Benson’s almost colorless eyes were on her like brilliant agate.
“It looks,” she said, “as if whoever had entered the Gant laboratory and searched — and took those shoe-nails — had also been in Mr. Darcey’s office to search for something, and had done the same thing to a pair of his shoes.”
“And later,” Mac had put in softly, “the skurlies murrdered the Gant brothers.”
“Yes,” said Nellie. “So maybe the same thing hangs over Abel Darcey.”
A little information concerning the three men Benson had picked as possible leaders of that mob in the hangar. Very little! But the gray fox of a man had mulled it over in his mind, behind unreadable, colorless eyes. And now came the next orders.
“Josh!” The white-haired chief addressed his colored associate.
The sleepy-looking negro, Joshua Newton, stepped forward. Sleepy-looking? Yes, but with an intelligence in his eyes that belied his indolent look and the illiterate dialect he used with strangers.
“I want you to go to Ringset’s office. He knows you, from his visits to the Gant house, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, sir,” said Josh.
“Very well. I want you to tell him in a roundabout way that you have an idea what the inventions of the murdered brothers were. Tell him you’ll sell your knowledge of those inventions if the price is right. See how he reacts to that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And Josh,” said Benson. “Walk up. Don’t use the elevators.”
“There’s nothing like climbing stairs to preserve health,” Josh agreed.
“Oh, now, Sleepy,” Smitty said. “You know you wouldn’t climb nine flights of stairs unless your life, itself, depended on it. Why you never move at all if you don’t absolutely have to.”
“Neither does a cat,” pointed out Josh, who was something of a dusky philosopher. “But a cat’s usually in good health, isn’t he?”
The Negro shuffled out, deceptively sleepy and dull-looking.
Benson’s bleak, agate eyes turned on Smitty and Mac.
“I want you two to cruise along the Catawbi Railroad right-of-way again, and look around the spot where that track disappeared. Also, question more of the farmers around there, and see if any others besides the one I talked to happened to glimpse anything in the sky when the noise was heard.”
There were left the two girls — pink-and-white Nellie Gray, and darkly pretty Rosabel.
“Nellie,” Benson said, “you will go to Ludlow, the lake-resort town farthest north on the Catawbi line. After our discovery of the abandoned car ferry they’re using for a hangar, the gang will have towed it to a new spot. There’s only one direction to tow it to a deserted spot and that’s north, away from the city. Probably near Ludlow.”
“And I’m to look around for it?” Nellie began eagerly.
“You are not,” said Benson. “You will go to Ludlow as a wealthy young heiress with nothing on her mind but boating and swimming. There, you will simply keep your eyes and ears open and see if you can find out anything from the local residents. This gang will probably have a few of the local tough boys in their employ. You may learn something. Rosabel, you go with Nellie as her maid. It will make the heiress act look more natural, and you can help if anything happens. Can you shoot?”
“Yes, sir,” said the colored girl quietly. She turned away for a moment, lifted her dress, and turned back with a gun in her hand — the smallest make of .22 palm-gun. It was hardly larger than a watch-charm; but at close range in an accurate hand it could do deadly things.
Benson nodded, colorless eyes inexorable and steady in his paralyzed, white face.
“Don’t take unnecessary risks. Simply learn what you can by talking around. Mac and Smitty will meet you later at Ludlow’s best hotel. You’ll all get further orders there.”
Joshua Elijah Newton shuffled toward the old office building in which Colonel Ringset had his office, on tired-seeming, enormous feet. He was going to approach Ringset in his habitual role of uneducated darky. Only a few knew him as he really was — highly educated, alert, clever.
Colonel Ringset, who had not come to the Gant home as often as a few other friends of the brothers, was not one of those few.
“The hunter,” Josh often told Rosabel, “doesn’t turn his gun on the turtle as quickly as on the weasel. Folks don’t watch the slow and dumb like they do the swift and smart. Always be a turtle till you see if the man you’re talking to is a hunter.”
Colonel Marius Ringset, Josh had decided the first time he laid eyes on him, was a hunter. Whether his hunting was of the kind approved by society or not, Josh hadn’t known or cared — till now. Now Mr. Benson wanted to know; and what that gray fox of a man with the icily flaming eyes wanted to know, Josh was going to find out for him if it was humanly possible.
Josh entered the dingy lobby of the building on slow, huge feet.
There was an out-of-order sign on the furthest of the two elevator doors. He heard a clanging in the basement where a man was still clearing away the debris of the smashed cage Smitty had told about. But there were no police around.
It looked as if the accident hadn’t been reported to headquarters, although the saw-marks on the steel cable must have told that the “accident” was an attempt at murder.
The suspicious failure to report such an accident might be caused by Colonel Ringset’s orders. Or it might be that the building owner had simply wanted to avoid notoriety for his building, which would exonerate Ringset of crooked motives.
Josh shuffled up nine flights of stairs and walked into the outer office of the colonel. A waspish woman of forty stared at him from behind her desk.
“Ah’d lak t’see de cuhnel, please, ma’am,” Josh said, hat in hand.
“Colonel Ringset is very busy just now,” the waspish secretary said, “I’m afraid—”
“Ah’s de boy worked fo’ Robert and Max Gant,” Josh said. “De cuhnel knows me. Jus’ tell him Ah’s anxious to see him, please, ma’am.”
The spinster secretary frowned, hesitated, then went into the office marked Private. She came back in a moment still frowning, but less impatient of manner.
“He’ll see you.”
Josh shuffled into Ringset’s office. The cold, gray eyes of the old man probed him from under bushy gray brows.
“Your name’s Josh, isn’t it? Yes, I thought I remembered— Terrible thing, the brothers’ deaths— What did you want to see me about, Josh? A job?”
“No, suh,” drawled Josh. “Leastwise, not ’zactly. But it was about money.”
“If you want to borrow”—Ringset began, scowling.
“No, suh. Ah don’t want to borrow. Ah’s got somethin’ to sell and Ah thought mebbe you’d be interested.”
“Something to sell? I don’t understand.”
“It’s lak this,” drawled Josh, turning his hat in bashful fingers. “De Gant brothers was wuhkin’ on a couple inventions when dey was killed. Seems lak dey was pow’ful inventions, too. Now, folks thinks dem inventions is gone an’ fohgotten, with the brothers daid.”
“Well, aren’t they?” said Colonel Ringset.
“No, suh,” said Josh earnestly. “Leastwise, Ah don’t think they is. Ah knows where Ah can put my han’s on some papuhs of the brothers. Dem papuhs has somethin’ to do with the inventions. Ah’s daid sure o’ that.”