The Holladay Case Part 5

"I'll be very glad to allow you to see her in private," he answered readily. "I regret greatly that we couldn't find you last night, so that you could have opportunity to prepare for this hearing. I feel that, in a way, we haven't been quite fair to you, though I don't see how delay could have altered matters, and, in a case of this kind, prompt action is important. I had no intention of placing Miss Holladay on the witness stand, so I thought it best to proceed at once with the inquest. You must admit, sir, that, as the case stands, there's only one course open to me."

"I fear so," a.s.sented the other sadly. "It's a most incomprehensible case. The chain of evidence seems absolutely complete, and yet I'm convinced--as every sane man must be--that there is in it some fatal flaw, which, once discovered, will send the whole structure tottering.

It must be my business to find that flaw."

"Strange things happen in this world, Mr. Royce," observed Singleton with a philosophy born of experience.

"The impossible never happens, sir!" retorted our junior. "I hope to show you that this belongs in that category."

"Well, I hope you will," said the district attorney. "I'd be glad to find that someone else is guilty."

"I'll do my best," and Mr. Royce turned to me. "Lester, you'd better go and get some lunch. You look quite done up."

"Shall I bring you something?" I asked. "Or, better still, have a meal ready for you in half an hour? Rotin's is just around the corner."

He would have refused, I think, had not the coroner interfered.

"You'd better go, Mr. Royce," he said. "You're looking done up yourself. Perhaps you can persuade Miss Holladay to eat something. I'm sure she needs it."

"Very well, then; have two meals ready in half an hour, Lester," he said, "and a lunch we can bring back with us. I'll go to Miss Holladay now, and then come direct to Rotin's."

He hurried away after the coroner, and I walked slowly over to Rotin's to give the necessary orders. I chose a table in a snug corner, picked up a paper, and tried to read. Its one great item of news was the Holladay case, and I grew hot with anger, as I saw how unquestioningly, how complacently, it accepted the theory of the daughter's guilt.

Still, I asked myself, was it to blame? Was anyone to blame for thinking her guilty after hearing the evidence? How could one escape it? Why, even I----

Preposterous! I tried to reason calmly; to find an opening in the net.

Yet, how complete it was! The only point we had gained, so far, was that the mysterious visitor had asked for Mr. Holladay, not for her father--and what an infinitesimal point it was! Supposing there had been a quarrel, an estrangement, would not she naturally have used those very words? After all, did not the black eyes, the full lips, the deep-colored cheeks bespeak a strong and virile temperament, depth of emotion, capacity for swift and violent anger? But what cause could there be for a quarrel so bitter, so fierce, that it should lead to such a tragedy? What cause? And then, suddenly, a wave of light broke in upon me. There could be only one--yes, but there _could_ be one!

Capacity for emotion meant capacity for pa.s.sion. If she had a lover, if she had clung to him despite her father! I knew his reputation for severity, for cold and relentless condemnation. Here was an explanation, certainly!

And then I shook myself together angrily. Here was I, reasoning along the theory of her guilt--trying to find a motive for it! I remembered her as I had seen her often, driving with her father; I recalled the many stories I had heard of their devotion; I reflected how her whole life, so far as I knew it, pointed to a nature singularly calm and self-controlled, charitable and loving. As to the lover theory, did not the light in her eyes which had greeted our junior disprove that, at once and forever? Certainly, there was some fatal flaw in the evidence, and it was for us to find it.

I leaned my head back against the wall with a little sigh of relief.

What a fool I had been! Of course, we should find it! Mr. Royce had spoken the words, the district attorney had pointed out the way. We had only to prove an alibi! And the next witness would do it. Her coachman had only to tell where he had driven her, at what places she had stopped, and the whole question would be settled. At the hour the crime was committed, she had doubtless been miles away from Wall Street! So the question would be settled--settled, too, without the necessity of Miss Holladay undergoing the unpleasant ordeal of cross-examination.

"It is a most extraor-rdinary affair," said a voice at my elbow, and I turned with a start to see that the chair just behind me had been taken by a man who was also reading an account of the crime. He laid the paper down, and caught my eye. "A most extraor-rdinary affair!" he repeated, appealing to me.

I nodded, merely glancing at him, too preoccupied to notice him closely. I got an impression of a florid face, of a stout, well-dressed body, of an air unmistakably French.

"You will pardon me, sir," he added, leaning a little forward. "As a stranger in this country, I am much inter-rested in your processes of law. This morning I was present at the trial--I per-rceived you there.

It seemed to me that the young lady was in--what you call--a tight place."

He spoke English very well, with an accent of the slightest. I glanced at him again, and saw that his eyes were very bright and that they were fixed upon me intently.

"It does seem so," I admitted, loth to talk, yet not wis.h.i.+ng to be discourteous.

"The ver' thing I said to myself!" he continued eagerly. "The--what you call--coe-encidence of the dress, now!"

I did not answer; I was in no humor to discuss the case.

"You will pardon me," he repeated persuasively, still leaning forward, "but concer-rning one point I should like much to know. If she is thought guilty what will occur?"

"She will be bound over to the grand jury," I explained.

"That is, she will be placed in prison?"

"Of course."

"But, as I understand your law, she may be released by bondsmen."

"Not in a capital case," I said; "not in a case of this kind, where the penalty may be death."

"Ah, I see," and he nodded slowly. "She would then not be again released until after she shall have been proved innocent. How great a time would that occupy?"

"I can't say--six months--a year, perhaps."

"Ah, I see," he said again, and drained a gla.s.s of absinthe he had been toying with. "Thank you, ver' much, sir."

He arose and went slowly out, and I noted the strength of his figure, the short neck----

The waiter came with bread and b.u.t.ter, and I realized suddenly that it was long past the half-hour. Indeed, a glance at my watch showed me that nearly an hour had gone. I waited fifteen minutes longer, ate what I could, and, taking a box-lunch under my arm, hurried back to the coroner's office. As I entered it, I saw a bowed figure sitting at the table, and my heart fell as I recognized our junior. His whole att.i.tude expressed a despair absolute, past redemption.

"I've brought your lunch, Mr. Royce," I said, with what lightness I could muster. "The proceedings will commence in half an hour--you'd better eat something," and I opened the box.

He looked at it for a moment, and then began mechanically to eat.

"You look regularly done up," I ventured. "Wouldn't I better get you a gla.s.s of brandy? That'll tone you up."

"All right," he a.s.sented listlessly, and I hurried away on the errand.

The brandy brought a little color back to his cheeks, and he began to eat with more interest.

"Must I order lunch for Miss Holladay?" I questioned.

"No," he said. "She said she didn't wish any."

He relapsed again into silence. Plainly, he had received some new blow during my absence.

"After all," I began, "you know we've only to prove an alibi to knock to pieces this whole house of cards."

"Yes, that's all," he agreed. "But suppose we can't do it, Lester?"

"Can't do it?" I faltered. "Do you mean----?"

"I mean that Miss Holladay positively refuses to say where she spent yesterday afternoon."

"Does she understand the--the necessity?" I asked.

"I pointed it out to her as clearly as I could. I'm all at sea, Lester."

Well, if even he were beginning to doubt, matters were indeed serious!