The Winning Clue Part 43

"Yes, you were! We've got proof of it. You _were_ there!"

"What proof?"

"You're curious about that, are you? I thought you would be! For one thing, the imprint of your rubber shoe on the porch floor of Number Five--"

"No! No! I wasn't on the porch. I----" He checked the words, realizing that he had betrayed himself.

"Not on the porch?" Bristow caught him up. "Where, then? Where?" He limped a step nearer to the prisoner. "Out with it now! You _were_ there! You were there!"

He stood over Morley, conquering him by the sheer weight of his personality.

"I wasn't on the porch."

"All right--not on the porch. But where?"

Morley looked up at him and, mechanically, pushed his chair back, as if he felt the need of more s.p.a.ce. Bristow, in his shirt-sleeves, his right arm held up, continued to crowd against him, threatening him, commanding him to speak.

Braceway was amazed by the intensity of Bristow's glance, the tautness of his body, the harsh authority in his voice. This man who had been ill a few hours before exhibited now a strength and a vitality that would have been remarkable in anybody. In him, under the circ.u.mstances, it was nothing short of marvellous.

Morley could not withstand him.

"I don't know anything--anything worth while," he said weakly, trembling from head to foot. "I would have told it at the very--at the very first; only I thought it might keep me in Furmville too long. I wanted to get back here and----"

"Never mind about what you wanted!" Bristow's hand fell and gripped his shoulder painfully, shook him, brought him back to the main issue. "What did you see? That's what we want to know, every bit of it, all of it!"

Morley flinched, trying to throw off Bristow's hand. The lame man stepped back.

"All right," he said, "I'm not going to hurt you."

Morley, having yielded, told his story hurriedly, with little pauses here and there, struggling for breath.

"I did miss my train, the midnight," he began. "I really tried to catch it. But, when I found it was gone, I couldn't sleep. I was worried and frightened. This bank business was on my mind. I wanted to think." He forced a mirthless smile at that. "I couldn't think very straight, but I tried to. I couldn't do anything but see myself in jail, in the penitentiary, because of the bank.

"I wandered around without paying any attention to where I was. I'd left my bags in the station. The first thing I knew, I was on Manniston Road, in front of Number Nine--your house. I felt tired, and I sat down on the bottom step. I had on a raincoat. It--it was pitch-dark there.

"The two electric lights, the street lights, on that block were out--had burnt out, or something. The only light I could see was down at the corner, where Manniston Road goes into Freeman Avenue--and that didn't give any light where I was."

"That's true," Bristow said sharply, "but, from where you sat, anybody going up or down the steps of Number Five would have been directly between you and the avenue light. Isn't that so?"

"Yes."

"All right--go ahead. What did you see?"

Morley hitched back his chair still further. He had begun to perspire, and he kept running his fingers round his neck between flesh and collar.

"It was raining," he went on, his voice strained and metallic, "a fine drizzle at that time, and this made a circle of light, a kind of bright screen around the avenue light. Things that happened on, or near, the steps of Number Five were silhouetted against that screen of light.

"I'd been there just a little while when I noticed some kind of movement on the steps of Number Five. It was a man coming down the steps. He was very careful about it, and very slow; looked like a man on his tiptoes."

Bristow maintained his att.i.tude of hanging over him, urging him on, forcing him to talk. Braceway and Major Ross, their faces wearing strained expressions, bent forward in their chairs, catching every syllable that came from the prisoner.

"He went down the steps and turned down Manniston Road, toward the avenue."

"All right!" Bristow prompted. "What then?"

"That was all there was to that. I just sat there. It looked funny to me, but I didn't follow him. I wondered what he'd been doing. I never thought about murder or--or anything like that. I swear I didn't!"

He licked his lips and gulped.

"I sat there, I don't know how much longer it was--pretty long, I suppose. I didn't keep my glance always toward Number Five.

"When I did look that way again, I saw another man come down the steps quietly, very cautiously. He turned toward me, but he came only far enough up to cut in between Number Five and Number Seven. He disappeared that way, between the two houses."

"Did you see the struggle?" Braceway asked sharply.

Bristow scowled at the interruption.

"What struggle?" Morley retorted, vacant eyes turned toward Braceway.

"You know! The struggle between two men at the foot of the steps of Number Five."

"I didn't see a struggle," said Morley. "There wasn't any."

"You might as well tell it straight now as later. Give me the truth about that struggle. Were you in it?"

"No."

"Now, see here! We know such a struggle occurred. If you were there, as you say you were, you must have seen it. You couldn't have helped seeing it!"

Morley denied it again, and his denial stood against all of Braceway's skill. There had been no struggle, no encounter of any two persons. He clung to that without qualification.

Bristow knew how great Braceway's disappointment was. He was convinced that Braceway, in coming to Washington, had looked forward to securing a confirmation of Withers' story. Now, instead of corroboration, he got only a flat and unshaken contradiction.

CHAPTER XXIII

ON THE RACK

Braceway waved his hand carelessly, relinquishing the post of questioner.

Bristow took command again.

"What did you do after you saw the second man?"

"At first, I sat still. After a while, not very long, it occurred to me that the two women in Number Five might be in danger. I say it occurred to me, but I didn't really think so.