and as she entered the library, Janet fled away to her own room.
Laura looked at me questioningly, and I told her quite frankly all that had passed between Janet and myself.
She kissed me tenderly, like the dear sister that she is, and said; "Don't worry, Otis; it will come out all right. I know Janet much better than you do. She is innocent, of course, but she is so unnerved and distraught with these dreadful days, that I'm only surprised she bears up as well as she does. Leave her to me, and you go and get your Fleming Stone, and use every effort to persuade him to take the case."
As it had been my life-long habit to take Laura's advice, especially when it coincided with my own inclination I started off at once to hunt up Fleming Stone.
I knew the man slightly, having run across him a few times in a business way, and I knew that not only were his services exceedingly high-priced, but also that he never took any case unless of great difficulty and peculiar interest. I hoped, however, that the circumstances of the Pembroke affair would appeal to him, and I determined to use every effort to interest him in it.
By good fortune, I found him at home, and willing to listen to a statement of my business.
Fleming Stone's personality was not at all of the taciturn, inscrutable variety. He was a large man, of genial and charming manner, and possessed of a personal magnetism that seemed to invite confidence and confidences. I knew him well enough to know that if I could win his interest at all it would be by a brief statement of the mystery as a puzzle, and a request that he help me solve it.
"Mr. Stone," I began, "if three persons spent the night in an apartment so securely locked on the inside that there was no possible means of ingress, and if in the morning it was found that one of those three persons had been murdered at midnight, would you say that the guilt must rest upon either one or both of the other two persons?"
At any rate, I had succeeded in catching the man's attention.
As there was no question of personal feeling in my statement, he seemed to look at it as an abstract problem, and replied at once:
"According to the facts as you have stated them, the guilt must necessarily rest upon one or both of the other two persons. But this is assuming that it really was a murder, that there really was no mode of ingress, and that there really were no other persons in the apartment."
Having secured Fleming Stone's interest in the abstract statement, I proceeded to lay before him the concrete story of the Pembroke affair.
He listened gravely, asking only one or two questions, and when I had told him all I knew about it he sat thinking for a few moments.
At last, unable to control my impatience, I said: "Do you now think the guilt rests upon either one or both of those women?"
As I have said, Mr. Stone was not of the secretive and close-mouthed style of detective, and he said in his frank and pleasant way: "Not necessarily, by any means. Indeed, from what you have told me, I should say that the two women knew nothing about the crime until the morning. But this, of course, is a mere surmise, based on your account of the case."
As I had told him the facts as I knew them, with all their horrible incrimination of Janet, I was greatly relieved at his words.
"Then," said I, "will you take up the case, and find the criminal as soon as may be? Money is no object, but time is precious, as I strongly desire to avoid any possibility of a trial of Miss Pembroke."
"Have you any other clues other than those you have told me?"
"I haven't told you any," I said, in some surprise; "but we certainly have several."
He listened with the greatest attention, while I told him in rapid succession of the key, the time-table, the ticket stubs, the torn telegram, the handkerchief, and finally, the missing money.
"Have you traced these to their sources?" he inquired.
"We have, and each one led to a different man."
I then told him of Jonathan Scudder, of Graham Leroy, of James Decker, and of William Sydney Gresham, and he listened with a half-smile on his pleasant, responsive face.
"Of course you can see all these clues for yourself," I went on, "and I feel sure, Mr. Stone, that by an examination of them, you can deduce much of the personality of the criminal."
"I don't care to see them," was his astonishing answer; "I have already deduced from them the evidence that they clearly show."
"Your statement would amaze me," I said, "except that I had resolved not to be surprised at anything you might say or do, for I know your methods are mysterious and your powers little short of miraculous."
"Don't credit me with supernatural ability, Mr. Landon," said Stone, smiling genially. "Let me compliment you on the graphic way in which you have described that collection of clues. I can fairly see them, in my mind's eye lying before me. Were not the ticket stubs bent and broken and a good deal soiled?"
"They were," I said, staring at him.
"And was the time-table smudged with dirt, and perhaps bearing an impress of tiny dots in regular rows?"
"Now I know you're a wizard!" I exclaimed, "for that's exactly what I did see! such a mark on the first page of that time-table!"
"It might easily not have been there," said Stone, musingly; "I confess I chanced that. It was merely a hazard, but it helps. Yes, Mr. Landon, your collection of clues is indeed valuable and of decided assistance in discovering the identity of the person or persons unknown."
It struck a chill to my heart that Fleming Stone seemed to avoid the use of a masculine pronoun. Could he, too, think that a woman was implicated, and if not, why didn't he say the man who committed the crime, instead of dodging behind the vague term he had used. With a desperate idea of forcing this point, I said; "The Coroner believes that since the weapon used was a hat-pin, the criminal was a woman."
"Why did you say it was a hat-pin?" said Fleming Stone, and I realized that his brain was already busy with the subtleties of the case.
"The doctors stated that it was part of a hat-pin, the other end of which had been broken off."
"Did you see the pin that was extracted from the wound?"
"I did."
"How long was it?"
"Almost exactly four inches."
"And are you prepared to affirm that it is part of a hat-pin, and not a complete pin of a shorter length?"
"I am not. The thought did not before occur to me. But as it had no head on it, we assumed that it was probably the half of a broken hat-pin. It is by no means the first instance on record of using a hat-pin as a murderous weapon."
"No," said Fleming Stone; "and yet that does not prove it a hat-pin. May it not have been a shawl-pin, or some shorter pin that women use in their costumes?"
"It may have been," said I; "but women do not wear shawls nowadays. At any rate, any pin of that length would seem to indicate a woman's crime."
"Well, as a rule," said Fleming Stone, smiling, "we men do not pin our garments together; but I dare say almost any man, if he wanted one, could gain possession of such a pin."
How true this was, and how foolish we had been to assume that a woman's pin must have meant a woman's crime! A picture passed through my mind of Laura's dressing-table, where I could have procured any kind of a pin, with no trouble whatever.
"Moreover," went on Fleming Stone, "the great majority of hat-pins used in America will not break. They will bend, as they are usually made of iron, though occasionally of steel."
I looked at the man with growing admiration. How widespread was his knowledge, and how logical his deduction!
"I should have to see the pin," said Stone, "before drawing any conclusion from it. You did not examine it closely, you say?"