The Holladay Case: A Tale. Burton Egbert Stevenson

right," he assented listlessly, and I hurried away on the errand.

      The brandy brought a little color back to his cheeks, and he began to eat with more interest.

      "Must I order lunch for Miss Holladay?" I questioned.

      "No," he said. "She said she didn't wish any."

      He relapsed again into silence. Plainly, he had received some new blow during my absence.

      "After all," I began, "you know we've only to prove an alibi to knock to pieces this whole house of cards."

      "Yes, that's all," he agreed. "But suppose we can't do it, Lester?"

      "Can't do it?" I faltered. "Do you mean——?"

      "I mean that Miss Holladay positively refuses to say where she spent yesterday afternoon."

      "Does she understand the—the necessity?" I asked.

      "I pointed it out to her as clearly as I could. I'm all at sea, Lester."

      Well, if even he were beginning to doubt, matters were indeed serious!

      "It's incomprehensible!" I sighed, after a moment's confused thought. "It's——"

      "Yes—past believing."

      "But the coachman——"

      "The coachman's evidence, I fear, won't help us much—rather the reverse."

      I actually gasped for breath—I felt like a drowning man from whose grasp the saving rope had suddenly, unaccountably, been snatched.

      "In that case——" I began, and stopped.

      "Well, in that case?"

      "We must find some other way out," I concluded lamely.

      "Is there another way, Lester?" he demanded, wheeling round upon me fiercely. "Is there another way? If there is, I wish to God you'd show it to me!"

      "There must be!" I protested desperately, striving to convince myself. "There must be; only, I fear, it will take some little time to find."

      "And meanwhile, Miss Holladay will be remanded! Think what that will mean to her, Lester!"

      I had thought. I was desperate as he—but to find the flaw, the weak spot in the chain, required, I felt, a better brain than mine. I was lost in a whirlwind of perplexities.

      "Well, we must do our best," he went on more calmly, after a moment. "I haven't lost hope yet—chance often directs these things. Besides, at worst, I think Miss Holladay will change her mind. Whatever her secret, it were better to reveal it than to spend a single hour in the Tombs. She simply must change her mind! And thanks, Lester, for your thoughtfulness. You've put new life into me."

      I cleared away the débris of the lunch, and a few moments later the room began to fill again. At last the coroner and district attorney came in together, and the former rapped for order.

      "The inquest will continue," he said, "with the examination of John Brooks, Miss Holladay's coachman."

      I can give his evidence in two words. His mistress had driven directly down the avenue to Washington Square. There she had left the carriage, bidding him wait for her, and had continued southward into the squalid French quarter. He had lost sight of her in a moment, and had driven slowly about for more than two hours before she reappeared. She had ordered him to drive home as rapidly as he could, and he had not stopped until he reached the house. Her gown? Yes, he had noticed that it was a dark red. He had not seen her face, for it was veiled. No, he had never before driven her to that locality.

      Quaking at heart, I realized that only one person could extricate Frances Holladay from the coil woven about her. If she persisted in silence, there was no hope for her. But that she should still refuse to speak was inconceivable, unless——

      "That is all," said the coroner. "Will you cross-examine the witness, Mr. Royce?"

      My chief shook his head silently, and Brooks left the stand.

      Again the coroner and Singleton whispered together.

      "We will recall Miss Holladay's maid," said the former at last.

      She was on the stand again in a moment, calmer than she had been, but deadly pale.

      "Are your mistress's handkerchiefs marked in any way?" Goldberg asked, as she turned to him.

      "Some of them are, yes, sir, with her initials, in the form of a monogram. Most of them are plain."

      "Do you recognize this one?" and he handed her the ghastly piece of evidence.

      I held my breath while the woman looked it over, turning it with trembling fingers.

      "No, sir!" she replied emphatically, as she returned it to him.

      "Does your mistress possess any handkerchiefs that resemble this one?"

      "Oh, yes, sir; it's an ordinary cambric handkerchief of good quality such as most ladies use."

      I breathed a long sigh of relief; here, at least, fortune favored us.

      "That is all. Have you any questions, Mr. Royce?"

      Again our junior shook his head.

      "That concludes our case," added the coroner. "Have you any witnesses to summon, sir?"

      What witnesses could we have? Only one—and I fancied that the jurymen were looking at us expectantly. If our client were indeed innocent, why should we hesitate to put her on the stand, to give her opportunity to defend herself, to enable her to shatter, in a few words, this chain of circumstance so firmly forged about her? If she were innocent, would she not naturally wish to speak in her own behalf? Did not her very unwillingness to speak argue——

      "Ask for a recess," I whispered. "Go to Miss Holladay, and tell her that unless she speaks——"

      But before Mr. Royce could answer, a policeman pushed his way forward from the rear of the room and handed a note to the coroner.

      "A messenger brought this a moment ago, sir," he explained.

      The coroner glanced at the superscription and handed it to my chief.

      "It's for you, Mr. Royce," he said.

      I saw that the address read,