Part 43

“You hear, Louis?” I said sternly. “I believe Elsa's statement rather than yours, for she tells a straight story, while you are rattled and agitated, and have all the appearance of concealing something.”

Louis looked helpless. He didn't dare deny Elsa's story, but he would not confirm it. At last he said, with a glance of hatred at the girl, “Elsa, she tell that story to make the trouble for me.”

There was something in this. Elsa, I knew, was jealous, and her pride had been hurt because Louis had taken the rose she gave him, and then had gone to call on another girl. But I had no reason to doubt Elsa's statement, and I had every reason to doubt Louis's. I tried to imagine what Louis's experience had really been, and it suddenly occurred to me, that though innocent himself of real wrong, he had seen something in the office, or through the office windows that he wished to keep secret. I did not for a moment believe that the man had killed his master, so I concluded he was endeavoring to shield someone else.

“Louis,” I said, suddenly, “I'll tell you what you did. You went around by the office, you saw a light there late at night, and you naturally looked in. You saw Mr. Crawford there, and he was perhaps already killed. You stepped inside and discovered this, and then you came away, and said nothing about it, lest you yourself be suspected of the crime. Incidentally you dropped two petals from the rose Elsa had given you.”

Louis's answer to this accusation was a perfect storm of denials, expressed in voluble French and broken English, but all to the effect that it was not true, and that if he had seen his master dead, he would have raised an alarm.

I saw that I had not yet struck the right idea, so I tried again. “Then, Louis, you must have passed the office before Mr. Crawford was killed, which is really more probable. Then as you passed the window, you saw something or someone in the office, and you're not willing to tell about it. Is this it?”

This again brought forth only incoherent denial, and I could see that the man was becoming so rattled, it was difficult for him to speak clearly, had he desired to do so.

“Elsa,” I said, suddenly, “you took that rose from Louis's room. What did you do with it?”

“I kept,--I mean, I don't know what I did with it,” stammered the girl, blushing rosy red, and looking shyly at Louis.

I felt sorry to disclose the poor girl's little romance, for it was easy enough to see that she was in love with the fickle Frenchman, who evidently did not reciprocate her interest. He looked at her disdainfully, and she presented a pathetic picture of embarrassment.

But the situation was too serious for me to consider Elsa's sentiments, and I said, rather sternly: “You do know where it is. You preserved that rose as a souvenir. Go at once and fetch it.”

It was a chance shot, for I was not at all certain that she had kept the withered flower, but dominated by my superior will she went away at once. She returned in a moment with the flower.

Although withered, it was still in fairly good condition; quite enough so for me to see at a glance that no petals had been detached from it. The green calyx leaves clung around the bud in such a manner as to prove positively that the unfolding flower had lost no petal. This settled the twelfth rose. Wherever those tell-tale petals had come from, they were not from Louis's rose. I gave the flower back to Elsa, and I said, “take your flower, my girl, and go away now. I don't want to question you any more for the present.”

A little bewildered at her sudden dismissal, Elsa went away, and I turned my attention to the Frenchman.

“Louis,” I began, “this must be settled here and now between us. Either you must tell me what I want to know, or you must be taken before the district attorney, and be made to tell him. I have proved to my own satisfaction that the rose petals in the office were not from the flower you wore. Therefore I conclude that you did not go into the office that night, but as you passed the window you did see someone in there with Mr. Crawford. The hour was later than Mr. Porter's visit, for he had already gone home, and Lambert had locked the front door and gone to bed. You came in later, and what you saw, or whom you saw through the office window so surprised you, or interested you, that you paused to look in, and there you dropped your transfer.”

Though Louis didn't speak, I could see at once that I was on the right track at last. The man was shielding somebody. He was unwilling to tell what he had seen, lest it inculpate someone. Could it be Gregory Hall? If Hall had come out on a late train, and Louis had seen him there, he might, perhaps under Hall's coercion, be keeping the fact secret. Again, if a strange woman with the gold bag had been in the office, that also would have attracted Louis's attention. Again, and here my heart almost stopped beating, could he have seen Florence Lloyd in there? But a second thought put me at ease again. Surely to have seen Florence in there would have been so usual and natural a sight that it could not have caused him anxiety. And yet, again, for him to have seen Florence in her uncle's office, would have proved to him that the story she told at the inquest was false. I must get out of him the knowledge he possessed, if I had to resort to a sort of third degree. But I might manage it by adroit questioning.

“I quite understand, Louis, that you are shielding some person. But let me tell you that it is useless. It is much wiser for you to tell me all you know, and then I can go to work intelligently to find the man who murdered Mr. Crawford. You want me to find him, do you not?”

Louis seemed to have found his voice again. “Yes, sir, of course he must be found. Of course I want him found,--the miscreant, the villain! but, Mr. Burroughs, sir, what I have see in the office makes nothing to your search. I simply see Mr. Crawford alive and well. And I pass by. That fool girl Elsa, she tell you that I pass by, so I may say so. But I see nothing in the office to alarm me, and if I drop my transfer there, it is but because I think of him as no consequence, and I let him go.”

“Louis,” and I looked him straight in the eye, “all that sounds straightforward and true. But, if you saw nothing in the office to surprise or alarm you, why did you at first deny having passed by the office at all?”

The man had no answer for this. He was not ingenious in inventing falsehood, and he stood looking helpless and despairing. I perceived I should have to go on with my questioning.

“Was it a man or a woman you saw in there with Mr. Crawford?”

“I see nobody, sir, nobody but my master.”

That wouldn't do, then. As long as I asked him direct questions he could answer falsely. I must trip him up in some roundabout way.

“Yes,” I said pleasantly, “I understand that. And what was Mr. Crawford doing?”

“He sat at his desk;” and Louis spoke slowly, and picked his words with care.

“Was he writing?”

“No; that is, yes, sir, he was writing.”

I now knew he was not writing, for the truth had slipped out before the man could frame up his lie. I believed I was going to learn something at last, if I could make the man tell. Surely the testimony of one who saw Joseph Crawford late that night was of value, and though that testimony was difficult to obtain, it was well worth the effort.