THE WINNING CLUE (Detective Novel Classic). Hay James
had gone back to the kitchen, the full force of what she had said struck him. How simple it would have been for Perry to have taken the key from the drunken Lucy and gone to No. 5! After the commission of the crime, what would have been easier than for him to throw the key on the floor in Lucy's house, thus apparently proving that he had had no way of gaining entrance to the bungalow?
"I didn't foresee this," he meditated. "There's only one thing more needed to hang that darky. That is the discovery that he has in his possession, or has hidden, the jewelry."
He seemed suddenly reminded of something else by this thought. He went to the telephone and called up the Brevord Hotel.
"A Mr. Morley, Mr. Henry Morley, registered there last night, didn't he?" he inquired of the clerk.
"Yes," the clerk replied.
"I wonder," continued Bristow suavely, "if you'd mind looking at the register and telling me exactly at what time he did register. This is Chief Greenleaf's office talking."
"I see. Yes, sir; very glad to. Just hold the wire a moment while I look."
Bristow waited. The Brevord was scarcely four minutes' walk from the railroad station. Morley, having missed the midnight train by two minutes, should have registered at the hotel certainly not later than ten minutes past midnight.
"I have it," came the clerk's voice. "Mr. Henry Morley, of Washington, D. C., registered here at five minutes past two this morning."
Bristow was astonished, but his voice was uncoloured by surprise when he inquired:
"Are you sure of that?"
"Quite," said the clerk laconically. "We always put down opposite each guest's name the time of arrival and registering."
"Thanks ever so much." Bristow hung up the receiver slowly.
It was now after one o'clock, and, following the routine prescribed by his doctor, he made his way to the sleeping porch to lie down for half an hour before dinner, his midday meal.
"From midnight until two o'clock this morning," he reflected, revolving a dozen different facts in his mind. "Mr. Morley failed to mention how he amused himself during all that time. If he's not a criminal, he's criminally stupid."
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