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Updated: May 24, 2025
He sat quietly down opposite me, and, weary as I was, I was conscious of his keen eyes upon me. "We heard from Miss Holladay this morning," I remarked, unconsciously answering their question. He did not reply for a moment, but I had closed my eyes again, and I was too tired to open them and look at him. "Ah," he said, in a voice a little hoarse; "and she is well?" "No; she's disappeared."
I don't know what my chief would have said his lips were trembling so he could not speak for the moment and just then there came a tap at the door, and the coroner's clerk looked in. "We're ready to begin, sir," he said. "Very well," cried Mr. Royce. "I'll come at once. Good-by for the moment, Miss Holladay.
He read it through a second time, then held out the paper to me with an expression of the blankest amazement. The note read: The man Rogers is lying. The woman who was with Holladay wore a gown of dark green. I Have an Inspiration I stared at the lines in dumb bewilderment. "The man Rogers is lying." But what conceivable motive could he have for lying?
The most probable explanation is that Miss Holladay is suffering from some form of dementia perhaps only acute primary dementia, which is usually merely temporary but which may easily grow serious, and even become permanent." The theory had occurred to me, and I saw from the expression of Mr. Royce's face that he, also, had thought of it. "Is there no way that we can make sure?" he asked.
"Before Miss Holladay's birth, then?" "Oh, yes, sir; long before. Just before his marriage, Mr. Holladay bought the Fifth Avenue house he lived in ever since, and I was employed, then, sir, as an under-servant." "Mr. Holladay and his wife were very happy together, weren't they?" I questioned. "Very happy; yes, sir. They were just like lovers, sir, until her death.
"May I have one word with you, sir?" asked Mr. Royce. "Certainly." "I should like to see Miss Holladay a few moments in private. We wish, of course, to arrange our rebuttal." The coroner looked at him for a moment with eyes in which just a tinge of curiosity flickered. "I'll be very glad to allow you to see her in private," he answered readily.
"I haven't any explanation," I said helplessly. "I've built up half a dozen theories, but they've all been knocked to pieces, one after the other. I don't know what to think, unless Miss Holladay is a victim of hypnotism or dementia of some kind, and that seems absurd." "Sometimes she's nice and at other times she's horrid. It recalls 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, doesn't it?"
Yet, how complete it was! The only point we had gained, so far, was that the mysterious visitor had asked for Mr. Holladay, not for her father and what an infinitesimal point it was! Supposing there had been a quarrel, an estrangement, would not she naturally have used those very words?
Yes, I could doubt no longer that there was a plot, whose depths I had not before even suspected; and I drew back from the thought with a little shiver. What was the plot? What intricate, dreadful crime was this which he was planning? The murder of the father, then, had been only the first step. The abduction of Frances Holladay was the second. What would the third be?
"At the best, it's a delicate case," I pointed out. "Miss Holladay has plainly laid her plans very carefully to prevent us following her. It may be difficult to prove that she has not gone away entirely of her own accord. She certainly has a perfect right to go wherever she wishes without consulting us. Have we the right to follow her against her evident desire?" For a moment Mr.
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