possessed the complete confidence of Florence Lloyd. Surely she
was a wonderful creature, and as I again allowed myself to gaze
on her beautiful face I was equally convinced of the possibility
of her committing a crime and the improbability of her doing so.

Near these two sat a young man who, I was told, was Gregory Hall,
the secretary. He had been reached by telephone, and had come
out from New York, arriving shortly after I had left the Crawford
house.

Mr. Hall was what may be termed the average type of young
American citizens. He was fairly good-looking, fairly
well-groomed, and so far as I could judge from his demeanor,
fairly well-bred. His dark hair was commonplace, and parted on
the side, while his small, carefully arranged mustache was
commonplace also. He looked exactly what he was, the trusted
secretary of a financial magnate, and he seemed to me a man whose
dress, manner, and speech would always be made appropriate to the
occasion or situation. In fact, so thoroughly did he exhibit
just such a demeanor as suited a confidential secretary at the
inquest of his murdered employer, that I involuntarily thought
what a fine undertaker he would have made. For, in my
experience, no class of men so perfectly adapt themselves to
varying atmospheres as undertakers.

Philip Crawford and his son, an athletic looking young chap, were
also in this group. Young Crawford inherited to a degree the
fine appearance of his father and uncle, and bade fair to become
the same kind of a first-class American citizen as they.