CHAPTER XXIV
Mr. Quigley is Interviewed
For a moment there was a halt; Ashton-Kirk, Hutchinson and Scanlon looked at the broken-nosed man without speaking, and the heart of the big athlete turned sick at what he had heard.
"You saw her strike the blow?" asked the investigator.
"Yes—with a big brass thing. I thought it was a poker; but the papers said afterward it was a candlestick, and I guess it was."
"What did you do after seeing this?"
"It got into my head that Duncan Street was no healthy place for me, and I'd have jumped out of sight, only for seeing the woman take the diamonds."
"She took them, then?"
"It was the first thing she did. I hung to the outside door waiting for her. But she fooled me. She must have gone out some other way, for I heard the gate click, and saw something in the shadow of the trees on the sidewalk. I hurried out there, but she was gone; I didn't get another peep at her."
Ashton-Kirk smiled.