The Gold Bag [49]
side. I - " "Stop, Louis! You're not telling the truth. You did walk around by the office, and you dropped your transfer there. It never blew all around the house, as you have said it did." A look of dogged obstinacy came into the man's eyes, but he did not look at me. He shifted his gaze uneasily, as he repeated almost in a singsong way, " go round the other side of the house." It was a sort of deadlock. Without a witness to the fact, I could not prove that he had gone by the office windows, though I was sure he had. But help came from an unexpected quarter. Elsa had been very quiet during the foregoing conversation, but now she spoke up suddenly, and said: "He did go round by the office, Mr. Burroughs, and I saw him." I half expected to see Louis turn on the girl in a rage, but the effect of her speech on him was quite the reverse. He almost collapsed; he trembled and turned white, and though he tried to speak, he made no sound. Surely this man was too cowardly for a criminal; but I must learn the secret of his knowledge. "Tell me about it, Elsa," I said, quietly. "I was looking out at my window, sir, at the back of the house; and I saw Louis come around the house, and he came around by the office side." "You're positive of this, Elsa? you would swear to it? Remember, you are making an important assertion." "I am telling the truth, sir. I saw him plainly as he came around and entered at the back door." "You hear, Louis?" I said sternly. "I believe Elsa's statement rather than yours, for she tells a straight story, while you are rattled and agitated, and have all the appearance of concealing something." Louis looked helpless. He didn't dare deny Elsa's story, but he would not confirm it. At last he said, with a glance of hatred at the girl, "Elsa, she tell that story to make the trouble for me." There was something in this. Elsa, I knew, was jealous, and her pride had been hurt because Louis had taken the rose she gave him, and then had gone to call on another girl. But I had no reason to doubt Elsa's statement, and I had every reason to doubt Louis's. I tried to imagine what Louis's experience had really been, and it suddenly occurred to me, that though innocent himself of real wrong, he had seen something in the office, or through the office windows that he wished to keep secret. I did not for a moment believe that the man had killed his master, so I concluded he was endeavoring to shield someone else. "Louis," I said, suddenly, "I'll tell you what you did. You went around by the office, you saw a light there late at night, and you naturally looked in. You saw Mr. Crawford there, and he was perhaps already killed. You stepped inside and discovered this, and then you came away, and said nothing about it, lest you yourself be suspected of the crime. Incidentally you dropped two petals from the rose Elsa had given you." Louis's answer to this accusation was a perfect storm of denials, expressed in voluble French and broken English, but all to the effect that it was not true, and that if he had seen his master dead, he would have raised an alarm. I saw that I had not yet struck the right idea, so I tried again. "Then, Louis, you must have passed the office before Mr. Crawford was killed, which is really more probable. Then as you passed the window, you saw something or someone in the office, and you're not willing to tell about it. Is this it?" This again brought forth only incoherent denial, and I could see that the man was becoming so rattled, it was difficult for him to speak clearly, had he desired to do so. "Elsa," I said, suddenly, "you took that rose from Louis's room. What did you do with it?" "I kept, - I mean, I don't know what I did with it," stammered the girl, blushing rosy red, and looking shyly at Louis. I felt sorry to disclose the poor girl's little romance, for it was easy enough to see that she was in love with the fickle Frenchman, who evidently did not reciprocate her interest. He looked at her disdainfully, and she presented a pathetic picture of embarrassment. But the situation