The Holladay Case | Page 8

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