queer. Then Sunday that fellar what committed suicide out south--I read
about in the papers--came to see him in a car. I got a boy workin' in his
factory; that's how I come to know who the guy was. The next night
Hobart, an' them with him, just naturally skipped out. So I didn't know
but what the police might want him for something."

"I don't know anything about that. I just called on a private matter.
Where did he go to?"

"Hell, man, I didn't even know he was goin'."

"Who did he have with him here--a family?"

"A woman 'bout his age I should say, an' a younger one. I didn't see 'em
only from the window; didn't get no sight o' the girl's face at all, but
could tell the way she walked she was young. They didn't have nothin'
with 'em; that's all my stuff in the house there."

Feeling the uselessness of trying to learn anything more, West thanked
him, and returned to the taxi.

"Back to the Club," he ordered briefly, and settled into his seat to
think.




CHAPTER XIII

238 WRAY STREET