“The judge wanted to take those records back to the plant. He’ll be along very soon. Sit down, Baxter.”
Stan glanced around the room with its shaded, intimate lights. “I don’t want to butt in,” he said, a little awkwardly. “I could wail in his den.”
Harne laughed. “Nonsense. We were only talking about the murders. You’re the authority. We’d be glad to listen to your ideas about it.”
Stan walked slowly across the room. He stared for a moment into the fire. “All right,” he said abruptly, and turned to Selma.
“Miss Elmore, let’s take a hypothetical case. Suppose you’re a young woman who stands to inherit a large sum of money.”
“That’s not very hypothetical,” said Harne with a smile. “Selma ought to be able to imagine that very easily.”
Stan ignored the comment. His eyes remained fixed on the girl. “But also suppose that up to this minute you had been kept in ignorance of the truth. A certain man was hiding your real identity from you. Only by accident did you learn that he had proofs of your right to — say, several hundred thousand dollars. What would you do?”
Selma smiled. “I suppose I’d grab the proofs and run like the devil.”
“You couldn’t. The proof is kept locked in a safe, and you haven’t the combination.”
“Well, I’d certainly do something!”
“But what?”
Selma tossed her brunette head. “Mr. Baxter, I think I’d hire you to help me.”
“And if you had no money to hire me?”
“Oh. John would lend me some,” she said, with a glance at Harne.
“Yes,” Stan muttered. “I was afraid of that. Yes, it’s all perfectly logical.”
He told them the story, leaving out the conversation with Judge Elmore, however.
“Don’t you see?” he concluded. “Callum had those papers. If Lois saw them, she couldn’t help realizing their importance. Therefore she called upon her closest friend — you, Miss Elmore — and borrowed money. But that very evening, Callum offered to sell the papers to Kendall. You see where it leads?”
“Lois was upstairs with me,” Selma countered.
“She let Kendall into the house. She may have guessed what Callum was up to. She may have lingered on the stairs long enough to hear them talking.”
The girl gasped, “You mean she might have killed Callum so he couldn’t sell those proofs?”
“It is plausible,” Stan said coldly. “The evidence was forged, but she couldn’t know that. There was a fortune at stake.”
“Wait,” said John Harne. “Callum wasn’t killed until after Kendall had left the house. How could Lois know the papers hadn’t gone with him?”
Stan shrugged.
“She came downstairs a second time, to let the blond man into the house. From the stairway, she could look into her uncle’s study. The papers may have been in plain sight there,” he argued. “Besides, Kendall wouldn’t carry ten grand in his pockets. And Callum wouldn’t want to take a check, under such circumstances. It would be logical for Lois to expect Kendall to come back later — or the next day — with the money.”
Selma’s brown eyes flashed. “Stan Baxter, you don’t really believe all of that.”
“No. No, I don’t.”
“Then why say such things about Lois?”
“Because the D.A. will think these things,” Stan said grimly. “It all goes to supply Lois with a motive. An urgent motive for murdering Callum that night. It ties up with the nitrate stains on her hand and the bullet torn oil-cloth.”
Selma exclaimed, “But she explained those things!”
Stan shook his head.
“Let’s take the legal view of it,” he said. “Suppose she did practice with the gun. Suppose she did accidentally put a bullet hole into the garage. She could have done all those things and still killed Callum.”
He smashed his fist into his palm. “It’s even worse than that. The bullet hole in the garage can be twisted to show premeditation. They’ll say she put that bullet hole there on purpose, so that later on she could explain away the oil-cloth.”
Selma stared at the young lawyer in stupefied silence. She gnawed her underlip nervously.
“Then,” said John Harne. “Lois is in more danger than ever?”
Stan nodded. “She’s in the greatest possible danger. No attorney could persuade a jury that she didn’t kill her uncle. Not on the facts we now have.”
“But what about the Randt killing?” Selma cried. “You mean the same killer murdered both, and she was in jail when Randt was shot.”
“Yes, I believe that,” Stan said gently. “But I couldn’t tell it to the jury. Couldn’t even get the facts before them. Any testimony about Randt’s death would be ruled out of court.”
“Incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial?” asked Harne.
“Exactly.”
Selma wrung her hands. The diamond flashed in the firelight. “But we’ve got to do something! In spite of all you say, Lois is innocent. We can’t let her go to... to the chair!”
“There’s only one thing we can do,” said Stan. “We’ve got to catch the real murderer.”
There was a little silence, broken only by the ticking of a clock and the snapping of the eucalyptus fire. The three ex changed nervous glances.
Harne spoke first, clearing his throat. “What about Frank Kendall? If he wanted those documents badly enough — if it was cheaper to kill Callum rather than pay ten thousand dollars—?”
“I don’t think so,” said Stan. “Kendall would not have shot Callum at the door. He would have gone into the study. He would have forced his victim to open the safe. He didn’t know that Lois hadn’t the combination to the safe.”
Harne growied. “But if he was on the grounds when Mr. Randt was shot—?”
“No,” said Stan. “That won’t do, either. The man I trailed across the yard never got to the porch — never even crossed the terrace. He wasn’t that far ahead of me.”
“But you chased him, didn’t you?” said Harne. “And I saw him running down the driveway.”
“You saw him — not the killer.”
“But how—”
Stan said, “The murderer was still on the porch when you saw Kendall running across the yard.”
John Harne gulped. “I didn’t look down the porch at all! He could have been crouching there among the elephant ears — then he could have darted across the yard the other way. He could even have fled back into the house.”
There was another startled silence. Stan broke it this time.
“I’ve got to see the judge,” he said. “I’m going to the plant.”
Chapter XII
The Blond Man
The steel gate in front of the Randt Camera Company building was locked. On the gatepost appeared a panel into which was set a button, and the sign, Night Bell. Stan Baxter rang and waited.
He got no response.
His stare went up to the office wing of the building. A yellow panel in the night was a window, with shade drawn. As if thrown on a magic lantern screen, a shadow appeared against the shade. Stan recognized the bulky silhouette. It was Judge Horace Elmore.
The judge was putting on a topcoat and a hat. The light went out, and the whole building stood shrouded in darkness.
After this, nothing at all happened.
It was very odd, thought Stan Baxter. Odd that it should have taken Elmore this long merely to return some papers to the office. That the watchman had not answered the night bell. And most curious that Horace Elmore, several minutes after snapping off the office light, had not emerged from the building.