CHAPTER XVIII
WHAT'S BRACEWAY'S GAME?
Braceway, keeping his promise to have another conference with Bristow, sat on the porch of No. 9 and watched the last golden streamers the setting sun had flung above the blue edges of the mountains.
He still carried his cane.
"What's your plan now, Mr. Braceway?" Bristow inquired. "You think you'll follow Morley to Washington?"
"Not follow him," the detective answered smilingly. "I'm going with him. That is, I'll take the same train he does."
"Greenleaf told you, I suppose, that he'd given Morley permission to leave tonight?"
"Yes—said you suggested it. And I think you're right. There's no use in losing time unnecessarily. Are you going, too?"
"Oh, by all means," Bristow said quickly, "and against my doctor's orders. That is, if you don't object—if you don't think I'd be in the way."
Braceway was clearly aware of the lame man's desire to accompany him so as to be associated with every phase of the work on the case, and to make it stand out emphatically in the long run that he, Bristow, pitting his ingenuity against Braceway, had gathered the evidence establishing the negro's guilt beyond question. The idea amused him, he was so sure of the accuracy of his own theory.