The Holladay Case | Page 9

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