That Affair at Elizabeth

by Burton Egbert Stevenson

"After I got off my message, I stopped here at the hotel, and cleaned up, for I was really a sight. I learned from the clerk that you'd already arrived in custody of a policeman. I peeped in at you, and found you sleeping like a log, not disturbed in the least by the presence of the sentinel."

"The result of a clear conscience," I pointed out.

"So I told the cop, after he'd related your adventure with the chief. Then I hurried back to the Kingdon place, and found that the coroner had just arrived. He's an ambitious young fellow, named Haynes, and is cleverer than the run of coroners. I introduced myself, told him what I knew of the case and of your connection with it, and persuaded him to recall the officer who was guarding you."

"The only thing that bothered me," I said, "was to explain our presence in the house. How did you do it?"

Godfrey laughed.

"Oh, easily enough. We yellow journalists, you know, bear the reputation of pausing at nothing. We're also credited with a sort of second sight when it comes to nosing out news. I encouraged Haynes to believe that I possessed both these characteristics. I dwelt upon the suspicious circumstance of the light in the cellar, and led him to think that we saw from the outside considerably more than we really did see. I didn't tell him the whole truth, because I didn't want him to connect this affair in any way with Miss Lawrence's disappearance. I want to work that out for myself—it's my private property."

I nodded; neither did I desire that Miss Lawrence's name should be connected with this tragedy—not, at least, until there was some positive evidence against her. And I hoped against hope, knowing Godfrey's persistence and cleverness, that no such evidence would be found.

"After I'd convinced the coroner of our disinterested motives," continued Godfrey, "we went down to the cellar together, and, with the help of a couple of policemen, dug up the body. One of the policemen happened to be Clemley, who'd been stationed at the Lawrence place, and he identified the man at once as the one who had asked him the way to the Kingdon house. We got him out—and a good load he was—stripped back his clothes, and found that he'd been shot in the breast. The wound was a very small one, and there had been little external bleeding. There were no burns upon the clothing, so the shot was fired from a distance of at least five feet. The police surgeon ran in his probe, and found that the bullet had passed directly through the heart, so that death was instantaneous. From the expression of the face, I should say that the victim had no suspicion of his danger—you remember that leer of self-satisfaction. The course of the bullet was downward, which would seem to indicate that he was sitting in a chair at the time, while his murderer was standing up. He had been dead more than twenty-four hours. The clay of the cellar was nearly as hard as rock, which accounts for the fact that Harriet Kingdon was so long getting him buried."

"And it was she who fired the shot," I said, with conviction. "Marcia Lawrence had nothing to do with it."

"Do you believe Lucy Kingdon knew anything about it?" he asked, looking at me keenly.