YELLOW ROSES
If any one expected to see Miss Lloyd faint or collapse at this crisis he must have been disappointed, and as I had confidently expected such a scene, I was completely surprised at her quick recovery of self-possession.
For an instant she had seemed stunned by my question, and her eyes had wandered vaguely round the room, as if in a vain search far help.
Her glance returned to me, and in that instant I gave her an answering look, which, quite involuntarily on my part, meant a grave and serious offer of my best and bravest efforts in her behalf. Disingenuous she might be, untruthful she might be, yes, even a criminal she might be, but in any case I was her sworn ally forever. Not that I meant to defeat the ends of justice, but I was ready to fight for her or with her, until justice should defeat us. Of course she didn't know all this, though I couldn't help hoping she read a little of it as my eyes looked into hers. If so, she recognized it only by a swift withdrawal of her own glance. Again she looked round at her various friends.
Then her eyes rested on Gregory Hall, and, though he gave her no responsive glance, for some reason her poise returned like a flash. It was as if she had been invigorated by a cold douche.
Determination fairly shone in her dark eyes, and her mouth showed a more decided line than I had yet seen in its red curves, as with a cold, almost hard voice she replied "I have no idea. We have many flowers in the house, always."
"But I have learned from the servants that there were no other yellow roses in the house yesterday."
Miss Lloyd was not hesitant now. She replied quickly, and it was with an almost eager haste that she said "Then I can only imagine that my uncle had some lady visitor in his office late last evening."
The girl's mood had changed utterly; her tone was almost flippant, and more than one of the jurors looked at her in wonderment.
Mr. Porter, especially, cast an her a glance of fatherly solicitude, and I was sure that he felt, as I did, that the strain was becoming too much for her.
"I don't think you quite mean that, Florence," he said; "you and I knew your uncle too well to say such things."
But the girl made no reply, and her beautiful mouth took on a hard line.
"It is not an impossible conjecture," said Philip Crawford thoughtfully. "If the bag does not belong to Florence, what more probable than that it was left by its feminine owner? The same lady might have worn or carried yellow roses."
Perhaps it was because of my own desire to help her that these other men had joined their efforts to mine to ease the way as much as possible.
The coroner looked a little uncomfortable, for he began to note the tide of sympathy turning toward the troubled girl.
"Yellow roses do not necessarily imply a lady visitor," he said, rather more kindly. "A man in evening dress might have worn one."
To his evident surprise, as well as to my own, this remark, intended to be soothing, had quite the opposite effect.
"That is not at all probable," said Miss Lloyd quite angrily.
"Mr. Porter was in the office last evening; if he was wearing a yellow rose at the time, let him say so."
"I was not," said Mr. Porter quietly, but looking amazed at the sudden outburst of the girl.
"Of course you weren't!" Miss Lloyd went on, still in the same excited way. "Men don't wear roses nowadays, except perhaps at a ball; and, anyway, the gold bag surely implies that a woman was there!"
"It seems to," said Mr. Monroe; and then, unable longer to keep up her brave resistance, Florence Lloyd fainted.
Mrs. Pierce wrung her hands and moaned in a helpless fashion.
Elsa started forward to attend her young mistress, but it was the two neighbors who were jurors, Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Porter, who carried the unconscious girl from the room.
Gregory Hall looked concerned, but made no movement to aid, and I marvelled afresh at such strange actions in a man betrothed to a particularly beautiful woman.
Several women in the audience hurried from the room, and in a few moments the two jurors returned.
"Miss Lloyd will soon be all right, I think," said Mr. Porter to the coroner. "My wife is with her, and one or two other ladies.
I think we may proceed with our work here."
There was something about Mr. Lemuel Porter that made men accept his dictum, and without further remark Mr. Monroe called the next witness, Mr. Roswell Randolph, and a tall man, with an intellectual face, came forward.
While the coroner was putting the formal and preliminary questions to Mr. Randolph, Parmalee quietly drew my attention to a whispered conversation going an between Elsa and Louis.
If this girl had fainted instead of Miss Lloyd, I should not have been surprised for she seemed on the very verge of nervous collapse. She seemed, too, to be accusing the man of something, which he vigorously denied. The girl interested me far more than the Frenchman. Though of the simple, rosy-cheeked type of German, she had an air of canniness and subtlety that was at variance with her naive effect. I soon concluded she was far more clever than mast people thought, and Parmalee's whispered words showed that he thought so too.
"Something doing in the case of Dutch Elsa, eh?" he said; "she and Johnny Frenchy have cooked up something between them."
"Nothing of any importance, I fancy," I returned, for Miss Lloyd's swoon seemed to me a surrender, and I had little hope now of any other direction in which to look.
But I resumed my attention to the coroner's inquiries of Mr.
Randolph.
In answer to a few formal questions, he stated that he had been Mr. Crawford's legal adviser for many years, and had entire charge of all such matters as required legal attention.
"Did you draw up the late Mr. Crawford's will?" asked the coroner.
"Yes; after the death of his wife - about twelve years ago."
"And what were the terms of that will?"
"Except for some minor bequests, the bulk of his fortune was bequeathed to Miss Florence Lloyd."
"Have you changed that will in any way, or drawn a later one?"
"No."
