Part 35

"Mr. Crown," he said, "get this, once and for all: a man ain't necessarily a crook because he's once worked for the government. I'm as anxious to find the guilty man now, every time, as when I was in the Department of Justice. And I intend to. From now on, you'll give me credit for that!--Won't you, Mr. Sheriff?"

Crown apologized. "I'm worried; that's what. I'm up a gum stump and can't get down."

"All right, but don't try to make a ladder out of me! Why don't you look into that alibi?"

Crown was irritated again. "What do you stick to that for?"

"Because," Hastings declared, "I'm ready to swear-and-cross-my-heart he lied when he said he ran that four miles. I'm ready to swear he was here when the murder was done. When a man's got as good an alibi as he said he had, his adam's-apple don't play 'Yankee Doodle' on his windpipe."

"Is that so!"

"It is--and here's another thing: when's Mrs. Brace going to break loose?"

"Now, you're talking!" agreed Crown, with momentary enthusiasm. "She told me this morning she'd help me show up Webster--she wouldn't have it that Russell killed the girl. Foxy business! Mixed up in it herself, she runs to the rescue of the man she----"

The sheriff paused, unable to bring that reasoning to its logical conclusion.

"No," he said, dejected; "I can't believe she put him up to murdering her daughter."

"That woman," Hastings said, "is capable of anything--anything! We're going to find she's terrible, I tell you, Crown. She's mixed up in the murder somehow--and, if you don't find out how, I will!"

"How can we get her?" Crown argued. "She was in her flat when the killing was done. We've searched these grounds, and found nothing to incriminate anybody. All we've got is a strong suspicion against two men. She's out and away."

"Not if we watch her. She's promised to make trouble--she'll be lucky if she makes none for herself. Let's keep after her."

"I'm on! But," the sheriff reminded, again half-hearted, "that won't get us anything soon. She won't leave her flat before the funeral."

"That won't keep her quiet very long," Hastings contended. "She told me the funeral would be at nine o'clock tomorrow morning--from an undertaker's.--Anyway, I've instructed one of my assistants to keep track of her. I'm not counting on her grief absorbing her, even for today."

But he saw that Crown was not greatly impressed with the possibility of finding the murderer through Mrs. Brace. The sheriff was engrossed in mental precautions against being misled by "the Sloanehurst detective."

He was still in that mood when Miss Sloane sent for Hastings.

The detective found her in the music room. She had taken the chair which Judge Wilton had occupied an hour before, and was leaning one elbow on an arm of it, her chin resting in the cup of her hand. Her dress--a filmy lavender so light that it shaded almost to pink, and magically made to bring out the grace of her figure--drew his attention to the slight sag of her shoulders, suggestive of great weariness.

But he was captivated anew by her grave loveliness, and by her fortitude. She betrayed her agitation only in the fine tremour in her hands and a certain slowness in her words.

On the porch, talking to Judge Wilton, he had wondered, in a moment of irritation, why he continued on the case against so much apparent opposition in the very household which he sought to help. He knew now that neither his sense of duty nor his fee was the deciding influence. He stayed because this girl needed him, because he had seen in her eyes last night the haggard look of an unspeakable suspicion.

"You wanted to see me--is there anything special?" she asked him, immediately alert.

"Yes; there is, Miss Sloane," he said, careful to put into his voice all the sympathy he felt for her.

"Yes?" She was looking at him with steady eyes.

"It's this, and I want you to bear in mind that I wouldn't bring it up but for my desire to put an end to your uncertainty: I'm afraid you haven't told me everything you know, everything you saw last night in----"

When she would have spoken, he put up a warning hand.

"Let me explain, please. Don't commit yourself until you see what I mean. Judge Wilton and Mr. Webster seem to think I'm not needed here. It may be a natural attitude--for them. They're both lawyers, and to lawyers a mere detective doesn't amount to much."

"Oh, I'm sure it isn't that," she flashed out, apologizing.

"Oh, I don't mind, personally," he said, with a smile for which she felt grateful. "As I say, it's natural for them to think that way, perhaps. Your father, however, is not a lawyer; and, when I went into his room at your request, he took pains to offend me, insult me, several times." That brought a faint flush to her face. "So, that leaves only you to give me facts which I must have--if they exist."