第61章 XVIII(3)

"I am not asking for any such consideration," said Philip Crawford. "If you decide upon such a course, it will be entirely of your own volition."

The district attorney hesitated.

"Speaking personally," he said, at last, "I may say that I place full credence in Mr. Crawford's story. I am entirely convinced of the absolute truth of all his statements. But, speaking officially, I may say that in a court of justice witnesses would be required, who could corroborate his words."

"But such witnesses are manifestly impossible to procure," said Mr. Randolph.

"Certainly they are," I agreed, "and I should like to make this suggestion: Believing, as we do, in Mr. Crawford's story, it becomes important testimony in the case. Now, if it were made public, it would lose its importance, for it would set ignorant tongues wagging, and give rise to absurd and untrue theories, and result in blocking our best-meant efforts. So I propose that we keep the matter to ourselves for a time - say a week or a fortnight - keeping Mr. Crawford under surveillance, if need be.

Then we can work on the case, with the benefit of the suggestions offered by Mr. Crawford's revelations; and I, for one, think such benefit of immense importance."

"That will do," said Mr. Goodrich, whose troubled face had cleared at my suggestion. "You are quite right, Mr. Burroughs.

And the `surveillance' will be a mere empty formality. For a man who has confessed as Mr. Crawford has done, is not going to run away from the consequences of his confession."

"I am not," said Mr. Crawford. "And I am grateful for this respite from unpleasant publicity. I will take my punishment when it comes, but I feel with Mr. Burroughs that more progress can be made if what I have told you is not at once generally known."

"Where now does suspicion point?"

It was Mr. Randolph who spoke. His legal mind had already gone ahead of the present occasion, and was applying the new facts to the old theories.

"To Gregory Hall," said the district attorney.

"Wait," said I. "If Mr. Crawford left the bag and the newspaper in the office, we have no evidence whatever that Mr. Hall came out on that late train."

"Nor did he need to," said Mr. Goodrich, who was thinking rapidly. "He might have come on an earlier train, or, for that matter, not by train at all. He may have come out from town in a motor car."

This was possible; but it did not seem to me probable. A motor car was a conspicuous way for a man to come out from New York and return, if he wished to keep his visit secret. Still, he could have left the car at some distance from the house, and walked the rest of the way.

"Did Mr. Hall know that a revolver was kept in Mr. Crawford's desk drawer?" I asked.

"He did," replied Philip Crawford. "He was present when I took my pistol over to Joseph."

"Then," said Mr. Goodrich, "the case looks to me very serious against Mr. Hall. We have proved his motive, his opportunity, and his method, or, rather, means, of committing the crime. Add to this his unwillingness to tell where he was on Tuesday night, and I see sufficient justification for issuing a warrant for his arrest."

"I don't know," said Philip Crawford, "whether such immediate measures are advisable. I don't want to influence you, Mr.

Goodrich, but suppose we see Mr. Hall, and question him a little.

Then, if it seems to you best, arrest him."

"That is a good suggestion, Mr. Crawford," said the district attorney. " We can have a sort of court of inquiry by ourselves, and perhaps Mr. Hall will, by his own words, justify or relieve our suspicions."

I went away from Mr. Crawford's house, and went straight to Florence Lloyd's. I did this almost involuntarily. Perhaps if I had stopped to think, I might have realized that it did not devolve upon me to tell her of Philip Crawford's confession. But I wanted to tell her myself, because I hoped that from her manner of hearing the story I could learn something. I still believed that in trying to shield Hall, she had not yet been entirely frank with me, and at any rate, I wanted to be the one to tell her of the important recent discovery.

When I arrived, I found Mr. Porter in the library talking with Florence. At first I hesitated about telling my story before him, and then I remembered that he was one of the best of Florence's friends and advisers, and moreover a man of sound judgment and great perspicacity. Needless to say, they were both amazed and almost stunned by the recital, and it was some time before they could take in the situation in all its bearings. We had a long, grave conversation, for the three of us were not influenced so much by the sensationalness of this new development, as by the question of whither it led. Of course the secret was as safe with these two, as with those of us who had heard it directly from Philip Crawford's lips.

"I understand Philip Crawford's action," said Mr. Porter, very seriously. "In the first place he was not quite himself, owing to the sudden shock of seeing his brother dead before his eyes.

Also the sight of his own pistol, with which the deed had evidently been committed, unnerved him. It was an almost unconscious nervous action which made him take the pistol, and it was a sort of subconscious mental working that resulted in his abstracting the will. Had he been in full possession of his brain faculty, he could not have done either. He did wrong, of course, but he has made full restitution, and his wrong-doing should not only be forgiven but forgotten."

I looked at Mr. Porter in unfeigned admiration. Truly he had expressed noble sentiments, and his must be a broadly noble nature that could show such a spirit toward his fellow man.

Florence, too, gave him an appreciative glance, but her mind seemed to be working on the possibilities of the new evidence.

"Then it would seem," she said slowly, "that as I, myself, was in Uncle's office at about eleven o'clock, and as Uncle Philip was there a little after one o'clock, whoever killed Uncle Joseph came and went away between those hours."