Kitabı oku: «The Gold Bag», sayfa 7
XI. LOUIS’S STORY
After spending an evening in thinking over the situation and piecing together my clues, I decided that the next thing to be done was to trace up that transfer. If I could fasten that upon Gregory Hall, it would indeed be a starting point to work from. Although this seemed to eliminate Mrs. Purvis, who had already become a living entity in my mind, I still had haunting suspicions of Hall; and then, too, there was a possibility of collusion between these two. It might be fanciful, but if Hall and the Purvis woman were both implicated, Hall was quite enough a clever villain to treat the photograph lightly as he had done.
And so the next morning, I started for the office of the trolley car company.
I learned without difficulty that the transfer I had found, must have been given to some passenger the night of Mr. Crawford’s death, but was not used. It had been issued after nine o’clock in the evening, somewhere on the line between New York and West Sedgwick. It was a transfer which entitled a passenger on that line to a trip on the branch line running through West Sedgwick, and the fact that it had not been used, implied either a negligent conductor or a decision on the part of the passenger not to take his intended ride.
All this was plausible, though a far from definite indication that Hall might have come out from New York by trolley, or part way by trolley, and though accepting a transfer on the West Sedgwick branch, had concluded not to use it. But the whole theory pointed equally as well to Mrs. Purvis, or indeed to the unknown intruder insisted upon by so many. I endeavored to learn something from certain conductors who brought their cars into West Sedgwick late at night, but it seemed they carried a great many passengers and of course could not identify a transfer, of which scores of duplicates had been issued.
Without much hope I interviewed the conductors of the West Sedgwick Branch Line. Though I could learn nothing definite, I fell into conversation with one of them, a young Irishman, who was interested because of my connection with the mystery.
“No, sir,” he said, “I can’t tell you anythin’ about a stray transfer. But one thing I can tell you. That ‘ere murder was committed of a Toosday night, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” I returned.
“Well, that ‘ere parlyvoo vally of Mr. Crawford’s, he’s rid, on my car ‘most every Toosday night fer weeks and weeks. It’s his night off. And last Toosday night he didn’t ride with me. Now I don’t know’s that means anything, but agin it might.”
It didn’t seem to me that it meant much, for certainly Louis was not under the slightest suspicion. And yet as I came to think about it, if that had been Louis’s transfer and if he had dropped it near the office veranda, he had lied when he said that he went round the other side of the house to reach the back entrance.
It was all very vague, but it narrowed itself down to the point that if that were Louis’s transfer it could be proved; and if not it must be investigated further. For a trolley transfer, issued at a definite hour, and dropped just outside the scene of the crime was certainly a clue of importance.
I proceeded to the Crawford house, and though I intended to have a talk with Louis later, I asked first for Miss Lloyd. Surely, if I were to carry on my investigation of the case, in her interests, I must have a talk with her. I had not intruded before, but now that the funeral was over, the real work of tracking the criminal must be commenced, and as one of the principal characters in the sad drama, Miss Lloyd must play her part.
Until I found myself in her presence I had not actually realized how much I wanted this interview.
I was sure that what she said, her manner and her facial expression, must either blot out or strengthen whatever shreds of suspicion I held against her.
“Miss Lloyd,” I began, “I am, as you know, a detective; and I am here in Sedgwick for the purpose of discovering the cowardly assassin of your uncle. I assume that you wish to aid me in any way you can. Am I right in this?”
Instead of the unhesitating affirmative I had expected, the girl spoke irresolutely. “Yes,” she said, “but I fear I cannot help you, as I know nothing about it.”
The fact that this reply did not sound to me as a rebuff, for which it was doubtless intended, I can only account for by my growing appreciation of her wonderful beauty.
Instead of funereal black, Miss Lloyd was clad all in white, and her simple wool gown gave her a statuesque appearance; which, however, was contradicted by the pathetic weariness in her face and the sad droop of her lovely mouth. Her helplessness appealed to me, and, though she assumed an air of composure, I well knew it was only assumed, and that with some difficulty.
Resolving to make it as easy as possible for her, I did not ask her to repeat the main facts, which I already knew.
“Then, Miss Lloyd,” I said, in response to her disclaimer, “if you cannot help me, perhaps I can help you. I have reason to think that possibly Louis, your late uncle’s valet, did not tell the truth in his testimony at the coroner’s inquest. I have reason to think that instead of going around the house to the back entrance as he described, he went around the other side, thus passing your uncle’s office.”
To my surprise this information affected Miss Lloyd much more seriously than I supposed it would.
“What?” she said, and her voice was a frightened whisper. “What time did he come home?”
“I don’t know,” I replied; “but you surely don’t suspect Louis of anything wrong. I was merely hoping, that if he did pass the office he might have looked in, and so could tell us of your uncle’s well-being at that time.”
“At what time?”
“At whatever time he returned home. Presumably rather late. But since you are interested in the matter, will you not call Louis and let us question him together?”
The girl fairly shuddered at this suggestion. She hesitated, and for a moment was unable to speak. Of course this behavior on her part filled my soul with awful apprehension. Could it be possible that she and Louis were in collusion, and that she dreaded the Frenchman’s disclosures? I remembered the strange looks he had cast at her while being questioned by the coroner. I remembered his vehement denial of having passed the office that evening,—too vehement, it now seemed to me. However, if I were to learn anything damaging to Florence Lloyd’s integrity, I would rather learn it now, in her presence, than elsewhere. So I again asked her to send for the valet.
With a despairing look, as of one forced to meet an impending fate, she rose, crossed the room and rang a bell. Then she returned to her seat and said quietly, “You may ask the man such questions as you wish, Mr. Burroughs, but I beg you will not include me in the conversation.”
“Not unless it should be necessary,” I replied coldly, for I did not at all like her making this stipulation. To me it savored of a sort of cowardice, or at least a presumption on my own chivalry.
When the man appeared, I saw at a glance he was quite as much agitated as Miss Lloyd. There was no longer a possibility of a doubt that these two knew something, had some secret in common, which bore directly on the case, and which must be exposed. A sudden hope flashed into my mind that it might be only some trifling secret, which seemed of importance to them, but which was merely a side issue of the great question.
I considered myself justified in taking advantage of the man’s perturbation, and without preliminary speech I drew the transfer from my pocket and fairly flashed it in his face.
“Louis,” I said sternly, “you dropped this transfer when you came home the night of Mr. Crawford’s death.”
The suddenness of my remark had the effect I desired, and fairly frightened the truth out of the man.
“Y-yes, sir,” he stammered, and then with a frightened glance at Miss Lloyd, he stood nervously interlacing his fingers.
I glanced at Miss Lloyd myself, but she had regained entire self-possession, and sat looking straight before her with an air that seemed to say, “Go on, I’m prepared for the worst.”
As I paused myself to contemplate the attitudes of the two, I lost my ground of vantage, for when I again spoke to the man, he too was more composed and ready to reply with caution. Doubtless he was influenced by Miss Lloyd’s demeanor, for he imitatively assumed a receptive air.
“Where did you get the transfer?” I went on.
“On the trolley, sir; the main line.”
“To be used on the Branch Line through West Sedgwick?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why did you not use it?”
“As I tell you, sir, and as I tell monsieur, the coroner, I have spend that evening with a young lady. We went for a trolley ride, and as we returned I take a transfer for myself, but not for her, as she live near where we alight.”
“Oh, you left the main line and took the young lady home, intending then yourself to come by trolley through West Sedgwick?”
“Yes, sir; it was just that way.”
At this point Louis seemed to forget his embarrassment, his gaze strayed away, and a happy expression came into his eyes. I felt sure I was reading his volatile French nature aright, when I assumed his mind had turned back to the pleasant evening he had spent with his young lady acquaintance. Somehow this went far to convince me of the fellow’s innocence for it was quite evident the murder and its mystery were not uppermost in his thoughts at that moment. But my next question brought him beck to realization of the present situation.
“And why didn’t you use your transfer?”
“Only that the night, he was so pleasant, I desired to walk.”
“And so you walked through the village, holding, perhaps, the transfer in your hand?”
“I think, yes; but I do not remember the transfer in my hand, though he may have been there.”
And now the man’s unquiet had returned. His lips twitched and his dark eyes rolled about, as he endeavored in vain to look anywhere but at Miss Lloyd. She, too, was controlling herself by a visible effort.
Anxious to bring the matter to a crisis, I said at once, and directly:
“And then you entered the gates of this place, you walked to the house, you walked around the house to the back by way of the path which leads around by the library veranda, and you accidentally dropped your transfer near the veranda step.”
I spoke quietly enough, but Louis immediately burst into voluble denial.
“No, no!” he exclaimed; “I do not go round by the office, I go the other side of the house. I have tell you so many times.”
“But I myself picked up your transfer near the office veranda.”
“Then he blow there. The wind blow that night, oh, something fearful! He blow the paper around the house, I think.”
“I don’t think so,” I retorted; “I think you went around the house that way, I think you paused at the office window—”
Just here I made a dramatic pause myself, hoping thus to appeal to the emotional nature of my victim. And I succeeded. Louis almost shrieked as he pressed his hands against his eyes, and cried out: “No! no! I tell you I did not go round that way! I go round the other way, and the wind—the wind, he blow my transfer all about!”
I tried a more quiet manner, I tried persuasive arguments, I finally resorted to severity and even threats, but no admission could I get from Louis, except that he had not gone round the house by way of the office. I was positive the man was lying, and I was equally positive that Miss Lloyd knew he was lying, and that she knew why, but the matter seemed to me at a deadlock. I could have questioned her, but I preferred to do that when Louis was not present. If she must suffer ignominy it need not be before a servant. So I dismissed Louis, perhaps rather curtly, and turning to Miss Lloyd, I asked her if she believed his assertion that he did not pass by the office that night.
“I don’t know what I believe,” she answered, wearily drawing her hand across her brow. “And I can’t see that it matters anyway. Supposing he did go by the office, you certainly don’t suspect him of my uncle’s murder, do you?”
“It is my duty, Miss Lloyd,” I said gently, for the girl was pitiably nervous, “to get the testimony of any one who was in or near the office that night. But of course testimony is useless unless it is true.”
I looked her straight in the eyes as I said this, for I was thoroughly convinced that her own testimony at the inquest had not been entirely true.
I think she understood my glance, for she arose at once, and said with extreme dignity: “I cannot see any necessity for prolonging this interview, Mr. Burroughs. It is of course your work to discover the truth or falsity of Louis’s story, but I cannot see that it in any way implicates or even interests me.”
The girl was superb. Her beauty was enhanced by the sudden spirit she showed, and her flashing dark eyes suggested a baited animal at bay. Apparently she had reached the limit of her endurance, and was unwilling to be questioned further or drawn into further admissions. And yet, some inexplicable idea came to me that she was angry, not with me, but with the tangle in which I had remorselessly enmeshed her. Of a high order of intelligence, she knew perfectly well that I was conscious of the fact that there was a secret of some sort between her and the valet. Her haughty disdain, I felt sure, was to convey the impression that though there might be a secret between them, it was no collusion or working together, and that though her understanding with the man was mysterious, it was in no way beneath her dignity. Her imperious air as she quietly left the room thrilled me anew, and I began to think that a woman who could assume the haughty demeanor of an empress might have chosen, as empresses had done before her, to commit crime.
However, she went away, and the dark and stately library seemed to have lost its only spot of light and charm. I sat for a few minutes pondering over it all, when I saw passing through the hall, the maid, Elsa. It suddenly occurred to me, that having failed with the mistress of the house, I might succeed better with her maid, so I called the girl in.
She came willingly enough, and though she seemed timid, she was not embarrassed or afraid.
“I’m in authority here,” I said, “and I’m going to ask you some questions, which you must answer truthfully.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, without any show of interest.
“Have you been with Miss Lloyd long?”
“Yes, sir; about four years, sir.”
“Is she a kind mistress?”
“Indeed she is, sir. She is the loveliest lady I ever worked for. I’d do anything for Miss Lloyd, that I would.”
“Well, perhaps you can best serve her by telling all you know about the events of Tuesday night.”
“But I don’t know anything, sir,” and Elsa’s eyes opened wide in absolutely unfeigned wonderment.
“Nothing about the actual murder; no, of course not. But I just want you to tell me a few things about some minor matters. Did you take the yellow flowers from the box that was sent to Miss Lloyd?”
“Yes, sir; I always untie her parcels. And as she was at dinner, I arranged the flowers in a vase of water.”
“How many flowers were there?”
For some reason this simple query disturbed the girl greatly. She flushed scarlet, and then she turned pale. She twisted the corner of her apron in her nervous fingers, and then said, only half audibly, “I don’t know, sir.”
“Oh, yes, you do, Elsa,” I said in kindly tones, being anxious not to frighten her; “tell me how many there were. Were there not a dozen?”
“I don’t know, sir; truly I don’t. I didn’t count them at all.”
It was impossible to disbelieve her; she was plainly telling the truth. And, too, why should she count the roses? The natural thing would be not to count them, but merely to put them in the vase as she had said. And yet, there was something about those flowers that Elsa knew and wouldn’t tell. Could it be that I was on the track of that missing twelfth rose? I knew, though perhaps Elsa did not, how many roses the florist had sent in that box. And unless Gregory Hall had abstracted one at the time of his purchase, the twelfth rose had been taken by some one else after the flowers reached the Crawford House. Could it have been Elsa, and was her perturbation only because of a guilty conscience over a petty theft of a flower? But I realized I must question her adroitly if I would find out these things.
“Is Miss Lloyd fond of flowers?” I asked, casually.
“Oh, yes, sir, she always has some by her.”
“And do you love flowers too, Elsa?”
“Yes, sir.” But the quietly spoken answer, accompanied by a natural and straightforward look promised little for my new theory.
“Does Miss Lloyd sometimes give you some of her flowers?”
“Oh, yes, sir, quite often.”
“That is, if she’s there when they arrive. But if she isn’t there, and you open the box yourself, she wouldn’t mind if you took one or two blossoms, would she?”
“Oh, no, sir, she wouldn’t mind. Miss Lloyd’s awful kind about such things. But I wouldn’t often do it, sir.”
“No; of course not. But you did happen to take one of those yellow roses, didn’t you, though?”
I breathlessly awaited the answer, but to my surprise, instead of embarrassment the girl’s eyes flashed with anger, though she answered quietly enough, “Well, yes, I did, sir.”
Ah, at last I was on the trail of that twelfth rose! But from the frank way in which the girl admitted having taken the flower, I greatly feared that the trail would lead to a commonplace ending.
“What did you do with it?” I said quietly, endeavoring to make the question sound of little importance.
“I don’t want to tell you;” and the pout on her scarlet lips seemed more like that of a wilful child than of one guarding a guilty secret.
“Oh, yes, tell me, Elsa;” and I even descended to a coaxing tone, to win the girl’s confidence.
“Well, I gave it to that Louis.”
“To Louis? and why do you call him that Louis?”
“Oh, because. I gave him the flower to wear because I thought he was going to take me out that evening. He had promised he would, at least he had sort of promised, and then,—and then—”
“And then he took another young lady,” I finished for her in tones of such sympathy and indignation that she seemed to think she had found a friend.
“Yes,” she said, “he went and took another girl riding on the trolley, after he had said he would take me.”
“Elsa,” I said suddenly, and I fear she thought I had lost interest in her broken heart, “did Louis wear that rose you gave him that night?”
“Yes, the horrid man! I saw it in his coat when he went away.”
“And did he wear it home again?”
“How should I know?” Elsa tossed her head with what was meant to be a haughty air, but which was belied by the blush that mantled her cheek at her own prevarication.
“But you do know,” I insisted, gently; “did he wear it when he came home?”
“Yes, he did.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I looked in his room the next day, and I saw it there all withered. He had thrown it on the floor!”
The tragedy in Elsa’s eyes at this awful relation of the cruelty of the sterner sex called for a spoken sympathy, and I said at once, and heartily: “That was horrid of him! If I were you I’d never give him another flower.”
In accordance with the natural impulses of her sex, Elsa seemed pleased at my disapproval of Louis’s behavior, but she by no means looked as if she would never again bestow her favor upon him. She smiled and tossed her head, and seemed willing enough for further conversation, but for the moment I felt that I had enough food for thought. So I dismissed Elsa, having first admonished her not to repeat our conversation to any one. In order to make sure that I should be obeyed in this matter, I threatened her with some unknown terrors which the law would bring upon her if she disobeyed me. When I felt sure she was thoroughly frightened into secrecy concerning our interview, I sent her away and began to cogitate on what she had told me.
If Louis came to the house late that night, as by his own admission he did; if he went around the house on the side of the office, as the straying transfer seemed to me to prove; and if, at the time, he was wearing in his coat a yellow rose with petals similar to those found on the office floor the next morning, was not one justified in looking more deeply into the record of Louis the valet?
