“I’ll do that little thing,” came echoing back with a hearty chuckle.
“Now, Harrigan,” Drew said, shuffling the slips of paper like a deck of cards. “Now, we’re closing in on our man or men. See if you can find Frick at the prison. ’Phone from the booth!”
Harrigan was back within three minutes. He leaned over Drew.
“Frick was with the warden,” he whispered tersely. “He was easy to get. He says that Morphy has been trying to telephone––”
“What?”
“Tryin’ to telephone, Chief––”
“What has he got to do with the telephone? What right has an inmate of a prison got to phone? Unless—unless the warden thought the case was justified—like in sickness or important business.”
“Maybe the warden allowed him, Chief. I didn’t ask Frick!”
“Get out there and ask him! Quick!”
Drew waited with every muscle taut. He drummed the table with impatient fingers. He thumbed the sheath of papers he had collected on the Stockbridge case. He wheeled in his chair and stared out through the frosted window with unseeing eyes. The vision came to him of a pompous old man in prison gray, strutting about the front office with silk socks and a Havana cigar. Drew had no sympathy with a certain kind of convict. The misguided safeblower or house prowler might be excused for a great many things. The pickpocket was a professional, who took his chances as they ran. The gentleman bank-wrecker, with his overextended tale of woe and his bid for the world’s sympathies, was the one the detective detested with all his soul. Such men, he believed, were beyond the pale. They knew better. Morphy, for instance, had not only gotten away with much of widow’s and orphan’s money, but he had wrecked a score of homes and dragged down many with him at the final assizes.