Ruyler's tone was haughty. He did not relish being led round by the nose,
and his nerves were jumping.
"Now! Now!" said Spaulding soothingly, as he lit a cigar. "When you hire
a detective you hire him to do things you wouldn't do yourself; and if
you won't give him the little help he's got to have from you or quit,
what's the use of hiring him at all?
"I know perfectly well that nothing but your own eyes would convince you
of what it's up to me to prove--to say nothing of the fact that I count
on your entrance at the last minute to put an end to the whole bad
business. For it is a bad business--believe me. But not a word of that
now. You couldn't pry open my lips with a five dollar Havana."
"Well--you say you had a talk with Madame Delano to-day. Surely you can
tell me some of the things you have discovered."
"A whole lot. I've been waiting for the chance. Not that I got anything
out of her. She's one grand bluffer and no mistake. I take off my hat to
her. When I told her that I could lay hands on the proof that she was
Marie Garnett--although Jim had married her in his home town under his
own name--and that she'd gone home to France with the kid when it was
five, taking the cue from her friend, Mrs. Lawton, and sending word back
she was dead--"
"You were equally sure a few days ago that she was Mrs. Lawton--"
"That was just my constructive imagination on the loose. It was a lovely
theory, and I sort of hung on to it. But I had no real data to go on. Now
I've got the evidence that Jim Garnett died two months before the fire
burnt up pretty nearly all the records, and that his body was shipped
back to Holbrook Centre to be buried in the family plot. You see, he was
sick for some time out on Pacific Avenue, and his death was registered
where the fire didn't go--"
"But what put you on?" asked Ruyler impatiently. "I should almost rather
it had been any one else. He seems to have been about as bad a lot as
even this town ever turned out."
"He was, all right, and his father before him, although they came from
mighty fine folks back east. His father came out in '49 with the gold
rush crowd, panned out a good pile, and then, liking the life--San
Francisco was a gay little burg those days--opened one of the crack
gambling houses down on the Old Plaza. Plate glass windows you could look
through from outside if you thought it best to stay out, and see hundreds
of men playing at tables where the gold pieces--often slugs--were piled
as high as their noses, and hundreds more walking up and down the aisles
either waiting for a chance to sit, or hoping to appease their hunger
with the sight of so much gold. They didn't try any funny business, for
every gambler had a six-shooter in his hip pocket, and sometimes on the
table beside him.