want me to believe that, when you saw this man two blocks away at half-past one in the morning, you noticed he wore a beard? Wasn't it too dark?"
"Naw, suh. Dem post-office lights is pow'ful, boss. I seed de beard all right, an' I seed it once mo'e when he wuz on de stairs."
"What did he do after he had looked back at you while he was going upstairs?"
"Nothin', boss. He seed I wuz lookin' at him, an' he jes' went on up an' out uv sight, in a hurry, like."
"What time was that?"
"Dat wuz twenty-six minutes uv two."
"How do you know that? You'd gone back to sleep, hadn't you?"
"Yas, suh, a little niggerin'. But, when I woke up dat way widout no reason, I kinder jumped. I wuz afeer'd dat clock might be goin' to jar me ag'in, an' I took a look at it. Dat wuz how I seed de time. It wuz twenty-six minutes uv two."
"What did you do then?"
"Nothin', boss; jes' went on niggerin' it. Dat is, I went on till de night clerk giv' me a kick on de shins and tole me to take Mistuh Morley's bags up to fo'-twenty-one. I done tole you dat was five minutes arftuh two. Den, when we got up to de room, I says to him: 'I thought you wuz in dis hotel half-hour ago, boss, when you had a beard.'
"An' right off de bat I wuz sorry I said dat. He look' at me kinder mad an' he said: 'Whut you talkin' 'bout, boy? You mus' be talkin' in yore sleep!'
“I come on back downstairs. He didn’ have to say no mo’e. I tell you, boss, when a white man tell me I been talkin’ in my sleep, I is been talkin’ in my sleep—dar ain’ no argufyin’ ‘bout it—I is been doin’ dat ve’y thing.”
"But you thought Mr. Morley, the man with the grips, was the one you had seen going up the stairs and, also, the one you had seen going into the post-office—and, when you saw him on the stairs and on the street, he wore a beard? Is that it?"
"I ain' thought nothin' 'bout it, boss. I knowed it."
"What did you think about his shaving off the beard at that time in the morning?" Braceway urged, fingering the dollar bill. "Didn't you think it was queer?"
"I tryin' to tell you, suh, I ain' done no thinkin' 'bout dat. He done said I wuz talkin' in my sleep, an' I is a prudent nigger."
"Did he have a gold tooth, Roddy?"
"Naw, suh," said Roddy, "but he did look rich 'nough to have one. Leastways I ain' seen he had one."
"Have you seen the man with the beard since?"
"Naw, suh. I jes' tole you, boss, he done shave it off."
"And Mr. Morley?"
"Yas, suh, I done seen him. He's in de hotel now. He's de same man."
"Did he wear rubber overshoes when he had the beard, and when he didn't have it?"
"Yas, suh—bofe times."
"Has he said anything to you since Monday night?"
"Naw, suh."
"Did you see anybody else that night—Monday night?"
"Naw, suh."
"Do you remember anything else about how the bearded man looked?"
"Naw, suh, 'cep' he look' jes' like dis Mistuh Morley; dat's all I know, boss."
Braceway got to his feet.
"All right, Roddy," he said heartily; "you're a good boy. Here's your dollar."
Roddy rolled his white eyeballs toward the ceiling and bent his black face floorward.
"Gawd bless you, boss! You is one good——"
"And here's another dollar, if you can keep your mouth shut about this until I tell you to open it. Can you do that?"
Roddy conveyed the assurance of his ability to remain dumb until a considerable time after the sounding of Gabriel's trump.
"See that you do. If you don't, I might have to arrest you after all."
When the negro had gone, Braceway stood at the window and, with glance turned toward the street, saw nothing of what was passing there. He was reviewing the facts—or possible facts—that had just come to him. Restlessness took hold of him. He fell to pacing the length of the room with long, quick strides. It seemed that, in the labour of forcing his brain to its highest activity, he called on every fibre and muscle of his physique. His cheeks were flushed; his eyes, hard and brilliant, snapped.
He was thinking—thinking, going over every particle of the evidence he had drawn from Roddy, trying to estimate its value when compared with everything else he had learned about the case. His stride grew more rapid; his breathing was faster.
The murder, the men and women connected with it, the stories they had told, all these flashed on the screen of his mind and hung there until he had judged them to their smallest detail.
What could Abrahamson have meant by indicating a belief that the man with the gold tooth looked like George Withers?
Was the boy Roddy wide enough awake that night to have formed any real opinion as to the resemblance of the bearded man and Henry Morley?
The trip to the post-office—did that explain the disappearance of the stolen jewelry? Had Morley mailed it at once to himself, or somebody else, in Washington?
Withers had returned to the Brevord early Monday night. That must have been before half-past twelve. Although the night clerk and the bellboy had been asleep at the time and had not seen him, there was no room for doubt of his return as he had described it.
And why should Morley, wearing the disguise, have waked up Roddy and assured himself, by the look flung over his shoulder, that the negro saw him on the stairs?
Or had that been Morley, after all? What reason, what motive——
Suddenly, with the abruptness of a horse thrown back on his haunches, he stood stock still in the middle of the room, his brilliant eyes staring at the wall, his breathing faster than ever, as he considered the idea that had flashed upon him. The idea grew into a theory. It had never occurred to him before, and yet it was right. It must be. He had it! For the first time, he felt sure of himself, was convinced that he held a safe grasp on the case.
He strode to the window and struck the sill with his fist. The tenseness went out of his body. He breathed a long sigh of relief. He had seen through the mist of puzzling facts and contradictory clues. The rest would be comparatively plain sailing.
Some of Braceway's friends were in the habit of laughing at him because, when he was sure of having solved a criminal puzzle, he always could be seen carrying a cane. The appearance of the cane invariably foretold the arrest of a guilty man.
He went now to the corner near the bureau and picked up the light walking-stick he had brought to Furmville strapped
