“Jim Turner,” he gasped, as the handcuffs slipped over the wrists of the erstwhile maid. “I’ve been looking for you for five years.”
“And you have found the murderer of Austin Hale,” ended Judith.
CHAPTER XX
RUN TO COVER
In stunned silence the little group eyed Detective Ferguson and his prisoner. Slowly the latter rose from his hands and knees, the handcuffs clinking musically as he knocked against Ferguson’s left wrist to which he was secured.
“Easy,” cautioned Ferguson, and the revolver in his right hand menaced the murderer. “You’ll get no chance to escape now, Jim,” with emphasis, then with reluctant admiration as he scanned Turner’s good-looking effeminate features and his slight trim figure in its woman’s costume. “Say, but you are a pretty girl. I never once suspected you, never.”
“And I’d have kept you fooled,” retorted Turner, “except for you,” addressing Judith. “You were one too many for me with those cursed unseen ears,” and he cast a look of baffled fury at her fan. “I thought you were practically dead to the world when I disconnected that blamed earphone and blindfolded you.”
“You put too much confidence in your own cleverness,” Judith responded. “It would have been wiser if you and your confederate had ransacked Father’s safe in silence, instead of discussing your desperate need, on account of Austin’s murder, of getting away—and thus giving me a clew to your identity.”
“Who is your confederate?” demanded Ferguson. A scowl was his only answer. “Oh, well, you’ll talk more later,” with significant emphasis, “in the Death House.”
Turner’s face was distorted with rage. “To think I’ll have to swing for that hound, Austin Hale!” he stormed. “He welshed on every one, the yellow dog.”
“What was your motive for killing him?” asked Robert Hale, recovering from his stupefied surprise at the course of events.