MYSTERY & CRIME COLLECTION. Hay James
and the case would be fixed, irrefutable. And Braceway would win out.
Of course, there was still one chance. There was the bare possibility that Morley had gone to No. 5 to murder Enid if he did not get more money from her, and that he had been frustrated by the fact that the negro Perry had forestalled him and done the murder first. Having advanced it, Bristow did not care to abandon the theory that Perry was the guilty man.
An automobile whirled up Manniston Road and stopped in front of No. 9. His physician, Dr. Mowbray, sprang from the car and up the steps.
"Good morning, doctor!" the patient called out cheerily.
"Hello!" answered Mowbray crustily. "But what's the big idea in your trying to do a Sherlock Holmes in this murder case?"
The doctor was overbearing and opinionated. He had many patients, who were in the habit of knotowing to him and obeying his instructions implicitly. It was something which he required.
"Sit down," invited Bristow. "I'm not doing any Sherlock Holmes stuff, but I thought I ought to help out if I could."
"Well, you can't!" snapped Mowbray, with quick, nervous gestures. "You'll be in your grave before you know it. You can't stand this." He shot out his hand and produced his watch with the celerity of a sleight-of-hand performer. "Let me feel your pulse."
Bristow surrendered his wrist to the professional fingers.
"Just what I thought—twenty beats too fast. And your respiration's a crime. Have you had any rest at all, today or yesterday?"
"Not much, doctor."
Mowbray glowered at him.
"Well, you'll have to have it! You ought to be in bed this minute. If you don't carry out my instructions, I'll drop the case. You know that."
"I'm sorry, doctor, but I can't spend my time in bed now," Bristow said as persuasively as he could.
"I'd like to know why! Why? Why?"
"I'm going to Washington tomorrow, although that's a secret. I merely confide it to you in a professional way, and——"
"Going to Washington! Man, you're mad—mad! You'll have a hemorrhage or something, and die—die, I tell you!"
"Nevertheless," Bristow insisted, "I must go."
"About this murder?"
"Yes."
"Very well!" snorted Mowbray, rising like a jumping-jack. "Go—go to the North Pole if you wish. I'm through! I can't treat a man who defies my orders and advice. Good morning, sir."
Bristow gave him no answer, and he ran down the steps and threw himself into his car.
"Mistuh Bristow, Lucy's done come," said Mattie, at the living room door.
Bristow started to leave his chair, but changed his mind.
"Tell her to wait a few minutes," he said.
He began to think and to determine just what he wanted to find out from Lucy, what she would say and what he wanted her to say. It would not do to question her before he felt sure of what she knew and what she must confess. He rocked gently in his chair, going over several times the evidence he desired. His face was hard-set, almost like marble, as he stared at the mountains. He was thinking harder at that moment than he had done at any time since the murder.
He had it now. She had given Perry the key to the Withers kitchen—or, better still, Perry had taken it from her—and she remembered every detail of it, his departure from her house and his return with the key. That was what she had to confess. Inevitably, he argued, that would be her story, or else she would have no story at all.
He thought of Braceway. He made now no secret of the fact that a struggle between himself and the Atlanta man was on—not openly, but thoroughly understood by both of them—a fight for supremacy, a contest in which he sought to convict Perry while Braceway worked for the conviction of Morley.
Braceway had the added incentive of wanting to run down the man who had destroyed his friend's home life; and Braceway believed that Morley and Morley's money entanglements had, in some way, caused the tragedy.
Well, he, Bristow, would see about that! He knew he had the best of the argument so far—and he looked forward to a double pleasure: the applause that would come to him as the result of Perry's conviction, and his own personal gratification at besting Braceway at his own game.
He went into the unused bedroom and told Mattie to send Lucy Thomas to him there. While he waited, he closed the two windows.
Chapter XIII.
Lucy Thomas Talks
Lucy came slowly into the room and stood near the door. She was of the peculiar-looking negress type sometimes seen in the South—light of complexion, with hard, porcelain-like blue eyes and kinky hair which, instead of being black, is brown or brownish red. After her first startled glance toward Bristow she stood with her head lowered and with an expression of sulky stubbornness.
"Sit down!" he ordered after a few moments' silence, indicating a chair near the wall.
She took her seat while he stepped to the door and closed it.
"Now, Lucy," he said, pulling at his lower lip as he stood in the middle of the room and looked down at her, "I'm not going to hurt you, and there's nothing for you to be afraid of. All I want you to do is to tell me the truth."
In spite of his reassuring words, the woman caught the full meaning of the goading sharpness in his voice. She immediately became more sullen.
"'Deed, I ain' got nothin' to tell 'bout you white folks," she said, with a touch of insolence.
"This isn't about white folks," he corrected her, resisting his quick impulse to anger. "It's about coloured folks."
"Nothin' 'bout dem neithuh," she continued in the same tone. "I don' know nothin' 'cep'n I wuz drunk. I done tole all dat down at de p'lice station."
"Listen to me!" he commanded, a little pale, "You know perfectly well what I want to find out. I want you to tell me everything you remember about Perry Carpenter's actions and words last Monday night—the night before last."
She raised and lowered her eyes rapidly, the lids working like the shutter of a camera.
"I knows what you wants, an' I knows I don' know nothin' 'tall 'bout it," she objected, her sullenness a patent defiance.
He stared at her for a full two minutes. She could hear the breath whistling between his teeth; the sound of it frightened her.
"Don't lie to me!" he said, now a trifle hoarse. "It isn't necessary, and it doesn't do anybody any good—you or Perry either."
She began to whimper.
Looking at her, he was conscious of being absorbed in the attempt to keep his temper instead of eliciting what she had to tell. He smiled.
"Stop that sniffling, and tell me what you know about Monday night! Don't you remember that Perry told you he was going to Mrs. Withers' house and steal her jewelry?"
"I done tole you I don' remembuh nothin'."
He took a step toward her and lifted his open hand as if to strike her in the face. Without waiting for the blow, she slid from the chair and fell sprawling to the floor, where she lay, moaning.
"Get up!"
She obeyed him, her arms held folded over her head as a shield against expected blows. She was still sullen, uncommunicative, her head down.
He limped swiftly to the door, left the room and went to the front part of the house. He paced the length of the living