The Gold Bag Part 43

Gregory Hall looked at him as if fascinated. What revelation was this man about to make?

"Mr. Hall," Fleming Stone began, "I've no intention of forcing your secret from you. But I shall ask you some questions, and you may do as you like about answering them. First, you refuse to tell where you were during the night last Tuesday. I take it, you mean you refuse to tell how or where you spent the evening. Now, will you tell us where you lodged that night?"

"I fail to see any reason for telling you," answered Hall, after a moment's thought. "I have said I was in New York City, that is enough."

"The reason you may as well tell us," went on Mr. Stone, "is because it is a very simple matter for us to find out. You doubtless were at some hotel, and you went there because you could not get a room at your club. In fact, this was stated when the coroner telephoned for you, the morning after the murder. I mean, it was stated that the club bed-rooms were all occupied. I a.s.sume, therefore, that you lodged at some hotel, and, as a canva.s.s of the city hotels would be a simple matter, you may as well save us that trouble."

"Oh, very well," said Gregory Hall sullenly; "then I did spend the night at a hotel. It was the Metropolis Hotel, and you will find my name duly on the register."

"I have no doubt of it," said Stone pleasantly. "Now that you have told us this, have you any objection to telling us at what time you returned to the hotel, after your evening's occupation, whatever it may have been?"

"Eh?" said Hall abstractedly. He turned his head as he spoke, and Fleming Stone threw me a quizzical smile which I didn't in the least understand.

"You may as well tell us," said Stone, after he had repeated his question, "for if you withhold it, the night clerk can give us this information."

"Well," said Hall, who now looked distinctly sulky, "I don't remember exactly, but I think I turned in somewhere between twelve and one o'clock."

"And as it was a late hour, you slept rather late next morning,"

suggested Stone.

"Oh, I don't know. I was at Mr. Crawford's New York office by half-past ten."

"A strange coincidence, Burroughs," said Fleming Stone, turning to me.

"Eh? Beg pardon?" said Hall, turning his head also.

"Mr. Hall," said Stone, suddenly facing him again, "are you deaf? Why do you ask to have remarks repeated?"

Hall looked slightly apologetic. "I am a little deaf," he said; "but only in one ear. And only at times--or, rather, it's worse at times. If I have a cold, for instance."

"Or in damp weather?" said Stone. "Mr. Hall, I have questioned you enough. I will now tell these gentlemen, since you refuse to do so, where you were on the night of Mr. Crawford's murder. You were not in West Sedgwick, or near it. You are absolutely innocent of the crime or any part in it."

Gregory Hall straightened up perceptibly, like a man exonerated from all blame. But he quailed again, as Fleming Stone, looking straight at him, continued: "You left West Sedgwick at six that evening, as you have said. You registered at the Metropolis Hotel, after learning that you could not get a room at your club. And then--you went over to Brooklyn to meet, or to call on, a young woman living in that borough. You took her back to New York to the theatre or some such entertainment, and afterward escorted her back to her home. The young woman wore a street costume, by which I mean a cloth gown without a train. You did not have a cab, but, after leaving the car, you walked for a rather long distance in Brooklyn. It was raining, and you were both under one umbrella. Am I correct, so far?"

At last Gregory Hall's calm was disturbed. He looked at Fleming Stone as at a supernatural being. And small wonder. For the truth of Stone's statements was evident from Hall's amazement at them.

"You--you saw us!" he gasped.

"No, I didn't see you; it is merely a matter of observation, deduction, and memory. You recollect the muddy shoes?" he added, turning to me.

Did I recollect! Well, rather! And it certainly was a coincidence that we had chanced to examine those shoes that morning at the hotel.

As for Mr. Randolph and the district attorney, they were quite as much surprised as Hall.

"Can you prove this astonis.h.i.+ng story, Mr. Stone?" asked Mr. Goodrich, with an incredulous look.

"Oh, yes, in lots of ways," returned Stone. "For one thing, Mr. Hall has in his pocket now a letter from the young lady. The whole matter is of no great importance except as it proves Mr. Hall was not in West Sedgwick that night, and so is not the murderer."

"But why conceal so simple a matter? Why refuse to tell of the episode?"

asked Mr. Randolph.

"Because," and now Fleming Stone looked at Hall with accusation in his glance--"because Mr. Hall is very anxious that his fiancee shall not know of his attentions to the young lady in Brooklyn."

"O-ho!" said Mr. Goodrich, with sudden enlightenment. "I see it all now.

Is it the truth, Mr. Hall? Did you go to Brooklyn and back that night, as Mr. Stone has described?"

Gregory Hall fidgeted in an embarra.s.sed way. But, unable to escape the piercing gaze of Stone's eyes, he admitted grudgingly that the detective had told the truth, adding, "But it's wizardry, that's what it is! How could he know?"

"I had reason for suspicion," said Stone; "and when I found you were deaf in your right ear, and that you had in your pocket a letter addressed in a feminine hand, and postmarked 'Brooklyn,' I was sure."

"It's all true," said Hall slowly. "You have the facts all right. But, unless you have had me shadowed, will you tell me how you knew it all?"

And then Fleming Stone told of his observations and deductions when we noticed the muddied shoes at the Metropolis Hotel that morning.

"But," he said, as he concluded, "when I hastily adjudged the young lady to be deaf in the left ear, I see now I was mistaken. As soon as I realized Mr. Hall himself is deaf in the right ear, especially so in damp or wet weather, I saw that it fitted the case as well as if the lady had been deaf in her left ear. Then a note in his pocket from a lady in Brooklyn made me quite sure I was right."

"But, Mr. Stone," said Lawyer Randolph, "it is very astonis.h.i.+ng that you should make those deductions from those shoes, and then come out here and meet the owner of the shoes."

"It seems more remarkable than it really is, Mr. Randolph," was the response; "for I am continually observing whatever comes to my notice.

Hundreds of my deductions are never verified, or even thought of again; so it is not so strange that now and then one should prove of use in my work."

"Well," said the district attorney, "it seems wonderful to me. But now that Mr. Hall has proved his alibi, or, rather, Mr. Stone has proved it for him, we must begin anew our search for the real criminal."

"One moment," said Gregory Hall. "As you know, gentlemen, I endeavored to keep this little matter of my going to Brooklyn a secret. As it has no possible bearing on the case of Mr. Crawford, may I ask of you to respect my desire that you say nothing about it?"

"For my part," said the district attorney, "I am quite willing to grant Mr. Hall's request. I have put him to unnecessary trouble and embarra.s.sment by having him arrested, and I shall be glad to do him this favor that he asks, by way of amends."

But Mr. Randolph seemed reluctant to make the required promise, and Fleming Stone looked at Hall, and said nothing.

Then I spoke out, and, perhaps with scant courtesy, I said:

"I, for one, refuse to keep this revelation a secret. It was discovered by the detective engaged by Miss Lloyd. Therefore, I think Miss Lloyd is ent.i.tled to the knowledge we have thus gained."

Mr. Randolph looked at me with approval. He was a good friend of Florence Lloyd, and he was of no mind to hide from her something which it might be better for her to know.

Gregory Hall set his lips together in a way which argued no pleasant feelings toward me, but he said nothing then. He was forthwith released from custody, and the rest of us separated; having arranged to meet that evening at Miss Lloyd's home to discuss matters.

XXI. THE DISCLOSURE

Except the half-hour required for a hasty dinner, Fleming Stone devoted the intervening time to looking over the reports of the coroner's inquest, and in asking me questions about all the people who were connected with the affair.

"Burroughs," he said at last, "every one who is interested in Joseph Crawford's death has suspected Gregory Hall, except one person. Not everybody said they suspected him, but they did, all the same. Even Miss Lloyd wasn't sure that Hall wasn't the criminal. Now, there's just one person who declares that Hall did not do it, and that he is not implicated. Why should this person feel so sure of Hall's innocence?

And, furthermore, my boy, here are a few more important questions. In which drawer of the desk was the revolver kept?"