Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 25, No. 2, August 13, 1927

“That’ll be about all for the present,” said Heywood. “Now Hutchins, I’m going to turn you over to a nice, jovial policeman who has killed about six gangsters in his day and he will take you to an outlying station where you will be booked under a phony name until we work this thing out. If everything turns out well, you may get off lightly. At any rate, the best thing you can do is to take things calmly and hope for the best.

“Come on, doc, we’ve got a lot of business to attend to.”

When we got into the living room, Heywood said:

“I’m not bluffing about the cops. Friends of mine have agreed to hold Hutchins for us until we either succeed or fail in getting Barton and Blake. What’s our next move? We have two ways to go. We can try to pin something on Barton and then go after the gang or we can raid the island now and trust to luck on finding some evidence. What do you say?”

“I’m in favor of going after Barton. If we can trap him, nail him with the goods, the entire plot will blow up. Blake is no fool. If he doesn’t leave the island he will at least cover up. We might catch him, but what could we prove? We don’t even know what it’s all about.”

“Um.” Heywood sat down and filled his pipe. “Say, doc, you wouldn’t care to see this girl, what’s her name, in the hands of the police, would you?”

“I don’t believe it would make much difference. If her story is straight, and I believe it is, she would be released quickly enough.”

I had not told Heywood that I intended to turn the letter over to Sonia. I knew he would laugh at me, calling me a softhearted fool who was being taken in by a clever adventuress. Heywood, you know, had not seen the look in that girl’s eyes when she told me her story. Even if he had, I doubt if it would have had any effect.

“Look here, Heywood,” I said after a moment. “I’ve got an idea that might work and wind up the whole thing in a hurry. That’s what you want. Do you know any crooks?”

“A few,” said my friend laconically. “I don’t know many that I’d trust very far.”

“You don’t have to trust them very far. Do you know one with sufficient reputation to command the attention of Barton?”

There was a glint of interest in Heywood’s eye as he sat straight in his chair and grinned at me.

“I believe I do,” he said slowly. “Doc, I begin to see your point. I beg your pardon. I thought you were a pill roller without a sign of imagination. Oh, man! If something like that would work, it would be the greatest story this town has ever seen in print.”

“It’s worth trying,” said I; and we fell to planning the downfall of Mr. Joshua Barton, pillar of the church and vice-president of the Chamber of Commerce.

Chapter XIII Alias “A Crook”

Eight o’clock. Dressed in a fresh suit of clothes and clean linen and with my hair plastered down over the cut in my head. I sat in a taxicab, speeding toward that sedate and conservative part of the city where Joshua Barton had his home. Heywood had done his work well.

I was assured of an audience for, once again, I was in the role of a law-breaker, for I had been recommended to the diamond merchant as a clever and dangerous jewel thief who possessed something to sell. The something was a string of flawless pearls that reposed in my breast pocket. They belonged to Heywood’s aunt, and what a devil of a time he had talking her out of them for use in the last chapter of our adventure.

“Here yuh are.”

The driver pulled the door open, I alighted and paid him and he whirled away, leaving me on the curb surveying the great home of the Bartons. It was an ancient place. The heavy blinds, the deeply recessed door, the worn stoop were all sadly eloquent of generations gone by. The age of this melancholy mansion could not have been less than a century and it looked twice as old.

My hand instinctively went toward the butt of the automatic in my hip pocket as I rang the bell. The door swung open silently and I was admitted by a stone-faced butler who relieved me of my hat and stick and glided away to inform his master of my presence. He was back in an instant.

“This way, sir.” He guided me over a soundless velvet carpet into the library where a feeble fire in the grate and one heavily shaded lamp furnished a subdued light.

Joshua Barton sat in a chair beside the fireplace. He hopped spryly to his feet as I entered.

He was a man of fifty, perhaps, under middle height, rather fat, smoothly shaven. His gray hair was closely clipped and his features, though regular, were pasty and almost expressionless. A very colorless fellow, I thought, except for his eyes. They were green and bright and were shaded by the longest, sly lashes that I have ever seen upon a human face. He was dressed in somber black, relieved by a foxy waistcoat of figured silk.

Barton bowed cautiously, rubbing his small, flabby hands together.

“Good evening,” he said biandly. “Won’t you sit down. Over here by the fire where we can talk in comfort.”

When we were seated. Barton said: