to ask questions unmercifully, in the hope of being set upon the right track at last."
"I quite appreciate your position, my dear sir, and I trust I have given you all the information you desire. As I have told Mr. Landon, I have no taste for detective work myself, but I suppose it has to be done by somebody."
After polite good-byes on both sides, we left Lawrence in his studio, and went down-stairs. Mr. Stone insisted on walking down, though it was four flights, and I, of course, raised no objection.
When we reached the ground floor he stepped into the office, which was a small room just at the right of the entrance, and not far from the elevator.
After a glance at the office clock which stood on the desk, Mr. Stone addressed himself to the office boy.
"Do you remember," he said, "that Mr. Lawrence came in here last Wednesday night?"
"Yes, sir," said the boy; "I do."
"At what time was it?"
"Just twenty-five minutes after eleven, sir."
"How can you fix the time so exactly, my boy?"
"Because when Mr. Lawrence came in, his watch had stopped, and he asked me what time it was by the office clock."
"Couldn't he see for himself?"
"I suppose he could, sir, but, any way, he asked me, and I told him; and then I took him up in the elevator, and he was setting his watch on the way up. Just before he got out he said: 'Did you say 11.25?' and I said, 'Yes.'"
"The office clock is always about right, I suppose?" said Mr. Stone, and, taking his watch from his pocket, he compared the two. There was but a minute's difference.
"Yes, sir, just about right; but that night I thought it was later when Mr. Lawrence come in. I was surprised myself when I see it wasn't half past eleven yet. But, of course, I must have made a mistake, for this clock is never more than a couple of minutes out of the way."
"What time does your elevator stop running?"
"Not at all, sir, we run it all night."
"And other men came in after Mr. Lawrence did that night?"
"Oh, yes, sir; lots of them. These is bachelor apartments, you know, and the men come in quite late—sometimes up till two or three o'clock."
Apparently Fleming Stone had learned all he wanted to know from the boy, and after he had thanked him and had also slipped into his hand a bit of more material reward, the interview was at an end.
We went out into the street again, and Fleming Stone said: "Now I should like to examine the Pembrokes' apartment."
"And shall you want to interview Miss Pembroke?" I inquired.
"Yes, I think so," he replied; "but we will look over the apartment first."
"We'll have something to eat first," I declared; "and if you'll come home with me, I'll guarantee that my sister will give you quite as satisfactory a luncheon as you could obtain in the best hotel in the city."
"I've no doubt of it," said Stone pleasantly; "and I accept your invitation with pleasure. Will you wait for me a minute, while I telephone?"
Before I had time to reply he had slipped in through a doorway at which hung the familiar blue sign.
In a minute or two he rejoined me, and said: "Now let's dismiss the whole affair from our minds until after luncheon. It is never wise to let business interfere with digestion."
As we rode up home in the car, Mr. Stone was most agreeable and entertaining. Not a word was said of the Pembroke case—he seemed really to have laid aside all thought of it—and yet I couldn't help a sinister conviction that when he telephoned it had been a message to headquarters, authorizing the surveillance, if not the arrest, of somebody. It couldn't be Lawrence, in the face of that alibi; it couldn't be Janet, for he knew next to nothing about her connection with the matter; it couldn't be Charlotte, of course; and so it must have been "some person or persons unknown" to me.
I felt no hesitancy, so far as Laura was concerned, in taking home an unexpected guest, for it was my habit to do that whenever I chose, and I had never found Laura otherwise than pleased to see my friends, and amply able to provide hospitality for them. But, as we neared the house, I remembered Janet's strange disinclination to employ a detective, and her apparent horror at the mention of Fleming Stone's name.
Feeling that honesty demanded it, I told Fleming Stone exactly what Janet had said on this subject when I had left the house that morning. Though apparently not disturbed personally by Miss Pembroke's attitude toward him, he seemed to consider it as of definite importance for some other reason.
"Why should Miss Pembroke object to a detective's services," he said, "when, as you have told me, Mr. Lawrence said at your dinner table last night that he wanted to engage the best possible detective skill?"
"I don't know," I replied. "I'm puzzled myself. But I admit, Mr. Stone, that Miss Pembroke has been an enigma to me from the first. Not only do I believe her innocent, but I have a warmer regard for her than I am perhaps justified in mentioning to a stranger; and yet she is so contradictory in her speech and action from time to time that I simply do not know what to think."
Fleming Stone turned a very kind glance on me. "The hardest puzzle in this world," he said, "is a woman. Of course I do not know Miss Pembroke, but I hope she will consent to meet me, notwithstanding her aversion to detectives."
"I think she will," I said; "and, besides, she is so changeable that at this moment she may be more anxious to see a detective than anybody else."
"Let us hope so," he said somewhat gravely. "It may be much to her advantage."
Chapter XXIV.
The Chain of Evidence
Laura greeted us cordially; and Miss Pembroke, with a politeness which, though slightly constrained, was quiet and non-committal. But, as I had hoped, Fleming Stone's winning manner and charming conversational ability seemed to make Janet forget her aversion to detectives. At the luncheon table various subjects were touched upon, but it was not long before we drifted into a discussion of the theme uppermost in all our minds. I could see that although Fleming Stone was apparently talking in a casual way, he was closely studying Janet's face as he talked.
I noticed that when any reference was made to George Lawrence, Janet seemed perturbed, and, although Mr. Stone said flatly that George could not have entered when the door was chained, this did not seem to lessen Janet's concern. But when Stone referred to George's perfect alibi, Janet looked relieved, as if freed from a great fear.
It was entirely due to Fleming Stone's tact that the conversation was kept at a light and airy level. I was intensely conscious of a growing portent of evil. A cloak of gloom seemed to be settling around me, and it was only with the utmost effort that I could control my nervous apprehensions. What was going to happen, I did not know, but I felt intuitively that a climax was fast approaching, and at last I found myself sacrificing all other sympathies to the hope that Janet might be spared.
I could see that Laura was equally agitated, although she too was outwardly calm. Janet, as always, was a puzzle. She seemed alternately depressed or gladdened in proportion as the drift of suspicion seemed directed toward or away from her cousin George.
In a word, Fleming Stone's personality dominated us all. We were but as strings of an instrument upon which he played, and we responded involuntarily to his impulses or at his will.
Into this surcharged atmosphere came another element with the entrance of George Lawrence. He looked handsome and debonair as usual, and informally begged of Mrs. Mulford permission to share our after-dinner coffee.
"We're glad to have you," said Laura, in her affable way, "and,