CHAPTER XIX

ENTER SERGEANT TISH

The constable and Wiggly had left the basement, and Griggs was almost apoplectic with anger. He glared at the reporter with indignant disgust and, as they entered the room used for the sessions of the borough council, flopped down in a chair.

"Now if you ain't made a fine mess of things! An' I give you credit for havin' some sense! I might have got a confession outta him except for your meddlin'. Dog-gone you, anyhow! He'll think now that he's got a chance to get out of it after you tellin' him that there must have been another man in the room where the woman was killed."

"You've got to admit that it isn't Sarbella's cigarette butt," defended Wiggly.

"If I'd have known you was goin' to pull a stunt like that, I'd never have let you in to see him," raged Ham Griggs. "Next time I'll have better gumption than to let some fool reporter gum the cards for me--you just bet I will."

"Let's talk it over," Wiggly urged placatingly. "Let's use a little simple logic. You admit, don't you, that this isn't Sarbella's brand?"

"I don't admit nothin' of the sort," raged the constable. "Chances are that he dropped that cheap cigarette on the floor as a blind, tryin' to leave a false scent to fool us."

Wiggly shook his head. "That won't hold water, constable; you forget that the murderer tried to make it appear suicide. And, as I tried to impress on Doctor Bushnell, can you imagine a man set on murder slipping in on his victim--smoking a cigarette?"

But Ham Griggs was in no mood for logic; he considered that he had solved the case in arresting Sarbella, and he wanted it to stay solved. A re-opening of the facts led him into water over his head, and he foresaw himself floundering helplessly beyond his depth.

"Sarbella done it!" he shouted. "He killed the Gilmore woman; he shot her to get even. He shot her--with this gun." Dramatically he dragged forth the automatic pistol and waved it almost wildly. "And you've gone and messed things up by lettin' him think he had a chance to get off--darn your hide!"

The outburst was checked by the opening of the door which led into the council room from the outside entrance, and there entered a short, rotund man who wore his hat perched upon a bandaged head.

"Where's the chief of police?" was the stranger's greeting.

"I'm the constable; it amounts to the same thing in Ardmore," Griggs answered shortly, "but I ain't got no time to be bothered."

The corpulent little visitor moved back the edge of his coat, revealing a badge of the New York police department.

"I'm Detective Sergeant Tish--New York headquarters," he announced. "Your name Griggs? You telephoned last night to the Consolidated Taxicab Company that you'd picked up an abandoned taxi on one of the roads near Ardmore?"

"Yes, I did," grunted Constable Griggs, "but I ain't got no time to bother about taxicabs now. I've got a murder on my hands."

"And I want to get my hands on a murderer," shot back Sergeant John Henry Tish. "That taxicab was stolen by----"

"Don't give a hoot if it was!" shouted the constable. "The taxi's at Presley's garage. Go get it, if you want it." He even forgot that he had expected to receive a ten-dollar gift from the taxicab company.

Sergeant Tish, however, was not to be put off so easily. He projected his short, portly form closer and occupied a chair beside the council table, with the air of having something to say and being determined to say it. He wasted no time.

"Listen!" he commanded, wagging a pudgy forefinger with a forceful gesture. "This is just as important to me as your case is to you. See this?" He tapped his bandaged head. "The man I'm after did this to me, and I'm going to get him. He knocked me cold--after I had the nippers on him, see? I've got to get him.

"There may be some time when you'll want a favor from the New York department. I want a little information--and a little courtesy. I'm no windbag, and I won't keep you long."

"All right," grunted Constable Griggs. "What is it you want?"

"Thanks," said Sergeant Tish. "First, where was it that you picked up the machine?"

"Out on the Hudson Road, 'bout half a mile from the village proper. I called Presley's garage an' had 'em drive the bus into their shop--and that's all I can tell you about it, every blessed thing. I notified the taxicab company."

"Sure, I know that, and they flashed it right to headquarters. There was a general alarm out for that taxi. So it was run into the garage--under its own power, huh? That means Haskins didn't ditch the car because something went wrong with the engine. That may help some. Pretty swell folks live out on the Hudson Road, eh?"

Griggs nodded. "Most of 'em is rich," he agreed; "either rich or pretty well fixed."

"Sounds like it might be a warm trail," said Sergeant Tish, puffing out his plump cheeks. "Y'see--well, I'll have to give you the inside for you to understand just what the situation is."

Despite his first impatience, Constable Griggs became interested and offered no protest.

"This bird I'm after," pursued Tish, "is named Don Haskins. He's got a record as long as an income-tax report. Done a couple of short stretches at Sing Sing, one out West--Illinois--and has been in the line-up down at headquarters and in the Tombs. It would take an expert accountant to keep the count. He used to be a slick crook, nifty dresser and free spender, but he'd started slippin'. They all do. Clever--and hard-boiled."

Here Tish told the constable of his encounter with Haskins.

"Humph!" grunted Constable Griggs. "I see. And you're looking for your man in these parts. Sorry I ain't got the time to help, but----"

"Just a minute," broke in Sergeant Tish. "I ain't quite through yet. I'm right at the nub of it. Eighth Avenue Annie, I guess, wanted to cover up; anyhow, she runs out on the street yellin' bloody murder, and a couple of uniform men rushes in to find me laid out, dead to the world. But they brings me around, and then--oh, the grillin' we did give old Annie! We still got her locked up on a technical charge.

"Before we got through with her, she comes through with a lot of dope she didn't want to cough up. She hadda admit that Haskins had paid her big for his hide-out, and that he was gettin' ready to make the big jump out of town; that he had a rich sister, a real swell, who made him a visit and give him some dough. She was goin' to come back with more.

"Now, that's the funny part of it; one of the boys down at headquarters knows Don Haskins from the first time he went to Elmira Reformatory, and he says that Haskins did have a sister, but that she died eight or nine years ago, and that she didn't fit the description which Annie give us. No matter about that, it's a cinch that some swell jane did bring him the money. Annie says she was the class.

"Now, I was just wondering, gents--Haskins leaves the swiped taxi out on Hudson Road. The engine was O. K. That's proof that he left it there because he wanted to, and not because the car stopped on him. Where was he headin' for? Mebbe this swell who calls herself his sister lives around here. Now, you've got the whole works. I want somebody to help me check up. See?"

Ham Griggs' cap was on the desk which belonged officially to the borough council's president, his honor, Mayor Ripley. The cap accidentally--not from any design--covered the automatic pistol which had killed Helen Gilmore.

"As I told you," reiterated the constable, "I'm too busy this mornin' to do anything for you. Mebbe this afternoon, when I've got a confession outta the prisoner I got downstairs, I'll have more time." He reached for his uniform cap with a gesture of unshakable finality.

Sergeant Tish suddenly strained forward, his eyes bulging from out of his plump round face, staring in open-mouthed and bewildered amazement at the .44 on the desk.

"Where did you get that gun?" he gasped, lunging out of the chair and making a dive for it, getting his hands on it before Griggs could stop him. "Where did you get my gun?"

Ham Griggs snorted derisively. "Your gun? This here ain't your gun. It belongs to that prisoner I got downstairs, and he shot a woman with it last night. That's the murder case I'm workin' on."

Tish's face was a strange study of emotion. "It's my gun!" he shouted. "Here's a little place chipped off one of the butt plates. Sure it's my gun. Police department issue--you can tell that by the serial number. Sure, it's my gun--the one Don Haskins took off of me yesterday when he knocked me out. And you say that a woman was shot with it--murdered? You say that you took it off a prisoner, and that you've got him here? You mean that you've got Haskins locked up?"

The questions all jerked out with no pause, leaving him breathless, his fat cheeks quivering. Constable Griggs was speechless, and Wiggly Price's ears seemed determined to work themselves loose from his head.

"You're dead sure, sergeant, that it is your gun?" Wiggly demanded tensely. "It--it's very important that there should be no mistake about this."

"Don't you suppose I know my own gun?" snapped Sergeant Tish. "That's a funny question, askin' a cop if he knows his own gun. I want Haskins, and I want him now."

Constable Griggs found things happening just a little too fast for his slow wits. "I think you must be plumb crazy," he sputtered. "The prisoner we got is named Sarbella, an Eyetalian feller; he's the one that shot the woman with the gun. Gimme it back."

"Like thunder I'll give it back!" retorted Sergeant Tish.

"Wait!" said Wiggly. "I--I think I'm beginning to see some daylight. Haskins was a crook; some good-looking, swell-dressed woman brought him money--posed as his rich sister. And the minute Haskins got nabbed he made tracks for Ardmore. The cheap, ten-cents-a-pack cigarettes! Just the kind that Haskins might be expected to smoke. Haskins had Sergeant Tish's gun--and that's the gun that killed her. Don't you understand, constable? We've made a bad mistake because we didn't know anything about Haskins. The murderer was Haskins--the crook!"

And for the moment Wiggly forgot all about the black hairpin.