The Gold Bag Part 24

"Mr. Burroughs," she said, and there was almost a challenge in her tone, "why do you ask me these things? You are a detective, you are here to find out for yourself, not to ask others to find out. I am innocent of my uncle's death, of course, but when you cast suspicion on the man to whom I am betrothed, you cannot expect me to help you confirm that suspicion. You have made me think by your remark about a man on a late train that you refer to Mr. Hall. Do you?"

This was a change of base, indeed. I was being questioned instead of doing the catechising myself. Very well; if it were my lady's will to challenge me, I would meet her on her own ground.

"You took the hint very quickly," I said. "Had you thought of such a possibility before?"

"No, nor do I now. I will not." Again she was the offended queen. "But since you have breathed the suggestion, you may not count on any help from me."

"Could you have helped me otherwise?" I said, detaining her as she swept by.

To this she made no answer, but again her face wore a troubled expression, and as she went slowly from the room, she left me with a strong conviction that she knew far more about Gregory Hall's connection with the matter than she had told me.

I sat alone for a few moments wondering what I had better do next.

I had about decided to go in search of Parmalee, and talk things over with him, but I thought it would be better to see Louis first, and settle up the matter of his rose more definitely. Accordingly I rang the bell, and when the parlor maid answered it, I asked her to send both Louis and Elsa to me in the library.

I could see at once that these two were not friendly toward each other, and I hoped this fact would aid me in learning the truth from them.

"Now, Louis," I began, "you may as well tell me the truth about your home coming last Tuesday night. In the first place, you must admit that you were wearing in your coat one of the yellow roses which had been sent to Miss Lloyd."

"No, no, indeed!" declared Louis, giving Elsa a threatening glance, as if forbidding her to contradict him.

"Nonsense, man," I said; "don't stand there and tell useless lies. It will not help you. The best thing you can do for yourself and for all concerned is to tell the truth. And, moreover, if you don't tell it to me now, you will have to tell it to Mr. Goodrich, later. Elsa gave you a yellow rose and you wore it away that evening when you went to see your young lady. Now what became of that rose?"

"I--I lost it, sir."

"No, you didn't lose it. You wore it home again, and when you retired, you threw it on the floor, in your own room."

"No, sir. You make mistake. I look for him next day in my room, but cannot find him."

I almost laughed at the man's ingenuousness. He contradicted his own story so unconsciously, that I began to think he was more of a simpleton than a villain.

"Of course you couldn't find it," I informed him, "for it was taken from your room next day; and of course you didn't look for it until after you had heard yellow roses discussed at the inquest."

Louis's easily read face proved my statement correct, but he glowered at Elsa, as he said: "Who take him away? who take my rose from my room."

"But you denied having a rose, Louis. Now you're asking who took it away. Once again, let me advise you to tell the truth. You're not at all successful in telling falsehoods. Now answer me this: When you came home Tuesday night, did you or did you not walk around the house past the office window?"

"No, sir. I walked around the other side. I--"

"Stop, Louis! You're not telling the truth. You did walk around by the office, and you dropped your transfer there. It never blew all around the house, as you have said it did."

A look of dogged obstinacy came into the man's eyes, but he did not look at me. He s.h.i.+fted his gaze uneasily, as he repeated almost in a singsong way, "go round the other side of the house."

It was a sort of deadlock. Without a witness to the fact, I could not prove that he had gone by the office windows, though I was sure he had.

But help came from an unexpected quarter.

Elsa had been very quiet during the foregoing conversation, but now she spoke up suddenly, and said: "He did go round by the office, Mr.

Burroughs, and I saw him."

I half expected to see Louis turn on the girl in a rage, but the effect of her speech on him was quite the reverse. He almost collapsed; he trembled and turned white, and though he tried to speak, he made no sound. Surely this man was too cowardly for a criminal; but I must learn the secret of his knowledge.

"Tell me about it, Elsa," I said, quietly.

"I was looking out at my window, sir, at the back of the house; and I saw Louis come around the house, and he came around by the office side."

"You're positive of this, Elsa? you would swear to it? Remember, you are making an important a.s.sertion."

"I am telling the truth, sir. I saw him plainly as he came around and entered at the back door."

"You hear, Louis?" I said sternly. "I believe Elsa's statement rather than yours, for she tells a straight story, while you are rattled and agitated, and have all the appearance of concealing something."

Louis looked helpless. He didn't dare deny Elsa's story, but he would not confirm it. At last he said, with a glance of hatred at the girl, "Elsa, she tell that story to make the trouble for me."

There was something in this. Elsa, I knew, was jealous, and her pride had been hurt because Louis had taken the rose she gave him, and then had gone to call on another girl. But I had no reason to doubt Elsa's statement, and I had every reason to doubt Louis's. I tried to imagine what Louis's experience had really been, and it suddenly occurred to me, that though innocent himself of real wrong, he had seen something in the office, or through the office windows that he wished to keep secret. I did not for a moment believe that the man had killed his master, so I concluded he was endeavoring to s.h.i.+eld someone else.

"Louis," I said, suddenly, "I'll tell you what you did. You went around by the office, you saw a light there late at night, and you naturally looked in. You saw Mr. Crawford there, and he was perhaps already killed. You stepped inside and discovered this, and then you came away, and said nothing about it, lest you yourself be suspected of the crime.

Incidentally you dropped two petals from the rose Elsa had given you."

Louis's answer to this accusation was a perfect storm of denials, expressed in voluble French and broken English, but all to the effect that it was not true, and that if he had seen his master dead, he would have raised an alarm.

I saw that I had not yet struck the right idea, so I tried again. "Then, Louis, you must have pa.s.sed the office before Mr. Crawford was killed, which is really more probable. Then as you pa.s.sed the window, you saw something or someone in the office, and you're not willing to tell about it. Is this it?"

This again brought forth only incoherent denial, and I could see that the man was becoming so rattled, it was difficult for him to speak clearly, had he desired to do so.

"Elsa," I said, suddenly, "you took that rose from Louis's room. What did you do with it?"

"I kept,--I mean, I don't know what I did with it," stammered the girl, blus.h.i.+ng rosy red, and looking shyly at Louis.

I felt sorry to disclose the poor girl's little romance, for it was easy enough to see that she was in love with the fickle Frenchman, who evidently did not reciprocate her interest. He looked at her disdainfully, and she presented a pathetic picture of embarra.s.sment.

But the situation was too serious for me to consider Elsa's sentiments, and I said, rather sternly: "You do know where it is. You preserved that rose as a souvenir. Go at once and fetch it."

It was a chance shot, for I was not at all certain that she had kept the withered flower, but dominated by my superior will she went away at once. She returned in a moment with the flower.

Although withered, it was still in fairly good condition; quite enough so for me to see at a glance that no petals had been detached from it.

The green calyx leaves clung around the bud in such a manner as to prove positively that the unfolding flower had lost no petal. This settled the twelfth rose. Wherever those tell-tale petals had come from, they were not from Louis's rose. I gave the flower back to Elsa, and I said, "take your flower, my girl, and go away now. I don't want to question you any more for the present."

A little bewildered at her sudden dismissal, Elsa went away, and I turned my attention to the Frenchman.

"Louis," I began, "this must be settled here and now between us. Either you must tell me what I want to know, or you must be taken before the district attorney, and be made to tell him. I have proved to my own satisfaction that the rose petals in the office were not from the flower you wore. Therefore I conclude that you did not go into the office that night, but as you pa.s.sed the window you did see someone in there with Mr. Crawford. The hour was later than Mr. Porter's visit, for he had already gone home, and Lambert had locked the front door and gone to bed. You came in later, and what you saw, or whom you saw through the office window so surprised you, or interested you, that you paused to look in, and there you dropped your transfer."

Though Louis didn't speak, I could see at once that I was on the right track at last. The man was s.h.i.+elding somebody. He was unwilling to tell what he had seen, lest it inculpate someone. Could it be Gregory Hall?

If Hall had come out on a late train, and Louis had seen him there, he might, perhaps under Hall's coercion, be keeping the fact secret. Again, if a strange woman with the gold bag had been in the office, that also would have attracted Louis's attention. Again, and here my heart almost stopped beating, could he have seen Florence Lloyd in there? But a second thought put me at ease again. Surely to have seen Florence in there would have been so usual and natural a sight that it could not have caused him anxiety. And yet, again, for him to have seen Florence in her uncle's office, would have proved to him that the story she told at the inquest was false. I must get out of him the knowledge he possessed, if I had to resort to a sort of third degree. But I might manage it by adroit questioning.

"I quite understand, Louis, that you are s.h.i.+elding some person. But let me tell you that it is useless. It is much wiser for you to tell me all you know, and then I can go to work intelligently to find the man who murdered Mr. Crawford. You want me to find him, do you not?"

Louis seemed to have found his voice again. "Yes, sir, of course he must be found. Of course I want him found,--the miscreant, the villain! but, Mr. Burroughs, sir, what I have see in the office makes nothing to your search. I simply see Mr. Crawford alive and well. And I pa.s.s by. That fool girl Elsa, she tell you that I pa.s.s by, so I may say so. But I see nothing in the office to alarm me, and if I drop my transfer there, it is but because I think of him as no consequence, and I let him go."