The Gold Bag [44]
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. Supposing he did go by the office, you certainly don't suspect him of my uncle's murder, do you?" "It is my duty, Miss Lloyd," I said gently, for the girl was pitiably nervous, "to get the testimony of any one who was in or near the office that night. But of course testimony is useless unless it is true." I looked her straight in the eyes as I said this, for I was thoroughly convinced that her own testimony at the inquest had not been entirely true. I think she understood my glance, for she arose at once, and said with extreme dignity: "I cannot see any necessity for prolonging this interview, Mr. Burroughs. It is of course your work to discover the truth or falsity of Louis's story, but I cannot see that it in any way implicates or even interests me." The girl was superb. Her beauty was enhanced by the sudden spirit she showed, and her flashing dark eyes suggested a baited animal at bay. Apparently she had reached the limit of her endurance, and was unwilling to be questioned further or drawn into further admissions. And yet, some inexplicable idea came to me that she was angry, not with me, but with the tangle in which I had remorselessly enmeshed her. Of a high order of intelligence, she knew perfectly well that I was conscious of the fact that there was a secret of some sort between her and the valet. Her haughty disdain, I felt sure, was to convey the impression that though there might be a secret between them, it was no collusion or working together, and that though her understanding with the man was