The Red Mouse Part 24

"Very well, then; but there's another thing that you may clear up.... By the way, Pemmican, perhaps you don't know that Challoner has confessed?"

Pemmican's physiognomy lost its doleful appearance. And he cried joyfully:--

"Confessed? Gee, that's good--great! Confessed? Well, say, counsellor, it just had to come to that!"

"Yes," conceded Murgatroyd; "but there's another thing which bothers me, though I don't know that it complicates matters exactly. It's a mere detail again. Challoner says he shot his man in Room A in Cradlebaugh's; you say the quarrel took place there, that Hargraves went out first, and that Challoner followed him. Hargraves, as we know, was found dead in the street above. That's right--isn't it?"

"Sure," returned Pemmican, positively. "I didn't see him fire the shot; n.o.body saw that. It's a good thing, though, because between you and me, Prosecutor, notwithstanding my testimony I thought that you'd have some trouble in making out a case. Circ.u.mstances is something, but they ain't everything, you know."

Murgatroyd agreed to this, and added:--

"We've got certainty now, because he's confessed--but he's mixed as to the place of the shooting. He thinks it was in your place--that you were present, that's all."

Murgatroyd seemed satisfied. He sat down at his desk and from a drawer he drew a box of cigars. Now he leaned toward Pemmican and said confidentially:--

"Pemmican, I want your testimony in this case--I want it _right_. Have a cigar?"

Pemmican accepted, and finding a ready match in his pocket, struck it on the heel of his boot and lighted the cigar before the slow-moving Murgatroyd could pa.s.s him his matchbox.

"Thank you, counsellor, I have one," he said, and blew a cloud of smoke to the ceiling. "You can depend on me; I'll tell the truth--the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me--" His gaze returned again to the pigskin wallet on the desk. "But say, I never saw that thing before."

Murgatroyd picked it up and spoke in a still lower tone now.

"Pemmican, suppose I were to fill this with, well, say ten thousand dollars and give it to you; how would you testify in this case, eh?"

"But," protested Pemmican, "I never saw ten thousand dollars in it--No...."

"No," repeated Murgatroyd; "but if you should right now have it filled with ten thousand dollars, how would you testify for me?"

Pemmican stolidly shook his head and answered:

"To the truth, counsellor--I'm an honest man."

Murgatroyd still persisted.

"How much would you take, Pemmican," he went on, "to swear that Challoner did not commit this crime?"

Pemmican started back in alarm, and once more shook his head.

"Counsellor, I'm an honest man," he answered doggedly.

Murgatroyd gave it up as a bad job.

"You're honest, all right, Pemmican," he said. "You can go back now; but I'll have you down again before the trial, and together we'll go over the testimony carefully." He placed his hand upon the other's arm. "You see, I'm most particular about this case." The next moment Mixley and McGrath entered and took Pemmican away.

Fifteen minutes later Mrs. Challoner arrived. She was accompanied by Stevens, the butler, carrying a large parcel, which he deposited on the prosecutor's table as directed. He was then dismissed; and when the door had closed on him, the man and the woman stood for a few minutes listening in silence to his retreating footsteps. Then in low, rapid tones Mrs. Challoner a.s.sured the prosecutor that she had accomplished her purpose without arousing the suspicions of any one--not even the servant. Murgatroyd noiselessly locked the door, and putting his hand upon the parcel on the table, looked at her interrogatively.

"Yes--the securities--they're all there," she hastened to a.s.sure him.

"Shall I----"

Mrs. Challoner's hand waved her permission. The big, heavy parcel had been clumsily tied up with brown paper. This, Murgatroyd tore off, and there stood revealed two long, sheet-iron boxes, old and somewhat battered. They were heavily sealed, and across each on a pasted piece of paper appeared in big letters the name "Miriam Challoner."

"I brought them just as they were," she went on to explain. "You may break the seals, scratch off my name, and then they will be yours to do with as you please."

"For the present," Murgatroyd told himself, as his eyes fell on the vault door, "that will be their resting place." And turning to her, he said aloud:--

"The deal is closed. You understand the terms? Everything is left to me--I am to free your husband--I am to keep your money?"

"Yes," she breathed, as if some heavy burden had rolled from her young shoulders.

And now for the first time Murgatroyd looked Miriam Challoner full in the face, and said solemnly:--

"One thing more: absolutely no one must know of this. Not Challoner, nor Thorne, and above all, not Miss Bloodgood. Everything depends on your silence--your silence is the essence of this contract. You agree?"

Mrs. Challoner bowed.

"I do." And she might have been taking an oath from the way she said it.

"Remember you will say nothing to Miss Bloodgood...."

"Shirley will never know of it."

"Most decidedly not Shirley." But the prosecutor remarked this to himself when once more he was alone.

X

The trial of James Lawrence Challoner had progressed with uncommon haste, the fourth day finding all the witnesses heard and the case ready to sum up to the jury. The court-room was crowded: the newspapers were there; the people were there; public opinion was there. Brief and to the point had been the State's case--made up out of Pemmican's evidence and the confession of the prisoner. But in the prosecutor's presentment of his evidence there had been an undercurrent as unusual as it was unexpected: every question that he hurled at Pemmican had a hidden meaning; every interrogation point had a sting hidden in its tail. Not that he made any attempt to switch the issue or to side-track the facts, but it was clearly apparent that from start to finish he was making a supreme effort to include within his facts, to embrace within the issue and to place on trial, together with the prisoner, one other culprit in this celebrated case--Cradlebaugh's.

However, if such were the prosecutor's chief purpose, it failed. Thorne, the counsel for the defence--who represented more than one client in this case--met him at every turn, parried his every thrust.

"Objection sustained," the Court had ruled wearily many times during the trial, "the prosecutor will proceed."

And upon such occasions Graham Thorne, from the counsel's table in the front, had flashed a triumphant glance at Peter Broderick; and Peter Broderick, in turn, from his seat in the rear of the court-room, would return the gaze with a smile, the brilliancy of which was outshone only by the big diamond that blazed from where it rested comfortably on his highly coloured shirt-front. To these two--not in the least interested in the outcome of the trial, so far as Challoner was concerned--the case was highly satisfactory. There was no crevice in the mystery of Cradlebaugh's in which Murgatroyd could insert the thin edge of a wedge; its foundation still remained unshaken after the impact of his battering ram; the Challoner case was to be the Challoner case, and nothing more.

"... That's all, Mr. Pemmican," were the words with which the prosecutor had concluded the examination of his princ.i.p.al witness.

On Pemmican of the low brow leaving the witness stand, he had glanced expectantly toward the counsel for the defence. Throughout the trial there was in his manner a peculiar deference toward Thorne which had been there from the first day. Under Murgatroyd's sharp interrogation he had seemed quite at ease; but his att.i.tude toward Thorne had always appeared to be that of a man whose hand was constantly kept raised to ward off blows. However, notwithstanding that he had been recalled at least five times, Pemmican, on the whole, apparently was well satisfied with his performance. Unquestionably he had been loyal and wary, and had confined his testimony as to motive to the woman in the case--a row over a lady--keeping that portentous game of cards well into the background--out of sight.

"Surely you're not going to detain me any longer?" whispered Pemmican to the officers who had placed themselves on either side of him. "What!

You're not going to let me go?"