The Final Test.
Men are born with two eyes, but with one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say.
Colton.
THE fact was, he wanted to think. Detective though he was and accustomed to the bravado with which every sort of criminal will turn to meet their fate when fully driven to bay, there had been something in the final manner of this desperate but evidently cultured gentleman, which had impressed him against his own will, and made him question whether the suspected man was not rather the victim of a series of extraordinary circumstances, than the selfish and brutal criminal which the evidence given seemed to suggest.
Not that Mr. Byrd ever allowed his generous heart to blind him to the plain language of facts. His secret and not to be smothered doubts in another direction were proof enough of this; and had it not been for those very doubts, the probabilities are that he would have agreed with the cooler-headed portion of the crowd, which listened unmoved to that last indignant burst of desperate manhood.
But with those doubts still holding possession of his mind, he could not feel so sure of Mr. Hildreth’s guilt; and the struggle that was likely to ensue between his personal feelings on the one side and his sense of duty on the other did not promise to be so light as to make it possible for him to remain within eye and earshot of an unsympathetic crowd.
“If only the superintendent had not left it to my judgment to interfere,” thought he, pacing the streets with ever-increasing uneasiness, “the responsibility would have been shifted from my shoulders, and I would have left the young man to his fate in peace. But now I would be criminally at fault if I were to let him drift hopelessly to his doom, when by a lift of my finger I might possibly turn the attention of justice toward the real culprit.”
Yet the making up of his mind to interfere was a torture to Horace Byrd. If he was not conscious of any love for Imogene Dare, he was sufficiently under the dominion of her extraordinary fascinations to feel that any movement on his part toward the unravelling of the mystery that enveloped her, would be like subjecting his own self to the rack of public inquiry and suspicion.
Nor, though he walked the streets for hours, each moment growing more and more settled in his conviction of Mr. Hildreth’s innocence, could he bring himself to the point of embracing the duty presented to him, till he had subjected Miss Dare to a new test, and won for himself absolute certainty as to the fact of her possessing a clue to the crime, which had not been discovered in the coroner’s inquiry.
“The possibility of innocence on her part is even greater than on that of Mr. Hildreth,” he considered, “and nothing, not even the peril of those dearest to me, could justify me in shifting the weight of suspicion from a guiltless man to an equally guiltless woman.”
It was, therefore, for the purpose of solving this doubt, that he finally sought Mr. Ferris, and after learning that Mr. Hildreth was under surveillance, and would in all probability be subjected to arrest on the morrow, asked for some errand that would take him to Mr. Orcutt’s house.
“I have a great admiration for that gentleman and would like to make his acquaintance,” he remarked carelessly, hiding his true purpose under his usual nonchalant tones. “But I do not want to seem to be pushing myself forward; so if you could give me some papers to carry to him, or some message requiring an introduction to his presence, I should feel very much obliged.”
Mr. Ferris, who had no suspicions of his own to assist him in understanding the motives that led to this request, easily provided the detective with the errand he sought. Mr. Byrd at once started for the lawyer’s house.
It was fully two miles away, but once arrived there, he was thankful that the walk had been so long, as the fatigue, following upon the activity of the afternoon, had succeeded in quieting his pulses and calming down the fierce excitement which had held him under its control ever since he had taken the determination to satisfy his doubts by an interview with Miss Dare.
Ringing the bell of the rambling old mansion that spread out its wide extensions through the vines and bushes of an old-fashioned and most luxuriant garden, he waited the issue with beating heart. A respectable-looking negro servant came to the door.
“Is Mr. Orcutt in?” he asked; “or, if not, Miss Dare? I have a message from Mr. Ferris and would be glad to see one of them.”
This, in order to ascertain at a word if the lady was at home.
“Miss Dare is not in,” was the civil response, “and Mr. Orcutt is very busily engaged; but if you will step into the parlor I will tell him you are here.”
“No,” returned the disappointed detective, handing her the note he held in his hand. “If your master is busy I will not disturb him.” And, turning away, he went slowly down the steps.
“If I only knew where she was gone!” he muttered, bitterly.
But he did not consider himself in a position to ask.
Inwardly chafing over his ill-luck, Mr. Byrd proceeded with reluctant pace to regain the street, when, hearing the gate suddenly click, he looked up, and saw advancing toward him a young gentleman of a peculiarly spruce and elegant appearance.
“Ha! another visitor for Miss Dare,” was the detective’s natural inference. And with a sudden movement he withdrew from the path, and paused as if to light his cigar in the shadow of the thick bushes that grew against the house.
In an instant the young stranger was on the stoop. Another, and he had rung the bell, which was answered almost as soon as his hand dropped from the knob.
“Is Miss Dare in?” was the inquiry, uttered in loud and cheery tones.
“No, sir. She is spending a few days with Miss Tremaine,” was the clear and satisfactory reply. “Shall I tell her you have been here?”
“No. I will call myself at Miss Tremaine’s,” rejoined the gentleman. And, with a gay swing of his cane and a cheerful look overhead where the stars were already becoming visible, he sauntered easily off, followed by the envious thoughts of Mr. Byrd.
“Miss Tremaine,” repeated the latter, musingly. “Who knows Miss Tremaine?”
While he was asking himself this question, the voice of the young man rose melodiously in a scrap of old song, and instantly Mr. Byrd recognized in the seeming stranger the well-known tenor singer of the church he had himself attended the Sunday before — a gentleman, too, to whom he had been introduced by Mr. Ferris, and with whom he had exchanged something more than the passing civilities of the moment.
To increase his pace, overtake the young man, recall himself to his attention, and join him in his quick walk down the street, was the work of a moment. The natural sequence followed. Mr. Byrd made himself so agreeable that by the time they arrived at Miss Tremaine’s the other felt loath to part with him, and it resulted in his being urged to join this chance acquaintance in his call.
Nothing could have pleased Mr. Byrd better. So, waiving for once his instinctive objection to any sort of personal intrusion, he signified his acquiescence to the proposal, and at once accompanied his new friend into the house of the unknown Miss Tremaine. He found it lit up as for guests. All the rooms on the ground floor were open, and in one of them he could discern a dashing and coquettish young miss holding court over a cluster of eager swains.
“Ah, I forgot,” exclaimed Mr. Byrd’s companion, whose name, by-the-way, was Duryea. “It is Miss Tremaine’s reception night. She is the daughter of one of the professors of the High School,” he went on, whispering his somewhat late explanations into the ear of Mr. Byrd. “Every Thursday evening she throws her house open for callers, and the youth of the academy are only too eager to avail themselves of the opportunity of coming here. Well, it is all the better for us. Miss Dare despises boys, and in all likelihood we shall have her entirely to ourselves.”
A quick pang contracted the breast of Mr. Byrd. If this easy, almost rakish, fellow at his side but knew the hideous errand which brought him to this house, what a scene would have ensued!
But he had no time for reflection, or even for that irresistible shrinking from his own designs which he now began to experience. Before he realized that he was fully committed to this venture, he found himself in the parlor bowing before the na?ve and laughing-eyed Miss Tremaine, who rose to receive him with all the airy graciousness of a finished coquette.
Miss Dare was not visible, and Mr. Byrd was just wondering if he would be called upon to enter into a sustained conversation with his pretty hostess, when a deep, rich voice was heard in the adjoining room, and, looking up, he saw the stately figure he so longed and yet dreaded to encounter, advancing toward them through the open door. She was very pale, and, to Mr. Byrd’s eyes, looked thoroughly worn out, if not ill. Yet, she bore herself with a steadiness that was evidently the result of her will; and manifested neither reluctance nor impatience when the eager Mr. Duryea pressed forward with his compliments, though from the fixedness of her gaze and the immobility of her lip, Mr. Byrd too truly discovered that her thoughts were far away from the scene of mirth and pleasure in which she found herself.
“You see I have presumed to follow you, Miss Dare,” was the greeting with which Mr. Duryea hailed her approach. And he immediately became so engrossed with his gallantries he forgot to introduce his companion.
Mr. Byrd was rather relieved at this. He was not yet ready to submit her to the test he considered necessary to a proper understanding of the situation; and he had not the heart to approach her with any mere civility on his tongue, while matters of such vital importance to her happiness, if not to her honor, trembled in the balance.
He preferred to talk to Miss Tremaine, and this he continued to do till the young fellows at his side, one by one, edged away, leaving no one in that portion of the room but himself and Miss Tremaine, Mr. Duryea and Miss Dare.
The latter two stood together some few feet behind him, and were discussing in a somewhat languid way, the merits of a musicale which they had lately attended. They were approaching, however, and he felt that if he did not speak at once he might not have another opportunity for doing so during the whole evening. Turning, therefore, to Miss Tremaine, with more seriousness than her gay and totally inconsequent conversation had hitherto allowed, he asked, in what he meant to be a simply colloquial and courteous manner, if she had heard the news.
“News,” she repeated, “no; is there any news?”
“Yes, I call it news. But, perhaps, you are not interested in the murder that has lately taken place in this town?”
“Oh, yes, I am,” she exclaimed, all eagerness at once, while he felt rather than perceived that the couple at his back stood suddenly still, as if his words had worked their spell over one heart there at least. “Papa knew Mrs. Clemmens very well,” the little lady proceeded with a bewitchingly earnest look. “Have they found the murderer, do you think? Any thing less than that would be no news to me.”
“There is every reason to suppose ——” he began, and stopped, something in the deadly silence behind him making it impossible for him to proceed. Happily he was not obliged to. An interruption occurred in the shape of a new-comer, and he was left with the fatal word on his lips to await the approach of that severely measured step behind him, which by this time he knew was bringing the inscrutable Miss Dare to his side.
“Miss Dare, allow me to present to you Mr. Byrd. Mr. Byrd, Miss Dare.”
The young detective bowed. With rigid attention to the forms of etiquette, he uttered the first few acknowledgments necessary to the occasion, and then glanced up.
She was looking him full in the face.
“We have met before,” he was about to observe, but not detecting the least sign of recognition in her gaze, restrained the words and hastily dropped his eyes.
“Mr. Duryea informs me you are a stranger in the town,” she remarked, moving slowly to one side in a way to rid herself of that gentleman’s too immediate presence. “Have you a liking for the place, or do you meditate any lengthy stay?”
“No. That is,” he rejoined, somewhat shaken in his theories by the self-possession of her tone and the ease and quietness with which she evidently prepared to enter into a sustained conversation, “I may go away to-morrow, and I may linger on for an indefinite length of time. It all depends upon certain matters that will be determined for me to-night. Sibley is a very pretty place,” he observed, startled at his own temerity in venturing the last remark.
“Yes.”
The word came as if forced, and she looked at Mr. Duryea.
“Do you wish any thing, Miss Dare?” that gentleman suddenly asked. “You do not look well.”
“I am not well,” she acknowledged. “No, thank you,” she cried, as he pushed a chair toward her. “It is too warm here. If you do not object, we will go into the other room.” And with a courteous glance that included both gentlemen in its invitation, she led the way into the adjoining apartment. Could it have been with the purpose of ridding herself of the assiduities of Mr. Duryea? The room contained half a dozen or more musical people, and no sooner did they perceive their favorite tenor approach than they seized upon him and, without listening to his excuses, carried him off to the piano, leaving Miss Dare alone with Mr. Byrd.
She seemed instantly to forget her indisposition. Drawing herself up till every queenly attribute she possessed flashed brilliantly before his eyes, she asked, with sudden determination, if she had been right in understanding him to say that there was news in regard to the murder of Mrs. Clemmens?
Subduing, by a strong inward effort, every token of the emotion which her own introduction of this topic naturally evoked, he replied in his easiest tones:
“Yes; there was an inquest held to-day, and the authorities evidently think they have discovered the person who killed her.” And obliging himself to meet half-way the fate that awaited him, he bestowed upon the lady before him a casual glance that hid beneath its easy politeness the greatest anxiety of his life.
The test worked well. From the pallor of sickness, grief, or apprehension, her complexion whitened to the deadlier hue of mortal terror.
“Impossible!” her lips seemed to breathe; and Mr. Byrd could almost fancy he saw the hair rise on her forehead.
Cursing in his heart the bitter necessity that had forced him into this duty, he was about to address her in a way calculated to break the spell occasioned by his last words, when the rich and tuneful voice of the melodious singer rose suddenly on the air, and they heard the words:
“Come rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer,
Though the herd have fled from thee, thy home is still here;
Here still is the smile that no cloud can o’ercast,
And a heart and a hand all thy own to the last.”
Instantly Mr. Byrd perceived that he should not be obliged to speak. Though the music, or possibly the words, struck her like a blow, it likewise served to recall her to herself. Dropping her gaze, which had remained fixed upon his own, she turned her face aside, saying with forced composure:
“This near contact with crime is dreadful.” Then slowly, and with a quietness that showed how great was her power of self-control when she was not under the influence of surprise, she inquired: “And who do they think this person is? What name do they presume to associate with the murderer of this woman?”
With something of the feeling of a surgeon who nerves himself to bury the steel in his patient’s quivering flesh, he gave his response unhesitatingly.
“A gentleman’s, I believe. A young man connected with her, in some strange way, by financial interests. A Mr. Hildreth, of Toledo — Gouverneur Hildreth, I think they call him.”
It was not the name she expected. He saw this by the relaxation that took place in all her features, by the look of almost painful relief that flashed for a moment into the eyes she turned like lightning upon him.
“Gouverneur Hildreth!” she repeated. And he knew from the tone that it was not only a different name from what she anticipated, but that it was also a strange one to her. “I never heard of such a person,” she went on after a minute, during which the relentless mellow voice of the unconscious singer filled the room with the passionate appeal:
“Oh, what was love made for, if ‘t is not the same,
Through joy and through sorrow, through glory and shame!”
“That is not strange,” explained Mr. Byrd, drawing nearer, as if to escape that pursuing sweetness of incongruous song. “He is not known in this town. He only came here the morning the unfortunate woman was murdered. Whether he really killed her or not,” he proceeded, with forced quietness, “no one can tell, of course. But the facts are very much against him, and the poor fellow is under arrest.”
“What?”
The word was involuntary. So was the tone of horrified surprise in which it was uttered. But the music, now swelling to a crescendo, drowned both word and tone, or so she seemed to fondly imagine; for, making another effort at self-control, she confined herself to a quiet repetition of his words, “‘Under arrest’?” and then waited with only a suitable display of emotion for whatever further enlightenment he chose to give her.
He mercifully spoke to the point.
“Yes, under arrest. You see he was in the house at or near the time the deadly blow was struck. He was in the front hall, he says, and nowhere near the woman or her unknown assailant, but there is no evidence against any one else, and the facts so far proved, show he had an interest in her death, and so he has to pay the penalty of circumstances. And he may be guilty, who knows,” the young detective pursued, seeing she was struck with horror and dismay, “dreadful as it is to imagine that a gentleman of culture and breeding could be brought to commit such a deed.”
But she seemed to have ears for but one phrase of all this.
“He was in the front hall,” she repeated. “How did he get there? What called him there?”
“He had been visiting the widow, and was on his way out. He paused to collect his thoughts, he said. It seems unaccountable, Miss Dare; but the whole thing is strange and very mysterious.”
She was deaf to his explanations.
“Do you suppose he heard the widow scream?” she asked, tremblingly, “or ——”
A sinking of the ringing tones whose powerful vibration had made this conversation possible, caused her to pause. When the notes grew loud enough again for her to proceed, she seemed to have forgotten the question she was about to propound, and simply inquired:
“Had he any thing to say about what he overheard — or saw?”
“No. If he spoke the truth and stood in the hall as he said, the sounds, if sounds there were, stopped short of the sitting-room door, for he has nothing to say about them.”
A change passed over Miss Dare. She dropped her eyes, and an instant’s pause followed this last acknowledgment.
“Will you tell me,” she inquired, at last, speaking very slowly, in an attempt to infuse into her voice no more than a natural tone of interest, “how it was he came to say he stood in that place during the assault?”
“He did not say he stood in that place during the assault,” was again the forced rejoinder of Mr. Byrd. “It was by means of a nice calculation of time and events, that it was found he must have been in the house at or near the fatal moment.”
Another pause; another bar of that lovely music.
“And he is a gentleman, you say?” was her hurried remark at last.
“Yes, and a very handsome one.”
“And they have put him in prison?”
“Yes, or will on the morrow.”
She turned and leaned against a window-frame near by, looking with eyes that saw nothing into the still vast night.
“I suppose he has friends,” she faintly suggested.
“Two sisters, if no one nearer and dearer.”
“Thou hast called me thy angel in moments of bliss,
And thy angel I ‘ll be, ‘mid the horrors of this —
Through the furnace, unshrinking, thy steps to pursue,
And shield thee, and save thee — or perish there too,”
rang the mellow song.
“I am not well,” she suddenly cried, leaving the window and turning quickly toward Mr. Byrd. “I am much obliged to you,” said she, lowering her voice to a whisper, for the last note of the song was dying away in a quivering pianissimo. “I have been deeply interested in this tragedy, and am thankful for any information in regard to it. I must now bid you good-evening.”
And with a stately bow into which she infused the mingled courtesy and haughtiness of her nature, she walked steadily away through the crowd that vainly sought to stay her, and disappeared, almost without a pause, behind the door that opened into the hall.
Mr. Byrd remained for a full half-hour after that, but he never could tell what he did, or with whom he conversed, or how or when he issued from the house and made his way back to his room in the hotel. He only knew that at midnight he was still walking the floor, and had not yet made up his mind to take the step which his own sense of duty now inexorably demanded.
Decision.
Who dares
To say that he alone has found the truth.
Longfellow.
THE next morning Mr. Ferris was startled by the appearance in his office of Mr. Byrd, looking wretchedly anxious and ill.
“I have come,” said the detective, “to ask you what you think of Mr. Hildreth’s prospects. Have you made up your mind to have him arrested for this crime?”
“Yes,” was the reply. “The evidence against him is purely circumstantial, but it is very strong; and if no fresh developments occur, I think there can be no doubt about my duty. Each and every fact that comes to light only strengthens the case against him. When he came to be examined last night, a ring was found on his person, which he acknowledged to having worn on the day of the murder.”
“He took it off during the inquest,” murmured Mr. Byrd; “I saw him.”
“It is said by Hickory — the somewhat questionable cognomen of your fellow-detective from New York — that the young man manifested the most intense uneasiness during the whole inquiry. That in fact his attention was first drawn to him by the many tokens which he gave of suppressed agitation and alarm. Indeed, Mr. Hickory at one time thought he should be obliged to speak to this stranger in order to prevent a scene. Once Mr. Hildreth got up as if to go, and, indeed, if he had been less hemmed in by the crowd, there is every reason to believe he would have attempted an escape.”
“Is this Hickory a man of good judgment?” inquired Mr. Byrd, anxiously.
“Why, yes, I should say so. He seems to understand his business. The way he procured us the testimony of Mr. Hildreth was certainly satisfactory.”
“I wish that, without his knowing it, I could hear him give his opinion of this matter,” intimated the other.
“Well, you can,” rejoined Mr. Ferris, after a quick and comprehensive survey of Mr. Byrd’s countenance. “I am expecting him here any moment, and if you see fit to sit down behind that screen, you can, without the least difficulty to yourself or him, hear all he has to impart.”
“I will, then,” the detective declared, a gloomy frown suddenly corrugating his brow; and he stepped across to the screen which had been indicated to him, and quietly withdrew from view.
He had scarcely done this, when a short, quick step was heard at the door, and a wide-awake voice called out, cheerily:
“Are you alone, sir?”
“Ah!” ejaculated Mr. Ferris, “come in, come in. I have been awaiting you for some minutes,” he declared, ignoring the look which the man threw hastily around the room. “Any news this morning?”
“No,” returned the other, in a tone of complete self-satisfaction. “We’ve caged the bird and mustn’t expect much more in the way of news. I’m on my way to Albany now, to pick up such facts about him as may be lying around there loose, and shall be ready to start for Toledo any day next week that you may think proper.”
“You are, then, convinced that Mr. Hildreth is undeniably the guilty party in this case?” exclaimed the District Attorney, taking a whiff at his cigar.
“Convinced? That is a strong word, sir. A detective is never convinced,” protested the man. “He leaves that for the judge and jury. But if you ask me if there is any doubt about the direction in which all the circumstantial evidence in this case points, I must retort by asking you for a clue, or the tag-end of a clue, guiding me elsewhere. I know,” he went on, with the volubility of a man whose work is done, and who feels he has the right to a momentary indulgence in conversation, “that it is not an agreeable thing to subject a gentleman like Mr. Hildreth to the shame of a public arrest. But facts are not partial, sir; and the gentleman has no more rights in law than the coarsest fellow that we take up for butchering his mother. But you know all this without my telling you, and I only mention it to excuse any obstinacy I may have manifested on the subject. He is mightily cut up about it,” he again proceeded, as he found Mr. Ferris forebore to reply. “I am told he didn’t sleep a wink all night, but spent his time alternately in pacing the floor like a caged lion, and in a wild sort of stupor that had something of the hint of madness in it. ‘If my grandfather had only known!’ was the burden of his song; and when any one approached him he either told them to keep their eyes off him, or else buried his face in his hands with an entreaty for them not to disturb the last hours of a dying man. He evidently has no hope of escaping the indignity of arrest, and as soon as it was light enough for him to see, he asked for paper and pencil. They were brought him, and a man stood over him while he wrote. It proved to be a letter to his sisters enjoining them to believe in his innocence, and wound up with what was very much like an attempt at a will. Altogether, it looks as if he meditated suicide, and we have been careful to take from him every possible means for his effecting his release in this way, as well as set a strict though secret watch upon him.”
A slight noise took place behind the screen, which at any other time Mr. Hickory would have been the first to notice and inquire into. As it was, it had only the effect of unconsciously severing his train of thought and starting him alertly to his feet.
“Well,” said he, facing the District Attorney with cheerful vivacity, “any orders?”
“No,” responded Mr. Ferris. “A run down to Albany seems to be the best thing for you at present. On your return we will consult again.”
“Very well, sir. I shall not be absent more than two days, and, in the meantime, you will let me know if any thing important occurs?” And, handing over his new address, Hickory speedily took his leave.
“Well, Byrd, what do you think of him?”
For reply, Mr. Byrd stepped forth and took his stand before the District Attorney.
“Has Coroner Tredwell informed you,” said he, “that the superintendent has left it to my discretion to interfere in this matter if I thought that by so doing I could further the ends of justice?”
“Yes,” was the language of the quick, short nod he received.
“Very well,” continued the other, “you will pardon me, then, if I ask you to convey to Mr. Hildreth the following message: That if he is guiltless of this crime he need have no fear of the results of the arrest to which he may be subjected; that a man has interested himself in this matter who pledges his word not to rest till he has discovered the guilty party and freed the innocent from suspicion.”
“What!” cried Mr. Ferris, astonished at the severe but determined bearing of the young man who, up to this time, he had only seen under his lighter and more indifferent aspect. “You don’t agree with this fellow, then, in his conclusions regarding Mr. Hildreth?”
“No, sir. Hickory, as I judge, is an egotist. He discovered Mr. Hildreth and brought him to the notice of the jury, therefore Mr. Hildreth is guilty.”
“And you?”
“I am open to doubt about it. Not that I would acknowledge it to any one but you, sir.”
“Why?”
“Because if I work in this case at all, or make any efforts to follow up the clue which I believe myself to have received, it must be done secretly, and without raising the suspicion of any one in this town. I am not in a position, as you know, to work openly, even if it were advisable to do so, which it certainly is not. What I do must be accomplished under cover, and I ask you to help me in my self-imposed and by no means agreeable task, by trusting me to pursue my inquiries alone, until such time as I assure myself beyond a doubt that my own convictions are just, and that the man who murdered Mrs. Clemmens is some one entirely separated from Mr. Hildreth and any interests that he represents.”
“You are, then, going to take up this case?”
The answer given was short, but it meant the deliberate shivering of the fairest dream of love that had ever visited Mr. Byrd’s imagination.
“I am.”
The Spider.
“Thus far we run before the wind.”
IN the interview which Mr. Byrd had held with Miss Dare he had been conscious of omitting one test which many another man in his place would have made. This was the utterance of the name of him whom he really believed to be the murderer of Mrs. Clemmens. Had he spoken this name, had he allowed himself to breathe the words “Craik Mansell” into the ears of this agitated woman, or even gone so far as to allude in the most careless way to the widow’s nephew, he felt sure his daring would have been rewarded by some expression on her part that would have given him a substantial basis for his theories to rest upon.
But he had too much natural chivalry for this. His feelings as a man got in the way of his instinct as a detective. Nevertheless, he felt positive that his suspicions in regard to this nephew of Mrs. Clemmens were correct, and set about the task of fitting facts to his theory, with all that settled and dogged determination which follows the pursuit of a stern duty unwillingly embraced.
Two points required instant settling.
First, the truth or falsehood of his supposition as to the identification of the person confronted by Miss Dare in the Syracuse depot with the young man described by Miss Firman as the nephew of Widow Clemmens.
Secondly, the existence or non-existence of proof going to show the presence of this person at or near the house of Mrs. Clemmens, during the time of the assault.
But before proceeding to satisfy himself in regard to these essentials, he went again to the widow’s house and there spent an hour in a careful study of its inner and outer arrangements, with a view to the formation of a complete theory as to the manner and method of the murder. He found that in default of believing Mr. Hildreth the assailant, one supposition was positively necessary, and this was that the murderer was in the house when this gentleman came to it. A glance at the diagram on next page will explain why.
The house, as you will see, has but three entrances: the front door, at which Mr. Hildreth unconsciously stood guard; the kitchen door, also unconsciously guarded during the critical moment by the coming and going of the tramp through the yard; and the dining-room door, which, though to all appearance free from the surveillance of any eye, was so situated in reference to the clock at which the widow stood when attacked, that it was manifestly impossible for any one to enter it and cross the room to the hearth without attracting the attention of her eye if not of her ear.
To be sure, there was the bare possibility of his having come in by the kitchen-door, after the departure of the tramp, but such a contingency was scarcely worth considering. The almost certain conclusion was that he had been in the house for some time, and was either in the dining-room when Mrs. Clemmens returned to it from her interview with Mr. Hildreth, or else came down to it from the floor above by means of the staircase that so strangely descended into that very room.
Another point looked equally clear. The escape of the murderer — still in default of considering Mr. Hildreth as such — must have been by means of one of the back doors, and must have been in the direction of the woods. To be sure there was a stretch of uneven and marshy ground to be travelled over before the shelter of the trees could be reached; but a person driven by fear could, at a pinch, travel it in five minutes or less; and a momentary calculation on the part of Mr. Byrd sufficed to show him that more time than this had elapsed from the probable instant of assault to the moment when Mr. Ferris opened the side door and looked out upon the swamp.
The dearth of dwellings on the left-hand side of the street, and, consequently, the comparative immunity from observation which was given to that portion of the house which over-looked the swamp, made him conclude that this outlet from the dining-room had been the one made use of in the murderer’s flight. A glance down the yard to the broken fence that separated the widow’s land from the boggy fields beyond, only tended to increase the probabilities of this supposition, and, alert to gain for himself that full knowledge of the situation necessary to a successful conduct of this mysterious affair, he hastily left the house and started across the swamp, with the idea of penetrating the woods and discovering for himself what opportunity they afforded for concealment or escape.
He had more difficulty in doing this than he expected. The ground about the hillocks was half-sunk in water, and the least slip to one side invariably precipitated him among the brambles that encumbered this spot. Still, he compassed his task in little more than five minutes, arriving at the firm ground, and its sturdy growth of beeches and maples, well covered with mud, but so far thoroughly satisfied with the result of his efforts.
The next thing to be done was to search the woods, not for the purpose of picking up clues — it was too late for that — but to determine what sort of a refuge they afforded, and whether, in the event of a man’s desiring to penetrate them quickly, many impediments would arise in the shape of tangled underground or loose-lying stones.
He found them remarkably clear; so much so, indeed, that he travelled for some distance into their midst before he realized that he had passed beyond their borders. More than this, he came ere long upon something like a path, and, following it, emerged into a sort of glade, where, backed up against a high rock, stood a small and seemingly deserted hut. It was the first object he had met with that in any way suggested the possible presence of man, and advancing to it with cautious steps, he looked into its open door-way. Nothing met his eyes but an empty interior, and without pausing to bestow upon the building a further thought, he hurried on through a path he saw opening beyond it, till he came to the end of the wood.
Stepping forth, he paused in astonishment. Instead of having penetrated the woods in a direct line, he found that he had merely described a half circle through them, and now stood on a highway leading directly back into the town.
Likewise, he was in full sight of the terminus of a line of horse-cars that connected this remote region of Sibley with its business portion, and though distant a good mile from the railway depot, was, to all intents and purposes, as near that means of escape as he would have been in the street in front of Widow Clemmens’ house.
Full of thoughts and inly wondering over the fatality that had confined the attention of the authorities to the approaches afforded by the lane, to the utter exclusion of this more circuitous, but certainly more elusive, road of escape, he entered upon the highway, and proceeded to gain the horse-car he saw standing at the head of the road, a few rods away. As he did so, he for the first time realized just where he was. The elegant villa of Professor Darling rising before him on the ridge that ran along on the right-hand side of the road, made it at once evident that he was on the borders of that choice and aristocratic quarter known as the West Side. It was a new region to him, and, pausing for a moment, he cast his eyes over the scene which lay stretched out before him. He had frequently heard it said that the view commanded by the houses on the ridge was the finest in the town, and he was not disappointed in it. As he looked across the verdant basin of marshy ground around which the road curved like a horseshoe, he could see the city spread out like a map before him. So unobstructed, indeed, was the view he had of its various streets and buildings, that he thought he could even detect, amid the taller and more conspicuous dwellings, the humble walls and newly-shingled roof of the widow’s cottage.
But he could not be sure of this; his eyesight was any thing but trustworthy for long distances, and hurrying forward to the car, he took his seat just as it was about to start.
It carried him straight into town, and came to a standstill not ten feet from the railroad depot. As he left it and betook himself back to his hotel, he gave to his thoughts a distinct though inward expression.
“If,” he mused, “my suppositions in regard to this matter are true, and another man than Mr. Hildreth struck the fatal blow, then I have just travelled over the self-same route he took in his flight.”
But were his suppositions true? It remained for him to determine.
Like — but oh! how different.
Wordsworth.
THE paper mill of Harrison, Goodman & Chamberlain was situated in one of the main thoroughfares of Buffalo. It was a large but otherwise unpretentious building, and gave employment to a vast number of operatives, mostly female.
Some of these latter might have been surprised, and possibly a little fluttered, one evening, at seeing a well-dressed young gentleman standing at the gate as they came forth, gazing with languid interest from one face to another, as if he were on the look-out for some one of their number.
But they would have been yet more astonished could they have seen him still lingering after the last one had passed, watching with unabated patience the opening and shutting of the small side door devoted to the use of the firm, and such employés as had seats in the office. It was Mr. Byrd, and his purpose there at this time of day was to see and review the whole rank and file of the young men employed in the place, in the hope of being able to identify the nephew of Mrs. Clemmens by his supposed resemblance to the person whose character of face and form had been so minutely described to him.
For Mr. Byrd was a just man and a thoughtful one, and knowing this identification to be the key-stone of his lately formed theory, desired it to be complete and of no doubtful character. He accordingly held fast to his position, watching and waiting, seemingly in vain, for the dark, powerful face and the sturdily-built frame of the gentleman whose likeness he had attempted to draw in conjunction with that of Miss Dare. But, though he saw many men of all sorts and kinds issue from one door or another of this vast building, not one of them struck him with that sudden and unmistakable sense of familiarity which he had a right to expect, and he was just beginning to doubt if the whole framework of his elaborately-formed theory was not destined to fall into ruins, when the small door, already alluded to, opened once more, and a couple of gentlemen came out.
The appearance of one of them gave Mr. Byrd a start. He was young, powerfully built, wore a large mustache, and had a complexion of unusual swarthiness. There was character, too, in his face, though not so much as Mr. Byrd had expected to see in the nephew of Mrs. Clemmens. Still, people differ about degrees of expression, and to his informant this face might have appeared strong. He was dressed in a business suit, and was without an overcoat — two facts that made it difficult for Mr. Byrd to get any assistance from the cut and color of his clothes.
But there was enough in the general style and bearing of this person to make Mr. Byrd anxious to know his name. He, therefore, took it upon himself to follow him — a proceeding which brought him to the corner just in time to see the two gentlemen separate, and the especial one in whom he was interested, step into a car.
He succeeded in getting a seat in the same car, and for some blocks had the pleasure of watching the back of the supposed Mansell, as he stood on the front platform with the driver. Then others got in, and the detective’s view was obstructed, and presently — he never could tell how it was — he lost track of the person he was shadowing, and when the chance came for another sight of the driver and platform, the young man was gone.
Annoyed beyond expression, Mr. Byrd went to a hotel, and next day sent to the mill and procured the address of Mr. Mansell. Going to the place named, he found it to be a very respectable boarding-house, and, chancing upon a time when more or less of the rooms were empty, succeeded in procuring for himself an apartment there.
So here he was a fixture in the house supposed by him to hold the murderer of Mrs. Clemmens. When the time for dinner came, and with it an opportunity for settling the vexed question of Mr. Mansell’s identity not only with the man in the Syracuse depot, but with the person who had eluded his pursuit the day before, something of the excitement of the hunter in view of his game seized upon this hitherto imperturbable detective, and it was with difficulty he could sustain his usual r?le of fashionable indifference.
He arrived at the table before any of the other boarders, and presently a goodly array of amiable matrons, old and young gentlemen, and pretty girls came filing into the room, and finally — yes, finally — the gentleman whom he had followed from the mill the day before, and whom he now had no hesitation in fixing upon as Mr. Mansell.
But the satisfaction occasioned by the settlement of this perplexing question was dampened somewhat by a sudden and uneasy sense of being himself at a disadvantage. Why he should feel thus he did not know. Perhaps the almost imperceptible change which took place in that gentleman’s face as their eyes first met, may have caused the unlooked-for sensation; though why Mr. Mansell should change at the sight of one who must have been a perfect stranger to him, was more than Mr. Byrd could understand. It was enough that the latter felt he had made a mistake in not having donned a disguise before entering this house, and that, oppressed by the idea, he withdrew his attention from the man he had come to watch, and fixed it upon more immediate and personal matters.
The meal was half over. Mr. Byrd who, as a stranger of more than ordinary good looks and prepossessing manners, had been placed by the obliging landlady between her own daughter and a lady of doubtful attractions, was endeavoring to improve his advantages and make himself as agreeable as possible to both of his neighbors, when he heard a lady near him say aloud, “You are late, Mr. Mansell,” and, looking up in his amazement, saw entering the door —— Well, in the presence of the real owner of this name, he wondered he ever could have fixed upon the other man as the original of the person that had been described to him. The strong face, the sombre expression, the herculean frame, were unique, and in the comparison which they inevitably called forth, made all other men in the room look dwarfed if not actually commonplace.
Greatly surprised at this new turn of affairs, and satisfied that he at last had before him the man who had confronted Miss Dare in the Syracuse depot, he turned his attention back to the ladies. He, however, took care to keep one ear open on the side of the new-comer, in the hope of gleaning from his style and manner of conversation some notion of his disposition and nature.
But Craik Mansell was at no time a talkative man, and at this especial period of his career was less inclined than ever to enter into the trivial debates or good-natured repartee that was the staple of conversation at Mrs. Hart’s table.
So Mr. Byrd’s wishes in this regard were foiled. He succeeded, however, in assuring himself by a square look, into the other’s face, that to whatever temptation this man may have succumbed, or of whatever crime he may have been guilty, he was by nature neither cold, cruel, nor treacherous, and that the deadly blow, if dealt by him, was the offspring of some sudden impulse or violent ebullition of temper, and was being repented of with every breath he drew.
But this discovery, though it modified Mr. Byrd’s own sense of personal revolt against the man, could not influence him in the discharge of his duty, which was to save another of less interesting and perhaps less valuable traits of character from the consequences of a crime he had never committed. It was, therefore, no more than just, that, upon withdrawing from the table, he should endeavor to put himself in the way of settling that second question, upon whose answer in the affirmative depended the rightful establishment of his secret suspicions.
That was, whether this young man was at or near the house of his aunt at the time when she was assaulted.
Mrs. Hart’s parlors were always thrown open to her boarders in the evening.
There, at any time from seven to ten, you might meet a merry crowd of young people intent upon enjoying themselves, and usually highly successful in their endeavors to do so. Into this throng Mr. Byrd accordingly insinuated himself, and being of the sort to win instant social recognition, soon found he had but to make his choice in order to win for himself that tête-à-tête conversation from which he hoped so much. He consequently surveyed the company with a critical eye, and soon made up his mind as to which lady was the most affable in her manners and the least likely to meet his advances with haughty reserve, and having won an introduction to her, sat down at her side with the stern determination of making her talk about Mr. Mansell.
“You have a very charming company here,” he remarked; “the house seems to be filled with a most cheerful class of people.”
“Yes,” was the not-unlooked-for reply. “We are all merry enough if we except Mr. Mansell. But, of course, there is excuse for him. No one expects him to join in our sports.”
“Mr. Mansell? the gentleman who came in late to supper?” repeated Mr. Byrd, with no suggestion of the secret satisfaction he felt at the immediate success of his scheme.
“Yes, he is in great trouble, you know; is the nephew of the woman who was killed a few days ago at Sibley, don’t you remember? The widow lady who was struck on the head by a man of the name of Hildreth, and who died after uttering something about a ring, supposed by many to be an attempt on her part to describe the murderer?”
“Yes,” was the slow, almost languid, response; “and a dreadful thing, too; quite horrifying in its nature. And so this Mr. Mansell is her nephew?” he suggestively repeated. “Odd! I suppose he has told you all about the affair?”
“He? Mercy! I don’t suppose you could get him to say anything about it to save your life. He isn’t of the talking sort. Besides, I don’t believe he knows any more about it than you or I. He hasn’t been to Sibley.”
“Didn’t he go to the funeral?”
“No; he said he was too ill; and indeed he was shut up one whole day with a terrible sore throat. He is the heir, too, of all her savings, they say; but he won’t go to Sibley. Some folks think it is queer, but I——”
Here her eyes wandered and her almost serious look vanished in a somewhat coquettish smile. Following her gaze with his own, Mr. Byrd perceived a gentleman approaching. It was the one he had first taken for Mr. Mansell.
“Beg pardon,” was the somewhat abrupt salutation with which this person advanced. “But they are proposing a game in the next room, and Miss Clayton’s assistance is considered absolutely indispensable.”
“Mr. Brown, first allow me to make you acquainted with Mr. Byrd,” said the light-hearted damsel, with a gracious inclination. “As you are both strangers, it is well for you to know each other, especially as I expect you to join in our games.”
“Thank you,” protested Mr. Brown, “but I don’t play games.” Then seeing the deep bow of acquiescence which Mr. Byrd was making, added, with what appeared to be a touch of jealousy, “Except under strong provocation,” and holding out his arm, offered to escort the young lady into the next room.
With an apologetic glance at Mr. Byrd, she accepted the attention proffered her, and speedily vanished into the midst of the laughing group that awaited her.
Mr. Byrd found himself alone.
“Check number one,” thought he; and he bestowed any thing but an amiable benediction upon the man who had interrupted him in the midst of so promising a conversation.
His next move was in the direction of the landlady’s daughter, who, being somewhat shy, favored a retired nook behind the piano. They had been neighbors at table, and he could at once address her without fear of seeming obtrusive.
“I do not see here the dark young gentleman whom you call Mr. Mansell?” he remarked, inquiringly.
“Oh, no; he is in trouble. A near relative of his was murdered in cold blood the other day, and under the most aggravating circumstances. Haven’t you heard about it? She was a Mrs. Clemmens, and lived in Sibley. It was in all the papers.”
“Ah, yes; I remember about it very well. And so he is her nephew,” he went on, recklessly repeating himself in his determination to elicit all he could from these young and thoughtless misses. “A peculiar-looking young man; has the air of thoroughly understanding himself.”
“Yes, he is very smart, they say.”
“Does he never talk?”
“Oh, yes; that is, he used to; but, since his aunt’s death, we don’t expect it. He is very much interested in machinery, and has invented something ——”
“Oh, Clara, you are not going to sit here,” interposed the reproachful voice of a saucy-eyed maiden, who at this moment peeped around the corner of the piano. “We want all the recruits we can get,” she cried, with a sudden blush, as she encountered the glance of Mr. Byrd. “Do come, and bring the gentleman too.” And she slipped away to join that very Mr. Brown who, by his importunities, had been the occasion of the former interruption from which Mr. Byrd had suffered.
“That man and I will quarrel yet,” was the mental exclamation with which the detective rose. “Shall we join your friends?” asked he, assuming an unconcern he was far from feeling.
“Yes, if you please,” was the somewhat timid, though evidently pleased, reply.
And Mr. Byrd noted down in his own mind check number two.
The game was a protracted one. Twice did he think to escape from the merry crowd he had entered, and twice did he fail to do so. The indefatigable Brown would not let him slip, and it was only by a positive exertion of his will that he finally succeeded in withdrawing himself.
“I wish to have a word with your mother,” he explained, in reply to the look of protest with which Miss Hart honored his departure. “I hear she retires early; so you will excuse me if I leave somewhat abruptly.”
And to Mrs. Hart’s apartment he at once proceeded, and, by dint of his easy assurance, soon succeeded in leading her, as he had already done the rest, into a discussion of the one topic for which he had an interest. He had not time, however, to glean much from her, for, just as she was making the admission that Mr. Mansell had not been home at the time of the murder, a knock was heard at the door, and, with an affable bow and a short, quick stare of surprise at Mr. Byrd, the ubiquitous Mr. Brown stepped in and took a seat on the sofa, with every appearance of intending to make a call.
At this third check, Mr. Byrd was more than annoyed. Rising, however, with the most amiable courtesy, he bowed his acknowledgments to the landlady, and, without heeding her pressing invitation to remain and make the acquaintance of Mr. Brown, left the room and betook himself back to the parlors.
He was just one minute too late. The last of the boarders had gone up-stairs, and only an empty room met his eyes.
He at once ascended to his own apartment. It was on the fourth floor. There were many other rooms on this floor, and for a moment he could not remember which was his own door. At last, however, he felt sure it was the third one from the stairs, and, going to it, gave a short knock in case of mistake, and, hearing no reply, opened it and went in.
The first glance assured him that his recollection had played him false, and that he was in the wrong room. The second, that he was in that of Mr. Mansell. The sight of the small model of a delicate and intricate machine that stood in full view on a table before him would have been sufficient assurance of this fact, even if the inventor himself had been absent. But he was there. Seated at a table, with his back to the door, and his head bowed forward on his arms, he presented such a picture of misery or despair, that Mr. Byrd felt his sympathies touched in spite of himself, and hastily stumbling backward, was about to confusedly withdraw, when a doubt struck him as to the condition of the deathly, still, and somewhat pallid figure before him, and, stepping hurriedly forward, he spoke the young man’s name, and, failing to elicit a response, laid his hand on his shoulder, with an apology for disturbing him, and an inquiry as to how he felt.
The touch acted where the voice had failed. Leaping from his partly recumbent position, Craik Mansell faced the intruder with indignant inquiry written in every line of his white and determined face.
“To what do I owe this intrusion?” he cried, his nostrils expanding and contracting with an anger that proved the violence of his nature when aroused.
“First, to my carelessness,” responded Mr. Byrd; “and, secondly ——” But there he paused, for the first time in his life, perhaps, absolutely robbed of speech. His eye had fallen upon a picture that the other held clutched in his vigorous right hand. It was a photograph of Imogene Dare, and it was made conspicuous by two heavy black lines which had been relentlessy drawn across the face in the form of a cross. “Secondly,” he went on, after a moment, resolutely tearing his gaze away from this startling and suggestive object, “to my fears. I thought you looked ill, and could not forbear making an effort to reassure myself that all was right.”
“Thank you,” ejaculated the other, in a heavy weariful tone. “I am perfectly well.” And with a short bow he partially turned his back, with a distinct intimation that he desired to be left alone.
Mr. Byrd could not resist this appeal. Glad as he would have been for even a moment’s conversation with this man, he was, perhaps unfortunately, too much of a gentleman to press himself forward against the expressed wishes even of a suspected criminal. He accordingly withdrew to the door, and was about to open it and go out, when it was flung violently forward, and the ever-obtrusive Brown stepped in.
This second intrusion was more than unhappy Mr. Mansell could stand. Striding passionately forward, he met the unblushing Brown at full tilt, and angrily pointing to the door, asked if it was not the custom of gentlemen to knock before entering the room of strangers.
“I beg pardon,” said the other, backing across the threshold, with a profuse display of confusion. “I had no idea of its being a stranger’s room. I thought it was my own. I— I was sure that my door was the third from the stairs. Excuse me, excuse me.” And he bustled noisily out.
This precise reproduction of his own train of thought and action confounded Mr. Byrd.
Turning with a deprecatory glance to the perplexed and angry occupant of the room, he said something about not knowing the person who had just left them; and then, conscious that a further contemplation of the stern and suffering countenance before him would unnerve him for the duty he had to perform, hurriedly withdrew.
A Last Attempt.
When Fortune means to men most good,
She looks upon them with a threatening eye.
King John.
THE sleep of Horace Byrd that night was any thing but refreshing. In the first place, he was troubled about this fellow Brown, whose last impertinence showed he was a man to be watched, and, if possible, understood. Secondly, he was haunted by a vision of the unhappy youth he had just left; seeing, again and again, both in his dreams and in the rush of heated fancies which followed his awaking, that picture of utter despair which the opening of his neighbor’s door had revealed. He could not think of that poor mortal as sleeping. Whether it was the result of his own sympathetic admiration for Miss Dare, or of some subtle clairvoyance bestowed upon him by the darkness and stillness of the hour, he felt assured that the quiet watch he had interrupted by his careless importunity, had been again established, and that if he could tear down the partition separating their two rooms, he should see that bowed form and buried face crouched despairingly above the disfigured picture. The depths of human misery and the maddening passions that underlie all crime had been revealed to him for the first time, perhaps, in all their terrible suggestiveness, and he asked himself over and over as he tossed on his uneasy pillow, if he possessed the needful determination to carry on the scheme he had undertaken, in face of the unreasoning sympathies which the fathomless misery of this young man had aroused. Under the softening influences of the night, he answered, No; but when the sunlight came and the full flush of life with its restless duties and common necessities awoke within him, he decided, Yes.
Mr. Mansell was not at the breakfast-table when Mr. Byrd came down. His duties at the mill were peremptory, and he had already taken his coffee and gone. But Mr. Brown was there, and at sight of him Mr. Byrd’s caution took alarm, and he bestowed upon this intrusive busybody a close and searching scrutiny. It, however, elicited nothing in the way of his own enlightenment beyond the fact that this fellow, total stranger though he seemed, was for some inexplicable reason an enemy to himself or his plans.
Not that Mr. Brown manifested this by any offensive token of dislike or even of mistrust. On the contrary, he was excessively polite, and let slip no opportunity of dragging Mr. Byrd into the conversation. Yet, for all that, a secret influence was already at work against the detective, and he could not attribute it to any other source than the jealous efforts of this man. Miss Hart was actually curt to him, and in the attitude of the various persons about the board he detected a certain reserve which had been entirely absent from their manner the evening before.
But while placing, as he thought, due weight upon this fellow’s animosity, he had no idea to what it would lead, till he went up-stairs. Mrs. Hart, who had hitherto treated him with the utmost cordiality, now called him into the parlor, and told him frankly that she would be obliged to him if he would let her have his room. To be sure, she qualified the seeming harshness of her request by an intimation that a permanent occupant had applied for it, and offered to pay his board at the hotel till he could find a room to suit him in another house; but the fact remained that she was really in a flutter to rid herself of him, and no subterfuge could hide it, and Mr. Byrd, to whose plans the full confidence of those around him was essential, found himself obliged to acquiesce in her desires, and announce at once his willingness to depart.
Instantly she was all smiles, and overwhelmed him with overtures of assistance; but he courteously declined her help, and, flying from her apologies with what speed he could, went immediately to his room. Here he sat down to deliberate.
The facts he had gleaned, despite the interference of his unknown enemy, were three:
First, that Craik Mansell had found excuses for not attending the inquest, or even the funeral, of his murdered aunt.
Secondly, that he had a strong passion for invention, and had even now the model of a machine on hand.
And third, that he was not at home, wherever else he may have been, on the morning of the murder in Sibley.
“A poor and meagre collection of insignificant facts,” thought Mr. Byrd. “Too poor and meagre to avail much in stemming the tide threatening to overwhelm Gouverneur Hildreth.”
But what opportunity remained for making them weightier? He was turned from the house that held the few persons from whom he could hope to glean more complete and satisfactory information, and he did not know where else to seek it unless he went to the mill. And this was an alternative from which he shrank, as it would, in the first place, necessitate a revelation of his real character; and, secondly, make known the fact that Mr. Mansell was under the surveillance of the police, if not in the actual attitude of a suspected man.
A quick and hearty, “Shure, you are very good, sir!” uttered in the hall without roused him from his meditations and turned his thoughts in a new direction. What if he could learn something from the servants? He had not thought of them. This girl, now, whose work constantly carried her into the various rooms on this floor, would, of course, know whether Mr. Mansell had been away on the day of the murder, even if she could not tell the precise time of his return. At all events, it was worth while to test her with a question or two before he left, even if he had to resort to the means of spurring her memory with money. His failure in other directions did not necessitate a failure here.
He accordingly called her in, and showing her a bright silver dollar, asked her if she thought it good enough pay for a short answer to a simple question.
To his great surprise she blushed and drew back, shaking her head and muttering that her mistress didn’t like to have the girls talk to the young men about the house, and finally going off with a determined toss of her frowsy head, that struck Mr. Byrd aghast, and made him believe more than ever that his evil star hung in the ascendant, and that the sooner he quit the house the better.
In ten minutes he was in the street.
But one thing now remained for him to do. He must make the acquaintance of one of the mill-owners, or possibly of an overseer or accountant, and from him learn where Mr. Mansell had been at the time of his aunt’s murder. To this duty he devoted the day; but here also he was met by unexpected difficulties. Though he took pains to disguise himself before proceeding to the mill, all the endeavors which he made to obtain an interview there with any responsible person were utterly fruitless. Whether his ill-luck at the house had followed him to this place he could not tell, but, for some reason or other, there was not one of the gentlemen for whom he inquired but had some excuse for not seeing him; and, worn out at last with repeated disappointments, if not oppressed by the doubtful looks he received from the various subordinates who carried his messages, he left the building, and proceeded to make use of the only means now left him of compassing his end.
This was to visit Mr. Goodman, the one member of the firm who was not at his post that day, and see if from him he could gather the single fact he was in search of.
“Perhaps the atmosphere of distrust with which I am surrounded in this quarter has not reached this gentleman’s house,” thought he. And having learned from the directory where that house was, he proceeded immediately to it.
His reception was by no means cordial. Mr. Goodman had been ill the night before, and was in no mood to see strangers.
“Mansell?” he coolly repeated, in acknowledgment of the other’s inquiry as to whether he had a person of that name in his employ. “Yes, our book-keeper’s name is Mansell. May I ask”— and here Mr. Byrd felt himself subjected to a thorough, if not severe, scrutiny —“why you come to me with inquiries concerning him?”
“Because,” the determined detective responded, adopting at once the bold course, “you can put me in possession of a fact which it eminently befits the cause of justice to know. I am an emissary, sir, from the District Attorney at Sibley, and the point I want settled is, where Mr. Mansell was on the morning of the twenty-sixth of September?”
This was business, and the look that involuntarily leaped into Mr. Goodman’s eye proved that he considered it so. He did not otherwise betray this feeling, however, but turned quite calmly toward a chair, into which he slowly settled himself before replying:
“And why do you not ask the gentleman himself where he was? He probably would be quite ready to tell you.”
The inflection he gave to these words warned Mr. Byrd to be careful. The truth was, Mr. Goodman was Mr. Mansell’s best friend, and as such had his own reasons for not being especially communicative in his regard, to this stranger. The detective vaguely felt this, and immediately changed his manner.
“I have no doubt of that, sir,” he ingenuously answered. “But Mr. Mansell has had so much to distress him lately, that I was desirous of saving him from the unpleasantness which such a question would necessarily cause. It is only a small matter, sir. A person — it is not essential to state whom — has presumed to raise the question among the authorities in Sibley as to whether Mr. Mansell, as heir of poor Mrs. Clemmens’ small property, might not have had some hand in her dreadful death. There was no proof to sustain the assumption, and Mr. Mansell was not even known to have been in the town on or after the day of her murder; but justice, having listened to the aspersion, felt bound to satisfy itself of its falsity; and I was sent here to learn where Mr. Mansell was upon that fatal day. I find he was not in Buffalo. But this does not mean he was in Sibley, and I am sure that, if you will, you can supply me with facts that will lead to a complete and satisfactory alibi for him.”
But the hard caution of the other was not to be moved.
“I am sorry,” said he, “but I can give you no information in regard to Mr. Mansell’s travels. You will have to ask the gentleman himself.”
“You did not send him out on business of your own, then?”
“No.”
“But you knew he was going?”
“Yes.”
“And can tell when he came back?”
“He was in his place on Wednesday.”
The cold, dry nature of these replies convinced Mr. Byrd that something more than the sullen obstinacy of an uncommunicative man lay behind this determined reticence. Looking at Mr. Goodman inquiringly, he calmly remarked:
“You are a friend of Mr. Mansell?”
The answer came quick and coldly:
“He is a constant visitor at my house.”
Mr. Byrd made a respectful bow.
“You can, then, have no doubts of his ability to prove an alibi?”
“I have no doubts concerning Mr. Mansell,” was the stern and uncompromising reply.
Mr. Byrd at once felt he had received his dismissal. But before making up his mind to go, he resolved upon one further effort. Calling to his aid his full power of acting, he slowly shook his head with a thoughtful air, and presently murmured half aloud and half, as it were, to himself:
“I thought, possibly, he might have gone to Washington.” Then, with a casual glance at Mr. Goodman, added: “He is an inventor, I believe?”
“Yes,” was again the laconic response.
“Has he not a machine at present which he desires to bring to the notice of some capitalist?”
“I believe he has,” was the forced and none too amiable answer.
Mr. Byrd at once leaned confidingly forward.
“Don’t you think,” he asked, “that he may have gone to New York to consult with some one about this pet hobby of his? It would certainly be a natural thing for him to do, and if I only knew it was so, I could go back to Sibley with an easy conscience.”
His disinterested air, and the tone of kindly concern which he had adopted, seemed at last to produce its effect on his companion. Relaxing a trifle of his austerity, Mr. Goodman went so far as to admit that Mr. Mansell had told him that business connected with his patent had called him out of town; but beyond this he would allow nothing; and Mr. Byrd, baffled in his attempts to elicit from this man any distinct acknowledgment of Mr. Mansell’s whereabouts at the critical time of Mrs. Clemmens’ death, made a final bow and turned toward the door.
It was only at this moment he discovered that Mr. Goodman and himself had not been alone in the room; that curled up in one of the window-seats was a little girl of some ten or twelve years of age, who at the first tokens of his taking his departure slipped shyly down to the floor and ran before him out into the hall. He found her by the front door when he arrived there. She was standing with her hand on the knob, and presented such a picture of childish eagerness, tempered by childish timidity, that he involuntarily paused before her with a smile. She needed no further encouragement.
“Oh, sir, I know about Mr. Mansell!” she cried. “He wasn’t in that place you talk about, for he wrote a letter to papa just the day before he came back, and the postmark on the envelope was Monteith. I remember, because it was the name of the man who made our big map.” And, looking up with that eager zeal which marks the liking of very little folks for some one favorite person among their grown acquaintances, she added, earnestly: “I do hope you won’t let them say any thing bad about Mr. Mansell, he is so good.”
And without waiting for a reply, she ran off, her curls dancing, her eyes sparkling, all her little innocent form alive with the joy of having done a kindness, as she thought, for her favorite, Mr. Mansell.
Mr. Byrd, on the contrary, felt a strange pang that the information he had sought for so long and vainly should come at last from the lips of an innocent child.
Monteith, as you remember, was the next station to Sibley.
The End of a Tortuous Path.
Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.
Hamlet.
THE arrest of Mr. Hildreth had naturally quieted public suspicion by fixing attention upon a definite point, so that when Mr. Byrd returned to Sibley he found that he could pursue whatever inquiries he chose without awakening the least mistrust that he was on the look-out for the murderer of Mrs. Clemmens.
The first use he made of his time was to find out if Mr. Mansell, or any man answering to his description, had been seen to take the train from the Sibley station on the afternoon or evening of the fatal Tuesday. The result was unequivocal. No such person had been seen there, and no such person was believed to have been at the station at any time during that day. This was his first disappointment.
He next made the acquaintance of the conductors on that line of street-cars by means of which he believed Mr. Mansell to have made his escape. But with no better result. Not one of them remembered having taken up, of late, any passenger from the terminus, of the appearance described by Mr. Byrd.
And this was his second disappointment.
His next duty was obviously to change his plan of action and make the town of Monteith the centre of his inquiries. But he hesitated to do this till he had made one other visit to the woods in whose recesses he still believed the murderer to have plunged immediately upon dealing the fatal blow.
He went by the way of the street railroad, not wishing to be again seen crossing the bog, and arrived at the hut in the centre of the glade without meeting any one or experiencing the least adventure.
This time he went in, but nothing was to be seen save bare logs, a rough hearth where a fire had once been built, and the rudest sort of bench and table; and hurrying forth again, he looked doubtfully up and down the glade in pursuit of some hint to guide him in his future researches.
Suddenly he received one. The thick wall of foliage which at first glance revealed but the two outlets already traversed by him, showed upon close inspection a third path, opening well behind the hut, and leading, as he soon discovered, in an entirely opposite direction from that which had taken him to West Side. Merely stopping to cast one glance at the sun, which was still well overhead, he set out on this new path. It was longer and much more intricate than the other. It led through hollows and up steeps, and finally out into an open blackberry patch, where it seemed to terminate. But a close study of the surrounding bushes, soon disclosed signs of a narrow and thread-like passage curving about a rocky steep. Entering this he presently found himself drawn again into the woods, which he continued to traverse till he came to a road cut through the heart of the forest, for the use of the lumbermen. Here he paused. Should he turn to the right or left? He decided to turn to the right. Keeping in the road, which was rough with stones where it was not marked with the hoofs of both horses and cattle, he walked for some distance. Then he emerged into open space again, and discovered that he was on the hillside overlooking Monteith, and that by a mile or two’s further walk over the highway that was dimly to be descried at the foot of the hill, he would reach the small station devoted to the uses of the quarrymen that worked in this place.
There was no longer any further doubt that this route, and not the other, had been the one taken by Mr. Mansell on that fatal afternoon. But he was determined not to trust any further to mere surmises; so hastening down the hill, he made his way in the direction of the highway, meaning to take the walk alluded to, and learn for himself what passengers had taken the train at this point on the Tuesday afternoon so often mentioned.
But a barrier rose in his way. A stream which he had barely noticed in the quick glance he threw over the landscape from the brow of the hill, separated with quite a formidable width of water the hillside from the road, and it was not till he wandered back for some distance along its banks, that he found a bridge. The time thus lost was considerable, but he did not think of it; and when, after a long and weary tramp, he stepped upon the platform of the small station, he was so eager to learn if he had correctly followed the scent, that he forgot to remark that the road he had taken was any thing but an easy or feasible one for a hasty escape.
The accommodation-trains, which alone stop at this point, had both passed, and he found the station-master at leisure. A single glance into his honest and intelligent face convinced the detective that he had a reliable man to deal with. He at once commenced his questions.
“Do many persons besides the quarrymen take the train at this place?” asked he.
“Not many,” was the short but sufficiently good-natured rejoinder. “I guess I could easily count them on the fingers of one hand,” he laughed.
“You would be apt to notice, then, if a strange gentleman got on board here at any time, would you not?”
“Guess so; not often troubled that way, but sometimes — sometimes.”
“Can you tell me whether a young man of very dark complexion, heavy mustache, and a determined, if not excited, expression, took the cars here for Monteith, say, any day last week?”
“I don’t know,” mused the man. “Dark complexion, you say, large mustache; let me see.”
“No dandy,” Mr. Byrd carefully explained, “but a strong man, who believes in work. He was possibly in a state of somewhat nervous hurry,” he went on, suggestively, “and if he wore an overcoat at all, it was a gray one.”
The face of the man lighted up.
“I seem to remember,” said he. “Did he have a very bright blue eye and a high color?”
Mr. Byrd nodded.
“And did he carry a peculiarly shaped bag, of which he was very careful?”
“I don’t know,” said Mr. Byrd, but remembering the model, added with quick assurance, “I have no doubt he did”; which seemed to satisfy the other, for he at once cried:
“I recollect such a person very well. I noticed him before he got to the station; as soon in fact as he came in sight. He was walking down the highway, and seemed to be thinking about something. He’s of the kind to attract attention. What about him, sir?”
“Nothing. He was in trouble of some kind, and he went from home without saying where he was going; and his friends are anxious about him, that is all. Do you think you could swear to his face if you saw it?”
“I think I could. He was the only stranger that got on to the cars that afternoon.”
“Do you remember, then, the day?”
“Well, no, now, I don’t.”
“But can’t you, if you try? Wasn’t there something done by you that day which will assist your memory?”
Again that slow “Let me see” showed that the man was pondering. Suddenly he slapped his thigh and exclaimed:
“You might be a lawyer’s clerk now, mightn’t you; or, perhaps, a lawyer himself? I do remember that a large load of stone was sent off that day, and a minute’s look at my book —— It was Tuesday,” he presently affirmed.
Mr. Byrd drew a deep breath. There is sadness mixed with the satisfaction of such a triumph.
“I am much obliged to you,” he said, in acknowledgment of the other’s trouble. “The friends of this gentleman will now have little difficulty in tracing him. There is but one thing further I should like to make sure of.”
And taking from his memorandum-book the picture he kept concealed there, he showed him the face of Mr. Mansell, now altered to a perfect likeness, and asked him if he recognized it.
The decided Yes which he received made further questions unnecessary.
Storm.
Oh, my offence is rank, it smells to heav’n:
It hath the primal eldest curse upon ‘t!
Hamlet.
A DAY had passed. Mr. Byrd, who no longer had any reason to doubt that he was upon the trail of the real assailant of the Widow Clemmens, had resolved upon a third visit to the woods, this time with the definite object of picking up any clew, however trifling, in support of the fact that Craik Mansell had passed through the glade behind his aunt’s house.
The sky, when he left the hotel, was one vast field of blue; but by the time he reached the terminus of the car-route, and stepped out upon the road leading to the woods, dark clouds had overcast the sun, and a cool wind replaced the quiet zephyrs which had all day fanned the brilliant autumn foliage.
He did not realize the condition of the atmosphere, however, and proceeded on his way, thinking more of the person he had just perceived issuing from the door-way of Professor Darling’s lofty mansion, than of the low mutterings of distant thunder that now and then disturbed the silence of the woods, or of the ominous, brazen tint which was slowly settling over the huge bank of cloud that filled the northern sky. For that person was Miss Dare, and her presence here, or anywhere near him, at this time, must of necessity, awaken a most painful train of thought.
But, though unmindful of the storm, he was dimly conscious of the darkness that was settling about him. Quicker and quicker grew his pace, and at last he almost broke into a run as the heavy pall of a large black cloud swept up over the zenith, and wiped from the heavens the last remnant of blue sky. One drop fell, then another, then a slow, heavy patter, that bent double the leaves they fell upon, as if a shower of lead had descended upon the heavily writhing forest. The wind had risen, too, and the vast aisles of that clear and beautiful wood thundered with the swaying of boughs, and the crash here and there of an old and falling limb. But the lightning delayed.
The blindest or most abstracted man could be ignorant no longer of what all this turmoil meant. Stopping in the path along which he had been speeding, Mr. Byrd glanced before him and behind, in a momentary calculation of distances, and deciding he could not regain the terminus before the storm burst, pushed on toward the hut.
He reached it just as the first flash of lightning darted down through the heavy darkness, and was about to fling himself against the door, when something — was it the touch of an invisible hand, or the crash of awful thunder which at this instant plowed up the silence of the forest and woke a pandemonium of echoes about his head? — stopped him.
He never knew. He only realized that he shuddered and drew back, with a feeling of great disinclination to enter the low building before him, alone; and that presently taking advantage of another loud crash of falling boughs, he crept around the corner of the hut, and satisfied his doubts by looking into the small, square window opening to the west.
He found there was ample reason for all the hesitation he had felt. A man was sitting there, who, at the first glimpse, appeared to him to be none other than Craik Mansell. But reason soon assured him this could not be, though the shape, the attitude — that old attitude of despair which he remembered so well — was so startlingly like that of the man whose name was uppermost in his thoughts, that he recoiled in spite of himself.
A second flash swept blinding through the wood. Mr. Byrd advanced his head and took another glance at the stranger. It was Mr. Mansell. No other man would sit so quiet and unmoved during the rush and clatter of a terrible storm.
Look! not a hair of his head has stirred, not a movement has taken place in the hands clasped so convulsively beneath his brow. He is an image, a stone, and would not hear though the roof fell in.
Mr. Byrd himself forgot the storm, and only queried what his duty was in this strange and surprising emergency.
But before he could come to any definite conclusion, he was subjected to a new sensation. A stir that was not the result of the wind or the rain had taken place in the forest before him. A something — he could not tell what — was advancing upon him from the path he had himself travelled so short a time before, and its step, if step it were, shook him with a vague apprehension that made him dread to lift his eyes. But he conquered the unmanly instinct, and merely taking the precaution to step somewhat further back from view, looked in the direction of his fears, and saw a tall, firmly-built woman, whose grandly poised head, held high, in defiance of the gale, the lightning, and the rain, proclaimed her to be none other than Imogene Dare.
It was a juxtaposition of mental, moral, and physical forces that almost took Mr. Byrd’s breath away. He had no doubt whom she had come to see, or to what sort of a tryst he was about to be made an unwilling witness. But he could not have moved if the blast then surging through the trees had uprooted the huge pine behind which he had involuntarily drawn at the first impression he had received of her approach. He must watch that white face of hers slowly evolve itself from the surrounding darkness, and he must be present when the dreadful bolt swept down from heaven, if only to see her eyes in the flare of its ghostly flame.
It came while she was crossing the glade. Fierce, blinding, more vivid and searching than at any time before, it flashed down through the cringing boughs, and, like a mantle of fire, enveloped her form, throwing out its every outline, and making of the strong and beautiful face an electric vision which Mr. Byrd was never able to forget.
A sudden swoop of wind followed, flinging her almost to the ground, but Mr. Byrd knew from that moment that neither wind nor lightning, not even the fear of death, would stop this woman if once she was determined upon any course.
Dreading the next few moments inexpressibly, yet forcing himself, as a detective, to remain at his post, though every instinct of his nature rebelled, Mr. Byrd drew himself up against the side of the low hut and listened. Her voice, rising between the mutterings of thunder and the roar of the ceaseless gale, was plainly to be heard.
“Craik Mansell,” said she, in a strained tone, that was not without its severity, “you sent for me, and I am here.”
Ah, this was her mode of greeting, was it? Mr. Byrd felt his breath come easier, and listened for the reply with intensest interest.
But it did not come. The low rumbling of the thunder went on, and the wind howled through the gruesome forest, but the man she had addressed did not speak.
“Craik!” Her voice still came from the door-way, where she had seemingly taken her stand. “Do you not hear me?”
A stifled groan was the sole reply.
She appeared to take one step forward, but no more.
“I can understand,” said she, and Mr. Byrd had no difficulty in hearing her words, though the turmoil overhead was almost deafening, “why the restlessness of despair should drive you into seeking this interview. I have longed to see you too, if only to tell you that I wish heaven’s thunderbolts had fallen upon us both on that day when we sat and talked of our future prospects and ——”
A lurid flash cut short her words. Strange and awesome sounds awoke in the air above, and the next moment a great branch fell crashing down upon the roof of the hut, beating in one corner, and sliding thence heavily to the ground, where it lay with all its quivering leaves uppermost, not two feet from the door-way where this woman stood.
A shriek like that of a lost spirit went up from her lips.
“I thought the vengeance of heaven had fallen!” she gasped. And for a moment not a sound was heard within or without the hut, save that low flutter of the disturbed leaves. “It is not to be,” she then whispered, with a return of her old calmness, that was worse than any shriek. “Murder is not to be avenged thus.” Then, shortly: “A dark and hideous line of blood is drawn between you and me, Craik Mansell. I cannot pass it, and you must not, forever and forever and forever. But that does not hinder me from wishing to help you, and so I ask, in all sincerity, What is it you want me to do for you to-day?”
A response came this time.
“Show me how to escape the consequences of my act,” were his words, uttered in a low and muffled voice.
She did not answer at once.
“Are you threatened?” she inquired at last, in a tone that proved she had drawn one step nearer to the bowed form and hidden face of the person she addressed.
“My conscience threatens me,” was the almost stifled reply.
Again that heavy silence, all the more impressive that the moments before had been so prolific of heaven’s most terrible noises.
“You suffer because another man is forced to endure suspicion for a crime he never committed,” she whisperingly exclaimed.
Only a groan answered her; and the moments grew heavier and heavier, more and more oppressive, though the hitherto accompanying outcries of the forest had ceased, and a faint lightening of the heavy darkness was taking place overhead. Mr. Byrd felt the pressure of the situation so powerfully, he drew near to the window he had hitherto avoided, and looked in. She was standing a foot behind the crouched figure of the man, between whom and herself she had avowed a line of blood to be drawn. As he looked she spoke.
“Craik,” said she, and the deathless yearning of love spoke in her voice at last, “there is but one thing to do. Expiate your guilt by acknowledging it. Save the innocent from unmerited suspicion, and trust to the mercy of God. It is the only advice I can give you. I know no other road to peace. If I did ——” She stopped, choked by the terror of her own thoughts. “Craik,” she murmured, at last, “on the day I hear of your having made this confession, I vow to take an oath of celibacy for life. It is the only recompense I can offer for the misery and sin into which our mutual mad ambitions have plunged you.”
And subduing with a look of inexpressible anguish an evident longing to lay her hand in final caress upon that bended head, she gave him one parting look, and then, with a quick shudder, hurried away, and buried herself amid the darkness of the wet and shivering woods.
A Surprise.
Season your admiration for awhile.
Hamlet.
WHEN all was still again, Mr. Byrd advanced from his place of concealment, and softly entered the hut. Its solitary occupant sat as before, with his head bent down upon his clasped hands. But at the first sound of Mr. Byrd’s approach he rose and turned. The shock of the discovery which followed sent the detective reeling back against the door. The person who faced him with such quiet assurance was not Craik Mansell.
Brace of Detectives.
Hath this fellow no feeling of his business?
Hamlet.
No action, whether foul or fair,
Is ever done, but it leaves somewhere
A record.
Longfellow.
“SO there are two of us! I thought as much when I first set eyes upon your face in Buffalo!”
This exclamation, uttered in a dry and musing tone, woke Mr. Byrd from the stupor into which this astonishing discovery had thrown him. Advancing upon the stranger, who in size, shape, and coloring was almost the fac-simile of the person he had so successfully represented, Mr. Byrd looked him scrutinizingly over.
The man bore the ordeal with equanimity; he even smiled.
“You don’t recognize me, I see.”
Mr. Byrd at once recoiled.
“Ah!” cried he, “you are that Jack-in-the-box, Brown!”
“Alias Frank Hickory, at your service.”
This name, so unexpected, called up a flush of mingled surprise and indignation to Mr. Byrd’s cheek.
“I thought ——” he began.
“Don’t think,” interrupted the other, who, when excited, affected laconicism, “know.” Then, with affability, proceeded, “You are the gentleman ——” he paid that much deference to Mr. Byrd’s air and manner, “who I was told might lend me a helping hand in this Clemmens affair. I didn’t recognize you before, sir. Wouldn’t have stood in your way if I had. Though, to be sure, I did want to see this matter through myself. I thought I had the right. And I’ve done it, too, as you must acknowledge, if you have been present in this terrible place very long.”
This self-satisfied, if not boastful, allusion to a scene in which this strange being had played so unworthy, if not unjustifiable, a part, sent a thrill of revulsion through Mr. Byrd. Drawing hastily back with an instinct of dislike he could not conceal, he cast a glance through the thicket of trees that spread beyond the open door, and pointedly asked:
“Was there no way of satisfying yourself of the guilt of Craik Mansell, except by enacting a farce that may lead to the life-long remorse of the woman out of whose love you have made a trap?”
A slow flush, the first, possibly, that had visited the hardy cheek of this thick-skinned detective for years, crept over the face of Frank Hickory.
“I don’t mean she shall ever know,” he sullenly protested, kicking at the block upon which he had been sitting. “But it was a mean trick,” he frankly enough admitted the next moment. “If I hadn’t been the tough old hickory knot that I am, I couldn’t have done it, I suppose. The storm, too, made it seem a bit trifling. But —— Well, well!” he suddenly interjected, in a more cheerful tone, “’tis too late now for tears and repentance. The thing is done, and can’t be undone. And, at all events, I reckon we are both satisfied now as to who killed Widow Clemmens!”
Mr. Byrd could not resist a slight sarcasm. “I thought you were satisfied in that regard before?” said he. “At least, I understood that at a certain time you were very positive it was Mr. Hildreth.”
“So I was,” the fellow good-naturedly allowed; “so I was. The byways of a crime like this are dreadful dark and uncertain. It isn’t strange that a fellow gets lost sometimes. But I got a jog on my elbow that sent me into the right path,” said he, “as, perhaps, you did too, sir, eh?”
Not replying to this latter insinuation, Mr. Byrd quietly repeated:
“You got a jog on your elbow? When, may I ask?”
“Three days ago, just!” was the emphatic reply.
“And from whom?”
Instead of replying, the man leaned back against the wall of the hut and looked at his interlocutor in silence.
“Are we going to join hands over this business?” he cried, at last, “or are you thinking of pushing your way on alone after you have got from me all that I know?”
The question took Mr. Byrd by surprise.
He had not thought of the future. He was as yet too much disturbed by his memories of the past. To hide his discomfiture, he began to pace the floor, an operation which his thoroughly wet condition certainly made advisable.
“I have no wish to rob you of any glory you may hope to reap from the success of the plot you have carried on here to-day,” he presently declared, with some bitterness; “but if this Craik Mansell is guilty, I suppose it is my duty to help you in the collection of all suitable and proper evidence against him.”
“Then,” said the other, who had been watching him with rather an anxious eye, “let us to work.” And, sitting down on the table, he motioned to Mr. Byrd to take a seat upon the block at his side.
But the latter kept up his walk.
Hickory surveyed him for a moment in silence, then he said:
“You must have something against this young man, or you wouldn’t be here. What is it? What first set you thinking about Craik Mansell?”
Now, this was a question Mr. Byrd could not and would not answer. After what had just passed in the hut, he felt it impossible to mention to this man the name of Imogene Dare in connection with that of the nephew of Mrs. Clemmens. He therefore waived the other’s interrogation and remarked:
“My knowledge was rather the fruit of surmise than fact. I did not believe in the guilt of Gouverneur Hildreth, and so was forced to look about me for some one whom I could conscientiously suspect. I fixed upon this unhappy man in Buffalo; how truly, your own suspicions, unfortunately, reveal.”
“And I had to have my wits started by a horrid old woman,” murmured the evidently abashed Hickory.
“Horrid old woman!” repeated Mr. Byrd. “Not Sally Perkins?”
“Yes. A sweet one, isn’t she?”
Mr. Byrd shuddered.
“Tell me about it,” said he, coming and sitting down in the seat the other had previously indicated to him.
“I will, sir; I will: but first let’s look at the weather. Some folks would think it just as well for you to change that toggery of yours. What do you say to going home first, and talking afterward?”
“I suppose it would be wise,” admitted Mr. Byrd, looking down at his garments, whose decidedly damp condition he had scarcely noticed in his excitement. “And yet I hate to leave this spot till I learn how you came to choose it as the scene of the tragi-comedy you have enacted here to-day, and what position it is likely to occupy in the testimony which you have collected against this young man.”
“Wait, then,” said the bustling fellow, “till I build you the least bit of a fire to warm you. It won’t take but a minute,” he averred, piling together some old sticks that cumbered the hearth, and straightway setting a match to them. “See! isn’t that pleasant? And now, just cast your eye at this!” he continued, drawing a comfortable-looking flask out of his pocket and handing it over to the other with a dry laugh. “Isn’t this pleasant?” And he threw himself down on the floor and stretched out his hands to the blaze, with a gusto which the dreary hour he had undoubtedly passed made perfectly natural, if not excusable.
“I thank you,” said Mr. Byrd; “I didn’t know I was so chilled,” and he, too, enjoyed the warmth. “And, now,” he pursued, after a moment, “go on; let us have the thing out at once.”
But the other was in no hurry. “Very good, sir,” he cried; “but, first, if you don’t mind, suppose you tell me what brought you to this hut to-day?”
“I was on the look-out for clues. In my study of the situation, I decided that the murderer of Mrs. Clemmens escaped, not from the front, but from the back, of the house. Taking the path I imagined him to have trod, I came upon this hut. It naturally attracted my attention, and to-day I came back to examine it more closely in the hope of picking up some signs of his having been here, or at least of having passed through the glade on his way to the deeper woods.”
“And what, if you had succeeded in this, sir? What, if some token of his presence had rewarded your search?”
“I should have completed a chain of proof of which only this one link is lacking. I could have shown how Craik Mansell fled from this place on last Tuesday afternoon, making his way through the woods to the highway, and thence to the Quarry Station at Monteith, where he took the train which carried him back to Buffalo.”
“You could! — show me how?”
Mr. Byrd explained himself more definitely.
Hickory at once rose.
“I guess we can give you the link,” he dryly remarked. “At all events, suppose you just step here and tell me what conclusion you draw from the appearance of this pile of brush.”
Mr. Byrd advanced and looked at a small heap of hemlock that lay in a compact mass in one corner.
“I have not disturbed it,” pursued the other. “It is just as it was when I found it.”
“Looks like a pillow,” declared Mr. Byrd. “Has been used for such, I am sure; for see, the dust in this portion of the floor lies lighter than elsewhere. You can almost detect the outline of a man’s recumbent form,” he went on, slowly, leaning down to examine the floor more closely. “As for the boughs, they have been cut from the tree with a knife, and ——” Lifting up a sprig, he looked at it, then passed it over to Hickory, with a meaning glance that directed attention to one or two short hairs of a dark brown color, that were caught in the rough bark. “He did not even throw his pocket-handkerchief over the heap before lying down,” he observed.
Mr. Hickory smiled. “You’re up in your business, I see.” And drawing his new colleague to the table, he asked him what he saw there.
At first sight Mr. Byrd exclaimed: “Nothing,” but in another moment he picked up an infinitesimal chip from between the rough logs that formed the top of this somewhat rustic piece of furniture, and turning it over in his hand, pronounced it to be a piece of wood from a lead-pencil.
“Here are several of them,” remarked Mr. Hickory, “and what is more, it is easy to tell just the color of the pencil from which they were cut. It was blue.”
“That is so,” assented Mr. Byrd.
“Quarrymen, charcoal-burners, and the like are not much in the habit of sharpening pencils,” suggested Hickory.
“Is the pencil now to be found in the pocket of Mr. Mansell a blue one?”
“It is.”
“Have you any thing more to show me?” asked Mr. Byrd.
“Only this,” responded the other, taking out of his pocket the torn-off corner of a newspaper. “I found this blowing about under the bushes out there,” said he. “Look at it and tell me from what paper it was torn.”
“I don’t know,” said Mr. Byrd; “none that I am acquainted with.”
“You don’t read the Buffalo Courier?”
“Oh, is this ——”
“A corner from the Buffalo Courier? I don’t know, but I mean to find out. If it is, and the date proves to be correct, we won’t have much trouble about the little link, will we?”
Mr. Byrd shook his head and they again crouched down over the fire.
“And, now, what did you learn in Buffalo?” inquired the persistent Hickory.
“Not much,” acknowledged Mr. Byrd. “The man Brown was entirely too ubiquitous to give me my full chance. Neither at the house nor at the mill was I able to glean any thing beyond an admission from the landlady that Mr. Mansell was not at home at the time of his aunt’s murder. I couldn’t even learn where he was on that day, or where he had ostensibly gone? If it had not been for the little girl of Mr. Goodman ——”
“Ah, I had not time to go to that house,” interjected the other, suggestively.
“I should have come home as wise as I went,” continued Mr. Byrd. “She told me that on the day before Mr. Mansell returned, he wrote to her father from Monteith, and that settled my mind in regard to him. It was pure luck, however.”
The other laughed long and loud.
“I didn’t know I did it up so well,” he cried. “I told the landlady you were a detective, or acted like one, and she was very ready to take the alarm, having, as I judge, a motherly liking for her young boarder. Then I took Messrs. Chamberlin and Harrison into my confidence, and having got from them all the information they could give me, told them there was evidently another man on the track of this Mansell, and warned them to keep silence till they heard from the prosecuting attorney in Sibley. But I didn’t know who you were, or, at least, I wasn’t sure; or, as I said before, I shouldn’t have presumed.”
The short, dry laugh with which he ended this explanation had not ceased, when Mr. Byrd observed:
“You have not told me what you gathered in Buffalo.”
“Much,” quoth Hickory, reverting to his favorite laconic mode of speech. “First, that Mansell went from home on Monday, the day before the murder, for the purpose, as he said, of seeing a man in New York about his wonderful invention. Secondly, that he never went to New York, but came back the next evening, bringing his model with him, and looking terribly used up and worried. Thirdly, that to get this invention before the public had been his pet aim and effort for a whole year. That he believed in it as you do in your Bible, and would have given his heart’s blood, if it would have done any good, to start the thing, and prove himself right in his estimate of its value. That the money to do this was all that was lacking, no one believing in him sufficiently to advance him the five thousand dollars considered necessary to build the machine and get it in working order. That, in short, he was a fanatic on the subject, and often said he would be willing to die within the year if he could first prove to the unbelieving capitalists whom he had vainly importuned for assistance, the worth of the discovery he believed himself to have made. Fourthly — but what is it you wish to say, sir?”
“Five thousand dollars is just the amount Widow Clemmens is supposed to leave him,” remarked Mr. Byrd.
“Precisely,” was the short reply.
“And fourthly?” suggested the former.
“Fourthly, he was in the mill on Wednesday morning, where he went about his work as usual, until some one who knew his relation to Mrs. Clemmens looked up from the paper he was reading, and, in pure thoughtlessness, cried, ‘So they have killed your aunt for you, have they?’ A barbarous jest, that caused everybody near him to start in indignation, but which made him recoil as if one of these thunderbolts we have been listening to this afternoon had fallen at his feet. And he didn’t get over it,” Hickory went on. “He had to beg permission to go home. He said the terrible news had made him ill, and indeed he looked sick enough, and continued to look sick enough for days. He had letters from Sibley, and an invitation to attend the inquest and be present at the funeral services, but he refused to go. He was threatened with diphtheria, he declared, and remained away from the mill until the day before yesterday. Some one, I don’t remember who, says he went out of town the very Wednesday he first heard the news; but if so, he could not have been gone long, for he was at home Wednesday night, sick in bed, and threatened, as I have said, with the diphtheria. Fifthly ——”
“Well, fifthly?”
“I am afraid of your criticisms,” laughed the rough detective. “Fifthly is the result of my poking about among Mr. Mansell’s traps.”
“Ah!” frowned the other, with a vivid remembrance of that picture of Miss Dare, with its beauty blotted out by the ominous black lines.
“You are too squeamish for a detective,” the other declared. “Guess you’re kept for the fancy business, eh?”
The look Mr. Byrd gave him was eloquent. “Go on,” said he; “let us hear what lies behind your fifthly.”
“Love,” returned the man. “Locked in the drawer of this young gentleman’s table, I found some half-dozen letters tied with a black ribbon. I knew they were written by a lady, but squeamishness is not a fault of mine, and so I just allowed myself to glance over them. They were from Miss Dare, of course, and they revealed the fact that love, as well as ambition, had been a motive power in determining this Mansell to make a success out of his invention.”
Leaning back, the now self-satisfied detective looked at Mr. Byrd.
“The name of Miss Dare,” he went on, “brings me to the point from which we started. I haven’t yet told you what old Sally Perkins had to say to me.”
“No,” rejoined Mr. Byrd.
“Well,” continued the other, poking with his foot the dying embers of the fire, till it started up into a fresh blaze, “the case against this young fellow wouldn’t be worth very much without that old crone’s testimony, I reckon; but with it I guess we can get along.”
“Let us hear,” said Mr. Byrd.
“The old woman is a wretch,” Hickory suddenly broke out. “She seems to gloat over the fact that a young and beautiful woman is in trouble. She actually trembled with eagerness as she told her story. If I hadn’t been rather anxious myself to hear what she had to say, I could have thrown her out of the window. As it was, I let her go on; duty before pleasure, you see — duty before pleasure.”
“But her story,” persisted Mr. Byrd, letting some of his secret irritation betray itself.
“Well, her story was this: Monday afternoon, the day before the murder, you know, she was up in these very woods hunting for witch-hazel. She had got her arms full and was going home across the bog when she suddenly heard voices. Being of a curious disposition, like myself, I suppose, she stopped, and seeing just before her a young gentleman and lady sitting on an old stump, crouched down in the shadow of a tree, with the harmless intent, no doubt, of amusing herself with their conversation. It was more interesting than she expected, and she really became quite tragic as she related her story to me. I cannot do justice to it myself, and I sha’n’t try. It is enough that the man whom she did not know, and the woman whom she immediately recognized as Miss Dare, were both in a state of great indignation. That he spoke of selfishness and obstinacy on the part of his aunt, and that she, in the place of rebuking him, replied in a way to increase his bitterness, and lead him finally to exclaim: ‘I cannot bear it! To think that with just the advance of the very sum she proposes to give me some day, I could make her fortune and my own, and win you all in one breath! It is enough to drive a man mad to see all that he craves in this world so near his grasp, and yet have nothing, not even hope, to comfort him.’ And at that, it seems, they both rose, and she, who had not answered any thing to this, struck the tree before which they stood, with her bare fist, and murmured a word or so which the old woman couldn’t catch, but which was evidently something to the effect that she wished she knew Mrs. Clemmens; for Mansell — of course it was he — said, in almost the same breath, ‘And if you did know her, what then?’ A question which elicited no reply at first, but which finally led her to say: ‘Oh! I think that, possibly, I might be able to persuade her.’ All this,” the detective went on, “old Sally related with the greatest force; but in regard to what followed, she was not so clear. Probably they interrupted their conversation with some lovers’ by-play, for they stood very near together, and he seemed to be earnestly pleading with her. ‘Do take it,’ old Sally heard him say. ‘I shall feel as if life held some outlook for me, if you only will gratify me in this respect.’ But she answered: ‘No; it is of no use. I am as ambitious as you are, and fate is evidently against us,’ and put his hand back when he endeavored to take hers, but finally yielded so far as to give it to him for a moment, though she immediately snatched it away again, crying: ‘I cannot; you must wait till to-morrow.’ And when he asked: ‘Why to-morrow?’ she answered: ‘A night has been known to change the whole current of a person’s affairs.’ To which he replied: ‘True,’ and looked thoughtful, very thoughtful, as he met her eyes and saw her raise that white hand of hers and strike the tree again with a passionate force that made her fingers bleed. And she was right,” concluded the speaker. “The night, or if not the night, the next twenty-four hours, did make a change, as even old Sally Perkins observed. Widow Clemmens was struck down and Craik Mansell became the possessor of the five thousand dollars he so much wanted in order to win for himself a fortune and a bride.”
Mr. Byrd, who had been sitting with his face turned aside during this long recital, slowly rose to his feet. “Hickory,” said he, and his tone had an edge of suppressed feeling in it that made the other start, “don’t let me ever hear you say, in my presence, that you think this young and beautiful woman was the one to suggest murder to this man, for I won’t hear it. And now,” he continued, more calmly, “tell me why this babbling old wretch did not enliven the inquest with her wonderful tale. It would have been a fine offset to the testimony of Miss Firman.”
“She said she wasn’t fond of coroners and had no wish to draw the attention of twelve of her own townsfolk upon herself. She didn’t mean to commit herself with me,” pursued Hickory, rising also. “She was going to give me a hint of the real state of affairs; or, rather, set me working in the right direction, as this little note which she tucked under the door of my room at the hotel will show. But I was too quick for her, and had her by the arm before she could shuffle down the stairs. It was partly to prove her story was true and not a romance made up for the occasion, that I lured this woman here this afternoon.”
“You are not as bad a fellow as I thought,” Mr. Byrd admitted, after a momentary contemplation of the other’s face. “If I might only know how you managed to effect this interview.”
“Nothing easier. I found in looking over the scraps of paper which Mansell had thrown into the waste-paper basket in Buffalo, the draft of a note which he had written to Miss Dare, under an impulse which he afterward probably regretted. It was a summons to their usual place of tryst at or near this hut, and though unsigned, was of a character, as I thought, to effect its purpose. I just sent it to her, that’s all.”
The nonchalance with which this was said completed Mr. Byrd’s astonishment.
“You are a worthy disciple of Gryce,” he asserted, leading the way to the door.
“Think so?” exclaimed the man, evidently flattered at what he considered a great compliment. “Then shake hands,” he cried, with a frank appeal Mr. Byrd found it hard to resist. “Ah, you don’t want to,” he somewhat ruefully declared. “Will it change your feelings any if I promise to ignore what happened here to-day — my trick with Miss Dare and what she revealed and all that? If it will, I swear I won’t even think of it any more if I can help it. At all events, I won’t tattle about it even to the superintendent. It shall be a secret between you and me, and she won’t know but what it was her lover she talked to, after all.”
“You are willing to do all this?” inquired Mr. Byrd.
“Willing and ready,” cried the man. “I believe in duty to one’s superiors, but duty doesn’t always demand of one to tell every thing he knows. Besides, it won’t be necessary, I imagine. There is enough against this poor fellow without that.”
“I fear so,” ejaculated Mr. Byrd.
“Then it is a bargain?” said Hickory.
“Yes.”
And Mr. Byrd held out his hand.
The rain had now ceased and they prepared to return home. Before leaving the glade, however, Mr. Byrd ran his eye over the other’s person and apparel, and in some wonder inquired:
“How do you fellows ever manage to get up such complete disguises? I declare you look enough like Mr. Mansell in the back to make me doubt even now who I am talking to.”
“Oh,” laughed the other, “it is easy enough. It’s my specialty, you see, and one in which I am thought to excel. But, to tell the truth, I hadn’t much to contend with in this case. In build I am famously like this man, as you must have noticed when you saw us together in Buffalo. Indeed, it was our similarity in this respect that first put the idea of personifying him into my head. My complexion had been darkened already, and, as for such accessories as hair, voice, manner, dress, etc., a five-minutes’ study of my model was sufficient to prime me up in all that — enough, at least, to satisfy the conditions of an interview which did not require me to show my face.”
“But you did not know when you came here that you would not have to show your face,” persisted Mr. Byrd, anxious to understand how this man dared risk his reputation on an undertaking of this kind.
“No, and I did not know that the biggest thunderstorm of the season was going to spring up and lend me its darkness to complete the illusion I had attempted. I only trusted my good fortune — and my wits,” he added, with a droll demureness. “Both had served me before, and both were likely to serve me again. And, say she had detected me in my little game, what then? Women like her don’t babble.”
There was no reply to make to this, and Mr. Byrd’s thoughts being thus carried back to Imogene Dare and the unhappy revelations she had been led to make, he walked on in a dreary silence his companion had sufficient discretion not to break.