Part 29

But I had been called to take charge of the case, and my pride forbade me to call on any one for help.

I had scorned deductions from inanimate objects, but I resolved to study that bag again, and study it more minutely. Perhaps there were some threads or shreds caught in its meshes that might point to its owner. I remembered a detective story I read once, in which the whole discovery of the criminal depended on identifying a few dark blue woollen threads which were found in a small pool of candle grease on a veranda roof. As it turned out, they were from the trouser knee of a man who had knelt there to open a window. The patent absurdity of leaving threads from one's trouser knee, amused me very much, but the accommodating criminals in fiction almost always leave threads or shreds behind them. And surely a gold-mesh bag, with its thousands of links would be a fine trap to catch some threads of evidence, however minute they might be.

Furthermore I decided to probe further into that yellow rose business. I was not at all sure that those petals I found on the floor had anything to do with Miss Lloyd's roses, but it must be a question possible of settlement, if I went about it in the right way. At any rate, though I had definite work ahead of me, my duty just now was to listen to the forthcoming evidence, though I could not help thinking I could have put questions more to the point than Mr. Monroe did.

Of course the coroner's inquest was not formally conducted as a trial by jury would be, and so any one spoke, if he chose, and the coroner seemed really glad when suggestions were offered him.

At this point Philip Crawford rose.

“It is impossible,” he said, “not to see whither these questions are tending. But you are on the wrong tack, Mr. Coroner. No matter how evidence may seem to point toward Florence Lloyd's association with this crime, it is only seeming. That gold bag might have been hers and it might not. But if she says it isn't, why, then it isn't! Notwithstanding the state of affairs between my brother and his niece, there is not the shadow of a possibility that the young woman is implicated in the slightest degree, and the sooner you leave her name out of consideration, and turn your search into other channels, the sooner you will find the real criminal.”

It was not so much the words of Philip Crawford, as the sincere way in which they were spoken, that impressed me. Surely he was right; surely this beautiful girl was neither principal nor accessory in the awful crime which, by a strange coincidence, gave to her her fortune and her lover.

“Mr. Crawford's right,” said Lemuel Porter. “If this jury allows itself to be misled by a gold purse and two petals of a yellow rose, we are unworthy to sit on this case. Why, Mr. Coroner, the long French windows in the office were open, or, at least, unfastened all through the night. We have that from the butler's testimony. He didn't lock them last night; they were found unlocked this morning. Therefore, I hold that an intruder, either man or woman, may have come in during the night, accomplished the fatal deed, and departed without any one being the wiser. That this intruder was a woman, is evidenced by the bag she left behind her. For, as Mr. Crawford has said, if Miss Lloyd denies the ownership of that bag, it is not hers.”

After all, these declarations were proof, of a sort. If Mr. Porter and Mr. Philip Crawford, who had known Florence Lloyd for years, spoke thus positively of her innocence, it could not be doubted.

And then the voice of Parmalee again sounded in my ears.

“Of course Mr. Porter and Mr. Crawford would stand up for Miss Lloyd; it would be strange if they didn't. And of course, Mrs. Pierce will do all she can to divert suspicion. But the evidences are against her.”

“They only seem to be,” I corrected. “Until we prove the gold bag and the yellow rose to be hers; there is no evidence against her at all.”

“She also had motive and opportunity. Those two points are of quite as much importance as evidence.”

“She had motive and opportunity,” I agreed, “but they were not exclusive. As Mr. Porter pointed out, the open windows gave opportunity that was world wide; and as to motive, how are we to know who had or who hadn't it.”

“You're right, I suppose. Perhaps I am too positive of Miss Lloyd's implication in the matter, but I'm quite willing to be convinced to the contrary.”

The remarks of Mr. Parmalee were of course not audible to any one save myself. But the speeches which had been made by Mr. Crawford and Mr. Porter, and which, strange to say, amounted to an arraignment and a vindication almost in the same breath, had a decided effect upon the assembly.

Mrs. Pierce began to weep silently. Gregory Hall looked startled, as if the mere idea of Miss Lloyd's implication was a new thought to him. Lawyer Randolph looked considerably disturbed, and I at once suspected that his legal mind would not allow him to place too much dependence on the statements of the girl's sympathetic friends.

Mr. Hamilton, another of the jurors whom I liked, seemed to be thoughtfully weighing the evidence. He was not so well acquainted with Miss Lloyd as the two men who had just spoken in her behalf, and he made a remark somewhat diffidently.

“I agree,” he said, “with the sentiments just expressed; but I also think that we should endeavor to find some further clues or evidence. Had Mr. Crawford any enemies who would come at night to kill him? Or are there any valuables missing? Could robbery have been the motive?”

“It does not seem so,” replied the coroner. “Nothing is known to be missing. Mr. Crawford's watch and pocket money were not disturbed.”

“The absence of the weapon is a strange factor in the case,” put in Mr. Orville, apparently desirous of having his voice heard as well as those of the other jurors.

“Yes,” agreed Mr. Monroe; “and yet it is not strange that the criminal carried away with him what might have been a proof of his identity.”

“Does Miss Lloyd own a pistol?” blurted out Mr. Parmalee.

Gregory Hall gave him an indignant look, but Coroner Monroe seemed rather glad to have the question raised--probably so that it could be settle at once in the negative.

And it was.

“No,” replied Mrs. Pierce, when the query was put to her. “Both Florence and I are desperately afraid of firearms. We wouldn't dream of owning a pistol--either of us.”

Of course, this was significant, but in no way decisive. Granting that Miss Lloyd could have been the criminal, it would have been possible for her secretly to procure a revolver, and secretly to dispose of it afterward. Then, too, a small revolver had been used. To be sure, this did not necessarily imply that a woman had used it, but, taken in connection with the bag and the rose petals, it gave food for thought.

But the coroner seemed to think Mrs. Pierce's assertions greatly in Miss Lloyd's favor, and, being at the end of his list of witnesses, he inquired if any one else in the room knew of anything that could throw light on the matter.