“Look here, what are you after, anyway?” the policeman demanded in exasperation. “What’s it to you? I’m not here on my beat to be answering questions and I had enough last night with that little fat guy pestering me for an hour! I’ve nothing to say, sir! Go to the friend of your friend at Headquarters and get what you can out of him!”
‘Last night—little fat guy’! The words struck Storm with the force of a blow, and he recalled that the officer had complained only a few minutes before: ‘You’re the second that has been after me’! Who could that other have been? Not Millard, surely! He voiced the doubt aloud:
“It couldn’t have been my friend who bothered you about it last night, Officer. He’s getting stout, but he is not short.”
“Well, this guy was, and with a big bald spot on top, too, as I saw when he took off his hat to wipe his forehead under the lamp there! He kept squinting at me with his near-sighted eyes and jotting down what I said in a little book till I felt as if I was up before the Board!” The officer’s tone had grown slightly mollified. “You’ll excuse me for being short with you, sir, but this thing happening on my beat and all has made me fair sick. I’ve not eyes on the back of my head nor yet the kind that can see in the dark, and I can’t be in two places at once! You’d think to hear some of the knocks I’ve had right in my own platoon that I’d been asleep on the job!”
‘Bald—nearsighted——!’ George! The questioner had been George Holworthy!
“I don’t know how you could be expected to see a dead man being brought to that spot on the hill up there and dumped over the wall if you were down—well, here, say,” Storm remarked consolingly, but his tone was absent. He must get away from his companion at once; he must be alone to think.
“Great Scott, I’ve passed my street and I believe—yes, it’s beginning to rain! Good night, Officer! I’m glad of this little talk——”
“Don’t mention it, sir!” The other’s words had been balm to his sore spirit, and the policeman beamed. “Good night, sir!”
Storm crossed the Drive, and despite the rain which came pattering down in a quickening shower he turned north again to make good his statement. At the end of the block he halted beneath a jutting cornice and waited until he calculated that the policeman must be a safe distance away, then retraced his steps and hurried on down the Drive to his own rooms, heedless of the torrent which drenched him.
So Millard was right! George had become a ‘bug’ about the Horton case! Storm recalled that at the dinner on Tuesday, when Millard told of the encounter on the Drive with the two men which the policeman had reported, George had announced that he would like to talk with the officer. Millard said he could be found on his beat at about the same time on any night, and George had evidently taken him at his word. He must have hunted up the policeman immediately after leaving Storm’s rooms on the previous night. What could have put the impulse into his head? For a wonder, the murder had not even been mentioned between the two during the entire evening.