That tribute having been paid, he got down to business.
“It’s amazing,” he said. “Doesn’t leave me much to boast of. I’ve got some facts, though, and even you need facts to put under your theories.”
He went on to describe his call at the Simpson residence, and the various things which had interested him—the new house, the misfit furniture, the facts that Simpson himself had chosen the place, the hasty move, the fugitive’s sudden interest in motor cars, his refusal to use the drive from the front, and so on, until the subject of the tire tracks was reached.
“Very interesting,” murmured Gordon. “The garage is metal, you say, and was locked? You think, then, that the stuff is hidden there—that Simpson bought the little, portable building for that purpose, not to use it in the ordinary way?”
“That’s the way it strikes me,” Cray answered. “A place like that doesn’t seem very safe for such a purpose, but nobody would think it contained anything of any particular value. Besides, it’s far enough from the house to make an occasional visit sufficiently safe, even in a car—providing the car is noiseless—and the neighbors wouldn’t be any the wiser. Mrs. Simpson wouldn’t have any interest in the garage, because she thinks it’s empty.”
“I see. Just how do you explain these different sets of tire marks, however? Your idea is, as I understand it, that the one set which you found in the yard itself in front of the garage doors was made several nights together, when Simpson brought the stuff there and unloaded it?”
“Sure.”
“Then how about the others which seemed to show that he has been there more than once since then, but hasn’t driven the car in?”
“Those other prints are the most interesting of the whole lot to me,” Cray returned eagerly. “It was because of them that I asked the woman where she slept, and all that. Don’t you see? This is the way I dope it out. He left the money the first time, and maybe, in his excitement, he didn’t keep any back, or else he’s been spending more freely than he expected. At any rate, it looks to me as if he wants more, or maybe the stuff is drawing him like a magnet, and he’s coming back to gloat over it.
“But right there, friend wife steps in and interferes without knowing it. He thought he had everything fixed with her sleeping at the front of the house and the garage far enough away so that she could sleep with one eye open, if she wanted to, without hearing him. Evidently, though, the very night after he banked the stuff in the garage, she upset all his calculations by deciding to sleep in that back room. Got the idea? It has three big windows right in a row, and as the nights have been warm, she has had them all open. He must have seen those open windows the next time he came, and evidently he guessed what they meant. Anyhow, he got cold feet, and didn’t dare sneak up to the garage, for fear she would hear him and get up. That’s why he has fiddled around and gone off again, and that’s why I asked her to oblige me by sleeping in the front room for a night or two.”