THE THIRD PAIR OF BOOTS
The wheels of justice move swiftly in Paris, and after one quiet day,
during which Judge Hauteville was drawing together the threads of the
mystery, Kittredge found himself, on Tuesday morning, facing an ordeal
worse than the solitude of a prison cell. The seventh of July! What a date
for the American! How little he realized what was before him as he bumped
along in a prison van breathing the sweet air of a delicious summer
morning! He had been summoned for the double test put upon suspected
assassins in France, a visit to the scene of the crime and a viewing of the
victim's body. In Lloyd's behalf there was present at this grim ceremony
Maître Pleindeaux, a clean-shaven, bald-headed little man, with a hard,
metallic voice and a set of false teeth that clicked as he talked. "Bet a
dollar it's ice water he's full of," said Kittredge to himself.
When brought to the Ansonia and shown the two rooms of the tragedy,
Kittredge was perfectly calm and denied any knowledge of the affair; he had
never seen these holes through the wall, he had never been in the alleyway,
he was absolutely innocent. Maître Pleindeaux nodded in approval. At the
morgue, however, Lloyd showed a certain emotion when a door was opened
suddenly and he was pushed into a room where he saw Martinez sitting on a
chair and looking at him, Martinez with his shattered eye replaced by a
glass one, and his dead face painted to a horrid semblance of life. This
is one of the theatrical tricks of modern procedure, and the American was
not prepared for it.
"My God!" he muttered, "he looks alive."
Nothing was accomplished, however, by the questioning here, nothing was
extorted from the prisoner; he had known Martinez, he had never liked him
particularly, but he had never wished to do him harm, and he had certainly
not killed him. That was all Kittredge would say, however the questions
were turned, and he declared repeatedly that he had had no quarrel with
Martinez. All of which was carefully noted down.
[Illustration: "A door was opened suddenly and he was pushed into a room."]
While his nerves were still tingling with the gruesomeness of all this,
Lloyd was brought to Judge Hauteville's room in the Palais de Justice. He
was told to sit down on a chair beside Maître Pleindeaux. A patient
secretary sat at his desk, a formidable guard stood before the door with a
saber sword in his belt. Then the examination began.
So far Kittredge had heard the voice of justice only in mild and polite
questioning, now he was to hear the ring of it in accusation, in rapid,
massed accusation that was to make him feel the crushing power of the state
and the hopelessness of any puny lying.
"Kittredge," began the judge, "you have denied all knowledge of this crime.
Look at this pistol and tell me if you have ever seen it before." He
offered the pistol to Lloyd's manacled hands. Maître Pleindeaux took it
with a frown of surprise.
"Excuse me, your honor," he bowed, "I would like to speak to my client
before he answers that question."
But Kittredge waved him aside. "What's the use," he said. "That is my
pistol; I know it; there's no doubt about it."
"Ah!" exclaimed Hauteville. "It is also the pistol that killed Martinez. It
was thrown from private room Number Seven at the Ansonia. A woman saw it
thrown, and it was picked up in a neighboring courtyard. One ball was
missing, and that ball was found in the body."
"There's some mistake," objected Pleindeaux with professional asperity, at
the same time flashing a wrathful look at Lloyd that said plainly: "You see
what you have done!"
"Now," continued the judge, "you say you have never been in the alleyway
that we showed you at the Ansonia. Look at these boots. Do you recognize
them?"
Kittredge examined the boots carefully and then said frankly to the judge:
"I thank they are mine."
"You wore them to the Ansonia on the night of the crime?"
"I think so."
"Aren't you sure?"
"Not absolutely sure, because I have three pairs exactly alike. I always
keep three pairs going at the same time; they last longer that way."
"I will tell you, then, that this is the pair you had on when you were
arrested."
"Then it's the pair I wore to the Ansonia."
"You didn't change your boots after leaving the Ansonia?"
"No."
"Kittredge," said the judge severely, "the man who shot Martinez escaped by
the alleyway and left his footprints on the soft earth. We have made
plaster casts of them. There they are; our experts have examined them and
find that they correspond in every particular with the soles of these
boots. What do you say to this?"
Lloyd listened in a daze. "I don't see how it's possible," he answered.
"You still deny having been in the alleyway?"
"Absolutely."
"I pass to another point," resumed Hauteville, who was now striding back
and forth with quick turns and sudden stops, his favorite manner of attack.
"You say you had no quarrel with Martinez?"
A shade of anxiety crossed Lloyd's face, and he looked appealingly at his
counsel, who nodded with a consequential smack of the lips.
"Is that true?" repeated the judge.
"Why--er--yes."
"You never threatened Martinez with violence? Careful!"
"No, sir," declared Kittredge stubbornly.
Hauteville turned to his desk, and opening a leather portfolio, drew forth
a paper and held it before Kittredge's eyes.
"Do you recognize this writing?"
"It's--it's _my_ writing," murmured Lloyd, and his heart sank. How had the
judge got this letter? And had he the others?
"You remember this letter? You remember what you wrote about Martinez?"
"Yes."
"Then there _was_ a quarrel and you _did_ threaten him?"
"I advise my client not to answer that question," interposed the lawyer,
and the American was silent.
"As you please," said Hauteville, and he went on grimly: "Kittredge, you
have so far refused to speak of the lady to whom you wrote this letter. Now
you must speak of her. It is evident she is the person who called for you
in the cab. Do you deny that?"
"I prefer not to answer."
"She was your mistress? Do you deny that?"
"Yes, I deny that," cried the American, not waiting for Pleindeaux's
prompting.
"Ah!" shrugged the judge, and turning to his secretary: "_Ask the lady to
come in_."
Then, in a moment of sickening misery, Kittredge saw the door open and a
black figure enter, a black figure with an ashen-white face and frightened
eyes. It was Pussy Wilmott, treading the hard way of the transgressor with
her hair done most becomingly, and breathing a delicate violet fragrance.
"Take him into the outer room," directed the judge, "until I ring."
The guard opened the door and motioned to Maître Pleindeaux, who passed out
first, followed by the prisoner and then by the guard himself. At the
threshold Kittredge turned, and for a second his eyes met Pussy's eyes.
"Please sit down, madam," said the judge, and then for nearly half an hour
he talked to her, questioned her, tortured her. He knew all that Coquenil
knew about her life, and more; all about her two divorces and her various
sentimental escapades. And he presented this knowledge with such startling
effectiveness that before she had been five minutes in his presence poor
Pussy felt that he could lay bare the innermost secrets of her being.
And, little by little, he dragged from her the story of her relations with
Kittredge, going back to their first acquaintance. This was in New York
about a year before, while she was there on business connected with some
property deeded to her by her second husband, in regard to which there had
been a lawsuit. Mr. Wilmott had not accompanied her on this trip, and,
being much alone, as most of her friends were in the country, she had seen
a good deal of M. Kittredge, who frequently spent the evenings with her at
the Hotel Waldorf, where she was stopping. She had met him through mutual
friends, for he was well connected socially in New York, and had soon grown
fond of him. He had been perfectly delightful to her, and--well, things
move rapidly in America, especially in hot weather, and before she realized
it or could prevent it, he was seriously infatuated, and--the end of it
was, when she returned to Paris he followed her on another steamer, an
extremely foolish proceeding, as it involved his giving up a fine position
and getting into trouble with his family.
"You say he had a fine position in New York?" questioned the judge. "In
what?"
"In a large real-estate company."
"And he lived in a nice way? He had plenty of money?"
"For a young man, yes. He often took me to dinner and to the theater, and
he was always sending me flowers."
"Did he ever give you presents?"
"Ye-es."
"What did he give you?"
"He gave me a gold bag that I happened to admire one day at Tiffany's."
"Was it solid gold?"
"Yes."
"And you accepted it?"
Pussy flushed under the judge's searching look. "I wouldn't have accepted
it, but this happened just as I was sailing for France. He sent it to the
steamer."
"Ah! Have you any idea how much M. Kittredge paid for that gold bag?"
"Yes, for I asked at Tiffany's here and they said the bag cost about four
hundred dollars. When I saw M. Kittredge in Paris I told him he was a
foolish boy to have spent all that money, but he was so sweet about it and
said he was so glad to give me pleasure that I hadn't the heart to refuse
it."
After a pause for dramatic effect the judge said impressively: "Madam, you
may be surprised to hear that M. Kittredge returned to France on the same
steamer that carried you."
"No, no," she declared, "I saw all the passengers, and he was not among
them."
"He was not among the first-cabin passengers."
"You mean to say he went in the second cabin? I don't believe it."
"No," answered Hauteville with a grim smile, "he didn't go in the second
cabin, _he went in the steerage!_"
"In the steerage!" she murmured aghast.
"And during the five or six months here in Paris, while he was dancing
attendance on you, he was practically without resources."
"I know better," she insisted; "he took me out all the time and spent money
freely."
The judge shook his head. "He spent on you what he got by pawning his
jewelry, by gambling, and sometimes by not eating. We have the facts."
"_Mon Dieu!_" she shuddered. "And I never knew it! I never suspected it!"
"This is to make it quite clear that he loved you as very few women have
been loved. Now I want to know why you quarreled with him six months ago?"
"I didn't quarrel with him," she answered faintly.
"You know what I mean. What caused the trouble between you?"
"I--I don't know."
"Madam, I am trying to be patient, I wish to spare your feelings in every
possible way, but I _must_ have the truth. Was the trouble caused by this
other woman?"
"No, it came before he met her."
"Ah! Which one of you was responsible for it?"
"I don't know; really, I don't know," she insisted with a weary gesture.
"Then I must do what I can to _make_ you know," he replied impatiently,
and reaching forward, he pressed the electric bell.
"Bring back the prisoner," he ordered, as the guard appeared, and a moment
later Kittredge was again in his place beside Maître Pleindeaux, with the
woman a few feet distant.
"Now," began Hauteville, addressing both Lloyd and Mrs. Wilmott, "I come to
an important point. I have here a packet of letters written by you,
Kittredge, to this lady. You have already identified the handwriting as
your own; and you, madam, will not deny that these letters were addressed
to you. You admit that, do you not?"
"Yes," answered Pussy weakly.
The judge turned over the letters and selected one from which he read a
passage full of passion. "Would any man write words like that to a woman
unless he were her lover? Do you think he would?" He turned to Mrs.
Wilmott, who sat silent, her eyes on the floor. "What do _you_ say,
Kittredge?"
Lloyd met the judge's eyes unflinchingly, but he did not answer.
Again Hauteville turned over the letters and selected another one.
"Listen to this, both of you." And he read a long passage from a letter
overwhelmingly compromising. There were references to the woman's physical
charm, to the beauty of her body, to the deliciousness of her caresses--it
was a letter that could only have been written by a man in a transport of
passion. Kittredge grew white as he listened, and Mrs. Wilmott burned with
shame.
"Is there any doubt about it?" pursued the judge pitilessly. "And I have
only read two bits from two letters. There are many others. Now I want the
truth about this business. Come, the quickest way will be the easiest."
He took out his watch and laid it on the desk before him. "Madam, I will
give you five minutes. Unless you admit within that time what is perfectly
evident, namely, that you were this man's mistress, I shall continue the
reading of these letters _before your husband_."
"You're taking a cowardly advantage of a woman!" she burst out.
"No," answered Hauteville sternly. "I am investigating a cowardly murder."
He glanced at his watch. "Four minutes!"
Then to Kittredge: "And unless _you_ admit this thing, I shall summon the
girl from Notre-Dame and let _her_ say what she thinks of this
correspondence."
Lloyd staggered under the blow. He was fortified against everything but
this; he would endure prison, pain, humiliation, but he could not bear the
thought that this fine girl, his Alice, who had taught him what love really
was, this fond creature who trusted him, should be forced to hear that
shameful reading.
"You wouldn't do that?" he pleaded. "I don't ask you to spare me--I've been
no saint, God knows, and I'll take my medicine, but you can't drag an
innocent girl into this thing just because you have the power."
"Were you this woman's lover?" repeated the judge, and again he looked at
his watch. "Three minutes!"
Kittredge was in torture. Once his eyes turned to Mrs. Wilmott in a message
of unspeakable bitterness. "You're a judge," he said in a strained, tense
voice, "and I'm a prisoner; you have all the power and I have none, but
there's something back of that, something we both have, I mean a common
manhood, and you know, if you have any sense of honor, that _no man_ has a
right to ask another man that question."
"The point is well taken," approved Maître Pleindeaux.
"Two minutes!" said Hauteville coldly. Then he turned to Mrs. Wilmott.
"Your husband is now at his club, one of our men is there also, awaiting my
orders. He will get them by telephone, and will bring your husband here in
a swift automobile. _You have one minute left!_"
Then there was silence in that dingy chamber, heavy, agonizing silence.
Fifteen seconds! Thirty seconds! The judge's eye was on his watch. Now his
arm reached toward the electric bell, and Pussy Wilmott's heart almost
stopped beating. Now his firm red finger advanced toward the white button.
Then she yielded. "Stop!" came her low cry. "He--he was my lover."
"That is better!" said the judge, and the scratching of the _greffier's_
pen recorded unalterably Mrs. Wilmott's avowal.
"I don't suppose you will contradict the lady," said Hauteville, turning to
Kittredge. "I take your silence as consent, and, after all, the lady's
confession is sufficient. You were her lover. And the evidence shows that
you committed a crime based on passionate jealousy and hatred of a rival.
You knew that Martinez was to dine with your mistress in a private room;
you arranged to be at the same restaurant, at the same hour, and by a
cunning and intricate plan, you succeeded in killing the man you hated. We
have found the weapon of this murder, and it belongs to you; we have found
a letter written by you full of violent threats against the murdered man;
we have found footprints made by the assassin, and they absolutely fit
your boots; in short, we have the fact of the murder, the motive for the
murder, and the evidence that you committed the murder. What have you to
say for yourself?"
Kittredge thought a moment, and then said quietly: "The fact of the murder
you have, of course; the evidence against me you seem to have, although it
is false evidence; but----"
"How do you mean false evidence? Do you deny threatening Martinez with
violence?"
"I threatened to punch his head; that is very different from killing him."
"And the pistol? And the footprints?"
"I don't know, I can't explain it, but--I know I am innocent. You say I had
a motive for this crime. You're mistaken, I had _no_ motive."
"Passion and jealousy have stood as motives for murder from the beginning
of time."
"There was _no_ passion and _no_ jealousy," answered Lloyd steadily.
"Are you mocking me?" cried the judge. "What is there in these letters," he
touched the packet before him, "but passion and jealousy? Didn't you give
up your position in America for this woman?"
"Yes, but----"
"Didn't you follow her to Europe in the steerage because of your
infatuation? Didn't you bear sufferings and privations to be near her?
Shall I go over the details of what you did, as I have them here, in order
to refresh your memory?"
"No," said Kittredge hoarsely, and his eye was beginning to flame, "my
memory needs no refreshing; I know what I did, I know what I endured. There
was passion enough and jealousy enough, but that was a year ago. If I had
found her then dining with a man in a private room, I don't know what I
might have done. Perhaps I should have killed both of them and myself, too,
for I was mad then; but my madness left me. You seem to know a great deal
about passion, sir; did you ever hear that it can change into loathing?"
"You mean--" began the judge with a puzzled look, while Mrs. Wilmott
recoiled in dismay.
"I mean that I am fighting for my life, and now that _she_ has admitted
this thing," he eyed the woman scornfully, "I am free to tell the truth,
all of it."
"That is what we want," said Hauteville.
"I thought I loved her with a fine, true love, but she showed me it was
only a base imitation. I offered her my youth, my strength, my future, and
she would have taken them and--broken them and scattered them in my face
and--and laughed at me. When I found it out, I--well, never mind, but you
can bet all your pretty French philosophy I didn't go about Paris looking
for billiard players to kill on her account."
It was not a gallant speech, but it rang true, a desperate cry from the
soul depths of this unhappy man, and Pussy Wilmott shrank away as she
listened.
"Then why did you quarrel with Martinez?" demanded the judge.
"Because he was interfering with a woman whom I _did_ love and _would_
fight for----"
"For God's sake, stop," whispered the lawyer.
"I mean I would fight for her if necessary," added the American, "but I'd
fight fair, I wouldn't shoot through any hole in a wall."
"Then you consider your love for this other woman--I presume you mean the
girl at Notre-Dame?"
"Yes."
"You consider your love for her a fine, pure love in contrast to the other
love?"
"The other wasn't love at all, it was passion."
"Yet you did more for this lady through passion," he pointed to Mrs.
Wilmott, "than you have ever done for the girl through your pure love."
"That's not true," cried Lloyd. "I was a fool through passion, I've been
something like a man through love. I was selfish and reckless through
passion, I've been a little unselfish and halfway decent through love. I
was a gambler and a pleasure seeker through passion, I've gone to work at a
mean little job and stuck to it and lived on what I've earned--through
love. Do you think it's easy to give up gambling? Try it! Do you think it's
easy to live in a measly little room up six flights of black, smelly
stairs, with no fire in winter? Anyhow, it wasn't easy for me, but I did
it--through love, yes, sir, _pure_ love."
As Hauteville listened, his frown deepened, his eyes grew harder. "That's
all very fine," he objected, "but if you hated this woman, why did you risk
prison and--worse, to get her things? You knew what you were risking, I
suppose?"
"Yes, I knew."
"Why did you do it?"
Kittredge hesitated. "I did it for--for what she had been to me. It meant
ruin and disgrace for her and--well, if she could ask such a thing, I could
grant it. It was like paying a debt, and--I paid mine."
The judge turned to Mrs. Wilmott: "Did you know that he had ceased to love
you?"
Pussy Wilmott, with her fine eyes to the floor, answered almost in a
whisper: "Yes, I knew it."
"Do you know what he means by saying that you would have spoiled his life
and--and all that?"
"N-not exactly."
"You _do_ know!" cried the American. "You know I had given you my life in
sacred pledge, and you made a plaything of it. You told me you were
unhappy, married to a man you loathed, a dull brute; but when I offered you
freedom and my love, you drew back. When I begged you to leave him and
become my wife, with the law's sanction, you said no, because I was poor
and he was rich. You wanted a lover, but you wanted your luxury, too; and I
saw that what I had thought the call of your soul was only the call of your
body. Your beauty had blinded me, your eyes, your mouth, your voice, the
smell of you, the taste of you, the devilish siren power of you, all these
had blinded me. I saw that your talk about love was a lie. Love! What did
you know about love? You wanted me, along with your ease and your
pleasures, as a coarse creator of sensations, and you couldn't have me on
those terms. In my madness I would have done anything for you, borne
anything; I would have starved for you, toiled for you, yes, gladly; but
you didn't want that kind of sacrifice. You couldn't see why I worried
about money. There was plenty for us both where yours came from. God! Where
yours came from! Why couldn't I leave well enough alone and enjoy an easy
life in Paris, with a nicely furnished _rez de chaussée_ off the Champs
Elysées, where madam could drive up in her carriage after luncheon and
break the Seventh Commandment comfortably three of four afternoons a week,
and be home in time to dress for dinner! That was what you wanted," he
paused and searched deep into her eyes as she cowered before him, "but
_that was what you couldn't have!_"
"On the whole, I think he's guilty," concluded the judge an hour later,
speaking to Coquenil, who had been looking over the secretary's record of
the examination.
"Queer!" muttered the detective. "He says he had three pairs of boots."
"He talks too much," continued Hauteville; "his whole plea was ranting.
It's a _crime passionel_, if ever there was one, and--I shall commit him
for trial."
Coquenil was not listening; he had drawn two squares of shiny paper from
his pocket, and was studying them with a magnifying glass. The judge looked
at him in surprise.
"Do you hear what I say?" he repeated. "I shall commit him for trial."
M. Paul glanced up with an absent expression. "It's circumstantial
evidence," was all he said, and he went back to his glass.
"Yes, but a strong chain of it."
"A strong chain," mused the other, then suddenly his face lighted and he
sprang to his feet. "Great God of Heaven!" he cried in excitement, and
hurrying to the window he stood there in the full light, his eye glued to
the magnifying glass, his whole soul concentrated on those two pieces of
paper, evidently photographs.
"What is it? What have you found?" asked the judge.
"I have found a weak link that breaks your whole chain," triumphed M. Paul.
"The alleyway footprints are _not_ identical with the soles of Kittredge's
boots."
"But you said they were, the experts said they were."
"We were mistaken; they are _almost_ identical, but not quite; in shape and
size they are identical, in the number and placing of the nails in the heel
they are identical, in the worn places they are identical, but when you
compare them under the magnifying glass, this photograph of the footprints
with this one of the boot soles, you see unmistakable differences in the
scratches on separate nails in the heel, unmistakable differences."
Hauteville shrugged his shoulders. "That's cutting it pretty fine to
compare microscopic scratches on the heads of small nails."
"Not at all. Don't we compare microscopic lines on criminals' thumbs?
Besides, it's perfectly plain," insisted Coquenil, absorbed in his
comparison. "I can count forty or fifty nail heads in the heel, and _none_
of them correspond under the glass; those that should be alike are _not_
alike. There are slight differences in size, in position, in wear; they are
not the same set of nails; it's impossible. Look for yourself. Compare any
two and you'll see _that they were never in the same pair of boots!_"
With an incredulous movement Hauteville took the glass, and in his turn
studied the photographs. As he looked, his frown deepened.
"It seems true, it certainly seems true," he grumbled, "but--how do you
account for it?"
Coquenil smiled in satisfied conviction. "Kittredge told you he had three
pairs of boots; they were machine made and the same size; he says he kept
them all going, so they were all worn approximately alike. We have the pair
that he wore that night, and another pair found in his room, but the third
pair is missing. _It's the third pair of boots that made those alleyway
footprints!_"
"Then you think--" began the judge.
"I think we shall have found Martinez's murderer when we find the man who
stole that third pair of boots."
"Stole them?"
Coquenil nodded.
"But that is all conjecture."
"It won't be conjecture to-morrow morning--it will be absolute proof,
unless----"
"Unless what?"
"Unless Kittredge lied when he told that girl he had never suffered with
gout or rheumatism."