第6章 BOOK I:AS SEEN BY TWO STRANGERS(6)

To be sure,this gentleman had not been noticed in the coatroom by the man then in charge,but if the latter had been engaged at that instant,as he often was,in hanging up or taking down a coat from the rack,a person might easily pass by him and disappear into the lobby without attracting his attention.So many people passed that way from the dining-room beyond,and so many of these were tall,fine-looking and well-dressed.

It began to look bad for this man,if indeed he were the one we had seen under the street-lamp;and,as George and I reviewed the situation,we felt our position to be serious enough for us severally to set down our impressions of this man before we lost our first vivid idea.I do not know what George wrote,for he sealed his words up as soon as he had finished writing,but this is what I put on paper while my memory was still fresh and my excitement unabated:

He had the look of a man of powerful intellect and determined will,who shudders while he triumphs;who outwardly washes his hands of a deed over which he inwardly gloats.This was when he first rose from the snow.Afterwards he had a moment of fear;plain,human,everyday fear.But this was evanescent.Before he had turned to go,he showed the self-possession of one who feels himself so secure,or is so well-satisfied with himself,that he is no longer conscious of other emotions.

"Poor fellow,"I commented aloud,as I folded up these words;"he reckoned without you,George.By to-morrow he will be in the hands of the police.""Poor fellow?"he repeated."Better say 'Poor Miss Challoner!'

They tell me she was one of those perfect women who reconcile even the pessimist to humanity and the age we live in.Why any one should want to kill her is a mystery;but why this man should -There!no one professes to explain it.They simply go by the facts.To-morrow surely must bring strange revelations."And with this sentence ringing in my mind,I lay down and endeavoured to sleep.But it was not till very late that rest came.The noise of passing feet,though muffled beyond their wont,roused me in spite of myself.These footsteps might be those of some late arrival,or they might be those of some wary detective intent on business far removed from the usual routine of life in this great hotel.

I recalled the glimpse I had had of the writing-room in the early evening,and imagined it as it was with Miss Challoner's body removed and the incongruous flitting of strange and busy figures across its fatal floors,measuring distances and peering into corners,while hundreds slept above and about them in undisturbed repose.

Then I thought of him,the suspected and possibly guilty one.In visions over which I had little if any control,I saw him in all the restlessness of a slowly dying down excitement -the surroundings strange and unknown to me,the figure not -seeking for quiet;facing the past;facing the future;knowing,perhaps,for the first time in his life what it was for crime and remorse to murder sleep.I could not think of him as lying still -slumbering like the rest of mankind,in the hope and expectation of a busy morrow.Crime perpetrated looms so large in the soul,and this man had a soul as big as his body;of that I was assured.That its instincts were cruel and inherently evil,did not lessen its capacity for suffering.And he was suffering now;I could not doubt it,remembering the lovely face and fragrant memory of the noble woman he had,under some unknown impulse,sent to an unmerited doom.

At last I slept,but it was only to rouse again with the same quick realisation of my surroundings,which I had experienced on my recovery from my fainting fit of hours before.Someone had stopped at our door before hurrying by down the hall.Who was that someone?

I rose on my elbow,and endeavoured to peer through the dark.Of course,I could see nothing.But when I woke a second time,there was enough light in the room,early as it undoubtedly was,for me to detect a letter lying on the carpet just inside the door.

Instantly I was on my feet.Catching the letter up,I carried it to the window.Our two names were on it -Mr.and Mrs.George Anderson:the writing,Mr.Slater's.

I glanced over at George.He was sleeping peacefully.It was too early to wake him,but I could not lay that letter down unread;was not my name on it?Tearing it open,I devoured its contents,-the exclamation I made on reading it,waking George.

The writing was in Mr.Slater's hand,and the words were:

"I must request,at the instance of Coroner Heath and such of the police as listened to your adventure,that you make no further mention of what you saw in the street under our windows last night.The doctors find no bullet in the wound.This clears Mr.Brotherson."

VSWEET LITTLE MISS CLARKE

When we took our seats at the breakfast-table,it was with the feeling of being no longer looked upon as connected in any way with this case.Yet our interest in it was,if anything,increased,and when I saw George casting furtive glances at a certain table behind me,I leaned over and asked him the reason,being sure that the people whose faces I saw reflected in the mirror directly before us had something to do with the great matter then engrossing us.His answer conveyed the somewhat exciting information that the four persons seated in my rear were the same four who had been reading at the round table in the mezzanine at the time of Miss Challoner's death.

Instantly they absorbed all my attention,though I dared not give them a direct look,and continued to observe them only in the glass.

"Is it one family?"I asked.

"Yes,and a very respectable one.Transients,of course,but very well known in Denver.The lady is not the mother of the boys,but their aunt.The boys belong to the gentleman,who is a widower.""Their word ought to be good."

George nodded.