Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 36, No. 4, October 20, 1928

With this last tragic utterance she was on her feet with arms flung widely apart in abandon, her young bosom heaving passionately. She was glorious in this moment of abandonment. And she had stripped her soul so bare that MacCray felt as though she stood naked before him. Even Detective Grady averted his eyes, feeling a sense of shame that he had driven such a splendid creature against the wall of despair.

Miss Gilchrist got to her feet and folded her niece in her arms.

“You poor, poor child,” she murmured tenderly. “You are not a bad girl at all. You have done nothing terribly wrong. You are not a Judas. You have never deserted or betrayed me. Hush! Don’t sob so. Aunt Eddie will stand by you against the whole world. Come, dry your eyes, my precious. Now then, gentlemen, I trust you are satisfied!”

MacCray did not answer for the moment. Silently he motioned his subordinates out of the room. They departed quietly. Only when he was alone with the two women did MacCray speak. He approached and laid a gentle hand upon Edna Boatwright’s arm.

“My dear,” he said softly, “I will not say you have not erred, but you have betrayed no one. You have merely been used as one little pawn on a very large board in a game all the moves of which I do not yet understand. I am deeply sorry for you, and I shall help you.

“What you have said this afternoon will be held in the strictest confidence. You will continue on in Judge Lethrop’s employ as though nothing has happened. I shall do all in my power to shield you from all further annoyance.

“However, I cannot guarantee one hundred per cent protection from the master mind who plays the black men. I have not yet run him to earth, although the scent is growing stronger. Therefore, should anything else develop, should anything befall you that my men might overlook, I simply ask you to telephone me personally. In brief, I am asking for your confidence from this moment on. Will you trust me? Will you help me?”

The girl had become calm. She raised her reddened eyes, dried them hastily on her aunt’s kerchief, and smiled tremulously, a full-lipped smile which made her face beautiful.

“You are the most wonderful man I ever knew,” she murmured fervently. “I did not know a detective could be so wise — and so human.”

“That is undeserved praise, my dear. I think I am human, but I am not wise — at least, not wise enough. If I had not been such a suspicious person I would have made a confidant of you that first night we met and thus have spared us both unpleasantness. Do you feel composed enough now for me to ask you a few questions?”

“I’ll tell you anything I can,” she promised earnestly.

“Then tell me what you know about: Joseph Crawley. Where did you ever hear of him before? Why should your uncle be interested in Judge Lethrop’s action in the case?”

“Mr. MacCray, that is an utter mystery to me,” she said solemnly. “I think that is partly what worried me — my ignorance. I never heard of the man before, I know nothing about him save what I have seen in the papers and through the work I have done on Judge Lethrop’s papers, and I see no reason for my — my uncle being interested in the matter unless it is that the crime was committed almost under his nose.

“What — ah! Merciful Heaven! Can it be that he was implicated in that murder? Was there something which was not revealed by the evidence? Oh, don’t tell me he is... is guilty of the actual deed.”

“Calm your fears,” smiled the little man gently, reassuringly. “I can safely state that James Rindawn is entirely innocent of the crime for which Joseph Crawley is condemned to hang. But there is a deep-seated reason for his interest in the affair. I have grounds for one line of suspicion, but I always try to exhaust every angle of a subject before I reach a decision. Then, if you can tell me nothing of Mr. Crawley, what can you tell about this Carlos Fernandez and his mysterious note — now that we are working together?”

The young woman blushed in faint self-consciousness, but she met his gaze.

“I swear that I know nothing about it,” she responded. “Mr. Warner and I really did go through the judge’s files trying to find that name and associate it with some case in which Judge Lethrop had participated in the past. We found absolutely nothing. Neither of us has any knowledge of such a person.”

MacCray nodded calmly.

“And, a last question, now about the unknown Signor Vincennes and his daughter Christine?”

“I never heard of them before Harry Lethrop mentioned their names. I haven’t the remotest idea who they are, or what they are, but Harry said they existed — and therefore I believe it.”

“You are interested in Harry Lethrop?” This, softly.

“Not in a personal way,” she answered openly. “I am two or three years older than he is. But he is a dear boy, and I admire him. If he said these people existed, I would swear to it.”