“It does seem a bit strange,” Patsy allowed. “You’ll find out later, perhaps. I reckon I’ll be getting a move on, as I don’t want to miss that car. I’m sorry you have lost the cat. I’ll drop in again, when I’m returning to Ashville.”
“All right, kid,” said Leary, brightening up and following Patsy to the door. “If you see those two blokes again, do me a favor, will you?”
“What’s that, Mr. Leary?”
“Get the truth out of them, if you have to get it with a club.”
“I will,” Patsy promptly assured him. “Take it from me, Mr. Leary, I’ll get it—and all there is to it.”
“Good for you!” Leary shouted after him heartily.
For Patsy already was hastening toward the road leading out to the trolley line, something like a hundred yards away. He had seen plainly that he could learn nothing more at the road house. The negative reports he had obtained, however, together with the startling discovery he had made, convinced him that his mission had not been a futile one.
“Leary’s all right,” he said to himself while walking on rapidly. “He told me all he knows and gave it to me straight. That rendezvous had been agreed upon and the road house selected for a safe place. But who are they and what came off in there? Why was the whisky glass broken and the cat killed? In view of all of the circumstances, by Jove, there’s a mighty strong similarity between that fatality and the killing of Gaston Todd. It becomes doubly important now to trace and identify these rascals, and I reckon I’m in a fair way to accomplish it. All this, moreover, seems to put Doctor Devoll in the background. That is, if I size it all up correctly. I’ll hike back to the Wilton House, by Jove, and report to the chief.”