He was sobbing again with his arms on the table.
Wilson stepped over to him.
“Brace up,” he said shortly, “I want you to come with me. The chief will want to keep you where he can see you for a day or two.” His heavy hand descended professionally upon Macondray’s shoulder. But Lanagan interrupted.
“Not a chance, Jim,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t want to interfere with your duty, but I believe that chap is telling the truth absolutely. What we want to do now is to clear up the mystery of the man in the automobile. Martin must be made to talk. And, by the way, have you come across any red-haired people in this case outside Martin and Macondray? It struck me as a good little feature story. Here’s a red-haired chauffeur and a red-haired fiancée. It’s a combination that don’t often occur.”
“Humph,” replied Wilson. “That’s curious. The chief and I only saw Mrs. Hemingway for a moment, she was so unstrung, but she most certainly has the finest head of red hair for a woman of forty-four or five you want to see. Seems to be her own, too. Funny proposition, the three of them at that.”
Lanagan was staring, for once taken completely by surprise, so pat did the circumstance fit his theories. He glanced at his watch. His eyes were dancing with excitement. “That will be all, Mr. Macondray, unless Wilson wants you for anything,” he said. Wilson said he was through, and Macondray left the room. “Now, Jim, let’s see Marie again. I’m collecting red hair; it’s a fad I have acquired, and I want one or two of Mrs. Hemingway’s.”
“I was never more serious in my life,” said Wilson, summoning the maid. He sent her for a brush containing combings of her mistress’s hair. She asked no questions, but did as ordered. The maid acted like a person in a trance.
“Holding up to a certain point, and then she will drop like a plummet,” thought Lanagan, then aloud: “I guess we are all through here, Jim, except one last fling with the mother.”
But there was no “last fling” with the mother. She had been given a hypodermic, the nurse said, and was sleeping.
From a neighbourhood bar Wilson telephoned to Leslie, still waiting at police headquarters to get a last word from his men. The detective was still half decided to lock up both Marie and Macondray, but Leslie said no. Lanagan had borrowed Wilson’s magnifying glass and had spread out upon the bar the different pieces of red hair. He was so deeply engrossed in making comparisons that he failed to follow the startling one-sided conversation going on between Wilson and the chief. Wilson whirled around from the receiver as Lanagan, profoundly stirred, carefully tucked away his collection.