Janet and not to save her!"
"Laura, you're crazy. How could his implication also implicate her?"
"Why, don't you see? if they think Mr. Leroy committed the crime, they'll try to find out how he got in. And then they'll conclude that Janet let him in. Because you know, Otis, there was really no other way anybody could get in. And then, you see, they'll conclude that Mr. Leroy and Janet acted together, and are both guilty."
"Laura, you argue just like a woman; you say anything that comes into your head, and then back it up with some other absurd idea! Now, sister, talk to me in this strain all you want to, but let me beg of you never to say these things to anyone else."
Laura looked a little offended, but she was too fond of me ever really to resent anything I said to her, so she smiled, and forgave my aspersions on her reasoning powers.
But I couldn't help remembering that Janet had told me that Leroy was untrustworthy, and not entirely reliable, and now that Laura, with her woman's intuition, had denounced him, I began to wonder myself what sort of a man Leroy really was.
Chapter XVIII.
The Rooms in Washington Square
In sheer desperation, I resolved upon an interview with Inspector Crawford. I hadn't a very high opinion of him as a detective, but I had reached the pitch where I must do something.
I telephoned to him, but it was only after some persistence that I could persuade him to give me even a little of his valuable time. Finally he agreed to a fifteen-minute interview at his own home.
It was not far to his house, and as I walked over there I wondered why he seemed so averse to a discussion of the Pembroke case. He had impressed me, when I saw him that morning, as one of those busybodies in the detective line who are always willing to dilate upon their clues and their deductions, their theories and their inferences.
But as soon as I began to talk with Mr. Crawford I learned that he had little interest in the Pembroke case, because he considered its result a foregone conclusion.
Inspector Crawford was not an especially cultured man, nor of a particularly affable nature, but he was possessed, as I soon learned, of a certain stubbornness which manifested itself mainly in adhering firmly to his own decisions.
"I know Miss Pembroke killed her uncle," he said, "because nobody else could by any possibility have done it. I examined the windows myself. Those which were fastened were absolutely immovable from the outside, and those which were unfastened had the same sort of catches, and the black woman declared she had unfastened them from the inside in the morning. The window opening on the fire escape had a double lock, the dumb-waiter was securely bolted on the kitchen side, the night-latch and chain were on the front door, and, therefore, my dear sir, to get into that apartment without breaking something was as impossible as if it had been hermetically sealed."
"Some one might have cut out a pane of glass and replaced it," I suggested.
The inspector looked at me with a glance almost of pity.
"It's my business to make sure of such things," he said. "Of course I thought of that, and examined every window-pane. Had one been put in with fresh putty during the night, I should certainly have detected it. If you examine them, you will find both putty and paint hard and weather-stained."
My respect for Mr. Crawford's detective ability rose rapidly, and I frankly told him so.
He smiled disinterestedly.
"I'm not one of those spectacular detectives," he said, "who pick up a handkerchief in the street, and declare at once that it was dropped by a cross-eyed lady with one front tooth missing, who was on her way to visit her step-daughter now living in Jamaica, Long Island, but who formerly was a governess in a doctor's family in Meriden, Connecticut."
I laughed at this bit of sarcasm, but was too vitally interested in the subject in hand to care for amusing side issues.
"Do you say then, inspector," I continued, "that there was positively no way for any one else to get into that apartment, and that therefore Mr. Pembroke necessarily met his death at the hands of his niece or the colored servant?"
"Or both," added Mr. Crawford.
"You assert that as your unqualified opinion?"
"I assert it as an incontrovertible fact," said Inspector Crawford, in his decided way, "and, though it needs no backing up of evidence, the evidence all points unmistakably to the same fact. There are motive, opportunity, and a weapon at hand. What more is there to say?"
"There is only this to say," I declared, maddened by his air of finality: "that Miss Pembroke did not do it; that neither she nor the black woman knows who did do it; and that I take it upon myself to prove this when the occasion shall arise to do so."
Again the inspector looked at me with that compassionate expression that irritated me beyond words.
"Mr. Landon," he said, "I have no desire to be personal, but may I ask you, if you were as absolutely disinterested in the Pembroke case as I am, would you not incline to my opinion?"
This silenced me, for I well knew that but for my interest in Janet Pembroke I should inevitably be forced to Mr. Crawford's point of view.
"Ah!" he said. "I thought so. Now let me tell you, Mr. Landon—and I am indeed sorry to tell you—that there is no possible way to get that girl acquitted, and that your best plan is to work simply for the lightest possible penalty. If you can plead self-defence, temporary insanity, or even somnambulism, I advise you to do so."
"I thank you, inspector, for your advice, and regret to say that I cannot follow it. I shall plead 'not guilty,' and I shall prove my case."
The inspector began to look interested, for, though a man may not boast of his own reputation, I may say that Mr. Crawford knew me as a lawyer of long practice and wide experience; and knew, too, that I had been successful in cases where wise and anxious judges had scarcely dared hope for it.
"I hope it may be so," he said. "It does not seem to be possible, but, of course, no man's judgment is infallible. Might I be allowed, however, to ask your line of defence?"
"I don't know exactly, myself," I confessed; "but I think it will implicate George Lawrence."
"But he couldn't get in."
"Inspector, if any one is implicated other than those two women, it must necessarily be some one who 'couldn't get in.'"
"That is true," said the inspector; "but, all the same, a murder can't be committed by a man who can't get in."
"That is no more impossible," I said stanchly, "than a murder committed by either of those two women."
Again the inspector contented himself with a smile.
"I have no reason," I went on, "for suspecting George Lawrence, except that he could be said to have a motive. I admit, as you say, that it does not seem possible for him to have entered the apartment, unless one of the women let him in."
"Let him in!" echoed the inspector. "I hadn't thought of that! Ah, now I see your idea. If George Lawrence is the man who did the deed and was let in by his cousin, while she might have been accessory, she might not have known of the deed at all."
"That is possible, inspector," I agreed; "but had she let George in, she must have again put the chain on the door after he went out. This is scarcely compatible with the assumption that she knew nothing of what had happened in the meantime."
"No," declared the inspector, in his decided way. "Your suggestion, however, leads to a new line of investigation. But say George Lawrence had gone to the Pembrokes' apartment last night, and had come away again, the elevator boy would have known it, and would have given evidence this morning; that is, unless he had been bribed,