And, with a carefully concealed grin on his face, s.h.a.g drew the black-lettered paper from under his waistcoat, and laid it on the bed beside the "Complete Angler."

CHAPTER IV

SPOTTY

"Well, now," observed Detective Thong, and, somehow or other, his voice sounded really cheerful, "let's see where we're at, Mr. Darcy. Have you looked over the stock all you want to?"

They were in a room in the rear of the jewelry store--the city and county detectives, the reporters and James Darcy--with Policeman Mulligan on guard near the cut gla.s.s and silver gleaming in the showcases. On guard near a dark red stain in the floor, scarcely dry--it was still soaking into the wood. The body of the murdered woman had been taken away, followed by a sigh of relief from James Darcy, who, try as he did, could not keep his eyes from seeking it.

"The stock is checked up as well as I can do it in a short time,"

replied the jewelry worker, who had spent some time going over the store under the watchful eyes of Carroll and Thong. "I'm not sure anything is taken. If there is, as I said, it can't be much. But I'll go over everything more carefully, checking up the books. That will take a few days, but I can do it while I'm here arranging for the funeral."

"Not here you can't do it," broke in Carroll, with a short laugh.

"Not here?" There was startled amazement in Darcy's question.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because you won't be here. You'd better come with us. You'll have to, in fact. The captain'll want to have a talk with you, and I guess the prosecutor the same. How about it, Jim?" and he looked over at Haliday, from the Court House. He was examining the side door leading to the alley.

"Oh, sure! he'll have to be held--as a witness, anyhow," was the easy answer, and in the same breath he added: "Not a mark! Not a scratch on the place! It was an inside job all right!"

"Held? I'll have to be--held?" faltered Darcy.

"Of course," said Thong. "And, while you're at it, take a friend's advice, and keep your mouth shut."

"You mean anything I say might--might be used--against me?"

"Oh, I wouldn't put it that way exactly. That's moving picture stuff--theater business, you know. We don't go in for that--not me and Carroll. But don't talk too much. Of course you'll have to answer a lot of questions, and the easier you do the better for you. But wait until they're asked. Maybe it's against my interests to say that, but I've sort of took a notion to you. Now you'd better get ready to leave."

"You mean lock the place up?"

"Oh, no, somebody'll have to stay here."

"Not me!" interrupted Mulligan. "I haven't had my breakfast. I was jest comin' in off dog-watch when I happened to see what was goin' on here--the crowd an' everythin'. I ain't goin' to stay!"

"Well, 'phone in then and get somebody," advised Carroll testily.

"Somebody's got to be here until we can look around more."

"I'll stay for a while." said Haliday. "I'd like to look about a bit myself. I'll probably have to get the case ready for the prosecutor."

"Well, let's be going then," suggested Thong. "Shall I ring for the wagon?"

His partner shook his head after a look at Darcy.

"The trolley'll be all right for him," he said in a whisper. "We can get out the back way and avoid the crowd," for the street in front of the jewelry store was still thronged, in spite of the ever increasing rain. "As for King, he's asleep, and I guess we can put him to bed here. If we try to carry him out there'll be more of a push than there is now. Let him sleep it off," and he glanced at a huddled figure in a corner chair.

"Who's asleep?" broke in the thick voice of the wastral. "Whash matter you fellers, anyhow? Man comes in get li'l preshent for his wife--wife sits up all night waitin'--she's 't.i.tled to li'l preshent. Wheresh my gold knife, Darcy? I give it to you--have 'grave--Pearl's name--wheresh my knife?"

"You can have it pretty soon," promised Thong. "Look here, Harry, my boy. You're pretty drunk, for a fact, but do you happen to know where you were and what you did last night--and early this morning? Try to think--it may mean a lot to you!" and he spoke earnestly. "Where were you--what did you do?"

"What I did?" He blinked his eyes rapidly, to rid them of the water which poured forth in an effort to a.s.suage their drink-inflamed condition, and regarded those about him with half-drunken gravity.

"What I did? You want to know--what--what I did?"

"Yes. Where were you, and what did you do?" asked Carroll easily.

"Hu! Got drunk, thash what I did. Can't you see? I'm drunk yet, but I don't care! Ha! Had one swell time, thash what I did! One whale of a good time! It was _some_ night--a wet night--believe me--a wet night--awful wet. Never had so mush fun--never! We got ole Doc Harrison stewed to the gills--hones' we did--stewed like--like prunes--apricots! Ho! Thash what we did!"

"Guess he wasn't the only one," observed Carroll grimly. "Now, look here, King. You're pretty drunk yet, but maybe you can get this through your noodle. There's been some nasty business, and you may, or may not, know something about it, though I don't believe you do, for you're so pickled now that you must have been loading up ever since last week. But you've got to answer some questions--when you're able--and it's a question of holding you here or--taking you with us.

How about it?"

"Look here!" snarled King, and his voice rang out with sudden energy.

"Who you talkin' to?"

"Now take it easy, Harry," advised Thong. "We're talking to you, of course."

Harry King seemed to begin the process of sobering up. His eyes lost something of their bleary, misunderstanding look, and took on a dangerous glint. The detectives knew him for a spendthrift, who had been in more than one questionable escapade. He had a violent temper, drunk or sober, once it was roused, and it did not take much liquor to make him a veritable devil. Though after his first wild burst he became maudlin and silly. King came of a good family, but his relatives had cast him off after his midnight marriage to an actress of questionable morals, with whom it was not a first offense, and he now lived, after his own peculiar fashion, on the income of an estate settled on him in his better days by an aunt. Now and then he managed to get larger advances than the stipulated sum from a rascally lawyer, who took a chance of reimbursing himself a hundred per cent. when Harry King should come to the end of his rope--a time which seemed not far off, if the present were any indication. He was to inherit the bulk of his fortune when he became thirty-five years of age. He was now thirty-three, but the pace he was going and keeping made his chances of living out the stated allotment seem meager.

"I'm talking to you, Harry, my boy," went on the detective, "and I advise you, for your own good, to keep a civil tongue in your head. If you don't, you may get into trouble. There's been a murder--"

"A murder!" King's voice was more certain now.

"Yes. You saw the body carried out--or are you still so drunk you can't remember? It was Mrs. Darcy--the lady who owned this jewelry store, you know. Now pull yourself together. You've got to come with us and explain a little about this knife of yours. She was stabbed with that."

"With my knife--that paper cutter dagger I was giving as a present to--to my wife?" King's voice was sobering more now.

"That's the idea, Harry."

"But I brought that knife to Darcy to have him engrave it."

"That may be. It was used to cut the old lady, though, and laid back on Darcy's work-table. Come now--brace up, and tell us all you know about it."

"Oh, I--I can brace up all right. So the old lady's dead, is she?

Killed--stabbed! Too bad! Many's the trinket I've bought of her for--for--well, some of the girls, you know," and he winked suggestively at the detectives. "Old lady Darcy's dead! Say, look here, boys!" he exclaimed with a sudden change of manner, as something seemed to penetrate to his sodden brain, "you--you don't for a minute think I did this--do you?" and he sat up straight for the first time.

"Never mind what we think," said Carroll. "We're not paid for telling it--like the reporters," and he grinned at Daley of the Times. "We want to get at the facts. Are you in condition to talk?"

"Not here!" interrupted Thong quickly, with a glance at the newspaper men, which they were quick to interpret. "Oh, it's all right, boys,"

went on the detective. "We'll let you in for anything that's going as soon as we can--you know that."

"Sure," agreed Daley. "But don't keep us waiting all day. The presses are like animals--they have to be fed, you know. First editions don't wait for gum-shoe men, even if they're of the first water. And I've got a city editor who has a temper like a bear with a sore nose in huckleberry time. So loosen up as soon as you can."

They took King and Darcy to police headquarters in a taxicab which King, with still half-drunken gravity, insisted on paying for.