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Updated: June 19, 2025
"You used the word 'coincidence, Mr. Boyne." She leaned across toward me, eyes bright, little finger tip marking her points. "Allow one coincidence that the only description, the only photograph missing from your files are those of the self-effacing Clayte. To-day Clayte has proved to be a thief " "In seven figures," Worth threw in, and she smiled at him.
Worth came out and settled himself at the wheel; he and Edwards exchanged a last, low-toned word; and they were ready to be off. Barbara leaned towards me with shining eyes. "Perhaps," she said, "Skeels might even be Clayte!" then the roadster whisked her away. The bulk of Worth Gilbert's fortune was practically tied up in this affair.
"Well Boyne " Whipple was giving way an inch at a time. "It's a peculiar case," I began, then caught myself up with, "All cases are peculiar. The big point here is to get our man before he can get rid of the money. We were close after Clayte; even that locked room in the St. Dunstan needn't have stopped us. If he wasn't in it, he was somewhere not far outside it.
It was nearly the middle of the forenoon next day when I got to my desk and found it piled high with mail that had accumulated in my absence. Roberts had looked after what he could, and sorted the rest, ready for me. Everything concerning the Clayte case was in one basket. As Roberts handed it to me, he explained. "The Van Ness bank attorney Cummings has been keeping tabs on you tight, Mr. Boyne.
There was a negative shaking of heads. "No mannerisms? No little tricks, such as a twist of the mouth, a mincing step, or a head carried on one side?" More shakes of negation from the men who knew Clayte. "Well, at least you can tell me who are his friends his intimates?" Nobody answered. "He must have friends?" I urged. "He hasn't," maintained Whipple.
One of my pieces of mail concerned the Skeels chase. If my men down there had Skeels, and Skeels was Clayte, it would mean everything in handling Cummings and Dykeman. I took out the report and ran hastily through it; a formal statement; day by day stuff: "Found Skeels and Dial at Tiajuana. Negotiating to buy saloon and gambling house. D. was his partner in proposition.
Why did you risk sitting up in that strained pose, wounded as you were, to concentrate?" "For Worth. I had to relate this crime to the one for which he'd been arrested. Within the hour, I'd gathered facts that showed me Edward Clayte killed Worth's father.
Dykeman reached for the photographs, spread them out before him, then looked up from them peevishly to say, "For the good Lord's sake! Don't look any more like Clayte than it does like a horned toad. Is that what you've been wasting your time over, Boyne? If you ask me " "I don't ask you anything," retrieving the pictures, planting them deep in an inner pocket. Then I got myself out of the room.
"Bobs," he cut straight across her mood to what he wanted, "Jerry Boyne is going to read you something it took about 'steen blind people to see and you'll give us the answer." I didn't share his confidence, but I rather admired it as he finished, poising the tongs, "One lump, or two?" Of course I knew what he meant. My hand was already fumbling in my pocket for the description of Clayte.
Would it bring Clayte up before any one who had never seen him? Ask Captain Gilbert, who doesn't know the man. I say that's a list of the points at which he resembles every third office man you meet on the street. What I want is the points at which he'd differ. You have all known Clayte for years; forget his regularities, and tell me his peculiarities looks, manners, dress or habits."
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