“Hush,” McKnight protested. “If
word gets to Mrs. Klopton that Mr. Blakeley was wrecked,
or robbed, or whatever it was, with a button missing
and a hole in one sock, she’ll retire to the
Old Ladies’ Home. I’ve heard her
threaten it.”
Mr. Hotchkiss was without a sense of humor.
He regarded McKnight gravely and went on:
“I’ve been up in the room where the man
lay while he was unable to get away, and there is
nothing there. But I found what may be a possible
clue in the dust heap.
“Mrs. Carter tells me that in unpacking his
grip the other day she took out of the coat of the
pajamas some pieces of a telegram. As I figure
it, the pajamas were his own. He probably had
them on when he effected the exchange.”
I nodded assent. All I had retained of my own
clothing was the suit of pajamas I was wearing and
my bath-robe.
“Therefore the telegram was his, not yours.
I have pieces here, but some are missing. I
am not discouraged, however.”
He spread out some bits of yellow paper, and we bent
over them curiously. It was something like this:
Man
with p- Get-
Br-
We spelled it out slowly.
“Now,” Hotchkiss announced, “I make
it something like this: The ‘p.-’
is one of two things, pistol—you remember
the little pearl-handled affair belonging to the murdered
man—or it is pocket-book. I am inclined
to the latter view, as the pocket-book had been disturbed
and the pistol had not.”
I took the piece of paper from the table and scrawled
four words on it.
“Now,” I said, rearranging them, “it
happens, Mr. Hotchkiss, that I found one of these
pieces of the telegram on the train. I thought
it had been dropped by some one else, you see, but
that’s immaterial. Arranged this way it
almost makes sense. Fill out that ‘p.-’
with the rest of the word, as I imagine it, and it
makes ‘papers,’ and add this scrap and
you have:
“‘Man with papers (in) lower ten, car
seven. Get (them).’
McKnight slapped Hotchkiss on the back. “You’re
a trump,” he said. “Br- is Bronson,
of course. It’s almost too easy.
You see, Mr. Blakeley here engaged lower ten, but
found it occupied by the man who was later murdered
there. The man who did the thing was a friend
of Bronson’s, evidently, and in trying to get
the papers we have the motive for the crime.”
“There are still some things to be explained.”
Mr. Hotchkiss wiped his glasses and put them on.
“For one thing, Mr. Blakeley, I am puzzled
by that bit of chain.”
I did not glance at McKnight. I felt that the
hand, with which I was gathering up the bits of torn
paper were shaking. It seemed to me that this
astute little man was going to drag in the girl in
spite of me.
A NEW WORLD
