Page:Burton Stevenson--The marathon mystery.djvu/244

218 “Is that you, Higgins?”

“Yes, sir.”

“This is Mr. Lester. Come up after a while, will you? I’ve a little job up here I want you to do.”

“All right, sir; will half an hour do?”

“Oh, yes; any time this evening.”

I got out pipe, tobacco, and matches and sat down in my most comfortable chair. I was no longer so discouraged as I had been the evening before. On the whole, I told myself, I had progressed — I had succeeded in forging the chain more tightly about Tremaine, in strengthening it in many places. I could show certainly:

1. — That he knew Thompson and had lied about it.

2. — That he apparently hated him.

3. — That he had come to New York on the same boat with him, and probably on the same errand.

4. — That Thompson had joined him as soon as released from jail.

On paper, I had to admit, the chain appeared a good deal weaker than I had thought it. There were many gaps — indeed, now that I looked at it, it seemed to consist largely of gaps. Objections to the theory of Tremaine’s guilt loomed larger and larger. One of the weightiest was Miss Croydon’s attitude toward him — that seemed unexplainable. The man she described as the murderer was quite unlike Tremaine in appearance. Was she, then, shielding him? But why should she do that? Above all, if he were guilty of such a crime, would she have consented to his admission to the Delroy family? And again, if she feared him, why not denounce him to the police, or at least