The Holladay Case | Page 8

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.