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Ashton-Kirk, Investigator

<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> <h3>A NEW LIGHT ON ALLAN MORRIS</h3> 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!" <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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