The Holladay Case | Page 2

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