"What are they?"
"The first is: was the bearded man Morley? The second: if Morley wasn't the bearded man, who was?"
"But, if you do find this hirsute individual, what then? What becomes of the unassailable evidence against the negro?"
"That will come later. Today I'm going to Baltimore. I've a report already, this morning, from Platt. He went over there last night. Morley, I find, deceived us again last night. He said nothing of leaving the hotel to call on the lawyer, Taliaferro.
"As a matter of fact, he did visit Taliaferro.
"He called the lawyer on the telephone at twenty minutes past two and said he would go at once to his office. If he had done so, he would have arrived there at twenty-four minutes past two. He reached there, in fact, at two-fifty, ten minutes of three. A half-hour of his time isn't accounted for. He left the hotel at two-twenty-one. Where did he spend that last half-hour? It's an interesting point."
"Yes," Bristow said, surprised. "Pawnshops?"
"Perhaps—two pawnshops."
"And the pawned diamonds and emeralds are certainly the Withers stuff, a part of it?"
"I'm sure of it."