“They are all mad,” she said. Her
tone was low, but I heard her distinctly. “Don’t
take them seriously enough to defend yourself.”
“I am glad you think I didn’t do it,”
I observed meekly, over the crowd. “Nothing
else is of any importance.”
The conductor had pulled out his note-book again.
“Your name, please,” he said gruffly.
“Lawrence Blakeley, Washington.”
“Your occupation?”
“Attorney. A member of the firm of Blakeley
and McKnight.”
“Mr. Blakeley, you say you have occupied the
wrong berth and have been robbed. Do you know
anything of the man who did it?”
“Only from what he left behind,” I answered.
“These clothes—”
“They fit you,” he said with quick suspicion.
“Isn’t that rather a coincidence?
You are a large man.”
“Good Heavens,” I retorted, stung into
fury, “do I look like a man who would wear this
kind of a necktie? Do you suppose I carry purple
and green barred silk handkerchiefs? Would any
man in his senses wear a pair of shoes a full size
too small?”
The conductor was inclined to hedge. “You
will have to grant that I am in a peculiar position,”
he said. “I have only your word as to
the exchange of berths, and you understand I am merely
doing my duty. Are there any clues in the pockets?”
For the second time I emptied them of their contents,
which he noted. “Is that all?” he
finished. “There was nothing else?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s not all, sir,” broke in
the porter, stepping forward. “There was
a small black satchel.”
“That’s so,” I exclaimed.
“I forgot the bag. I don’t even know
where it is.”
The easily swayed crowd looked suspicious again.
I’ve grown so accustomed to reading the faces
of a jury, seeing them swing from doubt to belief,
and back again to doubt, that I instinctively watch
expressions. I saw that my forgetfulness had
done me harm —that suspicion was roused
again.
The bag was found a couple of seats away, under somebody’s
raincoat —another dubious circumstance.
Was I hiding it? It was brought to the berth
and placed beside the conductor, who opened it at once.
It contained the usual traveling impedimenta—change
of linen, collars, handkerchiefs, a bronze-green scarf,
and a safety razor. But the attention of the
crowd riveted itself on a flat, Russia leather wallet,
around which a heavy gum band was wrapped, and which
bore in gilt letters the name “Simon Harrington.”
A FINE GOLD CHAIN
The conductor held it out to me, his face sternly
accusing.
“Is this another coincidence?” he asked.
“Did the man who left you his clothes and the
barred silk handkerchief and the tight shoes leave
you the spoil of the murder?”
The men standing around had drawn off a little, and
I saw the absolute futility of any remonstrance.
Have you ever seen a fly, who, in these hygienic
days, finding no cobwebs to entangle him, is caught
in a sheet of fly paper, finds himself more and more
mired, and is finally quiet with the sticky stillness
of despair?
