His first casual inspection of the ashes revealed nothing. He set to work more carefully then, picking them up by handfuls, examining and discarding. Within ten minutes he had in a pile beside him some burned and blackened metal buttons, the eyelets and a piece of leather from a shoe, and the almost unrecognizable nib of a fountain pen.
He sat with them in the palm of his hand. Taken alone, each one was insignificant, proved nothing whatever. Taken all together, they assumed vast proportions, became convincing, became evidence.
Late that night he descended stiffly at the livery stable, and turned his weary horse over to a stableman.
“Looks dead beat,” said the stableman, eyeing the animal.
“He's got nothing on me,” Bassett responded cheerfully. “Better give him a hot bath and put him to bed. That's what I'm going to do.”
He walked back to the hotel, glad to stretch his aching muscles. The lobby was empty, and behind the desk the night clerk was waiting for the midnight train. Bassett was wide awake by that time, and he went back to the desk and lounged against it.
“You look as though you'd struck oil,” said the night clerk.
“Oil! I'll tell you what I have struck. I've struck a livery stable saddle two million times in the last two days.”
The clerk grinned, and Bassett idly pulled the register toward him.
“J. Smith, Minneapolis,” he read. Then he stopped and stared. Richard Livingstone was registered on the next line above.