That evening I went to see Philip Crawford. As one of the executors of
his late brother's estate, and as probable heir to the same, he was an
important personage just now.
He seemed glad to see me, and glad to discuss ways and means of running
down the assassin. Like Mr. Porter, he attached little importance to the
gold bag.
“I can't help thinking it belongs to Florence,” he said. “I know the
girl so well, and I know that her horrified fear of being in any way
connected with the tragedy might easily lead her to, disown her own
property, thinking the occasion justified the untruth. That girl has
no more guilty knowledge of Joseph's death than I have, and that is
absolutely none. I tell you frankly, Mr. Burroughs, I haven't even a
glimmer of a suspicion of any one. I can't think of an enemy my brother
had; he was the most easy-going of men. I never knew him to quarrel with
anybody. So I trust that you, with your detective talent, can at least
find a clue to lead us in the right direction.”
“You don't admit the gold bag as a clue, then?” I asked.
“Nonsense! No! If that were a clue, it would point to some woman who
came secretly at night to visit Joseph. My brother was not that sort
of man, sir. He had no feminine acquaintances that were unknown to his
relatives.”
“That is, you suppose so.”
“I know it! We have been brothers for sixty years or more, and whatever
Joseph's faults, they did not lie in that direction. No, sir; if that
bag is not Florence's, then there is some other rational and commonplace
explanation of its presence there.”
“I'm glad to hear you speak so positively, Mr. Crawford, as to your
brother's feminine acquaintances. And in connection with the subject, I
would like to show you this photograph which I found in his desk.”
I handed the card to Mr. Crawford, whose features broke into a smile as
he looked at it.
“Oh, that,” he said; “that is a picture, of Mrs. Patton.” He looked at
the picture with a glance that seemed to be of admiring reminiscence,
and he studied the gentle face of the photograph a moment without
speaking.
Then he said, “She was beautiful as a girl. She used to be a school
friend of both Joseph and myself.”
“She wrote rather an affectionate message on the back,” I observed.
Mr. Crawford turned the picture over.
“Oh, she didn't send this picture to Joseph. She sent it to my wife last
Christmas. I took it over to show it to Joseph some months ago, and left
it there without thinking much about it. He probably laid it in his desk
without thinking much about it, either. No, no, Burroughs, there is
no romance there, and you can't connect Mrs. Patton with any of your
detective investigations.”
“I rather thought that, Mr. Crawford; for this is evidently a sweet,
simple-minded lady, and more over nothing has turned up to indicate that
Mr. Crawford had a romantic interest of any kind.”
“No, he didn't. I knew Joseph as I know myself. No; whoever killed my
brother, was a man; some villain who had a motive that I know nothing
about.”
“But you were intimately acquainted with your brother's affairs?”
“Yes, that is what proves to me that whoever this assassin was, it was
some one of whose motive I know nothing. The fact that my brother was
murdered, proves to me that my brother had an enemy, but I had never
suspected it before.”
“Do you know a Mrs. Egerton Purvis?”
I flung the question at him, suddenly, hoping to catch him unawares. But
he only looked at me with the blank expression of one who hears a name
for the first time.
“No,” he answered, “I never heard of her. Who is she?”
“Well, when I was hunting through that gold-mesh bag, I discovered a
lady's visiting card with that name on it. It had slipped between the
linings, and so had not been noticed before.”
To my surprise, this piece of information seemed to annoy Mr. Crawford
greatly.
“No!” he exclaimed. “In the bag? Then some one has put it there! for I
looked over all the bag's contents myself.”
“It was between the pocket and the lining,” said I; “it is there still,
for as I felt sure no one else would discover it, I left it there. Mr.
Goodrich has the bag.”
“Oh, I don't want to see it,” he exclaimed angrily. “And I tell you
anyway, Mr. Burroughs, that bag is worthless as a clue. Take my advice,
and pay no further attention to it.”
I couldn't understand Mr. Crawford's decided attitude against the bag as
a clue, but I dropped the subject, for I didn't wish to tell him I had
made plans to trace up that visiting card.
“It is difficult to find anything that is a real clue,” I said.
“Yes, indeed. The whole affair is mysterious, and, for my part, I
cannot form even a conjecture as to who the villain might have been. He
certainly left no trace.”
“Where is the revolver?” I said, picturing the scene in imagination.
Philip Crawford started as if caught unawares.
“How do I know?” he cried, almost angrily. “I tell you, I have no
suspicions. I wish I had! I desire, above all things, to bring my
brother's murderer to justice. But I don't know where to look. If the
weapon were not missing, I should think it a suicide.”
“The doctor declares it could not have been suicide, even if the weapon
had been found near him. This they learned from the position of his arms
and head.”
“Yes, yes; I know it. It was, without doubt, murder. But who--who would
have a motive?”
“They say,” I observed, “motives for murder are usually love, revenge,
or money.”
“There is no question of love or revenge in this instance. And as for
money, as I am the one who has profited financially, suspicion should
rest on me.”
“Absurd!” I said.
“Yes, it is absurd,” he went on, “for had I desired Joseph's fortune,
I need not have killed him to acquire it. He told me the day before
he died that he intended to disinherit Florence, and make me his heir,
unless she broke with that secretary of his. I tried to dissuade him
from this step, for we are not a mercenary lot, we Crawfords, and I
thought I had made him reconsider his decision. Now, as it turns out, he
persisted in his resolve, and was only prevented from carrying it out by
this midnight assassin. We must find that villain, Mr. Burroughs! Do not
consider expense; do anything you can to track him down.”
“Then, Mr. Crawford,” said I, “if you do not mind the outlay, I advise
that we send for Fleming Stone. He is a detective of extraordinary
powers, and I am quite willing to surrender the case to him.”
Philip Crawford eyed me keenly.
“You give up easily, young man,” he said banteringly.
“I know it seems so,” I replied, “but I have my reasons. One is, that
Fleming Stone makes important deductions from seemingly unimportant
clues; and he holds that unless these clues are followed immediately,
they are lost sight of and great opportunities are gone.”
“H'm,” mused Philip Crawford, stroking his strong, square chin. “I don't
care much for these spectacular detectives. Your man, I suppose, would
glance at the gold bag, and at once announce the age, sex, and previous
condition of servitude of its owner.”
“Just what I have thought, Mr. Crawford. I'm sure he could do just
that.”
“And that's all the good it would do! That bag doesn't belong to the
criminal.”
“How do you know?”
“By common-sense. No woman came to the house in the dead of night and
shot my brother, and then departed, taking her revolver with her. And
again, granting a woman did have nerve and strength enough to do
that, such a woman is not going off leaving her gold bag behind her as
evidence!”
This speech didn't affect me much. It was pure conjecture. Women are
uncertain creatures, at best; and a woman capable of murder would be
equally capable of losing her head afterward, and leaving circumstantial
evidence behind her.
I was sorry Mr. Crawford didn't seem to take to the notion of sending
for Stone. I wasn't weakening in the case so far as my confidence in my
own ability was concerned; but I could see no direction to look except
toward Florence Lloyd or Gregory Hall, or both. And so I was ready to
give up.
“What do you think of Gregory Hall?” I said suddenly.
“As a man or as a suspect?” inquired Mr. Crawford.
“Both.”
“Well, as a man, I think he's about the average, ordinary young
American, of the secretary type. He has little real ambition, but he has
had a good berth with Joseph, and he has worked fairly hard to keep it.
As a suspect, the notion is absurd. He wasn't even in West Sedgwick.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he went away at six that evening, and was in New York until
nearly noon the next day.”
“How do you know?”
Philip Crawford stared at me.
“He says so,” I went on; “but no one can prove his statement. He refuses
to say where he was in New York, or what he did. Now, merely as a
supposition, why couldn't he have come out here--say on the midnight
train--called on Mr. Joseph Crawford, and returned to New York before
daylight?”
“Absurd! Why, he had no motive for killing Joseph.”
“He had the same motive Florence would have. He knew of Mr. Crawford's
objection to their union, and he knew of his threat to change his will.
Mr. Hall is not blind to the advantages of a fortune.”
“Right you are, there! In fact, I always felt he was marrying Florence
for her money. I had no real reason to think this, but somehow he gave
me that impression.”
“Me, too. Moreover, I found a late extra of a New York paper in Mr.
Crawford's office. This wasn't on sale until about half past eleven that
night, so whoever left it there must have come out from the city on that
midnight train, or later.”
A change came over Philip Crawford's face. Apparently he was brought to
see the whole matter in a new light.
“What? What's that?” he cried excitedly, grasping his chair-arms and
half rising. “A late newspaper! An extra!”
“Yes; the liner accident, you know.”
“But--but--Gregory Hall! Why man, you're crazy! Hall is a good fellow.
Not remarkably clever, perhaps, and a fortune-hunter, maybe, but
not--surely not a murderer!”
“Don't take it so hard, Mr. Crawford,” I broke in. “Probably. Mr. Hall
is innocent. But the late paper must have been left there by some one,
after, say, one o'clock.”
“This is awful! This is terrible!” groaned the poor man, and I couldn't
help wondering if he had some other evidence against Hall that this
seemed to corroborate.
Then, by an effort, he recovered himself, and began to talk in more
normal tones.
“Now, don't let this new idea run away with you, Mr. Burroughs,” he
said. “If Hall had an interview with my brother that night, he would
have learned from him that he intended to make a new will, but hadn't
yet done so.”
“Exactly; and that would constitute a motive for putting Mr. Crawford
out of the way before he could accomplish his purpose.”
“But Joseph had already destroyed the will that favored Florence.”
“We don't know that,” I responded gravely. “And, anyway, if he had done
so, Mr. Hall didn't know it. This leaves his motive unchanged.”
“But the gold bag,” said Mr. Crawford, apparently to get away--from the
subject of Gregory Hall.
“If, as you say,” I began, “that is Florence's bag--”
I couldn't go on. A strange sense of duty had forced those words from
me, but I could say no more.
Fleming Stone might take the case if they wanted him to; or they
might get some one else. But I could not go on, when the only clues
discoverable pointed in a way I dared not look.
Philip Crawford was ghastly now. His face was working and he breathed
quickly.
“Nonsense, Dad!” cried a strong, young voice, and his son, Philip, Jr.,
bounded into the room and grasped his father's hands. “I overheard a
few of your last words, and you two are on the wrong track. Florrie's no
more mixed up in that horrible business than I am. Neither is Hall.
He's a fool chap, but no villain. I heard what you said about the late
newspaper, but lots of people come out on that midnight train. You may
as well suspect some peaceable citizen coming home from the theatre, as
to pick out poor Hall, without a scrap of evidence to point to him.”
I was relieved beyond all words at the hearty assurance of the boy, and
I plucked up new courage. Apprehension had made me faint-hearted, but
if he could show such flawless confidence in Florence and her betrothed,
surely I could do as much.
“Good for you, young man!” I cried, shaking his hand. “You've cheered me
up a lot. I'll take a fresh start, and surely we'll find out something.
But I'd like to send for Stone.”
“Wait a bit, wait a bit,” said Mr. Crawford. “Phil's right; there's no
possibility of Florrie or Hall in the matter. Leave the gold bag, the
newspapers, and the yellow posies out of consideration, and go to work
in some sensible way.”
“How about Mr. Joseph's finances?” I asked. “Are they in satisfactory
shape?”
“Never finer,” said Philip Crawford. “Joseph was a very rich man,
and all due to his own clever and careful investments. A bit of a
speculator, but always on the right side of the market. Why, he fairly
had a corner in X.Y. stock. Just that deal--and it will go through in a
few days--means a fortune in itself. I shall settle that on Florence.”
“Then you think the will will never be found?” I said.
Mr. Crawford looked a little ashamed, as well he might, but he only said,
“If it is, no one will be more glad than I to see Florrie reinstated in
her own right. If no will turns up, Joe's estate is legally mine, but I
shall see that Florence is amply provided for.”
He spoke with a proud dignity, and I was rather sorry I had caught him
up so sharply.
I went back to the inn, and, after vainly racking my brain over it all
for a time, I turned in, but to a miserably broken night's rest.