Morgan covered up these deliberations by getting out his pipe and tobacco pouch and lighting up. "Now I can talk," he said, as he leaned back in his chair.
"I may have a few facts that you don't know, Marsh, and now that I know the whole situation I can see that they will probably be of some value to you. Or in any event, of value to both of us in the general working out of the case. For I want to say that I am satisfied with your suggestion about our working together."
"I called on this Miss Atwood yesterday. While some of the information which she gave me simply ties up with and confirms your own story, there was one thing I discovered that may help us. Of course, in lining up my evidence, I separated the strong points against you from certain suspicious circumstances connected with the Atwoods. That girl impressed me so favorably that I could not definitely connect her with the trouble upstairs. Instead, I was inclined to believe that I had uncovered something else."
"During my talk with the girl I noticed a peculiar mark on her arm. I brought the conversation around to that mark, and she told me that some time during the night of the crime she had been awakened by a sharp sting in the arm, but had almost immediately gone to sleep again. Noticing the mark in the morning, she was under the impression, so she said, that it was a bite, from some kind of insect—I suggested a spider. But the truth was, Marsh, that mark was made by a hypodermic needle!"
"In my experience I have come into contact with lots of dope users. I know just how they act, talk and look—and THAT GIRL IS NOT A DOPE FIEND. In my opinion there are only two solutions to that mark on the girl's arm. Either she has not slept well of late, and decided to use something to help her, or else somebody jabbed her without her knowledge. The first explanation is hardly likely, because sleeplessness is treated in other ways. Now that you tell me this man Atwood is a criminal, and that you found a bloodstain on the doorknob, I am convinced that someone gave her an injection of morphine so that this job could be pulled without her knowledge. You probably know as well as I do, that the small purple mark, accompanied by the swelling, which I noticed on her arm, would result only from the hasty and careless use of the hypodermic needle."
"What you tell me, Morgan," said Marsh, "confirms what I have thought for some time. That is, that Jane Atwood is only the innocent tool of her father, and the gang behind him. Perhaps not even that. She exhibits none of the instincts or earmarks of the criminal woman, and no woman with easy money at her command would spend the hours and hard work which she does in the study of music. Confidentially, Morgan, I like the girl, and what I have just told you is one of the reasons why I have never attempted to arrest her and force a confession. I felt that all I could really do was to keep her under surveillance until such time as I could catch one of the real criminals getting in touch with her. The father and his gang have either simply been using her to a limited extent to pass their counterfeit notes, or else he has included a few with money which he gave her. Possibly he has maintained her in a home to have a background of respectability to which he could retire in emergencies. Letting her use counterfeit notes may have been just one of the slips of which every criminal is guilty. A really clever man is also clever enough to know that it doesn't pay to be a criminal. No matter how long the rope, there is always an end to it."
"Well," said Morgan, "there's no question that as matters now stand, that girl is our only working point. I have already called on her, and disclosed my identity as a detective, so as far as I am concerned there is little that can be done in that direction. You, as a tenant in this house, however, could cultivate her acquaintance without arousing any real suspicions on her part."
"I have been watching for an opportunity to strike up an acquaintance for a long time," replied Marsh, "but no such opportunity has as yet presented itself. You can rest assured, however, that I am ready when it does."
Just then Marsh sat up and listened, as footsteps sounded over their heads.
"That's all right, Marsh," smiled Morgan. "Those are my men taking fingerprint photographs. That was the next point I was going to tell you about—my discoveries in that apartment."