Arthur Somers Roche

“ It was absurd that I should be deemed guilty of murdering Major Penrose.
I comforted myself with the thought that absurdities can not exist forever. In my case they would not exist long. I had only to prove my utter lack of motive. ”

“ Reese leaned back disappointedly in his chair. But Sheriff Carney, up to now silent, though his lean face with the humorous eyes had been fixed intently upon the girl, broke his silence.
“I can easy find out,” he said. “If there was any one outside that window on the balcony, his footprints will be there on the snow. It’ll be up to him to make the time certain.” ”

“ But I wouldn’t want an innocent man—I’m not sure—so much happened afterward.”
“Don’t you worry, Miss Gilman,” said Carney kindly. “There’s lots of things besides your recollection of the time he went by that’ll go to convict him. If he’s innocent, your not being certain won’t make him guilty.”
He turned upon me.
“I don’t want to act hasty in this matter, Mr. Brant. There’s a lot of things neither the doctor nor myself understand. Miss Gilman could clear things up if she’d tell us why her uncle feared you. But that can wait. ”

“ Brant,” growled the captain. “I hope you ain’t insinuatin’, Doctor——”
“Any objection to letting Carney fit Tony’s shoes to the marks?” demanded Reese.
The captain’s rubicund visage grew redder still.
“Why, no,” he muttered. “Tony, take off your shoes.”
The Portuguese bent over to comply, but Miss Gilman’s voice stopped him.
“How absurd! Haven’t I told you that he was playing the violin?”
“So you did,” exclaimed Reese. He looked around, nonplussed. “Isn’t there any one else in the house, then, who could by any possibility have been on that balcony?” he demanded. ”

“ Reese’s words suggested. I saw the girl tiptoe to the door of her uncle’s room, raise and point the heavy army revolver, fire at the unsuspecting figure writing at the table-desk, throw the weapon upon the floor, wait a half-minute, and then shriek.
Against that scene, so plausible to Reese, I set the face of the girl. I put those utterly frank and courageous and honest eyes of her against the theory hinted at in Reese’s words, and I felt my mouth curling with scorn for the doctor. He was absurd! And yet—Reese had not said that the girl had committed the crime. ”

“ I said emphatically, “and ran down the hall afterwards—if the footprints won’t convict him, the time at which he was out side the major’s door, the very moment that the shot was fired, will. And I’ll swear that he passed my door just after the shot was fired.”
“H’m,” said Reese. “Carney, suppose you search the house for a pair of shoes that will fit those prints. The women here, except Miss Gilman, we know were down-stairs when the shot was fired. So was Captain Perkins.” ”