CHAPTER XVII

There was an atmosphere of suppressed excitement about the place that struck Lyon as soon as they were admitted to Miss Elliott's. There was a sound of voices, of shutting doors, that was like the buzz of an excited hive. The maid who took their cards for Mrs. Broughton looked startled and hesitating, but departed on her errand without remark.

"She's gone all right," murmured Lyon to his companion.

In a moment Miss Elliott appeared, severe and formal and angular as ever, but with a nervous flutter in her voice that told its own story to Lyon's quick ear.

"It is impossible for Mrs. Broughton to receive visitors," she said. "The maid brought your cards to me, but I am authorized to say that Mrs. Broughton cannot see anyone."

"It is a matter of some importance,--a legal matter," said Howell.

Miss Elliott shook her head. "I am sorry,--it is impossible."

"Do you mean that she has not yet returned?" asked Lyon, gently.

Miss Elliott turned to him with a start. "Do you mean that you have seen her? Oh, where was she? When was it? Why did she go?"

"I have not seen her. I heard that she had been able to go out, and so hoped that she might be strong enough to grant us an interview. She had asked me to call in regard to a certain matter in which she was interested. Do I understand she is out this afternoon?"

Miss Elliott threw out her hands with a gesture of despair. "I do not know where she is,--where she went or when. She has simply gone without a word. And she was hardly able to walk across the room alone. I am wild about it. Where could she have gone? And why should she go secretly? I think she must have wandered off in a delirium. And I dare not start an inquiry, for she may return at any moment, and she was so anxious to have nothing said about her visit here. But she has been so ill. With every moment that passes I feel more alarmed and more helpless."

"When did she go?" asked Lyon. "You may count on us to help you in any possible way, Miss Elliott. Give us all the information that you can about her departure."

"I went out myself this afternoon at two o'clock. The maid says that a man called to see Mrs. Broughton about half an hour later. He sent a note to her, but no card. She asked to have him come to her private sitting room, and he was there perhaps fifteen minutes. Then he left. When I came home, at four o'clock, I went at once to her room, and found it empty. She has not left her room before since she came,--she has been too ill. She is not in the house. I have myself gone all through it. She must have dressed and gone out sometime during the afternoon, when no one happened to be in the hall. But I cannot understand it. And I don't know what to do."

"Do nothing at present, madam. And say nothing to anyone about it. I will have a search instituted quietly, so that if she should not return of her own accord, we shall soon know, at any rate, where she is," said Howell. "Can you give us any information about the man who called?"

"None."

"No one saw him?"

"No one but the maid, and she is not observing. I have questioned her. She could give no description of him."

"Well, we must do the best we can without it. I shall take pleasure in letting you know as soon as we have anything to report," said Howell, rising to depart.

Lyon had left his hat and gloves on the hat-rack in the hall. As he took up his gloves, he felt something crinkle inside one of them, and he knew instantly that Kittie had sent him a message.

"That girl is a born intriguante," he laughed to himself, with a sudden thrill that was curiously tender, for all his amusement. As soon as they were outside he unfolded the little note.

"The man who came to see her was small and thin, and wore an old dark blue coat. He had a bald spot on the top of his head, and a wart on his nose. He walks on tiptoe. I hate a man who walks on tiptoe. She went away in a hurry, for she didn't take her comb or brush or anything. Oh, I'm just wild to know what is happening. Is it anything mysterious?"

Lyon read the note to Howell.

"That man was Bede," he said, seriously.

"No question about that. Now, why did she go? Because Bede persuaded her to hide, or because he frightened her into hiding on her own account? And is Bede going to produce her or isn't he? I never ran up against so many blind alleys in one case in my life. There were apparently just three people who knew what happened that night,--Fullerton, Lawrence, and Mrs. Broughton. Fullerton is dead, Mrs. Broughton is lost, and Lawrence will not talk. I wonder if this will unseal his tongue. I think I shall have to see him at once."

"We'll have to report to Broughton first. That poor man is on my mind."

"Very well, we'll go there first. My chief anxiety regarding him is that he'll give the whole thing away to the police. He is too accustomed to having his own way about things."

They walked around the block to Broughton's home, and found him waiting for them. He fairly went wild when he heard their report. He was for telephoning the police, printing posters, sending a town crier around to make proclamation,--anything and everything, and all at once. His wife was lost, and the resources of the universe must be requisitioned to get her back.

"Go slow," said Lyon. "Mrs. Broughton is not a child. She hasn't been kidnapped and she isn't lost. She is hiding somewhere. She had money and she is accustomed to traveling. I think you may feel reasonably sure that she is safe. Speaking for Lawrence, we are anxious to find her, but speaking for her, it may be just as well that she should not be found until after the grand jury has adjourned."

"What do you mean?" demanded Broughton, fiercely.

"She knows more about the Fullerton murder than it would be agreeable for her to tell in court."

"You are mad," gasped Broughton.

"Why does she disappear, as soon as she knows that Bede has connected her with the affairs of that night?"

Broughton walked the floor. Then he stopped abruptly before Howell.

"I wish that you would call up the county jail and find out if she has been there to see Lawrence. You can find out hypothetically, without giving names, you know."

"That isn't a bad idea," said Howell. He went to the telephone and inquired whether anyone had been admitted to see Lawrence that afternoon. The answer, when he repeated it to the others, seemed significant.

"A woman tried to see him a little after five, but when she found that she would have to give her name and submit to search, she went away without disclosing her identity. She wore a heavy veil, a short sealskin coat, and a dark dress. General appearance of a lady."

Broughton dropped his eyes to the floor and a look of sullen anger displaced the anxiety that had racked his features.

"I shall have an account to settle with Mr. Lawrence when he is out of jail," he muttered, savagely.

"In the meantime, our efforts are all directed to getting him out," said Howell. "And since I cannot use Mrs. Broughton as a witness, I am as well content that she is out of Bede's reach, also. I will go down to see Lawrence at once, and if I can get any information from him that will interest you in this connection, I shall let you know. I think that is all that we can do to-night."

"I'd like to go with you, when you visit Lawrence," said Lyon, quietly.

Howell considered a moment, and then nodded. Perhaps he thought that another influence might be more successful than his own in unlocking the confidence of his client.

Lawrence tossed aside the book which he had been reading, and rose to greet them with all of his old light-hearted self-possession.

"Delighted to see you! I've been reading Persian love-poems till my brains are whirling around like the song of a tipsy bulbul, so I am particularly in need of some intelligent conversation. Howell, you look as glum as though you were attorney for a wretched fellow who had no chance of escaping the gallows. I'm glad you have Lyon associated with you. I've more faith in his abilities than in yours." And he shot a dancing glance at Lyon which was not wholly mockery.

"My abilities are at least equal to the facts that have been given them to work up," said Howell, drily. "I came to ask you what you can tell me about Mrs. Broughton's visit to Waynscott."

Lawrence's eyes widened with surprise. "Mrs. Broughton! What in the name of wonder are you bringing her name in for?"

"She visited your office that day."

"Yes."

"What for?"

Lawrence shook his head. "It was a professional visit. I can't discuss the matter."

"I rather expected you to say that. But the matter comes up in this way. Lyon, here, has identified Mrs. Broughton with the woman who was seen with Fullerton that evening. He may be wrong, of course. But if he is right, it may be helpful to know what she wanted, first from you and then from him."

Lawrence did not look at Lyon this time. His eyes, swept clear of all expression, were fixed upon Howell in calm attention.

"Why not ask her?" he said.

"She has been ill,--too ill to be disturbed. Dr. Barry has insisted. This afternoon she disappeared. Bede had been to see her a short time before. Now, what bearing, so far as you know, does this have upon the case?"

Lawrence dropped his eyes, which had been fixed intently upon the speaker, and remained silent for some moments. Lyon, watching him, felt perfectly satisfied that the facts presented were all new to him, and that his mind was now trying to fit them into the theory of the crime which he had before entertained, and that his hesitation in answering was due to his caution. At last he said,

"I cannot throw any light on the subject. I did not see Mrs. Broughton after she left my office in the morning."

"Was her business of such a nature that she would have been likely to consult Fullerton about it?"

Lawrence frowned. "She might have done so. Women never keep to the rules of the game."

"You had warned her not to consult him personally?"

Lawrence smiled satirically into Howell's eyes. "What are you trying to find out?"

"Whether her business with Fullerton was of a nature to rouse her to desperation, if she failed."

"Nonsense!" Lawrence exclaimed. Then, more slowly and thoughtfully, "Out of the question. Mrs. Broughton is a shy and timid woman, and anything like desperation in her case would react upon herself, not on anyone else. You are clear off the track, Howell."

"You admit, however, that she might have been made desperate?"

"I admit nothing whatsoever. If I knew anything I wouldn't admit it. Or I'll admit that I don't know anything, if that will pacify you."

"Where would she be likely to go? You know her friends."

Lawrence shook his head. "If she was bent on hiding herself, she would not be likely to go to the likely places."

And with that Howell had to depart. As usual, his client had given him no information that would be of the slightest value in conducting the defense.

Lyon lingered when Howell had departed.

"There is another matter I want to tell you about," he said. "I had an interview with Miss Wolcott yesterday."

The flash of Lawrence's eyes was electric. "Out with it, you tongue-tied wretch," he cried. "Lord, that such privileges should fall to a man who doesn't know better than to waste time in wordy preambles. Tell me every syllable she said, every look that she didn't put into syllables. To think that you have been sitting here for half an hour with all that treasure locked up inside of you! Confound you, why don't you begin? Begin at the beginning, and omit nothing."

Lyon began, and told all of his tale. Lawrence listened with an attentiveness that seemed to meet the words half way and drag them out into expression. He had forgotten himself entirely, and his anger at her distress, his rage at Fullerton, his amazed and awed wonder when he heard that shame over her girlish folly in writing her heart out to a man unworthy of it had made her deaf to all other wooing, were as plainly revealed as though he had put them into his most voluble English. At the end he dropped his face upon his folded arms on the table.

"The poor child," he murmured to himself. "The poor child! As though that--or anything--would have made any difference!" Suddenly he wheeled upon Lyon, with dancing eyes. "Maybe you are thinking that this is an upper room in the county jail, and that I am a forlorn wretch with a good prospect of being hung! Never think it, my boy! There is nothing in all the universe so heaven-wide and free as this room. I know now how a man feels when his reprieve comes."

"But your reprieve hasn't come yet," said Lyon quietly. "That is exactly the point. Do you see any way yet in which I can help it to come?"

Lawrence looked at him silently, smilingly, and shook his head.

"Then it makes no difference in your attitude," pursued Lyon, "that Mrs. Broughton--and not anyone else--is shown to be the woman who was with Fullerton that evening?"

"It makes no difference," said Lawrence, quietly.

"Not even if she should prove to be the woman who ran across the street?"

"Is that your idea?" exclaimed Lawrence, in frank surprise. "Oh, you are on the wrong track. It was not she."

"But--if it was?"

Lawrence walked back and forth thoughtfully. Then he stopped again before Lyon.

"It would make no difference," he said. Then with a smile he placed his hand on the younger man's shoulder. "Believe me, Lyon, I appreciate your interest and your earnestness, but--beware of letting it carry you too far. There are times, you know, when the best service a friend can render is simply to keep hands off. If you start in with an idea of proving things you may possibly--prove too much! There are matters that simply must not be brought into question." He shook Lyon in friendly roughness and let him go. When Lyon came out, the early night had already fallen and shadows lay heavy in the corners beyond the reach of the street lamps. Lyon glanced at the sky, and then, instead of going to Hemlock Avenue, he took his way to the Wellington.