Page:Burton Stevenson--The marathon mystery.djvu/103

Rh He hesitated yet a moment, then straightened up with sudden resolution.

“You kin see it if you want to, sir,” he said; “but first, I must tell you that it’s soot fourteen, where they was a — a murder two days ago.”

“A murder?” I repeated. “Oh, yes; I did see something about it in the papers. Well, that doesn’t make any difference; I’m not afraid of ghosts.”

“Then that’s all right, sir,” he said, with a sigh of relief, and motioned toward the elevator. “I didn’t believe we’d find it so easy t’ rent that soot ag’in,” he added, as we started upward, “though I see now that I was foolish; fer really, it don’t make no difference”

The car stopped and he led the way down the hall without troubling to finish the sentence.

“Here we are,” he added, pausing before a door and producing a bunch of keys. “Which reminds me that I’ll have t’ git a key fer you — the other tenant lost his — leastways, it wasn’t found on him. Or mebbe you’d rather I’d change th’ lock?”

“Oh, no,” I assured him. “Another key will do,” and we entered together.

I examined the room with keen interest. Evidently everything had been left just as it was on the night of the crime; only the body had been removed, and it, I knew, was at the morgue, waiting identification. Higgins was busy pointing out to me the advantages of the apartment, but I confess I did not hear him. I reconstructed the picture which had met Godfrey’s eye when he burst into the room; I tried in vain to discern some point of evidence which he had