Then the elation vanished from his face, for Riordan’s back was turned and he was looking over the papers on his desk. For just a moment Captain Brady looked puzzled, then he dropped to his knees, drew his knife from his pocket, opened its largest blade, and with two swift slashes cut the laces that held the boots on the man’s feet and drew them off.
“Sergeant Roberts,” he snapped. “Take that man upstairs and have him locked all alone in one of the tanks. Don’t search him, don’t do anything with him. Then get a squad of men and the wagon and go down and kick in that blind pig he staggered out of, and bring everybody in the place up here. Lively now.”
Roberts saluted and dragged his prisoner from the room. Brady went over to Riordan’s chair and slapped his aid on the back.
“Tough luck, boy,” he said, laughing. “But don’t take it that way. I know you’d have got him, give you time enough. I could tell by the way you talked to Keefe you had a red-hot lead. But it don’t make any difference who got him, the harnessed bulls or us. We’re all police. It’s our job to catch crooks. This guy’s boots — the nails in one of ’em — exactly fits that mark on the tin down in that room at the pier: I got a tracing of it here, and tried it. Look, come over here and see for yourself.”
Riordan got up, his face glum, and it remained that way while Captain Brady plastered the tracing upon one of the soles of the boots, and pointed out to him how the nails fitted the marks exactly.
“You got a piece of tin, like that in the room down at the pier, chief?” he asked, when the demonstration had been completed.
“Yeah, boy, I happen to have,” Brady answered. “I got some sheet tin the other day, before this thing broke, to take home. I was going to put it on the wall behind the kitchen sink, and put enamel paint on it. I’ve been so busy on this case I haven’t taken it home yet. It’s under my desk here!”
He reached beneath the desk and drew out a flat heavy package, and, tearing the wrapping, drew out a square of rolled tin, Riordan took it and put it on the floor.
“Now, chief, you make a footprint with that boot on it,” he said, “like that footprint down there in the loft over the pier. I’ll pay for the tin if you spoil it.”
Captain Brady frowned a moment, then picked up the boot with the telltale arrangement of hobnails on the bottom of it, and, placing it on the sheet of tin, leaned on it with both hands. Picking it up, he looked at the tin. Its surface was barely scratched. He shot a look at Riordan, then put the boot back on the tin again, and stood on the sole, lifting his other foot, so his whole weight rested upon it. Then he picked up the boot again. There were just the tiniest traces of indentations where the hobnails had rested.
Brady sat down and looked at his aid. Then he picked up the tin again, and examined it.
“This floor,” he said, “is—”
“Old and punky,” cut in Riordan. “The floor down at the pier is a lot newer, and it’s hardwood. You ought to be able to make a better footprint here than you could there. And you, with all your weight, are about twice as heavy as that stew you sent upstairs. How’d he make a footprint like that, do you suppose?”
Captain Brady ran his fingers through his hair and scratched the back of his head. Then he walked over to his locker and took a heavy iron dumb-bell from it, came back, and, placing the hob-nailed boot on the tin, began to hammer it methodically, holding it in place with his left hand. After he had pounded it all over he tossed the boot aside and picked up the sheet of tin. This time he had a nicely and deeply marked impression of the hobnails.
“Chief, I always said you had a good head,” commented Riordan, laughing. “You got that the very first time, after you’d tried it twice other ways. I suppose by now you got the fact, too, that there was only one footprint in that there murder room, too, haven’t you?”
Brady rolled the dumb-bell across the floor savagely, and stood the sheet of tin on top of his desk.
“You won’t have to pay for this tin, boy,” he said. “It’s worth twice the thirty-eight cents it cost me to find that out. But still, you got to admit, this guy had the boots on.”
“And I’ll bet he can prove he got ’em honestly, too.”
“But the party that gave ’em to him?”
“Probably was a minister, and got ’em through the mail to give to some poor and deserving party. Remember, there was only one boot used to make that print down there on the pier.”
“But the advertisement? The messenger kid said this was the same bird?”
“Let’s have him down and ask him.”
“But he’s crazy drunk.”
“Have him down.”
Captain Brady pushed a button and told the doorman to get such assistance as might be necessary and bring the drunk down from the tank. The doorman, Halloran and Curtis carried him into the office. He was oblivious, utterly.
“Frisk him,” snapped Brady.
The burly Halloran did that unpleasant work. The man’s pockets yielded three dollars and ten cents in coin, one common variety of doorkey, one broken knife, stained with vari-colored paint, a piece of pink newsprint with a risque joke upon it, and two street car tickets.
Riordan took off his dress uniform coat, rolled up his shirt sleeves, and picked the inert drunk up and slammed him upright against the wall.
“Hold him there,” he said.
Halloran and the doorman acted as pegs to keep the figure standing. Riordan, stepping in front of him, slapped him, open-handed, first on one cheek and then on the other, then gathered a handful of the victim’s hair and began to pull upward. The effect was startling. The man’s eyes opened and he let out a shrill scream.
“Where’d you get them boots?” shouted Riordan.
“F-f-f-ather Callaghan, damn, leggo me hair.”
“Who gave you that money, and the envelope?”
“Leggo me hair, you’re murderin’ me.”
“Who give you the money, and the envelope?”
“Father Callaghan, wid de boots, oh, ouch!”
Riordan let go the handful of hair, motioned to Halloran and the doorman, and they let go at the same time. The drunk flopped to the floor, and lay there, pawing at his scalp and moaning.
“See if you can carry him up to the tank again, boys,” said Riordan. “And better have the emergency hospital doc look him over. Maybe I tore something. Tell the doc to pump him out, anyway.”
The two detectives and the doorman took up their burden, and Riordan, returning to his desk, reached for his telephone and called a number.
VI
“Father Callaghan, please,” he said. “Yes, I’ll wait — hello, Father Callaghan? This is Riordan, detective sergeant, speaking. Got a man down here, father, who says you gave him a pair of hobnail boots and some money and a letter to the Chronicle. What do you know about it, please?”
He listened a long time, then said: “Thank you, father. No, there won’t be anything said. Thank you, and good-by.”
“Well?” demanded Brady.
“He said, chief, that this morning a man came to the parish house to see him, gave him the boots and asked him to give them to some deserving poor person. Father Callaghan mentioned the case of this man Reilly — I guess that’s our friend upstairs — a painter out of work and badly in need of shoes. His caller seemed interested, Father Callaghan said, and offered to help Reilly a little. He said he was going away, but he wanted a message delivered down town. He suggested that Father Callaghan give the message to Reilly and have him deliver it. There was a small charge to be paid with the message, the man didn’t know how much. He left a dollar to cover the charges, and he gave Father Callaghan five dollars to give Reilly. He said he’d be back in a week or so, and might then have some work for Reilly.