VI
For some time after Oakes had gone, Mr. Snyder sat smoking and
thinking, in embittered meditation. Suddenly there was brought the card
of Mrs. Pickett, who would be grateful if he could spare her a few
moments. Mr. Snyder was glad to see Mrs. Pickett. He was a student of
character, and she had interested him at their first meeting. There was
something about her which had seemed to him unique, and he welcomed
this second chance of studying her at close range.
She came in and sat down stiffly, balancing herself on the extreme edge
of the chair in which a short while before young Oakes had lounged so
luxuriously.
"How are you, Mrs. Pickett?" said Mr. Snyder genially. "I'm very glad
that you could find time to pay me a visit. Well, so it wasn't murder
after all."
"Sir?"
"I've just been talking to Mr. Oakes, whom you met as James Burton,"
said the detective. "He has told me all about it."
"He told _me_ all about it," said Mrs. Pickett dryly.
Mr. Snyder looked at her inquiringly. Her manner seemed more suggestive
than her words.
"A conceited, headstrong young fool," said Mrs. Pickett.
It was no new picture of his assistant that she had drawn. Mr. Snyder
had often drawn it himself, but at the present juncture it surprised
him. Oakes, in his hour of triumph, surely did not deserve this
sweeping condemnation.
"Did not Mr. Oakes' solution of the mystery satisfy you, Mrs. Pickett?"
"No!"
"It struck me as logical and convincing," Mr. Snyder said.
"You may call it all the fancy names you please, Mr. Snyder. But Mr.
Oakes' solution was not the right one."
"Have you an alternative to offer?"
Mrs. Pickett tightened her lips.
"If you have, I should like to hear it."
"You will--at the proper time."
"What makes you so certain that Mr. Oakes is wrong?"
"He starts out with an impossible explanation, and rests his whole case
on it. There couldn't have been a snake in that room because it
couldn't have gotten out. The window was too high."
"But surely the evidence of the dead dog?"
Mrs. Pickett looked at him as if he had disappointed her. "I had always
heard _you_ spoken of as a man with common sense, Mr. Snyder."
"I have always tried to use common sense."
"Then why are you trying now to make yourself believe that something
happened which could not possibly have happened just because it fits in
with something which isn't easy to explain?"
"You mean that there is another explanation of the dead dog?" Mr.
Snyder asked.
"Not _another_. What Mr. Oakes takes for granted is not an
explanation. But there is a common sense explanation, and if he had not
been so headstrong and conceited he might have found it."
"You speak as if you had found it," chided Mr. Snyder.
"I have." Mrs. Pickett leaned forward as she spoke, and stared at him
defiantly.
Mr. Snyder started. "_You_ have?"
"Yes."
"What is it?"
"You will know before tomorrow. In the meantime try and think it out
for yourself. A successful and prosperous detective agency like yours,
Mr. Snyder, ought to do something in return for a fee."
There was something in her manner so reminiscent of the school teacher
reprimanding a recalcitrant pupil that Mr. Snyder's sense of humor came
to his rescue. "We do our best, Mrs. Pickett," he said. "But you
mustn't forget that we are only human and cannot guarantee results."
Mrs. Pickett did not pursue the subject. Instead, she proceeded to
astonish Mr. Snyder by asking him to swear out a warrant for the arrest
of a man known to them both on a charge of murder.
Mr. Snyder's breath was not often taken away in his own office. As a
rule, he received his clients' communications calmly, strange as they
often were. But at her words he gasped. The thought crossed his mind
that Mrs. Pickett might well be mentally unbalanced. The details of the
case were fresh in his memory, and he distinctly recollected that the
person she mentioned had been away from the boarding house on the night
of Captain Gunner's death, and could, he imagined, produce witnesses to
prove it.
Mrs. Pickett was regarding him with an unfaltering stare. To all
outward appearances, she was the opposite of unbalanced.
"But you can't swear out a warrant without evidence," he told her.
"I have evidence," she replied firmly.
"Precisely what kind of evidence?" he demanded.
"If I told you now you would think that I was out of my mind."
"But, Mrs. Pickett, do you realize what you are asking me to do? I
cannot make this agency responsible for the arbitrary arrest of a man
on the strength of a single individual's suspicions. It might ruin me.
At the least it would make me a laughing stock."
"Mr. Snyder, you may use your own judgment whether or not to make the
arrest on that warrant. You will listen to what I have to say, and you
will see for yourself how the crime was committed. If after that you
feel that you cannot make the arrest I will accept your decision. I
know who killed Captain Gunner," she said. "I knew it from the
beginning. It was like a vision. But I had no proof. Now things have
come to light and everything is clear."
Against his judgment, Mr. Snyder was impressed. This woman had the
magnetism which makes for persuasiveness.
"It--it sounds incredible." Even as he spoke, he remembered that it had
long been a professional maxim of his that nothing was incredible, and
he weakened still further.
"Mr. Snyder, I ask you to swear out that warrant."
The detective gave in. "Very well," he said.
Mrs. Pickett rose. "If you will come and dine at my house to-night I
think I can prove to you that it will be needed. Will you come?"
"I'll come," promised Mr. Snyder.
