Page:The Mystery of a Hansom Cab.djvu/103

Rh fact is, Kilsip had believed firmly that Fitzgerald was the right man, but a doubt having been put into his mind by Calton, he thought he would irritate Gorby by these insinuations, though he himself knew nothing that could justify them.

"He's a cat and a snake," said Gorby to himself, when the door was closed on his brother detective; "but it's only brag; there isn't a link missing in the chain of evidence against Fitzgerald, so I defy him to do his worst."

At eight o'clock on that night the soft-footed and soft-voiced detective presented himself at Calton's office, and found the lawyer impatiently waiting for him. Kilsip closed the door softly, and then taking a seat opposite to Calton, waited for him to speak. The lawyer, however, first handed him a cigar, and then producing a bottle of whisky and two glasses from some mysterious recess, he filled one and pushed it toward the detective. Kilsip accepted these little attentions with the utmost gravity, yet they were not without their effect on him, as the keen-eyed lawyer saw. Calton was a great believer in diplomacy, and never lost an opportunity of inculcating it into young men starting in life. "Diplomacy," said Calton to one young aspirant for legal honors, "is the oil we cast on the troubled waters of social, professional and political life; and if you can, by a little tact, manage mankind, you are pretty certain to get on in this world." Of course, he practiced what he preached, and knowing that Kilsip had that feline nature which likes to be stroked and made much of, he paid him these little attentions, which he well knew would make the detective willing to do everything in his power to help him. Calton also knew the dislike that Kilsip entertained for Gorby, and so, by dextrous management, he calculated upon twisting him, clever as he was, round his finger, and, as subsequent events showed, he had not reckoned wrongly. Having thus got into a sympathetic frame of mind, and in a humor to bend his best energies to the work he wanted him to do, Calton started the conversation.

"I suppose," he said, leaning back in his chair, and watching the wreaths of blue smoke curling from his cigar, "I suppose you know all the ins and outs of the hansom cab murder?"