The Just and the Unjust Part 24

"Oh, come, Moxlow, you can't play the sleuth,--that was afterward, you know it was!"

"Afterward--"

"Yes, just as I was starting for the general's place, fully an hour later."

"In the meantime you had been where--"

"From McBride's store I went to my rooms. I remained there until it was time to start for the Herberts', and as I intended to walk out I started earlier than I otherwise should have done."

"Then you were coming from your rooms when you met Shrimplin?"

"Yes, it was just six o'clock when I stopped to speak to him."

"Shrimplin was the only person you met as you crossed the Square?"

"As far as I can remember now, I saw no one but Shrimp."

"And just where did you meet him, North?" asked Moxlow.

"On the corner, near McBride's store."

"Do you know whether he had just driven into the Square or not?"

"No, I, don't know that; it was snowing hard and I came upon him suddenly."

"You continued on your way out of town after speaking with him, North?"

"Yes."

"And later, at eleven o'clock, as you were returning to town you met a stranger, probably a countryman, you say, who told you that McBride had been murdered?"

"Yes, you have that all straight."

"On your return to town you went where?"

"To my rooms again and finished packing."

"Did that take you two hours?"

"No, but I had a lot of things to see to there."

"What?" asked Moxlow.

"Oh, papers to destroy, and things of that sort that kept me pretty busy until train-time."

"You walked to the depot?"

"Yes, I was too late for the hotel bus; in fact, I barely caught the train. I just had time to jump aboard as it pulled out."

"Excuse me a moment, North!" said Moxlow as he rose from his chair.

He quitted the room and North heard him pa.s.s down the hall.

"It's a bad business," said Taylor.

"And you haven't a suspicion as to the guilty man?"

"No, as Moxlow says, we haven't a clue to go on. It's incredible though, isn't it, that a crime like that could have been committed here almost in broad daylight, and its perpetrator get away without leaving a trace behind?"

"It _is_ incredible," agreed North, and they lapsed into silence.

North thought of Elizabeth. He would slip out to Idle Hour that afternoon or evening; he couldn't leave Mount Hope without seeing her.

The coroner drummed on his desk; he wondered what had taken Moxlow from the room in such haste. The prosecuting attorney's brisk step sounded in the hall again, and he reentered the room and resumed his chair.

"Just one or two more questions, North, and then I guess we'll have to let you go," he said. "You have been on very friendly terms with the murdered man for some time, have you not?"

"He was very kind to me on numerous occasions."

"In a business way, perhaps?"

"Largely in a business way, yes."

"It--pardon me--usually had to do with raising money, had it not?"

North laughed.

"It had."

"You were familiar with certain little peculiarities of his, were you not, his mistrust of banks for instance?"

"Yes, he had very little confidence in banks, judging from what he said of them."

"Did he ever tell you that he had large sums of money hidden away about the store?"

"Never."

"But always when you had business dealings with him he gave you the ready money, very rarely a check?"

"Never in all my experience a check, always the cash."

"Yet the sums involved were usually considerable?"

"In one or two instances they reached a thousand dollars, if you call that considerable."

"And he always had the money on hand?"

"Well, I can't quite say that; it always involved a preliminary discussion of the transaction; I had to see him and tell him what I wanted and then go again after the money. It was as if he wished me to think he did not keep any large sum about him at the store."

"Did he ever, in talking with you, express any apprehension of robbery or violence?"