A Chain of Evidence

XXIII

LAWRENCE'S STATEMENT

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."

XXIV

THE CHAIN OF EVIDENCE

Laura greeted us cordially; and Miss Pembroke, with a politeness which, though slightly constrained, was quiet and non-committal. But, as I had hoped, Fleming Stone's winning manner and charming conversational ability seemed to make Janet forget her aversion to detectives. At the luncheon table various subjects were touched upon, but it was not long before we drifted into a discussion of the theme uppermost in all our minds. I could see that although Fleming Stone was apparently talking in a casual way, he was closely studying Janet's face as he talked.

I noticed that when any reference was made to George Lawrence, Janet seemed perturbed, and, although Mr. Stone said flatly that George could not have entered when the door was chained, this did not seem to lessen Janet's concern. But when Stone referred to George's perfect alibi, Janet looked relieved, as if freed from a great fear.

It was entirely due to Fleming Stone's tact that the conversation was kept at a light and airy level. I was intensely conscious of a growing portent of evil. A cloak of gloom seemed to be settling around me, and it was only with the utmost effort that I could control my nervous apprehensions. What was going to happen, I did not know, but I felt intuitively that a climax was fast approaching, and at last I found myself sacrificing all other sympathies to the hope that Janet might be spared.

I could see that Laura was equally agitated, although she too was outwardly calm. Janet, as always, was a puzzle. She seemed alternately depressed or gladdened in proportion as the drift of suspicion seemed directed toward or away from her cousin George.

In a word, Fleming Stone's personality dominated us all. We were but as strings of an instrument upon which he played, and we responded involuntarily to his impulses or at his will.

Into this surcharged atmosphere came another element with the entrance of George Lawrence. He looked handsome and debonair as usual, and informally begged of Mrs. Mulford permission to share our after-dinner coffee.

"We're glad to have you," said Laura, in her affable way, "and, as we have finished luncheon, we will have our coffee in the library, where we can be more comfortable."

Although Lawrence seemed perfectly at ease, and unconscious of any reason to fear Fleming Stone's investigations, I couldn't help feeling that his air of ease was assumed. It was not so much any signs of nervousness or sensitiveness about him, as it was the pronounced absence of these. It seemed to me that he was playing a part of straightforward fearlessness, but was slightly overdoing it.

Fleming Stone talked to Lawrence casually, referring once to his perfect alibi. George remarked that though he had no fear of suspicion falling in his direction, it gave him a feeling of satisfaction to know that he could satisfactorily account for his whereabouts at the time the murder was committed.

"And now," said Mr. Stone, after the coffee service had been removed, "I think I will make my examination of the apartment opposite. It is not probable that I will discover anything in the nature of a clue, but as a detective I certainly must examine the scene of the crime. I would prefer to go alone, if you will give a key. I will rejoin you here after my search."

Janet gave Mr. Stone her key, and without further word he crossed the hall alone to what had been the Pembrokes' apartment.

After Fleming Stone's departure a strange chill fell on the mental atmosphere of our little party. George Lawrence seemed to lose his careless air, and a grayish pallor settled on his face, notwithstanding his apparent effort to appear as usual. Janet watched her cousin closely, and she herself seemed on the verge of nervous collapse. Laura, like the blessed woman she is, strove bravely to keep up, but I saw that she too felt that the end was near. As for myself, remembering Fleming Stone's promise, I seemed to be possessed, to the exclusion of all else, of a great fear for Janet.

It could not have been more than ten minutes, if as much as that, before Fleming Stone returned.

As he entered our library he seemed to have lost his professional aspect, and I thought I had never seen a sadder or more sympathetic expression than I read in his eyes.

"Mr. Lawrence," he said, without preamble, "it is my duty to arrest you for the murder of your uncle, Robert Pembroke."

For a moment there was no sound, and then, with a pathetic, heart-breaking little cry, Janet said: "Oh, I hoped so that it wasn't you!"

To my surprise, Lawrence tried to deny it. Guilt seemed to me to be written in every line of his face, yet, with a palpable effort, he assumed an air of bravado and said: "I told you I might be accused, but I can prove a perfect alibi."

"Mr. Lawrence," said Fleming Stone, more sternly than he had yet spoken, "you have over-reached yourself. That very phrase, 'I can prove a perfect alibi,' gave me the first hint that your alibi was a manufactured one. An innocent man can rarely prove a perfect alibi. Not one man in a hundred can give accurate account to the minute of his goings and comings. Your alibi is too perfect; its very perfection is its flaw. Again, the idea of proving an alibi, or, rather, the idea of using that phrase, would not occur to an honest man. He would know that circumstances must prove his alibi. It was that which proved to me that Mr. Leroy and Mr. Gresham were innocent. I am informed that Mr. Leroy refused to tell exactly where he was at the time this crime was committed. Had he been guilty he would have had a previously prepared and perfectly plausible alibi. Then Mr. Gresham said frankly that he didn't know where he was at the particular hour about which Mr. Landon questioned him. Had he been the criminal, and left his handkerchief behind him by way of evidence, he, too, would have prearranged a story to tell glibly of his whereabouts. No, a perfect alibi should ordinarily lead to grave suspicion of the man making it, for it is ordinarily a concocted fiction. Again, it would have been a strange coincidence had your watch happened to run down, which you admit is a most unusual circumstance, at the only time in your whole life when you had a reason for its doing so. Your watch did not run down; you pretended that it did so as to get an opportunity to fix the time – the apparent time – in the mind of the hall boy at your apartment. This is what you did: You returned to your apartment much later than 11.25. In the absence of the boy, probably while he was up with the elevator, you stepped in and changed the time on the office clock. You went out again, and after a moment came in as if just reaching home. You then asked the boy the time, and he told you, although he had supposed it to be much later. Again you overdid your work when, while going up in the elevator, you asked the boy again, as if to make sure of the time, but really to fix it firmly in his mind, that he might witness for you. Some time later, during the night, you probably slipped down-stairs, eluding the elevator, and corrected the clock. All this is corroborated by the fact of your calling Miss Waring's attention to the time when you left her house. You carefully brought to her notice that it was then exactly eleven o'clock, which it was."