“Grover drew a lot of money out of his banks at different times. You got some of it, I know, and I suppose you got most of it. What about it?”
He didn’t pretend to be insulted, or even surprised by my talk. He smiled a little grimly, maybe, but as if he thought it the most natural thing in the world—and it was, at that—for me to suspect him.
“I told you that me and Henny were pretty chummy, didn’t I? Well, you ought to know that all us fellows that fool with the bangtails have our streaks of bad luck. Whenever I’d get up against it I’d hit Henny up for a stake; like at Tiajuana last winter where I got into a flock of bad breaks. Henny lent me twelve or fifteen thousand and I got back on my feet again. I’ve done that often. He ought to have some of my letters and wires in his stuff. If you look through his things you’ll find them.”
I didn’t pretend that I believed him.
“Suppose you drop into police headquarters at nine in the morning and we’ll go over everything with the city dicks,” I told him.
And then, to make my play stronger:
“I wouldn’t make it much later than nine—they might be out looking for you.”
“Uh-huh,” was all the answer I got.
I went back to the agency and planted myself within reach of a telephone, waiting for word from Dick and Bob. I thought I was sitting pretty. Clane had been blackmailing Grover—I didn’t have a single doubt of that—and I didn’t think he had been very far away when Grover was killed. That woman alibi of his sounded all wrong!
But the bloody fingerprints were not Clane’s—unless the police identification bureau had pulled an awful boner—and the man who had