“You’re a mining man, Mr. Kirby,” he said. “Would you say that assayed anything?”
Kirby examined the glinting particles. “Gold,” he said decisively.
“Ah, then the necklace rubbed with some violence against the railing. Now, Mrs. Hale, how long were you awake?”
“Ten or fifteen minutes. I remember that a continuous rattling of wagons below kept up for a little while. And I heard one of the drivers call out something about taking the air.”
“Er—really!” Average Jones became suddenly absorbed in his seal ring. He turned it around five accurate times and turned it back an equal number of revolutions. “Did he—er—get any answer?”
“Not that I heard.”
The young man pondered, then drew a chair up to, Mrs. Hale’s escritoire, and, with an abrupt “excuse me,” helped himself to pen, ink and paper.
“There!” he said, after five minutes’ work. “That’ll do for a starter. You see,” he added, handing the product of his toil to Mrs. Hale, “this street happens to be the regular cross-town route for the milk that comes over by one of the minor ferries. If you heard a number of wagons passing in the early morning they were the milk-vans. Hence this.”
Mrs. Hale read:
“MILK-DRIVERS, ATTENTION—Delaware Central mid-town route. Who talked to man outside hotel early morning of August 7? Twenty dollars to right man. Apply personally to Jones, Ad-Visor, Astor Court Temple, New York.”