"Looking up the Dago?" asked he with a grin. He jerked a dirty thumb
toward the stairs.
Ashton-Kirk nodded; the man took the wooden pipe from his mouth, blew
out a jet of strong-smelling smoke and said:
"I knowed he'd put a knife or something into 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.
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