“Quite so!” he said calmly. “Well, then, it is simply a question of establishing an alibi for you that will be absolutely hole-proof from now until, say, midnight. Where can you go?”
“I know Gus Moray, that runs the Silver King saloon,” said the Wop. “He’d swear to it, all right.”
“Yes; whether you were there or not!” said Billy Kane dryly. “That’s not good enough! If anything breaks wrong to-night you’ve got to have something better than an alibi in a dive like that to stack up against what will look like open-and-shut evidence against you. You’ve got to get on a higher plane than that.”
The Wop shook his head.
“I ain’t been a very regular church attendant,” he said, with a sickly grin, “and——” He stopped short, and suddenly leaned toward Billy Kane. “Say, would a minister do?”
“It would be an improvement,” admitted Billy Kane, with a smile.
“Well, I got it, then!” announced the Wop. His hesitancy had vanished. He seemed eager, almost anxious now. The iron of five years of prison was evidently far too poignant a memory to risk it being turned into reality again. “I got it! There’s a guy named Mister Claflin that ran one of them mission joints down around where I uster hang out before I went up. He’s all right! He’s the only soul on God’s earth came near me when I was doing my spaces. Twice he came up to Sing Sing to see me. He didn’t hold no prayer meeting with me neither, but he’s got a grip in his hand that makes a fellow feel he ain’t all dirt. He’s white, he is!”
“Do you know where he lives?” inquired Billy Kane crisply.
“No,” said the Wop, and was suddenly downcast. “And he ain’t at the mission any more, ’cause he told me he’d got a regular layout uptown somewhere.”
“No matter!” said Billy Kane cheerfully. “Any drug store has a directory. You can find the address there. Got any money?”