"
"Oh, it's my business to know how to do them things," replied Mr.
Lafferty, deprecatingly.
"Your business!" said Bagley. "Dumb luck, I tell you. Can't you see how
it was?" He had turned to Larcher. "The cabman read of Davenport's
disappearance, and putting together the day, and the description in the
papers, and the queer load of parcels, goes and tells the police.
Lafferty is put on the case, pumps the cabman dry, then goes to the
stores where the cab stopped to collect the goods, and finds out the
rest. Only, when he comes to tell the story, he tells the facts not in
their order as he found them out, but in their order as they occurred."
"You know all about it, Mr. Bagley," said Lafferty, taking refuge in
jocular irony. "You'd ought 'a' worked up the case yourself."
"You left Davenport being driven down-town," Larcher reminded the
detective.
"Yes, an' that about lets me out. The cabman druv 'im to somewhere on
South Street, by the wharves. It was dark by that time, and the driver
didn't notice the exact spot--he just druv along the street till the man
told him to stop, that was his orders,--an' then the man got out, took
out his parcels, an' carried them across the sidewalk into a dark
hallway. Then he paid the cabman, an' the cabman druv off. The last the
cabman seen of 'im, he was goin' into the hallway where his goods were,
an' that's the last any one seen of 'im in New York, as fur as known.
Prob'ly you've got enough imagination to give a guess what became of him
after that.
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