Part 42 (2/2)
”Could she have mortgaged her home in Baltimore?”
”Yes. Mr. Taliaferro, A. G. Taliaferro, the lawyer, would have fixed it for her. He's a friend of the family--used to be of father's.”
”Now, about the emeralds and diamonds?” Braceway began another attack.
”I don't know what you mean.”'
”They belonged to Mrs. Withers.”
Morley shook his head impatiently.
”I don't know anything about them.”
Bristow took a hand in the questioning, flicking him and provoking him by tone and word. But neither he nor Braceway could get an admission, or any appearance of admission, that he knew anything about the Withers jewelry.
Furthermore, he declared that his presence in the hotel, from the time Delaney had ”lost” him until his second appearance at Eidstein's at four o'clock, could be established by the room clerk, two bellboys, and a maid at the Emerson, and by the lawyer, Taliaferro, with whom he had talked on the telephone while there with his mother.
According to him, he had unwittingly evaded Delaney by the simple act of stepping into the elevator and going to the room where his mother, having reached Baltimore an hour later than he, was waiting to hear how he had fared in his interview with Eidstein.
He had hoped, he said, to cover up the $700 shortage at the bank with the money obtained from the dealer in antiques, but, thinking of the risk of his mother's being impoverished, he had renounced at the last moment the plan of getting more money through the mortgage or sale of the home.
”Do you happen to know that a man, clumsily disguised and answering to your description, p.a.w.ned some of the Withers jewelry in Baltimore today?”
Braceway asked.
”Did he?” He looked blank.
”Yes. What do you know about it?”
”I've already told you: not a thing.”
Braceway, recognizing the futility for the present of prolonging this line of inquiry, paused, looking at him thoughtfully.
”If I p.a.w.ned them,” Morley added, without raising his eyes, ”why wasn't the money found on me?”
”Don't get too smart!” Bristow put in so roughly and suddenly that the prisoner started violently. ”What we want is facts, not arguments!”
The lame man leaned forward in his chair and made his voice sharp, provocative.
”You're not as clever as you think you are. You lied when you made your statement about the night Mrs. Withers was murdered. Now, come through with that--the truth about it!”
Morley, utterly bewildered, stared and said nothing.
”What did you do that night? Where were you?”
Bristow left his chair and, going round the table, stood in front of Morley.
”I told you that once. I wasn't anywhere near Manniston Road.”
<script>