"Taking a look at it, eh? Well, it's worth it. I've been here ever since the place was Stanwick village, and I ain't never seen goings on in any home like I've seen in that one."
The speaker stood almost at Bat's side; he leaned upon a cane, and from the shaky quality of his voice, Scanlon felt that he must be of advanced age.
"That's where the murder was done, isn't it?" asked the big athlete. For there was a gossipy suggestion in the tone of the old man which made a show of non-certainty of possible value.
"Yes, sir; that's it. That's where Thomas Burton was found dead of a crushed skull," replied the old resident. "That's the house of his son and daughter. I see the father taken away to be buried, and I see the son taken away to be put in jail. And I see the daughter's doctor coming to see her every day."
Here the old gentleman broke into a cackle of laughter.
"Every day," he repeated. "In a carriage with a little medicine case."
"An old party who seems to have his wits about him," said Bat to himself. "And not at all backward about making a show of them."
"I have a son," continued the old man, "and my son has a wife. We live a little piece down the street. My son's wife is fussy; she doesn't like any kind of public notice. And so, when I wanted to go to the police with what I've seen, she wouldn't hear of it. She said we might even have our names in the papers."
"Women are that way sometimes," said Scanlon. "I've noticed it more than once."
"Fools, I call them," declared the old resident. "But when they have control of things, you've got to let them have their way." He stood with his face turned toward No. 620 for a few moments and then continued: "Yes, sir, queer things go on in that house. People that's sick don't act the way she does."
"Why, that girl over there! Every day stealing away out at the back door with a veil over her face and some one's else clothes on, and taking a taxicab for I don't know where."
"You saw that, did you?" asked Bat, eagerly.
"Yes, sir, I saw it; and I've seen it every day since the police were taken off guard. Sick!" again came the cackling old laugh. "Sick! Why, she ain't no more sick than I am."
What the old resident of Stanwick said to Bat Scanlon aroused that gentleman to a high pitch, and he began asking eager questions.