“I don't know, Stone; perhaps the coroner asked him, but if he did, I doubt if Hall told. It didn't seem to me important.”
“Burroughs, my son, you should have learned every detail of Hall's doings that night.”
“But if he were not in West Sedgwick, what difference could it possibly make where he was?”
“One never knows what difference anything will make until the difference is made. That's oracular, but it means more than it sounds. However, go on.”
I went on, and I even told him what Florence had told me concerning the possibility of Hall's interest in another woman.
“At last we are getting to it,” said Stone; “why in the name of all good detectives, didn't you hunt up that other woman?”
“But she is perhaps only a figment of Miss Lloyd's brain.”
“Figments of the brains of engaged young ladies are apt to have a solid foundation of flesh and blood. I think much could be learned concerning Mr. Hall's straying fancy. But tell me again about his attitude toward Miss Lloyd, in the successive developments of the will question.”
Fleming Stone was deeply interested as I rehearsed how, when Florence was supposed to be penniless, he wished to break the engagement. When Philip Crawford offered to provide for her, Mr. Hall was uncertain; but when the will was found, and Florence was known to inherit all her uncle's property, then Gregory Hall not only held her to the engagement, but said he had never wished to break it.
“H'm,” said Stone. “Pretty clear that the young man is a fortune-hunter.”