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THE HOLLADAY CASE
_A TALE_
By
BURTON E. STEVENSON
AUTHOR OF "AT ODDS WITH THE REGENT," "A
SOLDIER OF VIRGINIA," ETC.
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1903
COPYRIGHT, 1903,
BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
_Published November, 1903_
THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS,
RAHWAY, N. J.
[Illustration: MR. ROYCE DELIVERS THE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS.]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A BOLT FROM THE BLUE, 1
II. IN THE GRIP OF CIRCUMSTANCE, 15
III. THE COIL TIGHTENS, 37
IV. I HAVE AN INSPIRATION, 56
V. I DINE WITH A FASCINATING STRANGER, 70
VI. GODFREY'S PANEGYRIC, 90
VII. MISS HOLLADAY BECOMES CAPRICIOUS, 101
VIII. THE MYSTERIOUS MAID, 114
IX. I MEET MONSIEUR MARTIGNY, 131
X. AN ASTONISHING DISAPPEARANCE, 146
XI. I UNMASK MY ENEMY, 165
XII. AT THE CAFÉ JOURDAIN, 183
XIII. EN VOYAGE, 197
XIV. I PROVE A BAD SENTINEL, 213
XV. TWO HEADS ARE BETTER THAN ONE, 229
XVI. I BEARD THE LION, 247
XVII. ETRETAT, 270
XVIII. THE VEIL IS LIFTED, 280
XIX. THE END OF THE STORY, 293
THE HOLLADAY CASE
CHAPTER I
A Bolt from the Blue
The atmosphere of the office that morning was a shade less genial than
usual. We had all of us fought our way downtown through such a storm
of wind, snow, slush, and sleet as is to be found nowhere save in
mid-March New York, and our tempers had suffered accordingly. I had
found a cab unobtainable, and there was, of course, the inevitable jam
on the Elevated, with the trains many minutes behind the schedule. I
was some half-hour late, in consequence, and when I entered the inner
office, I was surprised to find Mr. Graham, our senior, already at his
desk. He nodded good-morning a little curtly.
"I wish you'd look over these papers in the Hurd case, Lester," he
said, and pushed them toward me.
I took them and sat down; and just then the outer door slammed with a
violence extremely unusual.
I had never seen Mr. Royce, our junior, so deeply shaken, so visibly
distracted, as he was when he burst in upon us a moment later, a
newspaper in his hand. Mr. Graham, startled by the noise of his
entrance, wheeled around from his desk and stared at him in
astonishment.
"Why, upon my word, John," he began, "you look all done up. What's the
matter?"
"Matter enough, sir!" and Mr. Royce spread out the paper on the desk
before him. "You haven't seen the morning papers, of course; well,
look at that!" and he indicated with a trembling finger the article
which occupied the first column of the first page--the place of
honor.
I saw our senior's face change as he read the headlines, and he seemed
positively horror-stricken as he ran rapidly through the story which
followed.
"Why, this is the most remarkable thing I ever read!" he burst out at
last.
"Remarkable!" cried the other. "Why, it's a damnable outrage, sir! The
idea that a gentle, cultured girl like Frances Holladay would
deliberately murder her own father--strike him down in cold blood--is
too monstrous, too absolutely preposterous, too--too----" and he
stopped, fairly choked by his emotion.
The words brought me upright in my chair. Frances Holladay accused
of--well!--no wonder our junior was upset!
But Mr. Graham was reading through the article again more carefully,
and while he nodded sympathetically to show that he fully assented to
the other's words, a straight, deep line of perplexity, which I had
come to recognize, formed between his eyebrows.
"Plainly," he said at last, "the whole case hinges on the evidence of
this man Rogers--Holladay's confidential clerk--and from what I know
of Rogers, I should say that he'd be the last man in the world to make
a willful misstatement. He says that Miss Holladay entered her
father's office late yesterday afternoon, stayed there ten minutes,
and then came out hurriedly. A few minutes later Rogers went into the
office and found his employer dead. That's the whole case, but it'll
be a hard one to break."
"Well, it must be broken!" retorted the other, pulling himself
together with a supreme effort. "Of course, I'll take the case."
"Of course!"
"Miss Holladay probably sent for me last night, but I was out at
Babylon, you know, looking up that witness in the Hurd affair. He'll
be all right, and his evidence will give us the case. Our answer in
the Brown injunction can wait till to-morrow. That's all, I think."
The chief nodded.
"Yes--I see the inquest is to begin at ten o'clock. You haven't much
time."
"No--I'd like to have a good man with me," and he glanced in my
direction. "Can you spare me Lester?"
My heart gave a jump. It was just the question I was hoping he would
ask.
"Why, yes, of course," answered the chief readily. "In a case like
this, certainly. Let me hear from you in the course of the day."
Mr. Royce nodded as he started for the door.
"I will; we'll find some flaw in that fellow's story, depend upon it.
Come on, Lester."
I snatched up pen and paper and followed him to the elevator. In a
moment we were in the street; there were cabs in plenty now,
disgorging their loads and starting back uptown again; we hailed one,
and in another moment were rattling along toward our destination with
such speed as the storm permitted. There were many questions surging
through my brain to which I should have welcomed an answer. The storm
had cut off my paper that morning, and I regretted now that I had not
made a more determined effort to get another. A glance at my companion
showed me the folly of attempting to secure any information from his,
so I contented myself with reviewing what I already knew of the
history of the principals.
I knew Hiram W. Holladay, the murdered man, quite well; not only as
every New Yorker knew that multi-millionaire as one of the most
successful operators in Wall Street, but personally as well, since he
had been a client of Graham & Royce for twenty years and more. He was
at that time well on toward seventy years of age, I should say, though
he carried his years remarkably well; his wife had been long dead,
and he had only one child, his daughter, Frances, who must have been
about twenty-five. She had been born abroad, and had spent the first
years of her life there with her mother, who had lingered on the
Riviera and among the hills of Italy and Switzerland in the hope of
regaining a health, which had been failing, so I understood, ever
since her daughter's birth. She had come home at last, bringing the
black-eyed child with her, and within the year was dead.
Holladay's affections from that moment seemed to grow and center about
his daughter, who developed into a tall and beautiful girl--too
beautiful, as was soon apparent, for our junior partner's peace of
mind. He had met her first in a business way, and afterwards socially,
and all of us who had eyes could see how he was eating his heart out
at the knowledge that she was far beyond his reach; for it was evident
that her father deemed her worthy of a brilliant marriage--as, indeed,
she was. I sometimes thought that she held herself at a like value,
for though there was about her a constant crowd of suitors, none of
them, seemingly, could win an atom of encouragement. She was waiting,
I told myself, waiting; and I had even pictured to myself the grim
irony of a situation in which our junior might be called upon to
arrange her marriage settlements.
The cab stopped with a jolt, and I looked up to see that we had
reached the Criminal Courts building. Mr. Royce sprang out, paid the
driver, and ran up the steps to the door, I after him. He turned down
the corridor to the right, and entered the room at the end of it,
which I recognized as the office of Coroner Goldberg. A considerable
crowd had already collected there.
"Has the coroner arrived yet?" my companion asked one of the clerks.
"Yes, sir; he's in his private office."
"Will you take him this card and say that I'd like to see him at once,
if possible?"
The clerk hurried away with the card. He was back again in a moment.
"This way, sir," he called.
We followed him across the room and through a door at the farther
side.
"Ah, Mr. Royce, glad to see you," cried the coroner, as we entered.
"We tried to find you last night, but learned that you were out of
town, and I was just calling up your office again."
"Miss Holladay asked for me, then?"
"Yes, at once. When we found we couldn't get you, we suggested your
senior, but she said she'd wait till you returned."
I could see our junior's face crimson with pleasure.
"You didn't think it necessary to confine her, I trust?" he asked.
"Oh, no; she wasn't disturbed. She spent the night at home--under
surveillance."
"That was right. Of course, it's simply absurd to suspect her."
Goldberg looked at him curiously.
"I don't know, Mr. Royce," he said slowly. "If the evidence turns out
as I think it will, I shall have to hold her--the district attorney
expects it."
Mr. Royce's hands were clutching a chair-back, and they trembled a
little at the coroner's words.
"He'll be present at the examination, then?" he asked.
"Yes, we're waiting for him. You see, it's rather an extraordinary
case."
"Is it?"
"We think so, anyway!" said the coroner, just a trifle impatiently.
I could see the retort which sprang to our junior's lips, but he
choked it back. There was no use offending Goldberg.
"I should like to see Miss Holladay before the examination begins," he
said. "Is she present?"
"She's in the next room, yes. You shall see her, certainly, at once.
Julius, take Mr. Royce to Miss Holladay," he added to the clerk.
I can see her yet, rising from her chair with face alight, as we
entered, and I saw instantly how I had misjudged her. She came a step
toward us, holding out her hands impulsively; then, with an effort,
controlled herself and clasped them before her.
"Oh, but I'm glad to see you!" she cried in a voice so low I could
scarcely hear it. "I've wanted you so much!"
"It was my great misfortune that I could come no sooner," said my
chief, his voice trembling a little despite himself. "I--I scarcely
expected to see you here with no one----"
"Oh," she interrupted, "there was no one I cared to have. My friends
have been very kind--have offered to do anything--but I felt that I
wanted to be just alone and think. I should have liked to have my
maid, but----"
"She's one of the witnesses, I suppose," explained Mr. Royce. "Well,
now that I'm here, I shall stay until I've proved how utterly
ridiculous this charge against you is."
She sank back into her chair and looked up at him with dark, appealing
eyes.
"You think you can?" she asked.
"Can! Certainly I can! Why, it's too preposterous to stand for a
moment! We've only to prove an alibi--to show that you were somewhere
else, you know, at the time the crime was committed--and the whole
business falls to pieces in an instant. You can do that easily, can't
you?"
The color had gone from her cheeks again, and she buried her face in
her hands.
"I don't know," she murmured indistinctly. "I must think. Oh, don't
let it come to that!"
I was puzzled--confounded. With her good name, her life, perhaps, in
the balance, she wanted time to think! I could see that my chief was
astonished, too.
"I'll try to keep it from coming to that, since you wish it," he said
slowly. "I'll not be able to call you, then, to testify in your own
behalf--and that always hurts. But I hope the case will break down at
once--I believe it will. At any rate, don't worry. I want you to rely
on me."
She looked up at him again, smiling.
"I shall," she murmured softly. "I'm sure I could desire no better
champion!"
Well, plainly, if he won this case he would win something else
besides. I think even the policeman in the corner saw it, for he
turned away with a discretion rare in policemen, and pretended to
stare out of the window.
I don't know what my chief would have said--his lips were trembling so
he could not speak for the moment--and just then there came a tap at
the door, and the coroner's clerk looked in.
"We're ready to begin, sir," he said.
"Very well," cried Mr. Royce. "I'll come at once. Good-by for the
moment, Miss Holladay. I repeat, you may rely on me," and he hastened
from the room as confidently as though she had girded him for the
battle. Instead, I told myself, she had bound him hand and foot before
casting him down into the arena.