The Circular Staircase - Page 123/154

He was a tall lanky individual, ragged and dirty, and just now he

looked both terrified and embarrassed. Alex was too much engrossed to

be either, and to this day I don't think I ever asked him why he went

off without permission the day before.

"Miss Innes," Alex began abruptly, "this man can tell us something very

important about the disappearance of Mr. Innes. I found him trying to

sell this watch."

He took a watch from his pocket and put it on the table. It was

Halsey's watch. I had given it to him on his twenty-first birthday: I

was dumb with apprehension.

"He says he had a pair of cuff-links also, but he sold them--"

"Fer a dollar'n half," put in the disreputable individual hoarsely,

with an eye on the detective.

"He is not--dead?" I implored. The tramp cleared his throat.

"No'm," he said huskily. "He was used up pretty bad, but he weren't

dead. He was comin' to hisself when I"--he stopped and looked at the

detective. "I didn't steal it, Mr. Winters," he whined. "I found it

in the road, honest to God, I did."

Mr. Winters paid no attention to him. He was watching Alex.

"I'd better tell what he told me," Alex broke in. "It will be quicker.

When Jamieson--when Mr. Jamieson calls up we can start him right. Mr.

Winters, I found this man trying to sell that watch on Fifth Street.

He offered it to me for three dollars."

"How did you know the watch?" Winters snapped at him.

"I had seen it before, many times. I used it at night when I was

watching at the foot of the staircase." The detective was satisfied.

"When he offered the watch to me, I knew it, and I pretended I was

going to buy it. We went into an alley and I got the watch." The

tramp shivered. It was plain how Alex had secured the watch. "Then--I

got the story from this fellow. He claims to have seen the whole

affair. He says he was in an empty car--in the car the automobile

struck."

The tramp broke in here, and told his story, with frequent

interpretations by Alex and Mr. Winters. He used a strange medley, in

which familiar words took unfamiliar meanings, but it was gradually

made clear to us.

On the night in question the tramp had been "pounding his ear"--this

stuck to me as being graphic--in an empty box-car along the siding at

Casanova. The train was going west, and due to leave at dawn. The

tramp and the "brakey" were friendly, and things going well. About ten

o'clock, perhaps earlier, a terrific crash against the side of the car

roused him. He tried to open the door, but could not move it. He got

out of the other side, and just as he did so, he heard some one groan.