He fidgeted and pouted at his feet.
“Ha! Ha! Ha!” Bill Garren said sourly. “That’s a nifty! Did you ever hear the one about the two Irishmen that got in the Y.W.C.A. by mistake?”
She didn’t say whether she had heard it or not.
“ Mrs. Coplin,” I asked; “making allowances for the different clothes, and the unshaven face, could this lad have been the robber?”
She shook her head with emphasis.
“No! He could nod be id!”
“Set your prize down, Bil,” I suggested; “and let’s go over in a corner and whisper things at each other.”
“Right.”
He dragged a heavy chair to the center of the floor, sat Wagener on it, anchored him there with handcuffs—not exactly necessary, but Bill was grouchy at not getting his prisoner identified as the robber—and then he and I stepped out into the pasageway. We could keep an eye on the sitting-room from there without having our low-voiced conversation overheard.
“This is simple!” I whispered into his big red ear. “There are only five ways to figure the lay. First: Wagener stole the stuff for the Coplins. Second: the Coplins framed the robbery themselves, and got Wagener to peddle it. Third: Wagener and the girl engineered the deal without the old folks being in on it. Fourth: Wagener pulled it on his own hook and the girl is covering him up. Fifth: she told us the truth. None of them explain why your little playmate should have been dumb enough to flash the ring downtown this morning; but that can’t be explained by any system. Which of the five do you favor?”