I think Miss Lloyd was the instigator of the crime, and practically carried out its commission, but she may have had an a.s.sisting agent for the actual deed."
"Oh, how you talk! It quite gives me the shivers even to think of a beautiful young woman being capable of such thoughts or deeds."
"But, you see, Burroughs, that"s because you are prejudiced in favor of Miss Lloyd. Women are capable of crime as well as men, and sometimes they"re even more clever in the perpetration of it. And you must admit if ever a woman were capable of crime, Miss Lloyd is of that type."
"I have to agree to that, Parmalee," I admitted; "she certainly shows great strength of character."
"She shows more than that; she has indomitable will, unflinching courage, and lots of pluck. If, for any reason, she made up her mind to kill a man, she"d find a way to do it."
This talk made me cringe all over, but I couldn"t deny it, for so far as I knew Florence Lloyd, Parmalee"s words were quite true.
"All right," I said, "I"ll grant her capability, but that doesn"t prove a thing. I don"t believe that girl is guilty, and I hope to prove her innocence."
"But look at the evidence, man! She denied her presence in the room, yet we now know she was there. She denied the ownership of the gold bag, yet probably she was also untruthful in that matter. She is a woman of a complex nature, and though I admire her in many ways, I shouldn"t care to have much to do with her."
"Let us leave out the personal note, Parmalee," I said, for I was angry at his att.i.tude toward Florence.
"All right. Don"t you think for a moment that I don"t see where you stand with regard to the haughty beauty, but that"s neither here nor there."
"Indeed it isn"t," I returned; "and whatever may be my personal feeling toward Miss Lloyd, I can a.s.sure you it in no way influences my work on this case."
"I believe you, old man; and so I"m sure you will agree with me that we must follow up the inquiry as to Miss Lloyd"s presence in the office that night. She must be made to talk, and perhaps it would be best to tell Goodrich all about it, and let him push the matter."
"Oh, no," I cried involuntarily. "Don"t set him on the track of the poor girl. That is, Parmalee, let me talk to her again, first. Now that I know she was down there that night, I think I can question her in a little different manner, and persuade her to own the truth. And, Parmalee, perhaps she was down there because Hall was there."
"Hall! He was in New York."
"So he says, but why should he speak the truth any more than Miss Lloyd?"
"You, mean they may both be implicated?"
"Yes; or he may have used her as a tool."
"Not Florence Lloyd. She"s n.o.body"s tool."
"Any woman might be a tool at the command of the man she loves. But," I went on, with an air of conviction which was not entirely genuine, "Miss Lloyd doesn"t love Mr. Hall."
"I don"t know about that," returned Parmalee; "you can"t tell about a woman like Florence Lloyd. If she doesn"t love him, she"s at least putting up a bluff of doing so."
"I believe it is a bluff, though I"m sure I don"t know why she should do that."
"On the other hand, why shouldn"t she? For some reason she"s dead set on marrying him, ready to give up her fortune to do so, if necessary. He must have some sort of a pretty strong hold on her."
"I admit all that, and yet I can"t believe she loves him. He"s such a commonplace man."
"Commonplace doesn"t quite describe him. And yet Gregory Hall, with all the money in the world, could never make himself distinguished or worth while in any way."
"No; and what would Miss Florence Lloyd see in a man like that, to make her so determined to marry him?"
"I don"t think she is determined, except that Hall has some sort of hold over her,--a promise or something,--that she can"t escape."
My heart rejoiced at the idea that Florence was not in love with Hall, but I did not allow myself to dwell on that point, for I was determined to go on with the work, irrespective of my feelings toward her.
"You see," Parmalee went on, "you suspect Hall, only because you"re prejudiced against him."
"Good gracious!" I exclaimed; "that"s an awful thing to say, Parmalee.
The idea of a detective suspecting a man, merely because he doesn"t admire his personality! And besides, it isn"t true. If I suspect Hall, it"s because I think he had a strong motive, a possible opportunity, and more than all, because he refuses to tell where he was Tuesday night."
"But that"s just the point, Burroughs. A man who"ll commit murder would fix up his alibi first of all. He would know that his refusal to tell his whereabouts would be extremely suspicious. No, to my mind it"s Hall"s refusal to tell that stamps him as innocent."
"Then, in that case, it"s the cleverest kind of an alibi he could invent, for it stamps him innocent at once."
"Oh, come, now, that"s going pretty far; but I will say, Burroughs, that you haven"t the least shred of proof against Hall, and you know it. Prejudice and unfounded suspicion and even a strong desire that he should be the villain, are all very well. But they won"t go far as evidence in a court of law."
I was forced to admit that Parmalee was right, and that so far I had no proof whatever that Gregory Hall was at all implicated in Mr. Crawford"s death. To be sure he might have worn a yellow rose, and he might have brought the late newspaper, but there was no evidence to connect him with those clues, and too, there was the gold bag. It was highly improbable that that should have been brought to the office and left there by a man.
However, I persuaded Parmalee to agree not to carry the matter to Mr.
Goodrich until I had had one more interview with Miss Lloyd, and I promised to undertake that the next morning.
After Parmalee had gone, I indulged in some very gloomy reflections.
Everything seemed to point one way. Every proof, every suspicion and every hint more or less implicated Miss Lloyd.
But the more I realized this, the more I determined to do all I could for her, and as to do this, I must gain her confidence, and even liking, I resolved to approach the subject the next day with the utmost tactfulness and kindliness, hoping by this means to induce the truth from her.
The next morning I started on my mission with renewed hopefulness.
Reaching the Crawford house, I asked for Miss Lloyd, and I was shown into a small parlor to wait for her. It was a sort of morning room, a pretty little apartment that I had not been in before; and it was so much more cheerful and pleasant than the stately library, I couldn"t help hoping that Miss Lloyd, too, would prove more amenable than she had yet been.
She soon came in, and though I was beginning to get accustomed to the fact that she was a creature of variable moods, I was unprepared for this one. Her hauteur had disappeared; she was apparently in a sweet and gentle frame of mind. Her large dark eyes were soft and gentle, and though her red lips quivered, it was not with anger or disdain as they had done the day before. She wore a plain white morning gown, and a long black necklace of small beads. The simplicity of this costume suited her well, and threw into relief her own rich coloring and striking beauty.
She greeted me more pleasantly than she had ever done before, and I couldn"t help feeling that the cheerful sunny little room had a better effect on her moods than the darker furnishings of the library.
"I wish," I began, "that we had not to talk of anything unpleasant this morning. I wish there were no such thing as untruth or crime in the world, and that I were calling on you, as an acquaintance, as a friend might call."
"I wish so, too," she responded, and as she flashed a glance at me, I had a glimpse of what it might mean to be friends with Florence Lloyd without the ugly shadow between us that now was spoiling our tete-a-tete.
Just that fleeting glance held in it the promise of all that was attractive, charming and delightful in femininity. It was as if the veil of the great, gloomy sorrow had been lifted for a moment, and she was again an untroubled, merry girl. It seemed too, as if she wished that we could be together under pleasanter circ.u.mstances and could converse on subjects of less dreadful import. However, all these thoughts that tumultuously raced through my mind must be thrust aside in favor of the business in hand.
So though I hated to, I began at once.
"I am sorry, Miss Lloyd, to doubt your word, but I want to tell you myself rather than to have you learn it from others that I have a witness who has testified to your presence in your uncle"s office that fateful Tuesday night, although you have said you didn"t go down there."
As I had feared, the girl turned white and shivered as if with a dreadful apprehension.
"Who is the witness?" she said.
I seemed to read her mind, and I felt at once that to her, the importance of what I had said depended largely on my answer to this question, and I paused a moment to think what this could mean. And then it flashed across me that she was afraid I would say the witness was Gregory Hall. I became more and more convinced that she was shielding Hall, and I felt sure that when she learned it was not he, she would feel relieved. However, I had promised Louis not to let her know that he had told me of seeing her, unless it should be necessary.
"I think I won"t tell you that; but since you were seen in the office at about eleven o"clock, will you not tell me,--I a.s.sure you it is for your own best interests,--what you were doing there, and why you denied being there?"