Detective and mystery stories; Fiction; Love stories
"It was only by the merest accident I found it out," Godfrey was saying.
"It was the policeman who was on duty at the Lawrence place yesterday
morning who gave me the first hint. I'd already sounded him, as well as
everybody else about the place, as to whether any strangers had been
noticed loitering about, and they were all quite positive that no
stranger had passed the gate or entered the grounds during the morning.
After I left you, yesterday morning, I started back to the hotel to get
my things together, and in the hotel office I happened to meet the
policeman, whose name, it seems, is Clemley. He was off duty and seemed
anxious to talk, so I took him in to the bar, and got him a drink, and
pumped him a little on the off-chance of his knowing something he hadn't
told me.
"'And you're still sure,' I asked him after a while, 'that no strangers
went into the Lawrence house yesterday morning?'
"'Oh, yes, sir,' he answered. 'Perfectly sure. I was on duty there all
the time, you know. There were a good many people around, but I knew
them all. I've been a policeman here for twenty years, and there's
mighty few people I don't know. The only stranger I noticed the whole
morning was a fellow who stopped to ask me where Miss Kingdon lived.'
"You can guess, Lester, how my heart jumped when I heard that! Well, he
described him about as I described him to you----"
"Even to his being a musician?" I asked.
"Well, no," Godfrey laughed. "That was a long shot of my own. But he
told me the fellow was humming a tune all the time he wasn't talking. He
came along just about eleven o'clock, and asked where Miss Kingdon
lived; asked also what was going on at the Lawrence place, and seemed
much interested in what the policeman told him. He rolled a cigarette
and lighted it as he talked--rolled it, Clemley says, with one twist of
his fingers, so expertly that Clemley marvelled at it. Finally he went
on to the gate out yonder, and entered the yard. That was all Clemley
saw."
"Did he see him come out again?"
"No--he's certain he didn't come out while he was on duty, which was
till three o'clock in the afternoon. Of course, he may have left by some
other way. He could have gone out by the alley at the back of the lot,
if he'd wished to avoid being seen."
"And you believe Marcia Lawrence met him here?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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