"Well," I said, "feeling better?"
"Yes," he answered, slowly. "But it was a shock."
"What was?" I asked. "You've told me nothing as yet."
"I've seen Barker."
"No!" I cried. "Where?"
"In a back alley down-town, where I had to go on a hospital call.
There was a row in a gambling-hell in Hester Street. Two men were
cut and I had to go with the ambulance. Both men will probably die,
and no one can find any trace of the murderer; but I know who he is.
He was Carleton Barker and no one else. I passed him in the alley on
the way in, and I saw him in the crowd when I came out."
"Was he alone in the alley?" I asked. Parton groaned again.
"That's the worst of it," said he. "He was not alone. He was with
Carleton Barker."
"You speak in riddles," said I.
"I saw in riddles," said Parton; "for as truly as I sit here there
were two of them, and they stood side by side as I passed through,
alike as two peas, and crime written on the pallid face of each."
"Did Barker recognize you?"
"I think so, for as I passed he gasped--both of them gasped, and as
I stopped to speak to the one I had first recognized he had vanished
as completely as though he had never been, and as I turned to
address the other he was shambling off into the darkness as fast as
his legs could carry him.
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