you can't, old chap. You're not that sort. Well, let's go to see your district attorney and his precious prisoner, and see what's to be done."
We went to the district attorney's office, and, later, accompanied by him and by Mr. Randolph, we visited Gregory Hall.
As I had expected, Mr. Hall wore the same unperturbed manner he always showed, and when Fleming Stone was introduced, Hall greeted him coldly, with absolutely no show of interest in the man or his work.
Fleming Stone's own kindly face took on a slight expression of hauteur, as he noticed his reception, but he said, pleasantly enough,
"I am here in an effort to aid in establishing your innocence, Mr. Hall."
"I beg your pardon?" said Hall listlessly.
I wondered whether this asking to have a remark repeated was merely a foolish habit of Hall's, or whether, as I had heretofore guessed, it was a ruse to gain time.
Fleming Stone looked at him a little more sharply as he repeated his remark in clear, even tones.
"Thank you," said Hall, pleasantly enough. "I shall be glad to be free from this unjust suspicion."
"And as a bit of friendly advice," went on Stone, "I strongly urge that you, reveal to us, confidentially, where you were on Tuesday night."
Hall looked the speaker straight in the eye.
"That," he said, "I must still refuse to do."
Fleming Stone rose and walked toward the window.
"I think," he said, "the proof of your innocence may depend upon this point."
Gregory Hall turned his head, and followed Stone with his eyes.
"What did you say, Mr. Stone?" he asked quietly.
The detective returned to his seat.
"I said," he replied, "that the proof of your innocence might depend on your telling this secret of yours. But I begin to think now you will be freed from suspicion whether you tell it or not."
Instead of looking glad at this assurance, Gregory Hall gave a start, and an expression of fear came into his eyes.
"What do you mean?" he said,
"Have you any letters in your pocket, Mr. Hall?" went on Fleming Stone in a suave voice.
"Yes; several. Why?"
"I do not ask to read them. Merely show me the lot."
With what seemed to be an unwilling but enforced movement, Mr. Hall drew four or five letters from his breast pocket and handed them to Fleming Stone.
"They've all been looked over, Mr. Stone," said the district attorney; "and they have no bearing on the matter of the crime."
"Oh, I don't want to read them," said the detective.
He ran over the lot carelessly, not taking the sheets from the envelopes, and returned them to their owner.
Gregory Hall looked at him as if fascinated. What revelation was this man about to make?
"Mr. Hall," Fleming Stone began, "I've no intention of forcing your secret from you. But I shall ask you some questions, and you may do as you like about answering them. First, you refuse to tell where you were during the night last Tuesday. I take it, you mean you refuse to tell how or where you spent the evening. Now, will you tell us where you lodged that night?"
"I fail to see any reason for telling you," answered Hall, after a moment's thought. "I have said I was in New York City, that is enough."
"The reason you may as well tell us," went on Mr. Stone, "is because it is a very simple matter for us to find out. You doubtless were at some hotel, and you went there because you could not get a room at your club. In fact, this was stated when the coroner telephoned for you, the morning after the murder. I mean, it was stated that the club bed-rooms were all occupied. I assume, therefore, that you lodged at some hotel, and, as a canvass of the city hotels would be a simple matter, you may as well save us that trouble."
"Oh, very well," said Gregory Hall sullenly; "then I did spend the night at a hotel. It was the Metropolis Hotel, and you will find my name duly on the register."
"I have no doubt of it," said Stone pleasantly. "Now that you have told us this, have you any objection to telling us at what time you returned to the hotel, after your evening's occupation, whatever it may have been?"
"Eh?" said Hall abstractedly. He turned his head as he spoke, and Fleming Stone threw me a quizzical smile which I didn't in the least understand.
"You may as well tell us," said Stone, after he had repeated his question, "for if you withhold it, the night clerk can give us this information."
"Well," said Hall, who now looked distinctly sulky, "I don't remember exactly, but I think I turned in somewhere between twelve and one o'clock."
"And as it was a late hour, you slept rather late next morning," suggested Stone.
"Oh, I don't know. I was at Mr. Crawford's New York office by half-past ten."
"A strange coincidence, Burroughs," said Fleming Stone, turning to me.
"Eh? Beg pardon?" said Hall, turning his head also.
"Mr. Hall," said Stone, suddenly facing him again, "are you deaf? Why do you ask to have remarks repeated?"
Hall looked slightly apologetic. "I am a little deaf," he said; "but only in one ear. And only at times—or, rather, it's worse at times. If I have a cold, for instance."
"Or in damp weather?" said Stone. "Mr. Hall, I have questioned you enough. I will now tell these gentlemen, since you refuse to do so, where you were on the night of Mr. Crawford's murder. You were not in West Sedgwick, or near it. You are absolutely innocent of the crime or any part in it."
Gregory Hall straightened up perceptibly, like a man exonerated from all blame. But he quailed again, as Fleming Stone, looking straight at him, continued: "You left West Sedgwick at six that evening, as you have said. You registered at the Metropolis Hotel, after learning that you could not get a room at your club. And then—you went over to Brooklyn to meet, or to call on, a young woman living in that borough. You took her back to New York to the theatre or some such entertainment, and afterward escorted her back to her home. The young woman wore a street costume, by which I mean a cloth gown without a train. You did not have a cab, but, after leaving the car, you walked for a rather long distance in Brooklyn. It was raining, and you were both under one umbrella. Am I correct, so far?"
At last Gregory Hall's calm was disturbed. He looked at Fleming Stone as at a supernatural being. And small wonder. For the truth of Stone's statements was evident from Hall's amazement at them.
"You—you saw us!" he gasped.
"No, I didn't see you; it is merely a matter of observation, deduction, and memory. You recollect the muddy shoes?" he added, turning to me.
Did I recollect! Well, rather! And it certainly was a coincidence that we had chanced to examine those shoes that morning at the hotel.
As for Mr. Randolph and the district attorney, they were quite as much surprised as Hall.
"Can you prove this astonishing story, Mr. Stone?" asked Mr. Goodrich, with an incredulous look.
"Oh, yes, in lots of ways," returned Stone. "For one thing, Mr. Hall has in his pocket now a letter from the young lady. The whole matter is of no great importance except as it proves Mr. Hall was not in West Sedgwick that night, and so is not the murderer."
"But why conceal so simple a matter? Why refuse to tell of the episode?" asked Mr. Randolph.
"Because," and now Fleming Stone looked at Hall with accusation in his glance—"because Mr. Hall is very anxious that his fiancee shall not know of his attentions to the young lady in Brooklyn."
"O-ho!"