“Well?”
“Well, and Friend Stryker reaches his age limit next week!”
“You’re sure of this?”
“Sure, I’m sure! I got it from the agent Stryker dealt with. The old fellow has been fussing over that insurance off and on for years; and now, just at the last minute, a man up and dies who leaves him enough money to get his insurance. Is it a coincidence?”
“At any rate we must look into it,” said Whiting, gravely. “What have you done?”
“Done? I’ve just found this out! Now’s the time to begin doing. I’ll search his rooms first, I think, and see if I can nail any sort of evidence. And by the way, on the day of the murder, it was Stryker’s day out, and he’s never given any definite or satisfactory account of how he spent the afternoon. For one thing, he wasn’t definitely asked, for nobody thought much about him, but now I’ll hunt up straws, to see how the wind blows.”
Groot went off on his straw hunt, and as it turned out, found far more decided proof of the wind’s direction than straws.
Inspector Collins and he came back together with their news.
“It’s Stryker, all right,” said Collins to the district attorney; “the handkerchief is his.”
“The handkerchief his?”