"when--how that got
there." He paused and added: "Mattie doesn't wear overalls."

They returned to the living room.

"But," he continued, "Perry was working for me yesterday. He was in the
kitchen talking to Mattie. I wonder--Well, there's one thing; if Perry's
blouse has two buttons missing, he'll be confronted with the job of
establishing an alibi for all of last night."

"By cracky!" The captain slapped his hands together in evident relief.
"I believe we've got him! I'm going to send a man after him."

He went out to the porch and signalled another of his men.

"Drake," he said, "I want you to find a young negro--name's Perry
Carpenter--about twenty-five years old. He does odd jobs around here. Any
of these other niggers can tell you where he lives. When you find him,
take him to headquarters. Keep him there until I come. Get him. Don't
lose him!"

When he stepped back into the house, Bristow was regarding him with a
smile.

"I hope you're right," he told the chief, "but I've a hunch you're wrong.
I believe this murder is more than an ordinary robbery by a darky.
Somehow, I have the impression that there's something big mixed up in
it."

"Why?"

"I can't say exactly. Perhaps it's because I've been thinking of the
beauty of the victim. Or it may be that I was impressed by what the women
said about her when we were waiting for you on the porch."

He thought a while, and decided that he had no explanation of why he
had made the remark. He had not meant to say it. It had come from him
spontaneously, like an endorsement of what all Manniston Road was saying
at that very moment: the "the something big in it" loomed up, intangible
but demanding notice.

Greenleaf himself, for all his apparent certainty about the guilt of the
negro Perry, sensed vaguely the possibility, the hint, that this crime
was even worse than it appeared to be. But he would not admit it. He
preferred to keep before his mind the easier answer to the puzzle.

"No," he contradicted Bristow; "I believe Perry's the fellow we want.
Here we are dealing with facts, not story-book romances."

Just then a young man sprang up the steps of No. 9 and knocked on the
door. It was Henry Morley, come to give weight to Bristow's "hunch."

CHAPTER III

THE RUBY RING

Although it was Chief Greenleaf who opened the door, it was to Bristow
that Morley turned, as if he instinctively recognized the superiority of
the lame man's personality. Greenl