The Crime of the French Café and Other Stories | Page 4

doubt that he's the man, but I haven't questioned him
yet. He's in there asleep."
Nick passed himself off as a friend of Harrigan's, and was directed with
Patsy to the man's room.
They went in without being invited, after having tried in vain to get an
answer to their pounding on his door.
The cabman was snoring in a heavy slumber.
"From what I heard," said Patsy, "Harrigan had a very large skate on
last night. He's sleeping it off."

Nick shook the man unmercifully, and at last he sat up in bed.
"What t' 'ell?" said he, looking about him wildly. "Who are youse, an'
wha's the row?"
As the quickest way to sober the man, Nick showed his shield. It acted
like a cold shower-bath.
"Say, what was it I done?" gasped Harrigan. "S' help me, I dunno
nothing about it. I had a load on me last night, an' I ain't responsible."
Patsy laughed.
"There's no charge against you," said Nick; "I only want to ask you a
few questions."
Harrigan sank back on the pillow with a gasp of relief.
"Gimme that water-pitcher," he said; "me t'roat's full o' cobwebs."
He drank about a quart of water, and then declared himself ready for a
cross-examination. Nick sized him up for a decent sort of fellow; and
saw no reason to doubt that he was telling the truth when he answered
the questions that were put to him.
It appeared that he had been on Seventh avenue, near the French
restaurant, from a little after six to about half-past seven on the
previous evening.
At the latter hour a man had engaged his cab. He had taken it to the side
door of the restaurant, and the waiter had got in. The man who hired the
cab was already inside.
He had driven them somewhere on Fifty-seventh street, or it might be
Fifty-eighth. He couldn't remember exactly.
The two men got out together. He didn't know what had become of
them.

His fare was paid all right. Then he had a couple more drinks, and the
next thing he knew he was at the stable where he had hired the cab.
Of course he didn't confess this in so many words, but Nick understood
the facts well enough.
That was absolutely all that Harrigan knew about the case.
"Would you recognize the man who hired your cab if you saw him
again?" asked Nick.
"Oh, sure," said Harrigan. "I wasn't so very full. I had me wits about me.
Say, you ain't going to do me dirt an' git me license taken away? I was
all right. I didn't do any harm."
Nick assured Harrigan that if he acted right in this case his license
would be safe, and then left the man to his slumbers.
"Not very promising, is it, my boy?" said Nick to Patsy, as they went
downstairs. "We've lost the trail as soon as we struck it."
"Do you think he's giving it to us straight?"
"Yes; he doesn't know where he took the men nor what became of them
after they left his cab."
"It's a pity he had such a jag. He'd have been the best witness in the
case."
Nick smiled.
"If he hadn't been drunk he wouldn't have had anything to do with the
case," he said.
"What do you mean?"
"Why, it's clear enough. This man that we want saw Harrigan on that
cab while the man was on his way to the restaurant with the woman.
Then when it became necessary to get Corbut out of the way, he

remembered the drunken cabman, and hired him."
"I don't see how you know that."
"A man would rather have a sober driver than a drunken one, wouldn't
he?"
"Yes."
"Well, the man who told you he saw Harrigan get the job was sober,
wasn't he?"
"Yes."
"Then why didn't the man take his cab? Because he wanted a drunken
driver, who wouldn't be sharp enough to get on to any queer business.
"But he wouldn't have tried to find a drunken cabman just by luck, and
he wouldn't have taken a sober one. Therefore he had seen Harrigan
and hoped to find him in the same place.
"That's part of the plot. Now, then, you go to Chick, who's watching the
body of the woman. I'm going to take Gaspard uptown and have a look
at that part of the city where Harrigan left his passengers."
Nick and Gaspard went to the Thirty-third street station of the Sixth
avenue elevated road.
They walked to the edge of the platform on the uptown end.
Suddenly Gaspard gave a violent start. He uttered an exclamation of
surprise and pointed across the tracks.
"What is it?" cried Nick.
"The man who was in