“I don’t know, sir. I might say, if you please, that I have not been quite satisfied with Jason since we have been here,” ventured Phillips.
“Why?”
“He has twice, to my knowledge, been away all night, without any one knowing it but me. He seemed very tired when he returned on both occasions. He told me he had been sitting up with a friend of his who was sick, and who lived downtown somewhere.”
“Did you prove that to be untrue?” asked the detective.
“No, sir. But I took the liberty of examining his trunk one day when I had sent him on an errand that would keep him away for two hours. In the trunk I found two valuable watch movements——”
“Watch movements?”
“Yes, sir. The cases were not there. Just the movements. I was a watchmaker once, and I know the value of such things, although they are not easily disposed of, except to a watchmaker who might happen to want them.”
“I understand,” interrupted Nick. “What else did you find in his trunk? Anything suspicious?”
“Yes. There were two chisels, a pointed crowbar, or ‘jimmy,’ a pair of fine steel pliers, and an automatic revolver.”
“I wonder whether they are in his trunk now?”