The Winning Clue Part 25

"Very well!" snorted Mowbray, rising like a jumping-jack. "Go--go to the North Pole if you wish. I'm through! I can't treat a man who defies my orders and advice. Good morning, sir."

Bristow gave him no answer, and he ran down the steps and threw himself into his car.

"Mistuh Bristow, Lucy's done come," said Mattie, at the living room door.

Bristow started to leave his chair, but changed his mind.

"Tell her to wait a few minutes," he said.

He began to think and to determine just what he wanted to find out from Lucy, what she would say and what he wanted her to say. It would not do to question her before he felt sure of what she knew and what she must confess. He rocked gently in his chair, going over several times the evidence he desired. His face was hard-set, almost like marble, as he stared at the mountains. He was thinking harder at that moment than he had done at any time since the murder.

He had it now. She had given Perry the key to the Withers kitchen--or, better still, Perry had taken it from her--and she remembered every detail of it, his departure from her house and his return with the key.

That was what she had to confess. Inevitably, he argued, that would be her story, or else she would have no story at all.

He thought of Braceway. He made now no secret of the fact that a struggle between himself and the Atlanta man was on--not openly, but thoroughly understood by both of them--a fight for supremacy, a contest in which he sought to convict Perry while Braceway worked for the conviction of Morley.

Braceway had the added incentive of wanting to run down the man who had destroyed his friend's home life; and Braceway believed that Morley and Morley's money entanglements had, in some way, caused the tragedy.

Well, he, Bristow, would see about that! He knew he had the best of the argument so far--and he looked forward to a double pleasure: the applause that would come to him as the result of Perry's conviction, and his own personal gratification at besting Braceway at his own game.

He went into the unused bedroom and told Mattie to send Lucy Thomas to him there. While he waited, he closed the two windows.

CHAPTER XIII

LUCY THOMAS TALKS

Lucy came slowly into the room and stood near the door. She was of the peculiar-looking negress type sometimes seen in the South--light of complexion, with hard, porcelain-like blue eyes and kinky hair which, instead of being black, is brown or brownish red. After her first startled glance toward Bristow she stood with her head lowered and with an expression of sulky stubbornness.

"Sit down!" he ordered after a few moments' silence, indicating a chair near the wall.

She took her seat while he stepped to the door and closed it.

"Now, Lucy," he said, pulling at his lower lip as he stood in the middle of the room and looked down at her, "I'm not going to hurt you, and there's nothing for you to be afraid of. All I want you to do is to tell me the truth."

In spite of his rea.s.suring words, the woman caught the full meaning of the goading sharpness in his voice. She immediately became more sullen.

"'Deed, I ain' got nothin' to tell 'bout you white folks," she said, with a touch of insolence.

"This isn't about white folks," he corrected her, resisting his quick impulse to anger. "It's about coloured folks."

"Nothin' 'bout dem neithuh," she continued in the same tone. "I don' know nothin' 'cep'n I wuz drunk. I done tole all dat down at de p'lice station."

"Listen to me!" he commanded, a little pale, "You know perfectly well what I want to find out. I want you to tell me everything you remember about Perry Carpenter's actions and words last Monday night--the night before last."

She raised and lowered her eyes rapidly, the lids working like the shutter of a camera.

"I knows what you wants, an' I knows I don' know nothin' 'tall 'bout it,"

she objected, her sullenness a patent defiance.

He stared at her for a full two minutes. She could hear the breath whistling between his teeth; the sound of it frightened her.

"Don't lie to me!" he said, now a trifle hoa.r.s.e. "It isn't necessary, and it doesn't do anybody any good--you or Perry either."

She began to whimper.

Looking at her, he was conscious of being absorbed in the attempt to keep his temper instead of eliciting what she had to tell. He smiled.

"Stop that sniffling, and tell me what you know about Monday night! Don't you remember that Perry told you he was going to Mrs. Withers' house and steal her jewelry?"

"I done tole you I don' remembuh nothin'."

He took a step toward her and lifted his open hand as if to strike her in the face. Without waiting for the blow, she slid from the chair and fell sprawling to the floor, where she lay, moaning.

"Get up!"

She obeyed him, her arms held folded over her head as a s.h.i.+eld against expected blows. She was still sullen, uncommunicative, her head down.

He limped swiftly to the door, left the room and went to the front part of the house. He paced the length of the living room several times, his fists clenched, his protuberant lip grown heavier.

He called to Mattie, who was in the kitchen.

"I wish," he directed, "you'd go down to Sterrett's and get a dozen oranges."

"Yes, suh. Right now, Mistuh Bristow?"

"Yes; hurry. I want some orangeade."

He returned to the bedroom and closed the door. Lucy was bent forward on the chair, moaning.

"Stop that!" he said, feeling now that he had himself and her under control. "If you don't stop, you'll have something real to sniffle about before I'm through with you! Now begin. What about Perry last Monday night?"

"Please, suh," she changed her tone, "lemme go. I ain' got nothin' to say. I feels like I might say somethin' dat ain' so. I'se kinder skeered you might make me say somethin' whut I don' mean to say."

Moving deliberately, a fine, little tremor in his fingers, he took off his coat and vest and hung them on the back of a chair. He had just noticed that it was warm and close in the shut-up room. There was a ringing in his ears. He kept repeating to himself that, if he lost his temper, she would never become communicative.

He began all over again, patient, persistent----

When Mattie came back with the oranges, she met Lucy just outside the kitchen door. There were no tears in the Thomas woman's eyes, but she seemed greatly distressed.

"Whut'd he want offen you?" Mattie asked, with the negro's usual curiosity.

"Nothin' much," replied the other, looking blankly out across Mattie's shoulder. "He jes' axed me whut I knowd 'bout Perry dat night."

"I tole you dar warn't nothin' to be skeered uv him foh," said Mattie.