The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart Read Free Book Online Page A

he said gruffly.
     
      "Lawrence Blakeley, Washington."
     
      "Your occupation?"
     
      "Attorney. A member of the firm of Blakeley and McKnight."
     
      "Mr. Blakeley, you say you have occupied the wrong berth and have been robbed. Do you know anything of the man who did it?"
     
      "Only from what he left behind," I answered. "These clothes - "
     
      "They fit you," he said with quick suspicion. "Isn't that rather a coincidence? You are a large man."
     
      "Good Heavens," I retorted, stung into fury, "do I look like a man who would wear this kind of a necktie? Do you suppose I carry purple and green barred silk handkerchiefs? Would any man in his senses wear a pair of shoes a full size too small?"
     
      The conductor was inclined to hedge. "You will have to grant that I am in a peculiar position," he said. "I have only your word as to the exchange of berths, and you understand I am merely doing my duty. Are there any clues in the pockets?"
     
      For the second time I emptied them of their contents, which he noted. "Is that all?" he finished. "There was nothing else?"
     
      "Nothing."
     
      "That's not all, sir," broke in the porter, stepping forward. "There was a small black satchel."
     
      "That's so," I exclaimed. "I forgot the bag. I don't even know where it is."
     
      The easily swayed crowd looked suspicious again. I've grown so accustomed to reading the faces of a jury, seeing them swing from doubt to belief, and back again to doubt, that I instinctively watch expressions. I saw that my forgetfulness had done me harm - that suspicion was roused again.
     
      The bag was found a couple of seats away, under somebody's raincoat - another dubious circumstance. Was I hiding it? It was brought to the berth and placed beside the conductor, who opened it at once.
     
      It contained the usual traveling impedimenta - change of linen, collars, handkerchiefs, a bronze-green scarf, and a safety razor. But the attention of the crowd riveted itself on a flat, Russia leather wallet, around which a heavy gum band was wrapped, and which bore in gilt letters the name "Simon Harrington."
     
     
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER VII A FINE GOLD CHAIN
     
     
     
     
      The conductor held it out to me, his face sternly accusing.
     
      "Is this another coincidence?" he asked. "Did the man who left you his clothes and the barred silk handkerchief and the tight shoes leave you the spoil of the murder?"
     
      The men standing around had drawn off a little, and I saw the absolute futility of any remonstrance. Have you ever seen a fly, who, in these hygienic days, finding no cobwebs to entangle him, is caught in a sheet of fly paper, finds himself more and more mired, and is finally quiet with the sticky stillness of despair?
     
      Well, I was the fly. I had seen too much of circumstantial evidence to have any belief that the establishing of my identity would weigh much against the other incriminating details. It meant imprisonment and trial, probably, with all the notoriety and loss of practice they would entail. A man thinks quickly at a time like that. All the probable consequences of the finding of that pocket-book flashed through my mind as I extended my hand to take it. Then I drew my arm back.
     
      "I don't want it," I said. "Look inside. Maybe the other man took the money and left the wallet."
     
      The conductor opened it, and again there was a curious surging forward of the crowd. To my intense disappointment the money was still there.
     
      I stood blankly miserable while it was counted out - five one-hundred-dollar bills, six twenties, and some fives and ones that brought the total to six hundred and fifty dollars.
     
      The little man with the note-book insisted on taking the numbers of the notes, to the