“That damned letter told me you knew everything,” he said in a dreary pride. “You thought it would break me down, or maybe make me go to look at Grahame’s body; but it didn’t. If you hadn’t guessed where the money was I’d have bluffed you at that.”
His muscles relaxed suddenly. Without any warning whatever, Colby, who had just put his head in a noose, found it possible to sleep for the first time in nearly two weeks. He slept heavily, slumped in his chair, twitching a little from his fretted nerves.
Nesbit stared at him and whistled softly. It was the sort of whistle with which a man expresses blank amazement. Also, perhaps, it was Nesbit’s way of showing that he was disturbed. It is upsetting to go to a man’s room for the sole purpose of inviting him to hunt with you, and have him confess a cold-blooded murder.
“All mixed up,” muttered Nesbit. “All fussed up over a killin’!”
Colby had been hopelessly wrong from the beginning. Nesbit’s acquaintance with Grahame had been limited to half an hour’s desultory talk in a smoking car, a year or more ago. The envelope that Colby had taken for a trap actually contained no more than the words:
Pete said you left this address in case of a telegram. Limpy’s hanging around and says he wants to see you. When are you coming back?
Jim.
It was evidently a letter from a gentleman in Grahame’s own line of business, but the matter to which it referred would never receive Grahame’s personal attention. Nesbit, of course, had never seen it before.
The detective’s reference to the picture of the benevolent dog and the pink starched dress had been merely an expression of his whole-hearted admiration for that particular work of art. Colby had been entirely, utterly wrong all through. Even the money for which he had killed Grahame—
Nesbit checked the bills with a list of scribbled numbers in his notebook. He nodded. Thousand-dollar bills are much used in wholesale bootleg circles. That is the only place, in fact, in which stolen thousand-dollar notes are accepted with the minimum of discount. Colby’s tale was proven in its entirety by the numbers on the bills, because all banks and most police departments have their lists of stolen currency.
“What d’ye know about that?” asked Nesbit heavily. “What d’ye know about that? Everything in the world breakin’ his way, an’ he blows the works because he lost his nerve!”