THE HOLLADAY CASE

_A TALE_

By

BURTON E. STEVENSON

AUTHOR OF "AT ODDS WITH THE REGENT," "A
SOLDIER OF VIRGINIA," ETC.


NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1903


COPYRIGHT, 1903,
BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

_Published November, 1903_


THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS,
RAHWAY, N. J.


[Illustration: MR. ROYCE DELIVERS THE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS.]




CONTENTS


CHAPTER                                       PAGE

    I. A BOLT FROM THE BLUE,                     1

   II. IN THE GRIP OF CIRCUMSTANCE,             15

  III. THE COIL TIGHTENS,                       37

   IV. I HAVE AN INSPIRATION,                   56

    V. I DINE WITH A FASCINATING STRANGER,      70

   VI. GODFREY'S PANEGYRIC,                     90

  VII. MISS HOLLADAY BECOMES CAPRICIOUS,       101

 VIII. THE MYSTERIOUS MAID,                    114

   IX. I MEET MONSIEUR MARTIGNY,               131

    X. AN ASTONISHING DISAPPEARANCE,           146

   XI. I UNMASK MY ENEMY,                      165

  XII. AT THE CAFÉ JOURDAIN,                   183

 XIII. EN VOYAGE,                              197

  XIV. I PROVE A BAD SENTINEL,                 213

   XV. TWO HEADS ARE BETTER THAN ONE,          229

  XVI. I BEARD THE LION,                       247

 XVII. ETRETAT,                                270

XVIII. THE VEIL IS LIFTED,                     280

  XIX. THE END OF THE STORY,                   293




THE HOLLADAY CASE




CHAPTER I

A Bolt from the Blue


The atmosphere of the office that morning was a shade less genial than
usual. We had all of us fought our way downtown through such a storm
of wind, snow, slush, and sleet as is to be found nowhere save in
mid-March New York, and our tempers had suffered accordingly. I had
found a cab unobtainable, and there was, of course, the inevitable jam
on the Elevated, with the trains many minutes behind the schedule. I
was some half-hour late, in consequence, and when I entered the inner
office, I was surprised to find Mr. Graham, our senior, already at his
desk. He nodded good-morning a little curtly.

"I wish you'd look over these papers in the Hurd case, Lester," he
said, and pushed them toward me.

I took them and sat down; and just then the outer door slammed with a
violence extremely unusual.

I had never seen Mr. Royce, our junior, so deeply shaken, so visibly
distracted, as he was when he burst in upon us a moment later, a
newspaper in his hand. Mr. Graham, startled by the noise of his
entrance, wheeled around from his desk and stared at him in
astonishment.

"Why, upon my word, John," he began, "you look all done up. What's the
matter?"

"Matter enough, sir!" and Mr. Royce spread out the paper on the desk
before him. "You haven't seen the morning papers, of course; well,
look at that!" and he indicated with a trembling finger the article
which occupied the first column of the first page--the place of
honor.

I saw our senior's face change as he read the headlines, and he seemed
positively horror-stricken as he ran rapidly through the story which
followed.

"Why, this is the most remarkable thing I ever read!" he burst out at
last.

"Remarkable!" cried the other. "Why, it's a damnable outrage, sir! The
idea that a gentle, cultured girl like Frances Holladay would
deliberately murder her own father--strike him down in cold blood--is
too monstrous, too absolutely preposterous, too--too----" and he
stopped, fairly choked by his emotion.

The words brought me upright in my chair. Frances Holladay accused
of--well!--no wonder our junior was upset!

But Mr. Graham was reading through the article again more carefully,
and while he nodded sympathetically to show that he fully assented to
the other's words, a straight, deep line of perplexity, which I had
come to recognize, formed between his eyebrows.

"Plainly," he said at last, "the whole case hinges on the evidence of
this man Rogers--Holladay's confidential clerk--and from what I know
of Rogers, I should say that he'd be the last man in the world to make
a willful misstatement. He says that Miss Holladay entered her
father's office late yesterday afternoon, stayed there ten minutes,
and then came out hurriedly. A few minutes later Rogers went into the
office and found his employer dead. That's the whole case, but it'll
be a hard one to break."

"Well, it must be broken!" retorted the other, pulling himself
together with a supreme effort. "Of course, I'll take the case."

"Of course!"

"Miss Holladay probably sent for me last night, but I was out at
Babylon, you know, looking up that witness in the Hurd affair. He'll
be all right, and his evidence will give us the case. Our answer in
the Brown injunction can wait till to-morrow. That's all, I think."

The chief nodded.

"Yes--I see the inquest is to begin at ten o'clock. You haven't much
time."

"No--I'd like to have a good man with me," and he glanced in my
direction. "Can you spare me Lester?"

My heart gave a jump. It was just the question I was hoping he would
ask.

"Why, yes, of course," answered the chief readily. "In a case like
this, certainly. Let me hear from you in the course of the day."

Mr. Royce nodded as he started for the door.

"I will; we'll find some flaw in that fellow's story, depend upon it.
Come on, Lester."

I snatched up pen and paper and followed him to the elevator. In a
moment we were in the street; there were cabs in plenty now,
disgorging their loads and starting back uptown again; we hailed one,
and in another moment were rattling along toward our destination with
such speed as the storm permitted. There were many questions surging
through my brain to which I should have welcomed an answer. The storm
had cut off my paper that morning, and I regretted now that I had not
made a more determined effort to get another. A glance at my companion
showed me the folly of attempting to secure any information from his,
so I contented myself with reviewing what I already knew of the
history of the principals.

I knew Hiram W. Holladay, the murdered man, quite well; not only as
every New Yorker knew that multi-millionaire as one of the most
successful operators in Wall Street, but personally as well, since he
had been a client of Graham & Royce for twenty years and more. He was
at that time well on toward seventy years of age, I should say, though
he carried his years remarkably well; his wife had been long dead,
and he had only one child, his daughter, Frances, who must have been
about twenty-five. She had been born abroad, and had spent the first
years of her life there with her mother, who had lingered on the
Riviera and among the hills of Italy and Switzerland in the hope of
regaining a health, which had been failing, so I understood, ever
since her daughter's birth. She had come home at last, bringing the
black-eyed child with her, and within the year was dead.

Holladay's affections from that moment seemed to grow and center about
his daughter, who developed into a tall and beautiful girl--too
beautiful, as was soon apparent, for our junior partner's peace of
mind. He had met her first in a business way, and afterwards socially,
and all of us who had eyes could see how he was eating his heart out
at the knowledge that she was far beyond his reach; for it was evident
that her father deemed her worthy of a brilliant marriage--as, indeed,
she was. I sometimes thought that she held herself at a like value,
for though there was about her a constant crowd of suitors, none of
them, seemingly, could win an atom of encouragement. She was waiting,
I told myself, waiting; and I had even pictured to myself the grim
irony of a situation in which our junior might be called upon to
arrange her marriage settlements.

The cab stopped with a jolt, and I looked up to see that we had
reached the Criminal Courts building. Mr. Royce sprang out, paid the
driver, and ran up the steps to the door, I after him. He turned down
the corridor to the right, and entered the room at the end of it,
which I recognized as the office of Coroner Goldberg. A considerable
crowd had already collected there.

"Has the coroner arrived yet?" my companion asked one of the clerks.

"Yes, sir; he's in his private office."

"Will you take him this card and say that I'd like to see him at once,
if possible?"

The clerk hurried away with the card. He was back again in a moment.

"This way, sir," he called.

We followed him across the room and through a door at the farther
side.

"Ah, Mr. Royce, glad to see you," cried the coroner, as we entered.
"We tried to find you last night, but learned that you were out of
town, and I was just calling up your office again."

"Miss Holladay asked for me, then?"

"Yes, at once. When we found we couldn't get you, we suggested your
senior, but she said she'd wait till you returned."

I could see our junior's face crimson with pleasure.

"You didn't think it necessary to confine her, I trust?" he asked.

"Oh, no; she wasn't disturbed. She spent the night at home--under
surveillance."

"That was right. Of course, it's simply absurd to suspect her."

Goldberg looked at him curiously.

"I don't know, Mr. Royce," he said slowly. "If the evidence turns out
as I think it will, I shall have to hold her--the district attorney
expects it."

Mr. Royce's hands were clutching a chair-back, and they trembled a
little at the coroner's words.

"He'll be present at the examination, then?" he asked.

"Yes, we're waiting for him. You see, it's rather an extraordinary
case."

"Is it?"

"We think so, anyway!" said the coroner, just a trifle impatiently.

I could see the retort which sprang to our junior's lips, but he
choked it back. There was no use offending Goldberg.

"I should like to see Miss Holladay before the examination begins," he
said. "Is she present?"

"She's in the next room, yes. You shall see her, certainly, at once.
Julius, take Mr. Royce to Miss Holladay," he added to the clerk.

I can see her yet, rising from her chair with face alight, as we
entered, and I saw instantly how I had misjudged her. She came a step
toward us, holding out her hands impulsively; then, with an effort,
controlled herself and clasped them before her.

"Oh, but I'm glad to see you!" she cried in a voice so low I could
scarcely hear it. "I've wanted you so much!"

"It was my great misfortune that I could come no sooner," said my
chief, his voice trembling a little despite himself. "I--I scarcely
expected to see you here with no one----"

"Oh," she interrupted, "there was no one I cared to have. My friends
have been very kind--have offered to do anything--but I felt that I
wanted to be just alone and think. I should have liked to have my
maid, but----"

"She's one of the witnesses, I suppose," explained Mr. Royce. "Well,
now that I'm here, I shall stay until I've proved how utterly
ridiculous this charge against you is."

She sank back into her chair and looked up at him with dark, appealing
eyes.

"You think you can?" she asked.

"Can! Certainly I can! Why, it's too preposterous to stand for a
moment! We've only to prove an alibi--to show that you were somewhere
else, you know, at the time the crime was committed--and the whole
business falls to pieces in an instant. You can do that easily, can't
you?"

The color had gone from her cheeks again, and she buried her face in
her hands.

"I don't know," she murmured indistinctly. "I must think. Oh, don't
let it come to that!"

I was puzzled--confounded. With her good name, her life, perhaps, in
the balance, she wanted time to think! I could see that my chief was
astonished, too.

"I'll try to keep it from coming to that, since you wish it," he said
slowly. "I'll not be able to call you, then, to testify in your own
behalf--and that always hurts. But I hope the case will break down at
once--I believe it will. At any rate, don't worry. I want you to rely
on me."

She looked up at him again, smiling.

"I shall," she murmured softly. "I'm sure I could desire no better
champion!"

Well, plainly, if he won this case he would win something else
besides. I think even the policeman in the corner saw it, for he
turned away with a discretion rare in policemen, and pretended to
stare out of the window.

I don't know what my chief would have said--his lips were trembling so
he could not speak for the moment--and just then there came a tap at
the door, and the coroner's clerk looked in.

"We're ready to begin, sir," he said.

"Very well," cried Mr. Royce. "I'll come at once. Good-by for the
moment, Miss Holladay. I repeat, you may rely on me," and he hastened
from the room as confidently as though she had girded him for the
battle. Instead, I told myself, she had bound him hand and foot before
casting him down into the arena.




CHAPTER II

In the Grip of Circumstance


The outer room was crowded from end to end, and the atmosphere reeked
with unpleasant dampness. Only behind the little railing before the
coroner's desk was there breathing space, and we sank into our seats
at the table there with a sigh of relief.

One never realizes how many newspapers there are in New York until one
attends an important criminal case--that brings their people out in
droves and swarms. The reporters took up most of the space in this
small room, paper and pencils were everywhere in evidence, and in one
corner there was a man with a camera stationed, determined, I suppose,
to get a photograph of our client, should she be called to the stand,
since none could be obtained in any other way.

I saw Singleton, the district attorney, come in and sit down near the
coroner, and then the jury filed in from their room and took their
seats. I examined them, man by man, with some little anxiety, but they
all seemed intelligent and fairly well-to-do. Mr. Royce was looking
over their names, and he checked them off carefully as the clerk
called the roll. Then he handed the list up to the coroner with a
little nod.

"Go ahead," he said. "They're all right, I guess--they look all
right."

"It's a good jury," replied the coroner, as he took the paper. "Better
than usual. Are you ready, Mr. Singleton?"

"Yes," said the district attorney. "Oh, wait a minute," he added, and
he got up and came down to our table. "You're going to put Miss
Holladay on the stand, I suppose----"

"And expose her to all this?" and our junior looked around the room.
"Not if I can help it!"

"I don't see how you _can_ help it. An alibi's the only thing that
can save her from being bound over."

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," retorted Mr. Royce. "I
think the case against her will soon die of inanition."

"Oh, very well," and Singleton abruptly went back to his desk, biting
his mustache thoughtfully. He had made something of a reputation,
since his election a year before, as a solver of abstruse criminal
problems, and had secured a conviction in two or three capital cases
which had threatened for a time to baffle the police. He evidently
scented something of the same kind here, or he would have entrusted
the case to one of his assistants. It might be added that, while his
successes had made him immensely popular with the multitude, there had
been, about one or two of them, a hint of unprofessional conduct,
which had made his brethren of the bar look rather askance at him.

He nodded to the coroner after a moment, the room was called to
order, and the first witness summoned.

It was Rogers, the confidential clerk. I knew Rogers, of course, had
talked with him often in a business way, and had the highest respect
for him. He had been with Mr. Holladay much longer than I had been
with Graham & Royce, and had, as Mr. Graham had pointed out, an
unimpeachable reputation.

There were the usual preliminaries, name, age, residence, and so on,
Coroner Goldberg asking the questions. He was a really good
cross-examiner, and soon came to the core of the matter.

"What is the position of your desk in Mr. Holladay's office?" he
asked.

"There is an outer office for the clerks; opening from that, a smaller
room where my desk is placed. Opening from my room was Mr. Holladay's
private office.

"Had Mr. Holladay's office any other door?"

"No, sir."

"Could entrance be had by the windows?"

"The windows open on the street side of the building. We occupy a part
of the eighth floor."

"The fire-escapes----"

"Are at the back of the building--there are none on the street
side--nothing but a sheer wall."

"So that anyone entering or leaving the private office must
necessarily pass by your desk?"

"Necessarily; yes, sir."

"Could anyone pass without your seeing him?"

"No, sir; that would be quite impossible."

The coroner leaned back in his chair. There was one point settled.

"Now, Mr. Rogers," he said, "will you kindly tell us, in your own way
and with as much detail as possible, exactly what happened at your
office shortly before five o'clock yesterday afternoon?"

I could see that Rogers was deeply moved. His face was very white, he
moistened his lips nervously from time to time, and his hands grasped
convulsively the arms of his chair. Plainly, the task before him was
far from an agreeable one.

"Well, sir," he began, "we had a very busy day yesterday, and were at
the office considerably later than usual; but by five o'clock we had
closed up work for the day, and all the other clerks, with the
exception of the office-boy, had gone home. I had made some notes from
Mr. Holladay's dictation, and had returned to my desk to arrange them,
when the outer door opened and Mr. Holladay's daughter came in. She
asked me whether her father was engaged, and upon my saying no, opened
the inner door and entered his office. She remained, I should think,
about ten minutes; then she came out again, walked rapidly past
without looking at me, and, I suppose, left the building. I finished
arranging my notes, and then entered Mr. Holladay's office to ask if
he had any further instructions for me, and I found him lying forward
on his desk, with a knife sticking in his neck and the blood spurting
out. I summoned aid, but he died without regaining consciousness--I
should say he was practically dead when I found him."

I felt, rather than heard, the little stir which ran through the room.
There was an indefinable horror in the story and in the conclusion to
which it inevitably led.

"Now, let us go back a moment," said the coroner, as Rogers stopped
and mopped his forehead feverishly. "I want the jury to understand
your story thoroughly. Mr. Holladay had been dictating to you?"

"Yes."

"And was quite well?"

"Yes--as well as usual. He'd been suffering with indigestion for some
time past."

"Still he was able to attend to business?"
