“His office is on the tenth,” mused Martin; “s’posin’—just s’posin’ he’d—er—he was implicated, and that he ran downstairs afterward, to his own floor, you know,—and then, later, walked to seven, and took a car there——”
“Purposely leaving his pistol on his own floor!”
“Shucks, no! Dropped it accidentally.”
“But you said male criminals don’t do that!”
“Oh, pshaw! I say lots of things,—and you would, too, if you were as bothered as I am!”
“That’s so, Chief,” I agreed, “and there is certainly something to be looked into,—I should say, without waiting for a report from Boston.”
“You bet there is! I’m going to send Hudson right up there. He’s as good a sleuth as we’ve got, and he’ll deal with the Rodman matter in a right and proper way. If there’s nothing to find out, Rodman will never know he looked.”
Hudson was duly dispatched, and I returned to the Puritan Building. It was queer, but Rodman had been in the back of my head all along,—and yet, I had no real reason to think him implicated. I did not know whether he knew Mr. Gately or not, but I, too, had confidence in Foxy Jim Hudson’s discretion, and I was pretty positive he’d find out something,—if there were anything worth finding out.
And there was!
Rodman, by good luck, was out and his offices locked. Hudson gently persuaded the locks to let go their grip, and, for he let me go with him, we went in.