The Breaking Point - Page 218/275

A. "Only where I am employed. I am now living at the Clark ranch."

Q. "What is your business?"

A. "I am Mr. Clark's valet."

Q. "It was you who found Mr. Clark's revolver?"

A. "Yes."

Q. "Tell about how and where you found it."

A. "I made a search early in the evening. I will not hide from you that

I meant to conceal it if I discovered it. A man who is drunk is not

guilty of what he does. I did not find it. I went back that night, when

the people had gone, and found it beneath the carved woodbox, by the

fireplace. I did not know that the sheriff had placed a man outside the

window."

"Get that, too," Bassett said, putting down the paper. "The Frenchman

was fond of you, and he was doing his blundering best. But the sheriff

expected you back and had had the place watched, so they caught him. But

that's not the point. A billiard room is a hard place to hide things in.

I take it yours was like the average."

Dick nodded.

"All right. This poor boob of a valet made a search and didn't find it.

Later he found it. Why did he search? Wasn't it the likely thing that

you'd carried it away with you? Do you suppose for a moment that with

Donaldson and the woman in the room you hid it there, and then went back

and stood behind the roulette table, leaning on it with both hands, and

staring? Not at all. Listen to this: Q. "You recognize this revolver as the one you found?"

A. "Yes."

Q. "You are familiar with it?"

A. "Yes. It is Mr. Clark's."

Q. "You made the second search because you had not examined the woodbox

earlier?"

A. "No. I had examined the woodbox. I had a theory that--"

Q. "The Jury cannot listen to any theories. This is an inquiry into

facts."

"I'm going to find Melis," the reporter said thoughtfully, as he folded

up the papers. "The fact is, I mailed an advertisement to the New York

papers to-day. I want to get that theory of his. It's the servants in

the house who know what is going on. I've got an idea that he'd stumbled

onto something. He'd searched for the revolver, and it wasn't there.

He went back and it was. All that conflicting evidence, and against it,

what? That you'd run away!"