“Father Callaghan took the boots and the message, which was in an unsealed envelope, and the money. Reilly was working about the church. Father Callaghan says he opened the envelope, and saw the advertisement inside. He was badly frightened. He’d read about this case, and didn’t want to get mixed up in it. He didn’t know what to do. On second thought, he decided that the message probably was genuine and might do some good if it was printed. So he went over to the church, gave Reilly the boots and the five dollars, and then the envelope and the dollar, and told him to go down town, find a messenger boy, give him the dollar and the message, which was addressed to the Chronicle, and get the boy to deliver it. He told him to keep his own counsel.
“He said the man who called on him was somewhere between fifty and sixty years of age, medium height and weight, smooth shaven, and looked as if he’d seen better days. He spoke very good English, he says, and didn’t seem a bit nervous. The man didn’t give any name, nor any account of himself, and, of course, while he was talking Father Callaghan had no idea what was in the message, and just thought he was somebody who wanted to do a little good, and who was embarrassed about it. Now, in view of what he knows, and what he’s read in the afternoon papers, he says he thinks the man was suffering from remorse. But he doesn’t believe that the man was a murderer, though, he says, it looks as if the man knew about this thing. He didn’t notice which direction he came from, or which way he went.”
“Humph,” said Brady, “and that’s that. He’s a priest and is telling the truth, and if we’ve got to have him, we can use him, but otherwise we’ve got to leave him out. Well, as you said, boy, that clears Reilly. What you going to do now?”
A stamping of feet in the outer room, and the opening of the door cut off Riordan’s reply, as Sergeant Roberts and his squad entered, shepherding a miserable-looking bunch of wreckage.
“Got ’em in the blind pig, captain,” he announced.
“Take ’em upstairs and have Halloran go through ’em,” said Brady. “He knows what we’re after. Tell him about the first fellow, what you saw and why you brought him in. I’m busy.”
Sergeant Roberts piloted his charges out again, and Brady reverted to his unanswered inquiry.
“What you going to do now, boy?” Riordan stretched and yawned.
“Well, chief, the way things are shaping up now, I guess I’d better go out and get that body the ad mentions. I was going to wait a few days, and get some more of those ads, but I guess I’d better—”
“What?” demanded Captain Brady, leaping from his chair. “Say, this isn’t anything to kid about.”
“Who’s kidding?”
“Looks like you were, boy. Here the whole force has been workin’ on this thing for over a week, and hasn’t turned up a blamed line that’s any good; and you yourself said you’d only been out to Staples’s house and down to the pier—”
Captain Brady stopped abruptly, and sat down.
“Go on, chief, finish it.”
Brady shook his head slowly. “No, boy. Guess I’d better not. I just remembered about the footprint and the tin. I guess I’ve said too much already.”
“Tell you what I’ll do, chief. I’ll let you in on it. I’ll just use the telephone here a minute, and then you and I’ll go out to dinner. When we come back we’ll have a man here who’ll produce that body. How’s that?”
Captain Brady scowled. “Boy, I’m in no mood for kidding,” he said.
Riordan reached for his telephone again, called the same number he had before, and Brady heard him say:
“Father Callaghan? This is Riordan again. Say, father, I think maybe you can do something for us that will clear this thing all up and let you out at the same time. Yes. I mean avoid any possibility of unpleasant publicity. You’ll do it, fine! Well, I tell you, father, you call a taxicab and drive over to Bishop Gale’s residence. He’s not in the city, went away the first of the week. But he’s got a new gardener, nice old man he is, the gardener. I think maybe you’ll find you know him, yes. Well, you use your powers of persuasion with him, father, and get him to take a ride with you, and bring him down here to Captain Brady’s office. The captain and I will be here when you arrive, and we’ll be glad to take care of the taxi bill for you. Thanks, father, you’re doing all of us a great favor. Good-by.”
He hung up and turned to Captain Brady.
“Come on, chief, let’s go,” he said. “I know you’re not hungry, but you can make yourself eat. We’ll just have time before Father Callaghan gets here.”
Riordan did all the talking as they ate. He told of his hunting trip and other recent adventures. Captain Brady listened, but that was all. He made no replies, no comments. He ate stolidly. His face was a study most of the time, and he kept shooting sharp glances at his aid. He was silent all the way back to headquarters from the restaurant, and only when he was again seated in his chair did he say anything.
“Boy, you got me beat. I’ve been going all over this case while you were talking away there, and I don’t see a thing. Except that hobnail shoe print. I can see that was a plant. But why?”
The doorman announced Father Callaghan, and ushered in the priest and a quiet, elderly, thin man, whose face seemed rather haggard. Riordan pushed forward chairs, introduced the churchman to Captain Brady, and then turned the latch on the office door and resumed his own seat at his desk. He paid not the slightest attention to the man Father Callaghan had brought with him, but Captain Brady’s eyes were as gimlets and kept boring into the fourth member of the group constantly.
“Father,” said Riordan, “you’ve had a good deal of experience with different people. I want to ask you if you’ve ever seen a man really happy because everybody flattered him?”
The priest straightened in his chair, and his eyes opened widely. The suggestion of a smile banished the lines of worry that had been apparent when he first entered the room.
“No, my son,” he said. “I have not.”
“Did you ever see a man who’d sought flattery, and who had failed to get it, find happiness in something else?”
“Yes — in service. Why?”
“Well, father, I’ve got a case in mind that I want you to help me in. There’s a man, he’s fairly well-to-do, who has done a great deal, one way or another, in this world. I don’t know whether what he’s done has amounted to so very much, as you and I figure real worth, but he’s done the best he could. In his own way he’s a great man, but most people don’t understand his way. Nobody has ever praised him. Nobody has patted him on the back and told him he was great stuff. Some people, who understand what he’s been doing, have told him his work was very fine, but the world at large never figured he amounted to much. He was lonely, and he craved attention; he craved flattery. He didn’t get it, and he got sore at everybody in general.
“But he wasn’t absolutely soured. He planned to give away what he had when he died, so that people could enjoy the things he’d enjoyed. He’d planned to give bis garden, for instance, for a public park. That showed that his heart was still right. But when he planned that, nobody patted him on the back and told him how fine his plans were.
“And so with the rest of his life. People didn’t understand him, and he didn’t understand people. And his craving for flattery — for that is really what he wanted — finally preyed upon him so it made him ill. It made him sick in the head, father. He said to himself that if he couldn’t get flattery, at least he’d get notoriety. He ‘framed’ a murder, father; an atrocious murder. He thought, in his misguided way with his sick mind, that he’d get notoriety, at least.