Page:Under three flags; a story of mystery (IA underthreeflagss00tayliala).pdf/63

 had Ames and the girl boarded the train? The station agent remembered that it was at the south end of the platform, as the New York sleeper was made up next behind the engine and baggage car."

"I beg to remark," puts in Ashley, "that the fact of one chamber in a revolver being empty is not at all unusual. I have in my pocket a gun in that condition, but as it is a 38 caliber, that lets me out of any connection with the tragedy."

"Of course," smiles Barker, "I take all these bits of evidence for what they are worth. While waiting for my train I argued in this wise: Derrick Ames was in love with Helen Hathaway, and the attachment resulted in an elopement. Neither was seen after 2 o'clock of Memorial Day, and the inference is that they were together somewhere all the afternoon and evening. The elopement was apparently unpremeditated, as they took nothing with them, so far as known, except the clothes they wore. There must have been some cause for such an impromptu exit. People do not elope that way no matter how love-mad they may be. Where was Helen when Ames was seen going into the bank? Waiting for him somewhere. What was his errand? To make a final appeal for the girl's hand, with an elopement in mind as the last resort, perhaps. But even failing in that, why elope that particular night? There must have been a cause for hurrying him away. But if you assume that Ames committed the crime, even as the upshot of a fierce quarrel, even perhaps in self-defense, you must figure him a moral monstrosity, for only such could strike down a father and elope subsequently with the daughter. And then there is the missing money. You see it argues a villainy more despicable than a man like Ames could have been guilty of."

"Yet pathology records even more singular instances of moral distortion."

"Even so. But is it not more reasonable to believe that Ames may have been only a witness to the murder, or a spectator on the scene of the tragedy after it had occurred, and that he was hurried away by the horror of