nto somebody, some day. These
people with bad tempers ought to be chained up short."

"Do you know him well?" inquired the investigator.

"Been acquainted with him ever since he's been living here--and that's
going on three years."

"Did he have many visitors, do you know?"

The man in the cloth cap pulled at his pipe reflectively.

"I can't just say," he replied. "But I've been thinking--" he paused
here and examined both young men questioningly. Then he asked: "You're
detectives, ain't you?"

"Something of that sort," replied Ashton-Kirk.

The man grinned at this.

"Oh, all right," said he. "You don't have to come out flat with it if
you don't want to. I ain't one of the kind that you've got to hit with
a mallet to make them catch on to a thing." Here the wooden pipe
seemed to clog; he took a straw from behind his ear and began clearing
the stem carefully. At the same time he added: "As I was saying, I've
been thinking."

"That," said Ashton-Kirk, giving another tug at the unanswered bell,
"is very commendable."

"And queer enough, it's been about visitors--here," and the man
pointed with the straw toward the doorway. "Funny kind of people too,
for a house like this."

"Take a cigar," said Ashton-Kirk. "That pipe seems out of commission."
Then, as the man put the pipe away in the pocket of his jumper and
lighted the proffered cigar, he added: "What do you mean by 'funny
kind of people?'"

The cigar well lighted, the man in the overalls drew at it with gentle
relish.

"There's a good many kinds of funny people," said he. "Some of them
you laugh at, and others you don't. These that I mean are the kind you
don't. Now, Mrs. Marx, the woman that keeps this place, is all right
in her way, but it ain't no swell place at that. Her lodgers are
mostly fellows that canvass for different kinds of things; they wear
shiny coats and their shoes are mostly run down at the heels. So when
I see swell business looking guys coming here I got to wondering who
they were. That's only natural, ain't it?"

Ashton-Kirk nodded, but before he could reply in words there came a
clatter upon the rickety stairs at the far end of the entry. A thin,
slipshod woman with untidy hair and a sharp face paused on the lower
step and looked out at them.

"What do you want?" she demanded, shrilly.

Ashton-Kirk, followed by Pendleton, stepped inside and advanced down
the entry.

"Are you Mrs. Marx?" he inquired.

"Yes," snapped the wom