“Tobin Rangnow.”

Studying this for a moment, the Italian made a copy of it.  Then he slipped it back into the thumb of the glove and replaced both exactly as they were; after which he made his way back to the motor cycle, and mounting, went flying toward the city.

CHAPTER XVIII

ASHTON-KIRK TELLS WHY

It was about four in the afternoon, and young Pendleton sat in Ashton-Kirk’s big chair, reading the newspapers and waiting.  Finally he rang a bell and Stumph gravely appeared.

“Are you sure that he said three?” asked Pendleton.

“About three, sir,” replied the man.

“Oh!  I suppose he’s been detained then.  That will be all, Stumph!”

When the man disappeared, Pendleton lighted a cigar and resumed his reading.  The Hume case was still holding its place as the news feature of the day.  Nothing had occurred to equal it in sensation; and the huge headings flared across the front pages, undiminished and undismayed.

“Why,” screamed the Standard, in a perfect frenzy of letter press, “did Miss Edyth Vale visit Hume on the night of the murder?”

The girl’s name had crept into the paper on the day before; with each edition it appeared in larger type; and that afternoon the Standard was printing it in red ink.  Allan Morris was not neglected; on the contrary, he figured a very close second to his betrothed in the types.

“Where is Allan Morris?”

One paper asked this question perhaps fifty times on each page.  It peered at one in square, heavy-faced type from the bottoms of columns and between articles.  There were interviews with his clerks; the opinions of his stenographer were given in full, together with her portrait; and what his man servant had to say was treated as being of great consequence.

Another sheet, which made a point of appealing to the tastes of the vast foreign element of the city, grew very indignant as to the arrest of Antonio Spatola.

“Why,” it inquired, “is this man detained and no attempt made to take those higher up into custody?  If the Police Department is so ready to incarcerate a poor musician, why should it hesitate upon the threshold of the rich man’s mansion?—­or the rich woman’s, for the matter of that?”

This item incensed Pendleton beyond measure; he threw the paper aside and stormed up and down the room.

“Of all the blatant wretched twaddle I ever did read,” he exclaimed, “this is positively the worst.  Why, the rag would have the police arrest Edyth—­arrest her for—­”

“Well,” demanded a sharp, aggressively pitched voice, “what for you make-a da blame, eh?  Da cops pinch-a Spatola, and for why, eh?  Because he’s da wop, da Ginney, da Dago and got-a no friends.”

At the first word Pendleton had whirled about in astonishment, and faced the speaker, who stood in the doorway, pointing with one hand in the attitude of melodrama.