The Crime of the French Café and Other Stories. Carter Nicholas
got on to him easy enough," said Patsy, whom they found outside the house. "I found the policeman who was on that beat last night, and got him to give me a list of all the night-hawks he'd seen around there up to eight o'clock of the evening.
"Then I began to chase up the fellows on that list. The second man put me on to Harrigan. He remembered seeing him get the job, but couldn't tell what sort of a man hired him.
"I guess there's no doubt that he's the man, but I haven't questioned him yet. He's in there asleep."
Nick passed himself off as a friend of Harrigan's, and was directed with Patsy to the man's room.
They went in without being invited, after having tried in vain to get an answer to their pounding on his door.
The cabman was snoring in a heavy slumber.
"From what I heard," said Patsy, "Harrigan had a very large skate on last night. He's sleeping it off."
Nick shook the man unmercifully, and at last he sat up in bed.
"What t' 'ell?" said he, looking about him wildly. "Who are youse, an' wha's the row?"
As the quickest way to sober the man, Nick showed his shield. It acted like a cold shower-bath.
"Say, what was it I done?" gasped Harrigan. "S' help me, I dunno nothing about it. I had a load on me last night, an' I ain't responsible."
Patsy laughed.
"There's no charge against you," said Nick; "I only want to ask you a few questions."
Harrigan sank back on the pillow with a gasp of relief.
"Gimme that water-pitcher," he said; "me t'roat's full o' cobwebs."
He drank about a quart of water, and then declared himself ready for a cross-examination. Nick sized him up for a decent sort of fellow; and saw no reason to doubt that he was telling the truth when he answered the questions that were put to him.
It appeared that he had been on Seventh avenue, near the French restaurant, from a little after six to about half-past seven on the previous evening.
At the latter hour a man had engaged his cab. He had taken it to the side door of the restaurant, and the waiter had got in. The man who hired the cab was already inside.
He had driven them somewhere on Fifty-seventh street, or it might be Fifty-eighth. He couldn't remember exactly.
The two men got out together. He didn't know what had become of them.
His fare was paid all right. Then he had a couple more drinks, and the next thing he knew he was at the stable where he had hired the cab.
Of course he didn't confess this in so many words, but Nick understood the facts well enough.
That was absolutely all that Harrigan knew about the case.
"Would you recognize the man who hired your cab if you saw him again?" asked Nick.
"Oh, sure," said Harrigan. "I wasn't so very full. I had me wits about me. Say, you ain't going to do me dirt an' git me license taken away? I was all right. I didn't do any harm."
Nick assured Harrigan that if he acted right in this case his license would be safe, and then left the man to his slumbers.
"Not very promising, is it, my boy?" said Nick to Patsy, as they went downstairs. "We've lost the trail as soon as we struck it."
"Do you think he's giving it to us straight?"
"Yes; he doesn't know where he took the men nor what became of them after they left his cab."
"It's a pity he had such a jag. He'd have been the best witness in the case."
Nick smiled.
"If he hadn't been drunk he wouldn't have had anything to do with the case," he said.
"What do you mean?"
"Why, it's clear enough. This man that we want saw Harrigan on that cab while the man was on his way to the restaurant with the woman. Then when it became necessary to get Corbut out of the way, he remembered the drunken cabman, and hired him."
"I don't see how you know that."
"A man would rather have a sober driver than a drunken one, wouldn't he?"
"Yes."
"Well, the man who told you he saw Harrigan get the job was sober, wasn't he?"
"Yes."
"Then why didn't the man take his cab? Because he wanted a drunken driver, who wouldn't be sharp enough to get on to any queer business.
"But he wouldn't have tried to find a drunken cabman just by luck, and he wouldn't have taken a sober one. Therefore he had seen Harrigan and hoped to find him in the same place.
"That's part of the plot. Now, then, you go to Chick, who's watching the body of the woman. I'm going to take Gaspard uptown and have a look at that part of the city where Harrigan left his passengers."
Nick and Gaspard went to the Thirty-third street station of the Sixth avenue elevated road.
They walked to the edge of the platform on the uptown end.
Suddenly Gaspard gave a violent start. He uttered an exclamation of surprise and pointed across the tracks.
"What is it?" cried Nick.
"The man who was in room B!" exclaimed Gaspard. "I am sure of it!"
At that instant a downtown train rushed into the station, cutting off Nick's view.
And a half-second later an uptown train pulled in on their side. Nick pushed open a gate before the train had fairly stopped. He dragged Gaspard after him.
The gateman tried to stop them, but Nick pushed the fellow in the car so violently that he sat down on the floor.
Then the detective pulled the other gate open, and, still dragging Gaspard, sprang down in the space between the tracks.
The other train was just starting. Nick leaped up and opened one of the gates.
Gaspard stood trembling. Excitement and terror rendered him incapable of action.
Nick reached down, and, seizing the man by the shoulders, lifted him up to the platform of the car as if he had been a child of ten.
"Look back," cried the detective, pushing Gaspard to the other side of the car. "Is your man still at the station?"
Two or three men were there, having, apparently, just missed the train.
It seemed possible that the criminal—if such he was—had seen Gaspard point, and had been shrewd enough not to board the car.
But Gaspard looked back and declared that his man was not there.
"Good," said Nick. "He must be on the train. We have him sure."
CHAPTER III.
JOHN JONES.
"I want you!" whispered Nick.
How many luckless criminals have been startled by those words! How many have seen the prison or the gallows rise before them at the sound!
In this case, however, the words seemed to produce less than the ordinary effect.
The man to whom they were addressed turned suddenly toward the detective, but did not shrink or tremble.
"I