The Winning Clue. Hay James
was much like the probable outcome of this murder. How would the circumstances shape themselves? What would be the result of circumstantial evidence?
It was all a gamble. Some murderers were lucky and got away. And some innocent men were not lucky. These were like the blundering, illiterate negro Perry. There was an even chance that the guilty man would be caught—and there was an even chance that an innocent man would hang. Life was like that!
He caressed with his forefinger his protruding lip. He wouldn't say the negro was guilty. In spite of the evidence of the buttons, he would advance no such theory yet. And as to Morley—nobody could think that a man with such a weak face would have the nerve to do murder. He knew this. There must be somebody else. It might be that the sister, Maria Fulton, in an excess of rage—But why reason about that before he had talked to her?
It was up to him to fasten the guilt on the guilty man—or woman. That was what was expected of him. And it was a task which——
He turned toward the table and began methodically to paste into their proper places the clippings he had cut from the newspapers concerning other "big" murder cases. He would study them later.
He looked up and saw a very fat man standing just outside the door.
"Hello, Overton," he said, without cordiality, and joined him on the porch.
"I picked out an interesting time to visit you," observed the fat man, still puffing from the exertion of climbing the Manniston Road hill; "what with murder and——"
"And I'm going to be frank with you," Bristow put in. "I'm helping the police a little, and I haven't the time to gossip now. I know you'll understand——"
"Surely, surely!" said Overton. "I'll come some other time. This sort of stuff's right in your line. You used to be an authority on it in Cincinnati, I remember."
He said good-bye and lumbered awkwardly down the steps. He and Bristow had been good friends in Cincinnati, and he seemed now not at all offended by the summary dismissal.
The door leading from the kitchen to the dining room opened. Mattie had returned. Bristow reentered the house.
"Well?" he said in the low, kindly tone he used in speaking to her.
"I foun' Lucy Thomas, Mistuh Bristow," she said, breathless and indignant. "She is sho' one sorry nigger. She wuz drunk—layin' out in de parluh uv dat little house uv her'n. Dead drunk."
"Did you wake her up, Mattie?"
"Yas, suh; but she ain' fit to come do no wuk. Dis ole rotten blockade whisky dese niggers drink jes' knocked her out—knocked her out fuh fair."
"Did she say when she got drunk?"
"Las' night, suh, late, wid dat Perry. You know, Mistuh Bristow; he been doin' some wuk fuh you."
"Was Perry drunk last night? Did she tell you?"
"He wuz a little lit up, she says, but he warn't drunk. She didn't have no idea whar he wuz jes' now."
Bristow made no comment on this, and Mattie, turning slowly away from him, began to mumble something.
"What's that, Mattie?" he asked, only half curious.
"I wuz jes' sayin', Mistuh Bristow, it 'pears to me marveelyus how some uv dese niggers behave. Dey don' look arter de white folks dey wuk fuh. Seems to me marveelyus how a lot uv dem keeps out uv jail."
He was curious enough now.
"What do you mean?" he asked sharply. "What are you talking about?"
"It's jes' dis, suh: when I gits ovuh to Lucy's house, de fus' thing I sees is a key layin' on de flo'. When I ast her 'bout it, she says it mus' be de key to Number Five—she mus' uv drapped it."
"I see," said Bristow thoughtfully. "Yes, you're right, Mattie. There are a lot of careless people in the world."
When she 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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