and the color which flamed suddenly in the girl's face, left me in no doubt as to the purport of the call he had made in the drawing-room on Tuesday evening. I knew as well as if I had been told, that he had been asking Janet to marry him; I knew that his interview with Mr. Pembroke afterward had probably related to the same subject; and though I was glad that his suit had not been successful, yet I felt jealous of the whole episode. However, I had no time then to indulge in thoughts of romance, for the District Attorney was mercilessly pinning Leroy down to an exact account of himself.
"Had the bed been turned down for the night, when you were in Mr. Pembroke's room on Tuesday evening?"
"I didn't notice especially, but I have an indistinct impression that the covers had been turned back."
"In that case it would have been possible for you to drop the key in the bed without knowing it, but very far from probable. Did you lean over the bed for any purpose?"
"No; of course I did not. But perhaps if I did drop the key in the room, and Mr. Pembroke found it, knowing it to be a valuable key, he may have put it under his pillow, for safety's sake."
"That again is possible; but improbable that he would have done it two nights, both Tuesday and Wednesday nights! Moreover, Mr. Leroy, you said at first that you were sure you had the key Wednesday morning. And not until you inferred that you were suspected of implication in this affair, did you say that it might have been Tuesday morning you had it. Now, can you not speak positively on that point?"
Leroy hesitated. Though his face rarely showed what was passing in his mind, yet though at this moment no one who saw him could doubt that the man was going through a fearful mental struggle. Indeed, he sat silent for so long, that I began to wonder whether he intended to answer the question or not. Lines formed across his brow and his stern lips fastened themselves in a straight line. He looked first at Janet and then at George, with a piercing gaze. Finally he shook his head with a sudden quick gesture, as if flinging off a temptation to prevaricate, which was almost too strong to be resisted.
"I can speak positively," he said, and the words seemed to be fairly forced from him. "I had that key last to my knowledge on Wednesday morning, when I made use of it at the Sterling Safety Deposit Company."
Chapter XVII.
Can Leroy Be Guilty?
It was as if a bomb had burst. We all sat appalled, for at the first thought it seemed as if this admission proclaimed Graham Leroy a guilty man. The picture flashed into my mind. This strong man, capable I felt sure, of the whole range of elemental passions, killing, for some reason unknown to me, his client, who was equally capable of rage and angry passion. I seemed to see him bending over his victim, and inadvertently dropping the tell-tale key from his pocket. But I think it was an effect of the dramatic situation that conjured up this picture in my mind, for it was immediately dispelled as Janet's voice broke on the tense silence.
"I cannot fail to see the trend of your implications, Mr. Buckner," she said, and her tones were haughty, and even supercilious; "I suppose you are daring to insinuate that Mr. Leroy might have been in my uncle's room on Wednesday night, late. But let me remind you that I myself put the chain on the door at eleven o'clock, after which it was impossible for Mr. Leroy to enter."
The old argument: "How could he get in?"
And though this argument seemed to turn suspicion toward Janet, it did not in the least do so to my mind.
Of course, I had no answer to the question, but that did not change my conviction that Janet was innocent. Could Leroy be guilty? I didn't know, and I didn't much care, if only suspicion could be turned away from Janet!
It was by an effort that I brought my attention back to the conversation going on.
"Will you tell me, Mr. Leroy, where you were on Wednesday night?" went on the District Attorney, making no recognition of Janet's speech beyond a slight bow in her direction.
"I went to Utica," answered Leroy.
"At what time?"
Again there was a lengthy interval of silence, and then Leroy said, in a low voice, "Rather late in the evening."
"On what train?"
"On a late train."
"The midnight train?"
"Yes;" the answer was fairly blurted out as if in utter exasperation.
Although the rest of his hearers started at the realization of all that this implied, Mr. Buckner proceeded quietly. "Where were you between eleven and twelve o'clock, on Wednesday night?"
"I refuse to say."
"I think I must insist upon an answer, Mr. Leroy. Were you at the station long before train time?"
"No."
"You reached the station then but a short time before the train left?"
"That is right."
"Did you go directly from your home to the station?"
"Perhaps not directly, but I made no stop on the way."
"What did you do then, since you say you did not go directly?"
"I walked about the streets."
"Why did you do this?"
"Partly for the exercise, and partly because I preferred not to reach the station until about time for my train to leave."
"And did your walking about the streets bring you anywhere near this locality?"
"That I refuse to answer."
"But you must answer, Mr. Leroy."
"Not if it incriminates myself."
"Then your refusal to answer is the same as affirmative. I shall assume that you were in this locality between eleven and twelve o'clock on Wednesday night."
"What if he was?" broke in Janet; "no matter how much he was in this locality, he couldn't get into our apartment, and so it has not the slightest bearing on the case!"
"That is so," said George Lawrence; "unless it can be proved that Mr. Leroy was able to enter through a locked and chained door, I think it is none of our business where he may have been at the time the crime was committed."
"You're all working from the wrong end," said Leroy, suddenly. "Of course the murder was committed by some professional burglar, who effected his entrance in some way unknown to us. Forget, for a moment, the question of how he got in, and turn your energies to finding some clever and expert housebreaker who is at large."
"What could be the motive of a professional burglar?" said Mr. Buckner.
"The robbery of the money," I broke in eagerly, delighted that Leroy should have started suspicion of this sort.
"Can you tell us anything regarding a large sum of money which it is assumed Mr. Pembroke had in his possession the night he was killed?" Mr. Buckner asked of Leroy.
"I can tell you that I took him a large sum of money,—ten thousand dollars,—on Tuesday evening.
"He had asked you to do this?"
"He had; giving the reason that he wished to pay it to some man who was coming to get it, and who wanted cash."
"J. S.!" I said, involuntarily.
"That's the murderer!" declared Laura. "I've suspected that J. S. from the very beginning. Why don't you look him up, Mr. Buckner, if you want to find the criminal?"
"All in good time, Mrs. Mulford," the district attorney answered, but I knew that he had seen the letter which the Coroner had shown me, stating that J. S. would not come on Wednesday evening as he had telegraphed. Still, if J. S. had