d
fifty dollars, I should say. Abrahamson let him have only a hundred on
it."

"Why only a hundred?"

"I had asked him to do that, so as to prove that the man was a thief--you
know, willing to take anything offered to him."

"And he did take the hundred?"

"He did."

"What happened after that?"

"I followed him from the shop--for half a block. When he had gone that
distance, I lost him. He stepped into a store, and I waited for him to
come out. He never did. It was the old dodge. The store extended the
width of a block. He made his escape through the other entrance."

Greenleaf was more excited even than Withers.

"This man," the chief put in; "what did he look like?"

"He was of average weight, medium height. He had a gold tooth, the upper
left bicuspid gold. His nose was aquiline. He wore a long, dark gray
raincoat, and he had a cap with its long visor pulled well over his face.
Then, too, he wore a beard, chestnut-brown in colour. That's about the
best description I can give you of him. You see, this happened late in
the afternoon."

"All right," Bristow kept to the main thread of the story. "Now, about
last night. What then?"

Withers threw away his cigarette and sighed.

"I came up here and watched Number Five. I had an idea that this fellow
might show up."

"Did he?"

"No."

"Where did you watch from?"

"Most of the time I sat on the steps of Number Four, almost directly
across the road from Number Five. You know how it is on this street.
Nearly everybody is in the back of the house after dark. The invalids are
on the sleeping porches behind the houses. Besides, it was in deep shadow
where I was. I was not observed when my--when Mrs. Withers left the house
with an escort, a man, early in the evening."

"And you waited until she returned?"

"Yes; I waited."

"Very well." There was for the first time a hint of sharpness in
Bristow's voice. "You waited. What did you see?"

For the past few minutes a change had been taking place in the bearing of
Withers. It was as if, having recovered slightly from the terrific shock
of his wife's death, he was gradually stiffening, gaining the strength
necessary to withstand the swift volley of Bristow's questions.

The questioner, sensing this alteration in the other, made his queries
all the quicker and more peremptory. He wanted to profit as much as
possible from the other's lack of control.

"I saw her return with her escort," Withers answered. "Sh