He had turned to the bathroom and after a moment he emerged from it holding a bright, new razor, a piece of soap and a very dirty Turkish towel.
“The water has been turned off in the pipes of course, but there is an empty bucket in there in which some must have been brought to him, and he seems to have had some regard to his personal appearance, at least. The Goddard boy said the man who had tackled him was rough-looking and unshaved, didn’t he?”
“When he tackled him, yes,” McCarty replied. “He had chance enough to clean up after, as soon as whoever was helping him to hide here brought him the things.”
“He did more than that!” Dennis declared. There was an unwonted flush on his leathery cheeks and his gray eyes were alight with excitement. “Why do you suppose he was hiding here, anyway? Why does anybody hide? If ’tis not to do something unlawful, couldn’t he have broken the law already and be hiding from it?”
“Denny!” McCarty breathed. “What are you getting at? You’ve found out something! Who is the man?”
“Who’s wanted now, Inspector?” Dennis asked. “Somebody that’s gentleman enough to keep shaved and clean in spite of everything, who’d appreciate good food and wine and the best in life, and yet was a convicted criminal for all that!”
“‘Convicted—!’” McCarty started forward. “An ex-crook, do you mean? How did you guess—?”
“‘Ex-crook,’ nothing!” retorted his confrère. “I’m not up in the latest of prison styles but if this ain’t a penitentiary get-up I’m an Orangeman!”
He flung open a closet door behind him, dived in and dragged forth in triumph a tell-tale suit of stained and ragged gray.
“Sing Sing!” exclaimed Inspector Druet. “Good Lord, Riordan, you’ve made a find!—Do you remember, Mac, that three men escaped last month? One was killed making his getaway and another caught and transferred to Dannemora, but the third of those that crashed out then is still at large and there’s a big reward out! Heaven knows how he managed to get into the Mall and why he should have come here, of all places, but I’ll stake my life that the man who has been hiding in this house is George Radley!”