“One night, in my dressing room, Tanner dropped a newspaper clipping, which I found and read, and which I thoughtlessly wrapped about a stick of grease paint, and placed in my make-up box, little thinking it would prove to be of any consequence. Last Saturday night, at a dance given in this house, Miss Lydecker’s brooch was stolen. At first the case appeared to be a most puzzling one, since none of the men had left the room, and all of them readily submitted to a search. After I arrived home that same night I recollected that just before the brooch was missed, Tanner had opened a window. I saw instantly that in this way the brooch had been dropped to a confederate below. I also remembered that earlier in the evening Miss Lydecker had seen a man skulking along in the shadow of the hedge. I made a search, but found nothing. This man Jarge evidently had been Tanner’s confederate.”
“Why did you not inform me of this?” broke from Mr. Lydecker, who was greatly agitated over the explanation.
“Because I was not positive,” Klein replied, “and I did not care to make accusations until I had the proofs.”
“Please continue, Mr. Klein,” said the chief of police.
“Three days ago,” Klein resumed, “while on a trip to Fall River, I was fortunate enough to save Mr. Tod from the hands of several enraged strikers. While this meeting was a surprise to me, and to him as well, the fact that he was wearing my brown suit—the suit taken from Delmar on the roof of his boarding house—was a still greater one. From Mr. Tod, who then refused to believe me guilty of the Delmar assault, owing to my action in protecting him, I learned he had been in Boston, and while there had chanced to overhear a conversation between two strangers which convinced him that Jarge was not a detective, but a clever crook posing as one, and known to those of the underworld as ‘Doc.’”
The attentive chief of police exclaimed sharply: “Doc? Why, that man is wanted in half a dozen parts of the country!”
“Then you’ll have the honor of arresting him,” Klein replied. “Meanwhile,” he went on, picking up the thread of his story, “Tod informed me that he had purchased my suit in a pawnshop opposite the station in Fall River. In searching the pockets we found a piece of folded newspaper. I saved it. A part of the paper is torn, and the clipping Tanner dropped from his pocket that night in my dressing room just fits that torn part!”
Tanner, who had remained silent while the evidence was piling up against him, suddenly leaped to his feet.
“It—it’s a lie!” he burst out. “A lie! You can’t——”
Tod jerked him back to his chair. “Sit down!” he commanded, glorying in his position. “When we want you to talk we’ll let you know.”