Part 30 (1/2)
XV. THE PHOTOGRAPH EXPLAINED
That evening I went to see Philip Crawford. As one of the executors of his late brother's estate, and as probable heir to the same, he was an important personage just now.
He seemed glad to see me, and glad to discuss ways and means of running down the a.s.sa.s.sin. Like Mr. Porter, he attached little importance to the gold bag.
”I can't help thinking it belongs to Florence,” he said. ”I know the girl so well, and I know that her horrified fear of being in any way connected with the tragedy might easily lead her to, disown her own property, thinking the occasion justified the untruth. That girl has no more guilty knowledge of Joseph's death than I have, and that is absolutely none. I tell you frankly, Mr. Burroughs, I haven't even a glimmer of a suspicion of any one. I can't think of an enemy my brother had; he was the most easy-going of men. I never knew him to quarrel with anybody. So I trust that you, with your detective talent, can at least find a clue to lead us in the right direction.”
”You don't admit the gold bag as a clue, then?” I asked.
”Nonsense! No! If that were a clue, it would point to some woman who came secretly at night to visit Joseph. My brother was not that sort of man, sir. He had no feminine acquaintances that were unknown to his relatives.”
”That is, you suppose so.”
”I know it! We have been brothers for sixty years or more, and whatever Joseph's faults, they did not lie in that direction. No, sir; if that bag is not Florence's, then there is some other rational and commonplace explanation of its presence there.”
”I'm glad to hear you speak so positively, Mr. Crawford, as to your brother's feminine acquaintances. And in connection with the subject, I would like to show you this photograph which I found in his desk.”
I handed the card to Mr. Crawford, whose features broke into a smile as he looked at it.
”Oh, that,” he said; ”that is a picture, of Mrs. Patton.” He looked at the picture with a glance that seemed to be of admiring reminiscence, and he studied the gentle face of the photograph a moment without speaking.
Then he said, ”She was beautiful as a girl. She used to be a school friend of both Joseph and myself.”
”She wrote rather an affectionate message on the back,” I observed.
Mr. Crawford turned the picture over.
”Oh, she didn't send this picture to Joseph. She sent it to my wife last Christmas. I took it over to show it to Joseph some months ago, and left it there without thinking much about it. He probably laid it in his desk without thinking much about it, either. No, no, Burroughs, there is no romance there, and you can't connect Mrs. Patton with any of your detective investigations.”
”I rather thought that, Mr. Crawford; for this is evidently a sweet, simple-minded lady, and more over nothing has turned up to indicate that Mr. Crawford had a romantic interest of any kind.”
”No, he didn't. I knew Joseph as I know myself. No; whoever killed my brother, was a man; some villain who had a motive that I know nothing about.”
”But you were intimately acquainted with your brother's affairs?”
”Yes, that is what proves to me that whoever this a.s.sa.s.sin was, it was some one of whose motive I know nothing. The fact that my brother was murdered, proves to me that my brother had an enemy, but I had never suspected it before.”
”Do you know a Mrs. Egerton Purvis?”
I flung the question at him, suddenly, hoping to catch him unawares. But he only looked at me with the blank expression of one who hears a name for the first time.
”No,” he answered, ”I never heard of her. Who is she?”
”Well, when I was hunting through that gold-mesh bag, I discovered a lady's visiting card with that name on it. It had slipped between the linings, and so had not been noticed before.”
To my surprise, this piece of information seemed to annoy Mr. Crawford greatly.
”No!” he exclaimed. ”In the bag? Then some one has put it there! for I looked over all the bag's contents myself.”
”It was between the pocket and the lining,” said I; ”it is there still, for as I felt sure no one else would discover it, I left it there. Mr.