ASHTON-KIRK ASKS QUESTIONS

For some time after Miss Vale had gone, Ashton-Kirk stood at one of the windows and looked down at the sordid, surging, dirty crowd in the street. The worn horses went dispiritedly up and down; the throaty-voiced men clamored strangely through their beards; children played in the black ooze of the gutters; women bundled in immense knitted garments and with their heads wrapped in shawls, haggled over scatterings of faded, weak looking vegetables. The vendors grew frantic and eloquent in their combats with these experienced purchasers; their gestures were high, sharp and loaded with protest.

Then Pendleton came. He was burdened with newspapers and wore an excited look.

“I brought these, thinking that perhaps you had not seen them,” he exclaimed, throwing the dailies among the others upon the floor. “But I note that your morning’s reading has been very complete. Now tell me, Kirk, what the mischief do you think of all this?”

“I suppose, you refer to the published reports of the Hume case?”

“Of course! As far as I am concerned, there is not, just now, any other thing of consequence on earth.” Then he struck the table with his fist. “And it’s all the fault of that cur Allan Morris! Every bit of it! There is not a space writer or amateur detective on a single paper in the city that hasn’t his nose to the ground at this minute, hunting the trail. They are all at it. I stopped at the Vale’s on my way here, but they told me she was not at home. From the top step to the curb, on my way out, I was stopped four times by stony-faced young men all anxious to make good with their city editors. ’Was I a friend of the family? Did Miss Vale seem at all upset by the matter? Where was Allan Morris? What brought him so frequently, as Brolatsky said, to see Hume?’ I believe they’d have come over the back of my car even after I started, if I had given but an encouraging look.”

“The evening papers will be a trial to Miss Vale for the next few days.”

“Well, don’t neglect the morning issues, if you are going to mention any. In to-morrow’s Star there will be a portrait of Edyth four columns wide and eight inches high. I’ll expect such expressions as ‘beautiful society girl,’ ‘a recent debutante,’ ’heiress to the vast fortune of the late structural steel king,’ ’charming manner and brilliant mind.’ And at those odd times when they are not praising her gowns, her wealth or her good looks, they’ll be rather worse than insinuating that she knows all about the crime if she didn’t commit it herself!”

He paced up and down the floor, his huge motoring coat flapping distressfully about his legs. His face was flushed.

“If I had Morris here,” he threatened, “I’d show him a few things, the pup!” Then suddenly he stopped his tramping and faced his friend. “But now that it is as it is,” he demanded, “what are we going to do about it?”

“There are quite a number of very sensible things for us to do,” replied Ashton-Kirk, good-humoredly. “And the first of them is to keep our tempers the second to keep cool.”

“All right,” sulked Pendleton. “I know well enough that I need to do both. But what next?”

“Is your car still outside?”

“Yes.”

“Good. We’ll have a little use for it to-day, if you’re not otherwise engaged.”

“Kirk,” said Pendleton, earnestly, “until this matter is settled, don’t hesitate to command me. I know that I’m not generally credited with much serious purpose; but even the lightweight feels things sometimes.”

Within half an hour, Ashton-Kirk, in a perfectly fitting, carefully pressed suit of gray, tan shoes and a light colored knock-about cap, led the way down to the car. As they got in, he said:

“We’d better go to Bernstine’s first. It’s the nearest and on our way to the station.”

A twenty minute’s run through a baffling maze of vehicles brought them to the curb before a store with a very conspicuous modern front of plate glass and metal. Inside they inquired for one of the Messrs. Bernstine; and upon one of the gentlemen presenting himself, Ashton-Kirk handed him his card. Mr. Bernstine was stout, bald and affable.

“I have heard of you, sir,” said he, “and I am delighted to be of service!”

“Within the last few weeks,” said Ashton-Kirk, “you have had a sale of rifles and other things condemned by the military authorities of Bolivia.”

Mr. Bernstine wrinkled his smooth forehead in reflection.

“Bolivia?” said he. “Now let me see.” He pondered heavily for a few moments and then sighed. “You see,” he explained, “we sell so many lots, from so many different places, that we can hardly keep the run of them. But our books will show,” proudly; “everything we do is in our books.”

He looked down the long, table-crowded store and called loudly:

“Sime!”

Sime instantly put in an appearance. He was small, sandy-haired and freckled; he wore an alert expression and carried a marking pencil behind his ear.

“This is our shipping and receiving clerk,” said Mr. Bernstine. “He’s up to everything around the place.” Then he lowered his voice and jerked his fat thumb toward the newcomer secretly, addressing Pendleton: “Clever! Just full of it.”

Sime listened to Ashton-Kirk’s question attentively.

“Yes,” he said, in answer, “we had some of that stuff lately. Sold well, too, considering the time of the year.” He pulled open a drawer and took out a fat, canvas-covered book. “Two gross rifles; one hundred gross cartridges.” He closed the book, tossed it into the drawer and then slid the drawer shut. “There were a few bayonets, too. About half a dozen.”

With his round, fat countenance shining with admiration, Mr. Bernstine once more caught Pendleton’s eye.

“Just full of it,” he murmured, sotto voce. “As full as he can be.”

“The bayonets,” said Ashton-Kirk, “are what we are after. They were all sold, I suppose?”

“Yes,” replied Sime. “I remember, when the last one went, saying to one of our men that we were lucky. You see, bayonets don’t sell very well except to military companies; and they are not organizing every day.”

“Do you know who bought them?”

Sime took the marking pencil from behind his ear and proceeded to scratch his head with its point. Mr. Bernstine watched him anxiously. But when the shipping clerk pulled open the drawer once more, the employer’s face lighted up.

“Ah!” said he to Pendleton. “The books! Now we’ll have it.”

“They were all taken away by the people who bought them,” announced Sime, after a great flipping of ink spattered pages, “All except one.”

“And that one ”

“It went by our boy. It was sold to Mr. Cartwright the artist, and was sent to his studio up here in Fifth St. But there was another the last one that we had,” suddenly, “and now that I get thinking of it, I remember we had some trouble about it. The man that bought it was a Dago.”

Pendleton darted a swift look at Ashton-Kirk, but the investigator’s expression never changed. He looked steadily at the clock.

“When he asked for the bayonet,” proceeded Sime, “I knew we had one left, but I could not just lay my hands on it. He paid for it and I said we’d send it to him. He started to give me his address, and then changed his mind and said he’d come back again.”

“And he did?”

“Yes; the same afternoon. I had found the thing by that time and he took it with him.”

“You don’t recall the address?”

To his employer’s evident mortification, Sime shook his head.

“Look in the books,” suggested Mr. Bernstine with confidence. “Look in the books.”

“It ain’t there,” answered Sime. “He said he’d come back, so I didn’t put it down.”

“Was it Christie Place?”

Sime pointed at Ashton-Kirk with his pencil.

“You’ve got it,” said he. “That was it, sure enough.”

“And you think the man was an Italian?”

“Well, he talked and looked like one. Rather well educated too, I think.”

Ashton-Kirk thanked the clerk, and the now beaming Mr. Bernstine, and with Pendleton left the place.

“Well,” said Pendleton, as they climbed into the car, “this about fixes the thing, doesn’t it? The musician, Antonio Spatola, is the guilty man, beyond a doubt.”

The investigator settled back after giving the chauffeur his next stop.

“Beyond a doubt,” said he, “is rather an extreme expression. The fact that the bayonet was purchased by an Italian who gave his address as Christie Place is not enough to convict Spatola. All sorts of people live in that street, and there are perhaps other Italians among them.”

Pendleton called out to the chauffeur to stop.

“We’ll settle that at once,” said he. “Spatola’s picture is in the papers. We’ll ask the clerk if it is that of the man to whom he sold the weapon.”

But Ashton-Kirk restrained him.

“I thought of the published portraits while Sime was speaking,” said he. “And I also thought that it was very fortunate that neither he nor his employer were readers of the newspapers.”

“How do you know that they are not?”

“If they had read to-day’s issues they would have at once connected the Italian who purchased the bayonet with the one who is said to have used it wouldn’t they; especially as both Italians lived on the same street? Bernstine and Sime said nothing because they suspect nothing. And, as I have said, this is fortunate, because, suspecting nothing, they will continue,” with a smile, “to say nothing. If the police or reporters got this, they’d swoop down on the trail and perhaps spoil everything!”

“But Bernstine or his clerk will hear of the matter sooner or later,” complained Pendleton. “And the police and reporters will then get in on the thing anyhow.”

“But there will be a delay,” said his friend. “And that may be what we need just now. Perhaps a few hours will mean success. You can never tell. The best that we could get by explaining matters to Sime would be a positive identification of Spatola, or the reverse. And we can get that from him at any time. So you see, we lose nothing by waiting.”

“I guess that’s so,” Pendleton acknowledged, and again the car started forward. At the huge entrance to a railroad station they drew up once more.

Within, Ashton-Kirk inquired for the General Passenger Agent and was directed to the ninth floor. The agent was a slim little man with huge whiskers of snowy whiteness, and a most dignified manner.

“Oh, yes,” he said, after glancing at the investigator’s card. “I have heard of you, of course. Who,” with a little bow, “has not? Indeed, if I remember aright, this road had the honor to employ you a few years ago in a matter necessitating some little delicacy of handling. Am I not right?”

“And I think it was you,” said Ashton-Kirk, smoothly, “who provided me with some very clearly cut facts which were of considerable service.”

The little General Passenger Agent looked pleased and smoothed his beautiful whiskers softly.

“I was most happy,” said he.

“Just now,” said Ashton-Kirk, “I am engaged in a matter of some consequence, and once more you can be of assistance to me.”

“Sit down,” invited the other, readily. “Sit down, and command me.”

Both Pendleton and the investigator sat down. The latter said to the passenger agent:

“I understand that every railroad has a system by which it can tell which conductor has punched a ticket.”

“Oh, yes. A very simple one. You see the hole left by each punch is different. One will cut a perfectly round hole, another will be square, still another will be a triangle, and so on, indefinitely.”

From his card case, Ashton-Kirk produced the small red particle which he had found upon the desk of the murdered man.

“Here is a fragment cut from a ticket,” he said. “It is shaped like a keystone. I should like to know, if you can tell me, what train is taken out by the conductor who uses the keystone punch.”

The agent touched a signal and picked up the end of a tube.

“The head ticket counter,” said he. “At once.” Then he laid down the tube and continued to his visitors. “He is the man who can supply that sort of information instantly.”

The ticket counter was a heavy-set young man, in spectacles and with his hair much rumpled. He peered curiously at the strangers.

“Does any conductor on our lines use a punch which cuts out a keystone?” inquired the General Passenger Agent.

“Yes, Purvis,” replied the heavy young man. “Runs the Hammondsville local.”

“I am obliged to you both,” said Ashton-Kirk. “This little hint may be immensely valuable to me. And now,” to the agent, “if I could have a moment with Conductor Purvis, I would be more grateful to you than ever.”

“His train is out in the shed now,” said the ticket counter, looking at his watch. “Leaves in eight minutes.”

“I’m sorry that I can’t have him up here for you,” said the passenger agent. “Just now that is impossible. But,” inquiringly, “couldn’t you speak to him down on the platform?”

“Of course,” replied Ashton-Kirk.

He and Pendleton arose; the little man with the large white whiskers was thanked once more, as was the heavy young man with the rumpled hair.

“You’ll find the Hammondsville train at Gate E,” the latter informed them.

Then the two shot down to the platform level and made their way toward Gate E.