“Where do you get that ‘suggesting’ stuff? I just said for him to come right over.”
“Those messages were written, weren’t they?”
“Sure.”
Oakes leaned forward, a stubby forefinger raised.
“Now, think hard, Miss Deronda. What happened to the written message that was delivered to you?”
“Why, I think... well, I guess I put in my pocketbook. Then I... oh, now I remember! Just before I got up to go, I was rummaging in my pocket-book for a handkerchief, and. I took the message out again, and handed it to Syd Lanyon.”
“And do you know what he did with it?”
“No.”
“Well, it don’t matter, I know.”
“You know?”
“Yeah,” said Oakes. “He put it in his pocket.”
“How do you know—”
“Never mind,” Oakes grinned. “But I want to be sure about this: who would write those messages out before the waiter took them?”
“The cashier of the Blue Plume,” said Myrtle Deronda, impatiently.
Oakes sat grinning into space for a few moments. Then he turned again to Clara Fanning.
“And what did you do when you left the Broken Lantern?”
“I caught the bus, sir.”
“Did you catch it right outside the Broken Lantern?”
The young woman hesitated.
“Well, no, sir. The bus has another stop farther down the highway, about a quarter of a mile. So I walked down there to meet it.”
“And why, young lady, didn’t you catch it right outside? Why walk a quarter of a mile?”
Clara Fanning’s fingers were twitching nervously. Myrtle was fidgeting on the arm of the chair.
“Well, sometimes, standing in front of the road house there, some of the men might be annoying.”
“Some of the men! Now, tell the truth. Don’t you mean one man in particular?”
“Perhaps.”
“What’s his name?”
“I... I can’t tell you that.”
“What man has a small picture of you?”
“I can’t tell you that, either.”
“Oh, you can’t!” Oakes was getting brusque. “Isn’t it a fact that this Sydney Lanyon was an... er... admirer of yours, before this other young lady cut you out?”
“Aw, shut up!” put in Myrtle.
But Clara, flushing, admitted that it was true.
“Now,” said Oakes, “according to \our story, you were up the road, waiting for the bus when Lanyon was shot?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Ah! But can you prove it? Have you any proof that you weren’t right there in front of the Broken Lantern when Lanyon—”
“Cut that out!” the other girl snapped at him.
Myrtle Deronda had jumped off the chair, and was standing in front of Oakes, shaking her little fist in his face.
“But, my dear girl,” said Oakes, soothingly, “I’m only working up a case for your brother. I’ve got to—”
“Say! If you have to drag Clara into this mess so you can get Larry out, why, you can just let the dear boy stay in the can.”
Oakes stared at her blankly. Then he shrugged his shoulders.
“Oh, all right.” He put his hat on. “You two ladies will be going out to work again to-night, will you?”
“Sure,” said Myrtle, “if you’ll get out so we can get some sleep.”
Oakes muttered apologetically. Then he stumbled to the door, murmured some apologies, and went out.
Downstairs, he stopped at the landlady’s office, and asked permission to use the telephone. He called headquarters, asked for Inspector Mallory.
“Sent you a customer this morning,” he reminded Mallory.
“Uh huh. We were looking for him. We’d have got him anyway.”
“You guys never do give anybody else any credit,” Oakes complained.
“Well,” conceded Mallory, “if you think you’ve got something coming, name your price.”
“I want you to drive me out to the Broken Lantern to-night, about eight o’clock,” said Oakes promptly.
Mallory grumbled, but agreed.
“To show you that I’m looking out for your interest,” Oakes added cheerfully. “I’ll give you another live tip.”
“All right. Spill it.”
“About the time that Lanyon was getting shot, there was a truck — a booze truck — belonging to Collman, standing out in the road, near the kitchen door of the Blue Plume.”
“Well, I ain’t friendly with the liquor squad,” Mallory objected.
“Maybe you ain’t. But get a couple of your men to trace that truck. Right away. Find the truck, and look it over carefully.”
“That all?” said Mallory, sarcastically.
“That’s all — until eight o’clock tonight.”
V
“Well, inspector,” said Oakes, when Mallory picked him up in a police car at eight o’clock, “we’re going to meet a murderer.”
Mallory was having a difficult time concealing his curiosity.
“We got young Deronda—”
“Yeah. You got him. And you’ll let him loose before the night’s over.”
“Oh, well,” Mallory hedged, “we was only holding him on suspicion. I been keeping an eye on a couple of others.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Them two road house babies, Bouchet and Collman, are kind of interesting. They’re tough lads. And did you notice they ain’t neither one got an alibi?”
“Sure. But that’s in their favor,” Oakes commented.
“In their favor! How do you get that way?”
“Listen, inspector. Bouchet and Collman maybe ain’t had the benefit of a good education, like you, for instance. But they’re pretty wise birds, at that. And if either one of them was going to stage a killing, that’s the first thing he’d arrange — a good alibi!”
Mallory looked disappointed.
“Well, anyway, I got a couple of pair of bracelets—”
“You won’t need ’em, inspector,” Oakes assured him,
Mallory, puzzled, turned to look at him.
“Why, say, you don’t mean that one of them two girls perforated Lanyon—”
“First,” Oakes interrupted, “did you find that truck?”
“Sure. I’ll give you credit for that, Oakes. That was a hot one. We found the truck.”
“And there was blood on the rear end?”
“Right you are. But how—”
“Just a matter of working on the most likely angles, inspector. You will remember that Jim Bouchet, proprietor of the Broken Lantern, was walking around outside his place of business at the time of the murder. But, so far as I could see, he was not a likely suspect. He would have gone to more trouble to cover his tracks.
“Yet, if some one else had shot Lanyon right where his body was found, Bouchet was almost sure to have seen or heard something. Well, he saw nothing and heard nothing. Therefore, the body must have been dropped there. And it must have been dropped from a moving vehicle, else there would have been blood leading up to the spot.
“All right. How? I knew the answer when Tom, the dishwasher, told me about the truck.”
“You ain’t accusing the dishwasher, are you?” Mallory waxed sarcastic. “If not, who are we after?”
“I found the answer to that one just outside the kitchen door of the Blue Plume,” said Oakes.
“What was that?”
“The second message. The message that the waiter delivered to Lanyon.”
“And who does that take us to?”
“We’ll see when we get there,” Oakes countered.
“Well, now, about this message—”
“Here we are at the Blue Plume,” Oakes put in. “Let’s hop to it.”
Inside the Blue Plume, business was slack; it was too early in the evening for the crowd. Collman, the proprietor, was sitting near his cashier, close to the door. He looked at Oakes with disagreeable surprise.