Page:Burton Stevenson--The marathon mystery.djvu/85

Rh "But Miss Croydon entered without hesitation. The man who opened the door must've been the one she expected to see. You'll remember, she asked for Thompson."

"Well, whoever it was," Godfrey pointed out, "it wasn't Jimmy. He couldn't have beaten the elevator upstairs."

"No," admitted Simmonds helplessly, "he couldn't. But let me point out one thing—whoever got into Thompson's rooms had his key. There was nobody there when Higgins put Thompson to bed; Higgins locked the door when he came out; Thompson’s windows were all locked on the inside and the transom was bolted. Now if Jimmy didn't have the key, who did?"

"I don't know," said Godfrey. "But we'll never arrive anywhere if we keep tangling ourselves up this way. Who is Thompson? The first thing we've got to do is to establish his identity. Then, maybe, we can make a guess at the rest of the story."

"Of course; I saw that at once. But a queer thing is that we can't find out a thing about Thompson. Last night was the first time he'd ever been seen at Magraw's—nobody there'd ever seen him before. He spent three or four dollars treating the crowd. Then he got noisy and Magraw was going to call the police, but Jimmy spoke up and said he'd look after him. His story was straight that far."

"Have you gone through Thompson's belongings?"

"Here they are," and Simmonds brought out a canvas bag and opened it. "Look at them."

Godfrey turned out the contents and examined them piece by piece. It was merely a lot of ordinary