The atmosphere of the office that morning was a shade less genial than usual. We had all of us fought our way downtown through such a storm of wind, snow, slush, and sleet as is to be found nowhere save in mid-March New York, and our tempers had suffered accordingly. I had found a cab unobtainable, and there was, of course, the inevitable jam on the Elevated, with the trains many minutes behind the schedule. I was some half-hour late, in consequence, and when I entered the inner office, I was surprised to find Mr. Graham, our senior, already at his desk. He nodded good-morning a little curtly.
"I wish you'd look over these papers in the Hurd case, Lester," he said, and pushed them toward me.
I took them and sat down; and just then the outer door slammed with a violence extremely unusual.
I had never seen Mr. Royce, our junior, so deeply shaken, so visibly distracted, as he was when he burst in upon us a moment later, a newspaper in his hand. Mr. Graham, startled by the noise of his entrance, wheeled around from his desk and stared at him in astonishment.
"Why, upon my word, John," he began, "you look all done up. What's the matter?"
"Matter enough, sir!" and Mr. Royce spread out the paper on the desk before him. "You haven't seen the morning papers, of course; well, look at that!" and he indicated with a trembling finger the article which occupied the first column of the first page--the place of honor.
I saw our senior's face change as he read the headlines, and he seemed positively horror-stricken as he ran rapidly through the story which followed.
"Why, this is the most remarkable thing I ever read!" he burst out at last.
"Remarkable!" cried the other. "Why, it's a damnable outrage, sir! The idea that a gentle, cultured girl like Frances Holladay would deliberately murder her own father--strike him down in cold blood--is too monstrous, too absolutely preposterous, too--too----" and he stopped, fairly choked by his emotion.
The words brought me upright in my chair. Frances Holladay accused of--well!--no wonder our junior was upset!
But Mr. Graham was reading through the article again more carefully, and while he nodded sympathetically to show that he fully assented to the other's words, a straight, deep line of perplexity, which I had come to recognize, formed between his eyebrows.
"Plainly," he said at last, "the whole case hinges on the evidence of this man Rogers--Holladay's confidential clerk--and from what I know of Rogers, I should say that he'd be the last man in the world to make a willful misstatement. He says that Miss Holladay entered her father's office late yesterday afternoon, stayed there ten minutes, and then came out hurriedly. A few minutes later Rogers went into the office and found his employer dead. That's the whole case, but it'll be a hard one to break."
"Well, it must be broken!" retorted the other, pulling himself together with a supreme effort. "Of course, I'll take the case."
"Of course!"
"Miss Holladay probably sent for me last night, but I was out at Babylon, you know, looking up that witness in the Hurd affair. He'll be all right, and his evidence will give us the case. Our answer in the Brown injunction can wait till to-morrow. That's all, I think."
The chief nodded.
"Yes--I see the inquest is to begin at ten o'clock. You haven't much time."
"No--I'd like to have a good man with me," and he glanced in my direction. "Can you spare me Lester?"
My heart gave a jump. It was just the question I was hoping he would ask.
"Why, yes, of course," answered the chief readily. "In a case like this, certainly. Let me hear from you in the course of the day."
Mr. Royce nodded as he started for the door.
"I will; we'll find some flaw in that fellow's story, depend upon it. Come on, Lester."
I snatched up pen and paper and followed him to the elevator. In a moment we were in the street; there were cabs in plenty now, disgorging their loads and starting back uptown again; we hailed one, and in another moment were rattling along toward our destination with such speed as the storm permitted. There were many questions surging through my brain to which I should have welcomed an answer. The storm had cut off my paper that morning, and I regretted now that I had not made a more determined effort to get another. A glance at my companion showed me the folly of attempting to secure any information from his, so I contented myself with reviewing what I already knew of the history of the principals.
I knew Hiram W. Holladay, the murdered man, quite well; not only as every New Yorker knew that multi-millionaire as one of the most successful operators in Wall Street, but personally as well, since he had been a client of Graham & Royce for twenty years and more. He was at that time well on toward seventy years of age, I should say, though he carried his years remarkably well; his wife had been long dead, and he had only one child, his daughter, Frances, who must have been about twenty-five. She had been born abroad, and had spent the first years of her life there with her mother, who had lingered on the Riviera and among the hills of Italy and Switzerland in the hope of regaining a health, which had been failing, so I understood, ever since her daughter's birth. She had come home at last, bringing the black-eyed child with her, and within the year was dead.
Holladay's affections from that moment seemed to grow and center about his daughter, who developed into a tall and beautiful girl--too beautiful, as was soon apparent, for our junior partner's peace of mind. He had met her first in a business way, and afterwards socially, and all of us who had eyes could see how he was eating his heart out at the knowledge that she was far beyond his reach; for it was evident that her father deemed her worthy of a brilliant marriage--as, indeed, she was. I sometimes thought that she held herself at a like value, for though there was about her a constant crowd of suitors, none of them, seemingly, could win an atom of encouragement. She was waiting, I told myself, waiting; and I had even pictured to myself the grim irony of a situation in which our junior might be called upon to arrange her marriage settlements.
The cab stopped with a jolt, and I looked up to see that we had reached the Criminal Courts building. Mr. Royce sprang out, paid the driver, and ran up the steps to the door, I after him. He turned down the corridor to the right, and entered the room at the end of it, which I recognized as the office of Coroner Goldberg. A considerable crowd had already collected there.
"Has the coroner arrived yet?" my companion asked one of the clerks.
"Yes, sir; he's in his private office."
"Will you take him this card and say that I'd like to see him at once, if possible?"
The clerk hurried away with the card. He was back again in a moment.
"This way, sir," he called.
We followed him across the room and through a door at the farther side.
"Ah, Mr. Royce, glad to see you," cried the coroner, as we entered. "We tried to find you last night, but learned that you were out of town, and I was just calling up your office again."
"Miss Holladay asked for me, then?"
"Yes, at once. When we found we couldn't get you, we suggested your senior, but she said she'd wait till you returned."
I could see our junior's face crimson with pleasure.
"You didn't think it necessary to confine her, I trust?" he asked.
"Oh, no; she wasn't disturbed. She spent the night at home--under surveillance."
"That was right. Of course, it's simply absurd to suspect her."
Goldberg looked at him curiously.
"I don't know, Mr. Royce," he said slowly. "If the evidence turns out as I think it will, I shall have to hold her--the district attorney expects it."
Mr. Royce's hands were clutching a chair-back, and they trembled a little at the coroner's words.
"He'll be present at the examination, then?" he asked.
"Yes, we're waiting for him. You see, it's rather an extraordinary case."
"Is it?"
"We think so, anyway!" said the coroner, just a trifle impatiently.
I could see the retort which sprang to our junior's lips, but he choked it back. There was no use offending Goldberg.
"I should like to see Miss Holladay before the examination begins," he said. "Is she present?"
"She's in the next room, yes. You shall see her, certainly, at once. Julius, take Mr. Royce to Miss Holladay," he added to the clerk.
I can see her yet, rising from her chair with face alight, as we entered, and I saw instantly how I had misjudged her. She came a step toward us, holding out her hands impulsively; then, with an effort, controlled herself and clasped them before her.
"Oh, but I'm glad to see you!" she cried in a voice so low I could scarcely hear it. "I've wanted you so much!"
"It was my great misfortune that I could come no sooner," said my chief, his voice trembling a little despite himself. "I--I scarcely expected to see you here with no one----"
"Oh," she interrupted, "there was no one I cared to have. My friends have been very kind--have offered to do anything--but I felt that I wanted to be just alone and think. I should have liked to have my maid, but----"
"She's one of the witnesses, I suppose," explained Mr. Royce. "Well, now that I'm here, I shall stay until I've proved how utterly ridiculous this charge against you is."
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.
