LITMIR.BIZ

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thing more, Mr. Quadrant. I understand that you retired at about ten o'clock on that night – the night prior to the first funeral, I mean. You left your brother Mark down here?"

      "Yes."

      "Later you came downstairs again."

      "You seem to be well posted as to my movements."

      "Not so well as I wish to be. Will you tell me why you came down?"

      "I have not admitted that I came downstairs."

      "You were seen in the hall very late at night, or early in the morning. You took the lamp out of the room where the casket was, and came in here and looked at your brother, who was asleep. Then you returned the lamp and went upstairs. Do you admit now that you had just come downstairs?"

      "I admit nothing. But to show you how little you can prove, suppose I ask you how you know that I had just come downstairs? Why may it not be that I had been out of the house, and had just come in again when your informant saw me?"

      "Quite true. You might have left the house. Perhaps it was then that the body was taken away?"

      "If it was taken away, that was certainly as good a time as any."

      "What time?"

      "Oh, let us say between twelve and two. Very few people would be about the street at that hour, and a wagon stopping before a door would attract very little attention. Especially if it were an undertaker's wagon."

      "An undertaker's wagon?" exclaimed Mr. Barnes, as this suggested a new possibility.

      "Why, yes. If, as you say, there was an accomplice in this case, the fellow who stole the rings, you know, he must have been one of the undertaker's men. If so, he would use their wagon, would he not?"

      "I think he would," said Mr. Barnes sharply. "I thank you for the point. And now I will leave you."

IX

      Mr. Barnes walked rapidly, revolving in his mind the new ideas which had entered it during the past few minutes. Before this morning he had imagined that the body of Rufus Quadrant had been taken away between five and six o'clock, in the undertaker's wagon. But it had never occurred to him that this same wagon could have been driven back to the house at any hour of the day or night, without causing the policeman on that beat to suspect any wrong. Thus, suddenly, an entirely new phase had been placed upon the situation. Before, he had been interested in knowing which man had been left behind; whether it had been Morgan or Randal. Now he was more anxious to know whether the wagon had been taken again from the stable on that night, and, if so, by whom. Consequently he went first to the undertaker's shop, intending to interview Mr. Berial, but that gentleman was out. Therefore he spoke again with Randal, who recognized him at once and greeted him cordially.

      "Why, how do you do," said he. "Glad you're round again. Anything turned up in the Quadrant case?"

      "We are getting at the truth slowly," said the detective, watching his man closely. "I would like to ask you to explain one or two things to me if you can."

      "Maybe I will, and maybe not. It wouldn't do to promise to answer questions before I hear what they are. I ain't exactly what you would call a fool."

      "Did you not tell me that it was Morgan who was left at the house after the coffin was closed, and that you came away with Mr. Berial?"

      "Don't remember whether I told you or not. But you've got it straight."

      "But they say at the stables that it was you who drove the wagon back there?"

      "That's right, too. What of it?"

      "But I understood that Morgan brought the wagon back?"

      "So he did; back here to the shop. He had to leave all our tools and things here, you see. Then he went off to his dinner, and I took the horse and wagon round to the stables."

      "Where do you stable?"

      "Harrison's, Twenty-fourth Street, near Lex."

      "Now, another matter. You told me about the loss of those rings?"

      "Yes, and I gave you the tip where you might find them again. Did you go there?"

      "Yes; you were right. The rings were pawned exactly where you sent me."

      "Oh, I don't know," said the fellow, airishly. "I ought to be on the police force, I guess. I can find out a few things, I think."

      "It isn't hard to guess what you know," said the detective, sharply.

      "What do you mean?" Randal was on the defensive at once.

      "I mean," said Mr. Barnes, "that it was you who pawned those rings."

      "That's a lie, and you can't prove it."

      "Don't be too sure of that. We have the pawn tickets."

      This shot went home. Randal looked frightened, and was evidently confused.

      "That's another lie," said he, less vigorously. "You can't scare me. If you have got them, which you haven't, you won't find my name on them."

      "No; you used your friend Morgan's name, which was a pretty low trick."

      "Look here, you detective," said Randal blusteringly, "I don't allow no man to abuse me. You can't talk that way to me. All this talk of yours is rot. That's what it is, rot!"

      "Look here, Randal. Try to be sensible if you can. I have not yet made up my mind whether you are a scoundrel or a fool. Suppose you tell me the truth about those tickets. It will be safest, I assure you."

      Randal looked at the detective and hesitated. Mr. Barnes continued:

      "There is no use to lie any longer. You were shadowed, and you were seen when you tore up the tickets. The pieces were picked up and put together, and they call for those rings. Don't you see we have you fast unless you can explain how you got the tickets?"

      "I guess you're givin' it to me straight," said Randal after a long pause. "I guess I better take your advice and let you have it right. One afternoon I saw Morgan hide something in one of the coffins in the shop. He tucked it away under the satin linin'. I was curious, and I looked into it after he'd gone that night. I found the pawn tickets. Of course I didn't know what they were for except that it was rings. But I guessed it was for some stuff he'd stolen from the corpse of somebody. For it was him took the other jewels I told you about, and I seen him with a screw-driver the match to the boss's. So I just slipped the tickets in my pocket thinkin' I'd have a hold on him. Next day I read about this man bein' found in the river, and I stopped to the Morgue, and, just as I thought, his rings was gone. I worried over that for an hour or two, and then I thought I better not keep the tickets, so I tore them up and threw them away."

      "That, you say, was the night after this affair was published in the papers?"

      "No; it was the same night."

      "That is to say, the night of that day on which I came here and had a talk with you?"

      "No, it was the night before. You're thinkin' about the mornin' papers, but I seen it first in the afternoon papers."

      This statement dispelled a doubt which had entered the mind of the detective, who remembered that Mr. Burrows had told him that the pawn-ticket incident had occurred on the evening previous to their meeting. This explanation, however, tallied with that, and Mr. Barnes was now inclined to credit the man's story.

      "Very good," said he. "You may be telling the truth. If you have nothing to do with this case, you ought to be willing to give me some assistance. Will you?"

      Randal had been so thoroughly frightened that he now seemed only too glad of the chance to win favor in the eyes of Mr. Barnes.

      "Just you tell me what you want, and I'm your man," said he.

      "I want to find out something at the stable, and I think you can get the information for me better than I can myself."

      "I'll go with you right away. The boy can mind the shop while we're gone. Charlie, you just keep an eye on things till I get back, will you? I won't be out more'n ten minutes. Come on, Mr. Barnes, I'm with you."

      On the way to the stable Mr. Barnes directed Randal as to what he wished to learn,

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