“Drop that, Marco!” he said quietly.
There was a cry of terror from the woman, as she whirled around, white-faced, clutching at her breast; it was echoed by a frightened gasp from Marco, and as though the slip of paper in his fingers had suddenly turned to white hot iron, he snatched his hands back in a sort of grotesque jerk, and the check fluttered to the table.
Billy Kane stepped toward the man.
“You’ve made a mistake, Marco, haven’t you?” he inquired coolly. “Instead of this woman’s son being the robber, are you sure it isn’t—yourself?”
The man shrank back.
“What do you mean—myself?” he stammered hoarsely. And then, recovering a little of his self-control: “Who are you? And what are you butting in here for? What’s your game to say I did that?” He jerked his hand toward the safe. “You can’t bluff old Marco, whatever you’re up to! I was in Morgenfeldt’s café all evening until half past ten, and I can prove it; and ten minutes after that I was pulling her”—he jerked his hand toward Mrs. Clancy now—“out of her shop next door to show her what I had found here. She’ll tell you so, too! I couldn’t have come all the way from Morgenfeldt’s, and done all that, and blown that safe open in ten minutes, could I?”
Billy Kane’s smile was unpleasant.
“Don’t be in such a hurry to produce your alibi, Marco,” he said evenly. “It sounds suspicious—and it also accounts for a good deal. I think we’ll take a look through your pockets, Marco—not for the eight hundred”—Billy Kane’s smile had grown still more uninviting—“but on the chance that we may find something else. Put your hands up!”
The man hesitated.
Billy Kane’s revolver muzzle came to a level with the other’s eyes.