And they went out.
III
Knibbs was awakened about nine o’clock the following morning by the ringing of the telephone bell. He arose, grumbling between yawns, and wended his barefooted way to the instrument.
“Hello!” he said briefly.
“That you, young Knibbs?” asked Dreer’s voice at the other end.
Fleming’s sleepiness vanished. Perhaps the old fellow had some interesting information about his half-asleep girl, of whom he had dreamed the whole night through.
“Yes, Mr. Dreer,” he replied. “What is it? A new development in our case?”
“No; it’s about the suicide, but I knew you’d be interested—thought you’d like to follow it up, you know, because—well, because the little girl is tied up in it, and—”
“Yes, yes—of course. What have you found?”
“A meagre clue. It may and may not be of importance.” Dreer was always modest. “If you care to come over, we’ll examine its possibilities together.”
“But I thought the incident of the suicide was closed. I thought the department was satisfied.”
“The department is never satisfied so long as a shadow of suspicion remains undispelled. To be brutally frank, young Knibbs, there is a possibility that Lola De Brunner murdered the man Ulrich!”
“No!”
“Yes—a possibility. I do not say it with assurance, and I hope, if only because of your interest in her, that it proves untrue. But it is there and cannot be avoided. As I said, if you care to come over—”
“Wait for me. I’ll be over in a jiffy,” cried Fleming.
He slammed the receiver on its hook, and a moment later was getting into his clothes with reckless haste. The girl Lola had taken a peculiar hold on him. Though the unusual circumstances of their meeting, not to mention the depressing incidents which followed, were certainly not—on their face, at least — of a nature to awaken the finer instincts, these instincts were awakened, nevertheless, in Fleming Knibbs, and, coming to analyze it that beautiful September morning, he concluded that it was so because there was something real about this girl that rose above the most damning facts, refuting them.
In brief, anything bad she had done wasn’t true. He-clung to this assertion because it was the only ground on which he could satisfactorily explain his attraction to her. He knew he wouldn’t be drawn to a girl essentially bad; ergo folks had merely gotten the wrong angle on her acts and misunderstood them.
True, he had a difficult mental battle maintaining this stand. Inevitable logic came forward again and again, arguing: “If a man approached you on the street, thrust a gun in your face, and relieved you of your valuables, he would be a thief, wouldn’t he—a common highwayman? If a girl — no matter how pretty — does the same thing, is she not a thief also?” That was a stumper. Knibbs had to find a way to answer No so that he would believe it. And he did. But how he did is beyond the comprehension of any save those who, too, are under the spell of some lovely young woman.
Fleming Knibbs sacrificed breakfast that morning in his eagerness to see Dreer. Just forty-five minutes elapsed between the ringing of his phone and the instant he walked, unannounced, into the detective’s strangely cluttered library.
Simeon Dreer was seated with his ear close to the phonograph, listening dreamily to the strains of Les Millions d’Arlequin. As his visitor entered, he raised his hand, without turning, in a request for silence.
Knibbs sat down and waited impatiently for the music to cease.
When it did, finally, Dreer, muttering “beautiful, beautiful,” put the record away with great care and deliberation before joining his guest.
Then, fumbling in his pocket, he brought forth an envelope.
“This,” he said, “was found by my good friend Yensen, and earned him a five-dollar bill.”
“And this was all he found?” queried Knibbs. “No sign of the watch or scarf pin?”
“None. The girl asked him, you see, to help move her father to a back room, which he did. Afterward he discovered this missive under the pillow. Tactfully maintaining silence, he brought it to me. Of your trinkets, however, young Knibbs, there was not a sign.”
Fleming looked at the envelope. It was addressed in a rangy scrawl to Bastian De Brunner and bore an Australian postmark dated six weeks earlier. Within was a sheet of linen letter paper. He drew it out and read:
Dear Bastian,
By the time this arrives you should be snugly fixed in your new quarters, I have no difficulty picturing you there; silent, of course; perhaps even brooding, but just as active in thought as ever.
How is Lola? Ask her, for me, if the trans-Pacific trip succeeded in lessening the intensity of her hatred for our mutual friend John Ulrich?
I am still with the old Smith & Townsend outfit, though I’ll admit the routine is getting to be drudgery. Some day I may clear out for the States myself. In which event, you may be sure I’ll look you up.
Trusting your health is improving, I remain
Your friend and admirer,
Knibbs glanced at Simeon Dreer, frowning. “So you think, because, she entertained a dislike for the man Ulrich, that she killed him, and that her father is protecting her with his suicide story?”
“A natural assumption, isn’t it?”
Fleming, being reluctant to admit it, remained silent.
“Young Knibbs,” continued Simeon, “at what hour did this girl hold you up?”
“About nine, I should judge.”
“And how long do you think it would take her to return home from that spot, provided she went directly by trolley?”
“No more than fifteen minutes.”
“Then she could have been home at nine-fifteen?”
“Easily.”
“You’ve considered, I suppose, that the stabbing occurred at nine-twenty?”
Fleming avoided the detective’s gaze. He felt that by defending the girl he was putting himself in an awkward position, yet in his heart he knew he would go on defending her to the end. And the end? What would it be? Finally, seeking an argument on which to pin his dwindling hope, he asked: “How can you be so sure of your time?”
“Easily. There’s a small grocery store on the corner, and in its window hangs a. clock which Officer Haggerty is in the habit of consulting as he swings around his beat. It was exactly nine-twenty by that clock when, as he passed the Window, he heard De Brunner’s cry. Lola, it would appear, had been home five minutes.”
Knibbs winced; then suddenly struck by an idea he leaped to his feet. “But if she returned directly home after leaving me, the stolen property must have been in her possession,” he cried. “And as it wasn’t in her possession, she couldn’t have returned directly home, and must have arrived after the deed was done. That clears her of all suspicion.”