Through the Wall Part 37

"I'm sorry," repeated M. Paul, and for the first time in the interview he felt himself at a disadvantage.

"Why didn't I burn them, why didn't I burn them?" she mourned.

"You trusted to that drawer," he suggested.

"No, no, I knew the danger, but I couldn't give them up. They stood for the best part of my life, the tenderest, the happiest. I've been a weak, wicked woman!"

"Any secrets in these letters will be scrupulously respected," he a.s.sured her, "unless they have a bearing on this crime. Is there anything you wish to say before I go?"

"Are you going?" she said weakly. And then, turning to him with tear-stained face, she asked for a moment to collect herself. "I want to say this," she went on, "that I didn't tell you the truth about Kittredge and Martinez. There _was_ trouble between them; he speaks about it in one of his letters. It was about the little girl at Notre-Dame!"

"You mean Martinez was attentive to her?"

"Yes."

"Did she encourage him?"

"I don't know. She behaved very strangely--she seemed attracted to him and afraid of him at the same time. Martinez told me what an extraordinary effect he had on the girl. He said it was due to his magnetic power."

"And Kittredge objected to this?"

"Of course he did, and they had a quarrel. It's all in one of those letters."

"Was it a serious quarrel? Did Kittredge make any threats?"

"I--I'm afraid he did--yes, I know he did. You'll see it in the letter."

"Do you remember what he said?"

"Why--er--yes."

"What was it?"

She hesitated a moment and then, as though weary of resisting, she replied: "He told Martinez that if he didn't leave this girl alone he would break his d.a.m.ned head for him."

CHAPTER XVI

THE THIRD PAIR OF BOOTS

The wheels of justice move swiftly in Paris, and after one quiet day, during which Judge Hauteville was drawing together the threads of the mystery, Kittredge found himself, on Tuesday morning, facing an ordeal worse than the solitude of a prison cell. The seventh of July! What a date for the American! How little he realized what was before him as he b.u.mped along in a prison van breathing the sweet air of a delicious summer morning! He had been summoned for the double test put upon suspected a.s.sa.s.sins in France, a visit to the scene of the crime and a viewing of the victim's body. In Lloyd's behalf there was present at this grim ceremony Maitre Pleindeaux, a clean-shaven, bald-headed little man, with a hard, metallic voice and a set of false teeth that clicked as he talked. "Bet a dollar it's ice water he's full of," said Kittredge to himself.

When brought to the Ansonia and shown the two rooms of the tragedy, Kittredge was perfectly calm and denied any knowledge of the affair; he had never seen these holes through the wall, he had never been in the alleyway, he was absolutely innocent. Maitre Pleindeaux nodded in approval. At the morgue, however, Lloyd showed a certain emotion when a door was opened suddenly and he was pushed into a room where he saw Martinez sitting on a chair and looking at him, Martinez with his shattered eye replaced by a gla.s.s one, and his dead face painted to a horrid semblance of life. This is one of the theatrical tricks of modern procedure, and the American was not prepared for it.

"My G.o.d!" he muttered, "he looks alive."

Nothing was accomplished, however, by the questioning here, nothing was extorted from the prisoner; he had known Martinez, he had never liked him particularly, but he had never wished to do him harm, and he had certainly not killed him. That was all Kittredge would say, however the questions were turned, and he declared repeatedly that he had had no quarrel with Martinez. All of which was carefully noted down.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "A door was opened suddenly and he was pushed into a room."]

While his nerves were still tingling with the gruesomeness of all this, Lloyd was brought to Judge Hauteville's room in the Palais de Justice. He was told to sit down on a chair beside Maitre Pleindeaux. A patient secretary sat at his desk, a formidable guard stood before the door with a saber sword in his belt. Then the examination began.

So far Kittredge had heard the voice of justice only in mild and polite questioning, now he was to hear the ring of it in accusation, in rapid, ma.s.sed accusation that was to make him feel the crus.h.i.+ng power of the state and the hopelessness of any puny lying.

"Kittredge," began the judge, "you have denied all knowledge of this crime.

Look at this pistol and tell me if you have ever seen it before." He offered the pistol to Lloyd's manacled hands. Maitre Pleindeaux took it with a frown of surprise.

"Excuse me, your honor," he bowed, "I would like to speak to my client before he answers that question."

But Kittredge waved him aside. "What's the use," he said. "That is my pistol; I know it; there's no doubt about it."

"Ah!" exclaimed Hauteville. "It is also the pistol that killed Martinez. It was thrown from private room Number Seven at the Ansonia. A woman saw it thrown, and it was picked up in a neighboring courtyard. One ball was missing, and that ball was found in the body."

"There's some mistake," objected Pleindeaux with professional asperity, at the same time flas.h.i.+ng a wrathful look at Lloyd that said plainly: "You see what you have done!"

"Now," continued the judge, "you say you have never been in the alleyway that we showed you at the Ansonia. Look at these boots. Do you recognize them?"

Kittredge examined the boots carefully and then said frankly to the judge: "I thank they are mine."

"You wore them to the Ansonia on the night of the crime?"

"I think so."

"Aren't you sure?"

"Not absolutely sure, because I have three pairs exactly alike. I always keep three pairs going at the same time; they last longer that way."

"I will tell you, then, that this is the pair you had on when you were arrested."

"Then it's the pair I wore to the Ansonia."

"You didn't change your boots after leaving the Ansonia?"

"No."

"Kittredge," said the judge severely, "the man who shot Martinez escaped by the alleyway and left his footprints on the soft earth. We have made plaster casts of them. There they are; our experts have examined them and find that they correspond in every particular with the soles of these boots. What do you say to this?"

Lloyd listened in a daze. "I don't see how it's possible," he answered.

"You still deny having been in the alleyway?"

"Absolutely."

"I pa.s.s to another point," resumed Hauteville, who was now striding back and forth with quick turns and sudden stops, his favorite manner of attack.

"You say you had no quarrel with Martinez?"