Arsdale was somewhere about the house and Elaine had gone up-stairs
when Donaldson, who had come out-doors to smoke, saw a man with broad
shoulders and a round unshaven face step from a cab, push through the
hedge gate, and come quickly up the path. He watched him with
indifferent interest, until in the dusk he recognized the stubborn
mouth which gripped a cigar as a bull-dog hangs to a rag. Then he
hurried forward with hand extended.
"Good Lord, Saul," he exclaimed, "where did you drop from?"
"Hello, Don. I rather hoped that I might run across you here."
"I 'm ashamed of myself," answered Donaldson guiltily. "I did n't
notify you that we had found him. But the last I heard of you, you
were out of town."
"Oh, that's all right. Tung gave me the whole story."
"The rat! He made a lot of trouble for us."
"And for me, too."
"Still working on the Riverside robberies?"
Saul glanced up quickly. Then looking steadily into Donaldson's eyes
as though the reply had some significance he answered,
"Yes."
"I wish you luck. And say, old man, I 've worried since for fear lest
you lost a good opportunity for a hot scent the time I kept you out."
"I did. But I picked it up again by chance."
"You did? Have you caught the man?"
"No," answered Saul abstractedly. "Not yet."
He chewed the stub of his cigar a moment, glancing frequently at the
house.
"Say," he asked abruptly, "come down the road here a piece with me,
will you?"
Saul led him to the street and far enough away from the cab so that
their conversation could not be overheard, yet near enough to the
electric light for him to see Donaldson's face clearly.
"I want you to tell me something about young Arsdale," he began. "Is
he in the house there now?"
"Yes. And happy as a clam at high water."
"Has he talked any since he came back?"
"Talked? He's clear-headed enough, if that is what you mean?"
"Has he appeared at all worried--as though he had something on his
mind?"
"Not in the slightest He's taken such a new grip on himself that the
last few days are almost blotted out. You 'd never know him for the
same boy, Saul. He's quit the dope for good."
"So? Remorse!"
"Not the kind of remorse you mean, Beefy. This is the real thing."
Saul thought a moment. Then he asked,
"You told me, did n't you, that he had no money with him that night?"
"Not more than a dollar or so."
"He spent a lot at Tung's."
"The heathen probably robbed him of it!"
"Yes, but where did Arsdale get it?"
Donaldson started. There was something ominous in the question. But
he could n't recount to Saul that disgraceful attack the boy had made
upon his sister when returning for funds. It wouldn't be fair to the
present Arsdale.
"I don't know," he answered. "What have you up your sleeve, Beefy?"
"Something bad," replied Saul bluntly. He lowered his voice: "It is
beginning to look as though your young friend might know something
about the robberies that have been taking place around here."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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