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Occasionally Jim would call in Mattison to ask a question concerning some detail of the road, or he would send for Mallory to explain more fully his directions. It was plain that Jim desired to leave nothing to chance, now that the real struggle was on, but to throw all his available resources into the conflict.
I didn't believe it, but just the same it is not a story which you can afford to have even whispered." Radnor raised his head sharply. "Ah, I see!" His eyes wavered a moment and then fixed themselves miserably on my face. "Has has Polly Mathers heard that?" "Yes," I returned, "I fancy she has." He struck the table with a quick flash of anger. "It's a damned lie! And it comes from Jim Mattison."
If you don't mind my asking, Miss Mathers, was that just a bluff on your part, or had Mr. Mattison really asked you?" Polly sat up and eyed him with a sparkle of resentment. "Certainly, he'd asked me a dozen times." "I beg pardon!" murmured Terry. "So now you're engaged to Mr. Mattison?" "Oh, no!" cried Polly. "Jim doesn't know I said it I didn't mean it; I just wanted to make Radnor mad."
"You'll have to trust the details more or less to circumstances," was Jim's reply. "How about the books?" asked Harvey. "What shall we do with them?" "Mattison had better take care of them. We can't bring them to the hotel, and anyhow, it is just as well if you and I, West, don't know anything about them.
"I am sure he is innocent," I replied. "Then you can clear him you're a lawyer. I know you can clear him!" "You may trust me to do my best, Polly." "I hate Jim Mattison!" she exclaimed, with a flash of her old fire. "He swears that Rad is guilty and that he will prove him so. Rad may have done some bad things, but he's a good man better than Jim Mattison ever thought of being."
Patten," said Mattison with a shade of envy in his voice. Terry bowed his thanks and laughed. "As a matter of fact," he returned, "I am not a detective of any sort at least not officially. I merely assume the part once in a while when there seems to be a demand.
I fear that Polly had a good deal of the coquette in her make-up, and she thoroughly enjoyed the jealousy between the two young men. Whenever Radnor by any chance incurred her displeasure, she retaliated by transferring her smiles to Mattison; and the virtuous young sheriff took good care that if Rad committed any slips, Polly should hear of them.
The District Attorney was present; indeed he and the coroner and Jim Mattison were holding a whispered consultation when I entered the room, and I did not doubt but that the three had been working up the case together. The thought was not reassuring; a coroner, with every appearance of fairness, may still bias a jury by the form his questions take.
He was particularly interested in the three-cornered situation concerning Radnor, Polly Mathers, and Jim Mattison, and I was as brief as possible in my replies; I did not care to make Polly the heroine of a Sunday feature article. He was also persistent in regard to Jefferson's past. I told him all I knew, added the story of my own suspicions, and ended by producing the telegram proving his alibi.
The whistle was echoed in the waiting room. In a few moments the door opened and a voice said, "What's up?" "Two chaps want Mallory." Harvey and Mattison still stood on the stone step, looking into the lantern. They could see neither door nor man. After a short wait, evidently for scrutiny, the door closed.
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