The girl fairly shuddered at this suggestion. She hesitated, and for a moment was unable to speak. Of course this behavior on her part filled my soul with awful apprehension. Could it be possible that she and Louis were in collusion, and that she dreaded the Frenchman's disclosures? I remembered the strange looks he had cast at her while being questioned by the coroner.
I remembered his vehement denial of having passed the office that evening, - too vehement, it now seemed to me. However, if I were to learn anything damaging to Florence Lloyd's integrity, I would rather learn it now, in her presence, than elsewhere. So I again asked her to send for the valet.
With a despairing look, as of one forced to meet an impending fate, she rose, crossed the room and rang a bell. Then she returned to her seat and said quietly, "You may ask the man such questions as you wish, Mr. Burroughs, but I beg you will not include me in the conversation."
"Not unless it should be necessary," I replied coldly, for I did not at all like her making this stipulation. To me it savored of a sort of cowardice, or at least a presumption on my own chivalry.
When the man appeared, I saw at a glance he was quite as much agitated as Miss Lloyd. There was no longer a possibility of a doubt that these two knew something, had some secret in common, which bore directly on the case, and which must be exposed. A sudden hope flashed into my mind that it might be only some trifling secret, which seemed of importance to them, but which was merely a side issue of the great question.
I considered myself justified in taking advantage of the man's perturbation, and without preliminary speech I drew the transfer from my pocket and fairly flashed it in his face.
"Louis," I said sternly, "you dropped this transfer when you came home the night of Mr. Crawford's death."
The suddenness of my remark had the effect I desired, and fairly frightened the truth out of the man.
"Y-yes, sir," he stammered, and then with a frightened glance at Miss Lloyd, he stood nervously interlacing his fingers.
I glanced at Miss Lloyd myself, but she had regained entire self-possession, and sat looking straight before her with an air that seemed to say, "Go on, I'm prepared for the worst."
As I paused myself to contemplate the attitudes of the two, I lost my ground of vantage, for when I again spoke to the man, he too was more composed and ready to reply with caution. Doubtless he was influenced by Miss Lloyd's demeanor, for he imitatively assumed a receptive air.
"Where did you get the transfer?" I went on.
"On the trolley, sir; the main line."
"To be used on the Branch Line through West Sedgwick?"
"Yes, sir."
"Why did you not use it?"
"As I tell you, sir, and as I tell monsieur, the coroner, I have spend that evening with a young lady. We went for a trolley ride, and as we returned I take a transfer for myself, but not for her, as she live near where we alight."
"Oh, you left the main line and took the young lady home, intending then yourself to come by trolley through West Sedgwick?"
"Yes, sir; it was just that way."
At this point Louis seemed to forget his embarrassment, his gaze strayed away, and a happy expression came into his eyes. I felt sure I was reading his volatile French nature aright, when I assumed his mind had turned back to the pleasant evening he had spent with his young lady acquaintance. Somehow this went far to convince me of the fellow's innocence for it was quite evident the murder and its mystery were not uppermost in his thoughts at that moment. But my next question brought him beck to realization of the present situation.
"And why didn't you use your transfer?"
"Only that the night, he was so pleasant, I desired to walk."
"And so you walked through the village, holding, perhaps, the transfer in your hand?"
"I think, yes; but I do not remember the transfer in my hand, though he may have been there."
And now the man's unquiet had returned. His lips twitched and his dark eyes rolled about, as he endeavored in vain to look anywhere but at Miss Lloyd. She, too, was controlling herself by a visible effort.
Anxious to bring the matter to a crisis, I said at once, and directly:
"And then you entered the gates of this place, you walked to the house, you walked around the house to the back by way of the path which leads around by the library veranda, and you accidentally dropped your transfer near the veranda step."
I spoke quietly enough, but Louis immediately burst into voluble denial.
"No, no!" he exclaimed; "I do not go round by the office, I go the other side of the house. I have tell you so many times."
"But I myself picked up your transfer near the office veranda."
"Then he blow there. The wind blow that night, oh, something fearful! He blow the paper around the house, I think."
"I don't think so," I retorted; "I think you went around the house that way, I think you paused at the office window - "
Just here I made a dramatic pause myself, hoping thus to appeal to the emotional nature of my victim. And I succeeded. Louis almost shrieked as he pressed his hands against his eyes, and cried out: "No! no! I tell you I did not go round that way! I go round the other way, and the wind - the wind, he blow my transfer all about!"
I tried a more quiet manner, I tried persuasive arguments, I finally resorted to severity and even threats, but no admission could I get from Louis, except that he had not gone round the house by way of the office. I was positive the man was lying, and I was equally positive that Miss Lloyd knew he was lying, and that she knew why, but the matter seemed to me at a deadlock. I could have questioned her, but I preferred to do that when Louis was not present. If she must suffer ignominy it need not be before a servant. So I dismissed Louis, perhaps rather curtly, and turning to Miss Lloyd, I asked her if she believed his assertion that he did not pass by the office that night.
"I don't know what I believe," she answered, wearily drawing her hand across her brow. "And I can't see that it matters anyway.
