"Only this: why did he try to deceive us? Why, Mr. Barton says he's a most daring climber--he's practicing to be a human fly."

"A human fly? Is that a new circus stunt?"

"You know what I mean. You've seen a human fly perform, haven't you?"

"Oh, that chap who stood on his head on the coping of the Woolworth Building to get contributions for the Red Cross work? Yes, I remember.

He wasn't Hanlon, was he?"

"No, sir; he was the original--or one of the first ones. There are lots of human flies, now. They cut up tricks all over the country.

And w.i.l.l.y Hanlon is practicing for that but he doesn't want it known."

"All right, I won't tell. His guilty secret is safe with me!"

"Now, you're laughing at me, Mr. Stone! All right just you wait--and Hanlon goes around on a motor-cycle, too!"

"He does! Then we are undone! What a revelation! And, now, Fibs, if you'll explain to me the significance of Hanlon's aspiring ambitions and his weird taste for motor-cycles, I'll be obliged."

Fibsy was extremely, even absurdly, sensitive to irony. Sometimes it didn't affect him seriously, and then, again, he would be so hurt and embarra.s.sed by it, that it fairly made him unable to talk.

In this instance, it overcame him utterly, and his funny little freckled face turned red, and his eyes lost their eagerness and showed only chagrin.

"Come, come," said Stone, regretting his teasing, but determined to help the boy overcome his sensitiveness to it, "brace up, Fibs; you know I meant no harm. Forgive a chap, can't you--and begin all over again. I know you have something in your noddle--and doubtless, something jolly well worth while."

"Well--I--oh, wait a minute, Mr. Stone--I'm a fool, but I can't help it. When you come at me like that, I lose all faith in my notions.

For it's only a notion--and a crazy one at that, and--well, sir, you wait till I've worked it up a little further--and if there's anything to it--I'll expound. Now, what's my orders for to-day?"

Fibsy had an obstinate streak in his make-up, and Fleming Stone was too wise to insist on the boy's "expounding" just then.

Instead, he said, pleasantly: "To-day, Fibs, I want you to make a round of the drug stores. It's not a hopeful job--indeed, I can't think it can amount to anything--but have a try at it. You remember, Mr.

Hendricks had the earache--"

"I do, indeed! He had it a month ago--and what's more, he denied it--at first."

"Yes; well, use your discretion for all it's worth--but get a line on the doctor that prescribed for him--it was a bad case, you know--and find out what he got to relieve him and where he got it."

"Yessir. Say, Mr. Stone, is Mr. Hendricks implicated, do you think?"

"In the murder? Why, he was in Boston at the time--a man can't be in two places at once, can he?"

"He cannot! He has a perfect alibi--hasn't he, Mr. Stone?"

"He sure has, Fibsy. And yet--he was in the party that discussed the possibilities of killing people by the henbane route."

"Yessir--but so was Mr. Patterson--Mis' Desternay said so."

"The Patterson business must be looked into. I'll attend to that to-day--I'll also see Mr. Elliott about that matter of personal loans that Mr. Embury seemed to be conducting as a side business."

"Yes, do, please. Mr. Stone, it would be a first-cla.s.s motive, if Mr.

Embury had a strangle-hold on somebody who owed him a whole lot and couldn't pay, and--"

"Fine motive, my boy--but how about opportunity? You forget those bolted doors."

"And Mr. Patterson had borrowed money of Mr. Embury--"

"How do you know that?"

"I heard it--oh, well, I got it from one of the footmen of the apartment house--"

"Footmen! What do you mean?"

"You know there's a lot of employees--porters, rubbish men, doormen, hallmen, pages and Lord knows what! I lump 'em all under the t.i.tle of footmen. Anyway, one of those persons told me--for a consideration--a lot about the private affairs of the tenants. You know, Mr. Stone, those footmen pick up a lot of information--overhearing here and there--and from the private servants kept by the tenants."

"That's true, Fibs; there must be a mine of information available in that way."

"There is, sir. And I caught onto a good deal--and specially, I learned that Mr. Patterson is in the faction--or whatever you call it--that didn't want Mr. Embury to be president of that club."

"And so you think Mr. Patterson had a hand in the murder?"

Stone's face was grave, and there was no hint of banter in his tone, so Fibsy replied, earnestly, "Well, he is the man who has lots of empty jam jars go down in the garbage pails."

"But he has lots of children."

"Yes, sir--four. Oh, well, I suppose a good many people like raspberry jam."

"Go on, Fibsy; don't be discouraged. As I've often told you, one sc.r.a.p of evidence is worth considering. A second, against the same man--is important--and a third, is decidedly valuable."

"Yessir, that's what I'm bankin' on. You see, Mr. Patterson, now--he's over head and ears in debt to Embury. He was against Embury for club president. He was present at the henbane discussion. And--he's an habitual buyer of raspberry jam."

"Some counts," and Fleming Stone looked thoughtful. "But not entirely convincing. How'd he get in?"

"You know his apartment is directly beneath the Embury apartment--but two floors below."

"Might as well be ten floors below. How could he get in?"

"Somebody got in, Mr. Stone. You know as well as I do, that neither Mrs. Embury nor Miss Ames committed that murder. We must face that."

"Nor did Ferdinand do it. I'll go you all those a.s.sumptions."

"All right, sir; then somebody got in from the outside."

"How?"

"Mr. Stone, haven't you ever read detective stories where a murder was committed in a room that was locked and double-locked and yet somebody did get in--and the fun of the story is guessing how he got in."

"Fiction, my boy, is one thing--fact is another."

"No, sir; they're one and the same thing!"