The man might
return. It was certain that he, Haggerty, would come back on the
morrow. He was anxious to compare the thumb-print with the one he had
in his collection.
For what had the man come? Keep-sakes? Haggerty dearly wanted to
believe that the intruder was the one man he desired in his net; but he
refused to? listen to the insidious whisperings; he must have proof,
positive, absolute, incontestable. If it was Crawford's man Mason, it
was almost too good to be true; and he did not care to court ultimate
disappointment.
Proof, proof; but where? Why had the man not returned the clothes to
the trunk and shut it? What had alarmed him? Everything else
indicated the utmost caution. . . . A glint of light flashing and
winking from steel. Haggerty rose and went over to the window. He
picked up a bunch of keys, thirty or forty in all, on a ring, weighing
a good pound. The detective touched the throbbing bump and sensed a
moisture; blood. So this was the weapon? He weighed the keys on his
palm. A long time since he had seen a finer collection of skeleton
keys, thin and flat and thick and short, smooth and notched, each a gem
of its kind.
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