Under the Great Tree.
We but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor. This even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips.
Macbeth.
IMOGENE went to her home. Confused, disordered, the prey of a thousand hopes and a thousand fears, she sought for solitude and found it within the four walls of the small room which was now her only refuge.
The two detectives who had followed her to the house — the one in the carriage, the other on foot — met, as the street-door closed upon her retreating form, and consulted together as to their future course.
“Mr. Ferris thinks we ought to keep watch over the house, to make sure she does not leave it again,” announced Mr. Byrd.
“Does he? Well, then, I am the man for that job,” quoth Hickory. “I was on this very same beat last night.”
“Good reason why you should rest and give me a turn at the business,” declared the other.
“Do you want it?”
“I am willing to take it,” said Byrd.
“Well, then, after nine o’clock you shall.”
“Why after nine?”
“Because if she’s bent on skylarking, she’ll leave the house before then,” laughed the other.
“And you want to be here if she goes out?”
“Well, yes, rather!”
They compromised matters by both remaining, Byrd within view of the house and Hickory on a corner within hail. Neither expected much from this effort at surveillance, there seeming to be no good reason why she should venture forth into the streets again that night. But the watchfulness of the true detective mind is unceasing.
Several hours passed. The peace of evening had come at last to the troubled town. In the streets, especially, its gentle influence was felt, and regions which had seethed all day with a restless and impatient throng were fast settling into their usual quiet and solitary condition. A new moon hung in the west, and to Mr. Byrd, pacing the walk in front of Imogene’s door, it seemed as if he had never seen the town look more lovely or less like the abode of violence and crime. All was so quiet, especially in the house opposite him, he was fast becoming convinced that further precautions were needless, and that Imogene had no intention of stirring abroad again, when the window where her light burned suddenly became dark, and he perceived the street door cautiously open, and her tall, vailed figure emerge and pass rapidly up the street. Merely stopping to give the signal to Hickory, he hastened after her with rapid but cautious steps.
She went like one bound on no uncertain errand. Though many of the walks were heavily shaded, and the light of the lamps was not brilliant, she speeded on from corner to corner, threading the business streets with rapidity, and emerging upon the large and handsome avenue that led up toward the eastern district of the town before Hickory could overtake Byrd, and find sufficient breath to ask:
“Where is she bound for? Who lives up this way?”
“I don’t know,” answered Byrd, lowering his voice in the fear of startling her into a knowledge of their presence. “It may be she is going to Miss Tremaine’s; the High School is somewhere in this direction.”
But even as they spoke, the gliding figure before them turned into another street, and before they knew it, they were on the car-track leading out to Somerset Park.
“Ha! I know now,” whispered Hickory. “It is Orcutt she is after.” And pressing the arm of Byrd in his enthusiasm, he speeded after her with renewed zeal.
Byrd, seeing no reason to dispute a fact that was every moment becoming more evident, hurried forward also, and after a long and breathless walk — for she seemed to be urged onward by flying feet — they found themselves within sight of the grand old trees that guarded the entrance to the lawyer’s somewhat spacious grounds.
“What are we going to do now?” asked Byrd, stopping, as they heard the gate click behind her.
“Wait and watch,” said Hickory. “She has not led us this wild-goose chase for nothing.” And leaping the hedge, he began creeping up toward the house, leaving his companion to follow or not, as he saw fit.
Meantime Imogene had passed up the walk and paused before the front door. But a single look at it seemed to satisfy her, for, moving hurriedly away, she flitted around the corner of the house and stopped just before the long windows whose brightly illumined sashes proclaimed that the master of the house was still in his library.
She seemed to feel relieved at this sight. Pausing, she leaned against the frame of a trellis-work near by to gather up her courage or regain her breath before proceeding to make her presence known to the lawyer. As she thus leaned, the peal of the church clock was heard, striking the hour of nine. She started, possibly at finding it so late, and bending forward, looked at the windows before her with an anxious eye that soon caught sight of a small opening left by the curtains having been drawn together by a too hasty or a too careless hand, and recognizing the opportunity it afforded for a glimpse into the room before her, stepped with a light tread upon the piazza and quietly peered within.
The sight she saw never left her memory.
Seated before a deadened fire, she beheld Mr. Orcutt. He was neither writing nor reading, nor, in the true sense of the word, thinking. The papers he had evidently taken from his desk, lay at his side undisturbed, and from one end of the room to the other, solitude, suffering, and despair seemed to fill the atmosphere and weigh upon its dreary occupant, till the single lamp which shone beside him burned dimmer and dimmer, like a life going out or a purpose vanishing in the gloom of a stealthily approaching destiny.
Imogene, who had come to this place thus secretly and at this late hour of the day with the sole intent of procuring the advice of this man concerning the deception which had been practised upon her before the trial, felt her heart die within her as she surveyed this rigid figure and realized all it implied. Though his position was such she could not see his face, there was that in his attitude which bespoke hopelessness and an utter weariness of life, and as ash after ash fell from the grate, she imagined how the gloom deepened on the brow which till this hour had confronted the world with such undeviating courage and confidence.
It was therefore a powerful shock to her when, in another moment, he looked up, and, without moving his body, turned his head slowly around in such a way as to afford her a glimpse of his face. For, in all her memory of it — and she had seen it distorted by many and various emotions during the last few weeks — she had never beheld it wear such a look as now. It gave her a new idea of the man; it filled her with dismay, and sent the life-blood from her cheeks. It fascinated her, as the glimpse of any evil thing fascinates, and held her spell-bound long after he had turned back again to his silent contemplation of the fire and its ever-drifting ashes. It was as if a vail had been rent before her eyes, disclosing to her a living soul writhing in secret struggle with its own worst passions; and horrified at the revelation, more than horrified at the remembrance that it was her own action of the morning which had occasioned this change in one she had long reverenced, if not loved, she sank helplessly upon her knees and pressed her face to the window in a prayer for courage to sustain this new woe and latest, if not heaviest, disappointment.
It came while she was kneeling — came in the breath of the cold night wind, perhaps; for, rising up, she turned her forehead gratefully to the breeze, and drew in long draughts of it before she lifted her hand and knocked upon the window.
The sharp, shrill sound made by her fingers on the pane reassured her as much as it startled him. Gathering up her long cloak, which had fallen apart in her last hurried movement, she waited with growing self-possession for his appearance at the window.
He came almost immediately — came with his usual hasty step and with much of his usual expression on his well-disciplined features. Flinging aside the curtains, he cried impatiently: “Who is there?” But at sight of the tall figure of Imogene standing upright and firm on the piazza without, he drew back with a gesture of dismay, which was almost forbidding in its character.
She saw it, but did not pause. Pushing up the window, she stepped into the room; then, as he did not offer to help her, turned and shut the window behind her and carefully arranged the curtains. He meantime stood watching her with eyes in whose fierce light burned equal love and equal anger.
When all was completed, she faced him. Instantly a cry broke from his lips:
“You here!” he exclaimed, as if her presence were more than he could meet or stand. But in another moment the forlornness of her position seemed to strike him, and he advanced toward her, saying in a voice husky with passion: “Wretched woman, what have you done? Was it not enough that for weeks, months now, you have played with my love and misery as with toys, that you should rise up at the last minute and crush me before the whole world with a story, mad as it is false, of yourself being a criminal and the destroyer of the woman for whose death your miserable lover is being tried? Had you no consideration, no pity, if not for yourself, ruined by this day’s work, for me, who have sacrificed every thing, done every thing the most devoted man or lawyer could do to save this fellow and win you for my wife?”
“Sir,” said she, meeting the burning anger of his look with the coldness of a set despair, as if in the doubt awakened by his changed demeanor she sought to probe his mind for its hidden secret, “I did what any other woman would have done in my place. When we are pushed to the wall we tell the truth.”
“The truth!” Was that his laugh that rang startlingly through the room? “The truth! You told the truth! Imogene, Imogene, is any such farce necessary with me?”
Her lips, which had opened, closed again, and she did not answer for a moment; then she asked:
“How do you know that what I said was not the truth?”
“How do I know?” He paused as if to get his breath. “How do I know?” he repeated, calling up all his self-control to sustain her gaze unmoved. “Do you think I have lost my reason, Imogene, that you put me such a question as that? How do I know you are innocent? Recall your own words and acts since the day we met at Mrs. Clemmens’ house, and tell me how it would be possible for me to think any thing else of you?”
But her purpose did not relax, neither did she falter as she returned:
“Mr. Orcutt, will you tell me what has ever been said by me or what you have ever known me to do that would make it certain I did not commit this crime myself?”
His indignation was too much for his courtesy.
“Imogene,” he commanded, “be silent! I will not listen to any further arguments of this sort. Isn’t it enough that you have destroyed my happiness, that you should seek to sport with my good-sense? I say you are innocent as a babe unborn, not only of the crime itself but of any complicity in it. Every word you have spoken, every action you have taken, since the day of Mrs. Clemmens’ death, proves you to be the victim of a fixed conviction totally at war with the statement you were pleased to make to-day. Only your belief in the guilt of another and your — your ——”
He stopped, choked. The thought of his rival maddened him.
She immediately seized the opportunity to say:
“Mr. Orcutt, I cannot argue about what I have done. It is over and cannot be remedied. It is true I have destroyed myself, but this is no time to think of that. All I can think of or mourn over now is that, by destroying myself, I have not succeeded in saving Craik Mansell.”
If her purpose was to probe the lawyer’s soul for the deadly wound that had turned all his sympathies to gall, she was successful at last. Turning upon her with a look in which despair and anger were strangely mingled, he cried:
“And me, Imogene — have you no thought for me?”
“Sir,” said she, “any thought from one disgraced as I am now, would be an insult to one of your character and position.”
It was true. In the eyes of the world Tremont Orcutt and Imogene Dare henceforth stood as far apart as the poles. Realizing it only too well, he uttered a half-inarticulate exclamation, and trod restlessly to the other end of the room. When he came back, it was with more of the lawyer’s aspect and less of the baffled lover’s.
“Imogene,” he said, “what could have induced you to resort to an expedient so dreadful? Had you lost confidence in me? Had I not told you I would save this man from his threatened fate?”
“You cannot do every thing,” she replied. “There are limits even to a power like yours. I knew that Craik was lost if I gave to the court the testimony which Mr. Ferris expected from me.”
“Ah, then,” he cried, seizing with his usual quickness at the admission which had thus unconsciously, perhaps, slipped from her, “you acknowledge you uttered a perjury to save yourself from making declarations you believed to be hurtful to the prisoner?”
A faint smile crossed her lips, and her whole aspect suddenly changed.
“Yes,” she said; “I have no motive for hiding it from you now. I perjured myself to escape destroying Craik Mansell. I was scarcely the mistress of my own actions. I had suffered so much I was ready to do any thing to save the man I had so relentlessly pushed to his doom. I forgot that God does not prosper a lie.”
The jealous gleam which answered her from the lawyer’s eyes was a revelation.
“You regret, then,” he said, “that you tossed my happiness away with a breath of your perjured lips?”
“I regret I did not tell the truth and trust God.”
At this answer, uttered with the simplicity of a penitent spirit, Mr. Orcutt unconsciously drew back.
“And, may I ask, what has caused this sudden regret?” he inquired, in a tone not far removed from mockery; “the generous action of the prisoner in relieving you from your self-imposed burden of guilt by an acknowledgment that struck at the foundation of the defence I had so carefully prepared?”
“No,” was her short reply; “that could but afford me joy. Of whatever sin he may be guilty, he is at least free from the reproach of accepting deliverance at the expense of a woman. I am sorry I said what I did to-day, because a revelation has since been made to me, which proves I could never have sustained myself in the position I took, and that it was mere suicidal folly in me to attempt to save Craik Mansell by such means.”
“A revelation?”
“Yes.” And, forgetting all else in the purpose which had actuated her in seeking this interview, Imogene drew nearer to the lawyer and earnestly said: “There have been some persons — I have perceived it — who have wondered at my deep conviction of Craik Mansell’s guilt. But the reasons I had justified it. They were great, greater than any one knew, greater even than you knew. His mother — were she living — must have thought as I did, had she been placed beside me and seen what I have seen, and heard what I have heard from the time of Mrs. Clemmens’ death. Not only were all the facts brought against him in the trial known to me, but I saw him — saw him with my own eyes, running from Mrs. Clemmens’ dining-room door at the very time we suppose the murder to have been committed; that is, at five minutes before noon on the fatal day.”
“Impossible!” exclaimed Mr. Orcutt, in his astonishment. “You are playing with my credulity, Imogene.”
But she went on, letting her voice fall in awe of the lawyer’s startled look.
“No,” she persisted; “I was in Professor Darling’s observatory. I was looking through a telescope, which had been pointed toward the town. Mrs. Clemmens was much in my mind at the time, and I took the notion to glance at her house, when I saw what I have described to you. I could not help remembering the time,” she added, “for I had looked at the clock but a moment before.”
“And it was five minutes before noon?” broke again from the lawyer’s lips, in what was almost an awe-struck tone.
Troubled at an astonishment which seemed to partake of the nature of alarm, she silently bowed her head.
“And you were looking at him — actually looking at him — that very moment through a telescope perched a mile or so away?”
“Yes,” she bowed again.
Turning his face aside, Mr. Orcutt walked to the hearth and began kicking the burnt-out logs with his restless foot. As he did so, Imogene heard him mutter between his set teeth:
“It is almost enough to make one believe in a God!”
Struck, horrified, she glided anxiously to his side.
“Do not you believe in a God?” she asked.
He was silent.
Amazed, almost frightened, for she had never heard him breathe a word of scepticism before — though, to be sure, he had never mentioned the name of the Deity in her presence — she stood looking at him like one who had received a blow; then she said:
“I believe in God. It is my punishment that I do. It is He who wills blood for blood; who dooms the guilty to a merited death. Oh, if He only would accept the sacrifice I so willingly offer! — take the life I so little value, and give me in return ——”
“Mansell’s?” completed the lawyer, turning upon her in a burst of fury he no longer had power to suppress. “Is that your cry — always and forever your cry? You drive me too far, Imogene. This mad and senseless passion for a man who no longer loves you ——”
“Spare me!” rose from her trembling lips. “Let me forget that.”
But the great lawyer only laughed.
“You make it worth my while to save you the bitterness of such a remembrance,” he cried. Then, as she remained silent, he changed his tone to one of careless inquiry, and asked:
“Was it to tell this story of the prisoner having fled from his aunt’s house that you came here to-night?”
Recalled to the purpose of the hour, she answered, hurriedly:
“Not entirely; that story was what Mr. Ferris expected me to testify to in court this morning. You see for yourself in what a position it would have put the prisoner.”
“And the revelation you have received?” the lawyer coldly urged.
“Was of a deception that has been practised upon me — a base deception by which I was led to think long ago that Craik Mansell had admitted his guilt and only trusted to the excellence of his defence to escape punishment.”
“I do not understand,” said Mr. Orcutt. “Who could have practised such deception upon you?”
“The detectives,” she murmured; “that rough, heartless fellow they call Hickory.” And, in a burst of indignation, she told how she had been practised upon, and what the results had been upon her belief, if not upon the testimony which grew out of that belief.
The lawyer listened with a strange apathy. What would once have aroused his fiercest indignation and fired him to an exertion of his keenest powers, fell on him now like the tedious repetition of an old and worn-out tale. He scarcely looked up when she was done; and despair — the first, perhaps, she had ever really felt — began to close in around her as she saw how deep a gulf she had dug between this man and herself by the inconsiderate act which had robbed him of all hope of ever making her his wife. Moved by this feeling, she suddenly asked:
“Have you lost all interest in your client, Mr. Orcutt? Have you no wish or hope remaining of seeing him acquitted of this crime?”
“My client,” responded the lawyer, with bitter emphasis, “has taken his case into his own hands. It would be presumptuous in me to attempt any thing further in his favor.”
“Mr. Orcutt!”
“Ah!” he scornfully laughed, with a quick yielding to his passion as startling as it was unexpected, “you thought you could play with me as you would; use my skill and ignore the love that prompted it. You are a clever woman, Imogene, but you went too far when you considered my forbearance unlimited.”
“And you forsake Craik Mansell, in the hour of his extremity?”
“Craik Mansell has forsaken me.”
This was true; for her sake her lover had thrown his defence to the winds and rendered the assistance of his counsel unavailable. Seeing her droop her head abashed, Mr. Orcutt dryly proceeded.
“I do not know what may take place in court to-morrow,” said he. “It is difficult to determine what will be the outcome of so complicated a case. The District Attorney, in consideration of the deception which has been practised upon you, may refuse to prosecute any further; or, if the case goes on and the jury is called upon for a verdict, they may or may not be moved by its peculiar aspects to acquit a man of such generous dispositions. If they are, I shall do nothing to hinder an acquittal; but ask for no more active measures on my part. I cannot plead for the lover of the woman who has disgraced me.”
This decision, from one she had trusted so implicitly, seemed to crush her.
“Ah,” she murmured, “if you did not believe him guilty you would not leave him thus to his fate.”
He gave her a short, side-long glance, half-mocking, half-pitiful.
“If,” she pursued, “you had felt even a passing gleam of doubt, such as came to me when I discovered that he had never really admitted his guilt, you would let no mere mistake on the part of a woman turn you from your duty as counsellor for a man on trial for his life.”
His glance lost its pity and became wholly mocking.
“And do you cherish but passing gleams?” he sarcastically asked.
She started back.
“I laugh at the inconsistency of women,” he cried. “You have sacrificed every thing, even risked your life for a man you really believe guilty of crime; yet if another man similarly stained asked you for your compassion only, you would fly from him as from a pestilence.”
But no words he could utter of this sort were able to raise any emotion in her now.
“Mr. Orcutt,” she demanded, “do you believe Craik Mansell innocent?”
His old mocking smile came back.
“Have I conducted his case as if I believed him guilty?” he asked.
“No, no; but you are his lawyer; you are bound not to let your real thoughts appear. But in your secret heart you did not, could not, believe he was free from a crime to which he is linked by so many criminating circumstances?”
But his strange smile remaining unchanged, she seemed to waken to a sudden doubt, and leaping impetuously to his side, laid her hand on his arm and exclaimed:
“Oh, sir, if you have ever cherished one hope of his innocence, no matter how faint or small, tell me of it, even if this last disclosure has convinced you of its folly!”
Giving her an icy look, he drew his arm slowly from her grasp and replied:
“Mr. Mansell has never been considered guilty by me.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
“Not even now?”
“Not even now.”
It seemed as if she could not believe his words.
“And yet you know all there is against him; all that I do now!”
“I know he visited his aunt’s house at or after the time she was murdered, but that is no proof he killed her, Miss Dare.”
“No,” she admitted with slow conviction, “no. But why did he fly in that wild way when he left it? Why did he go straight to Buffalo and not wait to give me the interview he promised?”
“Shall I tell you?” Mr. Orcutt inquired, with a dangerous sneer on his lips. “Do you wish to know why this man — the man you have so loved — the man for whom you would die this moment, has conducted himself with such marked discretion?”
“Yes,” came like a breath from between Imogene’s parted lips.
“Well,” said the lawyer, dropping his words with cruel clearness, “Mr. Mansell has a great faith in women. He has such faith in you, Imogene Dare, he thinks you are all you declare yourself to be; that in the hour you stood up before the court and called yourself a murderer, you spoke but the truth; that ——” He stopped; even his scornful aplomb would not allow him to go on in the face of the look she wore.
“Say — say those words again!” she gasped. “Let me hear them once more. He thinks what?”
“That you are what you proclaimed yourself to be this day, the actual assailant and murderer of Mrs. Clemmens. He has thought so all along, Miss Dare, why, I do not know. Whether he saw any thing or heard any thing in that house from which you saw him fly so abruptly, or whether he relied solely upon the testimony of the ring, which you must remember he never acknowledged having received back from you, I only know that from the minute he heard of his aunt’s death, his suspicions flew to you, and that, in despite of such suggestions as I felt it judicious to make, they have never suffered shock or been turned from their course from that day to this. Such honor,” concluded Mr. Orcutt, with dry sarcasm, “does the man you love show to the woman who has sacrificed for his sake all that the world holds dear.”
“I— I cannot believe it. You are mocking me,” came inarticulately from her lips, while she drew back, step by step, till half the room lay between them.
“Mocking you? Miss Dare, he has shown his feelings so palpably, I have often trembled lest the whole court should see and understand them.”
“You have trembled”— she could scarcely speak, the rush of her emotion was so great —“you have trembled lest the whole court should see he suspected me of this crime?”
“Yes.”
“Then,” she cried, “you must have been convinced — Ah!” she hurriedly interposed, with a sudden look of distrust, “you are not amusing yourself with me, are you, Mr. Orcutt? So many traps have been laid for me from time to time, I dare not trust the truth of my best friend. Swear you believe Craik Mansell to have thought this of me! Swear you have seen this dark thing lying in his soul, or I——”
“What?”
“Will confront him myself with the question, if I have to tear down the walls of the prison to reach him. His mind I must and will know.”
“Very well, then, you do. I have told you,” declared Mr. Orcutt. “Swearing would not make it any more true.”
Lifting her face to heaven, she suddenly fell on her knees.
“O God!” she murmured, “help me to bear this great joy!”
“Joy!”
The icy tone, the fierce surprise it expressed, started her at once to her feet.
“Yes,” she murmured, “joy! Don’t you see that if he thinks me guilty, he must be innocent? I am willing to perish and fall from the ranks of good men and honorable women to be sure of a fact like this!”
“Imogene, Imogene, would you drive me mad?”
She did not seem to hear.
“Craik, are you guiltless, then?” she was saying. “Is the past all a dream! Are we two nothing but victims of dread and awful circumstances? Oh, we will see; life is not ended yet!” And with a burst of hope that seemed to transfigure her into another woman, she turned toward the lawyer with the cry: “If he is innocent, he can be saved. Nothing that has been done by him or me can hurt him if this be so. God who watches over this crime has His eye on the guilty one. Though his sin be hidden under a mountain of deceit, it will yet come forth. Guilt like his cannot remain hidden.”
“You did not think this when you faced the court this morning with perjury on your lips,” came in slow, ironical tones from her companion.
“Heaven sometimes accepts a sacrifice,” she returned. “But who will sacrifice himself for a man who could let the trial of one he knew to be innocent go on unhindered?”
“Who, indeed!” came in almost stifled tones from the lawyer’s lips.
“If a stranger and not Craik Mansell slew Mrs. Clemmens,” she went on, “and nothing but an incomprehensible train of coincidences unites him and me to this act of violence, then may God remember the words of the widow, and in His almighty power call down such a doom ——”
She ended with a gasp. Mr. Orcutt, with a sudden movement, had laid his hand upon her lips.
“Hush!” he said, “let no curses issue from your mouth. The guilty can perish without that.”
Releasing herself from him in alarm, she drew back, her eyes slowly dilating as she noted the dead whiteness that had settled over his face, and taken even the hue of life from his nervously trembling lip.
“Mr. Orcutt,” she whispered, with a solemnity which made them heedless that the lamp which had been burning lower and lower in its socket was giving out its last fitful rays, “if Craik Mansell did not kill the Widow Clemmens who then did?”
Her question — or was it her look and tone? — seemed to transfix Mr. Orcutt. But it was only for a moment. Turning with a slight gesture to the table at his side, he fumbled with his papers, still oblivious of the flaring lamp, saying slowly:
“I have always supposed Gouverneur Hildreth to be the true author of this crime.”
“Gouverneur Hildreth?”
Mr. Orcutt bowed.
“I do not agree with you,” she returned, moving slowly toward the window. “I am no reader of human hearts, as all my past history shows, but something — is it the voice of God in my breast? — tells me that Gouverneur Hildreth is as innocent as Craik Mansell, and that the true murderer of Mrs. Clemmens ——” Her words ended in a shriek. The light, which for so long a time had been flickering to its end, had given one startling flare in which the face of the man before her had flashed on her view in a ghastly flame that seemed to separate it from all surrounding objects, then as suddenly gone out, leaving the room in total darkness.
In the silence that followed, a quick sound as of rushing feet was heard, then the window was pushed up and the night air came moaning in. Imogene had fled.
Horace Byrd had not followed Hickory in his rush toward the house. He had preferred to await results under the great tree which, standing just inside the gate, cast its mysterious and far-reaching shadow widely over the wintry lawn. He was, therefore, alone during most of the interview which Miss Dare held with Mr. Orcutt in the library, and, being alone, felt himself a prey to his sensations and the weirdness of the situation in which he found himself.
Though no longer a victim to the passion with which Miss Dare had at first inspired him, he was by no means without feeling for this grand if somewhat misguided woman, and his emotions, as he stood there awaiting the issue of her last desperate attempt to aid the prisoner, were strong enough to make any solitude welcome, though this solitude for some reason held an influence which was any thing but enlivening, if it was not actually depressing, to one of his ready sensibilities.
The tree under which he had taken his stand was, as I have intimated, an old one. It had stood there from time immemorial, and was, as I have heard it since said, at once the pride of Mr. Orcutt’s heart and the chief ornament of his grounds. Though devoid of foliage at the time, its vast and symmetrical canopy of interlacing branches had caught Mr. Byrd’s attention from the first moment of his entrance beneath it, and, preoccupied as he was, he could not prevent his thoughts from reverting now and then with a curious sensation of awe to the immensity of those great limbs which branched above him. His imagination was so powerfully affected at last, he had a notion of leaving the spot and seeking a nearer look-out in the belt of evergreens that hid the crouching form of Hickory; but a spell seemed to emanate from the huge trunk against which he leaned that restrained him when he sought to go, and noticing almost at the same moment that the path which Miss Dare would have to take in her departure ran directly under this tree, he yielded to the apathy of the moment and remained where he was.
Soon after he was visited by Hickory.
“I can see nothing and hear nothing,” was that individual’s hurried salutation. “She and Mr. Orcutt are evidently still in the library, but I cannot get a clue to what is going on. I shall keep up my watch, however, for I want to catch a glimpse of her face as she steps from the window.” And he was off again before Byrd could reply.
But the next instant he was back, panting and breathless.
“The light is out in the library,” he cried; “we shall see her no more to-night.”
But scarcely had the words left his lips when a faint sound was heard from the region of the piazza, and looking eagerly up the path, they saw the form of Miss Dare coming hurriedly toward them.
To slip around into the deepest shadow cast by the tree was but the work of a moment. Meantime, the moon shone brightly on the walk down which she was speeding, and as, in the agitation of her departure, she had forgotten to draw down her veil, they succeeded in obtaining a view of her face. It was pale, and wore an expression of fear, while her feet hasted as though she were only filled with thoughts of escape.
Seeing this, the two detectives held their breaths, preparing to follow her as soon as she had passed the tree. But she did not pass the tree. Just as she got within reach of its shadow, a commanding voice was heard calling upon her to stop, and Mr. Orcutt came hurrying, in his turn, down the path.
“I cannot let you go thus,” he cried, pausing beside her on the walk directly under the tree. “If you command me to save Craik Mansell I must do it. What you wish must be done, Imogene.”
“My wishes should not be needed to lead you to do your duty by the man you believe to be innocent of the charge for which he is being tried,” was her earnest and strangely cold reply.
“Perhaps not,” he muttered, bitterly; “but — ah, Imogene,” he suddenly broke forth, in a way to startle these two detectives, who, however suspicious they had been of his passion, had never before had the opportunity of seeing him under its control, “what have you made of me with your bewildering graces and indomitable soul? Before I knew you, life was a round of honorable duties and serene pleasures. I lived in my profession, and found my greatest delight in its exercise. But now ——”
“What now?” she asked.
“I seem”— he said, and the hard, cold selfishness that underlay all his actions, however generous they may have been in appearance, was apparent in his words and tones — “I seem to forget every thing, even my standing and fame as a lawyer, in the one fear that, although lost to me, you will yet live to give yourself to another.”
“If you fear that I shall ever be so weak as to give myself to Craik Mansell,” was her steady reply, “you have only to recall the promise I made you when you undertook his case.”
“Yes,” said he, “but that was when you yourself believed him guilty.”
“I know,” she returned; “but if he were not good enough for me then, I am not good enough for him now. Do you forget that I am blotted with a stain that can never be effaced? When I stood up in court to-day and denounced myself as guilty of crime, I signed away all my chances of future happiness.”
There was a pause; Mr. Orcutt seemed to be thinking. From the position occupied by the two detectives his shadow could be seen oscillating to and fro on the lawn, then, amid the hush of night — a deathly hush — undisturbed, as Mr. Byrd afterward remarked, by so much as the cracking of a twig, his voice rose quiet, yet vaguely sinister, in the words:
“You have conquered. If any man suffers for this crime it shall not be Craik Mansell, but ——”
The sentence was never finished. Before the words could leave his mouth a sudden strange and splitting sound was heard above their heads, then a terrifying rush took place, and a great limb lay upon the walk where but a moment before the beautiful form of Imogene Dare lifted itself by the side of the eminent lawyer.
When a full sense of the terrible nature of the calamity which had just occurred swept across the minds of the benumbed detectives, Mr. Byrd, recalling the words and attitude of Imogene in face of a similar, if less fatal, catastrophe at the hut, exclaimed under his breath:
“It is the vengeance of Heaven! Imogene Dare must have been more guilty than we believed.”
But when, after a superhuman exertion of strength, and the assistance of many hands, the limb was at length raised, it was found that, although both had been prostrated by its weight, only one remained stretched and senseless upon the ground, and that was not Imogene Dare, but the great lawyer, Mr. Orcutt.
Unexpected Words.
It will have blood: they say, blood will have blood.
Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak;
Augurs and understood relations have,
By magot-pies and choughs and rooks, brought forth
The secret’st man of blood.
. . .
Foul whisperings are abroad; unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles; infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.
Macbeth.
“MR. ORCUTT dead?”
“Dying, sir.”
“How, when, where?”
“In his own house, sir. He has been struck down by a falling limb.”
The District Attorney, who had been roused from his bed to hear these evil tidings, looked at the perturbed face of the messenger before him — who was none other than Mr. Byrd — and with difficulty restrained his emotion.
“I sympathize with your horror and surprise,” exclaimed the detective, respectfully. Then, with a strange mixture of embarrassment and agitation, added: “It is considered absolutely necessary that you come to the house. He may yet speak — and — and — you will find Miss Dare there,” he concluded, with a peculiarly hesitating glance and a rapid movement toward the door.
Mr. Ferris, who, as we know, cherished a strong feeling of friendship for Mr. Orcutt, stared uneasily at the departing form of the detective.
“What do you say?” he repeated. “Miss Dare there, in Mr. Orcutt’s house?”
The short “Yes,” and the celerity with which Mr. Byrd vanished, gave him the appearance of one anxious to escape further inquiries.
Astonished, as well as greatly distressed, the District Attorney made speedy preparations for following him, and soon was in the street. He found it all alive with eager citizens, who, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, were rushing hither and thither in search of particulars concerning this sudden calamity; and upon reaching the house itself, found it wellnigh surrounded by an agitated throng of neighbors and friends.
Simply pausing at the gate to cast one glance at the tree and its fallen limb, he made his way to the front door. It was immediately opened. Dr. Tredwell, whose face it was a shock to encounter in this place, stood before him, and farther back a group of such favored friends as had been allowed to enter the house. Something in the look of the coroner, as he silently reached forth his hand in salutation, added to the mysterious impression which had been made upon Mr. Ferris by the manner, if not words, of Mr. Byrd. Feeling that he was losing his self-command, the District Attorney grasped the hand that was held out to him, and huskily inquired if Mr. Orcutt was still alive.
The coroner, who had been standing before him with a troubled brow and lowered eyes, gravely bowed, and quietly leading the way, ushered him forward to Mr. Orcutt’s bedroom door. There he paused and looked as if he would like to speak, but hastily changing his mind, opened the door and motioned the District Attorney in. As he did so, he cast a meaning and solemn look toward the bed, then drew back, watching with evident anxiety what the effect of the scene before him would have upon this new witness.
A stupefying one it seemed, for Mr. Ferris, pausing in his approach, looked at the cluster of persons about the bed, and then drew his hand across his eyes like a man in a maze. Suddenly he turned upon Dr. Tredwell with the same strange look he had himself seen in the eyes of Byrd, and said, almost as if the words were forced from his lips:
“This is no new sight to us, doctor; we have been spectators of a scene like this before.”
That was it. As nearly as the alteration in circumstances and surroundings would allow, the spectacle before him was the same as that which he had encountered months before in a small cottage at the other end of the town. On the bed a pallid, senseless, but slowly breathing form, whose features, stamped with the approach of death, stared at them with marble-like rigidity from beneath the heavy bandages which proclaimed the injury to be one to the head. At his side the doctor — the same one who had been called in to attend Mrs. Clemmens — wearing, as he did then, a look of sombre anticipation which Mr. Ferris expected every instant to see culminate in the solemn gesture which he had used at the widow’s bedside before she spoke. Even the group of women who clustered about the foot of the couch wore much the same expression as those who waited for movement on the part of Mrs. Clemmens; and had it not been for the sight of Imogene Dare sitting immovable and watchful on the farther side of the bed, he might almost have imagined he was transported back to the old scene, and that all this new horror under which he was laboring was a dream from which he would speedily be awakened.
But Imogene’s face, her look, her air of patient waiting, were not to be mistaken. Attention once really attracted to her, it was not possible for it to wander elsewhere. Even the face of the dying man and the countenance of the watchful physician paled in interest before that fixed look which, never wavering, never altering, studied the marble visage before her, for the first faint signs of reawakening consciousness. Even his sister, who, if weak of mind, was most certainly of a loving disposition, seemed to feel the force of the tie that bound Imogene to that pillow; and, though she hovered nearer and nearer the beloved form as the weariful moments sped by, did not presume to interpose her grief or her assistance between the burning eye of Imogene and the immovable form of her stricken brother.
The hush that lay upon the room was unbroken save by the agitated breaths of all present.
“Is there no hope?” whispered Mr. Ferris to Dr. Tredwell, as, seeing no immediate prospect of change, they sought for seats at the other side of the room.
“No; the wound is strangely like that which Mrs. Clemmens received. He will rouse, probably, but he will not live. Our only comfort is that in this case it is not a murder.”
The District Attorney made a gesture in the direction of Imogene.
“How came she to be here?” he asked.
Dr. Tredwell rose and drew him from the room.
“It needs some explanation,” he said; and began to relate to him how Mr. Orcutt was escorting Miss Dare to the gate when the bough fell which seemed likely to rob him of his life.
Mr. Ferris, through whose mind those old words of the widow were running in a way that could only be accounted for by the memories which the scene within had awakened —“May the vengeance of Heaven light upon the head of him who has brought me to this pass! May the fate that has come upon me be visited upon him, measure for measure, blow for blow, death for death!”— turned with impressive gravity and asked if Miss Dare had not been hurt.
But Dr. Tredwell shook his head.
“She is not even bruised,” said he.
“And yet was on his arm?”
“Possibly, though I very much doubt it.”
“She was standing at his side,” uttered the quiet voice of Mr. Byrd in their ear; “and disappeared when he did, under the falling branch. She must have been bruised, though she says not. I do not think she is in a condition to feel her injuries.”
“You were present, then,” observed Mr. Ferris, with a meaning glance at the detective.
“I was present,” he returned, with a look the District Attorney did not find it difficult to understand.
“Is there any thing you ought to tell me?” Mr. Ferris inquired, when a moment or so later the coroner had been drawn away by a friend.
“I do not know,” said Byrd. “Of the conversation that passed between Miss Dare and Mr. Orcutt, but a short portion came to our ears. It is her manner, her actions, that have astonished us, and made us anxious to have you upon the spot.” And he told with what an expression of fear she had fled from her interview with Mr. Orcutt in the library, and then gave, as nearly as he could, an account of what had passed between them before the falling of the fatal limb. Finally he said: “Hickory and I expected to find her lying crushed and bleeding beneath, but instead of that, no sooner was the bough lifted than she sprang to her knees, and seeing Mr. Orcutt lying before her insensible, bent over him with that same expression of breathless awe and expectation which you see in her now. It looks as if she were waiting for him to rouse and finish the sentence that was cut short by this catastrophe.”
“And what was that sentence?”
“As near as I can recollect, it was this: ‘If any man suffers for this crime it shall not be Craik Mansell, but ——’ He did not have time to say whom.”
“My poor friend!” ejaculated Mr. Ferris, “cut down in the exercise of his duties! It is a mysterious providence — a very mysterious providence!” And crossing again to the sick-room, he went sadly in.
He found the aspect unchanged. On the pillow the same white, immovable face; at the bedside the same constant and expectant watchers. Imogene especially seemed scarcely to have made a move in all the time of his absence. Like a marble image watching over a form of clay she sat silent, breathless, intent — a sight to draw all eyes and satisfy none; for her look was not one of grief, nor of awe, nor of hope, yet it had that within it which made her presence there seem a matter of right even to those who did not know the exact character of the bond which united her to the unhappy sufferer.
Mr. Ferris, who had been only too ready to accept Mr. Byrd’s explanation of her conduct, allowed himself to gaze at her unhindered.
Overwhelmed, as he was, by the calamity which promised to rob the Bar of one of its most distinguished advocates, and himself of a long-tried friend, he could not but feel the throb of those deep interests which, in the estimation of this woman at least, hung upon a word which those dying lips might utter. And swayed by this feeling, he unconsciously became a third watcher, though for what, and in hope of what, he could scarcely have told, so much was he benumbed by the suddenness of this great catastrophe, and the extraordinary circumstances by which it was surrounded.
And so one o’clock came and passed.
It was not the last time the clock struck before a change came. The hour of two went by, then that of three, and still, to the casual eye, all remained the same. But ere the stroke of four was heard, Mr. Ferris, who had relaxed his survey of Imogene to bestow a fuller attention upon his friend, felt an indefinable sensation of dismay assail him, and rising to his feet, drew a step or so nearer the bed, and looked at its silent occupant with the air of a man who would fain shut his eyes to the meaning of what he sees before him. At the same moment Mr. Byrd, who had just come in, found himself attracted by the subtle difference he observed in the expression of Miss Dare. The expectancy in her look was gone, and its entire expression was that of awe. Advancing to the side of Mr. Ferris, he glanced down at the dying lawyer. He at once saw what it was that had so attracted and moved the District Attorney. A change had come over Mr. Orcutt’s face. Though rigid still, and unrelieved by any signs of returning consciousness, it was no longer that of the man they knew, but a strange face, owning the same features, but distinguished now by a look sinister as it was unaccustomed, filling the breasts of those who saw it with dismay, and making any contemplation of his countenance more than painful to those who loved him. Nor did it decrease as they watched him. Like that charmed writing which appears on a blank paper when it is subjected to the heat, the subtle, unmistakable lines came out, moment by moment, on the mask of his unconscious face, till even Imogene trembled, and turned an appealing glance upon Mr. Ferris, as if to bid him note this involuntary evidence of nature against the purity and good intentions of the man who had always stood so high in the world’s regard. Then, satisfied, perhaps, with the expression she encountered on the face of the District Attorney, she looked back; and the heavy minutes went on, only more drearily, and perhaps more fearfully, than before.
Suddenly — was it at a gesture of the physician, or a look from Imogene? — a thrill of expectation passed through the room, and Dr. Tredwell, Mr. Ferris, and a certain other gentleman who had but just entered at a remote corner of the apartment, came hurriedly forward and stood at the foot of the bed. At the same instant Imogene rose, and motioning them a trifle aside, with an air of mingled entreaty and command, bent slowly down toward the injured man. A look of recognition answered her from the face upon the pillow, but she did not wait to meet it, nor pause for the word that evidently trembled on his momentarily conscious lip. Shutting out with her form the group of anxious watchers behind her, she threw all her soul into the regard with which she held him enchained; then slowly, solemnly, but with unyielding determination, uttered these words, which no one there could know were but a repetition of a question made a few eventful hours ago: “If Craik Mansell is not the man who killed Mrs. Clemmens, do you, Mr. Orcutt, tell us who is!” and, pausing, remained with her gaze fixed demandingly on that of the lawyer, undeterred by the smothered exclamations of those who witnessed this scene and missed its clue or found it only in the supposition that this last great shock had unsettled her mind.
The panting sufferer just trembling on the verge of life thrilled all down his once alert and nervous frame, then searching her face for one sign of relenting, unclosed his rigid lips and said, with emphasis:
“Has not Fate spoken?”
Instantly Imogene sprang erect, and, amid the stifled shrieks of the women and the muttered exclamations of the men, pointed at the recumbent figure before them, saying:
“You hear! Tremont Orcutt declares upon his death-bed that it is the voice of Heaven which has spoken in this dreadful calamity. You who were present when Mrs. Clemmens breathed her imprecations on the head of her murderer, must know what that means.”
Mr. Ferris, who of all present, perhaps, possessed the greatest regard for the lawyer, gave an ejaculation of dismay at this, and bounding forward, lifted her away from the bedside he believed her to have basely desecrated.
“Madwoman,” he cried, “where will your ravings end? He will tell no such tale to me.”
But when he bent above the lawyer with the question forced from him by Miss Dare’s words, he found him already lapsed into that strange insensibility which was every moment showing itself more and more to be the precursor of death.
The sight seemed to rob Mr. Ferris of his last grain of self-command. Rising, he confronted the dazed faces of those about him with a severe look.
“This charge,” said he, “is akin to that which Miss Dare made against herself in the court yesterday morning. When a woman has become crazed she no longer knows what she says.”
But Imogene, strong in the belief that the hand of Heaven had pointed out the culprit for whom they had so long been searching, shook her head in quiet denial, and simply saying, “None of you know this man as I do,” moved quietly aside to a dim corner, where she sat down in calm expectation of another awakening on the part of the dying lawyer.
It came soon — came before Mr. Ferris had recovered himself, or Dr. Tredwell had had a chance to give any utterance to the emotions which this scene was calculated to awaken.
Rousing as the widow had done, but seeming to see no one, not even the physician who bent close at his side, Mr. Orcutt lifted his voice again, this time in the old stentorian tones which he used in court, and clearly, firmly exclaimed:
“Blood will have blood!” Then in lower and more familiar accents, cried: “Ah, Imogene, Imogene, it was all for you!” And with her name on his lips, the great lawyer closed his eyes again, and sank for the last time into a state of insensibility.
Imogene at once rose.
“I must go,” she murmured; “my duty in this place is done.” And she attempted to cross the floor.
But the purpose which had sustained her being at an end, she felt the full weight of her misery, and looking in the faces about her, and seeing nothing there but reprobation, she tottered and would have fallen had not a certain portly gentleman who stood near by put forth his arm to sustain her. Accepting the support with gratitude, but scarcely pausing to note from what source it came, she turned for an instant to Mr. Ferris.
“I realize,” said she, “with what surprise you must have heard the revelation which has just come from Mr. Orcutt’s lips. So unexpected is it that you cannot yet believe it, but the time will come when, of all the words I have spoken, these alone will be found worthy your full credit: that not Craik Mansell, not Gouverneur Hildreth, not even unhappy Imogene Dare herself, could tell you so much of the real cause and manner of Mrs. Clemmens’ death as this man who lies stricken here a victim of Divine justice.”
And merely stopping to cast one final look in the direction of the bed, she stumbled from the room. A few minutes later and she reached the front door; but only to fall against the lintel with the moan:
“My words are true, but who will ever believe them?”
“Pardon me,” exclaimed a bland and fatherly voice over her shoulder, “I am a man who can believe in any thing. Put your confidence in me, Miss Dare, and we will see — we will see.”
Startled by her surprise into new life, she gave one glance at the gentleman who had followed her to the door. It was the same who had offered her his arm, and whom she supposed to have remained behind her in Mr. Orcutt’s room. She saw before her a large comfortable-looking personage of middle age, of no great pretensions to elegance or culture, but bearing that within his face which oddly enough baffled her understanding while it encouraged her trust. This was the more peculiar in that he was not looking at her, but stood with his eyes fixed on the fading light of the hall-lamp, which he surveyed with an expression of concern that almost amounted to pity.
“Sir, who are you?” she tremblingly asked.
Dropping his eyes from the lamp, he riveted them upon the veil she held tightly clasped in her right hand.
“If you will allow me the liberty of whispering in your ear, I will soon tell you,” said he.
She bent her weary head downward; he at once leaned toward her and murmured a half-dozen words that made her instantly start erect with new light in her eyes.
“And you will help me?” she cried.
“What else am I here for?” he answered.
And turning toward a quiet figure which she now saw for the first time standing on the threshold of a small room near by, he said with the calmness of a master:
“Hickory, see that no one enters or leaves the sick-room till I return.” And offering Imogene his arm, he conducted her into the library, the door of which he shut to behind them.
Mr. Gryce.
What you have spoke, it may be so, perchance.
This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues,
Was once thought honest.
Macbeth.
AN hour later, as Mr. Ferris was leaving the house in company with Dr. Tredwell, he felt himself stopped by a slight touch on his arm. Turning about he saw Hickory.
“Beg pardon, sirs,” said the detective, with a short bow, “but there’s a gentleman, in the library who would like to see you before you go.”
They at once turned to the room indicated. But at sight of its well-known features — its huge cases of books, its large centre-table profusely littered with papers, the burnt-out grate, the empty arm-chair — they paused, and it was with difficulty they could recover themselves sufficiently to enter. When they did, their first glance was toward the gentleman they saw standing in a distant window, apparently perusing a book.
“Who is it?” inquired Mr. Ferris of his companion.
“I cannot imagine,” returned the other.
Hearing voices, the gentleman advanced.
“Ah,” said he, “allow me to introduce myself. I am Mr. Gryce, of the New York Detective Service.”
“Mr. Gryce!” repeated the District Attorney, in astonishment.
The famous detective bowed. “I have come,” said he, “upon a summons received by me in Utica not six hours ago. It was sent by a subordinate of mine interested in the trial now going on before the court. Horace Byrd is his name. I hope he is well liked here and has your confidence.”
“Mr. Byrd is well enough liked,” rejoined Mr. Ferris, “but I gave him no orders to send for you. At what hour was the telegram dated?”
“At half-past eleven; immediately after the accident to Mr. Orcutt.”
“I see.”
“He probably felt himself inadequate to meet this new emergency. He is a young man, and the affair is certainly a complicated one.”
The District Attorney, who had been studying the countenance of the able detective before him, bowed courteously.
“I am not displeased to see you,” said he. “If you have been in the room above ——”
The other gravely bowed.
“You know probably of the outrageous accusation which has just been made against our best lawyer and most-esteemed citizen. It is but one of many which this same woman has made; and while it is to be regarded as the ravings of lunacy, still your character and ability may weigh much in lifting the opprobrium which any such accusation, however unfounded, is calculated to throw around the memory of my dying friend.”
“Sir,” returned Mr. Gryce, shifting his gaze uneasily from one small object to another in that dismal room, till all and every article it contained seemed to partake of his mysterious confidence, “this is a world of disappointment and deceit. Intellects we admired, hearts in which we trusted, turn out frequently to be the abodes of falsehood and violence. It is dreadful, but it is true.”
Mr. Ferris, struck aghast, looked at the detective with severe disapprobation.
“Is it possible,” he asked, “that you have allowed yourself to give any credence to the delirious utterances of a man suffering from a wound on the head, or to the frantic words of a woman who has already abused the ears of the court by a deliberate perjury?” While Dr. Tredwell, equally indignant and even more impatient, rapped with his knuckles on the table by which he stood, and cried:
“Pooh, pooh, the man cannot be such a fool!”
A solemn smile crossed the features of the detective.
“Many persons have listened to the aspersion you denounce. Active measures will be needed to prevent its going farther.”
“I have commanded silence,” said Dr. Tredwell. “Respect for Mr. Orcutt will cause my wishes to be obeyed.”
“Does Mr. Orcutt enjoy the universal respect of the town?”
“He does,” was the stern reply.
“It behooves us, then,” said Mr. Gryce, “to clear his memory from every doubt by a strict inquiry into his relations with the murdered woman.”
“They are known,” returned Mr. Ferris, with grim reserve. “They were such as any man might hold with the woman at whose house he finds it convenient to take his daily dinner. She was to him the provider of a good meal.”
Mr. Gryce’s eye travelled slowly toward Mr. Ferris’ shirt stud.
“Gentlemen,” said he, “do you forget that Mr. Orcutt was on the scene of murder some minutes before the rest of you arrived? Let the attention of people once be directed toward him as a suspicious party, and they will be likely to remember this fact.”
Astounded, both men drew back.
“What do you mean by that remark?” they asked.
“I mean,” said Mr. Gryce, “that Mr. Orcutt’s visit to Mrs. Clemmens’ house on the morning of the murder will be apt to be recalled by persons of a suspicious tendency as having given him an opportunity to commit the crime.”
“People are not such fools,” cried Dr. Tredwell; while Mr. Ferris, in a tone of mingled incredulity and anger, exclaimed:
“And do you, a reputable detective, and, as I have been told, a man of excellent judgment, presume to say that there could be found any one in this town, or even in this country, who could let his suspicions carry him so far as to hint that Mr. Orcutt struck this woman with his own hand in the minute or two that elapsed between his going into her house and his coming out again with tidings of her death?”
“Those who remember that he had been a participator in the lengthy discussion which had just taken place on the court-house steps as to how a man might commit a crime without laying himself open to the risk of detection, might — yes, sir.”
Mr. Ferris and the coroner, who, whatever their doubts or fears, had never for an instant seriously believed the dying words of Mr. Orcutt to be those of confession, gazed in consternation at the detective, and finally inquired:
“Do you realize what you are saying?”
Mr. Gryce drew a deep breath, and shifted his gaze to the next stud in Mr. Ferris’ shirt-front.
“I have never been accused of speaking lightly,” he remarked. Then, with quiet insistence, asked: “Where was Mrs. Clemmens believed to get the money she lived on?”
“It is not known,” rejoined the District Attorney.
“Yet she left a nice little sum behind her?”
“Five thousand dollars,” declared the coroner.
“Strange that, in a town like this, no one should know where it came from?” suggested the detective.
The two gentlemen were silent.
“It was a good deal to come from Mr. Orcutt in payment of a single meal a day!” continued Mr. Gryce.
“No one has ever supposed it did come from Mr. Orcutt,” remarked Mr. Ferris, with some severity.
“But does any one know it did not?” ventured the detective.
Dr. Tredwell and the District Attorney looked at each other, but did not reply.
“Gentlemen,” pursued Mr. Gryce, after a moment of quiet waiting, “this is without exception the most serious moment of my life. Never in the course of my experience — and that includes much — have I been placed in a more trying position than now. To allow one’s self to doubt, much less to question, the integrity of so eminent a man, seems to me only less dreadful than it does to you; yet, for all that, were I his friend, as I certainly am his admirer, I would say: ‘Sift this matter to the bottom; let us know if this great lawyer has any more in favor of his innocence than the other gentlemen who have been publicly accused of this crime.’”
“But,” protested Dr. Tredwell, seeing that the District Attorney was too much moved to speak, “you forget the evidences which underlay the accusation of these other gentlemen; also that of all the persons who, from the day the widow was struck till now, have been in any way associated with suspicion, Mr. Orcutt is the only one who could have had no earthly motive for injuring this humble woman, even if he were all he would have to be to first perform such a brutal deed and then carry out his hypocrisy to the point of using his skill as a criminal lawyer to defend another man falsely accused of the crime.”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said the detective, “but I forget nothing. I only bring to the consideration of this subject a totally unprejudiced mind and an experience which has taught me never to omit testing the truth of a charge because it seems at first blush false, preposterous, and without visible foundation. If you will recall the conversation to which I have just alluded as having been held on the court-house steps on the morning Mrs. Clemmens was murdered, you will remember that it was the intellectual crime that was discussed — the crime of an intelligent man, safe in the knowledge that his motive for doing such a deed was a secret to the world.”
“My God!” exclaimed Mr. Ferris, under his breath, “the man seems to be in earnest!”
“Gentlemen,” pursued Mr. Gryce, with more dignity than he had hitherto seen fit to assume, “it is not my usual practice to express myself as openly as I have done here to-day. In all ordinary cases I consider it expedient to reserve intact my suspicions and my doubts till I have completed my discoveries and arranged my arguments so as to bear out with some show of reason whatever statement I may feel obliged to make. But the extraordinary features of this affair, and the fact that so many were present at the scene we have just left, have caused me to change my usual tactics. Though far from ready to say that Mr. Orcutt’s words were those of confession, I still see much reason to doubt his innocence, and, feeling thus, am quite willing you should know it in time to prepare for the worst.”
“Then you propose making what has occurred here public?” asked Mr. Ferris, with emotion.
“Not so,” was the detective’s ready reply. “On the contrary, I was about to suggest that you did something more than lay a command of silence upon those who were present.”
The District Attorney, who, as he afterward said, felt as if he were laboring under some oppressive nightmare, turned to the coroner and said:
“Dr. Tredwell, what do you advise me to do? Terrible as this shock has been, and serious as is the duty it possibly involves, I have never allowed myself to shrink from doing what was right simply because it afforded suffering to myself or indignity to my friends. Do you think I am called upon to pursue this matter?”
The coroner, troubled, anxious, and nearly as much overwhelmed as the District Attorney, did not immediately reply. Indeed, the situation was one to upset any man of whatever calibre. Finally he turned to Mr. Gryce.
“Mr. Gryce,” said he, “we are, as you have observed, friends of the dying man, and, being so, may miss our duty in our sympathy. What do you think ought to be done, in justice to him, the prisoner, and the positions which we both occupy?”
“Well, sirs,” rejoined Mr. Gryce, “it is not usual, perhaps, for a man in my position to offer actual advice to gentlemen in yours; but if you wish to know what course I should pursue if I were in your places, I should say: First, require the witnesses still lingering around the dying man to promise that they will not divulge what was there said till a week has fully elapsed; next, adjourn the case now before the court for the same decent length of time; and, lastly, trust me and the two men you have hitherto employed, to find out if there is any thing in Mr. Orcutt’s past history of a nature to make you tremble if the world hears of the words which escaped him on his death-bed. We shall probably need but a week.”
“And Miss Dare?”
“Has already promised secrecy.”
There was nothing in all this to alarm their fears; every thing, on the contrary, to allay them.
The coroner gave a nod of approval to Mr. Ferris, and both signified their acquiescence in the measures proposed.
Mr. Gryce at once assumed his usual genial air.
“You may trust me,” said he, “to exercise all the discretion you would yourselves show under the circumstances. I have no wish to see the name of such a man blasted by an ineffaceable stain.” And he bowed as if about to leave the room.
But Mr. Ferris, who had observed this movement with an air of some uneasiness, suddenly stepped forward and stopped him.
“I wish to ask,” said he, “whether superstition has had any thing to do with this readiness on your part to impute the worst meaning to the chance phrases which have fallen from the lips of our severely injured friend. Because his end seems in some regards to mirror that of the widow, have you allowed a remembrance of the words she made use of in the face of death to influence your good judgment as to the identity of Mr. Orcutt with her assassin?”
The face of Mr. Gryce assumed its grimmest aspect.
“Do you think this catastrophe was necessary to draw my attention to Mr. Orcutt? To a man acquainted with the extraordinary coincidence that marked the discovery of Mrs. Clemmens’ murder, the mystery must be that Mr. Orcutt has gone unsuspected for so long.” And assuming an argumentative air, he asked:
“Were either of you two gentlemen present at the conversation I have mentioned as taking place on the court-house steps the morning Mrs. Clemmens was murdered?”
“I was,” said the District Attorney.
“You remember, then, the hunchback who was so free with his views?”
“Most certainly.”
“And know, perhaps, who that hunchback was?”
“Yes.”
“You will not be surprised, then, if I recall to you the special incidents of that hour. A group of lawyers, among them Mr. Orcutt, are amusing themselves with an off-hand chat concerning criminals and the clumsy way in which, as a rule, they plan and execute their crimes. All seem to agree that a murder is usually followed by detection, when suddenly a stranger speaks and tells them that the true way to make a success of the crime is to choose a thoroughfare for the scene of tragedy, and employ a weapon that has been picked up on the spot. What happens? Within five minutes after this piece of gratuitous information, or as soon as Mr. Orcutt can cross the street, Mrs. Clemmens is found lying in her blood, struck down by a stick of wood picked up from her own hearth-stone. Is this chance? If so, ’tis a very curious one.”
“I don’t deny it,” said Doctor Tredwell.
“I believe you never did deny it,” quickly retorted the detective. “Am I not right in saying that it struck you so forcibly at the time as to lead you into supposing some collusion between the hunchback and the murderer?”
“It certainly did,” admitted the coroner.
“Very well,” proceeded Mr. Gryce. “Now as there could have been no collusion between these parties, the hunchback being no other person than myself, what are we to think of this murder? That it was a coincidence, or an actual result of the hunchback’s words?”
Dr. Tredwell and Mr. Ferris were both silent.
“Sirs,” continued Mr. Gryce, feeling, perhaps, that perfect openness was necessary in order to win entire confidence, “I am not given to boasting or to a too-free expression of my opinion, but if I had been ignorant of this affair, and one of my men had come to me and said: ‘A mysterious murder has just taken place, marked by this extraordinary feature, that it is a precise reproduction of a supposable case of crime which has just been discussed by a group of indifferent persons in the public street,’ and then had asked me where to look for the assassin, I should have said: ‘Search for that man who heard the discussion through, was among the first to leave the group, and was the first to show himself upon the scene of murder.’ To be sure, when Byrd did come to me with this story, I was silent, for the man who fulfilled these conditions was Mr. Orcutt.”
“Then,” said Mr. Ferris, “you mean to say that you would have suspected Mr. Orcutt of this crime long ago if he had not been a man of such position and eminence?”
“Undoubtedly,” was Mr. Gryce’s reply.
If the expression was unequivocal, his air was still more so. Shocked and disturbed, both gentlemen fell back. The detective at once advanced and opened the door.
It was time. Mr. Byrd had been tapping upon it for some minutes, and now hastily came in. His face told the nature of his errand before he spoke.
“I am sorry to be obliged to inform you ——” he began.
“Mr. Orcutt is dead?” quickly interposed Mr. Ferris.
The young detective solemnly bowed.
In the Prison.
The jury passing on the prisoner’s life,
May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two
Guiltier than him they try.
Measure for Measure.
Such welcome and unwelcome things at once
’Tis hard to reconcile.
Macbeth.
MR. MANSELL sat in his cell, the prey of gloomy and perturbed thought. He knew Mr. Orcutt was dead; he had been told of it early in the morning by his jailer, but of the circumstances which attended that death he knew nothing, save that the lawyer had been struck by a limb falling from a tree in his own garden.
The few moments during which the court had met for the purpose of re-adjournment had added but little to his enlightenment. A marked reserve had characterized the whole proceedings; and though an indefinable instinct had told him that in some mysterious way his cause had been helped rather than injured by this calamity to his counsel, he found no one ready to volunteer those explanations which his great interest in the matter certainly demanded. The hour, therefore, which he spent in solitude upon his return to prison was one of great anxiety, and it was quite a welcome relief when the cell door opened and the keeper ushered in a strange gentleman. Supposing it to be the new counsel he had chosen at haphazard from a list of names that had been offered him, Mr. Mansell rose. But a second glance assured him he had made a mistake in supposing this person to be a lawyer, and stepping back he awaited his approach with mingled curiosity and reserve.
The stranger, who seemed to be perfectly at home in the narrow quarters in which he found himself, advanced with a frank air.
“My name is Gryce,” said he, “and I am a detective. The District Attorney, who, as you know, has been placed in a very embarrassing situation by the events of the last two days, has accepted my services in connection with those of the two men already employed by him, in the hope that my greater experience may assist him in determining which, of all the persons who have been accused, or who have accused themselves, of murdering Mrs. Clemmens, is the actual perpetrator of that deed. Do you require any further assurance of my being in the confidence of Mr. Ferris than the fact that I am here, and in full liberty to talk with you?”
“No,” returned the other, after a short but close study of his visitor.
“Very well, then,” continued the detective, with a comfortable air of ease, “I will speak to the point; and the first thing I will say is, that upon looking at the evidence against you, and hearing what I have heard from various sources since I came to town, I know you are not the man who killed Mrs. Clemmens. To be sure, you have declined to explain certain points, but I think you can explain them, and if you will only inform me ——”
“Pardon me,” interrupted Mr. Mansell, gravely; “but you say you are a detective. Now, I have no information to give a detective.”
“Are you sure?” was the imperturbable query.
“Quite,” was the quick reply.
“You are then determined upon going to the scaffold, whether or no?” remarked Mr. Gryce, somewhat grimly.
“Yes, if to escape it I must confide in a detective.”
“Then you do wrong,” declared the other; “as I will immediately proceed to show you. Mr. Mansell, you are, of course, aware of the manner of Mr. Orcutt’s death?”
“I know he was struck by a falling limb.”
“Do you know what he was doing when this occurred?”
“No.”
“He was escorting Miss Dare down to the gate.”
The prisoner, whose countenance had brightened at the mention of his lawyer, turned a deadly white at this.
“And — and was Miss Dare hurt?” he asked.
The detective shook his head.
“Then why do you tell me this?”
“Because it has much to do with the occasion of my coming here, Mr. Mansell,” proceeded Mr. Gryce, in that tone of completely understanding himself which he knew so well how to assume with men of the prisoner’s stamp. “I am going to speak to you without circumlocution or disguise. I am going to put your position before you just as it is. You are on trial for a murder of which not only yourself, but another man, was suspected. Why are you on trial instead of him? Because you were reticent in regard to certain matters which common-sense would say you ought to be able to explain. Why were you reticent? There can be but one answer. Because you feared to implicate another person, for whose happiness and honor you had more regard than for your own. Who was that other person? The woman who stood up in court yesterday and declared she had herself committed this crime. What is the conclusion? You believe, and have always believed, Miss Dare to be the assassin of Mrs. Clemmens.”
The prisoner, whose pallor had increased with every word the detective uttered, leaped to his feet at this last sentence.
“You have no right to say that!” he vehemently asseverated. “What do you know of my thoughts or my beliefs? Do I carry my convictions on my sleeve? I am not the man to betray my ideas or feelings to the world.”
Mr. Gryce smiled. To be sure, this expression of silent complacency was directed to the grating of the window overhead, but it was none the less effectual on that account. Mr. Mansell, despite his self-command, began to look uneasy.
“Prove your words!” he cried. “Show that these have been my convictions!”
“Very well,” returned Mr. Gryce. “Why were you so long silent about the ring? Because you did not wish to compromise Miss Dare by declaring she did not return it to you, as she had said. Why did you try to stop her in the midst of her testimony yesterday? Because you saw it was going to end in confession. Finally, why did you throw aside your defence, and instead of proclaiming yourself guilty, simply tell how you were able to reach Monteith Quarry Station in ninety minutes? Because you feared her guilt would be confirmed if her statements were investigated, and were willing to sacrifice every thing but the truth in order to save her.”
“You give me credit for a great deal of generosity,” coldly replied the prisoner. “After the evidence brought against me by the prosecution, I should think my guilt would be accepted as proved the moment I showed that I had not left Mrs. Clemmens’ house at the time she was believed to be murdered.”
“And so it would,” responded Mr. Gryce, “if the prosecution had not seen reason to believe that the moment of Mrs. Clemmens’ death has been put too early. We now think she was not struck till some time after twelve, instead of five minutes before.”
“Indeed?” said Mr. Mansell, with stern self-control.
Mr. Gryce, whose carelessly roving eye told little of the close study with which he was honoring the man before him, nodded with grave decision.
“You could add very much to our convictions on this point,” he observed, “by telling what it was you saw or heard in Mrs. Clemmens’ house at the moment you fled from it so abruptly.”
“How do you know I fled from it abruptly?”
“You were seen. The fact has not appeared in court, but a witness we might name perceived you flying from your aunt’s door to the swamp as if your life depended upon the speed you made.”
“And with that fact added to all the rest you have against me, you say you believe me innocent?” exclaimed Mr. Mansell.
“Yes; for I have also said I believe Mrs. Clemmens not to have been assaulted till after the hour of noon. You fled from the door at precisely five minutes before it.”
The uneasiness of Mr. Mansell’s face increased, till it amounted to agitation.
“And may I ask,” said he, “what has happened to make you believe she was not struck at the moment hitherto supposed?”
“Ah, now,” replied the detective, “we come down to facts.” And leaning with a confidential air toward the prisoner, he quietly said: “Your counsel has died, for one thing.”
Astonished as much by the tone as the tenor of these words, Mr. Mansell drew back from his visitor in some distrust. Seeing it, Mr. Gryce edged still farther forward, and calmly continued:
“If no one has told you the particulars of Mr. Orcutt’s death, you probably do not know why Miss Dare was at his house last evening?”
The look of the prisoner was sufficient reply.
“She went there,” resumed Mr. Gryce, with composure, “to tell him that her whole evidence against you had been given under the belief that you were guilty of the crime with which you had been charged; that by a trick of my fellow-detectives, Hickory and Byrd, she had been deceived into thinking you had actually admitted your guilt to her; and that she had only been undeceived after she had uttered the perjury with which she sought to save you yesterday morning.”
“Perjury?” escaped involuntarily from Craik Mansell’s lips.
“Yes,” repeated the detective, “perjury. Miss Dare lied when she said she had been to Mrs. Clemmens’ cottage on the morning of the murder. She was not there, nor did she lift her hand against the widow’s life. That tale she told to escape telling another which she thought would insure your doom.”
“You have been talking to Miss Dare?” suggested the prisoner, with subdued sarcasm.
“I have been talking to my two men,” was the unmoved retort, “to Hickory and to Byrd, and they not only confirm this statement of hers in regard to the deception they played upon her, but say enough to show she could not have been guilty of the crime, because at that time she honestly believed you to be so.”
“I do not understand you,” cried the prisoner, in a voice that, despite his marked self-control, showed the presence of genuine emotion.
Mr. Gryce at once went into particulars. He was anxious to have Craik Mansell’s mind disabused of the notion that Imogene had committed this crime, since upon that notion he believed his unfortunate reticence to rest. He therefore gave him a full relation of the scene in the hut, together with all its consequences.
Mr. Mansell listened like a man in a dream. Some fact in the past evidently made this story incredible to him.
Seeing it, Mr. Gryce did not wait to hear his comments, but upon finishing his account, exclaimed, with a confident air:
“Such testimony is conclusive. It is impossible to consider Miss Dare guilty, after an insight of this kind into the real state of her mind. Even she has seen the uselessness of persisting in her self-accusation, and, as I have already told you, went to Mr. Orcutt’s house in order to explain to him her past conduct, and ask his advice for the future. She learned something else before her interview with Mr. Orcutt ended,” continued the detective, impressively. “She learned that she had not only been mistaken in supposing you had admitted your guilt, but that you could not have been guilty, because you had always believed her to be so. It has been a mutual case of suspicion, you see, and argues innocence on the part of you both. Or so it seems to the prosecution. How does it seem to you?”
“Would it help my cause to say?”
“It would help your cause to tell what sent you so abruptly from Mrs. Clemmens’ house the morning she was murdered.”
“I do not see how,” returned the prisoner.
The glance of Mr. Gryce settled confidentially on his right hand where it lay outspread upon his ample knee.
“Mr. Mansell,” he inquired, “have you no curiosity to know any details of the accident by which you have unexpectedly been deprived of a counsel?”
Evidently surprised at this sudden change of subject, Craik replied:
“If I had not hoped you would understand my anxiety and presently relieve it, I could not have shown you as much patience as I have.”
“Very well,” rejoined Mr. Gryce, altering his manner with a suddenness that evidently alarmed his listener. “Mr. Orcutt did not die immediately after he was struck down. He lived some hours; lived to say some words that have materially changed the suspicions of persons interested in the case he was defending.”
“Mr. Orcutt?”
The tone was one of surprise. Mr. Gryce’s little finger seemed to take note of it, for it tapped the leg beneath it in quite an emphatic manner as he continued: “It was in answer to a question put to him by Miss Dare. To the surprise of every one, she had not left him from the moment they were mutually relieved from the weight of the fallen limb, but had stood over him for hours, watching for him to rouse from his insensibility. When he did, she appealed to him in a way that showed she expected a reply, to tell her who it was that killed the Widow Clemmens.”
“And did Mr. Orcutt know?” was Mansell’s half-agitated, half-incredulous query.
“His answer seemed to show that he did. Mr. Mansell, have you ever had any doubts of Mr. Orcutt?”
“Doubts?”
“Doubts as to his integrity, good-heartedness, or desire to serve you?”
“No.”
“You will, then, be greatly surprised,” Mr. Gryce went on, with increased gravity, “when I tell you that Mr. Orcutt’s reply to Miss Dare’s question was such as to draw attention to himself as the assassin of Widow Clemmens, and that his words and the circumstances under which they were uttered have so impressed Mr. Ferris, that the question now agitating his mind is not, ‘Is Craik Mansell innocent, but was his counsel, Tremont Orcutt, guilty?’”
The excited look which had appeared on the face of Mansell at the beginning of this speech, changed to one of strong disgust.
“This is too much!” he cried. “I am not a fool to be caught by any such make-believe as this! Mr. Orcutt thought to be an assassin? You might as well say that people accuse Judge Evans of killing the Widow Clemmens.”
Mr. Gryce, who had perhaps stretched a point when he so unequivocally declared his complete confidence in the innocence of the man before him, tapped his leg quite affectionately at this burst of natural indignation, and counted off another point in favor of the prisoner. His words, however, were dry as sarcasm could make them.
“No,” said he, “for people know that Judge Evans was without the opportunity for committing this murder, while every one remembers how Mr. Orcutt went to the widow’s house and came out again with tidings of her death.”
The prisoner’s lip curled disdainfully.
“And do you expect me to believe you regard this as a groundwork for suspicion? I should have given you credit for more penetration, sir.”
“Then you do not think Mr. Orcutt knew what he was saying when, in answer to Miss Dare’s appeal for him to tell who the murderer was, he answered: ‘Blood will have blood!’ and drew attention to his own violent end?”
“Did Mr. Orcutt say that?”
“He did.”
“Very well, a man whose whole mind has for some time been engrossed with defending another man accused of murder, might say any thing while in a state of delirium.”
Mr. Gryce uttered his favorite “Humph!” and gave his leg another pat, but added, gravely enough: “Miss Dare believes his words to be those of confession.”
“You say Miss Dare once believed me to have confessed.”
“But,” persisted the detective, “Miss Dare is not alone in her opinion. Men in whose judgment you must rely, find it difficult to explain the words of Mr. Orcutt by means of any other theory than that he is himself the perpetrator of that crime for which you are yourself being tried.”
“I find it difficult to believe that possible,” quietly returned the prisoner. “What!” he suddenly exclaimed; “suspect a man of Mr. Orcutt’s abilities and standing of a hideous crime — the very crime, too, with which his client is charged, and in defence of whom he has brought all his skill to bear! The idea is preposterous, unheard of!”
“I acknowledge that,” dryly assented Mr. Gryce; “but it has been my experience to find that it is the preposterous things which happen.”
For a minute the prisoner stared at the speaker incredulously; then he cried:
“You really appear to be in earnest.”
“I was never more so in my life,” was Mr. Gryce’s rejoinder.
Drawing back, Craik Mansell looked at the detective with an emotion that had almost the character of hope. Presently he said:
“If you do distrust Mr. Orcutt, you must have weightier reasons for it than any you have given me. What are they? You must be willing I should know, or you would not have gone as far with me as you have.”
“You are right,” Gryce assured him. “A case so complicated as this calls for unusual measures. Mr. Ferris, feeling the gravity of his position, allows me to take you into our confidence, in the hope that you will be able to help us out of our difficulty.”
“I help you! You’d better release me first.”
“That will come in time.”
“If I help you?”
“Whether you help or not, if we can satisfy ourselves and the world that Mr. Orcutt’s words were a confession. You may hasten that conviction.”
“How?”
“By clearing up the mystery of your flight from Mrs. Clemmens’ house.”
The keen eyes of the prisoner fell; all his old distrust seemed on the point of returning.
“That would not help you at all,” said he.
“I should like to be the judge,” said Mr. Gryce.
The prisoner shook his head.
“My word must go for it,” said he.
The detective had been the hero of too many such scenes to be easily discouraged. Bowing as if accepting this conclusion from the prisoner, he quietly proceeded with the recital he had planned. With a frankness certainly unusual to him, he gave the prisoner a full account of Mr. Orcutt’s last hours, and the interview which had followed between himself and Miss Dare. To this he added his own reasons for doubting the lawyer, and, while admitting he saw no motive for the deed, gave it as his serious opinion, that the motive would be found if once he could get at the secret of Mr. Orcutt’s real connection with the deceased. He was so eloquent, and so manifestly in earnest, Mr. Mansell’s eye brightened in spite of himself, and when the detective ceased he looked up with an expression which convinced Mr. Gryce that half the battle was won. He accordingly said, in a tone of great confidence:
“A knowledge of what went on in Mrs. Clemmens’ house before he went to it would be of great help to us. With that for a start, all may be learned. I therefore put it to you for the last time whether it would not be best for you to explain yourself on this point. I am sure you will not regret it.”
“Sir,” said Mansell, with undisturbed composure, “if your purpose is to fix this crime on Mr. Orcutt, I must insist upon your taking my word that I have no information to give you that can in any way affect him.”
“You could give us information, then, that would affect Miss Dare?” was the quick retort. “Now, I say,” the astute detective declared, as the prisoner gave an almost imperceptible start, “that whatever your information is, Miss Dare is not guilty.”
“You say it!” exclaimed the prisoner. “What does your opinion amount to if you haven’t heard the evidence against her?”
“There is no evidence against her but what is purely circumstantial.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because she is innocent. Circumstantial evidence may exist alike against the innocent and the guilty; real evidence only against the guilty. I mean to say that as I am firmly convinced Miss Dare once regarded you as guilty of this crime, I must be equally convinced she didn’t commit it herself. This is unanswerable.”
“You have stated that before.”
“I know it; but I want you to see the force of it; because, once convinced with me that Miss Dare is innocent, you will be willing to tell all you know, even what apparently implicates her.”
Silence answered this remark.
“You didn’t see her strike the blow?”
Mansell roused indignantly.
“No, of course not!” he cried.
“You did not see her with your aunt that moment you fled from the house immediately before the murder!”
“I didn’t see her.”
That emphasis, unconscious, perhaps, was fatal. Gryce, who never lost any thing, darted on this small gleam of advantage as a hungry pike darts upon an innocent minnow.
“But you thought you heard her,” he cried; “her voice, or her laugh, or perhaps merely the rustle of her dress in another room?”
“No,” said Mansell, “I didn’t hear her.”
“Of course not,” was the instantaneous reply. “But something said or done by somebody — a something which amounts to nothing as evidence — gives you to understand she was there, and so you hold your tongue for fear of compromising her.”
“Amounts to nothing as evidence?” echoed Mansell. “How do you know that?”
“Because Miss Dare was not in the house with your aunt at that time. Miss Dare was in Professor Darling’s observatory, a mile or so away.”
“Does she say that?”
“We will prove that.”
Aroused, excited, the prisoner turned his flashing blue eyes on the detective.
“I should be glad to have you,” he said.
“But you must first tell me in what room you were when you received this intimation of Miss Dare’s presence?”
“I was in no room; I was on the stone step outside of the dining-room door. I did not go into the house at all that morning, as I believe I have already told Mr. Ferris.”
“Very good! It will all be simpler than I thought. You came up to the house and went away again without coming in; ran away, I may say, taking the direction of the swamp.”
The prisoner did not deny it.
“You remember all the incidents of that short flight?”
The prisoner’s lip curled.
“Remember leaping the fence and stumbling a trifle when you came down?”
“Yes.”
“Very well; now tell me how could Miss Dare see you do that from Mrs. Clemmens’ house?”
“Did Miss Dare tell you she saw me trip after I jumped the fence?”
“She did.”
“And yet was in Professor Darling’s observatory, a mile or so away?”
“Yes.”
A satirical laugh broke from the prisoner.
“I think,” said he, “that instead of my telling you how she could have seen this from Mrs. Clemmens’ house, you should tell me how she could have seen it from Professor Darling’s observatory.”
“That is easy enough. She was looking through a telescope.”
“What?”
“At the moment you were turning from Mrs. Clemmens’ door, Miss Dare, perched in the top of Professor Darling’s house, was looking in that very direction through a telescope.”
“I— I would like to believe that story,” said the prisoner, with suppressed emotion. “It would ——”
“What?” urged the detective, calmly.
“Make a new man of me,” finished Mansell, with a momentary burst of feeling.
“Well, then, call up your memories of the way your aunt’s house is situated. Recall the hour, and acknowledge that, if Miss Dare was with her, she must have been in the dining-room.”
“There is no doubt about that.”
“Now, how many windows has the dining-room?”
“One.”
“How situated?”
“It is on the same side as the door.”
“There is none, then, which looks down to that place where you leaped the fence?”
“No.”
“How account for her seeing that little incident, then, of your stumbling?”
“She might have come to the door, stepped out, and so seen me.”
“Humph! I see you have an answer for every thing.”
Craik Mansell was silent.
A look of admiration slowly spread itself over the detective’s face.
“We must probe the matter a little deeper,” said he. “I see I have a hard head to deal with.” And, bringing his glance a little nearer to the prisoner, he remarked:
“If she had been standing there you could not have turned round without seeing her?”
“No.”
“Now, did you see her standing there?”
“No.”
“Yet you turned round?”
“I did?”
“Miss Dare says so.”
The prisoner struck his forehead with his hand.
“And it is so,” he cried. “I remember now that some vague desire to know the time made me turn to look at the church clock. Go on. Tell me more that Miss Dare saw.”
His manner was so changed — his eye burned so brightly — the detective gave himself a tap of decided self-gratulation.
“She saw you hurry over the bog, stop at the entrance of the wood, take a look at your watch, and plunge with renewed speed into the forest.”
“It is so. It is so. And, to have seen that, she must have had the aid of a telescope.”
“Then she describes your appearance. She says you had your pants turned up at the ankles, and carried your coat on your left arm.”
“Left arm?”
“Yes.”
“I think I had it on my right.”
“It was on the arm toward her, she declares. If she was in the observatory, it was your left side that she saw.”
“Yes, yes; but the coat was over the other arm. I remember using my left hand in vaulting over the fence when I came up to the house.”
“It is a vital point,” said Mr. Gryce, with a quietness that concealed his real anxiety and chagrin. “If the coat was on the arm toward her, the fact of its being on the right ——”
“Wait!” exclaimed Mr. Mansell, with an air of sudden relief. “I recollect now that I changed it from one arm to the other after I vaulted the fence. It was just at the moment I turned to come back to the side door, and, as she does not pretend to have seen me till after I left the door, of course the coat was, as she says, on my left arm.”
“I thought you could explain it,” returned Mr. Gryce, with an air of easy confidence. “But what do you mean when you say that you changed it at the moment you turned to come back to the side door? Didn’t you go at once to the dining-room door from the swamp?”
“No. I had gone to the front door on my former visit, and was going to it this time; but when I got to the corner of the house I saw the tramp coming into the gate, and not wishing to encounter any one, turned round and came back to the dining-room door.”
“I see. And it was then you heard ——”
“What I heard,” completed the prisoner, grimly.
“Mr. Mansell,” said the other, “are you not sufficiently convinced by this time that Miss Dare was not with Mrs. Clemmens, but in the observatory of Professor Darling’s house, to tell me what that was?”
“Answer me a question and I will reply. Can the entrance of the woods be seen from the position which she declares herself to have occupied?”
“It can. Not two hours ago I tried the experiment myself, using the same telescope and kneeling in the same place where she did. I found I could not only trace the spot where you paused, but could detect quite readily every movement of my man Hickory, whom I had previously placed there to go through the motions. I should not have come here if I had not made myself certain on that point.”
Yet the prisoner hesitated.
“I not only made myself sure of that,” resumed Mr. Gryce, “but I also tried if I could see as much with my naked eye from Mrs. Clemmens’ side door. I found I could not, and my sight is very good.”
“Enough,” said Mansell; “hard as it is to explain, I must believe Miss Dare was not where I thought her.”
“Then you will tell me what you heard?”
“Yes; for in it may lie the key to this mystery, though how, I cannot see, and doubt if you can. I am all the more ready to do it,” he pursued, “because I can now understand how she came to think me guilty, and, thinking so, conducted herself as she has done from the beginning of my trial. All but the fact of her denouncing herself yesterday; that I cannot comprehend.”
“A woman in love can do any thing,” quoth Mr. Gryce. Then admonished by the flush of the prisoner’s cheek that he was treading on dangerous ground, he quickly added: “But she will explain all that herself some day. Let us hear what you have to tell me.”
Craik Mansell drooped his head and his brow became gloomy.
“Sir,” said he, “it is unnecessary for me to state that your surmise in regard to my past convictions is true. If Miss Dare was not with my aunt just before the murder, I certainly had reasons for thinking she was. To be sure, I did not see her or hear her voice, but I heard my aunt address her distinctly and by name.”
“You did?” Mr. Gryce’s interest in the tattoo he was playing on his knee became intense.
“Yes. It was just as I pushed the door ajar. The words were these: ‘You think you are going to marry him, Imogene Dare; but I tell you you never shall, not while I live.’”
“Humph!” broke involuntarily from the detective’s lips, and, though his face betrayed nothing of the shock this communication occasioned him, his fingers stopped an instant in their restless play.
Mr. Mansell saw it and cast him an anxious look. The detective instantly smiled with great unconcern. “Go on,” said he, “what else did you hear?”
“Nothing else. In the mood in which I was this very plain intimation that Miss Dare had sought my aunt, had pleaded with her for me and failed, struck me as sufficient. I did not wait to hear more, but hurried away in a state of passion that was little short of frenzy. To leave the place and return to my work was now my one wish. When I found, then, that by running I might catch the train at Monteith, I ran, and so unconsciously laid myself open to suspicion.”
“I see,” murmured the detective; “I see.”
“Not that I suspected any evil then,” pursued Mr. Mansell, earnestly. “I was only conscious of disappointment and a desire to escape from my own thoughts. It was not till next day ——”
“Yes — yes,” interrupted Mr. Gryce, abstractedly, “but your aunt’s words! She said: ‘You think you are going to marry him, Imogene Dare; but you never shall, not while I live.’ Yet Imogene Dare was not there. Let us solve that problem.”
“You think you can?”
“I think I must.”
“How? how?”
The detective did not answer. He was buried in profound thought. Suddenly he exclaimed:
“It is, as you say, the key-note to the tragedy. It must be solved.” But the glance he dived deep into space seemed to echo that “How? how?” of the prisoner, with a gloomy persistence that promised little for an immediate answer to the enigma before them. It occurred to Mansell to offer a suggestion.
“There is but one way I can explain it,” said he. “My aunt was speaking to herself. She was deaf and lived alone. Such people often indulge in soliloquizing.”
The slap which Mr. Gryce gave his thigh must have made it tingle for a good half-hour.
“There,” he cried, “who says extraordinary measures are not useful at times? You’ve hit the very explanation. Of course she was speaking to herself. She was just the woman to do it. Imogene Dare was in her thoughts, so she addressed Imogene Dare. If you had opened the door you would have seen her standing there alone, venting her thoughts into empty space.”
“I wish I had,” said the prisoner.
Mr. Gryce became exceedingly animated. “Well, that’s settled,” said he. “Imogene Dare was not there, save in Mrs. Clemmens’ imagination. And now for the conclusion. She said: ‘You think you are going to marry him, Imogene Dare; but you never shall, not while I live.’ That shows her mind was running on you.”
“It shows more than that. It shows that, if Miss Dare was not with her then, she must have been there earlier in the day. For, when I left my aunt the day before, she was in entire ignorance of my attachment to Miss Dare, and the hopes it had led to.”
“Say that again,” cried Gryce.
Mr. Mansell repeated himself, adding: “That would account for the ring being found on my aunt’s dining-room floor ——”
But Mr. Gryce waved that question aside.
“What I want to make sure of is that your aunt had not been informed of your wishes as concerned Miss Dare.”
“Unless Miss Dare was there in the early morning and told her herself.”
“There were no neighbors to betray you?”
“There wasn’t a neighbor who knew any thing about the matter.”
The detective’s eye brightened till it vied in brilliancy with the stray gleam of sunshine which had found its way to the cell through the narrow grating over their heads.
“A clue!” he murmured; “I have received a clue,” and rose as if to leave.
The prisoner, startled, rose also.
“A clue to what?” he cried.
But Mr. Gryce was not the man to answer such a question.
“You shall hear soon. Enough that you have given me an idea that may eventually lead to the clearing up of this mystery, if not to your own acquittal from a false charge of murder.”
“And Miss Dare?”
“Is under no charge, and never will be.”
“And Mr. Orcutt?”
“Wait,” said Mr. Gryce —“wait.”
A Link Supplied.
Upon his bloody finger he doth wear
A precious ring.
Titus Andronicus.
Make me to see it; or at the least so prove it,
That the probation bear no hinge nor loop
To hang a doubt on.
Othello.
MR. GRYCE did not believe that Imogene Dare had visited Mrs. Clemmens before the assault, or, indeed, had held any communication with her. Therefore, when Mansell declared that he had never told his aunt of the attachment between himself and this young lady, the astute detective at once drew the conclusion that the widow had never known of that attachment, and consequently that the words which the prisoner had overheard must have referred, not to himself, as he supposed, but to some other man, and, if to some other man — why to the only one with whom Miss Dare’s name was at that time associated; in other words, to Mr. Orcutt!
Now it was not easy to measure the importance of a conclusion like this. For whilst there would have been nothing peculiar in this solitary woman, with the few thousands in the bank, boasting of her power to separate her nephew from the lady of his choice, there was every thing that was significant in her using the same language in regard to Miss Dare and Mr. Orcutt. Nothing but the existence of some unsuspected bond between herself and the great lawyer could have accounted, first, for her feeling on the subject of his marriage; and, secondly, for the threat of interference contained in her very emphatic words — a bond which, while evidently not that of love, was still of a nature to give her control over his destiny, and make her, in spite of her lonely condition, the selfish and determined arbitrator of his fate.
What was that bond? A secret shared between them? The knowledge on her part of some fact in Mr. Orcutt’s past life, which, if revealed, might serve as an impediment to his marriage? In consideration that the great mystery to be solved was what motive Mr. Orcutt could have had for killing this woman, an answer to this question was manifestly of the first importance.
But before proceeding to take any measures to insure one, Mr. Gryce sat down and seriously asked himself whether there was any known fact, circumstantial or otherwise, which refused to fit into the theory that Mr. Orcutt actually committed this crime with his own hand, and at the time he was seen to cross the street and enter Mrs. Clemmens’ house. For, whereas the most complete chain of circumstantial evidence does not necessarily prove the suspected party to be guilty of a crime, the least break in it is fatal to his conviction. And Mr. Gryce wished to be as fair to the memory of Mr. Orcutt as he would have been to the living man.
Beginning, therefore, with the earliest incidents of the fatal day, he called up, first, the letter which the widow had commenced but never lived to finish. It was a suggestive epistle. It was addressed to her most intimate friend, and showed in the few lines written a certain foreboding or apprehension of death remarkable under the circumstances. Mr. Gryce recalled one of its expressions. “There are so many,” wrote she, “to whom my death would be more than welcome.” So many! Many is a strong word; many means more than one, more than two; many means three at least. Now where were the three? Hildreth, of course, was one, Mansell might very properly be another, but who was the third? To Mr. Gryce, but one name suggested itself in reply. So far, then, his theory stood firm. Now what was the next fact known? The milkman stopped with his milk; that was at half-past eleven. He had to wait a few minutes, from which it was concluded she was up-stairs when he rapped. Was it at this time she was interrupted in her letter-writing? If so, she probably did not go back to it, for when Mr. Hildreth called, some fifteen minutes later, she was on the spot to open the door. Their interview was short; it was also stormy. Medicine was the last thing she stood in need of; besides, her mind was evidently preoccupied. Showing him the door, she goes back to her work, and, being deaf, does not notice that he does not leave the house as she expected. Consequently her thoughts go on unhindered, and, her condition being one of anger, she mutters aloud and bitterly to herself as she flits from dining-room to kitchen in her labor of serving up her dinner. The words she made use of have been overheard, and here another point appears. For, whereas her temper must have been disturbed by the demand which had been made upon her the day before by her favorite relative and heir, her expressions of wrath at this moment were not levelled against him, but against a young lady who is said to have been a stranger to her, her language being: “You think you are going to marry him, Imogene Dare; but I tell you you never shall, not while I live.” Her chief grievance, then, and the one thing uppermost in her thoughts, even at a time when she felt that there were many who desired her death, lay in this fact that a young and beautiful woman had manifested, as she supposed, a wish to marry Mr. Orcutt, the word him which she had used, necessarily referring to the lawyer, as she knew nothing of Imogene’s passion for her nephew.
But this is not the only point into which it is necessary to inquire. For to believe Mr. Orcutt guilty of this crime one must also believe that all the other persons who had been accused of it were truthful in the explanations which they gave of the events which had seemingly connected them with it. Now, were they? Take the occurrences of that critical moment when the clock stood at five minutes to twelve. If Mr. Hildreth is to be believed, he was at that instant in the widow’s front hall musing on his disappointment and arranging his plans for the future; the tramp, if those who profess to have watched him are to be believed, was on the kitchen portico; Craik Mansell on the dining-room door-step; Imogene Dare before her telescope in Professor Darling’s observatory. Mr. Hildreth, with two doors closed between him and the back of the house, knew nothing of what was said or done there, but the tramp heard loud talking, and Craik Mansell the actual voice of the widow raised in words which were calculated to mislead him into thinking she was engaged in angry altercation with the woman he loved. What do all three do, then? Mr. Hildreth remains where he is; the tramp skulks away through the front gate; Craik Mansell rushes back to the woods. And Imogene Dare? She has turned her telescope toward Mrs. Clemmens’ cottage, and, being on the side of the dining-room door, sees the flying form of Craik Mansell, and marks it till it disappears from her sight. Is there any thing contradictory in these various statements? No. Every thing, on the contrary, that is reconcilable.
Let us proceed then. What happens a few minutes later? Mr. Hildreth, tired of seclusion and anxious to catch the train, opens the front door and steps out. The tramp, skulking round some other back door, does not see him; Imogene, with her eye on Craik Mansell, now vanishing into the woods, does not see him; nobody sees him. He goes, and the widow for a short interval is as much alone as she believed herself to be a minute or two before when three men stood, unseen by each other, at each of the three doors of her house. What does she do now?
Why, she finishes preparing her dinner, and then, observing that the clock is slow, proceeds to set it right. Fatal task! Before she has had an opportunity to finish it, the front door has opened again, Mr. Orcutt has come in, and, tempted perhaps by her defenceless position, catches up a stick of wood from the fireplace and, with one blow, strikes her down at his feet, and rushes forth again with tidings of her death.
Now, is there any thing in all this that is contradictory? No; there is only something left out. In the whole of this description of what went on in the widow’s house, there has been no mention made of the ring — the ring which it is conceded was either in Craik Mansell’s or Imogene Dare’s possession the evening before the murder, and which was found on the dining-room floor within ten minutes after the assault took place. If Mrs. Clemmens’ exclamations are to be taken as an attempt to describe her murderer, then this ring must have been on the hand which was raised against her, and how could that have been if the hand was that of Mr. Orcutt? Unimportant as it seemed, the discovery of this ring on the floor, taken with the exclamations of the widow, make a break in the chain that is fatal to Mr. Gryce’s theory. Yet does it? The consternation displayed by Mr. Orcutt when Imogene claimed the ring and put it on her finger may have had a deeper significance than was thought at the time. Was there any way in which he could have come into possession of it before she did? and could it have been that he had had it on his hand when he struck the blow? Mr. Gryce bent all his energies to inquire.
First, where was the ring when the lovers parted in the wood the day before the murder? Evidently in Mr. Mansell’s coat-pocket. Imogene had put it there, and Imogene had left it there. But Mansell did not know it was there, so took no pains to look after its safety. It accordingly slipped out; but when? Not while he slept, or it would have been found in the hut. Not while he took the path to his aunt’s house, or it would have been found in the lane, or, at best, on the dining-room door-step. When, then? Mr. Gryce could think of but one instant, and that was when the young man threw his coat from one arm to the other at the corner of the house toward the street. If it rolled out then it would have been under an impetus, and, as the coat was flung from the right arm to the left, the ring would have flown in the direction of the gate and fallen, perhaps, directly on the walk in front of the house. If it had, its presence in the dining-room seemed to show it had been carried there by Mr. Orcutt, since he was the next person who went into the house.
But did it fall there? Mr. Gryce took the only available means to find out.
Sending for Horace Byrd, he said to him:
“You were on the court-house steps when Mr. Orcutt left and crossed over to the widow’s house?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Were you watching him? Could you describe his manner as he entered the house; how he opened the gate; or whether he stopped to look about him before going in?”
“No, sir,” returned Byrd; “my eyes may have been on him, but I don’t remember any thing especial that he did.”
Somewhat disappointed, Mr. Gryce went to the District Attorney and put to him the same question. The answer he received from him was different. With a gloomy contraction of his brow, Mr. Ferris said:
“Yes, I remember his look and appearance very well. He stepped briskly, as he always did, and carried his head —— Wait!” he suddenly exclaimed, giving the detective a look in which excitement and decision were strangely blended. “You think Mr. Orcutt committed this crime; that he left us standing on the court-house steps and crossed the street to Mrs. Clemmens’ house with the deliberate intention of killing her, and leaving the burden of his guilt to be shouldered by the tramp. Now, you have called up a memory to me that convinces me this could not have been. Had he had any such infernal design in his breast he would not have been likely to have stopped as he did to pick up something which he saw lying on the walk in front of Mrs. Clemmens’ house.”
“And did Mr. Orcutt do that?” inquired Mr. Gryce, with admirable self-control.
“Yes, I remember it now distinctly. It was just as he entered the gate. A man meditating a murder of this sort would not be likely to notice a pin lying in his path, much less pause to pick it up.”
“How if it were a diamond ring?”
“A diamond ring?”
“Mr. Ferris,” said the detective, gravely, “you have just supplied a very important link in the chain of evidence against Mr. Orcutt. The question is, how could the diamond ring which Miss Dare is believed to have dropped into Mr. Mansell’s coat-pocket have been carried into Mrs. Clemmens’ house without the agency of either herself or Mr. Mansell? I think you have just shown.” And the able detective, in a few brief sentences, explained the situation to Mr. Ferris, together with the circumstances of Mansell’s flight, as gleaned by him in his conversation with the prisoner.
The District Attorney was sincerely dismayed. The guilt of the renowned lawyer was certainly assuming positive proportions. Yet, true to his friendship for Mr. Orcutt, he made one final effort to controvert the arguments of the detective, and quietly said:
“You profess to explain how the ring might have been carried into Mrs. Clemmens’ house, but how do you account for the widow having used an exclamation which seems to signify it was on the hand which she saw lifted against her life?”
“By the fact that it was on that hand.”
“Do you think that probable if the hand was Mr. Orcutt’s?”
“Perfectly so. Where else would he be likely to put it in the preoccupied state of mind in which he was? In his pocket? The tramp might have done that, but not the gentleman.”
Mr. Ferris looked at the detective with almost an expression of fear.
“And how came it to be on the floor if Mr. Orcutt put it on his finger?”
“By the most natural process in the world. The ring made for Miss Dare’s third finger was too large for Mr. Orcutt’s little finger, and so slipped off when he dropped the stick of wood from his hand.”
“And he left it lying where it fell?”
“He probably did not notice its loss. If, as I suppose, he had picked it up and placed it on his finger, mechanically, its absence at such a moment would not be observed. Besides, what clue could he suppose a diamond ring he had never seen before, and which he had had on his finger but an instant, would offer in a case like this?”
“You reason close,” said the District Attorney; “too close,” he added, as he recalled, with painful distinctness, the look and attitude of Mr. Orcutt at the time this ring was first brought into public notice, and realized that so might a man comport himself who, conscious of this ring’s association with the crime he had just secretly perpetrated, sees it claimed and put on the finger of the woman he loves.
Mr. Gryce, with his usual intuition, seemed to follow the thoughts of the District Attorney.
“If our surmises are correct,” he remarked, “it was a grim moment for the lawyer when, secure in his immunity from suspicion, he saw Miss Dare come upon the scene with eager inquiries concerning this murder. To you, who had not the clue, it looked as if he feared she was not as innocent as she should be; but, if you will recall the situation now, I think you will see that his agitation can only be explained by his apprehension of her intuitions and an alarm lest her interest sprang from some mysterious doubt of himself.”
Mr. Ferris shook his head with a gloomy air, but did not respond.
“Miss Dare tells me,” the detective resumed, “that his first act upon their meeting again at his house was to offer himself to her in marriage. Now you, or any one else, would say this was to show he did not mistrust her, but I say it was to find out if she mistrusted him.”
Still Mr. Ferris remained silent.
“The same reasoning will apply to what followed,” continued Mr. Gryce. “You cannot reconcile the thought of his guilt with his taking the case of Mansell and doing all he could to secure his acquittal. But you will find it easier to do so when I tell you that, without taking into consideration any spark of sympathy which he might feel for the man falsely accused of his crime, he knew from Imogene’s lips that she would not survive the condemnation of her lover, and that, besides this, his only hope of winning her for his wife lay in the gratitude he might awaken in her if he succeeded in saving his rival.”
“You are making him out a great villain,” murmured Mr. Ferris, bitterly.
“And was not that the language of his own countenance as he lay dying?” inquired the detective.
Mr. Ferris could not say No. He had himself been too deeply impressed by the sinister look he had observed on the face of his dying friend. He therefore confined himself to remarking, not without sarcasm:
“And now for the motive of this hideous crime — for I suppose your ingenuity has discovered one before this.”
“It will be found in his love for Miss Dare,” returned the detective; “but just how I am not prepared to-day to say.”
“His love for Miss Dare? What had this plain and homespun Mrs. Clemmens to do with his love for Miss Dare?”
“She was an interference.”
“How?”
“Ah, that, sir, is the question.”
“So then you do not know?”
Mr. Gryce was obliged to shake his head.
The District Attorney drew himself up. “Mr. Gryce,” said he, “the charge which has been made against this eminent man demands the very strongest proof in order to substantiate it. The motive, especially, must be shown to have been such as to offer a complete excuse for suspecting him. No trivial or imaginary reason for his wishing this woman out of the world will answer in his case. You must prove that her death was absolutely necessary to the success of his dearest hopes, or your reasoning will only awaken distrust in the minds of all who hear it. The fame of a man like Mr. Orcutt is not to be destroyed by a passing word of delirium, or a specious display of circumstantial evidence such as you evolve from the presence of the ring on the scene of murder.”
“I know it,” allowed Mr. Gryce, “and that is why I have asked for a week.”
“Then you still believe you can find such a motive?”
The smile which Mr. Gryce bestowed upon the favored object then honored by his gaze haunted the District Attorney for the rest of the week.
Consultations.
That he should die is worthy policy;
But yet we want a color for his death;
’Tis meet he be condemned by course of law.
Henry vi.
MR. GRYCE was perfectly aware that the task before him was a difficult one. To be himself convinced that Mr. Orcutt had been in possession of a motive sufficient to account for, if not excuse, this horrible crime was one thing; to find out that motive and make it apparent to the world was another. But he was not discouraged. Summoning his two subordinates, he laid the matter before them.
“I am convinced,” said he, “that Mrs. Clemmens was a more important person to Mr. Orcutt than her plain appearance and humble manner of life would suggest. Do either of you know whether Mr. Orcutt’s name has ever been associated with any private scandal, the knowledge of which might have given her power over him?”
“I do not think he was that kind of a man,” said Byrd. “Since morning I have put myself in the way of such persons as I saw disposed to converse about him, and though I have been astonished to find how many there are who say they never quite liked or altogether trusted this famous lawyer, I have heard nothing said in any way derogatory to his private character. Indeed, I believe, as far as the ladies were concerned, he was particularly reserved. Though a bachelor, he showed no disposition to marry, and until Miss Dare appeared on the scene was not known to be even attentive to one of her sex.”
“Some one, however, I forget who, told me that for a short time he was sweet on a certain Miss Pratt,” remarked Hickory.
“Pratt? Where have I heard that name?” murmured Byrd to himself.
“But nothing came of it,” Hickory continued. “She was not over and above smart they say, and though pretty enough, did not hold his fancy. Some folks declare she was so disappointed she left town.”
“Pratt, Pratt!” repeated Byrd to himself. “Ah! I know now,” he suddenly exclaimed. “While I stood around amongst the crowd, the morning Mrs. Clemmens was murdered, I remember overhearing some one say how hard she was on the Pratt girl.”
“Humph!” ejaculated Mr. Gryce. “The widow was hard on any one Mr. Orcutt chose to admire.”
“I don’t understand it,” said Byrd.
“Nor I,” rejoined Mr. Gryce; “but I intend to before the week is out.” Then abruptly: “When did Mrs. Clemmens come to this town?”
“Fifteen years ago,” replied Byrd.
“And Orcutt — when did he first put in an appearance here?”
“At very much the same time, I believe.”
“Humph! And did they seem to be friends at that time?”
“Some say Yes, some say No.”
“Where did he come from — have you learned?”
“From some place in Nebraska, I believe.”
“And she?”
“Why, she came from some place in Nebraska too!”
“The same place?”
“That we must find out.”
Mr. Gryce mused for a minute; then he observed:
“Mr. Orcutt was renowned in his profession. Do you know any thing about his career — whether he brought a reputation for ability with him, or whether his fame was entirely made in this place?”
“I think it was made here. Indeed, I have heard that it was in this court he pleaded his first case. Don’t you know more about it, Hickory?”
“Yes; Mr. Ferris told me this morning that Orcutt had not opened a law-book when he came to this town. That he was a country schoolmaster in some uncivilized district out West, and would never have been any thing more, perhaps, if the son of old Stephen Orcutt had not died, and thus made a vacancy in the law-office here which he was immediately sent for to fill.”
“Stephen Orcutt? He was the uncle of this man, wasn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“And quite a lawyer too?”
“Yes, but nothing like Tremont B. He was successful from the start. Had a natural aptitude, I suppose — must have had, to pick up the profession in the way he did.”
“Boys,” cried Mr. Gryce, after another short ruminative pause, “the secret we want to know is of long standing; indeed, I should not be surprised if it were connected with his life out West. I will tell you why I think so. For ten years Mrs. Clemmens has been known to put money in the bank regularly every week. Now, where did she get that money? From Mr. Orcutt, of course. What for? In payment for the dinner he usually took with her? No, in payment of her silence concerning a past he desired kept secret.”
“But they have been here fifteen years and she has only received money for ten.”
“She has only put money in the bank for ten; she may have been paid before that and may not. I do not suppose he was in a condition to be very lavish at the outset of his career.”
“You advise us, then, to see what we can make out of his early life out West?”
“Yes; and I will see what I can make out of hers. The link which connects the two will be found. Mr. Orcutt did not say: ‘It was all for you, Imogene,’ for nothing.”
And, dismissing the two young men, Mr. Gryce proceeded to the house of Mr. Orcutt, where he entered upon an examination of such papers and documents as were open to his inspection, in the hope of discovering some allusion to the deceased lawyer’s early history. But he was not successful. Neither did a like inspection of the widow’s letters bring any new facts to light. The only result which seemed to follow these efforts was an increased certainty on his part that some dangerous secret lurked in a past that was so determinedly hidden from the world, and resorting to the only expedient now left to him, he resolved to consult Miss Firman, as being the only person who professed to have had any acquaintance with Mrs. Clemmens before she came to Sibley. To be sure, she had already been questioned by the coroner, but Mr. Gryce was a man who had always found that the dryest well could be made to yield a drop or two more of water if the bucket was dropped by a dexterous hand. He accordingly prepared himself for a trip to Utica.
Mrs. Firman.
Hark! she speaks. I will set down what comes from her. . . .
Heaven knows what she has known.
Macbeth.
“MISS FIRMAN, I believe?” The staid, pleasant-faced lady whom we know, but who is looking older and considerably more careworn than when we saw her at the coroner’s inquest, rose from her chair in her own cozy sitting-room, and surveyed her visitor curiously. “I am Mr. Gryce,” the genial voice went on. “Perhaps the name is not familiar?”
“I never heard it before,” was the short but not ungracious reply.
“Well, then, let me explain,” said he. “You are a relative of the Mrs. Clemmens who was so foully murdered in Sibley, are you not? Pardon me, but I see you are; your expression speaks for itself.” How he could have seen her expression was a mystery to Miss Firman, for his eyes, if not attention, were seemingly fixed upon some object in quite a different portion of the room. “You must, therefore,” he pursued, “be in a state of great anxiety to know who her murderer was. Now, I am in that same state, madam; we are, therefore, in sympathy, you see.”
The respectful smile and peculiar intonation with which these last words were uttered, robbed them of their familiarity and allowed Miss Firman to perceive his true character.
“You are a detective,” said she, and as he did not deny it, she went on: “You say I must be anxious to know who my cousin’s murderer was. Has Craik Mansell, then, been acquitted?”
“A verdict has not been given,” said the other. “His trial has been adjourned in order to give him an opportunity to choose a new counsel.”
Miss Firman motioned her visitor to be seated, and at once took a chair herself.
“What do you want with me?” she asked, with characteristic bluntness.
The detective was silent. It was but for a moment, but in that moment he seemed to read to the bottom of this woman’s mind.
“Well,” said he, “I will tell you. You believe Craik Mansell to be innocent?”
“I do,” she returned.
“Very well; so do I.”
“Let me shake hands with you,” was her abrupt remark. And without a smile she reached forth her hand, which he took with equal gravity.
This ceremony over, he remarked, with a cheerful mien:
“We are fortunately not in a court of law, and so can talk freely together. Why do you think Mansell innocent? I am sure the evidence has not been much in his favor.”
“Why do you think him innocent?” was the brisk retort.
“I have talked with him.”
“Ah!”
“I have talked with Miss Dare.”
A different “Ah!” this time.
“And I was present when Mr. Orcutt breathed his last.”
The look she gave was like cold water on Mr. Gryce’s secretly growing hopes.
“What has that to do with it?” she wonderingly exclaimed.
The detective took another tone.
“You did not know Mr. Orcutt then?” he inquired.
“I had not that honor,” was the formal reply.
“You have never, then, visited your cousin in Sibley?”
“Yes, I was there once; but that did not give me an acquaintance with Mr. Orcutt.”
“Yet he went almost every day to her house.”
“And he came while I was there, but that did not give me an acquaintance with him.”
“He was reserved, then, in his manners, uncommunicative, possibly morose?”
“He was just what I would expect such a gentleman to be at the table with women like my cousin and myself.”
“Not morose, then; only reserved.”
“Exactly,” the short, quick bow of the amiable spinster seemed to assert.
Mr. Gryce drew a deep breath. This well seemed to be destitute of even a drop of moisture.
“Why do you ask me about Mr. Orcutt? Has his death in any way affected young Mansell’s prospects?”
“That is what I want to find out,” declared Mr. Gryce. Then, without giving her time for another question, said: “Where did Mrs. Clemmens first make the acquaintance of Mr. Orcutt? Wasn’t it in some town out West?”
“Out West? Not to my knowledge, sir. I always supposed she saw him first in Sibley.”
This well was certainly very dry.
“Yet you are not positive that this is so, are you?” pursued the patient detective. “She came from Nebraska, and so did he; now, why may they not have known each other there?”
“I did not know that he came from Nebraska.”
“She has never talked about him then?”
“Never.”
Mr. Gryce drew another deep breath and let down his bucket again.
“I thought your cousin spent her childhood in Toledo?”
“She did, sir.”
“How came she to go to Nebraska then?”
“Well, she was left an orphan and had to look out for herself. A situation in some way opened to her in Nebraska, and she went there to take it.”
“A situation at what?”
“As waitress in some hotel.”
“Humph! And was she still a waitress when she married?”
“Yes, I think so, but I am not sure about it or any thing else in connection with her at that time. The subject was so painful we never discussed it.”
“Why painful?”
“She lost her husband so soon.”
“But you can tell me the name of the town in which this hotel was, can you not?”
“It was called Swanson then, but that was fifteen years ago. Its name may have been changed since.”
Swanson! This was something to learn, but not much. Mr. Gryce returned to his first question. “You have not told me,” said he, “why you believe Craik Mansell to be innocent?”
“Well,” replied she, “I believe Craik Mansell to be innocent because he is the son of his mother. I think I know him pretty well, but I am certain I knew her. She was a woman who would go through fire and water to attain a purpose she thought right, but who would stop in the midst of any project the moment she felt the least doubt of its being just or wise. Craik has his mother’s forehead and eyes, and no one will ever make me believe he has not her principles also.”
“I coincide with you, madam,” remarked the attentive detective.
“I hope the jury will,” was her energetic response.
He bowed and was about to attempt another question, when an interruption occurred. Miss Firman was called from the room, and Mr. Gryce found himself left for a few moments alone. His thoughts, as he awaited her return, were far from cheerful, for he saw a long and tedious line of inquiry opening before him in the West, which, if it did not end in failure, promised to exhaust not only a week, but possibly many months, before certainty of any kind could be obtained. With Miss Dare on the verge of a fever, and Mansell in a position calling for the utmost nerve and self-control, this prospect looked any thing but attractive to the benevolent detective; and, carried away by his impatience, he was about to give utterance to an angry ejaculation against the man he believed to be the author of all this mischief, when he suddenly heard a voice raised from some unknown quarter near by, saying in strange tones he was positive did not proceed from Miss Firman:
“Was it Clemmens or was it Orcutt? Clemmens or Orcutt? I cannot remember.”
Naturally excited and aroused, Mr. Gryce rose and looked about him. A door stood ajar at his back. Hastening toward it, he was about to lay his hand on the knob when Miss Firman returned.
“Oh, I beg you,” she entreated. “That is my mother’s room, and she is not at all well.”
“I was going to her assistance,” asserted the detective, with grave composure. “She has just uttered a cry.”
“Oh, you don’t say so!” exclaimed the unsuspicious spinster, and hurrying forward, she threw open the door herself. Mr. Gryce benevolently followed. “Why, she is asleep,” protested Miss Firman, turning on the detective with a suspicious look.
Mr. Gryce, with a glance toward the bed he saw before him, bowed with seeming perplexity.
“She certainly appears to be,” said he, “and yet I am positive she spoke but an instant ago; I can even tell you the words she used.”
“What were they?” asked the spinster, with something like a look of concern.
“She said: ‘Was it Clemmens or was it Orcutt? Clemmens or Orcutt? I cannot remember.’”
“You don’t say so! Poor ma! She was dreaming. Come into the other room and I will explain.”
And leading the way back to the apartment they had left, she motioned him again toward a chair, and then said:
“Ma has always been a very hale and active woman for her years; but this murder seems to have shaken her. To speak the truth, sir, she has not been quite right in her mind since the day I told her of it; and I often detect her murmuring words similar to those you have just heard.”
“Humph! And does she often use his name?”
“Whose name?”
“Mr. Orcutt’s.”
“Why, yes; but not with any understanding of whom she is speaking.”
“Are you sure?” inquired Mr. Gryce, with that peculiar impressiveness he used on great occasions.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” returned the detective, dryly, “that I believe your mother does know what she is talking about when she links the name of Mr. Orcutt with that of your cousin who was murdered. They belong together; Mr. Orcutt was her murderer.”
“Mr. Orcutt?”
“Hush!” cried Mr. Gryce, “you will wake up your mother.”
And, adapting himself to this emergency as to all others, he talked with the astounded and incredulous woman before him till she was in a condition not only to listen to his explanations, but to discuss the problem of a crime so seemingly without motive. He then said, with easy assurance:
“Your mother does not know that Mr. Orcutt is dead?”
“No, sir.”
“She does not even know he was counsel for Craik Mansell in the trial now going on.”
“How do you know that?” inquired Miss Firman, grimly.
“Because I do not believe you have even told her that Craik Mansell was on trial.”
“Sir, you are a magician.”
“Have you, madam?”
“No, sir, I have not.”
“Very good; what does she know about Mr. Orcutt, then; and why should she connect his name with Mrs. Clemmens?”
“She knows he was her boarder, and that he was the first one to discover she had been murdered.”
“That is not enough to account for her frequent repetition of his name.”
“You think not?”
“I am sure not. Cannot your mother have some memories connected with his name of which you are ignorant?”
“No, sir; we have lived together in this house for twenty-five years, and have never had a thought we have not shared together. Ma could not have known any thing about him or Mary Ann which I did not. The words she has just spoken sprang from mental confusion. She is almost like a child sometimes.”
Mr. Gryce smiled. If the cream-jug he happened to be gazing at on a tray near by had been full of cream, I am far from certain it would not have turned sour on the spot.
“I grant the mental confusion,” said he; “but why should she confuse those two names in preference to all others?” And, with quiet persistence, he remarked again: “She may be recalling some old fact of years ago. Was there never a time, even while you lived here together, when she could have received some confidence from Mrs. Clemmens ——”
“Mary Ann, Mary Ann!” came in querulous accents from the other room, “I wish you had not told me; Emily would be a better one to know your secret.”
It was a startling interruption to come just at that moment The two surprised listeners glanced toward each other, and Miss Firman colored.
“That sounds as if your surmise was true,” she dryly observed.
“Let us make an experiment,” said he, and motioned her to re-enter her mother’s room, which she did with a precipitation that showed her composure had been sorely shaken by these unexpected occurrences.
He followed her without ceremony.
The old lady lay as before in a condition between sleeping and waking, and did not move as they came in. Mr. Gryce at once withdrew out of sight, and, with finger on his lip, put himself in the attitude of waiting. Miss Firman, surprised, and possibly curious, took her stand at the foot of the bed.
A few minutes passed thus, during which a strange dreariness seemed to settle upon the room; then the old lady spoke again, this time repeating the words he had first heard, but in a tone which betrayed an increased perplexity.
“Was it Clemmens or was it Orcutt? I wish somebody would tell me.”
Instantly Mr. Gryce, with his soft tread, drew near to the old lady’s side, and, leaning over her, murmured gently:
“I think it was Orcutt.”
Instantly the old lady breathed a deep sigh and moved.
“Then her name was Mrs. Orcutt,” said she, “and I thought you always called her Clemmens.”
Miss Firman, recoiling, stared at Mr. Gryce, on whose cheek a faint spot of red had appeared — a most unusual token of emotion with him.
“Did she say it was Mrs. Orcutt,” he pursued, in the even tones he had before used.
“She said ——” But here the old lady opened her eyes, and, seeing her daughter standing at the foot of her bed, turned away with a peevish air, and restlessly pushed her hand under the pillow.
Mr. Gryce at once bent nearer.
“She said ——” he suggested, with careful gentleness.
But the old lady made no answer. Her hand seemed to have touched some object for which she was seeking, and she was evidently oblivious to all else. Miss Firman came around and touched Mr. Gryce on the shoulder.
“It is useless,” said she; “she is awake now, and you won’t hear any thing more; come!”
And she drew the reluctant detective back again into the other room.
“What does it all mean?” she asked, sinking into a chair.
Mr. Gryce did not answer. He had a question of his own to put.
“Why did your mother put her hand under her pillow?” he asked.
“I don’t know, unless it was to see if her big envelope was there.”
“Her big envelope?”
“Yes; for weeks now, ever since she took to her bed, she has kept a paper in a big envelope under her pillow. What is in it I don’t know, for she never seems to hear me when I inquire.”
“And have you no curiosity to find out?”
“No, sir. Why should I? It might easily be my father’s old letters sealed up, or, for that matter, be nothing more than a piece of blank paper. My mother is not herself, as I have said before.”
“I should like a peep at the contents of that envelope,” he declared.
“You?”
“Is there any name written on the outside?”
“No.”
“It would not be violating any one’s rights, then, if you opened it.”
“Only my mother’s, sir.”
“You say she is not in her right mind?”
“All the more reason why I should respect her whims and caprices.”
“Wouldn’t you open it if she were dead?”
“Yes.”
“Will it be very different then from what it is now? A father’s letters! a blank piece of paper! What harm would there be in looking at them?”
“My mother would know it if I took them away. It might excite and injure her.”
“Put another envelope in the place of this one, with a piece of paper folded up in it.”
“It would be a trick.”
“I know it; but if Craik Mansell can be saved even by a trick, I should think you would be willing to venture on one.”
“Craik Mansell? What has he got to do with the papers under my mother’s pillow?”
“I cannot say that he has any thing to do with them; but if he has — if, for instance, that envelope should contain, not a piece of blank paper, or even the letters of your father, but such a document, say, as a certificate of marriage ——”
“A certificate of marriage?”
“Yes, between Mrs. Clemmens and Mr. Orcutt, it would not take much perspicacity to prophesy an acquittal for Craik Mansell.”
“Mary Ann the wife of Mr. Orcutt! Oh, that is impossible!” exclaimed the agitated spinster. But even while making this determined statement, she turned a look full of curiosity and excitement toward the door which separated them from her mother’s apartment.
Mr. Gryce smiled in his wise way.
“Less improbable things than that have been found to be true in this topsy-turvy world,” said he. “Mrs. Clemmens might very well have been Mrs. Orcutt.”
“Do you really think so?” she asked; and yielding with sudden impetuosity to the curiosity of the moment, she at once dashed from his side and disappeared in her mother’s room. Mr. Gryce’s smile took on an aspect of triumph.
It was some few moments before she returned, but when she did, her countenance was flushed with emotion.
“I have it,” she murmured, taking out a packet from under her apron and tearing it open with trembling fingers.
A number of closely written sheets fell out.
The Widow Clemmens.
Discovered
The secret that so long had hovered
Upon the misty verge of Truth.
Longfellow.
“WELL, and what have you to say?” It was Mr. Ferris who spoke. The week which Mr. Gryce had demanded for his inquiries had fully elapsed, and the three detectives stood before him ready with their report.
It was Mr. Gryce who replied.
“Sir,” said he, “our opinions have not been changed by the discoveries which we have made. It was Mr. Orcutt who killed Mrs. Clemmens, and for the reason already stated that she stood in the way of his marrying Miss Dare. Mrs. Clemmens was his wife.”
“His wife?”
“Yes, sir; and, what is more, she has been so for years; before either of them came to Sibley, in fact.”
The District Attorney looked stunned.
“It was while they lived West,” said Byrd. “He was a poor school-master, and she a waitress in some hotel. She was pretty then, and he thought he loved her. At all events, he induced her to marry him, and then kept it secret because he was afraid she would lose her place at the hotel, where she was getting very good wages. You see, he had the makings in him of a villain even then.”
“And was it a real marriage?”
“There is a record of it,” said Hickory.
“And did he never acknowledge it?”
“Not openly,” answered Byrd. “The commonness of the woman seemed to revolt him after he was married to her, and when in a month or so he received the summons East, which opened up before him the career of a lawyer, he determined to drop her and start afresh. He accordingly left town without notifying her, and actually succeeded in reaching the railway depot twenty miles away before he was stopped. But here, a delay occurring in the departure of the train, she was enabled to overtake him, and a stormy scene ensued. What its exact nature was, we, of course, cannot say, but from the results it is evident that he told her his prospects had changed, and with them his tastes and requirements; that she was not the woman he thought her, and that he could not and would not take her East with him as his wife: while she, on her side, displayed full as much spirit as he, and replied that if he could desert her like this he wasn’t the kind of a man she could live with, and that he could go if he wished; only that he must acknowledge her claims upon him by giving her a yearly stipend, according to his income and success. At all events, some such compromise was effected, for he came East and she went back to Swanson. She did not stay there long, however; for the next we know she was in Sibley, where she set up her own little house-keeping arrangements under his very eye. More than that, she prevailed upon him to visit her daily, and even to take a meal at her house, her sense of justice seeming to be satisfied if he showed her this little attention and gave to no other woman the place he denied her. It was the weakness shown in this last requirement that doubtless led to her death. She would stand any thing but a rival. He knew this, and preferred crime to the loss of the woman he loved.”
“You speak very knowingly,” said Mr. Ferris. “May I ask where you received your information?”
It was Mr. Gryce who answered.
“From letters. Mrs. Clemmens was one of those women who delight in putting their feelings on paper. Fortunately for us, such women are not rare. See here!” And he pulled out before the District Attorney a pile of old letters in the widow’s well-known handwriting.
“Where did you find these?” asked Mr. Ferris.
“Well,” said Mr. Gryce, “I found them in rather a curious place. They were in the keeping of old Mrs. Firman, Miss Firman’s mother. Mrs. Clemmens, or, rather, Mrs. Orcutt, got frightened some two years ago at the disappearance of her marriage certificate from the place where she had always kept it hidden, and, thinking that Mr. Orcutt was planning to throw her off, she resolved to provide herself with a confidante capable of standing by her in case she wished to assert her rights. She chose old Mrs. Firman. Why, when her daughter would have been so much more suitable for the purpose, it is hard to tell; possibly the widow’s pride revolted from telling a woman of her own years the indignities she had suffered. However that may be, it was to the old lady she told her story and gave these letters — letters which, as you will see, are not written to any special person, but are rather the separate leaves of a journal which she kept to show the state of her feelings from time to time.”
“And this?” inquired Mr. Ferris, taking up a sheet of paper written in a different handwriting from the rest.
“This is an attempt on the part of the old lady to put on paper the story which had been told her. She evidently thought herself too old to be entrusted with a secret so important, and, fearing loss of memory, or perhaps sudden death, took this means of explaining how she came into possession of her cousin’s letters. ‘T was a wise precaution. Without it we would have missed the clue to the widow’s journal. For the old lady’s brain gave way when she heard of the widow’s death, and had it not been for a special stroke of good-luck on my part, we might have remained some time longer in ignorance of what very valuable papers she secretly held in her possession.”
“I will read the letters,” said Mr. Ferris.
Seeing from his look that he only waited their departure to do so, Mr. Gryce and his subordinates arose.
“I think you will find them satisfactory,” drawled Hickory.
“If you do not,” said Mr. Gryce, “then give a look at this telegram. It is from Swanson, and notifies us that a record of a marriage between Benjamin Orcutt — Mr. Orcutt’s middle name was Benjamin — and Mary Mansell can be found in the old town books.”
Mr. Ferris took the telegram, the shade of sorrow settling heavier and heavier on his brow.
“I see,” said he, “I have got to accept your conclusions. Well, there are those among the living who will be greatly relieved by these discoveries. I will try and think of that.”
Yet, after the detectives were gone, and he sat down in solitude before these evidences of his friend’s perfidy, it was many long and dreary moments before he could summon up courage to peruse them. But when he did, he found in them all that Mr. Gryce had promised. As my readers may feel some interest to know how the seeming widow bore the daily trial of her life, I will give a few extracts from these letters. The first bears date of fourteen years back, and was written after she came to Sibley:
“NOVEMBER 8, 1867. — In the same town! Within a stone’s throw of the court-house, where, they tell me, his business will soon take him almost every day! Isn’t it a triumph? and am I not to be congratulated upon my bravery in coming here? He hasn’t seen me yet, but I have seen him. I crept out of the house at nightfall on purpose. He was sauntering down the street and he looked — it makes my blood boil to think of it — he looked happy.”
“NOVEMBER 10, 1867. — Clemmens, Clemmens — that is my name, and I have taken the title of widow. What a fate for a woman with a husband in the next street! He saw me to-day. I met him in the open square, and I looked him right in the face. How he did quail! It just does me good to think of it! Perk and haughty as he is, he grew as white as a sheet when he saw me, and though he tried to put on airs and carry it off with a high hand, he failed, just as I knew he would when he came to meet me on even ground. Oh, I’ll have my way now, and if I choose to stay in this place where I can keep my eye on him, he won’t dare to say No. The only thing I fear is that he will do me a secret mischief some day. His look was just murderous when he left me.”
“FEBRUARY 24, 1868. — Can I stand it? I ask myself that question every morning when I get up. Can I stand it? To sit all alone in my little narrow room and know that he is going about as gay as you please with people who wouldn’t look at me twice. It’s awful hard; but it would be worse still to be where I couldn’t see what he was up to. Then I should imagine all sorts of things. No, I will just grit my teeth and bear it. I’ll get used to it after a while.”
“OCTOBER 7, 1868. — If he says he never loved me he lies. He did, or why did he marry me? I never asked him to. He teased me into it, saying my saucy ways had bewitched him. A month after, it was common ways, rude ways, such ways as he wouldn’t have in a wife. That’s the kind of man he is.”
“MAY 11, 1869. — One thing I will say of him. He don’t pay no heed to women. He’s too busy, I guess. He don’t seem to think of any thing but to get along, and he does get along remarkable. I’m awful proud of him. He’s taken to defending criminals lately. They almost all get off.”
“OCTOBER 5, 1870. — He pays me but a pittance. How can I look like any thing, or hold my head up with the ladies here if I cannot get enough together to buy me a new fall hat. I will not go to church looking like a farmer’s wife, if I haven’t any education or any manners. I’m as good as anybody here if they but knew it, and deserve to dress as well. He must give me more money.”
“NOVEMBER 2, 1870. — No, he sha’n’t give me a cent more. If I can’t go to church I will stay at home. He sha’n’t say I stood in his way of becoming a great man. He is too good for me. I saw it to-day when he got up in the court to speak. I was there with a thick veil over my face, for I was determined to know whether he was as smart as folks say or not. And he just is! Oh, how beautiful he did look, and how everybody held their breaths while he was speaking! I felt like jumping up and saying: ‘This is my husband; we were married three years ago.’ Wouldn’t I have raised a rumpus if I had! I guess the poor man he was pleading for would not have been remembered very long after that. My husband! the thought makes me laugh. No other woman can call him that, anyhow. He is mine, mine, mine, and I mean he shall stay so.”
“JANUARY 9, 1871. — I feel awful blue to-night. I have been thinking about those Hildreths. How they would like to have me dead! And so would Tremont, though he don’t say nothing. I like to call him Tremont; it makes me feel as if he belonged to me. What if that wicked Gouverneur Hildreth should know I lived so much alone? I don’t believe he would stop at killing me! And my husband! He is equal to telling him I have no protector. Oh, what a dreadful wickedness it is in me to put that down on paper! It isn’t so — it isn’t so; my husband wouldn’t do me any harm if he could. If ever I’m found dead in my bed, it will be the work of that Toledo man and of nobody else.”
“MARCH 2, 1872. — I hope I am going to have some comfort now. Tremont has begun to pay me more money. He had to. He isn’t a poor man any more, and when he moves into his big house, I am going to move into a certain little cottage I have found, just around the corner. If I can’t have no other pleasures, I will at least have a kitchen I can call my own, and a parlor too. What if there don’t no company come to it; they would if they knew. I’ve just heard from Adelaide; she says Craik is getting to be a big boy, and is so smart.”
“JUNE 10, 1872. — What’s the use of having a home? I declare I feel just like breaking down and crying. I don’t want company: if women folks, they’re always talking about their husbands and children; and if men, they’re always saying: ‘My wife’s this, and my wife’s that.’ But I do want him. It’s my right; what if I couldn’t say three words to him that was agreeable, I could look at him and think: ‘This splendid gentleman is my husband, I ain’t so much alone in the world as folks think.’ I’ll put on my bonnet and run down the street. Perhaps I’ll see him sitting in the club-house window!”
“EVENING. — I hate him. He has a hard, cruel, wicked heart. When I got to the club-house window he was sitting there, so I just went walking by, and he saw me and came out and hustled me away with terrible words, saying he wouldn’t have me hanging round where he was; that I had promised not to bother him, and that I must keep my word, or he would see me — he didn’t say where, but it’s easy enough to guess. So — so! he thinks he’ll put an end to my coming to see him, does he? Well, perhaps he can; but if he does, he shall pay for it by coming to see me. I’ll not sit day in and day out alone without the glimpse of a face I love, not while I have a husband in the same town with me. He shall come, if it is only for a moment each day, or I’ll dare every thing and tell the world I am his wife.”
“JUNE 16, 1872. — He had to consent! Meek as I have been, he knows it won’t do to rouse me too much. So to-day he came in to dinner, and he had to acknowledge it was a good one. Oh, how I did feel when I saw his face on the other side of the table! I didn’t know whether I hated him or loved him. But I am sure now I hated him, for he scarcely spoke to me all the time he was eating, and when he was through, he went away just as a stranger would have done. He means to act like a boarder, and, goodness me, he’s welcome to if he isn’t going to act like a husband! The hard, selfish —— Oh, oh, I love him!”
“AUGUST 5, 1872. — It is no use; I’ll never be a happy woman. Tremont has been in so regularly to dinner lately, and shown me such a kind face, I thought I would venture upon a little familiarity. It was only to lay my hand upon his arm, but it made him very angry, and I thought he would strike me. Am I then actually hateful to him? or is he so proud he cannot bear the thought of my having the right to touch him? I looked in the glass when he went out. I am plain and homespun, that’s a fact. Even my red cheeks are gone, and the dimples which once took his fancy. I shall never lay the tip of a finger on him again.”
“FEBRUARY 13, 1873. — What shall I cook for him to-day? Some thing that he likes. It is my only pleasure, to see how he does enjoy my meals. I should think they would choke him; they do me sometimes. But men are made of iron — ambitious men, anyhow. Little they care what suffering they cause, so long as they have a good time and get all the praises they want. He gets them more and more every day. He will soon be as far above me as if I had married the President himself. Oh, sometimes when I think of it and remember he is my own husband, I just feel as if some awful fate was preparing for him or me!”
“JUNE 7, 1873. — Would he send for me if he was dying? No. He hates me; he hates me.”
“SEPTEMBER 8, 1874. — Craik was here to-day; he is just going North to earn a few dollars in the logging business. What a keen eye he has for a boy of his years! I shouldn’t wonder if he made a powerful smart man some day. If he’s only good, too, and kind to his women-folks, I sha’n’t mind. But a smart man who is all for himself is an awful trial to those who love him. Don’t I know? Haven’t I suffered? Craik must never be like him.”
“DECEMBER 21, 1875. — One thousand dollars. That’s a nice little sum to have put away in the bank. So much I get out of my husband’s fame, anyhow. I think I will make my will, for I want Craik to have what I leave. He’s a fine lad.”
“FEBRUARY 19, 1876. — I was thinking the other day, suppose I did die suddenly. It would be dreadful to have the name of Clemmens put on my tombstone! But it would be. Tremont would never let the truth be known, if he had to rifle my dead body for my marriage certificate. What shall I do, then? Tell anybody who I am? It seems just as if I couldn’t. Either the whole world must know it, or just himself and me alone. Oh, I wish I had never been born!”
“JUNE 17, 1876. — Why wasn’t I made handsome and fine and nice? Think where I would be if I was! I’d be in that big house of his, curtesying to all the grand folks as go there. I went to see it last night. It was dark as pitch in the streets, and I went into the gate and all around the house. I walked upon the piazza too, and rubbed my hand along the window-ledges and up and down the doors. It’s mighty nice, all of it, and there sha’n’t lie a square inch on that whole ground that my foot sha’n’t go over. I wish I could get inside the house once.”
“JULY 1, 1876. — I have done it. I went to see Mr. Orcutt’s sister. I had a right. Isn’t he away, and isn’t he my boarder, and didn’t I want to know when he was coming home? She’s a soft, good-natured piece, and let me peek into the library without saying a word. What a room it is! I just felt like I’d been struck when I saw it and spied his chair setting there and all those books heaped around and the fine things on the mantel-shelf and the pictures on the walls. What would I do in such a place as that? I could keep it clean, but so could any gal he might hire. Oh, me! Oh, me! I wish he’d given me a chance. Perhaps if he had loved me I might have learned to be quiet and nice like that silly sister of his.”
“JANUARY 12, 1877. — Some women would take a heap of delight in having folks know they were the wife of a great man, but I find lots of pleasure in being so without folks knowing it. If I lived in his big house and was called Mrs. Orcutt, why, he would have nothing to be afraid of and might do as he pleased; but now he has to do what I please. Sometimes, when I sit down of an evening in my little sitting-room to sew, I think how this famous man whom everybody is afraid of has to come and go just as humble me wants him to; and it makes me hug myself with pride. It’s as if I had a string tied round his little finger, which I can pull now and then. I don’t pull it much; but I do sometimes.”
“MARCH 30, 1877. — Gouverneur Hildreth is dead. I shall never be his victim, at any rate. Shall I ever be the victim of anybody? I don’t feel as if I cared now. For one kiss I would sell my life and die happy.
“There is a young Gouverneur, but it will be years before he will be old enough to make me afraid of him.”
“NOVEMBER 16, 1878. — I should think that Tremont would be lonely in that big house of his. If he had a heart he would. They say he reads all the time. How can folks pore so over books? I can’t. I’d rather sit in my chair and think. What story in all the books is equal to mine?”
“APRIL 23, 1879. — I am growing very settled in my ways. Now that Tremont comes in almost every day, I’m satisfied not to see any other company. My house affairs keep me busy too. I like to have it all nice for him. I believe I could almost be happy if he’d only smile once in a while when he meets my eye. But he never does. Oh, well, we all have our crosses, and he’s a very great man.”
“JANUARY 18, 1880. — He went to a ball last night. What does it mean? He never seemed to care for things like that. Is there any girl he is after?”
“FEBRUARY 6, 1880. — Oh, he has been riding with a lady, has he? It was in the next town, and he thought I wouldn’t hear. But there’s little he does that I don’t know about; let him make himself sure of that. I even know her name; it is Selina Pratt. If he goes with her again, look out for a disturbance. I’ll not stand his making love to another woman.”
“MAY 26, 1880. — My marriage certificate is missing. Can it be that Tremont has taken it? I have looked all through the desk where I have kept it for so many years, but I cannot find it. He was left alone in the house a few minutes the other day. Could he have taken the chance to rob me of the only proof I have that we are man and wife? If he has he is a villain at heart, and is capable of doing any thing, even of marrying this Pratt girl who he has taken riding again. The worst is that I dare not accuse him of having my certificate; for if he didn’t take it and should find out it is gone, he’d throw me off just as quick as if he had. What shall I do then? Something. He shall never marry another woman while I live.”
“MAY 30, 1880. — The Pratt girl is gone. If he cared for her it was only for a week, like an old love I could mention. I think I feel safe again, only I am convinced some one ought to know my secret besides myself. Shall it be Emily? No. I’d rather tell her mother.”
“JUNE 9TH, 1880. — I am going to Utica. I shall take these letters with me. Perhaps I shall leave them. For the last time, then, let me say ‘I am the lawful wife of Tremont Benjamin Orcutt, the lawyer, who lives in Sibley, New York.’ We were married in Swanson, Nevada, on the 3d of July, 1867, by a travelling minister, named George Sinclair.
“MARY ANN ORCUTT, Sibley, N. Y.”
Mr. Gryce Says Good-Bye.
There still are many rainbows in your sky.
Byron.
“HELEN?”
“Yes, Imogene.”
“What noise is that? The people seem to be shouting down the street. What does it mean?”
Helen Richmond — whom we better know as Helen Darling — looked at the worn, fever-flushed countenance of her friend, and for a moment was silent; then she whispered:
“I have not dared to tell you before, you seemed so ill; but I can tell you now, because joyful news never hurts. The people shout because the long and tedious trial of an innocent man has come to an end. Craik Mansell was acquitted from the charge of murder this morning.”
“Acquitted! O Helen!”
“Yes, dear. Since you have been ill, very strange and solemn revelations have come to light. Mr. Orcutt ——”
“Ah!” cried Imogene, rising up in the great arm-chair in which she was half-sitting and half-reclining. “I know what you are going to say. I was with Mr. Orcutt when he died. I heard him myself declare that fate had spoken in his death. I believe Mr. Orcutt to have been the murderer of Mrs. Clemmens, Helen.”
“Yes, there can be no doubt about that,” was the reply.
“It has been proved then?”
“Yes.”
Moved to the depths of her being, Imogene covered her face with her hands. Presently she murmured:
“I do not understand it. Why should such a great man as he have desired the death of a woman like her? He said it was all for my sake. What did he mean, Helen?”
“Don’t you know?” questioned the other, anxiously.
“How should I? It is the mystery of mysteries to me.”
“Ah, then you did not suspect that she was his wife?”
“His wife!” Imogene rose in horror.
“Yes,” repeated the little bride with decision. “She was his lawfully wedded wife. They were married as long ago as when we were little children.”
“Married! And he dared to approach me with words of love! Dared to offer himself to me as a husband while his hands were still wet with the life-blood of his wife! O the horror of it! The amazing wickedness and presumption of it!”
“He is dead,” whispered the gentle little lady at her side.
With a sigh of suppressed feeling, Imogene sank back.
“I must not think of him,” she cried. “I am not strong enough. I must think only of Craik. He has been acquitted, you say — acquitted.”
“Yes, and the whole town is rejoicing.”
A smile, exquisite as it was rare, swept like a sunbeam over Imogene’s lips.
“And I rejoice with the rest,” she cried. Then, as if she felt all speech to be a mockery, she remained for a long time silent, gazing with ever-deepening expression into the space before her, till Helen did not know whether the awe she felt creeping over her sprang from admiration of her companion’s suddenly awakened beauty or from a recognition of the depths of that companion’s emotions. At last Imogene spoke:
“How came Mr. Mansell to be acquitted? Mr. Gryce did not tell me to look for any such reinstatement as that. The most he bade me expect was that Mr. Ferris would decline to prosecute Mr. Mansell any further, in which event he would be discharged.”
“I know,” said Helen, “but Mr. Mansell was not satisfied with that. He demanded a verdict from the jury. So Mr. Ferris, with great generosity, asked the Judge to recommend the jury to bring in a verdict of acquittal, and when the Judge hesitated to do this, the foreman of the jury himself rose, and intimated that he thought the jury were ready with their verdict. The Judge took advantage of this, and the result was a triumphant acquittal.”
“O Helen, Helen!”
“That was just an hour ago,” cried the little lady, brightly, “but the people are not through shouting yet. There has been a great excitement in town these last few days.”
“And I knew nothing of it!” exclaimed Imogene. Suddenly she looked at Helen. “How did you hear about what took place in the court-room to-day?” she asked.
“Mr. Byrd told me.”
“Ah, Mr. Byrd?”
“He came to leave a good-bye for you. He goes home this afternoon.”
“I should like to have seen Mr. Byrd,” said Imogene.
“Would you?” queried the little lady, quietly shaking her head. “I don’t know; I think it is just as well you did not see him,” said she.
But she made no such demur when a little while later Mr. Gryce was announced. The fatherly old gentleman had evidently been in that house before, and Mrs. Richmond was not the woman to withstand a man like him.
He came immediately into the room where Imogene was sitting. Evidently he thought as Helen did, that good news never hurts.
“Well!” he cried, taking her trembling hand in his, with his most expressive smile. “What did I tell you? Didn’t I say that if you would only trust me all would come right? And it has, don’t you see? Right as a trivet.”
“Yes,” she returned; “and I never can find words with which to express my gratitude. You have saved two lives, Mr. Gryce: his — and mine.”
“Pooh! pooh!” cried the detective, good-humoredly. “You mustn’t think too much of any thing I have done. It was the falling limb that did the business. If Mr. Orcutt’s conscience had not been awakened by the stroke of death, I don’t know where we should have been to-day. Affairs were beginning to look pretty dark for Mansell.”
Imogene shuddered.
“But I haven’t come here to call up unpleasant memories,” he continued. “I have come to wish you joy and a happy convalescence.” And leaning toward her, he said, with a complete change of voice: “You know, I suppose, why Mr. Mansell presumed to think you guilty of this crime?”
“No,” she murmured, wearily; “unless it was because the ring he believed me to have retained was found on the scene of murder.”
“Bah!” cried Mr. Gryce, “he had a much better reason than that.”
And with the air of one who wishes to clear up all misunderstandings, he told her the words which her lover had overheard Mrs. Clemmens say when he came up to her dining-room door.
The effect on Imogene was very great. Hoping to hide it, she turned away her face, showing in this struggle with herself something of the strength of her old days. Mr. Gryce watched her with interest.
“It is very strange,” was her first remark. “I had such reasons for thinking him guilty; he such good cause for thinking me so. What wonder we doubted each other. And yet I can never forgive myself for doubting him; I can sooner forgive him for doubting me. If you see him ——”
“If I see him?” interrupted the detective, with a smile.
“Yes,” said she. “If you see him tell him that Imogene Dare thanks him for his noble conduct toward one he believed to be stained by so despicable a crime, and assure him that I think he was much more justified in his suspicions than I was in mine, for there were weaknesses in my character which he had ample opportunities for observing, while all that I knew of him was to his credit.”
“Miss Dare,” suggested the detective, “couldn’t you tell him this much better yourself?”
“I shall not have the opportunity,” she said.
“And why?” he inquired.
“Mr. Mansell and I have met for the last time. A woman who has stained herself by such declarations as I made use of in court the last time I was called to the stand has created a barrier between herself and all earthly friendship. Even he for whom I perjured myself so basely cannot overleap the gulf I dug between us two that day.”
“But that is hard,” said Mr. Gryce.
“My life is hard,” she answered.
The wise old man, who had seen so much of life and who knew the human heart so well, smiled, but did not reply. He turned instead to another subject.
“Well,” he declared, “the great case is over! Sibley, satisfied with having made its mark in the world, will now rest in peace. I quit the place with some reluctance myself. ’Tis a mighty pretty spot to do business in.”
“You are going?” she asked.
“Immediately,” was the reply. “We detectives don’t have much time to rest.” Then, as he saw how deep a shadow lay upon her brow, added, confidentially: “Miss Dare, we all have occasions for great regret. Look at me now. Honest as I hold myself to be, I cannot blind myself to the fact that I am the possible instigator of this crime. If I had not shown Mr. Orcutt how a man like himself might perpetrate a murder without rousing suspicion, he might never have summoned up courage to attempt it. For a detective with a conscience, that is a hard thought to bear.”
“But you were ignorant of what you were doing,” she protested. “You had no idea there was any one present who was meditating crime.”
“True; but a detective shouldn’t be ignorant. He ought to know men; he has opportunity enough to learn them. But I won’t be caught again. Never in any company, not if it is composed of the highest dignitaries in the land, will I ever tell again how a crime of any kind can be perpetrated without risk. One always runs the chance of encountering an Orcutt.”
Imogene turned pale. “Do not speak of him,” she cried. “I want to forget that such a man ever lived.”
Mr. Gryce smiled again.
“It is the best thing you can do,” said he. “Begin a new life, my child; begin a new life.”
And with this fatherly advice, he said good-bye, and she saw his wise, kind face no more.
The hour that followed was a dreary one for Imogene. Her joy at knowing Craik Mansell was released could not blind her to the realization of her own ruined life. Indeed she seemed to feel it now as never before; and as the slow minutes passed, and she saw in fancy the strong figure of Mansell surrounded by congratulating admirers and friends, the full loneliness of her position swept over her, and she knew not whether to be thankful or not to the fever for having spared her blighted and dishonored life.
Mrs. Richmond, seeing her so absorbed, made no attempt at consolation. She only listened, and when a step was heard, arose and went out, leaving the door open behind her.
And Imogene mused on, sinking deeper and deeper into melancholy, till the tears, which for so long a time had been dried at their source, welled up to her eyes and fell slowly down her cheeks. Their touch seemed to rouse her. Starting erect, she looked quickly around as if to see if anybody was observing her. But the room seems quite empty, and she is about to sink back again with a sigh when her eyes fall on the door-way and she becomes transfixed. A sturdy form is standing there! A manly, eager form in whose beaming eyes and tender smile shine a love and a purpose which open out before her quite a different future from that which her fancy had been so ruthlessly picturing.
The End