It was like
finessing an eight-spot and winning out. They would scarcely have
doubted your story had the tags been reversed in the morning. He
certainly left you in a bad way. Not a jury in the country would stand
out against the stains, the stiletto, and the murdered man's pocket-book
in your possession."

"Then you think Sullivan did it?" I asked.

"Of course," said McKnight confidently. "Unless you did it in your
sleep. Look at the stains on his pillow, and the dirk stuck into it. And
didn't he have the man Harrington's pocket-book?"

"But why did he go off without the money?" I persisted. "And where does
the bronze-haired girl come in?"

"Search me," McKnight retorted flippantly. "Inflammation of the
imagination on your part."

"Then there is the piece of telegram. It said lower ten, car seven. It's
extremely likely that she had it. That telegram was about me, Richey."

"I'm getting a headache," he said, putting out his cigarette against the
sole of his shoe. "All I'm certain of just now is that if there hadn't
been a wreck, by this time you'd be sitting in an eight by ten cell, and
feeling like the rhyme for it."

"But listen to this," I contended, as he picked up his hat, "this fellow
Sullivan is a fugitive, and he's a lot more likely to make advances to
Bronson than to us. We could have the case continued, release Bronson on
bail and set a watch on him."

"Not my watch," McKnight protested. "It's a family heirloom."

"You'd better go home," I said firmly. "Go home and go to bed. You're
sleepy. You can have Sullivan's red necktie to dream over if you think
it will help any."

Mrs. Klopton's voice came drowsily from the next room, punctuated by a
yawn. "Oh, I forgot to tell you," she called, with the suspicious lisp
which characterizes her at night, "somebody called up about noon, Mr.
Lawrence. It was long distance, and he said he would call again. The
name was"--she yawned--"Sullivan."

CHAPTER XII. THE GOLD BAG

I have always smiled at those cases of spontaneous combustion which,
like fusing the component parts of a seidlitz powder, unite two people
in a bubbling and ephemeral ecstasy. But surely there is possible, with
but a single meeting, an attraction so great, a community of mind and
interest so strong, that between that first meeting and the next the
bond may grow into something stronger. This is especially true, I fancy,
of people with temperament, the modern substitute for imagination