Buck Hawk, Detective | Page 5

cash for that errand to-day."
"Curse it. Does the company know? Have you been squealin' on me,
Turk?"
"The company knows nothing. I know of several hits of cash that the
company never saw."
"You sharp-eyed rascal. I've always been suspicious of you. Jack told
me to look out for you once."
"Jack Grimes?"
"No. Jack Freitcher."
"That's a lie," Turk inwardly commented. "But let it pass. I must work
this wire for all it's worth, since I hold the key."
Aloud, he said:
"Yes, Billy, if I choose, I can cause your discharge, but I don't propose
to do it if we can agree. No one connected with the office, aside from
ourselves, knew of that errand to-day, eh?"
"Of course not. There was no one about, and so I made up my mind I
might as well make an extra day's wages as not, and no one would be
the wiser for it."
"Then I am safe so far, thank Heaven!" Turk exclaimed. "You dare not
now own up the errand, as it would show you up in a dishonest light,
and will necessarily force me to expose you."
"But what's the matter? What danger are you in?"
Turk proceeded to relate the circumstances attending and resulting from
his trip for the bogus St. Clair.
Jones listened with hightened interest, for he had by this time fully

shaken off the effects of the liquor.
"Well, by thunder, that's a case, for a fact. But you can rest easy, so far
as I am concerned. I'll never give you away."
"Then I will also keep mum about your game; but you'd better drop on
it, or some o' the boys will jump onto you, and won't mind their own
biz like the Sultan o' Turkey."
"I reckon you're right. What! ain't a-goin', eh?"
"Yes. Do you know, I'm goin' to nose into this cafe and recover them
diamonds? Goin' ter turn sort o' detective, ye see; and see what fer luck
I have at the biz."
Turk had not long left the operator's room, when Bill Jones had another
visitor-- a tall, well-formed, and rather good-looking young man of six
or seven and twenty, dressed in the best of clothes, with the additions
of a silk hat, kid gloves, and gold-headed cane.
A not over-abundant mustache was waxed out at either end; and the
habitual steely glitter in his black eyes indicated the existence of evil in
his heart.
This man was Jack Grimes, the detective, who was considered one of
the most successful private experts in the city.
"Hello! is it you?" Billy Jones exclaimed, as the sleuth entered. "What
the blazes are ye after! I was just preparing to sail off into a good
sleep."
"So I see'" Grimes smiled, taking a seat.
"New job?"
"Yes. Mighty big one, too. Got it all to myself. Fortune in it, if I win."
"What is it?"

"Oh! it's a secret. Don't know but I can tell you, if you're mum."
"Humph! guess you know me?"
"Well, it's true you never went back on me, so I'll let you in. You see,
old St. Clair the diamond dealer, has been skinned out of a valuable lot
of diamonds, and this is the way it happened."
He then narrated practically the same story of the robbery that Turk had
done a short time before.
"And, now, what I'm after is to find out first of all, who this messenger
was. I've visited several of the district offices, but obtained no
satisfactory clew. How about your office??
"No messenger sent on outside errands, to-day," Jones declared,
deliberately.
"Are you sure?"
The eyes of the detective were fixed on him, searchingly.
"Of course I'm sure. Don't you suppose I know what I'm about?"
"Seems strange that no messenger was sent from any of the offices, and
yet one went on that errand!"
"Does look rather queer, I'll admit, but you can search the cash list of
my district, if you choose."
"Perhaps you didn't turn in the cash, nor make a memorandum?"
Jones flushed angrily.
"Well, you're welcome to your own opinion," he said, stiffly. "You can
probably find by inquiry that my reputation is good for honesty with
the company."
"Pooh! honesty is but a convenience at best. There is not a parson in the

world who wouldn't look hungeringly at a hundred thousand dollars,
before passing it by. We detectives are necessarily the most honest
class of people living, but I'm blamed sure if I saw a clever chance to
rake in a hundred thousand, and get away with it, I'd do it."
"I don't doubt it. I never quite set you down as a saint."
A silence ensued, during which Grimes seemed to be in deep
meditation.
"Well, I'm bound to make a