第66章 XIX(3)

Instead of looking glad at this assurance, Gregory Hall gave a start, and an expression of fear came into his eyes.

"What do you mean?" he said "Have you any letters in your pocket, Mr. Hall?" went on Fleming Stone in a suave voice.

"Yes; several. Why?"

"I do not ask to read them. Merely show me the lot."

With what seemed to be an unwilling but enforced movement, Mr.

Hall drew four or five letters from his breast pocket and handed them to Fleming Stone.

"They've all been looked over, Mr. Stone," said the district attorney; "and they have no bearing on the matter of the, crime."

"Oh, I don't want to read them," said the detective.

He ran over the lot carelessly, not taking the sheets from the envelopes, and returned them to their owner.

Gregory Hall looked at him as if fascinated. What revelation was this man about to make?

"Mr. Hall," Fleming Stone began, "I've no intention of forcing your secret from you. But I shall ask you some questions, and you may do as you like about answering them. First, you refuse to tell where you were during the night last Tuesday. I take it, you mean you refuse to tell how or where you spent the evening.

Now, will you tell us where you lodged that night?"

"I fail to see any reason for telling you," answered Hall, after a moment's thought. "I have said I was in New York City, that is enough."

"The reason you may as well tell us," went on Mr. Stone, "is because it is a very simple matter for us to find out. You doubtless were at some hotel, and you went there because you could not get a room at your club. In fact, this was stated when the coroner telephoned for you, the morning after the murder. I mean, it was stated that the club bed-rooms were all occupied. I assume, therefore, that you lodged at some hotel, and, as a canvass of the city hotels would be a simple matter, you may as well save us that trouble."

"Oh, very well," said Gregory Hall sullenly; "then I did spend the night at a hotel. It was the Metropolis Hotel, and you will find my name duly on the register."

"I have no doubt of it," said Stone pleasantly. "Now that you have told us this, have you any objection to telling us at what time you returned to the hotel, after your evening's occupation, whatever it may have been?"

"Eh?" said Hall abstractedly. He turned his head as he spoke, and Fleming Stone threw me a quizzical smile which I didn't in the least understand.

"You may as well tell us," said Stone, after he had repeated his question, "for if you withhold it, the night clerk can give us this information."

"Well," said Hall, who now looked distinctly sulky, "I don't remember exactly, but I think I turned in somewhere between twelve and one o'clock."

"And as it was a late hour, you slept rather late next morning," suggested Stone.

"Oh, I don't know. I was at Mr. Craw ford's New York office by half-past ten."

"A strange coincidence, Burroughs," said Fleming Stone, turning to me.

"Eh? Beg pardon?" said Hall, turning his head also.

"Mr. Hall," said Stone, suddenly facing him again, "are you deaf?

Why do you ask to have remarks repeated?"

Hall looked slightly apologetic. " I am a little deaf," he said;

"but only in one ear. And only at times - or, rather, it's worse at times. If I have a cold, for instance."

"Or in damp weather?" said Stone. "Mr. Hall, I have questioned you enough. I will now tell these gentlemen, since you refuse to do so, where you were on the night of Mr. Crawford's murder. You were not in West Sedgwick, or near it. You are absolutely innocent of the crime or any part in it."

Gregory Hall straightened up perceptibly, like a man exonerated from all blame. But he quailed again, as Fleming Stone, looking straight at him, continued: "You left West Sedgwick at six that evening, as you have said. You registered at the Metropolis Hotel, after learning that you could not get a room at your club.

And then - you went over to Brooklyn to meet, or to call on, a young woman living in that borough. You took her back to New York to the theatre or some such entertainment, and afterward escorted her back to her home. The young woman wore a street costume, by which I mean a cloth gown without a train. You did not have a cab, but, after leaving the car, you walked for a rather long distance in Brooklyn. It was raining, and you were both under one umbrella. Am I correct, so far?"