“The fellow’s beat it for good. Landlady says he owes her one week’s rent. He cleaned out with a suit-case and left this.” The operative reached in his pocket and brought forth a single drill of quarter-inch diameter. He held it out. “All I could find, Chief, after a quick frisk. This was in the mattress.”
“Regulation lineman’s wood-bit,” said Drew as he examined the size number on the shank. “This might have been the one used in boring the hole between the slot-booths at Grand Central Station.”
“Then Albert is the lad, Chief?”
“We don’t know, yet. There’s lots of bits like this one. Did you try it for fingerprints?”
“They’re all rubbed off! I had to pull it from the mattress. It was stuck in a hole near the foot of the bed.”
“Hold it!” said Drew. “Hold it for evidence. Put it with your plaster casts. Now––”
“Well, Chief?”
Drew glanced at his watch. “I’m going out to that drug-store,” he said. “I want to phone. I can’t use the phones of this house. The wires may be tapped. You stay right by this door and wait till I get back. It won’t be more than ten minutes. Go get my hat when you’re putting the bit away. It’s in the corner by Loris and Nichols. Tell them I’m stepping out and that you will stand guard. They might hold me. She is very nervous.”
Delaney was back at the detective’s side, after a clumsy stride through the tapestries. “Cute couple,” he said, jerking his thumb over-shoulder toward the inner room. “They’re sittin’ there so close you couldn’t get a sheet of paper between them. I like that colleen, Chief! She’s the kind you see on them magazine covers—only prettier.”
“A cat can look at a queen,” quoted Drew, pulling down his hat and opening the door wide. “Be sure and lock this after me,” he warned. “Lock and bolt it. Stand guard and don’t let anybody in at all. I’m only going round the block.”