A NEW LIGHT ON ALLAN MORRIS
From the City Hall the car headed for Christie Place once more; it
halted some half dozen doors from Hume's and the occupants got out.
The first floor was used by a dealer in second-hand machinery, but at
one side was a long, dingy entry with a rickety, twisting flight of
stairs at the end. Ashton-Kirk rang the bell here, and while they
waited a man who had been seated in the open door of the machine shop
got up and approached them.
He wore blue overalls and a jumper liberally discolored by plumbago
and other lubricants; a short wooden pipe was held between his teeth,
and a cloth cap sat upon the back of his head.
"Looking up the Dago?" asked he with a grin. He jerked a dirty thumb
toward the stairs.
Ashton-Kirk nodded; the man took the wooden pipe from his mouth, blew
out a jet of strong-smelling smoke and said:
"I knowed he'd put a knife or something into somebody, some day. These
people with bad tempers ought to be chained up short."
"Do you know him well?" inquired the investigator.
"Been acquainted with him ever since he's been living here--and that's
going on three years."
"Did he have many visitors, do you know?"
The man in the cloth cap pulled at his pipe reflectively.
"I can't just say," he replied. "But I've been thinking--" he paused
here and examined both young men questioningly. Then he asked: "You're
detectives, ain't you?"
"Something of that sort," replied Ashton-Kirk.
The man grinned at this.
"Oh, all right," said he. "You don't have to come out flat with it if
you don't want to. I ain't one of the kind that you've got to hit with
a mallet to make them catch on to a thing." Here the wooden pipe
seemed to clog; he took a straw from behind his ear and began clearing
the stem carefully. At the same time he added: "As I was saying, I've
been thinking."
"That," said Ashton-Kirk, giving another tug at the unanswered bell,
"is very commendable."
"And queer enough, it's been about visitors--here," and the man
pointed with the straw toward the doorway. "Funny kind of people too,
for a house like this."
"Take a cigar," said Ashton-Kirk. "That pipe seems out of commission."
Then, as the man put the pipe away in the pocket of his jumper and
lighted the proffered cigar, he added: "What do you mean by 'funny
kind of people?'"
The cigar well lighted, the man in the overalls drew at it with gentle
relish.
"There's a good many kinds of funny people," said he. "Some of them
you laugh at, and others you don't. These that I mean are the kind you
don't. Now, Mrs. Marx, the woman that keeps this place, is all right
in her way, but it ain't no swell place at that. Her lodgers are
mostly fellows that canvass for different kinds of things; they wear
shiny coats and their shoes are mostly run down at the heels. So when
I see swell business looking guys coming here I got to wondering who
they were. That's only natural, ain't it?"
Ashton-Kirk nodded, but before he could reply in words there came a
clatter upon the rickety stairs at the far end of the entry. A thin,
slipshod woman with untidy hair and a sharp face paused on the lower
step and looked out at them.
"What do you want?" she demanded, shrilly.
Ashton-Kirk, followed by Pendleton, stepped inside and advanced down
the entry.
"Are you Mrs. Marx?" he inquired.
"Yes," snapped the woman. "What do you want?"
"A little information."
"You're a reporter!" accused the sharp-faced woman. "And let me tell
you that I don't want nothing more to say to no reporters."
But Ashton-Kirk soothingly denied the accusation.
"I dare say you've been bothered to death by newspaper men," spoke he.
"But we assure you that--"
"It don't make no difference," stated the woman, rearing her head
until her long chin pointed straight at them. "I ain't got nothing to
say to nobody. I don't want to get into no trouble."
"The only way you can possibly get into trouble in this matter," said
the investigator, "is to conceal what you know. An attempt to hide
facts is always considered by the police as a sort of admission of
complicity."
The woman at this lifted a corner of a soiled apron and applied it to
her eyes.
"Things is come to a nice pass," she said, vainly endeavoring to
squeeze a tear from eyes to which such things had long been strangers,
"when a respectable woman can't mind her own business in her own
house."
At this point, Pendleton, who looked discreetly away, caught the
rustle of a crisp bill; and when Mrs. Marx spoke again, her tone had
undergone a decided change.
"But of course," she said, "if the law asks me anything, I must do
the best I can. I've kept a rooming house for a good many years now,
gentlemen, and this is the first time I have had any notoriety. It is,
I assure you."
As Ashton-Kirk had seen at a second glance, Mrs. Marx was a lady fully
competent to confront any situation that might arise; so he wasted no
time in soothing her injured feelings.
"We desire any information that you can give us regarding your lodger,
Antonio Spatola," said he. "Tell us all you know about him."
"He wasn't a bad-hearted young man," said the landlady, "but for all
that I wish I'd never seen him. If I hadn't then I'd never had this
disgrace come on me."
Here she made another effort with the corner of her apron; but it was
even more unsuccessful than the first. She gave it up and went on
acidly.
"Mr. Spatola came here almost three years ago. He was engaged in one
of the vaudeville theaters near here--in the orchestra--and he rented
my second story front at six dollars a week. Except for the fact that
he _would_ play awfully shivery music at all hours of the night, I was
glad to have him. He was quiet and polite; he paid regularly and,"
smoothing back the untidy hair, "he gave a kind of tone to the house.
"But then he lost his position. Had a fight, I understand, with
somebody. For a long time he had no work; he moved from the second
story-front at six dollars a week into the attic at two. When he could
get no place, he went on the street and played; afterwards he got the
trained birds. I didn't like this much. It didn't do the house no good
to have a street fiddler living in it; and then the birds were a
regular nuisance with their noise. But he paid regular, and after a
while he took to keeping the birds in a box in the loft, so I put up
with it."
"We'll look at his room, if you please," said the investigator.
Complainingly, the woman led the way up the infirm staircase. At the
fourth floor she pushed open a door and showed them into a long
loft-like room with high ceiling and mansard windows. There came a
squawking and fluttering from somewhere above as they entered.
"Them's the cockatoos," said the landlady. "They miss Mr. Spatola very
much. When I go to feed them with the stale bread and seed he has here
for them, would you believe it, they'll hardly eat a thing."
The room was without a floor covering. Upon some rough shelves, nailed
to the wall, were heaps of music. A violin case also lay there. There
were a few chairs, a cot-bed, and a neat pile of books upon a table.
Ashton-Kirk ran over these quickly; they were mostly upon musical
subjects, and in Italian. But some were Spanish, English, German and
French.
"He was the greatest hand for talking and reading languages," said
Mrs. Marx, wonderingly. "I don't think there was any kind of a
nationality that he couldn't converse with. Mr. Sagon that lives on
the floor below says that his French was elegant, and Mr. Hertz, my
parlor lodger, used to just love to talk German with him. He said his
German was so _high_."
Ashton-Kirk opened the violin case and looked at the instrument
within.
"Spatola always carried his violin in this when he went out, I
suppose?" he said, inquiringly.
"Oh, yes; _that_ one he did. But the one on the wall there," pointing
to a second instrument hanging from a peg, "he never took much care of
that. It's the one he played on the street, you see."
Her visitors followed the gesture with interest.
"That was just to clinch a point I made with Fuller this morning,"
said the investigator to Pendleton, in explanation. Then to Mrs. Marx
he continued: "Mr. Spatola had visitors from time to time, had he
not?"
But the woman shook her head.
"Sometimes he had a pupil who came in the evening. But they never came
more than once or twice; he generally called them thick-heads after
a little, and told them they'd better go back to the grocery or
butcher's shop where they belonged."
"Are you quite sure that no one else ever called upon him?"
The woman nodded positively.
"I'm certain sure of it," she said. "I remember saying more than once
to my gentlemen on the different floors, that Mr. Spatola must be
awfully lonely sometimes. Mr. Crawford would often come up here and
smoke with him and play a game or two of Pedro. Mr. Hertz tried it a
couple of times; but him and Mr. Spatola couldn't hit it very well."
"How many lodgers have you?"
"I have rooms for nine. Just now there are seven. But only four are
steadies--Mr. Hertz, Mr. Crawford, Mr. Sagon and Mr. Spatola. Mr.
Hertz is an inspector of the people who canvass for the city
directory; he took the parlor after Mr. Spatola gave it up. He drinks
a little, but he's a perfect gentleman for all that. Mr. Crawford is a
traveling man, and is seldom home; but he pays in advance, so I don't
never worry about him. Mr. Sagon is what they call an expert. He can't
speak much English yet, but sometimes even the government," in an awed
tone, "sends for him to come to the customs house to tell them how
much diamonds are worth, that people bring in. He works for Baum
Brothers and Wright. The others," bulking them as being of no
consequence, "are all gentlemen who are employed on the directory
under Mr. Hertz."
"Have you any Italian lodgers other than Mr. Spatola?"
The woman shook her head.
"No," she said, "and I don't want none, if this is the way they carry
on."
"Are there any other rooming houses in the street?"
"No, sir. It's only a block long, and I know every house in it. I'm
the only one as takes lodgers."
"Are there any Italians in business in the block, or employed in any
of the business places?"
Mrs. Marx again shook her head positively.
"Not any."
"You speak of a Mr. Sagon. Of what nationality is he?"
"Oh, he's French, but he's lived a long time in Antwerp. That's where
he learned the diamond business. And he must have lived in other
places in Europe; Mr. Spatola says he has spoken of them often."
Just then there came from below the sound of a heavy voice, singing.
The words were French and the intonation here and there was strange to
Ashton-Kirk.
"Who is that?" he asked.
"It's Mr. Sagon," replied the woman. "He's the greatest one for
singing them little French songs."
"Ah, I have it," said Ashton-Kirk, after a moment. "He's a Basque, of
course. I couldn't place that accent at first."
A narrow, ladder-like flight of stairs was upon one side. Ashton-Kirk
mounted these and found himself in a smaller loft; a number of
well-kept cockatoos, in cages, set up a harsh screaming at sight of
him. Opening a low door he stepped out upon a tin roof. Mrs. Marx and
Pendleton had followed him, and the former said:
"The police was up here looking. They said Mr. Spatola came through
the trap-door at Hume's place that night and walked along the roofs
and so down to his own room."
"That would he very easily done," answered Ashton-Kirk, as his eye
took in the level stretch of roofs.
After a little more questioning to make sure that the landlady had
missed nothing, they thanked her and left the house. At his door they
saw the man in the cloth cap and overalls. A second and very unwieldy
man, with a flushed, unhealthy looking face, had just stopped to speak
to him.
He supported himself with one hand on the wall.
"Hello!" called the machinist to Ashton-Kirk; and as the two
approached him, he said to the unwieldy man: "I stopped you to tell
you these gents had gone in. They're detectives."
"Oh," said the man, with interest in his wavering eye. "That so." He
regarded the two young men uncertainly for a moment; and then asked:
"Did Mrs. Marx tell you anything?"
"She didn't seem to know much," answered the investigator.
The unwieldy man swayed to and fro, an expression of cunning gathering
in his face. The machinist winked and whispered to Pendleton:
"I don't know his name, but he's one of the lodgers."
"Marx," declared the unwieldy man, "is a fine lady. But," with an
elaborate wink, "she knows more'n she tells sometimes." The wavering
eye tried to fix the investigator, but failed signally. "It don't do,"
he added wisely, "to tell everything you know."
Ashton-Kirk agreed to this.
"Marx could tell you something, maybe," said the man. "And then maybe
she couldn't. But, I know _I_ could give you a few hints if I had the
mind--and maybe they'd be valuable hints, too." Here he drew himself
up with much dignity and attempted to throw out his chest. "I'm a
gentleman," he declared. "My name's Hertz. And being a gentleman, I
always try and conduct myself like one. But that's more'n some other
people in Marx's household does."
"Yes?"
"Yes, sir. When a gentleman tries to be friendly, I meets him
half-way. But that fellow," and he shook a remonstrating finger at
the door of the lodging-house, "thinks himself better'n other people.
And mind you," with a leer, "maybe he's not as good."
"Who do you mean--the Dago?" asked the machinist.
"No; I mean Crawford. A salesman, eh?" The speaker made a gesture as
though pushing something from him with contempt. "Fudge! Travels, does
he? Rot! He can't fool me. And then," with energy, "what did he used
to do so much in Spatola's garret, eh? What did they talk about so
much on the quiet? I ain't saying nothing about nobody, mind you. I'm
a gentleman. My name's Hertz. I don't want to get nobody into trouble.
But if Crawford was such a swell as not to want to speak to a
gentleman in public, why did he hold so many pow-wows in private with
Spatola? That's what I want to know."
Seeing that the man's befogged intellect would be likely to carry him
on in this strain for an indefinite time, Ashton-Kirk and Pendleton
were about to move on. But they had not gone more than a few yards
when the investigator paused as though struck with an idea. He stepped
back once more and drew a photograph from his pocket.
"Do you know who this is?" he asked, abruptly, holding it up.
The unwieldy man swayed gently and waveringly regarded the portrait.
"Sure!" said he surprisedly, "it's Crawford."
Ashton-Kirk rejoined his friend; and as they made their way to the
waiting automobile, the latter said;
"That is a step ahead of me, Kirk, I think. Where did you get a
portrait of this man Crawford?"
By way of an answer the investigator held up the photograph once more.
Pendleton gave a gasp of amazement.
"Allan Morris," said he. "_Allan Morris, by George!_"