"For ten cents," he said gravely, "I would tell the chief and a few others what I think of them. And then I'd go out and get full."
"Not on ten cents!"
"I'm going out of the business," he stormed. "I'm going to drive a garbage wagon: it's cleaner than this job. Suicide! I never saw a cleaner case of—" He stopped suddenly. "Do you know Burton—of the Times-Post?"
"No: I've heard of him."
"Well, he's your man. They're dead against the ring, and Burton's been given the case. He's as sharp as a steel trap. You two get together."
He paused at a corner. "Good-by," he said dejectedly. "I'm off to hunt some boys that have been stealing milk bottles. That's about my size, these days." He turned around, however, before he had gone many steps and came back.
"Wardrop has been missing since yesterday afternoon," he said. "That is, he thinks he's missing. We've got him all right."
I gave up my Bellwood visit for the time, and taking a car down-town, I went to the Times-Post office. The Monday morning edition was already under way, as far as the staff was concerned, and from the waiting-room I could see three or four men, with their hats on, most of them rattling typewriters. Burton came in in a moment, a red-haired young fellow, with a short thick nose and a muggy skin. He was rather stocky in build, and the pugnacity of his features did not hide the shrewdness of his eyes.
I introduced myself, and at my name his perfunctory manner changed.
"Knox!" he said. "I called you last night over the 'phone."