“By what means?”
“Very much the same,” said Nick. “The crook could have continued to follow him, taking the same seat with him in the subway train. He could have stealthily soiled his own hand with a few drops of the blood, and then slipped it for a moment into Gordon’s overcoat pocket. Any sly fellow might do that.”
“Very true,” Chick nodded. “There is no denying it.”
“He then must have followed Gordon home, where he stained the duplicate jimmy with blood and hid it under the shrubbery. All would have been very simple and easily accomplished.”
“I now admit it, Nick,” Chick said thoughtfully. “But what about the drops of blood in the front room and hall adjoining the flat?”
“That was Tilly Lancey’s blood,” said Nick. “The crooks who killed her scattered that trail of blood, that it might indicate that it had dropped from the hand of her assassin when he left the house. That naturally would appear to have been Gordon.”
“I agree with you,” Chick again assented. “You cer[Pg 21]tainly have gone deep below the surface, Nick, and developed a plausible theory.”
“Plausible!” exclaimed Patsy, a bit derisively. “Jiminy crickets! that plausible gag don’t half express it, Chick. It’s a copper-riveted cinch. There’s nothing else to it.”
“There is considerable more to it, Patsy,” Nick corrected. “The theory alone is not enough. It might fall flat on the ears of a jury of boneheads. It’s not easy to penetrate solid ivory.”
“That’s right, too,” said Patsy, laughing.