The Red Mouse Part 18

A most unusual performance on the part of the prosecutor cut him short.

All the time Challoner had been laying bare the facts as he remembered them, Murgatroyd had been toying silently with a pigskin wallet on which appeared in gold the initials: "R. H."; and just when his prisoner was on the point of ending his story, he tossed it over to him.

Challoner caught it "on the fly."

"Do you recognise that?" Murgatroyd demanded. The prosecutor desired, if possible, to add robbery to the motive in the case.

Challoner never winked an eyelash.

"Know it?" he replied glibly, "I should think I did! It was Hargraves's.

When I saw it last there was ten thousand dollars in it." And turning it almost inside out, he asked in an offhand manner:--

"Where's the money gone?"

Murgatroyd's eyes searched the face of the man before him as if he would read his very soul.

"You took it," he a.s.serted coldly.

Challoner pa.s.sed his hand across his face, striving to clear away his muddled recollections.

"I took it? Decidedly not!" he exclaimed indignantly. But the man's dipsomaniacal doubts and fears tinged the tone of his voice and lessened the impressiveness of his denial, though he added: "Why, your witness, Pemmican, can tell you that--he saw the whole thing."

Mixley and McGrath had something to say now. In chorus they wanted particularly to know whether Challoner was positive that Pemmican saw "the whole thing." This joint interrogation seemed to have an irritating effect on the prisoner; and when Murgatroyd silenced them by inquiring of Challoner whether it was not a fact that he had tried to borrow money all over town, the "Yes" he elicited was muttered angrily.

"But I didn't touch that," Challoner resumed, the beads of perspiration standing out on his brow. "In any event, it is not one of the main facts in my memory. If I did take the money, what in the world have I done with it--tell me that? But look here, Murgatroyd, let's get down to business and have this over with. I'm tired of the whole affair. I told you that I waited for Hargraves for two nights. We had a game in Room A--there was a compact--Hargraves won out! Hang him, he always won out!

We had a row then and there.... I pulled that gun and fired at him point blank!"

"And then?"

"I killed him; and I would do it over again, I a.s.sure you. I don't remember any more--but Pemmican was there--you've got his story--he knows all about it."

"His story," observed Murgatroyd, laying a forefinger on the edge of the desk, "amounts to just what you said last night--that drunk and sober, you watched your chance, and when you got it, you made good--or bad, whichever way you please."

"You've got it," returned Challoner, "now take me back."

There was a loud rap on the door. Mixley answered it, and left the room, holding a conversation in somewhat strenuous tones on the other side. He returned in an instant.

"It's Counsellor Thorne," he announced to the prosecutor. "He wants to see you."

Murgatroyd shook his head impatiently. He and Thorne did not pull well together.

"Tell him to wait," he said brusquely.

"He won't wait," persisted Mixley. "He insists...."

"You tell him that he's got to wait," returned Murgatroyd.

But Thorne did not wait. No sooner had Mixley left the room than Thorne entered and strode up to the prosecutor's desk. Mixley followed him.

Resting one hand on the table Thorne waved the other toward Challoner.

"Murgatroyd," he cried fiercely, with an injured air, "what's this? You call yourself a reputable member of the bar; you call yourself a reform prosecutor of the pleas; this is a most unfair advantage."

Murgatroyd sighed wearily.

"What now, Thorne, what now?"

"Most unfair," repeated the other counsellor-at-law. "You've got my client here--my client!"

Murgatroyd looked at Mixley and then at McGrath.

"Your client! Where is your client?"

"There he is," pointing, "James Lawrence Challoner!"

Murgatroyd rose and said suavely:--

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Thorne. Are you retained? I didn't know.

Challoner said nothing of it. Why didn't you tell me, Mr. Challoner?"

"I didn't know it," Challoner told him shortly. "But it's all right--I suppose Mrs. Challoner retained him."

"Yes, she did," Thorne informed him.

"Well, I'm sorry, Thorne," said Murgatroyd. "If I had known you were in the case----"

"Sorry!" echoed Thorne. "This is outrageous! I went up to the jail this morning and my client was not there." He waved his arm as if addressing a jury. "And when they told me that you--you had the effrontery to have him brought down here--for the third degree--This is a matter for the _Morning Mail_."

Murgatroyd lolled back in his chair and lit a fresh cigar. Presently he said:--

"Thorne, my duty is to the people as well as to your client; so far I've done my duty to both. Go to the _Morning Mail_ if you want to."

"And leave my client here alone!" said Thorne, doggedly. He shook his head to let Challoner see what a determined man he was.

Murgatroyd leaned back over his desk and for a moment busied himself with his papers. Then he announced:--

"Mr. Thorne, your client is going back to jail at once;" and added jokingly: "If you wish to ride with him in the van, you may do so." And with that he ordered Challoner taken away.

Before going, Challoner stretched out his hand and said half genially:--

"I've no fault to find with you, Mr. Prosecutor; it had to come to this."

"But I won't forget this--not for a moment, Prosecutor Murgatroyd," said Thorne grandiloquently, as he stalked out of the door, followed by the prisoner and his guards.

After the men had left Murgatroyd paced the floor for a while in deep meditation. Something in the prisoner's att.i.tude had moved him, puzzled him. "There's a discrepancy somewhere," he told himself; "and yet where the deuce is it?--Challoner killed this man as sure as fate. The motive, the opportunity, were there.... And then there's his confession....

But--" He pushed a b.u.t.ton; and when McGrath answered the call he was ordered to have Pemmican sent down from the house of detention, his order ending with: "I wish to see him at once."

"Yes, sir." The officer then placed a card upon the prosecutor's desk and added: "That's a party who wants to see you, sir."