American Sherlocks Nick Rennison (best big ereader txt) 📖

happened: You groped your way to the box with your right hand on the wall. You felt the black velvet hangings, stopped, and the pistol went off while your right hand was stretched above you, on the hangings, and you were facing the door that led back off the stage.’

‘I remember that!’ interjected Sydney. ‘His left side was towards Cartwright and the girl!’

‘Yet you said that the pistol flash crossed his body.’

‘It did!’ broke in the boy. ‘It was not twelve inches ahead of me! My right foot was extended to take another step, and the pistol fell on my toe!’

Colton turned to the three listening men. ‘To have fired that shot he would have had to double his left arm behind him and have shot around his body – a physical impossibility, even with a long-barrelled pistol.’ He placed his hand gently on the boy’s shoulder once more. ‘Go outside to the men who brought you in,’ he said. ‘You will be free in a few hours.’

Silently the boy obeyed. When Colton faced them again there was a curious expression on his face; the expression of a man who has seen a thoughtless boy destroy a priceless work of art by his clumsiness.

‘He killed that girl as surely as if he had placed the pistol at her back,’ he said sadly. ‘Yet he is as innocent of her murder as a child unborn!’

Eager questions, demands for an explanation of that cryptic remark, were fairly hurled at the blind man by the excited Rogers. What did he mean? How could the boy have killed Miss Reynolds and not be guilty of her murder? How had she been killed? By whom? Sydney Thames forbore the questions he knew would not be answered. The chief scowled down at the two pistols, silent, thoughtful. Colton’s statement regarding the firing of the pistol across the boy’s body had struck him like a dash of cold water. It was true! The boy could not have fired the shot that killed the girl! Once more the blind man’s unerring instinct for truth had torn down the case he and his men had been building for hours. In less than five minutes the sightless problemist had proved a fact that twenty pairs of eyes had failed to see.

‘Where are the two men who were arrested in the rathskeller?’ asked Colton curtly, utterly ignoring the questions.

‘Bailed by their boss,’ answered the chief. ‘They can only establish details anyway.’

‘I want to interview at least one of them,’ declared Colton. ‘I also want to visit the rathskeller. Can Mr Rogers go, in your company, of course? ‘

‘Yes.’ The chief took the responsibility unhesitatingly. He realized that he must see the thing through now.

‘Is your machine down here? I want to send my boy on an errand with mine.’

‘Outside, waiting.’ The chief took his hat and coat from the tree. ‘I’ll go with Rogers while he gets his,’ he added, as he opened the door.

The blind man hurried out, feet unerringly retracing the steps his brain had registered when they entered. The red-haired boy ran from the group of detectives he had been entertaining.

‘Shrimp!’ The blind man used the name he always called the boy, and took him aside. He whispered instructions, thrust two or three bills into the other’s hand. The youngster darted for the machine, and jumped up beside the driver as the chief and Rogers came from the front door.

In silence the quartet climbed into the car; in silence they made the journey to the rathskeller, where James Cartwright had been shot a few hours before. The waiter who had been on duty early in the morning was again on hand, heavy-eyed. The barman was at his home.

‘Where’s the booth you occupied?’ asked Colton of Rogers, when the chief had established their identity with the nervous proprietor.

The lawyer went to it, stopped at the table, and stared down at the dark stain that could not be removed.

‘This is where we were,’ he said huskily.

Colton stepped in between the table and the seat edge, and sat down, facing the rear of the rathskeller. ‘Cartwright was seated at the end of the seat, like this?’ He illustrated.

Rogers nodded. ‘He was on the extreme end, so he could assure himself that no one would hear.’

Colton rose, and with only the slim stick to guide him, made his way to a booth that faced the front of the rathskeller, at right angles to the one where the watching men still stood.

‘Who was in this booth when Cartwright was shot?’ It was snapped out like the crack of a whip to the waiter.

‘Nobody,’ faltered the serving man, wincing under the battery of eyes.

‘There was!’ The voice held accusation. ‘A man was in this booth, and he entered a moment or so before Mr Rogers and Mr Cartwright!’

The waiter brushed his dry lips with the back of his hand. ‘He couldn’t have had nothin’ to do with it,’ he mumbled, fingers twisting and untwisting the napkin in his hands.

‘No one said he did!’ said the blind man sharply. ‘You’ve been a witness in a murder case before, haven’t you?’

The watching men saw a look of alarm come to the man’s eyes. The chief stepped toward him menacingly. ‘Yes, sir,’ muttered the waiter, shrinking. ‘I saw a man shot while I was at the Royal. The police kept me in the detention for three months, and I lost my job.’

There was a grim smile on Colton’s lips as he nodded understandingly. ‘You weren’t going to take a chance on that again, were you?’ His tone was less brusque. ‘I’ll assure you that you won’t be held a minute if you give me a description of the man.’

The chief opened his mouth, then closed it with a snap.

‘Then I’ll tell you,’ consented the waiter eagerly. ‘He was a good-sized guy, with a yellow, old-lookin’ face, bald-headed, with a scar on the top, and he had eyes that was like slits. He came in that door.’ He