“It is hoped that the survivors of the wrecked
car Ontario will be found, to tell what they know
of the discovery of the crime.
“Mr. John Gilmore, head of the steel company
for which Mr. Harrington was purchasing agent, has
signified his intention of sifting the matter to the
bottom.”
“So you see,” Hotchkiss concluded, “there’s
trouble brewing. You and I are the only survivors
of that unfortunate car.”
I did not contradict him, but I knew of two others,
at least: Alison West, and the woman we had left
beside the road that morning, babbling incoherently,
her black hair tumbling over her white face.
“Unless we can find the man who occupied lower
seven,” I suggested.
“I have already tried and failed. To find
him would not clear you, of course, unless we could
establish some connection between him and the murdered
man. It is the only thing I see, however.
I have learned this much,” Hotchkiss concluded:
“Lower seven was reserved from Cresson.”
Cresson! Where Alison West and Mrs. Curtis had
taken the train!
McKnight came forward and suddenly held out his hand.
“Mr. Hotchkiss,” he said, “I—I’m
sorry if I have been offensive. I thought when
you came in, that, like the Irishman and the government,
you were ‘forninst’ us. If you will
put those cheerful relics out of sight somewhere,
I should be glad to have you dine with me at the Incubator.”
(His name for his bachelor apartment.) “Compared
with Johnson, you are the great original protoplasm.”
The strength of this was lost on Hotchkiss, but the
invitation was clear. They went out together,
and from my window I watched them get into McKnight’s
car. It was raining, and at the corner the Cannonball
skidded. Across the street my detective, Johnson,
looked after them with his crooked smile. As
he turned up his collar he saw me, and lifted his
hat.
I left the window and sat down in the growing dusk.
So the occupant of lower seven had got on the car
at Cresson, probably with Alison West and her companion.
There was some one she cared about enough to shield.
I went irritably to the door and summoned Mrs. Klopton.
“You may throw out those roses,” I said
without looking at her. “They are quite
dead.”
“They have been quite dead for three days,”
she retorted spitefully. “Euphemia said
you threatened to dismiss her if she touched them.”
THE TRAP-DOOR
By Sunday evening, a week after the wreck, my inaction
had goaded me to frenzy. The very sight of Johnson
across the street or lurking, always within sight
of the house, kept me constantly exasperated.
It was on that day that things began to come to a
focus, a burning-glass of events that seemed to center
on me.
I dined alone that evening in no cheerful frame of
mind. There had been a polo game the day before
and I had lent a pony, which is always a bad thing
to do. And she had wrenched her shoulder, besides
helping to lose the game. There was no one in
town: the temperature was ninety and climbing,
and my left hand persistently cramped under its bandage.
