It took some days to arrange for that and while O'Mally was laying his wires for a midnight search, his men were tracking back over Tony Ford3's trail. It didn't take them long and there was nothing much brought to light when you considered the kind of a man Tony Ford must be.
For the last three years he'd held clerkships in New York and Albany and once, for six months in Detroit. From some he'd resigned, from others been fired, not for anything bad, but because he was slack and lazy, though bright enough. The only thing they turned up that was shady was over two years before in Syracuse, when he'd been in a small real estate business with a partner and was said to have absconded4 with some of the funds. Nobody knew much of this and the man he'd been in with couldn't be found. The detectives said it was so vague they didn't put much reliance in it, thought maybe it might be spite work.
Anyway, it wasn't the record of a desperado, and they'd have been sort of baffled to fit his past actions with his present, if it hadn't been for one thing that, according to their experience, was very significant. In the last two months he'd spent a lot more money than his salary. As Miss Whitehall's managing clerk he had been paid sixty-five dollars a week, and he had been living at the rate of a man who has hundreds. It wasn't in his place—that was simple enough—a back room in a lodging5 house—but he'd been a spender in the white lights of Broadway. At expensive restaurants and lobster6 palaces he'd become a familiar figure, the gambling7 houses knew him, and he'd ridden round in motors like a capitalist.
"By the swath he's been cutting," said Babbitts, "you'd suppose he had an income in five figures."
"O Soapy," I said horrified8. "They don't think he was paid for it?"
Himself looked solemn at me and nodded:
"That's exactly what they do think, Morningdew. He was paid and evidently paid high. Whoever the 'Other Man' was he could afford to be extravagant9 in his accomplice10. Their idea is that Ford was engaged for his superior strength, and demanded a big retainer in advance."
"What a terrible man," I murmured and thought of him standing11 in the doorway12 smiling at me like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. "He's a regular gunman."
"Worse than a gunman, for he's educated," said Babbitts. "Gee13, wasn't it a lucky thing Iola got out of that place!"
The morning after that conversation I bid Babbitts good-bye as if he was going to the South Pole, for that was the night they'd selected to examine the two offices. Three of them were in it, O'Mally, Babbitts, and one of O'Mally's men, a chap called Stevens. Himself would turn up for breakfast if he could, but if there was anything pressing at the paper or more developed than they expected, I wasn't to look for him till the evening of the next day.
I went down to my work and had a dull time for Troop was still sick and there was nothing to do but now and then jack14 in for a call and sew on my tray cloth. No Babbitts that night and no Babbitts for breakfast, and me piling down town for another eight hours in that dreary15 room with Troop not yet back and not a soul to speak to.
If, when I came home that evening, I'd found Babbitts still away I believe I'd have forgotten I was a lady sleuth and started a general alarm for him. But thank goodness, I didn't need to. For there he was on the Davenport with his muddy boots on the best plush cushion, sound asleep.
I didn't intend to wake him, but creeping round to our room, looking at him as I crept, I ran into the Victrola with a crash, and up he sat, wide awake, thanking me sarcastic16 for having roused him in such a delicate, tactful manner.
In a minute I was sitting on the edge of the Davenport—you'll know how I felt when I tell you I forgot his feet on the cushion—squeezed up against him and staring into his face:
"Quick—go ahead! Did you find anything?"
"We did, Morningdew."
"Did you get any nearer who the other man is?"
"We got next. The chief was right. It's Johnston Barker!"
"Barker! But, Soapy——"
He raised a finger and pointed17 in my face:
"Don't begin with any buts till you know. Now if you'll be quiet and listen like a nice little girl, you'll see."
This is what he told me as I sat pressed up against him, every now and then giving myself a hitch18 to keep from sliding off, too eager listening to rise up and get a chair.
They gained access to both offices without any trouble, O'Mally flashing his badge at the nightman, whom he'd already seen and fixed19 with a story that he was after important papers for the Copper20 Pool men. They tried the Harland offices first, a cursory21 inspection showing nothing. It wasn't till O'Mally himself got busy in the rear room that they began to move forward. A mark on the window sill was what started him. It was a circular scrape about as big round as a butter plate and was made, he said, by the heel of a man's boot.
Then he turned his attention to the window casing, the ledge22 and the outside frame. He used a small pocket searchlight, also matches, dropping them as they burned down and examining every inch of the surface. The first thing he lit upon was the cleat to which the awning23 rope is fastened in summer. It is always screwed securely down to the woodwork, and has to be strong and firm to hold the awnings24 in heavy winds, especially at that height. The cleat outside the window was loosened, and between its base and the wood were a few torn threads of rope that had caught in the head of the upper screw. These threads, carefully untangled and preserved, were from a new rope, clean and yellow, not the gray wind and weather-worn shreds25 that would have been left from the summer. Below the cleat were scratches, some long and deep, some wide, zigzag
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CHAPTER IX JACK TELLS THE STORY
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