As though to give the lie to his words, a man’s voice spoke suddenly over the radio in the far corner.
“Word has just come from the hospital that Mrs. Jane Shannon, mystery girl in the Wallace house murder, has recovered sufficiently to talk to the police and tell what she knows about the case. She has already informed her nurse that she knows the name of the killer. I believe that by morning the doctors will judge her in strong enough condition to make a statement.”
Dorothy Wilde rose to her feet with a piercing scream, the evening paper dropping to the floor.
“Bert Bacon, don’t you dare!” she shrieked. “Don’t you dare!”
Chapter LI
The Man Behind Bacon
“I took this bank book,” said Big Jim, as he handed the book to Ransom, “because I thought it would throw an extra scare into him maybe. You can see what enormous deposits he has been making these last six months. Guess he has other banks, too.”
“Wonder where he got all this money,” mused Ransom, as he studied the book. “It will be interesting to find out, Jim. No lawyer on this earth ever made this much in this length of time. Not honestly.”
“He ain’t honest,” chuckled Big Jim, taking an envelope from his pocket. “Look here what I scraped up from the floor of his sedan after I took out the carpet.”
Onto a piece of carbon paper Big Jim poured a tablespoonful of small, white grains.
“What is it?” asked Ransom, bending forward.
“You can taste it,” exulted Jim. “It’s salt!”
“Salt!”
“Yep. Guess he hauled the bags of salt around in that sedan. Had to have a good sized bag to make that salt cross like we saw on the Wallace porch and the Raddock porch. Wet salt.”
Ransom’s eyes were shining with excitement.
“He kept all his supplies or whatever he wanted to hide at that cottage which he burned out at Sparrow Wood, I’ll wager,” he said. “Jim, I believe he is our man!”
“I’ll say he is. What you tumbled to about poor Talbot yelling at him when he jumped that it was the only way out was a plenty. Boyerson knew why he took that way all right.”
“Poor Mrs. Delaney,” said Ransom softly. “She seems out of luck. I can’t believe she is involved.”
“She had enough luck getting rid of Bill Delaney,” said Big Jim indifferently. “That woman has darn bad taste, if you ask me.”
As Jim spoke, Sergeant Pierce burst into the office, agitation written all over his round face.
“Lieutenant, that Wilde girl from the Wallace house just telephoned us,” he cried, “and she’s plain goofy. Gone off her head. She’s yelling that Bacon just shot himself after he heard the radio broadcast about Jane Shannon getting well!”
Ransom and Big Jim, both on their feet, looked at each other speechlessly and then Big Jim blurted two words as he reached for his hat.
“Bacon! Damn!”
Eva Wallace and Hopeton were both in the living room of the Wallace house when Ransom and Big Jim arrived. They were trying to quiet Dorothy Wilde, who was in hysterics.
Across the same chair where the body of Delaney had sat upright for so many hours, the inert form of Albert Bacon was flung, the gun with which he had ended his life fallen from his hand onto the rug.
Dr. Vandyke, arriving a few minutes after the others, pronounced Bacon dead.
As he spoke Dorothy roused from her hysterical condition and breaking away from Mrs. Wallace walked to Ransom’s side. She dropped her contemptuous glance upon the body of Bacon as she passed him.
“He tried to get me mixed up in this, the cheap skate,” she sneered. “Well, I handed him a shock all right. I beat the radio to it.”
“Tell us about it,” urged Ransom gently, and Big Jim, chewing gum, stared a bit impatiently. He never could see how his chief could be so decent with these skirts.
“I got out of the hospital and escaped from the reporters to hear what the boys was yelling about this Shannon woman getting well and talking,” said Dorothy. “I bought a Daily Messenger and read about it. When I walked in the house here Bert Bacon was sitting right there in that chair reading that book. I sat down and said a few things to him about me not dying on account of the wallop he had given me, and I asked him if he’d seen the paper. I gave it to him to read and he looked sick. It gave me a shock to see how sick he looked, and for the first time I really believed he had killed Delaney and the girl.
“And then when he was trying to act natural and saying it was just newspaper talk, the man on the radio cut loose about Jane being well and talking to the police and knowing who the killer was. And right on the heels of it Bert whipped out that gun. I was scared silly then. I yelled at him not to dare to shoot, for I thought he was going to end me that time for good, but he turned it on himself. I was that scared I could hardly get to the telephone.”
“Bacon!” muttered Ransom, looking down at the body and biting his lip. “We slipped badly somewhere, Jim.”
“Nix,” said Big Jim cheerfully. “I got two men watching Boyerson. He’s our man, no matter how Bacon was tied up in it.”
“But just how was Bacon tied up in it?” Ransom asked himself dully, still staring at the slumped body.
“Where did he get that gun, is what I want to know,” said Big Jim briskly. “No gun in this house when I searched it, only the one that shot Jane Shannon. That was Hopeton’s.”
“He kept that gun in the office where he worked,” said Eva Wallace, with a toss of her head. “He used it on the road. I knew he had it.”
“And you kept quiet, huh?” sneered Jim, turning upon her. “You can keep quiet like an expert, can’t you?”
“When I want to!” snapped Mrs. Wallace.
“No matter about the gun,” said Ransom sharply. “Did you see Bacon to-night, Mrs. Wallace?”
“No.”
“She wouldn’t,” sneered Jim. “Nobody in this house ever sees anything.”
“Mrs. Wallace,” asked Ransom sternly, “was it Bacon Bill Delaney came here twice before he died to visit?”
“I don’t know anything about him being here twice before. I told you that a dozen times,” said Eva Wallace.
“I think that Bacon’s suicide answers that,” said Ransom gravely, turning back to the dead man. “It was Bacon Delaney came to see, Bacon who wrote him that note on Hopeton’s paper, and Bacon who got Hopeton’s gun from his room. Very strange things have happened in this house, but these matters were taken in charge by some one who was known here, seen about here, and familiar with each detail of the house. It is the man behind Bacon whom we must get, Jim.”
“Well, we’d have had him long ago if we had an honest lot of folks to deal with,” said Big Jim with a disgusted glance at Hopeton, the two women and the dead man.
Chapter LII
Ransom Makes an Offer
Dorothy Wilde crossed the room and stood beside the body of Bacon. Her pert little face was twisted with disappointment.
“To think of me coming out of this pretty business without getting a cent out of anybody,” she sighed. “I guess I haven’t got any brains.”
Ransom had a sudden thought as he studied the little gold digger.
“Dorothy, have you any nerve?” he asked.
“Nerve? Didn’t I dope that cop of yours and trail after Bert Bacon?” demanded Dorothy angrily. “Sure I’ve got nerve, but I don’t know how to use it. That’s what ails me.”
“Come down to headquarters with me and I’ll tell you,” said Ransom, briskly. “Jim, can you get a couple of men into the Boyerson apartment and conceal them there?”