Kenton fingered a button puzzledly, casting a mystified glance at me. It was evident that his inquiries were not getting him anywhere.
Before he could question Captain Dolan further, the group about the doorway behind us was thrust roughly aside, and Patrolman Corcoran, the new officer from the adjacent beat, shouldered his way in. His right hand was twisted in the lapels of a short, squat foreigner with a swarthy face half hidden by a coarse, reddish-brown beard. The neck of his sweat-soaked undershirt was open, and his sleeves were rolled above hairy, muscular forearms.
Corcoran stared at the group about the lifeless body of Terence McFadden.
“So it’s true, is it?” he curiously asked. “I thought ‘Big Jim’ here was trying to give me a wrong steer.”
“Who?” asked Kenton.
“Dobrowski, or some such name—‘Big Jim,’ they call him. He’s one of the Kramer gang, they say.”
“Where’d you get him?”
“Caught him coming out of a basement over on Efton Street. He took one look at me and ran like hell. So I rounded him up and asked him what was the big idea of running. He just looked dumb, but I knew he’d been up to something. So I frisked him, and found—these!”
He pulled a watch and purse from the side pocket of his coat. Captain Dolan leaned forward eagerly.
“Terence’s!” he cried. “See if his initials are not in the back!”