_ CHAPTER XII. BATTERED KEYS
Farland started moving slowly toward them, making his way through the crowd in such fashion that he did not attract too much attention to himself. He was feeling a sudden interest in this case. There were great possibilities in the fact that two persons connected with it from different angles were in conversation.
As he made his way toward the show window, he remembered how this George Lerton had tried to induce Sidney Prale to leave the city and remain away, and how, afterward, he had denied that he had seen Prale on Fifth Avenue and had spoken to him.
"He's connected with this thing in some way," Farland told himself. "It's my job to discover exactly how."
But he was doomed to be disappointed. Before he could get near enough to make an attempt to overhear what they were saying, they suddenly parted. Kate Gilbert went into the shop, and George Lerton crossed the street and hurried down the Avenue.
It was no use wasting time on Kate Gilbert. Farland knew where to find her if he wanted her, and he knew there would be no use in shadowing her now, since she probably had gone into the shop to purchase a hat. But George Lerton was quite another matter.
The detective did not hesitate. He swung off down Fifth Avenue in the wake of George Lerton.
Farland was a rough and ready man, and he had little liking for male humans of the George Lerton type. Lerton always dressed in the acme of fashion, running considerably to fads in clothes, appearing almost effeminate at times. And yet it was said in financial circles that Lerton was far from being effeminate when it came to a business deal. There had been whispers about his dark methods, and it was well known that a business foe got small sympathy or consideration from him. He was a fashionable cut-throat without any of the milk of human kindness in his system.
It was a surprise to Jim Farland to see Lerton walking. He was the sort of man who likes to advertise his success, and he had a couple of imposing motor cars that he generally used. But he was walking this morning, and the fact gave Farland food for thought.
Lerton continued down the Avenue, and Jim Farland followed him closely. He expected to see Lerton meet some one else and engage in another whispered conversation, but Lerton did not.
"That boy is worried," Farland told himself. "He's one of those birds who like to walk when they want to think something out. If I could only know what was going on in that mind of his----"
Lerton had reached Madison Square, and there he did something foreign to his nature. He crossed the Square, proceeded to Fourth Avenue, and descended into the subway.
Farland was a few feet behind him, and got into the same car when Lerton caught a downtown train. He followed when Lerton got off and went up to the street level again, and now the broker made his way through the throngs and along the narrow streets until he finally came to the financial district. After a time he turned into the entrance of an office building--the building where his own offices were located.
The detective watched him go up in the elevator, and then he turned back to the cigar stand in the lobby and purchased more of the black cigars he loved. For a time he stood out at the curb, puffing and thinking. He watched the building entrance closely, but George Lerton did not come down again.
As a matter of fact, Farland scarcely had expected that he would. He believed that Lerton had kept an appointment with Kate Gilbert, and then had continued to his office to take up the work of the day. Farland decided that he would give Lerton a chance to attend to the morning mail and pressing matters of business, before seeking an interview.
Finally, Farland threw the stub of the cigar away, turned into the entrance of the building once more, and walked briskly to the elevator. He shot up to the tenth floor, went down the hall, and entered the reception room of the Lerton offices. An imp of an office boy took in his card.
"Mr. Lerton will see you in ten minutes, sir," the returning boy announced.
Farland touched match to another cigar. He was a little surprised that Lerton had sent out that message. Lerton knew Farland, as Sidney Prale had known him in the old days. He knew Farland's business, and he knew that the detective and Prale were firm friends. He could guess that Prale had engaged Jim Farland to work on this case and clear him of the charge of having murdered Rufus Shepley.
After a time the boy ushered him into the private office. George Lerton was sitting behind a gigantic mahogany desk, looking very much the prosperous man of business.
"Well, Farland, this is a pleasure!" Lerton exclaimed. "Haven't seen you for ages. How's business?"
"It could be better," Jim Farland replied, "and it could be a lot worse. I'm making a good living, and so have no kick coming."
"If I ever need a man in your line, I'll call you in," George Lerton said. "And the pay will be all right, too."
"Don't doubt it," Farland replied.
"Want to see me about something special this morning?"
"Yes, if you can give me a few minutes."
"All the time you like," Lerton replied.
That was not like the man, Jim Farland knew. Lerton was the sort to try to make himself important, the always-busy man who had no time for anybody less than a millionaire.
Farland smiled and sat down in a chair at one end of the desk. He twisted his hat in his hands, looked across at George Lerton, cleared his throat, and spoke.
"You know about Sidney Prale being in a bit of trouble, of course?"
"Yes. Can't understand it," Lerton replied, frowning. "Sidney always had a temper, of course, but I never thought he would resort to murder during a fit of it. You know, I never got along with him any too well. He had a quarrel with his sweetheart in the old days and left for Honduras twenty-four hours later and remained there for ten years."
"I know all about that, of course," Farland said. "You perhaps have guessed that he sent for me--engaged me to get him out of this little scrape."
"Murder, a little scrape?" Lerton gasped. "I should call it a very serious matter."
"Let us hope that it will not be a serious matter for Sid," Farland said with feeling. "I believe that the boy is innocent, and I hope to be able to clear him. Will you help me?"
"I never had any particular love for Sidney, and neither did he for me," George Lerton said. "However, he is my cousin, and I hate to see him in trouble. But how can I help you? I don't know anything about the affair."
"An alibi is an important thing in a case like this," Farland said. "We want to prove an alibi, if we can, of course. Sidney says that you met him on Fifth Avenue----"
"And I cannot understand that," Lerton interrupted. "Why should he say such a thing?"
"You didn't meet him?"
"I certainly did not! I cannot lie about such a thing, even to save my cousin. Why, it would make me a sort of accessory, wouldn't it? I cannot afford to be mixed up in anything of the sort. You must understand that!"
"And you didn't urge him to leave New York and remain away for the rest of his life?"
"I didn't see him at all," George Lerton persisted. "Why on earth should I care whether he remains in New York or takes his million dollars elsewhere?"
"I don't know, I'm sure," Farland said. "But it seems peculiar to me that Sid would tell a rotten falsehood like that. Doesn't it look peculiar to you?"
"I must confess that it does not," George Lerton replied. "I suppose it was the first thing that came into his head. He was trying to establish an alibi, of course, and he probably thought he would get a chance to telephone to me and ask me to stand by the story he had told, thinking that I would do it because of our relationship."
"I was hoping that you would tell me you had met him on Fifth Avenue," Farland said. "It would have made his alibi stronger, of course, and every little bit helps."
"Stronger? You mean to say that he has any sort of an alibi at all?"
"A dandy!" Farland exclaimed. "In fact, we have an alibi that tells us that Sid was quite a distance from Rufus Shepley's suite when Shepley was slain."
"Why, how is that?"
"Sid picked up a bum and tried to make a man of him. He bought the fellow some clothes and took him to a barber shop. The clothing merchant and the barber furnish the alibi."
An expression of consternation was in George Lerton's face, and Jim Farland was quick to notice it.
"Of course, I am glad for Sidney's sake," Lerton said. "But I had really believed that he had killed Shepley. It caused me a bit of trouble, too."
"How do you mean?" Farland asked.
"Shepley was a sort of client of mine," Lerton said. "I handled a deal for him now and then. He has been traveling on business for some time, as you perhaps know. I had hopes that he would give me a certain large commission and that I would make a handsome profit. He was about convinced, I am sure, that I was the man to handle it for him. His small deals with me had always been to his profit and my credit."
"Oh, I understand!"
"And a possible good customer is removed," Lerton went on. "So you have an alibi for Sidney, have you? In that case--if he did not kill Rufus Shepley--he must have told that story about meeting me when he was in a panic immediately following his arrest. Sid always was panicky, you know."
"I didn't know that a panicky man could pick up a million dollars in ten years."
"Oh, I suppose Sidney was fortunate. There are wonderful opportunities at times in Central America, and I suppose he happened to just strike one of them right. He was very fortunate, indeed. Not every man can have good luck like that."
"Well, I'm sorry that I troubled you," Farland said. "And now, I'll get out--if you'll do me a small favor."
"Anything, Farland."
"I see you have a typewriter in the corner, and I'd like to write a short note to leave uptown."
"Just step outside and dictate it to one of my stenographers," said George Lerton.
"That'd be too much trouble," Farland replied. "It's only a few lines, and I can pound a typewriter pretty good. Besides, this is a little confidential report that I would not care to have your stenographer know anything about."
"Oh, I see! Help yourself!"
Farland got up and hurried over to the typewriter. He put a sheet of paper in the machine, wrote a few lines, folded the sheet and put it into his coat pocket.
"Well, I'm much obliged," he said. "I think we'll have Sid out of trouble before long."
"Let us hope so!" George Lerton said.
There was something in the tone of his voice, however, that belied the words he spoke. Farland gave him a single, rapid glance, but the expression of Lerton's face told him nothing. Lerton was a broker and used to big business deals. He was a master of the art of the blank countenance, and Jim Farland knew it well.
Farland had said nothing concerning Kate Gilbert, for he was not ready to let George Lerton know that he suspected any connection of Miss Gilbert with the Rufus Shepley case. Farland was not certain himself what that connection would be, and he knew it would be foolish to say anything that would put Lerton on guard and make the mystery more difficult of solution.
He thanked Lerton once more and departed. Out in the corridor and some distance from the Lerton office, he took from his pocket the note he had written on Lerton's private typewriter and glanced at it quickly. Farland was merely verifying what he had noticed as he had typed the note.
"That was a lucky hunch about that typewriter," he told himself. "This case is going to be interesting, all right--and for several persons."
Farland had noticed particularly the typewritten notes that had been received by the clothing merchant and the barber. There were two certain keys that were battered in a peculiar manner, and another key that was out of alignment.
He knew now, by glancing at the lines he had written himself, that those other notes had been typed on the same machine. He guessed that it had been George Lerton, the broker, who had sent those notes and the money to the barber and the merchant.
Why had George Lerton been so eager to destroy his cousin's alibi?
Why was George Lerton trying to have Sidney Prale sent to the electric chair for murder? _