“I’ll go with you then. I’ll call for you tomorrow, and escort you to the office I have in mind, and also, look up a home and fireside that appeals to you.”
“The sort that appeals to me is out of the question at present,” he said, firmly determined to put himself under no greater obligation to me than need be. “I’ll choose a room like the old gentleman in the Bible had with a bed and a table and a stool and a candlestick.”
“You remember your literature all right.”
“I do, mostly; though I’ll confess I read of that ascetic individual since I’ve been here. The hospital is long on Bibles and detective stories, and short on belles-lettres. Well, so long, old man!”
I went away, pondering. It was a strange case, this of Case Rivers. I smiled at the name he had chosen.
He was positively a well-educated and well-read man. His speech gave me a slight impression of an Englishman, and I wondered if he might be Canadian. Of course, I didn’t believe an atom of his yarn about coming from Canada to our fair city via the interior of the globe,—but he may have had a lapse of memory that included his railroad journey, and dreamed that he came in some fantastic way.
And then, as is usual, when leaving one scene for another, my thoughts flew ahead to my next errand, which was a visit to Police Headquarters.
Here Chief Martin gave me a lot of new information. It seemed they had unearthed damaging evidence in the case of George Rodman, and he was, without a doubt, a malefactor,—but in what particular branch of evil the Chief omitted to state. Nor could any rather broad hints produce any result. At last I said:
“Why don’t you arrest Rodman, then?”
“Not enough definite evidence. I’m just about sure that he killed Gately, and I think I know why, but I can’t prove it,—yet. Your statement that his head shadowed on that glass door was the same head you saw the day of the murder, is our strongest point——”