"Who's asleep?" broke in the thick voice of the wastral. "Whash matter
you fellers, anyhow? Man comes in get li'l preshent for his wife--wife
sits up all night waitin'--she's 'titled to li'l preshent. Wheresh my
gold knife, Darcy? I give it to you--have 'grave--Pearl's
name--wheresh my knife?"

"You can have it pretty soon," promised Thong. "Look here, Harry, my
boy. You're pretty drunk, for a fact, but do you happen to know where
you were and what you did last night--and early this morning? Try to
think--it may mean a lot to you!" and he spoke earnestly. "Where were
you--what did you do?"

"What I did?" He blinked his eyes rapidly, to rid them of the water
which poured forth in an effort to assuage their drink-inflamed
condition, and regarded those about him with half-drunken gravity.
"What I did? You want to know--what--what I did?"

"Yes. Where were you, and what did you do?" asked Carroll easily.

"Hu! Got drunk, thash what I did. Can't you see? I'm drunk yet, but
I don't care! Ha! Had one swell time, thash what I did! One whale of
a good time! It was _some_ night--a wet night--believe me--a wet
night--awful wet. Never had so mush fun--never! We got ole Doc
Harrison stewed to the gills--hones' we did--stewed like--like
prunes--apricots! Ho! Thash what we did!"

"Guess he wasn't the only one," observed Carroll grimly. "Now, look
here, King. You're pretty drunk yet, but maybe you can get this
through your noodle. There's been some nasty business, and you may, or
may not, know something about it, though I don't believe you do, for
you're so pickled now that you must have been loading up ever since
last week. But you've got to answer some questions--when you're
able--and it's a question of holding you here or--taking you with us.
How about it?"

"Look here!" snarled King, and his voice rang out with sudden energy.
"Who you talkin' to?"

"Now take it easy, Harry," advised Thong. "We're talking to you, of
course."

Harry King seemed to begin the process of sobering up. His eyes lost
something of their bleary, misunderstanding look, and took on a
dangerous glint. The detectives knew him for a spendthrift, who had
been in more than one questionable escapade. He had a violent temper,
drunk or sober, once it was roused, and it did not take much liquor to
make him a veritable devil. Though after his first wild burst he
became maudlin and silly. King came of a good family, but his
relatives had cast him off after his midnight marriage to an actress of
questionable morals, with whom it was not a first offense, and he now
lived, after his own peculiar fashion, on the income of an estate
settled on him in his better days by an aunt. Now and then he managed
to get larger advances than the stipulated sum from a rascally lawyer,
who took a chance of reimbursing himself a hundred per cent. when Harry
King should come to the end of his rope--a time which seemed not far
off, if the present were any indication. He was to inherit the bulk of
his fortune when he became thirty-five years of age. He was now
thirty-three, but the pace he was going and keeping made his chances of
living out the stated allotment seem meager.

"I'm talking to you, Harry, my boy," went on the detective, "and I
advise you, for your own good, to keep a civil tongue in your head. If
you don't, you may get into trouble. There's been a murder--"

"A murder!" King's voice was more certain now.

"Yes. You saw the body carried out--or are you still so drunk you
can't remember? It was Mrs. Darcy--the lady who owned this jewelry
store, you know. Now pull yourself together. You've got to come with
us and explain a little about this knife of yours. She was stabbed
with that."

"With my knife--that paper cutter dagger I was giving as a present
to--to my wife?" King's voice was sobering more now.

"That's the idea, Harry."

"But I brought that knife to Darcy to have him engrave it."

"That may be. It was used to cut the old lady, though, and laid back
on Darcy's work-table. Come now--brace up, and tell us all you know
about it."

"Oh, I--I can brace up all right. So the old lady's dead, is she?
Killed--stabbed! Too bad! Many's the trinket I've bought of her
for--for--well, some of the girls, you know," and he winked
suggestively at the detectives. "Old lady Darcy's dead! Say, look
here, boys!" he exclaimed with a sudden change of manner, as something
seemed to penetrate to his sodden brain, "you--you don't for a minute
think I did this--do you?" and he sat up straight for the first time.

"Never mind what we think," said Carroll. "We're not paid for telling
it--like the reporters," and he grinned at Daley of the Times. "We
want to get at the facts. Are you in condition to talk?"

"Not here!" interrupted Thong quickly, with a glance at the newspaper
men, which they were quick to interpret. "Oh, it's all right, boys,"
went on the detective. "We'll let you in for anything that's going as
soon as we can--you know that."



<< previous page | next page >>

Jump to page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 | 80 | 81 | 82 | 83 |