She sank back into her chair and looked up at him with dark, appealing eyes.
"You think you can?" she asked.
"Can! Certainly I can! Why, it's too preposterous to stand for a moment! We've only to prove an alibi—to show that you were somewhere else, you know, at the time the crime was committed—and the whole business falls to pieces in an instant. You can do that easily, can't you?"
The color had gone from her cheeks again, and she buried her face in her hands.
"I don't know," she murmured indistinctly. "I must think. Oh, don't let it come to that!"
I was puzzled—confounded. With her good name, her life, perhaps, in the balance, she wanted time to think! I could see that my chief was astonished, too.
"I'll try to keep it from coming to that, since you wish it," he said slowly. "I'll not be able to call you, then, to testify in your own behalf—and that always hurts. But I hope the case will break down at once—I believe it will. At any rate, don't worry. I want you to rely on me."
She looked up at him again, smiling.
"I shall," she murmured softly. "I'm sure I could desire no better champion!"
Well, plainly, if he won this case he would win something else besides. I think even the policeman in the corner saw it, for he turned away with a discretion rare in policemen, and pretended to stare out of the window.
I don't know what my chief would have said—his lips were trembling so he could not speak for the moment—and just then there came a tap at the door, and the coroner's clerk looked in.
"We're ready to begin, sir," he said.
"Very well," cried Mr. Royce. "I'll come at once. Good-by for the moment, Miss Holladay. I repeat, you may rely on me," and he hastened from the room as confidently as though she had girded him for the battle. Instead, I told myself, she had bound him hand and foot before casting him down into the arena.
CHAPTER II
In the Grip of Circumstance
The outer room was crowded from end to end, and the atmosphere reeked with unpleasant dampness. Only behind the little railing before the coroner's desk was there breathing space, and we sank into our seats at the table there with a sigh of relief.
One never realizes how many newspapers there are in New York until one attends an important criminal case—that brings their people out in droves and swarms. The reporters took up most of the space in this small room, paper and pencils were everywhere in evidence, and in one corner there was a man with a camera stationed, determined, I suppose, to get a photograph of our client, should she be called to the stand, since none could be obtained in any other way.
I saw Singleton, the district attorney, come in and sit down near the coroner, and then the jury filed in from their room and took their seats. I examined them, man by man, with some little anxiety, but they all seemed intelligent and fairly well-to-do. Mr. Royce was looking over their names, and he checked them off carefully as the clerk called the roll. Then he handed the list up to the coroner with a little nod.
"Go ahead," he said. "They're all right, I guess—they look all right."
"It's a good jury," replied the coroner, as he took the paper. "Better than usual. Are you ready, Mr. Singleton?"
"Yes," said the district attorney. "Oh, wait a minute," he added, and he got up and came down to our table. "You're going to put Miss Holladay on the stand, I suppose——"
"And expose her to all this?" and our junior looked around the room. "Not if I can help it!"
"I don't see how you can help it. An alibi's the only thing that can save her from being bound over."
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," retorted Mr. Royce. "I think the case against her will soon die of inanition."
"Oh, very well," and Singleton abruptly went back to his desk, biting his mustache thoughtfully. He had made something of a reputation, since his election a year before, as a solver of abstruse criminal problems, and had secured a conviction in two or three capital cases which had threatened for a time to baffle the police. He evidently scented something of the same kind here, or he would have entrusted the case to one of his assistants. It might be added that, while his successes had made him immensely popular with the multitude, there had been, about one or two of them, a hint of unprofessional conduct, which had made his brethren of the bar look rather askance at him.
He nodded to the coroner after a moment, the room was called to order, and the first witness summoned.
It was Rogers, the confidential clerk. I knew Rogers, of course, had talked with him often in a business way, and had the highest respect for him. He had been with Mr. Holladay much longer than I had been with Graham & Royce, and had, as Mr. Graham had pointed out, an unimpeachable reputation.
There were the usual preliminaries, name, age, residence, and so on, Coroner Goldberg asking the questions. He was a really good cross-examiner, and soon came to the core of the matter.
"What is the position of your desk in Mr. Holladay's office?" he asked.
"There is an outer office for the clerks; opening from that, a smaller room where my desk is placed. Opening from my room was Mr. Holladay's private office.
"Had Mr. Holladay's office any other door?"
"No, sir."
"Could entrance be had by the windows?"
"The windows open on the street side of the building. We occupy a part of the eighth floor."
"The fire-escapes——"
"Are at the back of the building—there are none on the street side—nothing but a sheer wall."
"So that anyone entering or leaving the private office must necessarily pass by your desk?"
"Necessarily; yes, sir."
"Could anyone pass without your seeing him?"
"No, sir; that would be quite impossible."
The coroner leaned back in his chair. There was one point settled.
"Now, Mr. Rogers," he said, "will you kindly tell us, in your own way and with as much detail as possible, exactly what happened at your office shortly before five o'clock yesterday afternoon?"
I could see that Rogers was deeply moved. His face was very white, he moistened his lips nervously from time to time, and his hands grasped convulsively the arms of his chair. Plainly, the task before him was far from an agreeable one.
"Well, sir," he began, "we had a very busy day yesterday, and were at the office considerably later than usual; but by five o'clock we had closed up work for the day, and all the other clerks, with the exception of the office-boy, had gone home. I had made some notes from Mr. Holladay's dictation, and had returned to my desk to arrange them, when the outer door opened and Mr. Holladay's daughter came in. She asked me whether her father was engaged, and upon my saying no, opened the inner door and entered his office. She remained, I should think, about ten minutes; then she came out again, walked rapidly past without looking at me, and, I suppose, left the building. I finished arranging my notes, and then entered Mr. Holladay's office to ask if he had any further instructions for me, and I found him lying forward on his desk, with a knife sticking in his neck and the blood spurting out. I summoned aid, but he died without