“Kin I see it?” asked Fibsy, eagerly. And scarce waiting for permission, he stepped to the coroner’s table, and looked carefully at the new exhibit.
“Yep,” he said, “it’s the make and the number Mr. Trowbridge always has in the office. Keep it careful, Mr. Berg, maybe there’s finger marks on it, and they’ll get rubbed off.”
“That’ll do, McGuire. If you must see everything that’s going on, at least keep quiet.”
“No, it’s no clue,” grumbled Detective Groot. “There is no real clue, no key clue, as you may say. And you have to have that, to get at a mystery. This crime shows no brains, no planning. It isn’t the work of an educated mind. That’s why it’s most likely an Italian thug.”
Kane Landon’s deep gray eyes turned to the speaker. “Whoever planned that weird telephone message showed some ingenuity,” he said.
“And you did it!” cried the detective, “I meant you to fall into that trap, and you did. My speech brought it to your mind and you spoke before you thought. Now, what did you mean by it? What about the Caribbean Sea? Were you going to take your uncle off there? Was the trap laid for that?”
“One question at a time,” said Landon, with a look that he permitted to be insolent. “Does it seem to you the sender of that message was getting my uncle into a trap, or saving him from one? I believe the young woman reported that the message ran ‘He set a trap for you.’ Then was it not a rescuer telling of it?”
“Don’t be too fresh, young man! You can’t pull the wool over my eyes! And that telephone message isn’t needed to settle your case. When a man is found dead, and with his dying breath tells who killed him, I don’t need any further evidence.”
“Keep still, Groot,” said the coroner. “We’ve all agreed that those words about Cain, might mean any murderer.”
“They might, but they didn’t,” answered Groot, angrily.