From his pocket-book, Judge Hoyt took a picture postcard, and handed it to the boy. The great station showed up well, and in the foreground was easily distinguishable the figure of Judge Hoyt, standing in his characteristic attitude, with both hands behind him.
“Say, Judge, that’s fine! My, I’d know you in a minute. Kin I keep this?”
“Wish I could give it to you, but it’s the only copy I have left. I’ll send for some more, if you really care to have one.”
“Sure I do,—I mean, soitenly I do.”
“Well, do all you can to improve that execrable diction of yours, and I’ll get you a card like this one.”
Seeing Fibsy look a little disappointedly at the two demi-tasses that appeared as a final course, Judge Hoyt asked the waiter to bring a cup of breakfast coffee for the lad.
“Oh, thank you,” said the guest, “I sure do like a cup o’ coffee worth botherin’ with. Is that little mite of a cup all you want?”
“Why, yes, I suppose so. I never think about it. It is my habit to take a small cup after luncheon. Some day, Terence, if you’re ambitious, you must brush up on these minor matters of correct custom. However, here’s your large cup, now. Drink it and enjoy it. Cream and sugar, I suppose?”
“Yes sir,” said Fibsy, and he watched the elegance of Judge Hoyt’s movements, as he poured cream and dropped a lump of sugar in the good-sized cup of steaming coffee. “Another?” the judge asked, poising the second lump just above the brim.
“Yes, sir, please, sir. You’re awful good to me, Judge Hoyt, sir.”
“Well, to be honest, Terence, I want to give you a few hints as to your table manners, for you have the instincts of a gentleman, and I’m going to help you to become one, if I can.”
“Yes, sir, thank you, sir.” Fibsy looked earnestly at the kindly face that smiled at him, and then said, in a burst of determination to do the right thing, “Say, Judge Hoyt, I want to learn to be a gentleman as soon as I can. An’ I’m goin’ to begin right now, by drinkin’ this here little cup o’ coffee,—an’ I’m goin’ to drink it like you did yours, without no sugar or cream!”
Pushing to one side the larger cup, Fibsy took the demi-tasse, which had been left on the table, and with a visible effort swallowed its contents.
“Whew! some bitter!” he exclaimed, making a wry face.
“Good for you, old chap!” and the Judge laughed outright at this act of real heroism. “Now that you’ve proved you can do it, follow it up with the other cup, that you’ll enjoy.”
“No sir—ee! I’ve begun to do the c’rect thing, an’ I’m goin to stick to it!”
“Oh, pshaw, don’t deprive yourself of a little pleasure. That good cup of coffee, fixed just to your taste, will be wasted if you don’t drink it.”
“No, sir, I’m in fer the manners today. Maybe I won’t keep it up, but this is me day fer bein’ a gentleman, let it rain ebber so hard!” With a merry smile in his blue eyes, Fibsy stood his ground, and then in another moment, looked crestfallen and sheepish, as finger bowls were brought.
“That gets my goat!” he confided to his host. “Say, Judge, put me wise.”
“Very well, Terence, simply do as I do.”
Fibsy watched carefully, though unostentatiously, and when the judge had finished, the boy gave a perfect imitation of the man’s correct and graceful motions.
Before the finger-bowls came, the waiter had taken up Fibsy’s large cup of coffee to remove it. But with a longing glance, the boy had said, “Say, can’t I keep that after all, Judge?”
“Certainly,” Judge Hoyt had replied. But now, after the new glory of cleansed finger-tips, again Fibsy renounced the temptation, and said, “Nope, if I’m goin’ to learn to be a swell, I gotter learn to say no.” And without even a backward glance at the coffee, he followed the judge from the dining room.
They reached the street, when Fibsy cried out,
“Good gracious, I left me paper!” and he darted back into the restaurant, returning, after a moment’s delay, with the newspaper under his arm.
“Now we are off,” he said, and with Judge Hoyt, he walked briskly back to the lawyer’s office.
That same evening, Judge Hoyt went to see Avice, and he acknowledged that he was about at the end of his resources.
“Then you have failed?” said the girl.
“Not yet. But I shall, undoubtedly, unless—”
“Unless you resort to dishonest means?”
“Yes; exactly that. I don’t want to, and yet,—foryouI would perjure my soul!”
“What would it be, this dishonest procedure?”
“I’d rather not tell you. It would be better all round that you shouldn’t know.”
“But Imustknow. Tell me.”
“I’ve not thought it all out.” Hoyt passed a weary hand over his brow. “For one thing, the worst point against Landon is that person who telephoned and called Mr. Trowbridge ‘uncle’. If I could get some one to swear that he did that, it would go a long way in Landon’s favor.”
“Some one who didn’t really do it, you mean?”
“Yes, of course. It would be perjury, and it would have to be handsomely paid for.”
“How wicked!”
“Don’t think for a moment that I don’t realize the wickedness of it! Evenyoucan have no idea what such an act means to a man, and a lawyer. A hithertohonorablelawyer! Oh, Avice, what a man will do for a woman!”
“I’m not sure I want you to.”
“You want Kane freed?”
“Yes, oh,yes!”
“By fraud, if necessary?”
“Y—yes.”
“Avice, you are as bad as I am! For one we love, we stop at nothing! You would perjure your soul for Landon; I, for you! Where’s the difference?”
“I won’t, Leslie. I can’t! Don’t do that awful thing!”
“And let Landon be convicted?”
“Oh, no, no! Not that! But wait, Leslie, I have a new plan.”
“Oh, yes, I forgot you were going to save Landon by your own exertions!”
“And I am. Have you ever heard of Fleming Stone?”
“Of course I have. Why?”
“I’m going to get him to find the murderer.”
“Avice! what nonsense. You mustn’t do any such thing!”
“Why not?”
“Because it is absurd. We already have Duane on the case. He is a well-known detective and would resent the employment of another.”
“Do you suppose I care for that? If Fleming Stone can free Kane he shall have a chance to do so! I have fifty thousand dollars of my own, and I’ll spend it all, if necessary.”
“It isn’t the cost, dear. But one detective can hardly succeed where another good one failed. And, too, it is too late, now. A detective must work before clues are destroyed and evidence lost.”
“I know it is late, but Stone is so clever. He can do marvels.”
“Who told you so?”
“I won’t tell you.” For Avice knew if she said either Fibsy or the clairvoyant, Hoyt would laugh at her.
“Be guided by me in this, dear,” said Hoyt, earnestly. “Don’t send for this man. He will do more harm than good.”
“Do you mean he will find out for sure that Kane did it?”
“Never mind what I mean. But don’t get Fleming Stone on this case, I forbid it.”
“You’re too late,” returned Avice; “I’ve already written to him to come and see me.”
“In that case, there is nothing more to be said. We must make the best of it. But at least let me be here with you when he comes. I think he will want a legal mind to confer with.”
“Indeed, I shall be very glad to have you here. Why were you so averse to having him, at first?”
“Only because it is so useless. He can discover nothing. But if you want him, that’s enough for me.”
The next evening Hoyt called on Avice again.
“Heard from Stone yet?” he asked.
“No, not yet.”
“Well, I don’t believe you will. I hear he’s out West, and will be gone some weeks yet.”
“Oh, I am so disappointed! How are things going today?”
“Slowly. But I am holding them back on purpose. I have a new plan, that may help us out a lot.”
But Hoyt wouldn’t divulge his new plan, and when he left, Avice was heavy-hearted. She was more than willing to do anything for Kane that was right, but she recoiled at perjury and deceit. And yet the thought of Kane’s conviction brought her to the pitch of any awful deed.
So, when, the morning after she lost her hope of seeing Fleming Stone, Fibsy came to see her, she welcomed the boy as a drowning man a straw.
“What about that Stone guy, Miss Avice?” he inquired, abruptly.
“We can’t get him, Fibsy; he’s out of town.”
“Yes, he isn’t! I seen him only yesterday, walkin’ up the avnoo.”
“You did! He must have come home unexpectedly. I’m going to telephone him!”
“Do it now,” said Fibsy, in a preoccupied tone. Avice found the number and called up the detective.
“Why, Miss Trowbridge,” he said, after he learned who she was; “I had a telegram from you asking me to cancel the appointment.”
“A telegram! I didn’t send you any!”
“It was signed with your name.”
“There’s a mistake somewhere.”
“’Tain’t no mistake!” said Fibsy, eagerly, as he listened close to the receiver that Avice held. “Tell him to come here now, Miss Avice.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I must ask Judge Hoyt.”
“Here, gimme it!” and the audacious boy took the receiver from Avice, and speaking directly into the transmitter, said;
“’Twasn’t a mistake, Mr. Stone. ’Twas deviltry. Can’t you come right up to Trowbridge’s now, and get into this thing while the gettin’s good?”
“Who is speaking now?”
“Miss Trowbridge’s seckerterry. She’s kinder pupplexed. But she wants you to come, awful.”
“Let her tell me so, herself, then.”
“Here, Miss Avice,” and Fibsy thrust the receiver into her hand, “tell him to come! It’s your only chance to save Mr. Landon! Take it from me!”
Spurred by the reference to Landon, Avice, said, clearly; “Yes, please come at once, Mr. Stone, if you possibly can.”
“Be there in half an hour,” was the quick reply, and a click ended the conversation.
“What kind of a boy are you?” said Avice, looking at Fibsy, half angry, half admiring.
“Now, Miss Avice, don’t you make no mistake. I ain’t buttin’ in here out o’ freshness or impidence. There’s the devil’s own doin’ goin’ on, an’ nobody knows it but me. It’s too big for me to handle, an’ it’s too big for that Duane donkey to tackle. An’ they ain’t no one as can ’tend to it but F. Stone. An’ gee! you come mighty near losin’ him! Why, Miss Avice, when you heard somebuddy wired him in your name not to come here, don’t that tell you nothin’?”
“Yes, Fibsy, it shows me some one is working against Mr. Landon’s interests. And that is what Judge Hoyt has been afraid of all along. I wish he were here.”
“Who? Judge Hoyt?”
“Yes, I promised to have him here when Mr. Stone came. There ought to be a legal mind present.”
“Mine’s here, Miss Avice; and right on the job. My legal mind is workin’ somepin fierce this mornin’ an’ I kin tell Mr. F. Stone a whole lot that Judge Hoyt couldn’t.”
“Fibsy, I don’t know whether to send you away, or bless you for being here.” Avice looked at the boy in an uncertainty of opinion.
“Now, Miss Avice, don’t you worry, don’t you fret about that. You’ll be glad an’ proud you know me, before this crool war is over! an’ that ain’t no idol thret!Bullieveme!”
“Well, Fibsy, if I let you stay, I must ask you to talk to me a little more politely. I don’t like that street language.”
“Sure, Miss Avice, I’ll can the slang. I mean, truly I’ll try to talk proper. It’s mostly that I get so excited that I forget there’s a lady listenin’ to me. But I’ll do better, honest I will.”
Fleming Stone came.
Avice received him alone, except that she allowed Fibsy to sit in the corner of the room.
“I am exceedingly interested in this case,” Mr. Stone said, after greetings had been exchanged; “I have closely followed the newspaper accounts, and I admit it seems baffling many ways. Have you any information not yet made public?”
“No,—” begun Avice, and then she looked at Fibsy.
The boy sat in his corner, with eager face, almost bursting with his desire to speak, but silent because he had promised to be.
“I know so little of these things,” Avice went on, falteringly; “I hoped to have a lawyer here to talk to you. As a matter of fact, I was advised to send for you by this boy, Terence McGuire. He was my late uncle’s office boy.”
“Ah, the one they call Fibsy, and so discredited his evidence at the inquest!”
“Yes,” said Avice, “but he says he knows something of importance.”
“And I believe he does,” said Fleming Stone, heartily. “I read about his witnessing, and I am glad of a chance to talk to him.”
Fibsy flushed scarlet at this interest shown in him by the great man, but he only said, simply, “May I speak, Miss Avice?”
“Yes, Fibsy, tell Mr. Stone all you know. But tell him the truth.”
“He won’t lie to me,” said Stone, not unkindly, but as one merely stating a fact.
“No,” agreed Fibsy, looking at Stone, solemnly. “I won’t lie to you. You see it was this way, sir, I’ve got the detective instinck,—and the day after the murder, I went to the place where it was at, to look for clues. Miss Avice, she gimme the day off. An’ I found ’em, sir. The Swede woman told me where the place was where—where Mr. Trowbridge died, and right there I found a shoe button.”
“Fibsy,” and Avice looked at him, “why did you tell Judge Hoyt it was a suspender button?”
“I had to, Miss Avice,” and Fibsy’s face looked troubled “you see I saidbuttonto him and the ’xpression on his face warned my instinck not to sayshoebutton. So I switched.”
“Describe his expression,” said Stone, who was watching the boy closely.
“Well, sir, when he said ‘what kind of a buttun?’ he looked as if a heap depended on my answer. An’ when I said suspender button, he lost all interest. Now, maybe hehada int’rest in a shoe button an’ maybe he didn’t. But I wasn’t takin’ no chances.”
“Fibsy, you’ve the right bent to be a detective!” exclaimed Stone; “that was really clever of you.”
But Fibsy was unmoved by this praise. “I sorta sensed it,” he went on. “Well, sir, that shoe button never came offen Mr. Landon’s shoes, sir.”
“How do you know?”
“I got around the chambermaid here in this house, sir, an’ she hunted all over Mr. Landon’s shoes, an’ they ain’t no buttons missin’; an’ too, sir, this button is from a city shoe, a New York shoe. An’ Mr. Landon, he wears western shoes. Oh, I know; I’ve dug into it good.”
“Well, whose button is it?”
“I don’t know, sir, but you can find out. I told Miss Trowbridge, sir, my clues wascluesonly in your hands.”
“The button may be important, and may not.”
“Yes, sir,” and Fibsy beamed “that’s jest exactly whatIthought. Now, my other clue, sir, is this. I ain’t got it here, but I got it safe home. It’s a hunk o’ dirt that I cut out o’ the ground, right near the—the spot. You see, it has a print in it, a deep, clear print, sorta round. Well, sir, I’d like you to see it ’fore I describe it. I’d like to know if it strikes you like it does me.”
The boy seemed all unaware of any presumption in the manner of argumentative equality which he had adopted toward the famous detective, and, to Avice’s surprise, Mr. Stone seemed not to resent it.
“Were there other marks of this nature?”
“Yes, several. I scratched them away with my foot.”
“You did! You destroyed evidence purposely! Why?”
“Because I picked out the best and clearest, and kep’ it safely. I was goin’ to give it to Miss Avice or Judge Hoyt, but they all made fun o’ me, so I didn’t. They wasn’t no use o’ reporters muddlin’ the case up. An’ smarty-cat snoopers huntin’ clues, an’ all.”
“You took a great deal on yourself, my boy. You had no right to do it. But I will reserve judgment. It may well be you have done a good thing.”
“It was too many for me, sir. I couldn’t sling the case myself. An’ Judge Hoyt wouldn’t pay no ’tention; an’ that gink,—I mean—that Mr. Duane, he ain’t got no seein’ powers so I says they ain’t no one but you to take it up as it should be took up. An’ glory to goodness you’re here!”
Fleming Stone smiled a little, but quickly looking serious again, said to Avice, “If you want me to work on this case, Miss Trowbridge, I will start by going with this boy to look at his ‘clues.’ They may be of some importance.”
Avice agreed, and the great detective and the small boy went away together.
“And so you are Miss Trowbridge’s secretary?” asked Stone as they walked along.
“No, sir, I ain’t. That was one of my lies. I said it so’s you’d come.”
“Look here, what’s this about your lying habits? Is it a true bill?”
“No, Mr. Stone, I’ve quit. That is,practically. But I’ve often found a lot o’ help in shadin’ the truth now an then. But, shucks, they was only foolishness, to fuss up people who oughter be bothered. An’ any way, I’ve quit, ’ceppen as it may be necess’ry in my business.”
“And what is your business?”
“It’s been bein’ office boy, but I’ve always wanted to be a detective, an’ since I’ve seen you, I know I’m goin’ to be one. I have the same cast o’ mind as you have, sir.”
Stone looked sharply into the earnest face raised to his, and it showed no undue conceit, merely a recognition of existing conditions.
“Terence,” he said, quietly, “a good detective cannot be an habitual liar.”
“I know it, sir; that’s why I’ve quit. After now, I’m only goin’ to tell lies when me work requires it. Just as you do, sir. You don’t always tell the strick truth, do you, sir?”
Stone shot a glance at him and then smiled. “Let’s discuss those ethics some other time, Fibsy. Where do you live?”
“Quite some way off, sir. I’ll show you.”
“We’d better get a taxi, then;” and soon the two detectives were on their way to Fibsy’s humble home.
Stone waited in the cab, while the boy ran in and out again with his precious clues.
“I’ve kep’ ’em careful,” he said, “and the dirt ain’t jarred nor nothin.”
First he produced the shoe button. “You see,” he said, earnestly, “if it was shiny all over it wouldn’t mean much; but it’s rubbed brown on one side, so if we could find the shoe it came off of, we’d know it in a minute.”
“Good work,” said Stone, quietly, “go on.”
“Well, sir, it ain’t Mr. Landon’s, cos he ain’t got any shoes with buttons the least mite like this, and as he came from Denver the day before the murder, he didn’t have time to get some an’ wear ’em to this browniness.”
“It is a point, Fibsy.”
“Yes sir, that’s all it is, a point. Now look at this mud.”
With great care, Fibsy opened a box and showed a piece of soil, about four inches square, in the center of which was clearly defined round hole.
“I cut it out right near the ‘spot’,” said he, in the awed tone in which he always referred to the scene of the crime. “It’s the mark of a—”
“Cane!” said both voices together.
“Yes sir,” went on Fibsy, eagerly, “an’ that ain’t all! I saw the daisies and clovers were sorta switched off all around the spot, as if by sombuddy slashin’ a cane around careless-like. An’ then,” and the boy’s face grew solemn with the bigness of his revelation, “I seemed to see in my mind a—what do you call ’em, sir?—a dirk cane, a sword cane, an’—”
“Canekilled me!”
“Yes, sir! Oh, Mr. Stone, I knew you’d see it!”
“Boy, you are a wonder. Even if your deductions are all wrong, you have shown marvelous acumen.”
Fibsy had no idea what acumen was, nor did he care. He was not seeking praise, but corroboration, and he was getting it. The mark of a cane was perfectly clear and was unmistakable. It might mean nothing, but it was a cane mark, and some canes were murderous weapons.
“You have seeing eyes, child,” said Stone, and Fibsy desired no greater commendation.
“Now,” went on Stone, “I’m going to begin at the beginning of this thing and I propose to take you along with me.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll help,” and Fibsy settled back in his seat in the taxicab without a trace of presumption or forwardness on his freckled face or in his blue, ‘seeing’ eyes.
The beginning seemed to be at police headquarters and the two went in there.
Inspector Collins was interviewed as to the message that brought to him the first news of the murder.
He patiently retold the story, now old to him, and Stone questioned him as to the woman’s voice.
“I couldn’t rightly hear her, sir. Her kids was all screamin’ and whoopin’-coughin’ to beat the band.”
“Gee!” remarked Fibsy, “Vapo-crinoline!”
“What?” asked Stone.
“It’s the stuff they uses for whoopin’ cough. Me kid brother had it onct. Vapo Kerosene, or sumpin.”
“Also,” the captain went on, “there was a phonograph goin’ and there was building goin’ on near. I could hear riveters.”
“But who was the woman? Didn’t she give her name?”
“No, she was a dago woman,” Collins said, stroking his chin reflectively; “I couldn’t find out where she lived, nor why she sent the message. There was such a racket goin’ on where she was, I couldn’t half hear her.”
“What sort of a racket?”
“All sorts. She said her children had whooping-cough, and they did, for sure; but there was other noises. Seemed like hammerin’ and screechin’ and music all at once.”
“Music?”
“Oh, only a phonograph goin’. Playin’ some rag-time. Dunno what ’twas; ‘My Cockieleekie Lassie’ or some such song. Or maybe——”
“Well, never mind the song. Did you finally get the message?”
“Yes, I did.”
“What was it?”
“Only that Rowland Trowbridge was dead and for me to go to Van Cortlandt Park woods for the body.”
“Singular that an Italian woman should tell you the news.”
“Very singular, sir.”
“What did you do then?”
“Called up the Van Cortlandt Park Station, and told them to look into the matter.”
Stone asked further details concerning the finding of the body, and then inquired as to the nature of the wound.
“He was stabbed,” said Collins, “And, without doubt, by a slender-bladed dagger or stiletto.”
“An Italian stiletto?” asked Stone.
“That is impossible to tell,” answered the Inspector a little pompously. “The wound would present the same appearance if made by any sharp, narrow-bladed weapon.”
“This weapon was not found?” went on Stone.
“No,” replied Collins, “I had vigorous search made in vain. But its absence proves the deed of an intelligent person. Whoever killed Mr. Trowbridge, went to the woods, knowing his victim would be there, and carrying his weapon with him.”
“It seems to prove that the criminal was provided with a dagger,” agreed Stone, “but it in no way convinces that it was not an accidental meeting between the murderer and his victim.”
So far the facts were bare ones. The announcement through the green cord of the telephone, the finding of the dagger-killed body, and the identification of the victim were clearly stated, but what inferences, could be drawn? There were no side lights, no implications, no pegs on which to hang theories.
Still keeping Fibsy with him, Stone returned to the Trowbridge house. It had been agreed that should he meet any one there, he was to be introduced as Mr. Green, a friend of Kane Landon’s.
As, it happened, there was quite a crowd in the library. Judge Hoyt had asked the district attorney and Alvin Duane to meet him there for a conference with Avice. Also, they wanted a few more words with Stryker, who had returned to his old place as butler.
As a friend of Landon’s and as an acquaintance of Avice’s “Mr. Green” was made welcome, and Avice asked that he be allowed to discuss the matter with them all. “Mr. Green is sure that Kane is innocent,” Avice said, “and he may be able to suggest some point that we may have overlooked.”
No one objected to the presence of the stranger, nor did they mind when Fibsy slid into the room, and sat down in a corner. It was no secret conclave, and any hint or theory would have been welcomed.
Stryker, who was present, was giving the best answers he could to the questions put to him.
“What were you really doing, Stryker,” the district attorney asked, “that afternoon of Mr. Trowbridge’s death?”
The old man shook his head. “I can’t remember,” he said; “I was at home when the news came, but I can’t just recollect whether I had been out afore that or not.”
Mr. Whiting appeared to think this a little suspicious, and questioned him severely.
But, “Mr. Green” smiled pleasantly;
“His alibi is perfect because he hasn’t any alibi,” he said cryptically.
“Just what does that mean to your cabalistic mind?” asked Whiting, ironically.
“Only this. If Stryker were implicated in this crime, he would have had an unshakable alibi fully prepared against your questions. The very fact that he doesn’t pretend to remember the details of his doings that afternoon, lets him out.”
Whiting saw this point, and agreed to the conclusion, but Alvin Duane looked decidedly crestfallen.
“In that case,” he said to Whiting, “an alibi is always worthless, for they are, according to the learned gentleman, always faked.”
“Not at all,” said Stone, easily. “An alibi is only ‘faked’, as you call it, by the criminal. Had Stryker been the criminal, he would have been shrewd enough, in all probability, to be prepared with a story to tell of where he spent that afternoon, and not say he doesn’t remember.”
The butler himself nodded his head. “That’s right! Of course I wouldn’t kill the master I loved,—the saints forgive me for even wording it!—but if I did, I’d surely have sense to provide an alloby, or whatever you call it.”
As no further questioning seemed to incriminate the man, he was dismissed from the room.
Baffled in his attempt to prove his somewhat vague theory as to Stryker, Duane insisted on a consideration of the note alleged by Avice to have been found in her uncle’s desk.
Judge Hoyt took up this matter somewhat at length. He admitted that Miss Trowbridge had found the note, as she averred, but he urged that it be not taken too seriously, for in his opinion, it had been written on Mr. Trowbridge’s typewriter by other fingers than the owner’s. And it was probably done, he opined, to turn suspicion away from his client.
“And do you want suspicion to rest on your client?” asked Stone.
“I do not and I do not propose that suspicion shall rest on him. But I do not care to divert it from him by fraudulent means.”
Hoyt was careful not to glance toward Avice. He regretted her impulsive act in forging that note, and he felt sure that if he appeared to bank on it, the truth would come out. So he endeavored to have the note’s implication discarded, and the matter ignored.
But this attitude, of itself, roused Whiting’s suspicions.
“Might it not be,” he said, slowly, “that the note, then, is the work of the prisoner, himself? Mr. Landon has been living in the Trowbridge house and would have had ample opportunity to ‘plant’ the note which the young lady found.”
Judge Hoyt looked annoyed. The possibility of this theory being set forth had occurred to him. But, adhering to his one idea, he smiled, and said, lightly:
“That is for you to determine. As I am convinced of Mr. Landon’s innocence, I, of course, feel sure he did not write the note in question; but if you think he did, and can prove it on him, go ahead and do so. But I do not see how it can in any way help your cause.”
This was true. Were it proved that Landon wrote the note, it would be evidence of a most undecisive sort; or at any rate, Hoyt’s indifference made it appear so.
“Perhaps Fibsy will tell us ofhisclues,” said Avice, smiling at the serious-faced boy, who was quietly listening to all that was said, but making no interruptions.
“Now, now, Avice,” said Judge Hoyt, “don’t bring our young friend into the conversation.”
“Why not?” and Avice pouted a little more at the judge’s opposition to her suggestion, than because she really thought Fibsy could be of any help.
“Well, you see, this youth, though a bright-witted boy, rejoices in the nickname of Fibsy, a title acquired because of his inability to tell the truth. I submit that a customary falsifier is not permissible as a counselor.”
“But I don’t tell lies when I testify, Judge Hoyt,” said the boy, a disappointed look on his freckled face.
“You won’t have a chance to, Fibsy,” and Hoyt smiled at him indulgently, “for you’re not going to testify.”
Fibsy stared at him, and then a strange look came over his face.
“I got you!” he fairly screamed; “I’m onto you! You know I’m nobody’s fool and you’re afraid I’ll queer your client!”
Judge Hoyt didn’t so much as glance at the angry boy. He addressed himself to Avice. “My dear, I protest. And I demand that this impossible person be removed.”
But Fibsy possessed a peculiar genius for making people listen to him.
“Him!” he said, and the finger of withering scorn he pointed at Judge Hoyt was so audacious, that the others held their breath. “Him! He sent me to Philadelphia to get me outen his way! That’s whathedid!”
“A sample of his celebrated falsehoods,” said the judge, now smiling broadly. “The little ingrate! I did get him a position in Philadelphia, as he could no longer be in Mr. Trowbridge’s office. But I fail to see how even his fertile imagination can make it appear that I did this to ‘get him out of the way.’ Out of whose way may I ask. He certainly wasn’t in mine.”
Whiting stared. He was trying to put two and two together to make some sort of a four that would worry his opponent, and for the life of him he couldn’t do it.
Why, he thought, would Judge Hoyt want to get rid of this boy, unless the chap knew something detrimental to his client? There could be no other reason, and yet what could the boy know? Hoyt had said he was a bright boy, so he must be afraid of that brightness. And yet—and this point must be well considered—it might well be, if the boy were really an abandoned liar, that Hoyt only feared the falsehoods he could make up, and which might be adverse to Landon’s interests even though untrue.
And so, in spite of Hoyt’s protests, indeed, really because of them, Whiting insisted on questioning the boy.
The first questions put to him were of little interest, but when Fibsy, in his dramatic way, announced the finding of a button on the scene of the crime, Whiting pricked up his ears. Could it be a button of Landon’s clothing? Could it be traced to the prisoner?
“What kind of a button?” he asked the lad.
“A—a sus-sus-sus-shoe button!”
The final word came out in a burst of emphasis, and Fibsy, raised a defiant, determined face, as if expecting opposition. And he got it!
“Now, I protest!” said Judge Hoyt, and he was actually laughing; “this mendacious youth told me about that button some time ago; only then, he said it was a suspender button! Didn’t you, Fibsy?”
“Yep;” was the sulky reply, “and I came near callin’ it that this time, too!”
“Well, why not? or why not a coat button?”
“That’s it!” and Fibsy’s eyes sparkled; “itwasa coat button! I remember now! It was a coat button!”
Hoyt laughed out in triumph. “And tomorrow it will be a waist-coat button,” he said; “and the day after, a sleeve button!”
“Yep,” said Fibsy staring at him; “Yep, most prob’ly! anyway, it’s a clue, that’s what it is!”
The audience shook with laughter. The funny shock-headed boy was out of place in this serious affair, but he was there, and his comical face was irresistibly humorous.
But Judge Hoyt was solemn enough now.
“Send away that boy!”he said sternly; “is this matter to be made a burlesque on the Law? a comic opera of ‘Trial by Jury?’ Order him out, Avice, I’ll see him later.”
And Fibsy was ordered out. No one could take seriously the sort of talk he had treated them to.
But the boy was not covered with confusion. Nor did he even appear chagrined at his misbehaviour. He looked thoughtful and wondering. He gazed at Hoyt with an unseeing, almost uncanny stare. He walked to the door, and as he left the room, he exploded his breath in a deep-toned “Gee!”
Whiting looked after the boy a little uncertainly. Hoyt looked at Whiting.
But the prosecuting attorney could see no reason to recall the lad, and though he felt there was something going on he couldn’t fathom, he could get no glimmer of an idea as to its nature.
Judge Hoyt smiled, and try as he would, Whiting could not discern the meaning or intent of that smile.
Fleming Stone remained, after the others left, for a talk with Avice.
“None of them recognized me,” he said, “I’ve not been in New York for a year or more, and though I have seen Judge Hoyt before, we were not personally acquainted.”
“The judge is doing his best,” said Avice, wearily, “but he is very fearful of the outcome. It is strange there is so much circumstancial evidence against Mr. Landon, when he is entirely innocent.”
“Kane Landon is his own worst enemy,” declared Stone. “I have not seen him yet, but what I’ve heard about him does not prepossess me in his favor.”
“You don’t think him guilty?”
“I can’t say as to that, at this moment, but I mean his attitude and behaviour are, I am told, both truculent and insolent. Why should this be?”
“It’s his nature. Always he has been like that. If anybody ever accused him of wrong, as a child, he immediately became angry and would neither confess nor deny. I mean if he was wrongfully accused. It rouses his worst passions to be unjustly treated. That’s an added reason, to me, for knowing him innocent in this matter. Because he is so incensed at being suspected.”
“I understand that sort of nature,” and Stone spoke musingly, “but it is carrying it pretty far, when one’s life is the forfeit.”
“I know it, and I want to persuade Kane to be more amenable and more willing to talk. But he shuts up like a clam when they question him. You’re going to see him, aren’t you, Mr. Stone?”
“Yes, very soon. I’m glad you gave me this information about his disposition. I shall know better how to handle him. And, now, Miss Trowbridge, will you call your butler up here again, please?”
Stryker was summoned, and Fleming Stone spoke to him somewhat abruptly.
“My man,” he said, “what is the secret understanding between you and Judge Hoyt?”
“I don’t know what you mean, sir.”
“Oh, yes, you do. You are not only under his orders, but he owns you,—body and soul. How did it come about?”
The old butler looked at his questioner and an expression of abject fear came into his eyes. “N-no, sir,” he said, trembling, “no,—that is not so—”
“Don’t perjure yourself. You do not deceive me in the least. Come now, Stryker, there’s no reason for such secrecy. Tell me frankly, why the judge holds you in the hollow of his hand.”
Stone’s manner was kindly, his voice gentle, though compelling, and the old man looked at him, as if fascinated.
“He saved my life,” he said, slowly, “and so—”
“And so it,—in a way,—belongs to him,” supplemented Stone. “I begin to see. And how did Judge Hoyt save your life, Stryker?”
“Well, sir, it was a long time ago, and I was accused of—of murder, sir,—and Mr. Hoyt, he wasn’t a judge then, he got me off.”
“Even though you were guilty?” and Fleming Stone’s truth-demanding gaze, brought forth a low “yes, sir. But if you knew the whole story, sir—”