The Coil Tightens
From the breathless silence that followed her answer, she saw that she
had somehow dealt her mistress a heavy blow, and the sobs burst out
beyond control, choking her. I could see how my chief's face turned
livid. He had driven another rivet in the chain--just the one it
needed to hold it firmly together. My head was whirling. Could it be
possible, after all, that this gentle, cultured girl was really such a
fiend at heart that she could strike down.... I put the thought from
me. It was monstrous, unbelievable!
The coroner and the district attorney were whispering together, and I
saw the former glance from the blood-stained handkerchief on the desk
before him to the sobbing woman on the stand. It needed only that--her
identification of that square of cambric--to complete the evidence.
He hesitated a moment, said another word or two to Singleton, then
straightened up again in his chair. Perhaps he thought the chain was
strong enough; perhaps he saw only that the witness was in no
condition to go on.
"Anything further, Mr. Royce?" he asked.
"Not at present, sir," answered our junior hoarsely. I think he was
just beginning fully to realize how desperate our case was.
"We will dismiss the witness, then, temporarily," said the coroner.
"We shall probably recall her later on."
The maid was led back to the witness room on the verge of hysteria,
and Goldberg looked over the papers on his desk.
"We have one more witness," he said at last, "Miss Holladay's
coachman, and perhaps a little testimony in rebuttal. If you wish to
adjourn for lunch, Mr. Royce, I'm quite ready to do so."
"Thank you, sir," said my chief, welcoming any opportunity to pull
himself together and prepare a plan of defense. "I _do_ wish it."
"Very well, then; we'll adjourn till two o'clock," and he pushed back
his chair.
"May I have one word with you, sir?" asked Mr. Royce.
"Certainly."
"I should like to see Miss Holladay a few moments in private. We wish,
of course, to arrange our rebuttal."
The coroner looked at him for a moment with eyes in which just a tinge
of curiosity flickered.
"I'll be very glad to allow you to see her in private," he answered
readily. "I regret greatly that we couldn't find you last night, so
that you could have opportunity to prepare for this hearing. I feel
that, in a way, we haven't been quite fair to you, though I don't see
how delay could have altered matters, and, in a case of this kind,
prompt action is important. I had no intention of placing Miss
Holladay on the witness stand, so I thought it best to proceed at once
with the inquest. You must admit, sir, that, as the case stands,
there's only one course open to me."
"I fear so," assented the other sadly. "It's a most incomprehensible
case. The chain of evidence seems absolutely complete, and yet I'm
convinced--as every sane man must be--that there is in it some fatal
flaw, which, once discovered, will send the whole structure tottering.
It must be my business to find that flaw."
"Strange things happen in this world, Mr. Royce," observed Singleton
with a philosophy born of experience.
"The impossible never happens, sir!" retorted our junior. "I hope to
show you that this belongs in that category."
"Well, I hope you will," said the district attorney. "I'd be glad to
find that someone else is guilty."
"I'll do my best," and Mr. Royce turned to me. "Lester, you'd better
go and get some lunch. You look quite done up."
"Shall I bring you something?" I asked. "Or, better still, have a meal
ready for you in half an hour? Rotin's is just around the corner."
He would have refused, I think, had not the coroner interfered.
"You'd better go, Mr. Royce," he said. "You're looking done up
yourself. Perhaps you can persuade Miss Holladay to eat something. I'm
sure she needs it."
"Very well, then; have two meals ready in half an hour, Lester," he
said, "and a lunch we can bring back with us. I'll go to Miss Holladay
now, and then come direct to Rotin's."
He hurried away after the coroner, and I walked slowly over to Rotin's
to give the necessary orders. I chose a table in a snug corner, picked
up a paper, and tried to read. Its one great item of news was the
Holladay case, and I grew hot with anger, as I saw how unquestioningly,
how complacently, it accepted the theory of the daughter's guilt.
Still, I asked myself, was it to blame? Was anyone to blame for
thinking her guilty after hearing the evidence? How could one escape
it? Why, even I----
Preposterous! I tried to reason calmly; to find an opening in the net.
Yet, how complete it was! The only point we had gained, so far, was
that the mysterious visitor had asked for Mr. Holladay, not for her
father--and what an infinitesimal point it was! Supposing there had
been a quarrel, an estrangement, would not she naturally have used
those very words? After all, did not the black eyes, the full lips,
the deep-colored cheeks bespeak a strong and virile temperament, depth
of emotion, capacity for swift and violent anger? But what cause could
there be for a quarrel so bitter, so fierce, that it should lead to
such a tragedy? What cause? And then, suddenly, a wave of light broke
in upon me. There could be only one--yes, but there _could_ be one!
Capacity for emotion meant capacity for passion. If she had a lover,
if she had clung to him despite her father! I knew his reputation for
severity, for cold and relentless condemnation. Here was an
explanation, certainly!
And then I shook myself together angrily. Here was I, reasoning along
the theory of her guilt--trying to find a motive for it! I remembered
her as I had seen her often, driving with her father; I recalled the
many stories I had heard of their devotion; I reflected how her whole
life, so far as I knew it, pointed to a nature singularly calm and
self-controlled, charitable and loving. As to the lover theory, did
not the light in her eyes which had greeted our junior disprove that,
at once and forever? Certainly, there was some fatal flaw in the
evidence, and it was for us to find it.
I leaned my head back against the wall with a little sigh of relief.
What a fool I had been! Of course, we should find it! Mr. Royce had
spoken the words, the district attorney had pointed out the way. We
had only to prove an alibi! And the next witness would do it. Her
coachman had only to tell where he had driven her, at what places she
had stopped, and the whole question would be settled. At the hour the
crime was committed, she had doubtless been miles away from Wall
Street! So the question would be settled--settled, too, without the
necessity of Miss Holladay undergoing the unpleasant ordeal of
cross-examination.
"It is a most extraor-rdinary affair," said a voice at my elbow, and I
turned with a start to see that the chair just behind me had been
taken by a man who was also reading an account of the crime. He laid
the paper down, and caught my eye. "A most extraor-rdinary affair!" he
repeated, appealing to me.
I nodded, merely glancing at him, too preoccupied to notice him
closely. I got an impression of a florid face, of a stout,
well-dressed body, of an air unmistakably French.
"You will pardon me, sir," he added, leaning a little forward. "As a
stranger in this country, I am much inter-rested in your processes of
law. This morning I was present at the trial--I per-rceived you there.
It seemed to me that the young lady was in--what you call--a tight
place."
He spoke English very well, with an accent of the slightest. I glanced
at him again, and saw that his eyes were very bright and that they
were fixed upon me intently.
"It does seem so," I admitted, loth to talk, yet not wishing to be
discourteous.
"The ver' thing I said to myself!" he continued eagerly. "The--what
you call--coe-encidence of the dress, now!"
I did not answer; I was in no humor to discuss the case.
"You will pardon me," he repeated persuasively, still leaning forward,
"but concer-rning one point I should like much to know. If she is
thought guilty what will occur?"
"She will be bound over to the grand jury," I explained.
"That is, she will be placed in prison?"
"Of course."
"But, as I understand your law, she may be released by bondsmen."
"Not in a capital case," I said; "not in a case of this kind, where
the penalty may be death."
"Ah, I see," and he nodded slowly. "She would then not be again
released until after she shall have been proved innocent. How great a
time would that occupy?"
"I can't say--six months--a year, perhaps."
"Ah, I see," he said again, and drained a glass of absinthe he had
been toying with. "Thank you, ver' much, sir."
He arose and went slowly out, and I noted the strength of his figure,
the short neck----
The waiter came with bread and butter, and I realized suddenly that it
was long past the half-hour. Indeed, a glance at my watch showed me
that nearly an hour had gone. I waited fifteen minutes longer, ate
what I could, and, taking a box-lunch under my arm, hurried back to
the coroner's office. As I entered it, I saw a bowed figure sitting at
the table, and my heart fell as I recognized our junior. His whole
attitude expressed a despair absolute, past redemption.
"I've brought your lunch, Mr. Royce," I said, with what lightness I
could muster. "The proceedings will commence in half an hour--you'd
better eat something," and I opened the box.
He looked at it for a moment, and then began mechanically to eat.
"You look regularly done up," I ventured. "Wouldn't I better get you
a glass of brandy? That'll tone you up."
"All right," he assented listlessly, and I hurried away on the errand.
The brandy brought a little color back to his cheeks, and he began to
eat with more interest.
"Must I order lunch for Miss Holladay?" I questioned.
"No," he said. "She said she didn't wish any."
He relapsed again into silence. Plainly, he had received some new blow
during my absence.
"After all," I began, "you know we've only to prove an alibi to knock
to pieces this whole house of cards."
"Yes, that's all," he agreed. "But suppose we can't do it, Lester?"
"Can't do it?" I faltered. "Do you mean----?"
"I mean that Miss Holladay positively refuses to say where she spent
yesterday afternoon."
"Does she understand the--the necessity?" I asked.
"I pointed it out to her as clearly as I could. I'm all at sea,
Lester."
Well, if even he were beginning to doubt, matters were indeed serious!
"It's incomprehensible!" I sighed, after a moment's confused thought.
"It's----"
"Yes--past believing."
"But the coachman----"
"The coachman's evidence, I fear, won't help us much--rather the
reverse."
I actually gasped for breath--I felt like a drowning man from whose
grasp the saving rope had suddenly, unaccountably, been snatched.
"In that case----" I began, and stopped.
"Well, in that case?"
"We must find some other way out," I concluded lamely.
"_Is_ there another way, Lester?" he demanded, wheeling round upon me
fiercely. "_Is_ there another way? If there is, I wish to God you'd
show it to me!"
"There must be!" I protested desperately, striving to convince myself.
"There must be; only, I fear, it will take some little time to find."
"And meanwhile, Miss Holladay will be remanded! Think what that will
mean to her, Lester!"
I had thought. I was desperate as he--but to find the flaw, the weak
spot in the chain, required, I felt, a better brain than mine. I was
lost in a whirlwind of perplexities.
"Well, we must do our best," he went on more calmly, after a moment.
"I haven't lost hope yet--chance often directs these things. Besides,
at worst, I think Miss Holladay will change her mind. Whatever her
secret, it were better to reveal it than to spend a single hour in the
Tombs. She simply _must_ change her mind! And thanks, Lester, for
your thoughtfulness. You've put new life into me."
I cleared away the débris of the lunch, and a few moments later the
room began to fill again. At last the coroner and district attorney
came in together, and the former rapped for order.
"The inquest will continue," he said, "with the examination of John
Brooks, Miss Holladay's coachman."
I can give his evidence in two words. His mistress had driven directly
down the avenue to Washington Square. There she had left the carriage,
bidding him wait for her, and had continued southward into the squalid
French quarter. He had lost sight of her in a moment, and had driven
slowly about for more than two hours before she reappeared. She had
ordered him to drive home as rapidly as he could, and he had not
stopped until he reached the house. Her gown? Yes, he had noticed that
it was a dark red. He had not seen her face, for it was veiled. No,
he had never before driven her to that locality.
Quaking at heart, I realized that only one person could extricate
Frances Holladay from the coil woven about her. If she persisted in
silence, there was no hope for her. But that she should still refuse
to speak was inconceivable, unless----
"That is all," said the coroner. "Will you cross-examine the witness,
Mr. Royce?"
My chief shook his head silently, and Brooks left the stand.
Again the coroner and Singleton whispered together.
"We will recall Miss Holladay's maid," said the former at last.
She was on the stand again in a moment, calmer than she had been, but
deadly pale.
"Are your mistress's handkerchiefs marked in any way?" Goldberg asked,
as she turned to him.
"Some of them are, yes, sir, with her initials, in the form of a
monogram. Most of them are plain."
"Do you recognize this one?" and he handed her the ghastly piece of
evidence.
I held my breath while the woman looked it over, turning it with
trembling fingers.
"No, sir!" she replied emphatically, as she returned it to him.
"Does your mistress possess any handkerchiefs that resemble this one?"
"Oh, yes, sir; it's an ordinary cambric handkerchief of good quality
such as most ladies use."
I breathed a long sigh of relief; here, at least, fortune favored us.
"That is all. Have you any questions, Mr. Royce?"
Again our junior shook his head.
"That concludes our case," added the coroner. "Have you any witnesses
to summon, sir?"
What witnesses could we have? Only one--and I fancied that the jurymen
were looking at us expectantly. If our client were indeed innocent,
why should we hesitate to put her on the stand, to give her
opportunity to defend herself, to enable her to shatter, in a few
words, this chain of circumstance so firmly forged about her? If she
were innocent, would she not naturally wish to speak in her own
behalf? Did not her very unwillingness to speak argue----
"Ask for a recess," I whispered. "Go to Miss Holladay, and tell her
that unless she speaks----"
But before Mr. Royce could answer, a policeman pushed his way forward
from the rear of the room and handed a note to the coroner.
"A messenger brought this a moment ago, sir," he explained.
The coroner glanced at the superscription and handed it to my chief.
"It's for you, Mr. Royce," he said.
I saw that the address read,
For Mr. Royce,
Attorney for the Defense.
He tore it open, and ran his eyes rapidly over the inclosure. He read
it through a second time, then held out the paper to me with an
expression of the blankest amazement. The note read:
The man Rogers is lying. The woman who was with
Holladay wore a gown of dark green.