CHAPTER XIV
THE WOMAN IN THE CASE
Coquenil was neither surprised nor disappointed at the meager results of Alice's visit to the prison. This was merely one move in the game, and it had not been entirely vain, since he had learned that Kittredge might have used his left hand in firing a pistol and that he did not suffer with gout or rheumatism. This last point was of extreme importance.
And the detective was speedily put in excellent humor by news awaiting him at the Palais de Justice Monday morning that the man sent to London to trace the burned photograph and the five-pound notes had already met with success and had telegraphed that the notes in question had been issued to Addison Wilmott, whose bankers were Munroe and Co., Rue Scribe.
Quick inquiries revealed the fact that Addison Wilmott was a well-known New Yorker, living in Paris, a man of leisure who was enjoying to the full a large inherited fortune. He and his dashing wife lived in a private hôtel on the Avenue Kleber, where they led a gay existence in the smartest and most spectacular circle of the American Colony. They gave brilliant dinners, they had several automobiles, they did all the foolish and extravagant things that the others did and a few more.
He was dull, good-natured, and a little fat; she was a beautiful woman with extraordinary charm and a lithe, girlish figure of which she took infinite care; he was supposed to kick up his heels in a quiet way while she did the thing brilliantly and kept the wheels of American Colony gossip (busy enough, anyway) turning and spinning until they groaned in utter weariness.
What was there that Pussy Wilmott had not done or would not do if the impulse seized her? This was a matter of tireless speculation in the ultra-chic salons through which this fascinating lady flitted, envied and censured. She was known to be the daughter of a California millionaire who had left her a fortune, of which the last shred was long ago dispersed. Before marrying Wilmott she had divorced two husbands, had traveled all over the world, had hunted tigers in India and canoed the breakers, native style, in Hawaii; she had lived like a cowboy on the Texas plains, where, it was said, she had worn men's clothes; she could swim and shoot and swear and love; she was altogether selfish, altogether delightful, altogether impossible; in short, she was a law unto herself, and her brilliant personality so far overshadowed Addison that, although he had the money and most of the right in their frequent quarrels, no one ever spoke of him except as "Pussy Wilmott's husband."
In spite of her willfulness and caprices Mrs. Wilmott was full of generous impulses and loyal to her friends. She was certainly not a snob, as witness the fact that she had openly snubbed a certain grand duke, not for his immoralities, which she declared afterwards were nobody's business, but because of his insufferable stupidity. She rather liked a sinner, but she couldn't stand a fool!
Such was the information M. Paul had been able to gather from swift and special police sources when he presented himself at the Wilmott hôtel, about luncheon time on Monday. Addison was just starting with some friends for a run down to Fontainebleau in his new Panhard, and he listened impatiently to Coquenil's explanation that he had come in regard to some English bank notes recently paid to Mr. Wilmott, and possibly clever forgeries.
"Really!" exclaimed Addison.
Coquenil hoped that Mr. Wilmott would give him the notes in question in exchange for genuine ones. This would help the investigation.
"Of course, my dear sir," said the American, "but I haven't the notes, they were spent long ago."
Coquenil was sorry to hear this—he wondered if Mr. Wilmott could remember where the notes were spent. After an intellectual effort Addison remembered that he had changed one into French money at Henry's and had paid two or three to a shirt maker on the Rue de la Paix, and the rest—he reflected again, and then said positively: "Why, yes, I gave five or six of them, I think there were six, I'm sure there were, because—" He stopped with a new idea.
"You remember whom you paid them to?" questioned the detective.
"I didn't pay them to anyone," replied Wilmott, "I gave them to my wife."
"Ah!" said Coquenil, and presently he took his departure with polite assurances, whereupon the unsuspecting Addison tooted away complacently for Fontainebleau.
It was now about two o'clock, and the next three hours M. Paul spent with his sources of information studying the career of Pussy Wilmott from special points of view in preparation for a call upon the lady, which he proposed to make later in the afternoon.
He discovered two significant things: first, that, whatever her actual conduct, Mrs. Wilmott had never openly compromised herself. Love affairs she might have had, but no one could say when or where or with whom she had had them; and if, as seemed likely, she was the woman in this Ansonia case, then she had kept her relations with Kittredge in profoundest secrecy.
As offsetting this, however, Coquenil secured information that connected Mrs. Wilmott directly with Martinez. It appeared that, among her other excitements, Pussy was passionately fond of gambling. She was known to have won and lost large sums at Monte Carlo, and she was a regular follower of the fashionable races in Paris. She had also been seen at the Olympia billiard academy, near the Grand Hotel, where Martinez and other experts played regularly before eager audiences, among whom betting on the games was the great attraction. The detective found two bet markers who remembered distinctly that, on several occasions, a handsome woman, answering to the description of Mrs. Wilmott, had wagered five or ten louis on Martinez and had shown a decided admiration for his remarkable skill with the cue.
"He used to talk about this lady," said one of the markers; "he called her his 'belle Américaine,' but I am sure he did not know her real name." The man smiled at Martinez's inordinate vanity over his supposed fascination for women—he was convinced that no member of the fair sex could resist his advances.
With so much in mind Coquenil started up the Champs Elysées about five o'clock. He counted on finding Mrs. Wilmott home at tea time, and as he strolled along, turning the problem over in his mind, he found it conceivable that this eccentric lady, in a moment of ennui or for the novelty of the thing, might have consented to dine with Martinez in a private room. It was certain no scruples would have deterred her if the adventure had seemed amusing, especially as Martinez had no idea who she was. With her, excitement and a new sensation were the only rules of conduct, and her husband's opinion was a matter of the smallest possible consequence. Besides, he would probably never know it!
Mrs. Wilmott, very languid and stunning, amidst her luxurious surroundings, received M. Paul with the patronizing indifference that bored rich women extend to tradespeople. But presently when he explained that he was a detective and began to question her about the Ansonia affair, she rose with a haughty gesture that was meant to banish him in confusion from her presence. Coquenil, however, did not "banish" so easily. He had dealt with haughty ladies before.
"My dear madam, please sit down," he said quietly. "I must ask you to explain how it happens that a number of five-pound notes, given to you by your husband some days ago, were found on the body of this murdered man."
"How do I know?" she replied sharply. "I spent the notes in shops; I'm not responsible for what became of them. Besides, I am dining out to-night, and! I must dress. I really don't see any point to this conversation."
"No," he smiled, and the keenness of his glance: pierced her like a blade. "The point is, my dear lady, that I want you to tell me what you were doing with this billiard player when he was shot last Saturday night."
"It's false; I never knew the man," she cried. "It's an outrage for you to—to intrude on a lady and—and insult her."
"You used to back his game at the Olympia," continued Coquenil coolly.
"What of it? I'm fond of billiards. Is that a crime?"
"You left your cloak and a small leather bag in the vestiaire at the Ansonia," pursued M. Paul.
"It isn't true!"
"Your name was found stamped in gold letters under a leather flap in the bag."
She shot a frightened glance at him and then faltered: "It—it was?"
Coquenil nodded. "Your friend, M. Kittredge, tore the flap out of the bag and then cut it into small pieces and scattered the pieces from his cab through dark streets, but I picked up the pieces."
"You—you did?" she stammered.
"Yes. Now what were you doing with Martinez in that room?"
For some moments she did not answer but studied him with frightened, puzzled eyes. Then suddenly her whole manner changed.
"Excuse me," she smiled, "I didn't get your name?"
"M. Coquenil," he said.
"Won't you sit over here? This chair is more comfortable. That's right. Now, I will tell you exactly what happened." And, settling herself near him, Pussy Wilmott entered bravely upon the hardest half hour of her life. After all, he was a man and she would do the best she could!
"You see, M. Coquelin—I beg your pardon, M. Coquenil. The names are alike, aren't they?"
"Yes," said the other dryly.
"Well," she went on quite charmingly, "I have done some foolish things in my life, but this is the most foolish. I did give Martinez the five-pound notes. You see, he was to play a match this week with a Russian and he offered to lay the money for me. He said he could get good odds and he was sure to win."
"But the dinner? The private room?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "I went there for a perfectly proper reason. I needed some one to help me and I—I couldn't ask a man who knew me so——"
"Then Martinez didn't know you?"
"Of course not. He was foolish enough to think himself in love with me and—well, I found it convenient and—amusing to—utilize him."
"For what?"
Mrs. Wilmott bit her red lips and then with some dignity replied that she did not see what bearing her purpose had on the case since it had not been accomplished.
"Why wasn't it accomplished?" he asked.
"Because the man was shot."
"Who shot him?"
"I don't know."
"You have no idea?"
"No idea."
"But you were present in the room?"
"Ye-es."
"You heard the shot? You saw Martinez fall?"
"Yes, but——"
"Well?"
Now her agitation, increased, she seemed about to make some statement, but checked herself and simply insisted that she knew nothing about the shooting. No one had entered the room except herself and Martinez and the waiter who served them. They had finished the soup; Martinez had left his seat for a moment; he was standing near her when—when the shot was fired and he fell to the floor. She had no idea where the shot came from or who fired it. She was frightened and hurried away from the hotel. That was all.
Coquenil smiled indulgently. "What did you do with the auger?" he asked.
"The auger?" she gasped.
"Yes, it was seen by the cab driver you took when you slipped out of the hotel in the telephone girl's rain coat."
"You know that?"
He nodded and went on: "This cab driver remembers that you had something under your arm wrapped in a newspaper. Was that the auger?"
"Yes," she answered weakly.
"And you threw it into the Seine as you crossed the Concorde bridge?"
She stared at him in genuine admiration: "My God, you're the cleverest man I ever met!"
M. Paul bowed politely, and glancing at a well-spread tea table, he said: "Mrs. Wilmott, if you think so well of me, perhaps you won't mind giving me a cup of tea. The fact is, I have been so busy with this case I forgot to eat and I—I feel a little faint." He pressed a hand against his forehead and Pussy saw that he was very white.
"You poor man!" she cried in concern. "Why didn't you tell me sooner? I'll fix it myself. There! Take some of these toasted muffins. What an extraordinary life you must lead! I can almost forgive you for being so outrageous because you're so—so interesting." She let her siren eyes shine on him in a way that had wrought the discomfiture of many a man.
M. Paul smiled. "I can return the compliment by saying that it isn't every lady who could throw a clumsy thing like an auger from a moving cab over a wide roadway and a stone wall and land it in a river. I suppose you threw it over on the right-hand side?"
"Yes."
"How far across the bridge had you got when you threw it? This may help the divers."
She thought a moment. "We were a little more than halfway across, I should say."
"Thanks. Now who bought this auger?"
"Martinez."
"Did you suggest the holes through the wall?"
"No, he did."
"Are you sure?"
"Quite sure."
"But the holes were bored for you?"
"Of course."
"Because you wanted to see into the next room?"
"Yes," in a low tone.
"And why?"
She hesitated a moment and then burst out in a flash of feeling: "Because I knew that a wretched dancing girl was going to be there with——"
"Yes?" eagerly.
"With my husband!"
CHAPTER XV
PUSSY WILMOTT'S CONFESSION
"Then your husband was the person you thought guilty that night?" questioned Coquenil.
"Yes."
"You told M. Kittredge when you called for him in the cab that you thought your husband guilty?"
"Yes, but afterwards I changed my mind. My husband had nothing to do with it. If he had, do you suppose I would have told you this? No doubt he has misconducted himself, but——"
"You mean Anita?"
It was a chance shot, but it went true.
She stared at him in amazement. "I believe you are the devil," she said, and the detective, recalling his talk with M. Gritz, muttered to himself: "The tall blonde! Of course!"
And now Pussy, feeling that she could gain nothing against Coquenil by ruse or deceit, took refuge in simple truth and told quite charmingly how this whole tragic adventure had grown out of a foolish fit of jealousy.
"You see, I found a petit bleu on my husband's dressing table one morning—I wish to Heaven he would be more careful—and I—I read it. It began 'Mon gros bebe,' and was signed 'Ta petite Anita,' and—naturally I was furious. I have often been jealous of Addison, but he has always managed to prove that I was in the wrong and that he was a perfect saint, so now I determined to see for myself. It was a splendid chance, as the exact rendezvous was given, nine o'clock Saturday evening, in private room Number Seven at the Ansonia. I had only to be there, but, of course, I couldn't go alone, so I got this man, Martinez—he was a perfect fool, I'm sorry he's been shot, but he was—I got him to take me, because, as I told you, he didn't know me, and being such a fool, he would do whatever I wished."
"What day was it you found the petit bleu?" put in Coquenil.
"It was Thursday. I saw Martinez that afternoon, and on Friday, he reserved private room Number Six for Saturday evening."
"And you are sure it was his scheme to bore the holes?"
"Yes, he said that would be an amusing way of watching Addison without making a scandal, and I agreed with him; it was the first clever idea I ever knew him to have."
"That's a good point!" reflected Coquenil.
"What is a good point?"
"Nothing, just a thought I had," he answered abstractedly.
"What a queer man you are!" she said with a little pout. She was not accustomed to have men inattentive when she sat near them.
"There's one thing that doesn't seem very clever, though," reflected the detective. "Didn't Martinez think your husband or Anita would see those holes in the wall?"
"No, because he had prepared for that. There was a tall palm in Number Seven that stood just before the holes and screened them."
Coquenil looked at her curiously.
"How do you know there was?"
"Martinez told me. He had taken the precaution to look in there on Friday when he engaged Number Six. He knew exactly where to bore the holes."
"I see. And he put them behind the curtain hangings so that your waiter wouldn't see them?"
"That's it."
"And you held the curtain hangings back while he used the auger?"
"Yes. You see he managed it very well."
"Very well except for one thing," mused Coquenil, "there wasn't any palm in Number Six."
"No?"
"No."
"That's strange!"
"Yes, it is strange," and again she felt that he was following a separate train of thought.
"Did you look through the holes at all?" he asked.
"No, I hadn't time."
"Did Martinez look through the first hole after it was bored?"
"Yes, but he couldn't see anything, as Number Seven was dark."
"Then you have absolutely no idea who fired the shot?"
"Absolutely none."
"Except you think it wasn't your husband?"
"I know it wasn't my husband."
"How do you know that?"
"Because I asked him. Ah, you needn't smile, I made him give me proof." When I got home that night I had a horrible feeling that Addison must have done it. Who else could have done it, since he had engaged Number Seven? So I waited until he came home. It was after twelve. I could hear him moving about in his room and I was afraid to speak to him, the thing seemed so awful; but, at last, I went in and asked him where he had been. He began to lie in the usual way—you know any man will if he's in a hole like that—but finally I couldn't stand it any longer and I said: 'Addison, for God's sake, don't lie to me. I know something terrible has happened, and if I can, I want to help you.'
"I was as white as a sheet and he jumped up in a great fright. 'What is it, Pussy? What is it?' he cried. And then I told him a murder had been committed at the Ansonia in private room Number Seven. I wish you could have seen his face. He never said a word, he just stared at me. 'Why don't you speak?' I begged. 'Addison, it wasn't you, tell me it wasn't you. Never mind this Anita woman, I'll forgive that if you'll only tell me where you've been to-night.'
"Well, it was the longest time before I could get anything out of him. You see, it was quite a shock for Addison getting all this together, caught with the woman and then the murder on top of it; I had to cry and scold and get him whisky before he could pull himself together, but he finally did and made a clean breast of everything."
"'Pussy,' he said, 'you're all right, you're a plucky little woman, and I'm a bad lot, but I'm not as bad as that. I wasn't in that room, I didn't go to the Ansonia to-night, and I swear to God I don't know any more about this murder than you do.'
"Then he explained what had happened in his blundering way, stopping every minute or so to tell me what a saint I am, and the Lord knows that's a joke, and the gist of it was that he had started for the Ansonia with this woman, but she had changed her mind in the cab and they had gone to the Café de Paris instead and spent the evening there. I was pretty sure he was telling the truth, for Addison isn't clever and I usually know when he's lying, although I don't tell him so; but this was such an awful thing that I couldn't take chances, so I said: 'Addison, put your things right on, we're going to the Café de Paris.' 'What for?' said he. 'To settle this business,' said I. And off we went and got there at half past one; but the waiters hadn't gone, and they all swore black and blue that Addison told the truth, he had really been there all the evening with this woman. And that," she concluded triumphantly, "is how I know my husband is innocent."
"'They all swore black and blue that Addison told the truth.'"
"Hm!" reflected Coquenil. "I wonder why Anita changed her mind?"
"I'm not responsible for Anita," answered Pussy with a dignified whisk of her shoulders.
"No, of course not, of course not," he murmured absently; then, after a moment's thought, he said gravely: "I never really doubted your husband's innocence, now I'm sure of it; unfortunately, this does not lessen your responsibility; you were in the room, you witnessed the crime; in fact, you were the only witness."
"But I know nothing about it, nothing," she protested.
"You know a great deal about this young man who is in prison."
"I know he is innocent."
Coquenil took off his glasses and rubbed them with characteristic deliberation. "I hope you can prove it."
"Of course I can prove it," she declared. "M. Kittredge was arrested because he called for my things, but I asked him to do that. I was in terrible trouble and—he was an old friend and—and I knew I could depend on him. He had no reason to kill Martinez. It's absurd!"
"I'm afraid it's not so absurd as you think. You say he was an old friend, he must have been a very particular kind of an old friend for you to ask a favor of him that you knew and he knew would bring him under suspicion. You did know that, didn't you?"
"Why—er—yes."
"I don't ask what there was between you and M. Kittredge, but if there had been everything between you he couldn't have done more, could he? And he couldn't have done less. So a jury might easily conclude, in the absence of contrary evidence, that there was everything between you."
"It's false," she cried, while Coquenil with keen discernment watched the outward signs of her trouble, the clinching of her hands, the heaving of her bosom, the indignant flashing of her eyes.
"I beg your pardon for expressing such a thought," he said simply. "It's a matter that concerns the judge, only ladies dislike going to the Palais de Justice."
She started in alarm. "You mean that I might have to go there?"
"Your testimony is important, and the judge cannot very well come here."
"But, I'd rather talk to you; really, I would. You can ask me questions and—and then tell him. Go on, I don't mind. M. Kittredge was not my lover—there! Please make that perfectly clear. He was a dear, loyal friend, but nothing more."
"Was he enough of a friend to be jealous of Martinez?"
"What was there to make him jealous?"
"Well," smiled Coquenil, "I can imagine that if a dear, loyal friend found the lady he was dear and loyal to having supper with another man in a private room, he might be jealous."
To which Pussy replied with an accent of finality but with a shade of pique: "The best proof that M. Kittredge would not be jealous of me is that he loves another woman."
"The girl at Notre-Dame?"
"Yes."
"But Martinez knew her, too. There might have been trouble over her," ventured M. Paul shrewdly.
She shook her head with eager positiveness. "There was no trouble."
"You never knew of any quarrel between Kittredge and Martinez? No words?"
"Never."
"Madam," continued Coquenil, "as you have allowed me to speak frankly, I am going to ask if you feel inclined to make a special effort to help M. Kittredge?"
"Of course I do."
"Even at the sacrifice of your own feelings?"
"What do you mean?"
"Let me go back a minute. Yesterday you made a plucky effort to serve your friend, you gave money for a lawyer to defend him, you even said you would come forward and testify in his favor if it became necessary."
"Ah, the girl has seen you?"
"More than that, she has seen M. Kittredge at the prison. And I am sorry to tell you that your generous purposes have accomplished nothing. He refuses to accept your money and——"
"I told you he didn't love me," she interrupted with a touch of bitterness.
"We must have better evidence than that, just as we must have better evidence of his innocence than your testimony. After all, you don't know that he did not fire this shot, you could not see through the wall, and for all you can say, M. Kittredge may have been in Number Seven."
"I suppose that's true," admitted Pussy dolefully.
"So we come back to the question of motive; his love for you or his hatred of the Spaniard might be a motive, but if we can prove that there was no such love and no such hatred, then we shall have rendered him a great service and enormously improved his chances of getting out of prison. Do you follow me?"
"Perfectly. But how can we prove it?"
The detective leaned closer and said impressively: "If these things are true, it ought to be set forth in Kittredge's letters to you."
It was another chance shot, and Coquenil watched the effect anxiously.
"His letters to me!" she cried with a start of dismay, while M. Paul nodded complacently. "He never wrote me letters—that is, not many, and—whatever there were, I—I destroyed."
Coquenil eyed her keenly and shook his head. "A woman like you would never write to a man oftener than he wrote to her, and Kittredge had a thick bundle of your letters. It was only Saturday night that he burned them, along with that photograph of you in the lace dress."
It seemed to Pussy that a cold hand was closing over her heart; it was ghastly, it was positively uncanny the things this man had found out. She looked at him in frightened appeal, and then, with a gesture of half surrender: "For Heaven's sake, how much more do you know about me?"
"I know that you have a bundle of Kittredge's letters here, possibly in that desk." He pointed to a charming piece of old mahogany inlaid with ivory. He had made this last deduction by following her eyes through these last tortured minutes.
"It isn't true; I—I tell you I destroyed the letters." And he knew she was lying.
M. Paul glanced at his watch and then said quietly: "Would you mind asking if some one is waiting for me outside?"
So thoroughly was the agitated lady under the spell of Coquenil's power that she now attached extraordinary importance to his slightest word or act. It seemed to her, as she pressed the bell, that she was precipitating some nameless catastrophe.
"Is anyone waiting for this gentleman?" she asked, all in a tremble, when the servant appeared.
"Yes, madam, two men are waiting," replied the valet.
She noticed, with a shiver, that he said two men, not two gentlemen.
"That's all," nodded Coquenil; "I'll let you know when I want them." And when the valet had withdrawn: "They have come from the prefecture in regard to these letters."
Pussy rose and her face was deathly white. "You mean they are policemen? My house is full of policemen?"
"Be calm, my dear lady, there are only two in the house and two outside."
"Oh, the shame of it, the scandal of it!" she wailed.
"A murder isn't a pleasant thing at the best and—as I said, they have come for the letters."
"You told them to come?"
"No, the judge told them to come. I hoped I might be able to spare you the annoyance of a search."
"A search?" she cried, and realizing her helplessness, she sank down on a sofa and began to cry. "It will disgrace me, it will break up my home, it will ruin my life!" She could hear the gossips of the American Colony rolling this choice morsel under their tongues, Pussy Wilmott's house had been searched by the police for letters from her lover!
Then, suddenly, clutching at a last straw of hope, she yielded or seemed to yield. "As long as a search must be made," she said with a sort of half-defiant dignity, "I prefer to have you make it, and not these men."
"I think that is wise," bowed M. Paul.
"In which room will you begin?"
"In this room."
"I give you my word there are no letters here, but, as you don't believe me, why—do what you like."
"I would like to look in that desk," said the detective.
"Very well—look!"
Coquenil went to the desk and examined it carefully. There were two drawers in a raised part at the back, there was a long, wide drawer in front, and over this a space like a drawer under a large inlaid cover, hinged at the back. He searched everywhere here, but found no sign of the expected letters.
"I must have been mistaken," he muttered, and he continued his search in other parts of the room, Pussy hovering about with changing expressions that reminded M. Paul of children's faces when they play the game of "hot or cold."
"Well," he said, with an air of disappointment, "I find nothing here. Suppose we try another room."
"Certainly," she agreed, and her face brightened in such evident relief that he turned to her suddenly and said almost regretfully, as a generous adversary might speak to one whom he hopelessly outclasses: "Madam, I hear you are fond of gambling. You should study the game of poker, which teaches us to hide our feelings. Now then," he walked back quickly to the desk, "I want you to open this secret drawer."
He spoke with a sudden sternness that quite disconcerted poor Pussy. She stood before him frozen with fear, unable to lie any more, unable even to speak. A big tear of weakness and humiliation gathered and rolled down her cheek, and then, still silent, she took a hairpin from her hair, inserted one leg of it into a tiny hole quite lost in the ornamental work at the back of the desk, pushed against a hidden spring, and presto! a small secret drawer shot forward. In this drawer lay a packet of letters tied with a ribbon.
"Are these his letters?" he asked.
In utter misery she nodded but did not speak.
"Thanks," he said. "May I take them?"
She put forward her hands helplessly.
"I'm sorry, but, as I said before, a murder isn't a pleasant thing." And he took the packet from the drawer.
Then, seeing herself beaten at every point, Pussy Wilmott gave way entirely and wept angrily, bitterly, her face buried in the sofa pillows.
"I'm sorry," repeated M. Paul, and for the first time in the interview he felt himself at a disadvantage.
"Why didn't I burn them, why didn't I burn them?" she mourned.
"You trusted to that drawer," he suggested.
"No, no, I knew the danger, but I couldn't give them up. They stood for the best part of my life, the tenderest, the happiest. I've been a weak, wicked woman!"
"Any secrets in these letters will be scrupulously respected," he assured her, "unless they have a bearing on this crime. Is there anything you wish to say before I go?"
"Are you going?" she said weakly. And then, turning to him with tear-stained face, she asked for a moment to collect herself. "I want to say this," she went on, "that I didn't tell you the truth about Kittredge and Martinez. There was trouble between them; he speaks about it in one of his letters. It was about the little girl at Notre-Dame!"
"You mean Martinez was attentive to her?"
"Yes."
"Did she encourage him?"
"I don't know. She behaved very strangely—she seemed attracted to him and afraid of him at the same time. Martinez told me what an extraordinary effect he had on the girl. He said it was due to his magnetic power."
"And Kittredge objected to this?"
"Of course he did, and they had a quarrel. It's all in one of those letters."
"Was it a serious quarrel? Did Kittredge make any threats?"
"I—I'm afraid he did—yes, I know he did. You'll see it in the letter."
"Do you remember what he said?"
"Why—er—yes."
"What was it?"
She hesitated a moment and then, as though weary of resisting, she replied: "He told Martinez that if he didn't leave this girl alone he would break his damned head for him."
CHAPTER XVI
THE THIRD PAIR OF BOOTS
The wheels of justice move swiftly in Paris, and after one quiet day, during which Judge Hauteville was drawing together the threads of the mystery, Kittredge found himself, on Tuesday morning, facing an ordeal worse than the solitude of a prison cell. The seventh of July! What a date for the American! How little he realized what was before him as he bumped along in a prison van breathing the sweet air of a delicious summer morning! He had been summoned for the double test put upon suspected assassins in France, a visit to the scene of the crime and a viewing of the victim's body. In Lloyd's behalf there was present at this grim ceremony Maître Pleindeaux, a clean-shaven, bald-headed little man, with a hard, metallic voice and a set of false teeth that clicked as he talked. "Bet a dollar it's ice water he's full of," said Kittredge to himself.
When brought to the Ansonia and shown the two rooms of the tragedy, Kittredge was perfectly calm and denied any knowledge of the affair; he had never seen these holes through the wall, he had never been in the alleyway, he was absolutely innocent. Maître Pleindeaux nodded in approval. At the morgue, however, Lloyd showed a certain emotion when a door was opened suddenly and he was pushed into a room where he saw Martinez sitting on a chair and looking at him, Martinez with his shattered eye replaced by a glass one, and his dead face painted to a horrid semblance of life. This is one of the theatrical tricks of modern procedure, and the American was not prepared for it.
"My God!" he muttered, "he looks alive."
Nothing was accomplished, however, by the questioning here, nothing was extorted from the prisoner; he had known Martinez, he had never liked him particularly, but he had never wished to do him harm, and he had certainly not killed him. That was all Kittredge would say, however the questions were turned, and he declared repeatedly that he had had no quarrel with Martinez. All of which was carefully noted down.
"A door was opened suddenly and he was pushed into a room."
While his nerves were still tingling with the gruesomeness of all this, Lloyd was brought to Judge Hauteville's room in the Palais de Justice. He was told to sit down on a chair beside Maître Pleindeaux. A patient secretary sat at his desk, a formidable guard stood before the door with a saber sword in his belt. Then the examination began.
So far Kittredge had heard the voice of justice only in mild and polite questioning, now he was to hear the ring of it in accusation, in rapid, massed accusation that was to make him feel the crushing power of the state and the hopelessness of any puny lying.
"Kittredge," began the judge, "you have denied all knowledge of this crime. Look at this pistol and tell me if you have ever seen it before." He offered the pistol to Lloyd's manacled hands. Maître Pleindeaux took it with a frown of surprise.
"Excuse me, your honor," he bowed, "I would like to speak to my client before he answers that question."
But Kittredge waved him aside. "What's the use," he said. "That is my pistol; I know it; there's no doubt about it."
"Ah!" exclaimed Hauteville. "It is also the pistol that killed Martinez. It was thrown from private room Number Seven at the Ansonia. A woman saw it thrown, and it was picked up in a neighboring courtyard. One ball was missing, and that ball was found in the body."
"There's some mistake," objected Pleindeaux with professional asperity, at the same time flashing a wrathful look at Lloyd that said plainly: "You see what you have done!"
"Now," continued the judge, "you say you have never been in the alleyway that we showed you at the Ansonia. Look at these boots. Do you recognize them?"
Kittredge examined the boots carefully and then said frankly to the judge: "I thank they are mine."
"You wore them to the Ansonia on the night of the crime?"
"I think so."
"Aren't you sure?"
"Not absolutely sure, because I have three pairs exactly alike. I always keep three pairs going at the same time; they last longer that way."
"I will tell you, then, that this is the pair you had on when you were arrested."
"Then it's the pair I wore to the Ansonia."
"You didn't change your boots after leaving the Ansonia?"
"No."
"Kittredge," said the judge severely, "the man who shot Martinez escaped by the alleyway and left his footprints on the soft earth. We have made plaster casts of them. There they are; our experts have examined them and find that they correspond in every particular with the soles of these boots. What do you say to this?"
Lloyd listened in a daze. "I don't see how it's possible," he answered.
"You still deny having been in the alleyway?"
"Absolutely."
"I pass to another point," resumed Hauteville, who was now striding back and forth with quick turns and sudden stops, his favorite manner of attack. "You say you had no quarrel with Martinez?"
A shade of anxiety crossed Lloyd's face, and he looked appealingly at his counsel, who nodded with a consequential smack of the lips.
"Is that true?" repeated the judge.
"Why—er—yes."
"You never threatened Martinez with violence? Careful!"
"No, sir," declared Kittredge stubbornly.
Hauteville turned to his desk, and opening a leather portfolio, drew forth a paper and held it before Kittredge's eyes.
"Do you recognize this writing?"
"It's—it's my writing," murmured Lloyd, and his heart sank. How had the judge got this letter? And had he the others?
"You remember this letter? You remember what you wrote about Martinez?"
"Yes."
"Then there was a quarrel and you did threaten him?"
"I advise my client not to answer that question," interposed the lawyer, and the American was silent.
"As you please," said Hauteville, and he went on grimly: "Kittredge, you have so far refused to speak of the lady to whom you wrote this letter. Now you must speak of her. It is evident she is the person who called for you in the cab. Do you deny that?"
"I prefer not to answer."
"She was your mistress? Do you deny that?"
"Yes, I deny that," cried the American, not waiting for Pleindeaux's prompting.
"Ah!" shrugged the judge, and turning to his secretary: "Ask the lady to come in."
Then, in a moment of sickening misery, Kittredge saw the door open and a black figure enter, a black figure with an ashen-white face and frightened eyes. It was Pussy Wilmott, treading the hard way of the transgressor with her hair done most becomingly, and breathing a delicate violet fragrance.
"Take him into the outer room," directed the judge, "until I ring."
The guard opened the door and motioned to Maître Pleindeaux, who passed out first, followed by the prisoner and then by the guard himself. At the threshold Kittredge turned, and for a second his eyes met Pussy's eyes.
"Please sit down, madam," said the judge, and then for nearly half an hour he talked to her, questioned her, tortured her. He knew all that Coquenil knew about her life, and more; all about her two divorces and her various sentimental escapades. And he presented this knowledge with such startling effectiveness that before she had been five minutes in his presence poor Pussy felt that he could lay bare the innermost secrets of her being.
And, little by little, he dragged from her the story of her relations with Kittredge, going back to their first acquaintance. This was in New York about a year before, while she was there on business connected with some property deeded to her by her second husband, in regard to which there had been a lawsuit. Mr. Wilmott had not accompanied her on this trip, and, being much alone, as most of her friends were in the country, she had seen a good deal of M. Kittredge, who frequently spent the evenings with her at the Hotel Waldorf, where she was stopping. She had met him through mutual friends, for he was well connected socially in New York, and had soon grown fond of him. He had been perfectly delightful to her, and—well, things move rapidly in America, especially in hot weather, and before she realized it or could prevent it, he was seriously infatuated, and—the end of it was, when she returned to Paris he followed her on another steamer, an extremely foolish proceeding, as it involved his giving up a fine position and getting into trouble with his family.
"You say he had a fine position in New York?" questioned the judge. "In what?"
"In a large real-estate company."
"And he lived in a nice way? He had plenty of money?"
"For a young man, yes. He often took me to dinner and to the theater, and he was always sending me flowers."
"Did he ever give you presents?"
"Ye-es."
"What did he give you?"
"He gave me a gold bag that I happened to admire one day at Tiffany's."
"Was it solid gold?"
"Yes."
"And you accepted it?"
Pussy flushed under the judge's searching look. "I wouldn't have accepted it, but this happened just as I was sailing for France. He sent it to the steamer."
"Ah! Have you any idea how much M. Kittredge paid for that gold bag?"
"Yes, for I asked at Tiffany's here and they said the bag cost about four hundred dollars. When I saw M. Kittredge in Paris I told him he was a foolish boy to have spent all that money, but he was so sweet about it and said he was so glad to give me pleasure that I hadn't the heart to refuse it."
After a pause for dramatic effect the judge said impressively: "Madam, you may be surprised to hear that M. Kittredge returned to France on the same steamer that carried you."
"No, no," she declared, "I saw all the passengers, and he was not among them."
"He was not among the first-cabin passengers."
"You mean to say he went in the second cabin? I don't believe it."
"No," answered Hauteville with a grim smile, "he didn't go in the second cabin, he went in the steerage!"
"In the steerage!" she murmured aghast.
"And during the five or six months here in Paris, while he was dancing attendance on you, he was practically without resources."
"I know better," she insisted; "he took me out all the time and spent money freely."
The judge shook his head. "He spent on you what he got by pawning his jewelry, by gambling, and sometimes by not eating. We have the facts."
"Mon Dieu!" she shuddered. "And I never knew it! I never suspected it!"
"This is to make it quite clear that he loved you as very few women have been loved. Now I want to know why you quarreled with him six months ago?"
"I didn't quarrel with him," she answered faintly.
"You know what I mean. What caused the trouble between you?"
"I—I don't know."
"Madam, I am trying to be patient, I wish to spare your feelings in every possible way, but I must have the truth. Was the trouble caused by this other woman?"
"No, it came before he met her."
"Ah! Which one of you was responsible for it?"
"I don't know; really, I don't know," she insisted with a weary gesture.
"Then I must do what I can to make you know," he replied impatiently, and reaching forward, he pressed the electric bell.
"Bring back the prisoner," he ordered, as the guard appeared, and a moment later Kittredge was again in his place beside Maître Pleindeaux, with the woman a few feet distant.
"Now," began Hauteville, addressing both Lloyd and Mrs. Wilmott, "I come to an important point. I have here a packet of letters written by you, Kittredge, to this lady. You have already identified the handwriting as your own; and you, madam, will not deny that these letters were addressed to you. You admit that, do you not?"
"Yes," answered Pussy weakly.
The judge turned over the letters and selected one from which he read a passage full of passion. "Would any man write words like that to a woman unless he were her lover? Do you think he would?" He turned to Mrs. Wilmott, who sat silent, her eyes on the floor. "What do you say, Kittredge?"
Lloyd met the judge's eyes unflinchingly, but he did not answer.
Again Hauteville turned over the letters and selected another one.
"Listen to this, both of you." And he read a long passage from a letter overwhelmingly compromising. There were references to the woman's physical charm, to the beauty of her body, to the deliciousness of her caresses—it was a letter that could only have been written by a man in a transport of passion. Kittredge grew white as he listened, and Mrs. Wilmott burned with shame.
"Is there any doubt about it?" pursued the judge pitilessly. "And I have only read two bits from two letters. There are many others. Now I want the truth about this business. Come, the quickest way will be the easiest."
He took out his watch and laid it on the desk before him. "Madam, I will give you five minutes. Unless you admit within that time what is perfectly evident, namely, that you were this man's mistress, I shall continue the reading of these letters before your husband."
"You're taking a cowardly advantage of a woman!" she burst out.
"No," answered Hauteville sternly. "I am investigating a cowardly murder." He glanced at his watch. "Four minutes!"
Then to Kittredge: "And unless you admit this thing, I shall summon the girl from Notre-Dame and let her say what she thinks of this correspondence."
Lloyd staggered under the blow. He was fortified against everything but this; he would endure prison, pain, humiliation, but he could not bear the thought that this fine girl, his Alice, who had taught him what love really was, this fond creature who trusted him, should be forced to hear that shameful reading.
"You wouldn't do that?" he pleaded. "I don't ask you to spare me—I've been no saint, God knows, and I'll take my medicine, but you can't drag an innocent girl into this thing just because you have the power."
"Were you this woman's lover?" repeated the judge, and again he looked at his watch. "Three minutes!"
Kittredge was in torture. Once his eyes turned to Mrs. Wilmott in a message of unspeakable bitterness. "You're a judge," he said in a strained, tense voice, "and I'm a prisoner; you have all the power and I have none, but there's something back of that, something we both have, I mean a common manhood, and you know, if you have any sense of honor, that no man has a right to ask another man that question."
"The point is well taken," approved Maître Pleindeaux.
"Two minutes!" said Hauteville coldly. Then he turned to Mrs. Wilmott. "Your husband is now at his club, one of our men is there also, awaiting my orders. He will get them by telephone, and will bring your husband here in a swift automobile. You have one minute left!"
Then there was silence in that dingy chamber, heavy, agonizing silence. Fifteen seconds! Thirty seconds! The judge's eye was on his watch. Now his arm reached toward the electric bell, and Pussy Wilmott's heart almost stopped beating. Now his firm red finger advanced toward the white button.
Then she yielded. "Stop!" came her low cry. "He—he was my lover."
"That is better!" said the judge, and the scratching of the greffier's pen recorded unalterably Mrs. Wilmott's avowal.
"I don't suppose you will contradict the lady," said Hauteville, turning to Kittredge. "I take your silence as consent, and, after all, the lady's confession is sufficient. You were her lover. And the evidence shows that you committed a crime based on passionate jealousy and hatred of a rival. You knew that Martinez was to dine with your mistress in a private room; you arranged to be at the same restaurant, at the same hour, and by a cunning and intricate plan, you succeeded in killing the man you hated. We have found the weapon of this murder, and it belongs to you; we have found a letter written by you full of violent threats against the murdered man; we have found footprints made by the assassin, and they absolutely fit your boots; in short, we have the fact of the murder, the motive for the murder, and the evidence that you committed the murder. What have you to say for yourself?"
Kittredge thought a moment, and then said quietly: "The fact of the murder you have, of course; the evidence against me you seem to have, although it is false evidence; but——"
"How do you mean false evidence? Do you deny threatening Martinez with violence?"
"I threatened to punch his head; that is very different from killing him."
"And the pistol? And the footprints?"
"I don't know, I can't explain it, but—I know I am innocent. You say I had a motive for this crime. You're mistaken, I had no motive."
"Passion and jealousy have stood as motives for murder from the beginning of time."
"There was no passion and no jealousy," answered Lloyd steadily.
"Are you mocking me?" cried the judge. "What is there in these letters," he touched the packet before him, "but passion and jealousy? Didn't you give up your position in America for this woman?"
"Yes, but——"
"Didn't you follow her to Europe in the steerage because of your infatuation? Didn't you bear sufferings and privations to be near her? Shall I go over the details of what you did, as I have them here, in order to refresh your memory?"
"No," said Kittredge hoarsely, and his eye was beginning to flame, "my memory needs no refreshing; I know what I did, I know what I endured. There was passion enough and jealousy enough, but that was a year ago. If I had found her then dining with a man in a private room, I don't know what I might have done. Perhaps I should have killed both of them and myself, too, for I was mad then; but my madness left me. You seem to know a great deal about passion, sir; did you ever hear that it can change into loathing?"
"You mean—" began the judge with a puzzled look, while Mrs. Wilmott recoiled in dismay.
"I mean that I am fighting for my life, and now that she has admitted this thing," he eyed the woman scornfully, "I am free to tell the truth, all of it."
"That is what we want," said Hauteville.
"I thought I loved her with a fine, true love, but she showed me it was only a base imitation. I offered her my youth, my strength, my future, and she would have taken them and—broken them and scattered them in my face and—and laughed at me. When I found it out, I—well, never mind, but you can bet all your pretty French philosophy I didn't go about Paris looking for billiard players to kill on her account."
It was not a gallant speech, but it rang true, a desperate cry from the soul depths of this unhappy man, and Pussy Wilmott shrank away as she listened.
"Then why did you quarrel with Martinez?" demanded the judge.
"Because he was interfering with a woman whom I did love and would fight for——"
"For God's sake, stop," whispered the lawyer.
"I mean I would fight for her if necessary," added the American, "but I'd fight fair, I wouldn't shoot through any hole in a wall."
"Then you consider your love for this other woman—I presume you mean the girl at Notre-Dame?"
"Yes."
"You consider your love for her a fine, pure love in contrast to the other love?"
"The other wasn't love at all, it was passion."
"Yet you did more for this lady through passion," he pointed to Mrs. Wilmott, "than you have ever done for the girl through your pure love."
"That's not true," cried Lloyd. "I was a fool through passion, I've been something like a man through love. I was selfish and reckless through passion, I've been a little unselfish and halfway decent through love. I was a gambler and a pleasure seeker through passion, I've gone to work at a mean little job and stuck to it and lived on what I've earned—through love. Do you think it's easy to give up gambling? Try it! Do you think it's easy to live in a measly little room up six flights of black, smelly stairs, with no fire in winter? Anyhow, it wasn't easy for me, but I did it—through love, yes, sir, pure love."
As Hauteville listened, his frown deepened, his eyes grew harder. "That's all very fine," he objected, "but if you hated this woman, why did you risk prison and—worse, to get her things? You knew what you were risking, I suppose?"
"Yes, I knew."
"Why did you do it?"
Kittredge hesitated. "I did it for—for what she had been to me. It meant ruin and disgrace for her and—well, if she could ask such a thing, I could grant it. It was like paying a debt, and—I paid mine."
The judge turned to Mrs. Wilmott: "Did you know that he had ceased to love you?"
Pussy Wilmott, with her fine eyes to the floor, answered almost in a whisper: "Yes, I knew it."
"Do you know what he means by saying that you would have spoiled his life and—and all that?"
"N-not exactly."
"You do know!" cried the American. "You know I had given you my life in sacred pledge, and you made a plaything of it. You told me you were unhappy, married to a man you loathed, a dull brute; but when I offered you freedom and my love, you drew back. When I begged you to leave him and become my wife, with the law's sanction, you said no, because I was poor and he was rich. You wanted a lover, but you wanted your luxury, too; and I saw that what I had thought the call of your soul was only the call of your body. Your beauty had blinded me, your eyes, your mouth, your voice, the smell of you, the taste of you, the devilish siren power of you, all these had blinded me. I saw that your talk about love was a lie. Love! What did you know about love? You wanted me, along with your ease and your pleasures, as a coarse creator of sensations, and you couldn't have me on those terms. In my madness I would have done anything for you, borne anything; I would have starved for you, toiled for you, yes, gladly; but you didn't want that kind of sacrifice. You couldn't see why I worried about money. There was plenty for us both where yours came from. God! Where yours came from! Why couldn't I leave well enough alone and enjoy an easy life in Paris, with a nicely furnished rez de chaussée off the Champs Elysées, where madam could drive up in her carriage after luncheon and break the Seventh Commandment comfortably three of four afternoons a week, and be home in time to dress for dinner! That was what you wanted," he paused and searched deep into her eyes as she cowered before him, "but that was what you couldn't have!"
"On the whole, I think he's guilty," concluded the judge an hour later, speaking to Coquenil, who had been looking over the secretary's record of the examination.
"Queer!" muttered the detective. "He says he had three pairs of boots."
"He talks too much," continued Hauteville; "his whole plea was ranting. It's a crime passionel, if ever there was one, and—I shall commit him for trial."
Coquenil was not listening; he had drawn two squares of shiny paper from his pocket, and was studying them with a magnifying glass. The judge looked at him in surprise.
"Do you hear what I say?" he repeated. "I shall commit him for trial."
M. Paul glanced up with an absent expression. "It's circumstantial evidence," was all he said, and he went back to his glass.
"Yes, but a strong chain of it."
"A strong chain," mused the other, then suddenly his face lighted and he sprang to his feet. "Great God of Heaven!" he cried in excitement, and hurrying to the window he stood there in the full light, his eye glued to the magnifying glass, his whole soul concentrated on those two pieces of paper, evidently photographs.
"What is it? What have you found?" asked the judge.
"I have found a weak link that breaks your whole chain," triumphed M. Paul. "The alleyway footprints are not identical with the soles of Kittredge's boots."
"But you said they were, the experts said they were."
"We were mistaken; they are almost identical, but not quite; in shape and size they are identical, in the number and placing of the nails in the heel they are identical, in the worn places they are identical, but when you compare them under the magnifying glass, this photograph of the footprints with this one of the boot soles, you see unmistakable differences in the scratches on separate nails in the heel, unmistakable differences."
Hauteville shrugged his shoulders. "That's cutting it pretty fine to compare microscopic scratches on the heads of small nails."
"Not at all. Don't we compare microscopic lines on criminals' thumbs? Besides, it's perfectly plain," insisted Coquenil, absorbed in his comparison. "I can count forty or fifty nail heads in the heel, and none of them correspond under the glass; those that should be alike are not alike. There are slight differences in size, in position, in wear; they are not the same set of nails; it's impossible. Look for yourself. Compare any two and you'll see that they were never in the same pair of boots!"
With an incredulous movement Hauteville took the glass, and in his turn studied the photographs. As he looked, his frown deepened.
"It seems true, it certainly seems true," he grumbled, "but—how do you account for it?"
Coquenil smiled in satisfied conviction. "Kittredge told you he had three pairs of boots; they were machine made and the same size; he says he kept them all going, so they were all worn approximately alike. We have the pair that he wore that night, and another pair found in his room, but the third pair is missing. It's the third pair of boots that made those alleyway footprints!"
"Then you think—" began the judge.
"I think we shall have found Martinez's murderer when we find the man who stole that third pair of boots."
"Stole them?"
Coquenil nodded.
"But that is all conjecture."
"It won't be conjecture to-morrow morning—it will be absolute proof, unless——"
"Unless what?"
"Unless Kittredge lied when he told that girl he had never suffered with gout or rheumatism."