To my surprise, instead of seeming baffled by my statement, Fleming
Stone gave me a quizzical glance.
"A perfect alibi?" he repeated. "How do you know?"
"He told me so," I said confidently.
"Why did he tell you that? Did he expect to be accused?"
"No," I replied; "I do not think he did. You know, Mr. Stone, I never
met young Lawrence till since this affair; but, unless I am no judge of
human nature, he is a frank, honest sort of chap, with a whole lot of
common sense, and he said to his cousin, in my presence, that in the
course of legal proceedings he might easily be called upon to give an
account of his own movements the night of the murder, but that he was
prepared to prove a perfect alibi. Therefore, you see, we cannot suspect
him, notwithstanding the coincidence of the violet-colored glass."
"He can prove a perfect alibi," again repeated Fleming Stone, and again
that strange little gleam of satisfaction crept into his eyes. It
irritated while it fascinated me, and I wondered in what direction his
suspicions would next turn.
"Did he tell you," he asked, "the nature of this alibi?"
I was struck with a sudden thought. For some reason, the detective even
yet suspected George, and all I said seemed to strengthen rather than
allay his suspicion. I would, therefore, give the suspected man a chance
to speak for himself.
"He did," I answered; "but instead of repeating to you at secondhand
what he told me, would it not be better to go down to his place and let
him tell it for himself?"
"Very much better," said Stone heartily; and again we started downtown.
It was well on toward noon, and it seemed to me we had made no definite
progress. After Fleming Stone had told me he would discover the criminal
that day, I couldn't help imagining a sudden bringing to book of some
burly ruffian whose face was well known in the rogues' gallery, but
unfamiliar to those in my walk of life. But Stone's sudden interest in
George Lawrence filled me with a vague fear that the trail he was
evidently following might somehow implicate Janet before he had
finished. However, as I was feeling convinced that George's own
testimony would affect Fleming Stone more favorably than my own version
of it, I felt glad indeed that we were bound on our present errand.
And so we came again to the house in Washington Square where Lawrence
lived.
The young man was at home, and received us in his studio. He seemed no
whit embarrassed at the detective's visit, greeted me pleasantly, and
expressed himself as quite willing to tell us anything we wanted to
know.
"Of course you understand," began Fleming Stone, "that with so few
possible witnesses, it is necessary to make a somewhat thorough
examination of each one."
"Certainly," said George, whose own affability of manner quite equalled
that of the celebrated detective.
"Then," went on Stone, "I will ask you, if you please, to detail your
own occupations on last Wednesday."
"Beginning in the morning?" asked George.
"If you please."
"Well, let me see. I didn't get up very early, and after I did rise I
stayed around here in my studio until luncheon time. During the morning
I worked on several sketches for a book I am doing. About twelve o'clock
I went uptown and lunched with a friend, a fellow-artist, at a little
German restaurant. After that I went and called for Miss Millicent
Waring, whom I had invited to go with me to a matinée. I had expected
Mrs. Waring to accompany us, but as she was ill she allowed Miss Waring
to go with me alone, although it is not Miss Waring's habit to go about
unchaperoned."
I couldn't help feeling a certain satisfaction in listening to young
Lawrence's story. I was glad that his habits and his friends were all so
correct and so entirely free from the unconventionality which is
sometimes noticed in the social doings of young artists.
"We went to the matinée," continued George, "in Mrs. Waring's carriage,
which also came for us, after the performance."
"One moment," said Fleming Stone. "You stopped nowhere, going or
coming?"
"No," said Lawrence; "nowhere."
"Except at the florist's," observed Stone quietly.
It may have been my imagination, but I thought that George started at
these words. However, he said in a cool, steady voice:
"Ah, yes, I had forgotten that. We stopped a moment to get some violets
for Miss Waring."
"And after the matinée you drove home with Miss Waring?"
"Yes," said Lawrence; "and left her at her own door. She invited me to
come back to dinner, and I said I would. As the Warings' house is only
two blocks away from the Pembroke's, I thought I would run in for a few
moments to see Janet. I did this, and Janet seemed glad to see me, but
Uncle Robert was so crusty and irritable that I did not care to stay
very long. I left there about six, came back here to my room, and
dressed for dinner. From here I went directly back to the Warings',
reaching there at 7.30, which was the dinner hour. There were other
guests, and after dinner there was music in the drawing-room. I stayed
until eleven o'clock. As I said good-night to Miss Waring, the clock
chanced to be striking eleven, so I'm sure of the time. From the
Warings' I came right back here on a Broadway car. I reached this house
at 11.25, it having taken me about twenty-five minutes to come down from
Sixtieth Street and to walk over here from Broadway."
"How do you know you reached this house at exactly 11.25?" Fleming Stone
asked this with such an air of cordial interest that there was no trace
of cross-questioning about it.
"Because," said George easily, "my watch had stopped--it had run down
during the evening--and so as I came into this house I asked the hall
boy what time it was, that I might set my watch. He looked at the
office clock, and told me. Of course you can verify this by the boy."
"I've no desire to verify your statement, Mr. Lawrence," said Stone,
with his winning smile. "It's a bad habit, this letting a watch run
down. Do you often do it?"
"No," said Lawrence; "almost never. Indeed, I don't know when it has
happened before."
"And then what next, Mr. Lawrence?"
"Then the hall boy brought me up in the elevator, I let myself into my
rooms, and went at once to bed."
"Then the first intimation of your uncle's death you received the next
morning?"
"Yes, when Janet telephoned to me. But she didn't say Uncle Robert was
dead. She merely asked me to come up there at once, and I went."
"What did you think she wanted you for?"
"I thought that either uncle was ill or she was herself, for she had
never telephoned for me before in the morning."
"I thank you, Mr. Lawrence," said Fleming Stone, "for your frank and
straightforward account of this affair, and for your courteous answers
to my questions. You know, of course, that it is the unpleasant duty of
a detective to ask questions unmercifully, in the hope of being set upon
the right track at last."
"I quite appreciate your position, my dear sir, and I trust I have given
you all the information you desire. As I have told Mr. Landon, I have no
taste for detective work myself, but I suppose it has to be done by
somebody."
After polite good-byes on both sides, we left Lawrence in his studio,
and went down-stairs. Mr. Stone insisted on walking down, though it was
four flights, and I, of course, raised no objection.
When we reached the ground floor he stepped into the office, which was a
small room just at the right of the entrance, and not far from the
elevator.
After a glance at the office clock which stood on the desk, Mr. Stone
addressed himself to the office boy.
"Do you remember," he said, "that Mr. Lawrence came in here last
Wednesday night?"
"Yes, sir," said the boy; "I do."
"At what time was it?"
"Just twenty-five minutes after eleven, sir."
"How can you fix the time so exactly, my boy?"
"Because when Mr. Lawrence came in, his watch had stopped, and he asked
me what time it was by the office clock."
"Couldn't he see for himself?"
"I suppose he could, sir, but, any way, he asked me, and I told him;
and then I took him up in the elevator, and he was setting his watch on
the way up. Just before he got out he said: 'Did you say 11.25?' and I
said, 'Yes.'"
"The office clock is always about right, I suppose?" said Mr. Stone,
and, taking his watch from his pocket, he compared the two. There was
but a minute's difference.
"Yes, sir, just about right; but that night I thought it was later when
Mr. Lawrence come in. I was surprised myself when I see it wasn't half
past eleven yet. But, of course, I must have made a mistake, for this
clock is never more than a couple of minutes out of the way."
"What time does your elevator stop running?"
"Not at all, sir, we run it all night."
"And other men came in after Mr. Lawrence did that night?"
"Oh, yes, sir; lots of them. These is bachelor apartments, you know, and
the men come in quite late--sometimes up till two or three o'clock."
Apparently Fleming Stone had learned all he wanted to know from the boy,
and after he had thanked him and had also slipped into his hand a bit of
more material reward, the interview was at an end.
We went out into the street again, and Fleming Stone said: "Now I
should like to examine the Pembrokes' apartment."
"And shall you want to interview Miss Pembroke?" I inquired.
"Yes, I think so," he replied; "but we will look over the apartment
first."
"We'll have something to eat first," I declared; "and if you'll come
home with me, I'll guarantee that my sister will give you quite as
satisfactory a luncheon as you could obtain in the best hotel in the
city."
"I've no doubt of it," said Stone pleasantly; "and I accept your
invitation with pleasure. Will you wait for me a minute, while I
telephone?"
Before I had time to reply he had slipped in through a doorway at which
hung the familiar blue sign.
In a minute or two he rejoined me, and said: "Now let's dismiss the
whole affair from our minds until after luncheon. It is never wise to
let business interfere with digestion."
As we rode up home in the car, Mr. Stone was most agreeable and
entertaining. Not a word was said of the Pembroke case--he seemed really
to have laid aside all thought of it--and yet I couldn't help a sinister
conviction that when he telephoned it had been a message to
headquarters, authorizing the surveillance, if not the arrest, of
somebody. It couldn't be Lawrence, in the face of that alibi; it
couldn't be Janet, for he knew next to nothing about her connection with
the matter; it couldn't be Charlotte, of course; and so it must have
been "some person or persons unknown" to me.
I felt no hesitancy, so far as Laura was concerned, in taking home an
unexpected guest, for it was my habit to do that whenever I chose, and I
had never found Laura otherwise than pleased to see my friends, and
amply able to provide hospitality for them. But, as we neared the house,
I remembered Janet's strange disinclination to employ a detective, and
her apparent horror at the mention of Fleming Stone's name.
Feeling that honesty demanded it, I told Fleming Stone exactly what
Janet had said on this subject when I had left the house that morning.
Though apparently not disturbed personally by Miss Pembroke's attitude
toward him, he seemed to consider it as of definite importance for some
other reason.
"Why should Miss Pembroke object to a detective's services," he said,
"when, as you have told me, Mr. Lawrence said at your dinner table last
night that he wanted to engage the best possible detective skill?"
"I don't know," I replied. "I'm puzzled myself. But I admit, Mr. Stone,
that Miss Pembroke has been an enigma to me from the first. Not only do
I believe her innocent, but I have a warmer regard for her than I am
perhaps justified in mentioning to a stranger; and yet she is so
contradictory in her speech and action from time to time that I simply
do not know what to think."
Fleming Stone turned a very kind glance on me. "The hardest puzzle in
this world," he said, "is a woman. Of course I do not know Miss
Pembroke, but I hope she will consent to meet me, notwithstanding her
aversion to detectives."
"I think she will," I said; "and, besides, she is so changeable that at
this moment she may be more anxious to see a detective than anybody
else."
"Let us hope so," he said somewhat gravely. "It may be much to her
advantage."