimes I have traveled a little—to Atlanta, to Washington, to New York. I don’t know; I can’t tell whether I saw him in one of those places, or some other place, or here.”
Braceway urged him with his eyes.
“If you only could! Mr. Abrahamson, if you could remember where you saw him when he wore the moustache, you would enable me to put my hands on him. You’d do more. You’d give me enough information to lead to the arrest of the murderer.”
Abrahamson was silent, gazing through the shop doorway. He turned to the detective again.
“I bet you, Mr. Braceway, you will be glad to hear something. Chief Greenleaf was in here this morning, asking questions. But he asked so many that were worth nothing, so few that were good. And I forgot to tell him the whole story—the things of, perhaps, significance.”
“Tell me. Significance is what I’m after.”
“Well, you know Mr. Withers spent almost the whole day in here before the night of the murder. Once he went out. That was in the late afternoon to get some lunch. While he was out—understand, while he was out—in came the gold-tooth fellow.
“It was bad luck. I kept him as long as I could, but he was hurried, nervous. Half an hour, forty minutes maybe, after the gold-tooth fellow had gone, in came Withers again, out of breath, complaining that he had picked the man up just outside here and followed him, only to lose him when the gold-tooth fellow went through Casey’s store to the avenue.
“I showed Withers the ring the fellow had pawned for a hundred dollars.
“‘Yes, yes!’ he said; ‘that’s one of my wife’s rings.’
“And he was all cut up.
“Now, here is what I have to tell.” Abrahamson lowered his voice and, leaning low on his elbow, thrust his face far over the counter toward Braceway. “It is only an idea, but—it is an idea. I bet you I would not tell anybody else. Such things might get a man into trouble. But I like you, Mr. Braceway. I confide in you. Mr. Withers and that man with the beard and the gold tooth—something in the look of the eyes, something in the build of the shoulders—each reminded me of the other, a little. And they were at no time in here together. Just an idea, I told you. But—”
He spread out his hands, straightened his back, and smiled.
Braceway was, undisguisedly, amazed.
“You mean Withers was the—”
“S—sh—sh!” Abrahamson held up a protesting hand. “Not so loud, Mr. Braceway. It is just an idea for you to think over. I study faces, and all that sort of thing, and ideas sometimes are valuable—sometimes not.”
“By George!” Braceway put into his expression an enthusiasm he was far from feeling. “You’ve done me a service, a tremendous service, Mr. Abrahamson.”
He thought rapidly. Three months ago! Where had George Withers been then? Three months ago was the first of February. He started. It was then that Withers had gone to Savannah. At least, he had said he was going to Savannah. And two months ago? He was not certain, but when had George left Atlanta, ostensibly for Memphis?
Inwardly, the detective ridiculed himself. He would have sworn to the innocence of Withers. In fact, he was swearing to it all over again as he stood there in the pawnshop. Abrahamson’s “idea” was out of the question. People were often victims of “wild thinking” in the midst of the excitement caused by a murder mystery.
He returned to the effort to persuade the Jew to try to remember where he had seen the bearded man without a beard, with only a moustache and bushy eyebrows.
“That’s the important thing,” he urged. “If you can remember that, I’ll land the murderer.”
“Maybe—perhaps, I can.” The pawn broker hesitated, then made up his mind to confide
to Braceway another secret. “I don’t promise, but there is a chance. You see, Mr. Braceway, I’m a thinker.” He smiled, deprecating the statement. “Most men do not think. But me, I think. I do this: I want to remember something. Good! I go back into my little room back of the shop, and I practise association of ideas. What does the moustache remind me of? What was in his voice that made me think I had seen him before? What do his eyes bring up in my mind?
“So! I go back over the months, over the years. One idea leads to another connected with it. There flash into my mind links and links of thoughts until I have a chain leading to—where? Somewhere. It is fun—and it brings the results. I will do so tonight and tomorrow. I will try. I bet you I will be able to tell you—finally. You see?”
“It’s a great scheme,” said Braceway, encouraging him. “It ought to work. Now, tell me this: how did this fellow strike you? What did you think of him when he was in here pawning jewels and wearing a disguise?”
“I will tell you the truth. I thought at first he was like a lot of other sick people who come here with that disease—tuberculosis. In the beginning they have plenty of money. They expect to get well before the money gives out. But they have miscalculated. They are not yet well, and the money is gone.
“What next? They must have more money. With this disease, the rich get well, the poor die. Well! I thought this fellow needed money to get well—that was all; and, like a lot of them, he was ashamed of being hard up and didn’t want it known.”
“Tell me this: would the ordinary man in the street have noticed that the gold tooth was a false, clumsy affair?”
“I think not. I buy all sorts of old gold and sets of false teeth. There is a market for them. I have studied them. That’s why I saw what this fellow’s was.”
“I see. Now, will you show me what he pawned two months ago, and three months ago?”
Abrahamson consulted a big book, went to the safe at the back of the shop, and returned with two little packets. In the first were two bracelets, one studded with emeralds and diamonds, the other set with rubies. In the second envelope was a gold ring set with one large diamond surrounded by small rubies.
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