Buck Hawk, Detective | Page 5

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 case out of this, somehow. You know, by the way, that I've been paying some considerable attention to St. Clair's daughter lately, and the old gent fancies my suit. So he sends for me to take charge of this case, and slips a cool thousand dollars into my hands to start on, adding that he will give a bigger sum for the recovery of the diamonds. Oh! the old nut is really worked up about the affair, and it strikes me that there is more importance attached to the loss of the diamonds than their simple pecuniary value. Now, Jonesy, if you and I could put our heads together and recover the diamonds, we would be able to command a competency for our efforts."
"Bah! I know nothing in regard to the matter, and will have nothing to do with it-- so that ends that!" Jones declared, emphatically.
"Then that, also, ends our interview," and the detective arose and left the room.
He also left Billy Jones in rather an unpleasant frame of mind.
Jerome St.