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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10083 ***
+
+THE HOUSE OF THE WHISPERING PINES
+
+By ANNA KATHARINE GREEN
+
+1910
+
+Author of
+
+“The Leavenworth Case,” “That Affair Next Door,” “One of My Sons,” etc.
+
+
+
+
+“Mazes intricate,
+Eccentric, interwov’d, yet regular
+Then most, when most irregular they seem”.
+
+_Milton_
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+SMOKE
+
+     I.--THE HESITATING STEP
+
+    II.--IT WAS SHE--SHE INDEED!
+
+   III.--“OPEN!”
+
+    IV.--THE ODD CANDLESTICK
+
+     V.--A SCRAP OF PAPER
+
+    VI.--COMMENTS AND REFLECTIONS
+
+   VII.--CLIFTON ACCEPTS MY CASE
+
+  VIII.--A CHANCE! I TAKE IT
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+SWEETWATER TO THE FRONT
+
+    IX.--“WE KNOW OF No SUCH LETTER”
+
+     X.--“I CAN HELP YOU”
+
+    XI.--IN THE COACH HOUSE
+
+   XII.--“LILA--LILA!”
+
+  XIII.--“WHAT WE WANT IS HERE”
+
+   XIV.--THE MOTIONLESS FIGURE
+
+    XV.--HELEN SURPRISES SWEETWATER
+
+   XVI.--62 CUTHBERT ROAD
+
+  XVII.--“MUST I TELL THESE THINGS?”
+
+ XVIII.--ON IT WAS WRITTEN--
+
+   XIX.--“IT’S NOT WHAT YOU WILL FIND”
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+HIDDEN SURPRISES
+
+    XX.---“HE OR YOU! THERE IS NO THIRD”
+
+   XXI.--CARMEL AWAKES
+
+  XXII.---“BREAK IN THE GLASS!”
+
+ XXIII.--AT TEN INSTEAD OF TWELVE
+
+  XXIV.--ALL THIS STOOD
+
+   XXV.--“I AM INNOCENT”
+
+  XXVI.--THE SYLLABLE OF DOOM
+
+ XXVII.--EXPECTANCY
+
+XXVIII.--“WHERE Is MY BROTHER?”
+
+
+BOOK IV
+
+WHAT THE PINES WHISPERED
+
+  XXIX.--“I REMEMBERED THE ROOM”
+
+   XXX.--“CHOOSE”
+
+  XXXI.--“WERE HER HANDS CROSSED THEN?”
+
+ XXXII.--AND I HAD SAID NOTHING!
+
+XXXIII.--THE ARROW OF DEATH
+
+ XXXIV.--“STEADY!”
+
+  XXXV.--“As IF IT WERE A MECCA”
+
+ XXXVI.--THE SURCHARGED MOMENT
+
+
+
+
+BOOK ONE
+
+SMOKE
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE HESITATING STEP
+
+To have reared a towering scheme
+Of happiness, and to behold it razed,
+Were nothing: all men hope, and see their hopes
+Frustrate, and grieve awhile, and hope anew;
+But--
+
+_A Blot in the ’Scutcheon._
+
+
+The moon rode high; but ominous clouds were rushing towards it--clouds
+heavy with snow. I watched these clouds as I drove recklessly,
+desperately, over the winter roads. I had just missed the desire
+of my life, the one precious treasure which I coveted with my
+whole undisciplined heart, and not being what you call a man of
+self-restraint, I was chafed by my defeat far beyond the bounds I have
+usually set for myself.
+
+The moon--with the wild skurry of clouds hastening to blot it out of
+sight--seemed to mirror the chaos threatening my better impulses; and,
+idly keeping it in view, I rode on, hardly conscious of my course till
+the rapid recurrence of several well-known landmarks warned me that I
+had taken the longest route home, and that in another moment I should
+be skirting the grounds of The Whispering Pines, our country clubhouse.
+_I_ had taken? Let me rather say, my horse; for he and I had traversed
+this road many times together, and he had no means of knowing that the
+season was over and the club-house closed. I did not think of it myself
+at the moment, and was recklessly questioning whether I should not
+drive in and end my disappointment in a wild carouse, when, the great
+stack of chimneys coming suddenly into view against the broad disk of
+the still unclouded moon, I perceived a thin trail of smoke soaring up
+from their midst and realised, with a shock, that there should be no
+such sign of life in a house I myself had closed, locked, and barred
+that very day.
+
+I was the president of the club and felt responsible. Pausing only long
+enough to make sure that I had yielded to no delusion, and that fire of
+some kind was burning on one of the club-house’s deserted hearths, I
+turned in at the lower gateway. For reasons which I need not now state,
+there were no bells attached to my cutter and consequently my approach
+was noiseless. I was careful that it should be so, also careful to stop
+short of the front door and leave my horse and sleigh in the black
+depths of the pine-grove pressing up to the walls on either side. I was
+sure that all was not as it should be inside these walls, but, as God
+lives, I had no idea what was amiss or how deeply my own destiny was
+involved in the step I was about to take.
+
+Our club-house stands, as it may be necessary to remind you, on a
+knoll thickly wooded with the ancient trees I have mentioned. These
+trees--all pines and of a growth unusual and of an aspect well-nigh
+hoary--extend only to the rear end of the house, where a wide stretch
+of gently undulating ground opens at once upon the eye, suggesting to
+all lovers of golf the admirable use to which it is put from early
+spring to latest fall. Now, links, as well as parterres and driveways,
+are lying under an even blanket of winter snow, and even the building,
+with its picturesque gables and rows of be-diamonded windows, is
+well-nigh indistinguishable in the shadows cast by the heavy pines,
+which soar above it and twist their limbs over its roof and about its
+forsaken corners, with a moan and a whisper always desolate to the
+sensitive ear, but from this night on, simply appalling.
+
+No other building stood within a half-mile in any direction. It was
+veritably a country club, gay and full of life in the season, but
+isolated and lonesome beyond description after winter had set in and
+buried flower and leaf under a wide waste of untrodden snow.
+
+I felt this isolation as I stepped from the edge of the trees and
+prepared to cross the few feet of open space leading to the main door.
+The sudden darkness instantly enveloping me, as the clouds, whose
+advancing mass I had been watching, made their final rush upon the
+moon, added its physical shock to this inner sense of desolation,
+and, in some moods, I should have paused and thought twice before
+attempting the door, behind which lurked the unknown with its naturally
+accompanying suggestion of peril. But rage and disappointment, working
+hotly within me, had left no space for fear. Rather rejoicing in the
+doubtfulness of the adventure, I pushed my way over the snow until my
+feet struck the steps. Here, instinct caused me to stop and glance
+quickly up and down the building either way. Not a gleam of light met
+my eye from the smallest scintillating pane. Was the house as soundless
+as it was dark?
+
+I listened but heard nothing. I listened again and still heard nothing.
+Then I proceeded boldly up the steps and laid my hand on the door.
+
+It was unlatched and yielded to my touch. Light or no light, sound
+or no sound there was some one within. The fire which had sent its
+attenuated streak of smoke up into the moonlit air, was burning yet on
+one of the many hearths within, and before it I should presently see--
+
+Whom?
+
+What?
+
+The question scarcely interested me.
+
+Nevertheless I proceeded to enter and close the door carefully behind
+me. As I did so, I cast an involuntary glance without. The sky was inky
+and a few wandering flakes of the now rapidly advancing storm came
+whirling in, biting my cheeks and stinging my forehead.
+
+Once inside, I stopped short, possibly to listen again, possibly to
+assure myself as to what I had best do next. The silence was profound.
+Not a sound disturbed the great, empty building. My own footfall, as
+I stirred, seemed to wake extraordinary echoes. I had moved but a few
+steps, yet to my heightened senses, the noise seemed loud enough to
+wake the dead. Instinctively I stopped and stood stock-still. There was
+no answering cessation of movement. Darkness, silence everywhere. Yet
+not quite absolute darkness. As my eyes grew accustomed to the place,
+I found it possible to discern the outlines of the windows and locate
+the stairs and the arches where the side halls opened. I was even able
+to pick out the exact spot where the great antlers spread themselves
+above the hatrack, and presently the rack itself came into view, with
+its row of empty pegs, yesterday so full, to-day quite empty. That rack
+interested me,--I hardly knew why,--and regardless of the noise I made,
+I crossed over to it and ran my hand along the wall underneath. The
+result was startling. A man’s coat and hat hung from one of the pegs.
+
+I knew my business as president of this club. I also knew that no one
+should be in the house at this time--that no one could be in it on any
+honest errand. Some secret and sinister business must be at the bottom
+of this mysterious intrusion immediately after the place had been
+shut for the winter. Would this hat and coat identify the intruder?
+I would strike a light and see. But this involved difficulties. The
+gas had been turned off that very morning and I had no matches in my
+pocket. But I remembered where they could be found. I had seen them
+when I passed through the kitchen earlier in the day. They were very
+accessible from the end of the hall where I stood. I had but to feel my
+way through a passage or two and I should come to the kitchen door.
+
+I began to move that way, and presently came creeping back, with a
+match-box half full of matches in my hand. But I did not strike one
+then. I had just made a move to do so, when the unmistakable sound of a
+door opening somewhere in the house made me draw back into as quiet and
+dark a place as I could find. This lay in the rear and at the right of
+the staircase, and as the sound had appeared to come from above, it was
+the most natural retreat that offered. And a good one I found it.
+
+I had hardly taken up my stand when the darkness above gave way to a
+faint glimmer, and a step became audible coming from some one of the
+many small rooms in the second story, but so slowly and with such
+evident hesitation that my imagination had ample time to work and fill
+my mind with varying anticipations, each more disconcerting than the
+last. Now I seemed to be listening to the movements of an intoxicated
+man seeking an issue out of strange quarters, then to the wary approach
+of one who had his own reasons for dread and was as conscious of my
+presence as I was of his.
+
+But the light, steadily increasing with each lagging but surely
+advancing step, soon gave the lie to this latter supposition, since no
+sane man, afraid of an ambush, would be likely to offer such odds to
+the one lying in wait for him, as his own face illumined by a flaming
+candle, and I was yielding to the bewilderment of the moment when the
+uncertain step paused and a sob came faintly to my ears, wrung from
+lips so stiff with human anguish that my fears took on new shape and
+the event a significance which in my present mood of personal suffering
+and preoccupation was anything but welcome. Indeed, I was coward
+enough to contemplate flight and might in another moment have yielded
+to the unworthy impulse if the sound of a second sigh had not struck
+shudderingly on my ear, followed by the renewal of the step and the
+almost immediate appearance on the stairs of a young girl holding a
+candle in one hand and shielding her left cheek with the other.
+
+Life offers few such shocks to any man, whatever his story or whatever
+his temperament. I had been prepared by the sob I had heard to see
+a woman, but not this woman. Nothing could have prepared me for an
+encounter with this woman anywhere that night, after what had passed
+between us and the wreck she had made of my life. But here! in a place
+so remote and desolate I had hesitated to enter it myself! What was I
+to think? How was I to reconcile so inconceivable a fact with what I
+knew of her in the past, with what I hoped from her in the future.
+
+To steady my thoughts and bring my whirling brain again under
+control, I fixed my eyes on her well-known form and features as upon
+a stranger’s whom I would understand and judge. I have called her a
+woman and certainly I had loved her as such, but as, in this moment
+of strange detachment, I watched her descend, swaying foot following
+swaying foot falteringly down the stairs, I was able to see that only
+the emotions which denaturalised her expression were a woman’s; that
+her features, her pose, and the peculiar childlike contour of the
+one cheek open to view were those of one whose yesterday was in the
+playroom.
+
+But beautiful! You do not often see such beauty. Under all the
+disfigurement of an agitation so great as to daunt me and make me
+question if I were its sole cause, her face shone with an individual
+charm which marked her out as one of the few who are the making or
+marring of men, sometimes of nations. This is the heritage she was
+born to, this her lot, not to be shirked, not to be evaded even now
+at her early age of seventeen. So much any one could see even in a
+momentary scrutiny of her face and figure. But what was not so clear,
+not even to myself with the consciousness of what had passed between
+us during the last few hours, was why her heart should have so outrun
+her years, and the emotion I beheld betray such shuddering depths. Some
+grisly fear, some staring horror had met her in this strange retreat.
+Simple grief speaks with a different language from that which I read in
+her distorted features and tottering, slowly creeping form. What had
+happened above? She had escaped me to run upon what? My lips refused
+to ask, my limbs refused to move, and if I breathed at all, I did so
+with such fierceness of restraint that her eyes never turned my way,
+not even when she had reached the lowest step and paused for a moment
+there, oscillating in pain or uncertainty. Her face was turned more
+fully towards me now, and I had just begun to discern something in it
+besides its tragic beauty, when she made a quick move and blew out
+the candle she held. One moment that magical picture of superhuman
+loveliness, then darkness, I might say silence, for I do not think
+either of us so much as stirred for several instants. Then there came
+a crash, followed by the sound of flying feet. She had flung the
+candlestick out of her hand and was hurriedly crossing the hall. I
+thought she was coming my way, and instinctively drew back against the
+wall. But she stopped far short of me, and I heard her groping about,
+then give a sudden spring towards the front door. It opened and the
+wind soughed in. I felt the chill of snow upon my face, and realised
+the tempest. Then all was quiet and dark again. She had slid quickly
+out and the door had swung to behind her. Another instant and I heard
+the click of the key as it turned in the lock, heard it and made no
+outcry, such the spell, such the bewilderment of my faculties! But
+once the act was accomplished and egress made difficult, nay, for the
+moment, impossible, I felt all lesser emotions give way to an anxiety
+which demanded immediate action, for the girl had gone out without
+wraps or covering for her head, and my experience of the evening had
+told me how cold it was. I must follow and find her and rescue her if
+possible from the snow. The distance was long to town, the cold would
+seize and perhaps prostrate her, after which, the wind and snow would
+do the rest.
+
+Throwing myself against the door, I shook it violently. It was
+immovable. Then I flew to the windows. Their fastenings yielded readily
+enough, but not the windows themselves; one had a broken cord, another
+seemed glued to its frame, and I was still struggling with the latter
+when I heard a sound which lifted the hair on my head and turned my
+whole attention back to what lay behind and above me. There was still
+some one in the house. I had forgotten everything in this apparition
+of the woman I have described in a place so disassociated with any
+conception I could possibly have of her whereabouts on this especial
+evening. But this noise, short, sharp, but too distant to be altogether
+recognisable, roused doubts which once awakened changed the whole tenor
+of my thoughts and would not let me rest till I had probed the house
+from top to bottom. To find Carmel Cumberland alone in this desolation
+was a mystifying discovery to which I had found it hard enough to
+reconcile myself. But Carmel here in company with another at the very
+moment when I had expected the fruition of my own joy,--ah, that was to
+open hell’s door in my breast; a possibility too intolerable to remain
+unsettled for an instant. Though she had passed out before my eyes
+in a drooping, almost agonised condition, not she, dear as she was,
+and great as were my fears in her regard, was to be sought out first,
+but the man! The man who was back of all this, possibly back of my
+disappointment; the man whose work I may have witnessed, but at whose
+identity I could not even guess.
+
+Leaving the window, I groped my way along the wall until I reached the
+rack where the man’s coat and hat hung. Whether it was my intention to
+carry them away and hide them, in my anxiety to secure this intruder
+and hold him to a bitter account for the misery he was causing me, or
+whether I only meant to satisfy myself that they were the habiliments
+of a stranger and not those of some sneaking member of the club, is of
+little importance in the light of the fact which presently burst upon
+me. The hat and coat were gone. Nothing hung from the rack. The wall
+was free from end to end. She had taken these articles of male apparel
+with her; she had not gone forth into the driving snow, unprotected,
+but--
+
+I did not know what to think. No acquaintanceship with her girlish
+impulses, nothing that had occurred between us before or during this
+night, had prepared me for a freak of this nature. I felt backward
+along the wall; I felt forward; I even handled the pegs and counted
+them as I passed to and fro, touching every one; but I could not alter
+the fact. The groping she had done had been in this direction. She was
+searching for this hat and coat (a man’s hat,--a derby, as I had been
+careful to assure myself at the first handling) and, in them, she had
+gone home as she had probably come, and there was no man in the case,
+or if there were--
+
+The doubt drove me to the staircase. Making no further effort to
+unravel the puzzle which only beclouded my faculties, I began my wary
+ascent. I had not the slightest fear, I was too full of cold rage for
+that.
+
+The arrangement of rooms on the second floor was well known to me. I
+understood every nook and corner and could find my way about the whole
+place without a light. I took but one precaution--that of slipping off
+my shoes at the foot of the stairs. I wished to surprise the intruder.
+I was willing to resort to any expedient to accomplish this. The
+matches I carried in my pocket would make this possible if once I heard
+him breathing. I held my own breath as I stole softly up, and waited
+for an instant at the top of the stairs to listen. There was an awesome
+silence everywhere, and I was hesitating whether to attack the front
+rooms first or to follow up a certain narrow hall leading to a rear
+staircase, when I remembered the thin line of smoke which, rising from
+one of the chimneys, had first attracted my attention to the house. In
+that was my clue. There was but one room on this floor where a fire
+could be lit. It lay a few feet beyond me down the narrow hall I have
+just mentioned. Why had I trusted everything to my ears when my nose
+would have been a better guide? As I took the few steps necessary, a
+slight smell of smoke became very perceptible, and no longer in doubt
+of my course, I pushed boldly on and entering the half-open door,
+struck a match and peered anxiously about.
+
+Emptiness here just as everywhere else. A few chairs, a dresser,--it
+was a ladies’ dressing-room,--some smouldering ashes on the hearth, a
+lounge piled up with cushions. But no person. The sound I had heard
+had not issued from this room, yet something withheld me from seeking
+further. Chilled to the bone, with teeth chattering in spite of myself,
+I paused just inside the door, and when the match went out in my hand
+remained shivering there in the darkness, a prey to sensations more
+nearly approaching those of fear than any I had ever before experienced
+in my whole life.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+IT WAS SHE--SHE INDEED!
+
+Look on death itself!--up, up, and see
+The great doom’s visage!
+
+_Macbeth_.
+
+
+Why, I did not know. There seemed to be no reason for this excess of
+feeling. I had no dread of attack; my apprehension was of another sort.
+Besides, any attack here must come from the rear--from the open doorway
+in which I stood--and my dread lay before me, in the room itself,
+which, as I have already said, appeared to be totally empty. What
+could occasion my doubts, and why did I not fly the place? There were
+passage-ways yet to search, why linger here like a gaby in the dark
+when perhaps the man I believed to be in hiding somewhere within these
+walls, was improving the opportunity to escape?
+
+If I asked myself this question, I did not answer it, but I doubt if
+I asked it then. I had forgotten the intruder; the interest which had
+carried me thus far had become lost in a fresher one of which the
+beginning and ending lay hidden within the four walls I now stared
+upon, unseeing. Not to see and yet to feel--did that make the horror?
+If so, another lighted match must help me out. I struck one while the
+thought was hot within me, and again took a look at the room.
+
+I noted but one thing new, but that made me reel back till I was half
+way into the hall. Then a certain dogged persistency I possess came to
+my rescue, and I re-entered the room at a leap and stood before the
+lounge and its pile of cushions. They were numerous,--all that the room
+contained, and more! Chairs had been stripped, window-seats denuded,
+and the whole collection disposed here in a set way which struck me as
+unnatural. Was this the janitor’s idea? I hardly thought so, and was
+about to pluck one of these cushions off, when that most unreasonable
+horror seized me again and I found myself looking back over my shoulder
+at the fireplace from which rose a fading streak of smoke which some
+passing gust, perhaps, had blown out into the room.
+
+I felt sick. Was it the smell? It was not that of burning wood, hardly
+of burning paper, I--but here my second match went out.
+
+Thoroughly roused now (you will say, by what?) I felt my way out of
+the room and to the head of the staircase. I remembered the candle
+and candlestick I had heard thrown down on the lower floor by Carmel
+Cumberland. I would secure them and come back and settle these uncanny
+doubts. It might be the veriest fool business, but my mind was
+disturbed and must be set at ease. Nothing else seemed so important,
+yet I was not without anxiety for the lovely and delicate woman
+wandering the snow-covered roads in the teeth of a furious gale, any
+more than I was dead to the fact that I should never forgive myself if
+I allowed the man to escape whom I believed to be hiding somewhere in
+the rear of this house.
+
+I had a hunt for the candlestick and a still longer one for the candle,
+but finally I recovered both, and, lighting the latter, felt myself,
+for the first time, more or less master of the situation.
+
+Rapidly regaining the room in which my interest was now centred, I set
+the candlestick down on the dresser, and approached the lounge. Hardly
+knowing what I feared, or what I expected to find, I tore off one of
+the cushions and flung it behind me. More cushions were revealed--but
+that was not all.
+
+Escaping from the edge of one of them I saw a shiny tress of woman’s
+hair. I gave a gasp and pulled off more cushions, then I fell on my
+knees, struck down by the greatest horror which a man can feel. Death
+lay before me--violent, uncalled-for death--and the victim was a woman.
+But it was not that. Though the head was not yet revealed, I thought I
+knew the woman and that she--Did seconds pass or many minutes before
+I lifted that last cushion? I shall never know. It was an eternity
+to me and I am not of a sentimental cast, but I have some sort of a
+conscience and during that interval it awoke. It has never quite slept
+since.
+
+The cushion had not concealed the hands, but I did not look at them--I
+did not dare. I must first see the face. But I did not twitch this
+pillow off; I drew it aside slowly, as though held by the restraining
+clutch of some one behind me. And I was so held, but not by what was
+visible--rather by the terrors which gather in the soul at the summons
+of some dreadful doom. I could not meet the certainty without some
+preparation. I released another strand of hair; then the side of a
+cheek, half buried out of sight in the loosened locks and bulging
+pillows; then, with prayers to God for mercy, an icy brow; two staring
+eyes--which having seen I let the cushion drop, for mercy was not to be
+mine.
+
+It was _she_, she, indeed! and judgment was glassed in the look I
+met--judgment and nothing more kindly, however I might appeal to Heaven
+for mercy or whatever the need of my fiercely startled and repentant
+soul.
+
+Dead! Adelaide! the woman I had planned to wrong that very night, and
+who had thus wronged me! For a moment I could take in nothing but
+this one astounding fact, then the how and the why woke in maddening
+curiosity within me, and seizing the cushion, I dragged it aside and
+stared down into the pitiful and accusing features thus revealed, as
+though to tear from them the story of the crime which had released
+me as I would not have been released, no, not to have had my heart’s
+desire in all the fulness with which I had contemplated it a few short
+hours before.
+
+But beyond the ever accusing, protuberant stare, those features told
+nothing; and steeling myself to the situation, I made what observation
+I could of her condition and the surrounding circumstances. For this
+was my betrothed wife. Whatever my intentions, however far my love had
+strayed under the spell cast over me by her sister,--the young girl who
+had just passed out,--Adelaide and I had been engaged for many months;
+our wedding day was even set.
+
+But that was all over now--ended as her life was ended: suddenly,
+incomprehensibly, and by no stroke of God. Even the jewel on her finger
+was gone, the token of our betrothal. This was to be expected. She
+would be apt to take it off before committing herself to a fate that
+proclaimed me a traitor to this symbol. I should see that ring again. I
+should find it in a letter filled with bitter words. I would not think
+of it or of them now. I would try to learn how she had committed this
+act, whether by poison or--
+
+It must have been by poison; no other means would suggest themselves
+to one of her refined sense; but if so, why those marks on her neck,
+growing darker and darker as I stared at them!
+
+My senses reeled as I scrutinised those marks. Small, delicate but
+deadly, they stared upon me from either side of her white neck till
+nature could endure no more and I tottered back against the further
+wall, beholding no longer room, nor lounge, nor recumbent body, but a
+young girl’s exquisite face, set in lines which belied her seventeen
+years, and made futile any attempt on my part at self-deception when my
+reason inexorably demanded an explanation of this death. As suicide it
+was comprehensible, as murder, not, unless--
+
+And it had been murder!
+
+I sank to the floor as I fully realised this.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+“OPEN!”
+
+PRINCE.--Bring forth the parties of suspicion.
+
+FRIAR.--I am the greatest, as the time and place Doth make against me,
+of this direful murder; And here I stand, both to impeach and purge.
+Myself condemned and myself excused.
+
+_Romeo and Juliet_.
+
+
+I have mentioned poison as my first thought. It was a natural one, the
+result undoubtedly of having noticed two small cordial glasses standing
+on a little table over against the fireplace. When I was conscious
+again of my own fears, I crossed to the table and peered into these
+glasses. They were both empty. However, they had not been so long. In
+each I found traces of anisette cordial, and though no bottle stood
+near I was very confident that it could readily be found somewhere in
+the room. What had preceded and followed the drinking of this cordial?
+
+As I raised my head from bending over these glasses--not club glasses,
+by the way--I caught sight of my face in the mantel mirror. It gave me
+maddening thoughts. In this same mirror there had been reflected but a
+little while before, two other faces, for a sight of whose expression
+at that fatal moment I would gladly risk my soul.
+
+How had _she_ looked--how that other? Would not the story of those
+awful, those irrevocable moments be plain to my eye, if the quickly
+responsive glass could but retain the impressions it receives and give
+back at need what had once informed its surface with moving life!
+
+I stared at the senseless glass, appealed to it with unreasoning
+frenzy, as to something which could give up its secret if it
+would, but only to meet my own features in every guise of fury and
+despair--features I no longer knew--features which insensibly increased
+my horror till I tore myself wildly from the spot, and cast about for
+further clues to enlightenment, before yielding to the conviction which
+was making a turmoil in mind, heart, and conscience. Alas! there was
+but little more to see. A pair of curling-irons lay on the hearth,
+but I had no sooner lifted them than I dropped them with a shudder of
+unspeakable loathing, only to start at the noise they made in striking
+the tiles. For it was the self-same noise I had heard when listening
+from below. These tongs, set up against the side of the fireplace had
+been jarred down by the forcible shutting of the large front door, and
+no man other than myself was in the house, or had been in the house;
+only the two women. But the time when this discovery would have brought
+comfort was passed. Better a hundred times that a man--I had almost
+said any man--should have been with them here, than that they should
+be closeted together in a spot so secluded, with rancour and cause for
+complaint in one heart, and a biting, deadly flame in the other, which
+once reaching up must from its very nature leave behind it a corrosive
+impress. I saw,-I felt,--but I did not desist from my investigations. A
+stick or two still smouldered on the hearthstone. In the ashes lay some
+scattered fragments of paper which crumbled at my touch. On the floor
+in front I espied only a stray hair-pin; everything else was in place
+throughout the room except the cushions and that horror on the lounge,
+waiting the second look I had so far refrained from giving it.
+
+That look I could no longer withhold. I must know the depth of the
+gulf over which I hung. I must not wrong with a thought one who had
+smiled upon me like an angel of light--a young girl, too, with the dew
+of innocence on her beauty to every eye but mine and only not to mine
+within--shall I say ten awful minutes? It seemed ages,--all of my life
+and more. Yet that lovely breast had heaved not so many times since I
+looked upon her as a deified mortal, and now two small spots on another
+woman’s pulseless throat had drawn a veil of blood over that beauty,
+and given to a child the attributes of a Medusa. Yet hope was not quite
+stilled. I would look again and perhaps discover that my own eyes had
+been at fault, that there were no marks, or if marks, not just the ones
+my fancy had painted there.
+
+Turning, I let my glance fall first on the feet. I had not noted them
+before, and I was startled to see that the arctics in which they
+were clad were filled all around with snow. She had walked then, as
+the other was walking now; she, who detested every effort and was of
+such delicate make that exertion of unusual kind could not readily be
+associated with her. Had she come alone or in Carmel’s company, and if
+in Carmel’s company, on what ostensible errand if not that of death?
+Her dress, which was of dark wool, showed that she had changed her
+garments for this trip. I had seen her at dinner, and this was not the
+gown she had worn then--the gown in which she had confronted me during
+those few intolerable minutes when I could not meet her eyes. Fatal
+cowardice! A moment of realisation then and we might all have been
+saved this horror of sin and death and shameful retribution.
+
+And yet who knows? Not understanding what I saw, how could I measure
+the might-have-beens! I would proceed with my task--note if she wore
+the diamond brooch I had given her. No, she was without ornament; I had
+never seen her so plainly clad. Might I draw a hope from this? Even
+the pins which had fallen from her hair were such as she wore when
+least adorned. Nothing spoke of the dinner party or of her having been
+dragged here unaware; but all of previous intent and premeditation.
+Surely hope was getting uppermost. If I had dreamed the marks--
+
+But no! There they were, unmistakable and damning, just where the
+breath struggles up. I put my own thumbs on these two dark spots to
+see if--when what was it? A lightning stroke or a call of fate which
+one must answer while sense remains? I felt my head pulled around by
+some unseen force from behind, and met staring into mine through the
+glass of the window a pair of burning eyes. Or was it fantasy? For in
+another moment they were gone, nor was I in the condition just then to
+dissociate the real from the unreal. But the possibility of a person
+having seen me in this position before the dead was enough to startle
+me to my feet, and though in another instant I became convinced that
+I had been the victim of hallucination, I nevertheless made haste to
+cross to the window and take a look through its dismal panes. A gale of
+blinding snow was sweeping past, making all things indistinguishable,
+but the absence of balcony outside was reassuring and I stepped hastily
+back, asking myself for the first time what I should do and where I
+should now go to ensure myself from being called as a witness to the
+awful occurrence which had just taken place in this house. Should I go
+home and by some sort of subterfuge now unthought of, try to deceive
+my servants as to the time of my return, or attempt to create an alibi
+elsewhere? Something I must do to save myself the anguish and Carmel
+the danger of my testimony in this matter. She must never know, the
+world must never know that I had seen her here.
+
+I had lost at a blow everything that gives zest or meaning to life, but
+I might still be spared the bottommost depth of misery--be saved the
+utterance of the word which would sink that erring but delicate soul
+into the hell yawning beneath her. It was my one thought now--though
+I knew that the woman who had fallen victim to her childish hate had
+loved me deeply and was well worth my avenging.
+
+I could not be the death of two women; the loss of one weighed heavily
+enough upon my conscience. I would fly the place--I would leave this
+ghastly find to tell its own story. The night was stormy, the hour
+late, the spot a remote one, and the road to it but little used. I
+could easily escape and when the morrow came--but it was the present I
+must think of now, this hour, this moment. How came I to stay so long!
+In feverish haste, I began to throw the pillows back over the quiet
+limbs, the accusing face. Shudderingly I hid those eyes (I understood
+their strange protuberance now) and recklessly bent on flight, was half
+way across the floor when my feet were stayed--I wonder that my reason
+was not unseated--by a sudden and tremendous attack on the great door
+below, mingled with loud cries to open which ran thundering through the
+house, calling up innumerable echoes from its dead and hidden corners.
+
+It was the police. The wild night, the biting storm had been of no
+avail. An alarm had reached headquarters, and all hope of escape on
+my part was at an end. Yet because at such crises instinct rises
+superior to reason, I blew out the candle and softly made my way into
+the hall. I had remembered a window opening over a shed at the head of
+the kitchen staircase. I could reach it from this rear hall by just
+a turn or two, and once on that shed, a short leap would land me on
+the ground; after which I could easily trust to the storm to conceal
+my flight across the open golf-links. It was worth trying at least;
+anything was better than being found in the house with my murdered
+betrothed.
+
+I had no reason to think that I was being sought, or that my presence
+in this building was even suspected. It might well be that the police
+were even ignorant of the tragedy awaiting them across the threshold
+of the door they seemed intent on battering down. The gleam of a
+candle burning in this closed-up house, or even the tale told by the
+rising smoke, may have drawn them from the road to investigate. Such
+coincidences had been. Such untoward happenings had misled people into
+useless self-betrayal. My case was too desperate for such weakness.
+Flight at this moment might save all; I would at least attempt it. The
+door was shaking on its hinges; these intruders seemed determined to
+enter.
+
+With a spring I reached the window by which I hoped to escape, and
+quickly raised it. A torrent of snow swept in, covering my face and
+breast in a moment. It did something more: it cleared my brain, and I
+remembered my poor horse standing in this blinding gale under cover
+of the snow-packed pines. Every one knew my horse. I could commit no
+greater folly than to flee by the rear fields while such a witness to
+my presence remained in full view in front. With the sensation of a
+trapped animal, I reclosed the window and cast about for a safe corner
+where I could lie concealed until I learned what had brought these men
+here and how much I really had to fear from their presence.
+
+I had but little time in which to choose. The door below had just given
+way and a party of at least three men were already stamping their feet
+free from snow in the hall. I did not like the tone of their voices,
+it was too low and steady to suit me. I had rather have heard drunken
+cries or a burst of wild hilarity than these stern and purposeful
+whispers. Men of resolution could have but one errand here. My doom
+was closing round me. I could only put off the fatal moment. But it
+was better to do this than to plunge headlong into the unknown fate
+awaiting me.
+
+I knew of a possible place of concealment. It was in the ballroom
+not far from where I stood. I remembered the spot well. It was at
+the top of a little staircase leading to the musicians’ gallery. A
+balustrade guarded this gallery, supported by a boarding wide enough
+to hide a man lying behind it at his full length. If the search I was
+endeavouring to evade was not minute enough to lead them to look behind
+this boarding, it would offer me the double advantage of concealment
+and an unobstructed view of what went on in the hall, through the main
+doorway opening directly opposite. I could reach this ballroom and
+its terminal gallery without going around to this door. A smaller one
+communicated directly with the corridor in which I was then lurking,
+and towards this I now made my way with all the precaution suggested by
+my desperate situation. No man ever moved more lightly. The shoes which
+I had taken off in the lower hall were yet in my hand. I had caught
+them up after replacing the cushions on Adelaide’s body. Even to my own
+straining ears I made no perceptible sound. I reached the balcony and
+had stretched myself out at full length behind the boarding, before the
+men below had left the lower floor.
+
+An interval of heart-torture and wearing suspense now followed. They
+were ransacking the rooms below by the aid of their own lanterns, as I
+could tell from their assured manner. That they had not made at once
+for the scene of crime brought me some small sense of comfort, but not
+much. They were too resolute in their movements and much too thorough
+and methodical in their search, for me to dream of their confining
+their investigations to the first floor. Unless I very much mistook
+their purpose, I should soon hear them ascending the stairs, after
+which, instinct, if not the faint smell of smoke still lingering in the
+air, would lead them to the room where my poor Adelaide lay.
+
+And thus it proved. More quickly than I expected, the total darkness
+in which I lay, brightened under an advancing lantern, and I heard the
+steps of two men coming down the hall. It was a steady if not rapid
+approach, and I was quite prepared for their presence when they finally
+reached the doorway opposite and stopped to look in at what must have
+appeared to them a vast and empty space. They were officials, true
+enough--one hasty glance through the balustrade assured me of that. I
+even knew one of them by name--he was a sergeant of police and a highly
+trustworthy man. But how they had been drawn to this place at a moment
+so critical, I could not surmise. Do men of this stamp scent crime
+as a hound scents out prey? They had the look of hounds. Even in the
+momentary glimpse I got of them, I noted the tense and expectant look
+with which they endeavoured to pierce the dim spaces between us. The
+chase was on. It was something more than curiosity or a chance exercise
+of their duty which had brought them here. Their object was definite,
+and if the sight of the low gallery in which I lay, should suggest to
+them all its possibilities as a hiding-place, I should know in just one
+moment more what it is for the helpless quarry to feel the clutch of
+the captor.
+
+But the moment passed without any attempt at approach on their part,
+and when I lifted my head again it was to catch a glimpse of their side
+faces as they turned to look elsewhere for what they were plainly in
+search of. An oath, muffled but stern, which was the first word above
+a whisper that I had heard issue from their lips, told me that they
+had reached _the_ room and had come upon the horror which lay there.
+What would they say to it! Would they know who she was--her name,
+her quality, her story--and respect her dead as they certainly must
+have respected her living? I listened but caught only a low murmur
+as they conferred together. I imagined their movements; saw them in
+my mind’s eye leaning over that death-tenanted couch, pointing with
+accusing finger at those two dark marks, and consulting each other with
+side-long looks, as they passed from one detail of her appearance to
+another. I even imagined them crossing the floor and lifting the two
+cordial glasses just as I had done, and then slowly setting them down
+again, with perhaps a lift of the brows or a suggestive shake of the
+head; and maddened by my own intolerable position, drawn by a power I
+felt it impossible to resist, I crept to my feet and took my staggering
+way down the half-dozen steps of the gallery and thence along by the
+left-hand wall towards the further doorway, and through it to where
+these men stood weighing the chances in which my life and honour were
+involved, and those of one other of whom I dared not think and would
+not have these men think for all that was left me of hope and happiness.
+
+It was dark in the ballroom, and it was only a little less so in the
+corridor. All the light was in _that_ room; but I still slid along the
+wall like a thief, with eyes set and ears agape for any chance word
+which might reach me. Suddenly I heard one. It was this, uttered with a
+decision which had the strange effect of lifting my head and making a
+man of me again:
+
+“That settles it. He will find it hard to escape after this.”
+
+_He!_ I had been dreading to hear a _she_. Yet why? Who on God’s earth,
+save myself, could know that Carmel had been within these woeful walls
+to-night. _He!_ I never stopped to question who was meant by this
+definite pronoun. I was not even conscious of caring very much. I was
+in a coil of threatening troubles, but I was in it alone, and, greatly
+relieved by the discovery, I drew myself up and stepped quickly forward
+into the room where the two officials stood.
+
+Their faces, as they wheeled sharply about and took in my shoeless
+and more or less dishevelled figure, told me with an eloquence which
+made my heart sink, the unfortunate impression which my presence made
+upon them. It was but a fleeting look, for these men were both by
+nature and training easy masters of themselves; but its language was
+unmistakable and I knew that if I were to hold my own with them, I must
+get all the support I could from the truth, save where it would involve
+her--from the truth and my own consciousness of innocence, if I had any
+such consciousness. I was not sure that I had, for my falseness had
+precipitated this tragedy,--how I might never know, but a knowledge
+of the how was not necessary to my self-condemnation. Nevertheless my
+hands were clean of this murder, and allowing the surety of this fact
+to take a foremost place in my mind, I faced these men and with real
+feeling, but as little display of it as possible, I observed:
+
+“You have come to my aid in a critical moment. This is my betrothed
+wife--the woman I was to marry--and I find her lying here dead, in this
+closed and lonely house. What does it mean? I know no more than you do.”
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE ODD CANDLESTICK
+
+It is a damned and a bloody work;
+The graceless action of a heavy hand,
+If that it be the work of any hand.
+
+_King John_.
+
+
+The two men eyed me quietly, then Hexford pointed to my shoeless feet
+and sternly retorted:
+
+“Permit us to doubt your last assertion. You seem to be in better
+position than ourselves to explain the circumstances which puzzle you.”
+
+They were right. It was for me to talk, not for them. I conceded the
+point in these words:
+
+“Perhaps--but you cannot always trust appearances. I can explain my
+own presence here and the condition in which you find me, but I cannot
+explain this tragedy, near and dear as Miss Cumberland was to me. I
+did not know she was in the building, alive or dead. I came upon her
+here covered with the cushions just as you found her. I have felt the
+shock. I do not look like myself--I do not feel like myself; it was
+enough--” Here real emotion seized me and I almost broke down. I was in
+a position much more dreadful than any they could imagine or should be
+allowed to.
+
+Their silence led me to examine their faces. Hexford’s mouth had
+settled into a stiff, straight line and the other man’s wore a cynical
+smile I did not like. At this presage of the difficulties awaiting me,
+I felt one strand of the rope sustaining me above this yawning gulf
+of shame and ignominy crack and give way. Oh, for a better record in
+the past!--a staff on which to lean in such an hour as this! But while
+nothing serious clouded my name, I had more to blush for than to pride
+myself upon in my career as prince of good fellows,--and these men knew
+it, both of them, and let it weigh in the scale already tipped far off
+its balance by coincidences which a better man than myself would have
+found it embarrassing to explain. I recognised all this, I say, in the
+momentary glance I cast at their stern and unresponsive figures; but
+the courage which had served me in lesser extremities did not fail me
+now, and, kneeling down before my dead betrothed, I kissed her cold
+white hand with sincere compunction, before attempting the garbled and
+probably totally incoherent story with which I endeavoured to explain
+the inexplainable situation.
+
+They listened--I will do them that much justice; but it was with such
+an air of incredulity that my words fell with less and less continuity
+and finally lost themselves in a confused stammer as I reached the
+point where I pulled the cushions from the couch and made my ghastly
+discovery.
+
+“You see--see for yourselves--what confronted me. My betrothed--a
+dainty, delicate woman--dead--alone--in this solitary, far-away
+spot--the victim of what? I asked myself then--I ask myself now. I
+cannot understand it--or those glasses yonder--or _those marks!”_ They
+were black by this time--unmistakable--not to be ignored by them or by
+me.
+
+“We understand those marks, and you ought to,” came from the second
+man, the one I did not know.
+
+My head fell forward; my lips refused to speak the words. I saw as in
+a flash, a picture of the one woman bending over the other; terror,
+reproach, anguish in the eyes whose fixed stare would never more
+leave my consciousness, an access of rage or some such sadden passion
+animating the other whose every curve spoke tenderness, whose every
+look up to this awful day had been as an angel’s look to me. The vision
+was a maddening one. I shook myself free from it by starting to my
+feet. “It’s--it’s--” I gasped.
+
+“She has been strangled,” quoth Hexford, doggedly.
+
+“A dog’s death,” mumbled the other.
+
+My hands came together involuntarily. At that instant, with the memory
+before me of the vision I have just described, I almost wished that it
+had been _my_ hate, _my_ anger which had brought those tell-tale marks
+out upon that livid skin. I should have suffered less. I should only
+have had to pay the penalty of my crime and not be forced to think
+of Carmel with terrible revulsion, as I was now thinking, minute by
+minute, fight with it as I would.
+
+“You had better sit down,” Hexford suddenly suggested, pushing a chair
+my way. “Clarke, look up the telephone and ask for three more men. I am
+going into this matter thoroughly. Perhaps you will tell us where the
+telephone is,” he asked, turning my way.
+
+It was some little time before I took in these words. When I did,
+I became conscious of his keen look, also of a change in my own
+expression. I had forgotten the telephone. It had not yet been taken
+out. If only I had remembered this before these men came--I might have
+saved--No, nothing could have saved her or me, except the snow, except
+the snow. That may already have saved her. All this time I was trying
+to tell where the telephone was.
+
+That I succeeded at last I judged from the fact that the second man
+left the room. As he did so, Hexford lit the candle. Idly watching,
+for nothing now could make me look at the lounge again, I noticed the
+candlestick. It was of brass and rare in style and workmanship--a
+candlestick to be remembered; one of a pair perhaps. I felt my hair
+stir as I took in the details of its shape and ornamentation. If its
+mate were in her house--No, no, no! I would not have it so. I could
+not control my emotion if I let my imagination stray too far. The
+candlestick must be the property of the club. I had only forgotten. It
+was bought when? While thinking, planning, I was conscious of Hexford’s
+eyes fixed steadily upon me.
+
+“Did you go into the kitchen in your wanderings below?” he asked.
+
+“No,” I began, but seeing that I had made a mistake, I bungled and
+added weakly: “Yes; after matches.”
+
+“Only matches?”
+
+“That’s all.”
+
+“And did you get them?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“In the dark? You must have had trouble in finding them?”
+
+“Not at all. Only safety matches are allowed here, and they are put in
+a receptacle at the side of each door. I had but to open the kitchen
+door, feel along the jamb, find this receptacle, and pull the box out.
+I’m well used to all parts of the house.”
+
+“And you did this?”
+
+“I have said so.”
+
+“May I ask which door you allude to?”
+
+“The one communicating with the front hall.”
+
+“Where did you light your first match?”
+
+“Upstairs.”
+
+“Not in the kitchen?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“You are sure?”
+
+“Quite sure.”
+
+“That’s a pity. I thought you might be able to tell me how so many wine
+and whiskey bottles came to be standing on the kitchen table.”
+
+I stared at him, dazed. Then I remembered the two small glasses on
+the little table across the room, and instinctively glanced at them.
+But no whiskey had been drunk out of them--the odor of anisette is
+unmistakable.
+
+“You carry the key to the wine-cellar?” he asked.
+
+I considered a moment. I did not know what to make of bottles on the
+kitchen table. These women and _bottles_! They abhorred wine; they
+had reason to, God knows; T remembered the dinner and all that had
+signalised it, and felt my confusion grow. But a question had been
+asked, and I must answer it. It would not do for me to hesitate about a
+matter of this kind. Only what was the question. Something about a key.
+I had no key; the cellar had been ransacked without my help; should I
+acknowledge this?
+
+“The keys were given up by the janitor yesterday,” I managed to stammer
+at last. “But I did not bring them here to-night. They are in my rooms
+at home.”
+
+I finished with a gasp. I had suddenly remembered that these keys were
+not in my rooms. I had had them with me at Miss Cumberland’s and being
+given to fooling with something when embarrassed, I had fooled with
+them and dropped them while talking with Adelaide and watching Carmel.
+I had meant to pick them up but I forgot and--
+
+“You need say nothing more about it,” remarked Hexford. “I have no
+right to question you at all.” And stepping across the room, he took
+up the glasses one after the other and smelled of them. “Some sweet
+stuff,” he remarked. “Cordial, I should say anisette. There wasn’t
+anything like that on the kitchen table. Let us see what there is in
+here,” he added, stepping into the adjoining small room into which I
+had simply peered in my own investigation of the place.
+
+As he did so, a keen blast blew in; a window in the adjoining room was
+open. He cast me a hurried glance and with the door in his hand, made
+the following remark:
+
+“Your lady love--the victim here--could not have come through the snow
+with no more clothing on her than we see now. She must have worn a hat
+and coat or furs or something of that nature. Let us look for them.”
+
+I rose, stumbling. I saw that he did not mean to leave me alone for a
+moment. Indeed, I did not wish to be so left. Better any companionship
+than that of my own thoughts and of her white upturned face. As I
+followed him into this closet he pushed the door wide, pulling out an
+electric torch as he did so. By its light we saw almost at first glance
+the coat and hat he professed to seek, lying in a corner of the floor,
+beside an overturned chair.
+
+“Good!” left my companion’s lips. “That’s all straight. You recognise
+these garments?”
+
+I nodded, speechless. A thousand memories rushed upon me at the sight
+of the long plush coat which I had so often buttoned about her, with
+a troubled heart. How her eyes would seek mine as we stood thus close
+together, searching, searching for the old love or the fancied love of
+which the ashes only remained. Torment, all torment to remember now, as
+Hexford must have seen, if the keenness of his intelligence equalled
+that of his eye at this moment.
+
+The window which stood open was a small one,-a mere slit in the wall;
+but it let in a stream of zero air and I saw Hexford shiver as he
+stepped towards it and looked out. But I felt hot rather than cold, and
+when I instinctively put my hand to my forehead, it came away wet.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+A SCRAP OF PAPER
+
+Look to the lady:--
+And when we have our naked frailties hid,
+That suffer in exposure, let us meet,
+And question this most bloody piece of work,
+To know it further. Fears and scruples shake us;
+In the great hand of God I stand; and, thence,
+Against the undivulg’d pretence I fight
+Of treasonous malice.
+
+_Macbeth_.
+
+
+Shortly after this, a fresh relay of police arrived and I could hear
+the whole house being ransacked. I had found my shoes, and was sitting
+in my own private room before a fire which had been lighted for me on
+the hearth. I was in a state of stupor now, and if my body shook, as
+it did from time to time, it was not from cold, nor do I think from
+any special horror of mind or soul (I felt too dull for that), but in
+response to the shuddering pines which pressed up close to the house
+at this point and soughed and tapped at the walls and muttered among
+themselves with an insistence which I could not ignore, notwithstanding
+my many reasons for self-absorption.
+
+The storm, which had been exceedingly fierce while it lasted, had
+quieted down to a steady fall of snow. Had its mission been to serve as
+a blanket to this crime by wiping out from the old snow all tell-tale
+footsteps and such other records as simplify cases of this kind for the
+detectives, it could not have happened more _apropos_ to the event.
+From the complaints which had already reached my ears from the two
+policemen, I was quite aware that even as early as their first arrival,
+they had found a clean page where possibly a few minutes before the
+whole secret of this tragedy may have been written in unmistakable
+characters; and while this tilled me with relief in one way, it added
+to my care in another, for the storm which could accomplish so much in
+so short a time was a bitter one for a young girl to meet, and Carmel
+must have met it at its worst, in her lonesome struggle homeward.
+
+Where was she? Living or dead, where was she now and where was
+Adelaide--the two women who for the last six weeks had filled my life
+with so many unhallowed and conflicting emotions? The conjecture
+passed incessantly through my brain, but it passed idly also and was
+not answered even in thought. Indeed, I seemed incapable of sustaining
+any line of thought for more than an instant, and when after an
+indefinite length of time the door behind me opened, the look I turned
+upon the gentleman who entered must have been a strange and far from
+encouraging one.
+
+He brought a lantern with him. So far the room had had no other
+illumination than such as came from the fire, and when he had set this
+lantern down on the mantel and turned to face me, I perceived, with
+a sort of sluggish hope, that he was Dr. Perry, once a practising
+physician and my father’s intimate friend, now a county official of no
+ordinary intelligence and, what was better, of no ordinary feeling.
+
+His attachment to my father had not descended to me and, for the
+moment, he treated me like a stranger.
+
+“I am the coroner of this district,” said he. “I have left my bed
+to have a few words with you and learn if your detention here is
+warranted. You are the president of this club, and the lady whose
+violent death in this place I have been called upon to investigate, is
+Miss Cumberland, your affianced wife?”
+
+My assent, though hardly audible, was not to be misunderstood. Drawing
+up a chair, he sat down and something in his manner which was not
+wholly without sympathy, heartened me still more, dispelling some of
+the cloudiness which had hitherto befogged my faculties.
+
+“They have told me what you had to say in explanation of your presence
+here where a crime of some nature has taken place. But I should
+like to hear the story from your own lips. I feel that I owe you
+this consideration. At all events, I am disposed to show it. This
+is no common case of violence and the parties to it are not of the
+common order. Miss Cumberland’s virtue and social standing no one
+can question, while you are the son of a man who has deservedly been
+regarded as an honour to the town. You have been intending to marry
+Miss Cumberland?”
+
+“Yes.” I looked the man directly in the eye. “Our wedding-day was set.”
+
+“Did you love her? Pardon me; if I am to be of any benefit to you at
+this crisis I must strike at the root of things. If you do not wish to
+answer, say so, Mr. Ranelagh.”
+
+“I do wish.” This was a lie, but what was I to do, knowing how
+dangerous it would be for Carmel to have it publicly known where
+my affections were really centred and what a secret tragedy of
+heart-struggle and jealous passion underlay this open one of foul and
+murderous death. “I am in no position to conceal anything from you. I
+did love Miss Cumberland. We have been engaged for a year. She was a
+woman of fortune but I am not without means of my own and could have
+chosen a penniless girl and still been called prosperous.”
+
+“I see, and she returned your love?”
+
+“Sincerely.” Was the room light enough to reveal my guilty flush? She
+had loved me only too well, too jealously, too absorbingly for her
+happiness or mine.
+
+“And the sister?”
+
+It was gently but gravely put, and instantly I knew that our secret was
+out, however safe we had considered it. This man was cognisant of it,
+and if he, why not others! Why not the whole town! A danger which up to
+this moment I had heard whispered only by the pines, was opening in a
+gulf beneath our feet. Its imminence steadied me. I had kept my glance
+on Coroner Perry, and I do not think it changed. My tone, I am quite
+assured, was almost as quiet and grave as his as I made my reply in
+these words:
+
+“Her sister is her sister. I hardly think that either of us would be apt
+to forget that. Have you heard otherwise, sir?”
+
+He was prepared for equivocation, possibly for denial, but not for
+attack. His manner changed and showed distrust and I saw that I had lost
+rather than made by this venturous move.
+
+“Is this your writing?” he suddenly asked, showing me a morsel of paper
+which he had drawn from his vest pocket.
+
+I looked, and felt that I now understood what the pines had been trying
+to tell me for the last few hours. That compromising scrap of writing
+had not been destroyed. It existed for her and my undoing! Then doubt
+came. Fate could not juggle thus with human souls and purposes. I had
+simply imagined myself to have recognised the words lengthening and
+losing themselves in a blur before my eyes. Carmel was no fool even
+if she had wild and demoniacal moments. This could not be my note to
+her,--that fatal note which would make all denial of our mutual passion
+unavailing.
+
+“Is it your writing?” my watchful inquisitor repeated.
+
+I looked again. The scrap was smaller than my note had been when it
+left my hands. If it were the same, then some of the words were gone.
+Were they the first ones or the last? It would make a difference in the
+reading, or rather, in the conclusions to be drawn from what remained.
+If only the mist would clear from before my eyes, or he would hold the
+slip of paper nearer! The room was very dark. The--the--
+
+“Is it your writing?” Coroner Perry asked for the third time.
+
+There was no denying it. My writing was peculiar and quite
+unmistakable. I should gain nothing by saying no.
+
+“It looks like it,” I admitted reluctantly. “But I cannot be sure in
+this light. May I ask what this bit of paper is and where you found it?”
+
+“Its contents I think you know. As for the last question I think you
+can answer that also if you will.”
+
+Saying which, he quietly replaced the scrap of paper in his pocket-book.
+
+I followed the action with my eyes. I caught a fresh glimpse of a
+darkened edge, and realised the cause of the faint odour which I had
+hitherto experienced without being conscious of it. The scrap had been
+plucked out of the chimney. She had tried to burn it. I remembered the
+fire and the smouldering bits of paper which crumbled at my touch. And
+this one, this, the most important--the only important one of them all,
+had flown, half-scorched, up the chimney and clung there within easy
+reach.
+
+The whole incident was plain to me, and I could even fix upon the
+moment when Hexford or Clarke discovered this invaluable bit of
+evidence. It was just before I burst in upon them from the ballroom,
+and it was the undoubted occasion of the remark I then overheard:
+
+“_This settles it. He cannot escape us now_.”
+
+During the momentary silence which now ensued, I tried to remember the
+exact words which had composed this note. They were few---sparks from
+my very heart--I ought to be able to recollect them.
+
+“To-night--10:30 train--we will be married at P----. Come, come, my
+darling, my life. She will forgive when all is done. Hesitation will
+only undo us. To-night at 10 30. Do not fail me. I shall never marry
+any one but you.”
+
+Was that all? I had an indistinct remembrance of having added some
+wild and incoherent words of passionate affection affixed to her name.
+_Her name_! But it may be that in the hurry and flurry of the moment,
+these terms of endearment simply passed through my mind and found no
+expression on paper. I could not be sure, any more than I could be
+positive from the half glimpse I got of these lines, which portion had
+been burned off,--the top in which the word _train_ occurred, or the
+final words, emphasising a time of meeting and my determination to
+marry no one but the person addressed. The first gone, the latter might
+take on any sinister meaning. The latter gone, the first might prove a
+safeguard, corroborating my statement that an errand had taken me into
+town.
+
+I was oppressed by the uncertainty of my position. Even if I carried
+off this detail successfully, others of equal importance might be
+awaiting explanation. My poor, maddened, guilt-haunted girl had made
+the irreparable mistake of letting this note of mine fly unconsumed
+up the chimney, and she might have made others equally incriminating.
+It would be hard to find an alibi for her if suspicion once turned
+her way. She had not met me at the train. The unknown but doubtless
+easily-to-be-found man who had handed me her note could swear to that
+fact.
+
+Then the note itself! I had destroyed it, it is true, but its phrases
+were so present to my mind--had been so branded into it by the terrors
+of the tragedy which they appeared to foreshadow, that I had a dreadful
+feeling that this man’s eye could read them there. I remember that
+under the compelling power of this fancy, my hand rose to my brow
+outspread and concealing, as if to interpose a barrier between him
+and them. Is my folly past belief? Possibly. But then I have not told
+you the words of this fatal communication. They were these--innocent,
+if she were innocent, but how suggestive in the light of her probable
+guilt:
+
+“I cannot. Wait till to-morrow. Then you will see the depth of my love
+for you--what I owe you--what I owe Adelaide.”
+
+I should see!
+
+I was seeing.
+
+Suddenly I dropped my hand; a new thought had come to me. Had Carmel
+been discovered on the road leading from this place?
+
+You perceive that by this time I had become the prey of every
+threatening possibility; even of that which made the present a
+nightmare from which I should yet wake to old conditions and old
+struggles, bad enough, God knows, but not like this--not like this.
+
+Meantime I was conscious that not a look or movement of mine had escaped
+the considerate but watchful eye of the man before me.
+
+“You do not relish my questions,” he dryly observed. “Perhaps you would
+rather tell your story without interruption. If so, I beg you to be as
+explicit as possible. The circumstances are serious enough for perfect
+candour on your part.”
+
+He was wrong. They were too serious for that. Perfect candour would
+involve Carmel. Seeming candour was all I could indulge in. I took a
+quick resolve. I would appear to throw discretion to the winds; to
+confide to him what men usually hold sacred; to risk my reputation as a
+gentleman, rather than incur a suspicion which might involve others
+more than it did myself. Perhaps I should yet win through and save her
+from an ignominy she possibly deserved but which she must never receive
+at my hands.
+
+“I will give you an account of my evening,” said I. “It will not aid
+you much, but will prove my good faith. You asked me a short time ago
+if I loved the lady whom I was engaged to marry and whose dead body I
+most unexpectedly came upon in this house some time before midnight. I
+answered yes, and you showed that you doubted me. You were justified
+in your doubts. I did love her once, or thought so, but my feelings
+changed. A great temptation came into my life. Carmel returned from
+school and--you know her beauty, her fascination. A week in her
+presence, and marriage with Adelaide became impossible. But how evade
+it? I only knew the coward’s way; to lure this inexperienced young
+girl, fresh from school, into a runaway match. A change which now
+became perceptible in Miss Cumberland’s manner, only egged me on. It
+was not sufficiently marked in character to call for open explanation,
+yet it was unmistakable to one on the watch as I was, and betokened
+a day of speedy reckoning for which I was little prepared. I know
+what the manly course would have been, but I preferred to skulk. I
+acknowledge it now; it is the only retribution I have to offer for a
+past I am ashamed of. Without losing one particle of my intention,
+I governed more carefully my looks and actions, and thought I had
+succeeded in blinding Adelaide to my real feelings and purpose. Whether
+I did or not, I cannot say. I have no means of knowing now. She has
+not been her natural self for these last few days, but she had other
+causes for worry, and I have been willing enough to think that these
+were the occasion of her restless ways and short, sharp speech and the
+blankness with which she met all my attempts to soothe and encourage
+her. This evening”--I choked at the word. The day had been one string
+of extraordinary experiences, accumulating in intensity to the one
+ghastly discovery which had overtopped and overwhelmed all the rest.
+“This evening,” I falteringly continued, “I had set as the limit to my
+endurance of the intolerable situation. During a minute of solitude
+preceding the dinner at Miss Cumberland’s house on the Hill, I wrote a
+few lines to her sister, urging her to trust me with her fate and meet
+me at the station in time for the ten-thirty train. I meant to carry
+her at once to P----, where I had a friend in the ministry who would at
+once unite us in marriage. I was very peremptory, for my nerves were
+giving way under the secret strain to which they had been subjected
+for so long, and she herself was looking worn with her own silent and
+uncommunicated conflict.
+
+“To write this note was easy, but to deliver it involved difficulties.
+Miss Cumberland’s eyes seemed to be more upon me than usual. Mine were
+obliged to respond and Carmel seeing this, kept hers on her plate
+or on the one other person seated at the table, her brother Arthur.
+But the opportunity came as we all rose and passed together into the
+drawing-room. Carmel fell into place at my side and I slipped the note
+into her hand. She had not expected it and I fear that the action was
+observed, for when I took my leave of Miss Cumberland shortly after,
+I was struck by her expression. I had never seen such a look on her
+face before, nor can I conceive of one presenting a more extraordinary
+contrast to the few and commonplace words with which she bade me
+good evening. I could not forget that look. I continued to see those
+pinched features and burning eyes all the way home where I went to get
+my grip-sack, and I saw them all the way to the station, though my
+thoughts were with her sister and the joys I had planned for myself.
+Man’s egotism, Dr. Perry. I neither knew Adelaide nor did I know the
+girl whose love I had so over-estimated. She failed me, Dr. Perry. I
+was met at the station not by herself, but by a letter--a few hurried
+lines given me by an unknown man--in which she stated that I had asked
+too much of her, that she could not so wrong her sister who had brought
+her up and done everything for her since her mother died. I have not
+that letter now, or I would show it to you. In my raging disappointment
+I tore it up on the place where I received it, and threw the pieces
+away. I had staked my whole future on one desperate throw and I had
+lost. If I had had a pistol--” I stopped, warned by an uneasy movement
+on the part of the man I addressed, that I had better not dilate too
+much upon my feelings. Indeed, I had forgotten to whom I was talking. I
+realised nothing, thought of nothing but the misery I was describing.
+His action recalled me to the infinitely deeper misery of my present
+situation, and conscious of the conclusions which might be drawn from
+such impulsive utterances, I pulled myself together and proceeded to
+finish my story with greater directness.
+
+“I did not leave the station till the ten-thirty train had gone. I had
+hopes, still, of seeing her, or possibly I dreaded the long ride back
+to my apartments. It was from sheer preoccupation of mind that I drove
+this way instead of straight out by Marshall Avenue. I had no intention
+of stopping here; the club-house was formally closed yesterday, as you
+may know, and I did not even have the keys with me. But, as I reached
+the bend in the road where you get your first sight of the buildings, I
+saw a thin streak of smoke rising from one of its chimneys, and anxious
+as to its meaning, I drove in--”
+
+“Wait, Mr. Ranelagh, I am sorry to interrupt you, but by which gate did
+you enter?”
+
+“By the lower one.”
+
+“Was it snowing at this time?”
+
+“Not yet. It was just before the clouds rushed upon the moon. I could
+see everything quite plainly.”
+
+My companion nodded and I went breathlessly on. Any question of his
+staggered me. I was so ignorant of the facts at his command, of the facts
+at any one’s command outside my own experience and observation, that the
+simplest admission I made might lead directly to some clew of whose very
+existence I was unaware. I was not even able to conjecture by what chance
+or at whose suggestion the police had raided the place and discovered
+the tragedy which had given point to that raid. No one had told me, and I
+had met with no encouragement to ask. I felt myself sliding amid
+pitfalls. My own act might precipitate the very doom I sought to avert.
+Yet I must preserve my self-possession and answer all questions as
+truthfully as possible lest I stumble into a web from which no skill of
+my own or of another could extricate me.
+
+“Fastening my horse to one of the pine trees in the thickest clump I
+saw--he is there now, I suppose--I crept up to the house, and tried the
+door. It was on the latch and I stole in. There was no light on the lower
+floor, and after listening for any signs of life, I began to feel my way
+about the house, searching for the intruder. As I did not wish to attract
+attention to myself, I took off my shoes. I went through the lower rooms,
+and then I came upstairs. It was some time before I reached the--the room
+where a fire had been lit; but when I did I knew--not,” I hastily
+corrected, as I caught his quick concentrated glance, “what had happened
+or whom I should find there, but that this was the spot where the
+intruder had been, possibly was now, and I determined to grapple with
+him. What--what have I said?” I asked in anguish, as I caught a look on
+the coroner’s face of irrepressible repulsion and disgust, slight and
+soon gone but unmistakable so long as it lasted.
+
+“Nothing,” he replied, “go on.”
+
+But his tone, considerate as it had been from the first, did not deceive
+me. I knew that I had been detected in some slip or prevarication. As I
+had omitted all mention of the most serious part of my adventure--had
+said nothing of my vision of Carmel or the terrible conclusions which her
+presence there had awakened--my conscience was in a state of perturbation
+which added greatly to my confusion. For a moment I did not know where I
+stood, and I am afraid I betrayed a sense of my position. He had to
+recall me to myself by an unimportant question or two before I could go
+on. When I did proceed, it was with less connection of ideas and a haste
+in speaking which was not due altogether to the harrowing nature of the
+tale itself.
+
+“I had matches in my pocket and I struck one,” I began. “Afterwards I lit
+the candle. The emptiness of the room did not alarm me. I experienced the
+sense of tragedy. Seeing the pillows heaped high and too regularly for
+chance along a lounge ordinarily holding only two, I tore them off. I saw
+a foot, a hand, a tress of bright hair. Even then I did not think of
+_her_. Why should I? Not till I uncovered the face did I know the terrors
+of my discovery, and then, the confusion of it all unmanned me and I fell
+on my knees--”
+
+“Go on! Go on!”
+
+The impetuosity, the suspense in the words astounded me. I stared at the
+coroner and lost the thread of my story--What had I to say more? How
+account for what must be ever unaccountable to him, to the world, to my
+own self, if in obedience to the demands of the situation I subdued my
+own memory and blotted out all I had seen but that which it was safe to
+confess to?
+
+“There is no more to say,” I murmured. “The horror of that moment made a
+chaos in my mind. I looked at the dead body of her who lay there as I
+have looked at everything since; as I looked at the police when they
+came--as I look at you now. But I know nothing. It is all a
+phantasmagoria to me--with no more meaning than a nightmare. She is
+dead--I know that--but beyond that, all is doubt--confusion--what the
+world and all its passing show is to a blind man. I can neither
+understand nor explain.”
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+COMMENTS AND REFLECTIONS
+
+There is no agony and no solace left;
+Earth can console, Heaven can torment, no more
+
+_Prometheus Unbound_
+
+
+The coroner’s intent look which had more or less sustained me through
+this ordeal, remained fixed upon my face as though he were still
+anxious to see me exonerate myself. How much did he know? That was the
+question. _How much did he know_?
+
+Having no means of telling, I was forced to keep silent. I had revealed
+all I dared to. As I came to this conclusion, his eyes fell and I knew
+that the favorable minute had passed.
+
+The question he now asked proved it.
+
+“You say that you were not blind to surrounding objects, even if they
+conveyed but little meaning to you. You must have seen, then, that the
+room where Miss Cumberland lay contained two small cordial glasses,
+both still moist with some liqueur.”
+
+“I noticed that, yes.”
+
+“Some one must have drunk with her?”
+
+“I cannot contradict you.”
+
+“Was Miss Cumberland fond of that sort of thing?”
+
+“She detested liquor of all kinds. She never drank I never saw a woman
+so averse to wine.” I spoke before I thought. I might better have been
+less emphatic, but the mystery of those glasses had affected me from
+the first. Neither she nor Carmel ever allowed themselves so much as a
+social glass, yet those glasses had been drained. “Perhaps the cold--”
+
+“There was a third glass. We found it in the adjoining closet. It had
+not been used. That third glass has a meaning if only we could find it
+out.”
+
+A possibility which had risen in my mind faded at these words.
+
+“Three glasses,” I dully repeated.
+
+“And a small flask of cordial. The latter seems pure enough.”
+
+“I cannot understand it.” The phrase had become stereotyped. No other
+suggested itself to me.
+
+“The problem would be simple enough if it were not for those-marks on
+her neck. You saw those, too, I take it?”
+
+“Yes. Who made them? What man--”
+
+The lie, or rather the suggestion of a lie, flushed my face. I was
+conscious of this, but it did not trouble me. I was panting for relief.
+I could not rest till I knew the nature of the doubt in this man’s
+mind. If these words, or any words I could use, would serve to surprise
+his secret, then welcome the lie or suggestion of a lie. “It was a
+brute’s act,” I went on, bungling with my sentences in anxiety to see
+if my conclusions fitted in with his own. “_Who was the brute_? Do you
+know, Dr. Perry?”
+
+“There were three glasses in those rooms. Only two were drank from,”
+he answered, steadily. “Tomorrow I may be in a position to answer your
+question. I am not to-night.”
+
+Why did I take heart? Not a change, not the flicker of one had passed
+over his countenance at my utterance of the word _man_. Either his
+official habit had stood him in wonderful stead, or the police had
+failed so far to see any connection between this murder and the young
+girl whose footprints, for all I knew, still lingered on the stairs.
+
+Would the morrow arm them with completer knowledge? As I turned from
+his retreating figure and flung myself down before the hearth, this was
+the question I continually propounded to myself, in vain repetition.
+Would the morrow reveal the fact that Adelaide’s young sister had been
+with her in the hour of death, or would the fates propitiously aid her
+in preserving this secret as they had already aided her in selecting
+for the one man who shared it, him who of all others was bound by
+honour and personal consideration for her not to divulge what he knew.
+
+Thus the hours between two and seven passed when I fell into a fitful
+sleep, from which I was rudely wakened by a loud rattle at my door,
+followed by the entrance of the officer who had walked up and down the
+corridor all night.
+
+“The waggon is here,” said he. “Breakfast will be given you at the
+station.”
+
+To which Hexford, looking over his shoulder, added: “I’m sorry to say
+that we have here the warrant for your arrest. Can I do anything for
+you?”
+
+“Warrant!” I burst out, “what do you want of a warrant? It is as a
+witness you seek to detain me, I presume?”
+
+“No,” was his brusque reply. “The charge upon which you are arrested is
+one of murder. You will have to appear before a magistrate. I’m sorry
+to be the one to tell you this, but the evidence against you is very
+strong, and the police must do their duty.”
+
+“But I am innocent, absolutely innocent,” I protested, the perspiration
+starting from every pore as the full meaning of the charge burst upon
+me. “What I have told you was correct. I, myself, found her dead--”
+
+Hexford gave me a look.
+
+“Don’t talk,” he kindly suggested. “Leave that to the lawyers.” Then,
+as the other man turned aside for a moment, he whispered in my ear,
+“It’s no go; one of our men saw you with your fingers on her throat. He
+had clambered into a pine tree and the shade of the window was up. You
+had better come quietly. Not a soul believes you innocent.”
+
+This, then, was what had doomed me from the start; this, and that
+partly burned letter. I understood now why the kind-hearted coroner,
+who loved my father, had urged me to tell my tale, hoping that I would
+explain this act and give him some opportunity to indulge in a doubt.
+And I had failed to respond to the hint he had given me. The act
+itself must appear so sinister and the impulse which drove me to it
+so incomprehensible, without the heart-rending explanation I dare not
+subjoin, that I never questioned the wisdom of silence in its regard.
+
+Yet this silence had undone me. I had been seen fingering my dead
+betrothed’s throat, and nothing I could now say or do would ever
+convince people that she was dead before my hands touched her,
+strangled by another’s clutch. One person only in the whole world would
+know and feel how false this accusation was. And yesterday that one’s
+trust in my guiltlessness would have thrown a ray of light upon the
+deepest infamy which could befall me. But to-day there had settled over
+that once innocent spirit, a cloud of too impenetrable a nature for any
+light to struggle to and fro between us.
+
+I could not contemplate that cloud. I could not dwell upon her misery,
+or upon the revulsion of feeling which follows such impetuous acts. And
+it had been an impetuous act--the result of one of her rages. I had
+been told of these rages. I had even seen her in one. When they passed
+she was her lovable self once more and very penitent and very downcast.
+If all I feared were true, she was suffering acutely now. But I gave no
+thought to this. I could dream of but one thing--how to save her from
+the penalty of crime, a penalty I might be forced to suffer myself and
+would prefer to suffer rather than see it fall upon one so young and so
+angelically beautiful.
+
+Turning to the officer next me, I put the question which had been
+burning in my mind for hours:
+
+“Tell me, how you came to know there was trouble here? What brought you
+to this house? There can be nothing wrong in telling me that.”
+
+“Well, if you don’t know--” he began.
+
+“I do not,” I broke in.
+
+“I guess you’d better wait till the chief has had a word with you.”
+
+I suppressed all tokens of my disappointment, and by a not unnatural
+reaction, perhaps, began to take in, and busy myself with, the very
+considerations I had hitherto shunned. Where was Carmel, and how was
+she enduring these awful hours? Had repentance come, and with it a
+desire to own her guilt? Did she think of me and the effect this
+unlooked-for death would have upon my feelings? That I should suffer
+arrest for her crime could not have entered her mind. I had seen her,
+but she had not seen me, in the dark hall which I must now traverse as
+a prisoner and a suspect. No intimation of my dubious position or its
+inevitable consequences had reached her yet. When it did, what would
+she do? I did not know her well enough to tell. The attraction she
+had felt for me had not been strong enough to lead her to accommodate
+herself to my wishes and marry me off-hand, but it had been strong
+enough to nerve her arm in whatever altercation she may have had with
+her jealous-minded sister. It was the temper and not the strength
+of the love which would tell in a strait like this. Would it prove
+of a generous kind? Should I have to combat her desire to take upon
+herself the full blame of her deed, with all its shames and penalties?
+Or should I have the still deeper misery of finding her callous to
+my position and welcoming any chance which diverted suspicion from
+herself? Either supposition might be possible, according to my judgment
+in this evil hour. All communication between us, in spite of our
+ardent and ungovernable passion, had been so casual and so slight.
+Looks, a whispered word or so, one furtive clasp in which our hands
+seemed to grow together, were all I had to go upon as tests of her
+feeling towards me. Her character I had judged from her face, which
+was lovely. But faces deceive, and the loveliness of youth is not like
+the loveliness of age--an absolute mirror of the soul within. Was not
+Medusa captivating, for all her snaky locks? Hide those locks and one
+might have thought her a Daphne.
+
+What would relieve my doubts? As Hexford drew near me again on our way
+to the head of the staircase, I summoned up courage to ask:
+
+“Have you heard anything from the Hill? Has the news of this tragedy
+been communicated to Miss Cumberland’s family, and if so, how are they
+bearing this affliction?”
+
+His lip curled, and for a minute he hesitated; then something in my
+aspect or the straight-forward look I gave him, softened him and he
+answered frankly, if coldly:
+
+“Word has gone there, of course, but only the servants are affected by
+it so far. Miss Cumberland, the younger, is very ill, and the boy--I
+don’t know his name--has not shown up since last evening. He’s very
+dissipated, they say, and may be in any one of the joints in the lower
+part of the town.”
+
+I stopped in dismay, clutching wildly at the railing of the stairs we
+were descending. I had hardly heard the latter words, all my mind was
+on what he had said first.
+
+“Miss Carmel Cumberland ill?” I stammered, “too ill to be told?”
+
+I was sufficiently master of myself to put it this way.
+
+“Yes,” he rejoined, kindly, as he urged me down the very stairs I had
+seen her descend in such a state of mind a few hours before. “A servant
+who had been out late, heard the fall of some heavy body as she was
+passing Miss Cumberland’s rooms, and rushing in found Miss Carmel, as
+she called her, lying on the floor near the open fire. Her face had
+struck the bars of the grate in falling, and she was badly burned. But
+that was not all; she was delirious with fever, brought on, they think,
+by anxiety about her sister, whose name she was constantly repeating.
+They had a doctor for her and the whole house was up before ever the
+word came of what had happened here.”
+
+I thanked him with a look. I had no opportunity for more. Half a dozen
+officers were standing about the front door, and in another moment I
+was bustled into the conveyance provided and was being driven away from
+the death-haunted spot.
+
+I had heard the last whisper of those pines for many, many days. But
+not in my dreams; it ever came back at night, sinister, awesome,
+haunted with dead hopes and breathing of an ever doubtful future.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+CLIFTON ACCEPTS MY CASE
+
+This hand of mine
+Is yet a maiden and an innocent hand,
+Not painted with the crimson spots of blood.
+Within this bosom never enter’d yet
+The dreadful motion of a murd’rous thought.
+
+_King John_.
+
+
+My first thought (when I could think at all) was this:
+
+“She has some feeling, then! Her terror and remorse have maddened
+her. I can dwell upon her image with pity.” The next, “Will they find
+her wet clothes and discover that she was out last night?” The latter
+possibility troubled me. My mind was the seat of strange contradictions.
+
+As the day advanced and I began to realise that I, Elwood Ranelagh,
+easy-going man of the world, but with traditions of respectable living
+on both sides of my house and a list of friends of which any man might
+be proud, was in a place of detention on the awful charge of murder, I
+found that my keenest torment arose from the fact that I was shut off
+from the instant knowledge of what was going on in the house where all
+my thoughts, my fears, and shall I say it, latent hopes were centred.
+To know Carmel ill and not to know how ill! To feel the threatening
+arm of the law hovering constantly over her head and neither to know
+the instant of its fall nor be given the least opportunity to divert
+it. To realise that some small inadvertance on her part, some trivial
+but incriminating object left about, some heedless murmur or burst of
+unconscious frenzy might precipitate her doom, and I remain powerless,
+bearing my share of suspicion and ignominy, it is true, but not the
+chief share if matters befell as I have suggested, which they were
+liable to do at any hour, nay, at any minute.
+
+My examination before the magistrate held one element of comfort.
+Nothing in its whole tenor went to show that, as yet, she was in the
+least suspected of any participation in my so-called crime. But the
+knowledge which came later, of how the police first learned of trouble
+at the club-house did not add to this sense of relief, whatever
+satisfaction it gave my curiosity. A cry of distress had come to them
+over the telephone; a wild cry, in a woman’s choked and tremulous
+voice: “Help at The Whispering Pines! Help!” That was all, or all they
+revealed to me. In their endeavour to find out whether or not I was
+present when this call was made, I learned the nature of their own
+suspicions. They believed that Adelaide in some moment of prevision
+had managed to reach the telephone and send out this message. But what
+did I believe? What could I believe? All the incidents of the deadly
+struggle which must have preceded the fatal culminating act, were
+mysteries which my mind refused to penetrate. After hours of torturing
+uncertainty, and an evening which was the miserable precursor of a
+still more miserable night, I decided to drop conjecture and await the
+enlightenment which must come with the morrow.
+
+It was, therefore, in a condition of mingled dread and expectation that
+I opened the paper which was brought me the next morning. Of the shock
+which it gave me to see my own name blotting the page with suggestions
+of hideous crime, I will not speak, but pass at once to the few gleams
+of added knowledge I was able to gather from those abominable columns.
+Arthur, the good-for-nothing brother, had returned from his wild
+carouse and had taken affairs in charge with something like spirit
+and a decent show of repentance for his own shortcomings and the mad
+taste for liquor which had led him away from home that night. Carmel
+was still ill, and likely to be so for many days to come. Her case was
+diagnosed as one of brain fever and of a most dangerous type. Doctors
+and nurses were busy at her bedside and little hope was held out of
+her being able to tell soon, if ever, what she knew of her sister’s
+departure from the house on that fatal evening. That her testimony
+on this point would be invaluable was self-evident, for proofs were
+plenty of her having haunted her sister’s rooms all the evening in a
+condition of more or less delirium. She was alone in the house and this
+may have added to her anxieties, all of the servants having gone to the
+policemen’s ball. It was on their return in the early morning hours
+that she had been discovered, lying ill and injured before her sister’s
+fireplace.
+
+One fact was mentioned which set me thinking. The keys of the
+club-house had been found lying on a table in the side hall of the
+Cumberland mansion--the keys which I have already mentioned as missing
+from my pocket. An alarming discovery which might have acted as a
+clew to the suspicious I feared, if their presence there had not been
+explained by the waitress who had cleared the table after dinner.
+Coming upon these keys lying on the floor beside one of the chairs,
+she had carried them out into the hall and laid them where they would
+be more readily seen. She had not recognised the keys, but had taken
+it for granted that they belonged to Mr. Ranelagh who had dined at the
+house that night.
+
+They were my keys, and I have already related how I came to drop them
+on the floor. Had they but stayed there! Adelaide, or was it Carmel,
+might not have seen them and been led by some strange, if not tragic,
+purpose, incomprehensible to us now and possibly never to find full
+explanation, to enter the secret and forsaken spot where I later found
+them, the one dead, the other fleeing in frenzy, but not in such a
+thoughtless frenzy as to forget these keys or to fail to lock the
+club-house door behind her. That she, on her return home, should have
+had sufficient presence of mind to toss these keys down in the same
+place from which she or her sister had taken them, argued well for
+her clear-headedness up to that moment. The fever must have come on
+later--a fever which with my knowledge of what had occurred at The
+Whispering Pines, seemed the only natural outcome of the situation.
+
+The next paragraph detailed a fact startling enough to rouse my deepest
+interest. Zadok Brown, the Cumberlands’ coachman, declared that
+Arthur’s cutter and what he called the grey mare had been out that
+night. They were both in place when he returned to the stable towards
+early morning, but the signs were unmistakable that both had been out
+in the snow since he left the stable at about nine. He had locked the
+stable-door at that time, but the key always hung in the kitchen where
+any one could get it. This was on account of Arthur, who, if he wanted
+to go out late, sometimes harnessed a horse himself. Zadok judged that
+he had done so this night, though how the horse happened to be back and
+in her stall and no Mr. Arthur in the house, it would take wiser heads
+than his to explain. But he was sure the mare had been out.
+
+There was some comment made on this, because Arthur had denied using
+his cutter that night. He declared instead that he had gone out on foot
+and designated the coachman’s tale as all bosh. “I was not the only one
+who had a drop too much down-town,” was the dogged assertion with which
+he met all questions on this subject. “I wouldn’t give a snap of my
+finger for Zadok’s opinion on any subject, after five hours of dancing
+and the necessary drinks. There were no signs of the mare having been
+out when I got home.” As this was about noon the next day, his opinion
+on this point could not be said to count for much.
+
+As for myself, I felt inclined to believe that the mare had been out,
+that one or both of the women had harnessed him and that it was by
+these means they had reached The Whispering Pines. The night was too
+cold, a storm too imminent, for them to have contemplated so long a
+walk on a road so remote as that leading to the club-house. Arthur
+was athletic but Adelaide was far from strong and never addicted to
+walking under the most favourable conditions. Of all the mysteries
+surrounding her dead presence in the club-house, the one which from
+the first had struck me as the most inexplicable was the manner of her
+reaching there. Now I could understand both that fact and how Carmel
+had succeeded in returning in safety to her home. She had ridden both
+ways--a theory which likewise explained how she came to wear a man’s
+derby and possibly a man’s overcoat. With her skirts covered by a
+bear-skin she would present a very fair figure of a man to any one who
+chanced to pass her. This was desirable in her case. A man and woman
+driving at a late hour through the city streets would attract little,
+if any, attention, while two women might. Having no wish to attract
+attention, they had resorted to subterfuge--or Carmel had; it was not
+like Adelaide to do so. She was always perfectly open, both in manner
+and speech.
+
+These were my deductions drawn from my own knowledge. Would others who
+had not my knowledge be in any wise influenced to draw the same? Would
+the fact that the mare had been out during those mysterious hours when
+everybody had appeared to be absent from the house, saving the one
+young girl whom they afterwards found stark, staring mad with delirium,
+serve to awaken suspicion of her close and personal connection with
+this crime? There was nothing in this reporter’s article to show that
+such an idea had dawned upon his mind, but the police are not readily
+hoodwinked and I dreaded the result of their inquiries, if they chose
+to follow this undoubted clew.
+
+Yet, if they let this point slip, where should I be? Human nature is
+human all the way through, and I could not help having moments when I
+asked myself if this young girl were worth the sacrifice I contemplated
+making for her? She was lovely to look at, amiable and of womanly
+promise save at those rare and poignant moments when passion would
+seize her in a gust which drove everything before it. But were any
+of these considerations sufficient to justify me in letting my whole
+manhood slip for the sake of one who, whatever the provocation, had
+used the strength of her hands against the sister who had been as a
+mother to her for so many years. That she had had provocation I did
+not doubt. Adelaide, for all her virtues, was not an easy person to
+deal with. Upright and perfectly sincere herself, she had no sympathy
+with or commiseration for any lack of principle or any display of
+selfishness in others. A little cold, a little reserved, a little
+lacking in spontaneity, though always correct and always generous
+in her gifts and often in her acts, her whole nature would rise at
+any evidence of meanness or ingratitude, and though she said little,
+you would feel her disapprobation through and through. She would
+even change physically. Naturally pallid and of small inconspicuous
+features, her eyes on these occasions would so flame and her whole
+figure so dilate that she looked like another woman. I have seen her
+brother, six feet in height and weighty for his years, cringe under her
+few quiet words at these times till she absolutely seemed the taller
+of the two. It was only in these moments she was handsome, and had I
+loved her, I should probably have admired this passionate purity, this
+intolerance of all that was small or selfish or unworthy a good woman’s
+esteem. But not loving her, I had merely cherished a wholesome fear
+of her displeasure, and could quite comprehend what a full display
+of anger on her part might call up in her sensitive, already deeply
+suffering sister. The scathing arraignment, the unbearable taunt--Well,
+well, it was all dream-work, but I had time to dream and opportunity
+for little else, and pictures, which till now I had sedulously kept in
+the background of my imagination, would come to the front as I harped
+on this topic and weighed in my disturbed mind the following question:
+Should I continue the course which I had instinctively taken out of a
+natural sense of chivalry, or face my calumniators with the truth and
+leave my cause and hers to the justice of men, rather than to the slow
+but righteous workings of Providence?
+
+I struggled with the dilemma for hours, the more so, that I did not
+stand alone in the world. I had relatives and I had friends, some of
+whom had come to see me and gone away deeply grieved at my reticence.
+I was swayed, too, by another consideration. I had deeply loved my
+mother. She was dead, but I had her honour to think of. Should it
+be said she had a murderer for her son? In the height of my inner
+conflict, I had almost cried aloud the fierce denial which would arise
+at this thought. But ere the word could leave my lips, such a vision
+rose before me of a bewildering young face with wonderful eyes and
+a smile too innocent for guile and too loving for hypocrisy, that I
+forgot my late antagonistic feelings, forgot the claims of my dear,
+dead mother, and even those of my own future. Such passion and such
+devotion merited consideration from the man who had called them forth.
+I would not slight the claims of my dead mother but I would give this
+young girl a chance for her life. Let others ferret out the fact that
+she had visited the club-house with her sister; I would not proclaim
+it. It was enough for me to proclaim my innocence, and that I would do
+to the last.
+
+I was in this frame of mind when Charles Clifton called and was allowed
+to see me. I had sent for him in one of my discouraged moods. He was
+my friend, but he was also my legal adviser, and it was as such I
+had summoned him, and it was as such he had now come. Cordial as our
+relations had been--though he was hardly one of my ilk--I noted no
+instinctive outstretching of his hand, and so did not reach out mine.
+Appearances had been too strong against me for any such spontaneous
+outburst from even my best friends. I realised that to expect otherwise
+from him or from any other man would be to play the fool; and this was
+no time for folly. The day for that was passed.
+
+I was the first to speak.
+
+“You see me where you have never thought to see a friend of yours. But
+we won’t go into that. The police have good reasons for what they have
+done and I presume feel justified in my commitment. Notwithstanding, I
+am an innocent man so far as the attack made upon Miss Cumberland goes.
+I had no hand in her murder, if murder it is found out to be. My story
+which you have read in the papers and which I felt forced to give out,
+possibly to my own shame and that of another whom I would fain have
+saved, is an absolutely true one. I did not arrive at The Whispering
+Pines until after Miss Cumberland was dead. To this I am ready to
+swear and it is upon this fact you must rely, in any defence you may
+hereafter be called upon to make in my regard.”
+
+He listened as a lawyer would be apt to listen to such statements from
+the man who had summoned him to his aid. But I saw that I had made no
+impression on his convictions. He regarded me as a guilty man, and what
+was more to the point no doubt, as one for whom no plea could be made
+or any rational defence undertaken.
+
+“You don’t believe me,” I went on, still without any great bitterness.
+“I am not surprised at it, after what the man Clarke has said of seeing
+me with my hands on her throat. Any man, friend or not, would take me
+for a villain after that. But, Charles, to you I will confess what
+cowardice kept me from owning to Dr. Perry at the proper, possibly at
+the only proper moment, that I did this out of a wild desire to see
+if those marks were really the marks of strangling fingers. I could
+not believe that she had been so killed and, led away by my doubts, I
+leaned over her and--You shall believe me, you must,” I insisted, as
+I perceived his hard gaze remain unsoftened. “I don’t ask it of the
+rest of the world. I hardly expect any one to give me credit for good
+impulses or even for speaking the plain truth after the discovery which
+has been made of my treacherous attitude towards these two virtuous and
+devoted women. But you--if you are to act as my counsel--must take this
+denial from me as gospel truth. I may disappoint you in other ways.
+I may try you and often make you regret that you undertook my case,
+but on this fact you may safely pin your faith. She was dead before I
+touched her. Had the police spy whose testimony is likely to hang me,
+climbed the tree a moment sooner than he did, he would have seen that.
+Are you ready to take my case?”
+
+Clifton is a fair fellow and I knew if he once accepted the fact I thus
+urged upon him, he would work for me with all the skill and ability
+my desperate situation demanded. I, therefore, watched him with great
+anxiety for the least change in the constrained attitude and fixed,
+unpromising gaze with which he had listened to me, and was conscious of
+a great leap of heart as the set expression of his features relaxed,
+and he responded almost warmly:
+
+“I will take your case, Ranelagh. God help me to make it good against
+all odds.”
+
+I was conscious of few hopes, but some of the oppression under which I
+laboured lifted at those words. I had assured one man of my innocence!
+It was like a great rock in the weary desert. My sigh of relief bespoke
+my feelings and I longed to take his hand, but the moment had not yet
+come. Something was wanting to a perfect confidence between us, and I
+was in too sensitive a frame of mind to risk the slightest rebuff.
+
+He was ready to speak before I was. “Then, you had not been long on the
+scene of crime when the police arrived?”
+
+“I had been in the room but a few minutes. I do not know how long I was
+searching the house.”
+
+“The police say that fully twenty minutes elapsed between the time they
+received Miss Cumberland’s appeal for help and their arrival at the
+club-house. If you were there that long--”
+
+“I cannot say. Moments are hours at such a crisis--I--”
+
+My emotions were too much for me, and I confusedly stopped. He was
+surveying me with the old distrust. In a moment I saw why.
+
+“You are not open with me,” he protested. “Why should moments be hours
+to you previous to the instant when you stripped those pillows from the
+couch? You are not a fanciful man, nor have you any cowardly instincts.
+Why were you in such a turmoil going through a house where you could
+have expected to find nothing worse than some miserable sneak thief?”
+
+This was a poser. I had laid myself open to suspicion by one
+thoughtless admission, and what was worse, it was but the beginning
+in all probability of many other possible mistakes. I had never taken
+the trouble to measure my words and the whole truth being impossible,
+I necessarily must make a slip now and then. He had better be warned
+of this. I did not wish him to undertake my cause blindfolded. He must
+understand its difficulties while believing in my innocence. Then,
+if he chose to draw back, well and good. I should have to face the
+situation alone.
+
+“Charles,” said I, as soon as I could perfectly control my speech, “you
+are quite just in your remark. I am not and can not be perfectly open
+with you. I shall tell you no lies, but beyond that I cannot promise. I
+am caught in a net not altogether of my own weaving. So far I will be
+frank with you. A common question may trip me up, others find me free
+and ready with my defence. You have chanced upon one of the former. I
+was in a turmoil of mind from the moment of my entrance into that fatal
+house, but I can give no reason for it unless I am, as you hinted, a
+coward.”
+
+He settled that supposition with a gesture I had rather not have seen.
+It would be better for him to consider me a poltroon than to suspect my
+real reasons for the agitation which I had acknowledged.
+
+“You say you cannot be open with me. That means you have certain
+memories connected with that night which you cannot divulge.”
+
+“Right, Charles; but not memories of guilt--of active guilt, I mean.
+This I have previously insisted on, and this is what you must believe.
+I am not even an accessory before the fact. I am perfectly innocent so
+far as Adelaide’s death is concerned. You may proceed on that basis
+without fear. That is, if you continue to take an interest in my case.
+If not, I shall be the last to blame you. Little honour is likely to
+accrue to you from defending me.”
+
+“I have accepted the case and I shall continue to interest myself in
+it,” he assured me, with a dogged rather than genial persistence. “But
+I should like to know what I am to work upon, if it cannot be shown
+that her call for help came before you entered the building.”
+
+“That would be the best defence possible, of course,” I replied; “but
+neither from your standpoint nor mine is it a feasible one. I have no
+proof of my assertion, I never looked at my watch from the time I left
+the station till I found it run down this very morning. The club-house
+clock has been out of order for some time and was not running. All I
+know and can swear to about the length of time I was in that building
+prior to the arrival of the police, is that it could not have been very
+long, since she was not only dead and buried under those accumulated
+cushions, but in a room some little distance from the telephone.”
+
+“That will do for me,” said he, “but scarcely for those who are
+prejudiced against you. Everything points so indisputably to your
+guilt. The note which you say you wrote to Carmel to meet you at the
+station looks very much more like one to Miss Cumberland to meet you at
+the club-house.”
+
+It was thus I first learned which part of this letter had been burned
+off.[1]
+
+  [1] It was the top portion, leaving the rest to read:
+
+  _“Come, come my darling, my life. She will forgive when all is done.
+  Hesitation will only undo us. To-night at 10:30. I shall never marry
+  any one but you.”_
+
+  It was also evident that I had failed to add those expressions of
+  affection linked to Carmel’s name which had been in my mind and
+  awakened my keenest apprehension.
+
+“Otherwise,” he pursued, “what could have taken her there? Everybody
+who knew her will ask that. Such a night! so soon after seeing you!
+It is a mystery any way, but one entirely inconceivable without some
+such excuse for her. These lines said ‘Come!’ and she went, for reasons
+which may be clear to you who were acquainted with her weak as well as
+strong points. Went how? No one knows. By chance or by intention on
+her part or yours, every servant was out of the house by nine o’clock,
+and her brother, too. Only the sister remained, the sister whom you
+profess to have urged to leave the town with you that very evening;
+and she can tell us nothing,--may die without ever being able to do
+so. Some shock to her feelings--you may know its character and you
+may not--drove her from a state of apparent health into the wildest
+delirium in a few hours. It was not your letter--if your story is true
+about that letter--or she would have shown its effect immediately upon
+receiving it; that is, in the early evening. And she did not. Helen,
+one of the maids, declares that she saw her some time after you left
+the house, and that she wore anything but a troubled look; that, in
+fact, her countenance was beaming and so beautiful that, accustomed
+as the girl was to her young mistress’s good looks, she was more than
+struck by her appearance and spoke of it afterwards at the ball. A
+telling circumstance against you, Ranelagh, not only contradicting your
+own story but showing that her after condition sprang from some sudden
+and extreme apprehension in connection with her sister. Did you speak?”
+
+No, I had not spoken. I had nothing to say. I was too deeply shaken
+by what he had just told me, to experience anything but the utmost
+confusion of ideas. Carmel beaming and beautiful at an hour I had
+supposed her suffering and full of struggle! I could not reconcile it
+with the letter she had written me, or with that understanding with her
+sister which ended so hideously in The Whispering Pines.
+
+The lawyer, seeing my helpless state, proceeded with his presentation
+of my case as it looked to unprejudiced eyes.
+
+“Miss Cumberland comes to the club-house; so do you. You have not the
+keys and so go searching about the building till you find an unlocked
+window by which you both enter. There are those who say you purposely
+left this window unfastened when you went about the house the day
+before; that you dropped the keys in her house where they would be
+sure to be found, and drove down to the station and stood about there
+for a good half hour, in order to divert suspicion from yourself
+afterwards and create an alibi in case it should be wanted. I do not
+believe any of this myself, not since accepting your assurance of
+innocence, but there are those who do believe it firmly and discern
+in the whole affair a cool and premeditated murder. Your passion for
+Carmel, while not generally known, has not passed unsuspected by your
+or her intimates; and this in itself is enough to give colour to these
+suspicions, even if you had not gone so far as to admit its power over
+you and the extremes to which you were willing to go to secure the wife
+you wished. So much for the situation as it appears to outsiders. Of
+the circumstantial evidence which links you personally to this crime,
+we have already spoken. It is very strong and apparently unassailable.
+But truth is truth, and if you only felt free to bare your whole soul
+to me as you now decline to do, I should not despair of finding some
+weak link in the chain which seems so satisfactory to the police and, I
+am forced to add, to the general public.”
+
+“Charles--”
+
+I was very near unbosoming myself to him at that moment. But I caught
+myself back in time. While Carmel lay ill and unconscious, I would not
+clear my name at her expense by so much as a suggestion.
+
+“Charles,” I repeated, but in a different tone and with a different
+purpose, “how do they account for the cordial that was drunk--the two
+emptied glasses and the flask which were found in the adjacent closet?”
+
+“It’s one of the affair’s conceded incongruities. Miss Cumberland is a
+well-known temperance woman. Had the flask and glasses not come from
+her house, you would get no one to believe that she had had anything to
+do with them. Have you any hint to give on this point? It would be a
+welcome addition to our case.”
+
+Alas! I was as much puzzled by those emptied cordial glasses as he
+was, and told him so; also by the presence of the third unused one.
+As I dwelt in thought on the latter circumstance, I remembered the
+observation which Coroner Perry had made concerning it.
+
+“Coroner Perry speaks of a third and unused glass which was found
+with the flask,” I ventured, tentatively. “He seemed to consider it
+an important item, hiding some truth that would materially help this
+case. What do you think, or rather, what is the general opinion on this
+point?”
+
+“I have not heard. I have seen the fact mentioned, but without comment.
+It is a curious circumstance. I will make a note of it. You have no
+suggestions to offer on the subject?”
+
+“None.”
+
+“The clew is a small one,” he smiled.
+
+“So is the one offered by the array of bottles found on the kitchen
+table; yet the latter may lead directly to the truth. Adelaide never
+dug those out of the cellar where they were locked up, and I’m sure I
+did not. Yet I suppose I’m given credit for doing so.”
+
+“Naturally. The key to the wine-vault was the only key which was
+lacking from the bunch left at Miss Cumberland’s. That it was used to
+open the wine-vault door is evident from the fact that it was found in
+the lock.”
+
+This was discouraging. Everything was against me. If the whole affair
+had been planned with an intent to inculpate me and me only, it
+could not have been done with more attention to detail, nor could I
+have found myself more completely enmeshed. Yet I knew, both from
+circumstances and my own instinct that no such planning had occurred.
+I was a victim, not of malice but of blind chance, or shall I say of
+Providence? As to this one key having been slipped from the rest and
+used to open the wine-vault for wine which nobody wanted and nobody
+drank--this must be classed with the other incongruities which might
+yet lead to my enlargement.
+
+“You may add this coincidence to the other,” I conceded, after I had
+gone thus far in my own mind. “I swear that I had nothing to do with
+that key.”
+
+Neither could I believe that it had been used or even carried there by
+Adelaide or Carmel, though I knew that the full ring of keys had been
+in their hands and that they had entered the building by means of one
+of them. So assured was I of their innocence in this regard that the
+idea which afterwards assumed such proportions in all our minds had, at
+this moment, its first dawning in mine, as well as its first outward
+expression.
+
+“Some other man than myself was thirsty that night,” I firmly declared.
+“We are getting on, Charles.”
+
+Evidently he did not consider the pace a very fast one, but being a
+cheerful fellow by nature, he simply expressed his dissatisfaction by
+an imperceptible shrug.
+
+“Do you know exactly what the club-house’s wine-vault contained?” he
+asked.
+
+“An inventory was given me by the steward the morning we closed. It
+must be in my rooms.”
+
+“Your rooms have been examined. You expected that, didn’t you? Probably
+this inventory has been found. I don’t suppose it will help any.”
+
+“How should it?”
+
+“Very true; how should it! No thoroughfare there, of course.”
+
+“No thoroughfare anywhere to-day,” I exclaimed. “To-morrow some
+loop-hole of escape may suggest itself to me. I should like to sleep on
+the matter. I--I should like to sleep on it.”
+
+He saw that I had something in mind of which I had thus far given him
+no intimation, and he waited anxiously for me to reconsider my last
+words before he earnestly remarked:
+
+“A day lost at a time like this is often a day never retrieved. Think
+well before you bid me leave you, unenlightened as to the direction in
+which you wish me to work.”
+
+But I was not ready, not by any means ready, and he detected this when
+I next spoke.
+
+“I will see you to-morrow; any time to-morrow; meantime I will give you
+a commission which you are at liberty to perform yourself or to entrust
+to some capable detective. The letter, of which a portion remains,
+_was_ written to Carmel, and she sent me a reply which was handed me
+on the station platform by a man who was a perfect stranger to me. I
+have hardly any memory of how the man looked, but it should be an easy
+task to find him and if you cannot do that, the smallest scrap of the
+note he gave me, and which unfortunately I tore up and scattered to the
+winds, would prove my veracity in this one particular and so make it
+easier for them to believe the rest.”
+
+His eye lightened. I presume the prospect of making any practical
+attempt in my behalf was welcome.
+
+“One thing more,” I now added. “My ring was missing from Miss
+Cumberland’s hand when I took away those pillows. I have reason to
+think--or it is natural for me to think--that she planned to return
+it to me by some messenger or in some letter. Do you know if such
+messenger or such letter has been received at my apartments? Have you
+heard anything about this ring? It was a notable one and not to be
+confounded with any other. Any one who knew us or who had ever remarked
+it on her hand would be able to identify it.”
+
+“I have heard the ring mentioned,” he replied, “I have even heard that
+the police are interested in finding it; but I have not heard that they
+have been successful. You encourage me much by assuring me that it was
+missing from her hand when you first saw her. That ring may prove our
+most valuable clew.”
+
+“Yes, but you must also remember that she may have taken it off before
+she started for the club-house.”
+
+“That is very true.”
+
+“You do not know whether they have looked for it at her home?”
+
+“I do not.”
+
+“Will you find out, and will you see that I get all my letters?”
+
+“I certainly will, but you must not expect to receive the latter
+unopened.”
+
+“I suppose not.”
+
+I said this with more cheerfulness than he evidently expected. My heart
+had been lightened of one load. The ring had not been discovered on
+Carmel as I had secretly feared.
+
+“I will take good care of your interests from now on,” he remarked, in
+a tone much more natural than any he had before used. “Be hopeful and
+show a brave front to the district attorney when he comes to interview
+you. I hear that he is expected home to-morrow. If you are innocent,
+you can face him and his whole office with calm assurance.” Which
+showed how little he understood my real position.
+
+There was comfort in this very thought, however, and I quietly remarked
+that I did not despair.
+
+“And I _will_ not,” he emphasised, rising with an assumption of ease
+which left him as he remained hesitating before me.
+
+It was my moment of advantage, and I improved it by proffering a
+request which had been more or less in my mind during the whole of this
+prolonged colloquy.
+
+First thanking him for his disinterestedness, I remarked that he had
+shown me so much consideration as a lawyer, that I now felt emboldened
+to ask something from him as my friend.
+
+“You are free,” said I; “I am not. Miss Cumberland will be buried
+before I leave these four walls. I hate to think of her going to
+her grave without one token from the man to whom she has been only
+too good and who, whatever outrage he may have planned to her
+feelings, is not without reverence for her character and a heartfelt
+repentance for whatever he may have done to grieve her. Charles, a
+few flowers,--white--no wreath, just a few which can be placed on her
+breast or in her hand. You need not say whom they are from. It would
+seem a mockery to any one but her. Lilies, Charles. I shall feel
+happier to know that they are there. Will you do this for me?”
+
+“I will.”
+
+“That is all.”
+
+Instinctively he held out his hand. I dropped mine in it; there was a
+slight pressure, some few more murmured words and he was gone.
+
+I slept that night.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+A CHANCE! I TAKE IT
+
+I entreat you then
+From one that so imperfectly conjects,
+You’d take no notice; nor build yourself a trouble
+Out of his scattering and unsure observance:
+It were not for your quiet, nor your good,
+Nor for my manhood, honesty or wisdom,
+To let you know my thoughts.
+
+_Othello_
+
+
+I slept, though a question of no small importance was agitating my
+mind, demanding instant consideration and a definite answer before I
+again saw this friend and adviser. I woke to ask if the suggestion
+which had come to me in our brief conversation about the bottles taken
+from the wine-vault, was the promising one it had then appeared, or
+only a fool’s trick bound to end in disaster. I weighed the matter in
+every conceivable way, and ended by trusting to the instinct which
+impelled me to have resource to the one and only means by which the
+scent might be diverted from its original course, confusion be sown in
+the minds of the police, and Carmel, as well as myself, be saved from
+the pit gaping to receive us.
+
+This was my plan. I would acknowledge to having seen a horse and cutter
+leave the club-house by the upper gateway, simultaneously with my
+entrance through the lower one. I would even describe the appearance
+of the person driving this cutter. No one by the greatest stretch of
+imagination would be apt to associate this description with Carmel;
+but it might set the authorities thinking, and if by any good chance
+a cutter containing a person wearing a derby hat and a coat with an
+extra high collar should have been seen on this portion of the road, or
+if, as I earnestly hoped, the snow had left any signs of another horse
+having been tethered in the clump of trees opposite the one where I
+had concealed my own, enough of the truth might be furnished to divide
+public opinion and start fresh inquiry.
+
+That a woman’s form had sought concealment under these masculine
+habiliments would not, could not, strike anybody’s mind. Nothing in
+the crime had suggested a woman’s presence, much less a woman’s active
+agency.
+
+On the contrary, all the appearances, save such as I believed known to
+myself alone, spoke so openly of a man’s strength, a man’s methods,
+a man’s appetite, and a man’s brutal daring that the suspicion which
+had naturally fallen on myself as the one and only person implicated,
+would in shifting pass straight to another man, and, if he could not
+be found, return to me, or be lost in a maze of speculation. This
+seemed so evident after a long and close study of the situation that
+I was ready with my confession when Mr. Clifton next came. I had even
+forestalled it in a short interview forced upon me by the assistant
+district attorney and Chief Hudson. That it had made an altogether
+greater impression upon the latter than I had expected, gave me
+additional courage when I came to discuss this new line of defence with
+the young lawyer. I was even able to tell him that, to all appearance,
+my long silence on a point so favourable to my own interests had not
+militated against me to the extent one would expect from men so alive
+to the subterfuges and plausible inventions of suspected criminals.
+
+“Chief Hudson believes me, late as my statement is. I saw it in his
+eye.” Thus I went on. “And the assistant district attorney, too. At
+least, the latter is willing to give me the benefit of the doubt, which
+was more than I expected. What do you suppose has happened? Some new
+discovery on their part? If so, I ought to know what it is. Believe me,
+Charles, I ought to know what it is.”
+
+“I have heard of no new discovery,” he coldly replied, not quite
+pleased, as I could see, either with my words or my manner. “An old one
+may have served your purpose. If another cutter besides yours passed
+through the club-house grounds at the time you mention, it left tracks
+which all the fury of the storm would not have entirely obliterated
+in the fifteen minutes elapsing between that time and the arrival of
+the police. Perhaps they remember these tracks, and if you had been
+entirely frank that night--”
+
+“I know, I know,” I put in, “but I wasn’t. Lay it to my confusion
+of mind--to the great shock I had received, to anything but my own
+blood-guiltiness, and take up the matter as it now stands. Can’t
+you follow up my suggestion? A witness can certainly be found who
+encountered that cutter and its occupant somewhere on the long stretch
+of open road between The Whispering Pines and the resident district.”
+
+“Possibly. It would help. You have not asked for news from the Hill.”
+
+The trembling which seized and shook me at these words testified to the
+shock they gave me. “Carmel!” I cried. “She is worse--dead!”
+
+“No. She’s not worse and she’s not dead. But the doctors say it will
+be weeks before they can allow a question of any importance to be put
+to her. You can see what that will do for us. Her testimony is too
+important to the case to be ignored. A delay will follow which may or
+may not be favourable to you. I am inclined to think now that it will
+redound to your interests. You are ready to swear to the sleigh you
+speak of; that you saw it leave the club-house grounds and turn north?”
+
+“Quite ready; but you must not ask me to describe or in any way to
+identify its occupant. I saw nothing but the hat and coat I have told
+you about. It was just before the moon went under a cloud, or I could
+not have seen that much.”
+
+Is it so hard to preserve a natural aspect in telling or suggesting a
+lie that Charles’s look should change as I uttered the last sentence? I
+do not easily flush, and since my self-control had been called upon by
+the dreadful experiences of the last few days, I had learned to conceal
+all other manifestations of feeling except under some exceptional
+shock. But a lie embodied in so many words, never came easy to my
+lips, and I suppose my voice fell, for his glance became suddenly
+penetrating, and his voice slightly sarcastic as he remarked:
+
+“Those clouds obscured more than the moon, I fancy. I only wish that
+they had not risen between you and me. This is the blindest case that
+has ever been put in my hands. All the more credit to me if I see you
+through it, I suppose; but--”
+
+“Tell me,” I broke in, with equal desire to cut these recriminations
+short and to learn what was going on at the Cumberland house, “have
+you been to the Hill or seen anybody who has? Can’t you give me some
+details of--of Carmel’s condition; of the sort of nurse who cares for
+her, and how Arthur conducts himself under this double affliction?”
+
+“I was there last night. Miss Clifford was in the house and received
+me. She told me that Arthur’s state of mind was pitiful. He was never
+a very affectionate brother, you know, but now they cannot get him
+away from Carmel’s door. He sits or stands all day just outside the
+threshold and casts jealous and beseeching looks at those who are
+allowed to enter. They say you wouldn’t know him. I tried to get him to
+come down and see me, but he wouldn’t leave his post.”
+
+“Doesn’t he grieve for Adelaide? I always thought that of the two she
+had the greater influence over him.”
+
+“Yes, but they cannot get him to enter the place where she lies. His
+duty is to the living, he says; at least, his anxiety is there. He
+starts at every cry Carmel utters.”
+
+“She--cries out--then?”
+
+“Very often. I could hear her from where I sat downstairs.”
+
+“And what does she say?”
+
+“The one thing constantly. ‘Lila! Lila!’ Nothing more.”
+
+I kept my face in shadow. If he saw it at all, it must have looked as
+cold and hard as stone. After a moment, I went on with my queries:
+
+“Does he--Arthur--mention me at all?”
+
+“I did not discuss you greatly with Miss Clifford. I saw that she was
+prejudiced, and I preferred not to risk an argument; but she let fall
+this much: that Arthur felt very hard towards you and loudly insisted
+upon your guilt. She seemed to think him justified in this. You don’t
+mind my telling you? It is better for you to know what is being said
+about you in town.”
+
+I understood his motive. He was trying to drive me into giving him my
+full confidence. But I would not be driven. I simply retorted quietly
+but in a way to stop all such future attempts:
+
+“Miss Clifford is a very good girl and a true friend of the whole
+Cumberland family; but she is not the most discriminating person in the
+world, and even if she were, her opinion would not turn me from the
+course I have laid out for myself. Does the doctor--Dr. Carpenter, I
+presume,--venture to say how long Carmel’s present delirium will hold?”
+
+“He cannot, not knowing its real cause. Carmel fell ill before the
+news of her sister’s death arrived at the house, you remember. Some
+frightful scene must have occurred between the two, previous to
+Adelaide’s departure for The Whispering Pines. What that scene was can
+only be told by Carmel and for her account we must wait. Happily you
+have an alibi which will serve you in this instance. You were at the
+station during the time we are speaking of.”
+
+“Has that been proved?”
+
+“Yes; several men saw you there.”
+
+“And the gentleman who brought me the--her letter?” It was more than
+difficult for me to speak Carmel’s name. “He has not come forward?”
+
+“Not yet; not to my knowledge, at least.”
+
+“And the ring?”
+
+“No news.”
+
+“The nurse--you have told me nothing about her,” I now urged, reverting
+to the topic of gravest interest to me. “Is she any one we know or an
+importation of the doctor’s?”
+
+“I did not busy myself with that. She’s a competent woman, of course. I
+suppose that is what you mean?”
+
+Could I tell him that this was not what I meant at all--that it was
+her qualities as woman rather than her qualifications as nurse which
+were important in this case? If she were of a suspicious, prying
+disposition, given to weighing every word and marking every gesture of
+a delirious patient, what might we not fear from her circumspection
+when Carmel’s memory asserted itself and she grew more precise in the
+frenzy which now exhausted itself in unintelligible cries, or the
+ceaseless repetition of her sister’s name. The question seemed of such
+importance to me that I was tempted to give expression to my secret
+apprehension on this score, but I bethought myself in time and passed
+the matter over with the final remark:
+
+“Watch her, watch them all, and bring me each and every detail of the
+poor girl’s sickness. You will never regret humouring me in this. You
+ordered the flowers for--Adelaide?”
+
+“Yes; lilies, as you requested.”
+
+A short silence, then I observed:
+
+“There will be no autopsy the papers say. The evidences of death by
+strangulation are too well defined.”
+
+“Very true. Yet I wonder at their laxity in this. There were signs of
+some other agency having been at work also. Those two empty glasses
+smelling of cordial--innocent perhaps--yet--”
+
+“Don’t! I can bear no more to-day. I shall be stronger to-morrow.”
+
+Another feeler turned aside. His cheek showed his displeasure, but the
+words were kind enough with which he speedily took his leave and left
+me to solitude and a long night of maddening thought.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK TWO
+
+SWEETWATER TO THE FRONT
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+“WE KNOW OF NO SUCH LETTER”
+
+O, he sits high in all the people’s hearts;
+And that, which would appear offence in us,
+His countenance like richest alchemy
+Will change to virtue, and to worthiness.
+
+_Julius Caesar_.
+
+
+“And you still hold him?”
+
+“Yes, but with growing uncertainty. He’s one of those fellows who
+affect your judgment in spite of yourself. Handsome beyond the
+ordinary, a finished gentleman and all that, he has, in addition to
+these advantages, a way with him that goes straight to the heart in
+spite of prejudice and the claims of conscience. That’s a dangerous
+factor in a case like this. It hampers a man in the exercise of his
+duties. You may escape the fascination, probably will; but at least you
+will understand my present position and why I telephoned to New York
+for an expert detective to help us on this job. I wish to give the son
+of my old friend a chance.”
+
+The man whom Coroner Perry thus addressed, leaned back in his chair and
+quietly replied:
+
+“You’re right; not because he’s the son of your old friend, a handsome
+fellow and all that, but for the reason that every man should have his
+full chance, whatever the appearances against him. Personally, I have
+no fear of my judgment being affected by his attractions. I’ve had to
+do with too many handsome scamps for that. But I shall be as just to
+him as you will, simply because it seems an incredibly brutal crime for
+a gentleman to commit, and also because I lay greater stress than you
+do on the two or three minor points which seem to favour his latest
+declaration, that a man had preceded him in his visit to this lonely
+club-house,--a man whom he had himself seen leaving the grounds in a
+cutter just as he entered by the opposite driveway.”
+
+“Ah!” came in quick ejaculation from the coroner’s lips, “I like to
+hear you say that. I was purposely careful not to lay emphasis on the
+facts you allude to. I wished you to draw your own inferences, without
+any aid from me. The police did find traces of a second horse and
+cutter having passed through the club-house grounds. It was snowing
+hard, and these traces were speedily obliterated, but Hexford and
+Clarke saw them in time to satisfy themselves that they extended from
+the northern clump of trees to the upper gateway where they took the
+direction of the Hill.”
+
+“That is not all. A grip-sack, packed for travelling, was in Mr.
+Ranelagh’s cutter, showing that his story of an intended journey was
+not without some foundation.”
+
+“Yes. We have retained that grip-sack. It is not the only proof we
+have of his intention to leave the city for a while. He had made other
+arrangements, business arrangements--But that’s neither here nor there.
+No one doubts that he planned an elopement with the beautiful Carmel;
+the question is, was his disappointment followed by the murder of the
+woman who stood in his way?”
+
+District Attorney Fox (you will have guessed his identity before now)
+took his time, deliberating carefully with himself before venturing
+to reply. Then when the coroner’s concealed impatience was about to
+disclose itself, he quietly remarked:
+
+“I suppose that no conclusion can be drawn from the condition of the
+body when our men reached it. I judge that it was still warm.”
+
+“Yes, but so it would have been if she had met her fate several minutes
+earlier than was supposed. Clarke and Hexford differ about the length
+of time which intervened between the moment when the former looked into
+the room from the outside and that of their final entrance. But whether
+it was five minutes or ten, the period was long enough to render their
+testimony uncertain as to the exact length of time she had lain there
+dead. Had I been there--But it’s useless to go into that. Let us take
+up something more tangible.”
+
+“Very good. Here it is. Of the six bottles of spirits which were
+surreptitiously taken from the club-house’s wine-vault, four were found
+standing unopened on the kitchen table. Where are the other two?”
+
+“That’s it! That’s the question I have put myself ever since I
+interrogated the steward and found him ready to swear to the
+correctness of his report and the disappearance of these two bottles.
+Ranelagh did not empty them, or the bottles themselves would have been
+found somewhere about the place. Now, who did?”
+
+“No one within the club-house precincts. They were opened and emptied
+elsewhere. There’s our clew and if the man you’ve got up from New York
+is worth his salt, he has his task ready to hand.”
+
+“A hard task for a stranger--and such a stranger! Not very
+prepossessing, to say the least. But he has a good eye, and will get
+along with the boys all right. Nothing assertive about him; not enough
+go, perhaps. Would you like to see him?”
+
+“In a moment. I want to clear my mind in reference to these bottles.
+Only some one addicted to drink would drag those six bottles out of
+that cold, unlighted cellar.”
+
+“Yes, and a connoisseur at that. The two missing bottles held the
+choicest brand in the whole stock. They were kept far back too--hidden,
+as it were, behind the other bottles. Yet they were hauled to the front
+and carried off, as you say, and by some one who knows a good thing in
+spirits.”
+
+“What was in the four bottles found on the kitchen table?”
+
+“Sherry, whiskey, and rum. Two bottles of rum and one each of sherry
+and whiskey.”
+
+“The thief meant to carry them all off, but had not time.”
+
+“The _gentleman_ thief! No common man such as we are looking for,
+would make choice of just those bottles. So there we are again!
+Contradictions in every direction.”
+
+“Don’t let us bother with the contradictions, but just follow the clew.
+Those bottles, full or empty, must be found. You know the labels?”
+
+“Yes, and the shape and colour of the bottles, both of which are
+peculiar.”
+
+“Good! Now let us see your detective.”
+
+But Sweetwater was not called in yet. Just as Coroner Perry offered to
+touch his bell, the door opened and Mr. Clifton was ushered in. Well
+and favourably known to both men, he had no difficulty in stating his
+business and preferring his request.
+
+“I am here in the interests of Elwood Ranelagh,” said he. “He is
+willing to concede, and so am I, that under the circumstances his
+arrest was justifiable, but not his prolonged detention. He has
+little excuse to offer for the mistakes he has made, or the various
+offences of which he has been guilty. His best friends must condemn his
+hypocrisy and fast-and-loose treatment of Miss Cumberland; but he vows
+that he had no hand in her violent death, and in this regard I feel not
+only bound but forced to believe him. At all events, I am going to act
+on that conviction, and have come here to entreat your aid in clearing
+up one or two points which may affect your own opinion of his guilt.
+
+“As his counsel I have been able to extract from him a fact or two
+which he has hitherto withheld from the police. Reticent as he has
+shown himself from the start,--and considering the character of the two
+women involved in this tragedy, this cannot be looked upon as entirely
+to his discredit,--he has confided to me a circumstance, which in
+the excitement attendant on Miss Carmel Cumberland’s sudden illness,
+may have escaped the notice of the family and very naturally, of the
+police. It is this:
+
+“The ring which Miss Cumberland wore as the sign and seal of her
+engagement to him was not on her hand when he came upon her, as he
+declares he did, dead. It was there at dinner-time--a curious ring
+which I have often noted myself and could accurately describe if
+required. If she took it off before starting for The Whispering Pines,
+it should be easily found. But if she did not, what a clew it offers to
+her unknown assailant! Up till now, Mr. Ranelagh has been anticipating
+receiving this ring back in a letter, written before she left her home.
+But he has heard of no such letter, and doubts now if you have. May I
+ask if he is correct in this surmise?”
+
+“We know of no such letter. None has come to his rooms,” replied the
+coroner.
+
+“I thought not. The whereabouts of this ring, then, is still to be
+determined. You will pardon my having called your attention to it.
+As Mr. Ranelagh’s legal adviser, I am very anxious to have that ring
+found.”
+
+“We are glad to receive your suggestion,” replied the district
+attorney. “But you must remember that some of its force is lost by its
+having originated with the accused.”
+
+“Very true; but Mr. Ranelagh was only induced to speak of this matter
+after I had worked with him for an hour. There is a mystery in his
+attitude which I, for one, have not yet fathomed. You must have noticed
+this also, Coroner Perry? Your inquest, when you hold it, will reveal
+some curious facts; but I doubt if it will reveal the secret underlying
+this man’s reticence. That we shall have to discover for ourselves.”
+
+“He has another secret, then, than the one involving his arrest as a
+suspected murderer?” was the subtle conclusion of the district attorney.
+
+“Yes, or why does he balk so at the simplest inquiries? I have my
+notion as to its nature; but I’m not here to express notions unless you
+call my almost unfounded belief in him a notion. What I want to present
+to you is fact, and fact which can be utilised.”
+
+“In the cause of your client!”
+
+“Which is equally the cause of justice.”
+
+“Possibly. We’ll search for the ring, Mr. Clifton.”
+
+“Meanwhile, will you cast your eye over these fragments of a note which
+Mr. Ranelagh says he received from Miss Carmel Cumberland while waiting
+on the station platform for her coming.”
+
+Taking an envelope from his pocket, Mr. Clifton drew forth two small
+scraps of soiled and crumpled paper, one of which was the half of
+another envelope presenting very nearly the following appearance:
+
+As he pointed this out, he remarked:
+
+“Elwood is not so common a baptismal name, that there can be any doubt
+as to the person addressed.”
+
+The other scraps, also written in pencil and by the same hand,
+contained but two or three disconnected words; but one of those words
+was _Adelaide_.
+
+“I spent an hour and a half in the yards adjoining the station before
+I found those two bits,” explained the young lawyer with a simple
+earnestness not displeasing to the two seasoned men he addressed.
+“One was in hiding under a stacked-up pile of outgoing freight, and
+the other I picked out of a cart of stuff which had been swept up in
+the early morning. I offer them in corroboration of Mr. Ranelagh’s
+statement that the ‘_Come!_’ used in the partially consumed letter
+found in the clubhouse chimney was addressed to Miss Carmel Cumberland
+and not to Adelaide, and that the place of meeting suggested by this
+word was the station platform, and not the spot since made terrible by
+death.”
+
+“You are acquainted with Miss Carmel Cumberland’s handwriting?”
+
+“If I am not, the town is full of people who are. I believe these words
+to have been written by Carmel Cumberland.”
+
+Mr. Fox placed the pieces back in their envelope and laid the whole
+carefully away.
+
+“For a second time we are obliged to you,” said he.
+
+“You can cancel the obligation,” was the quick retort, “by discovering
+the identity of the man who in derby hat and a coat with a very high
+collar, left the grounds of The Whispering Pines just as Mr. Ranelagh
+drove into them. I have no facilities for the job, and no desire to
+undertake it.”
+
+He had endeavoured to speak naturally, if not with an off-hand air; but
+he failed somehow--else why the quick glance of startled inquiry which
+Dr. Perry sent him from under his rather shaggy eyebrows.
+
+“Well, we’ll undertake that, too,” promised the district attorney.
+
+“I can ask no more,” returned Charles Clifton, arising to depart. “The
+confronting of that man with Ranelagh will cause the latter to unseal
+his lips. Before you have finished with my client, you will esteem him
+much more highly than you do now.”
+
+The district attorney smiled at what seemed the callow enthusiasm of
+a youthful lawyer; but the coroner who knew his district well, looked
+very thoughtfully down at the table before which he sat, and failed
+to raise his head until the young man had vanished from the room and
+his place had been taken by another of very different appearance and
+deportment. Then he roused himself and introduced the newcomer to
+the prosecuting attorney as Caleb Sweetwater, of the New York police
+department.
+
+Caleb Sweetwater was no beauty. He was plain-featured to the point
+of ugliness; so plain-featured that not even his quick, whimsical
+smile could make his face agreeable to one who did not know his many
+valuable qualities. His receding chin and far too projecting nose
+were not likely to create a favourable impression on one ignorant of
+his cheerful, modest, winsome disposition; and the district attorney,
+after eyeing him for a moment with ill-concealed disfavour, abruptly
+suggested:
+
+“You have brought some credentials with you, I hope.”
+
+“Here is a letter from one of the department. Mr. Gryce wrote it,” he
+added, with just a touch of pride.
+
+“The letter is all right,” hastily remarked Dr. Perry on looking it
+over. “Mr. Sweetwater is commended to us as a man of sagacity and
+becoming reserve.”
+
+“Very good. To business, then. The sooner we get to work on this new
+theory, the better. Mr. Sweetwater, we have some doubts if the man we
+have in hand is the man we really want. But first, how much do you know
+about this case?”
+
+“All that’s in the papers.”
+
+“Nothing more?”
+
+“Very little. I’ve not been in town above an hour.”
+
+“Are you known here?”
+
+“I don’t think so; it’s my first visit this way.”
+
+“Then you are as ignorant of the people as they are of you. Well, that
+has its disadvantages.”
+
+“And its advantages, if you will permit me to say so, sir. I have no
+prejudices, no preconceived notions to struggle against. I can take
+persons as I find them; and if there is any deep family secret to
+unearth, it’s mighty fortunate for a man to have nothing stand in the
+way of his own instincts. No likings, I mean--no leanings this way or
+that, for humane or other purely unprofessional reasons.”
+
+The eye of District Attorney Fox stole towards that of his brother
+official, but did not meet it. The coroner had turned his attention
+to the table again, and, while betraying no embarrassment, was not
+quite his usual self. The district attorney’s hand stole to his chin,
+which he softly rubbed with his lean forefinger as he again addressed
+Sweetwater.
+
+“This tragedy--the most lamentable which has ever occurred in this
+town--is really, and without exaggeration, a tragedy in high life. The
+lady who was strangled by a brute’s clutch, was a woman of the highest
+culture and most estimable character. Her sister, who is supposed
+to have been the unconscious cause of the crime, is a young girl of
+blameless record. Of the man who was seen bending over the victim with
+his hands on her throat, we cannot speak so well. He has the faults
+and has lived the life of a social favourite. Gifted in many ways, and
+popular with both men and women, he has swung on his course with an
+easy disregard of the claims of others, which, while leaving its traces
+no doubt in many a humble and uncomplaining heart, did not attract
+notice to his inherent lack of principle, until the horrors of this
+tragedy lifted him into public view stripped of all his charms. He’s
+an egotist, of the first water; there is no getting over that. But did
+he strangle the woman? He says not; that he was only following some
+extraordinary impulse of the moment in laying his thumbs on the marks
+he saw on Miss Cumberland’s neck. A fantastic story--told too late,
+besides, for perfect credence, and not worthy of the least attention
+if--”
+
+The reasons which followed are too well known to us for repetition.
+Sweetwater listened with snapping eyes to all that was said; and
+when he had been given the various clews indicating the presence of
+a third--and as yet unknown--party on the scene of crime, he rose
+excitedly to his feet and, declaring that it was a most promising case,
+begged permission to make his own investigations at The Whispering
+Pines, after which he would be quite ready to begin his search for the
+man in the derby hat and high coat-collar, whose love for wine was so
+great that he chose and carried off the two choicest bottles that the
+club-house contained.
+
+“A hardy act for any man, gentleman or otherwise, who had just
+strangled the life out of a fine woman like that. If he exists and the
+whole story is not a pure fabrication of the entrapped Ranelagh, he
+shouldn’t be hard to find. What do you say, gentlemen? He shouldn’t be
+hard to find.”
+
+“_We_ have not found him,” emphasised the district attorney, with the
+shortest possible glance at the coroner’s face.
+
+“Then the field is all before me,” smiled Sweetwater. “Wish me luck,
+gentlemen. It’s a blind job, but that’s just in my line. A map of the
+town, a few general instructions, and I’m off.”
+
+Mr. Fox turned towards the coroner, and opened his lips; but closed
+them again without speaking. Did Sweetwater notice this act of
+self-restraint? If he did, he failed to show it.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+“I CAN HELP YOU”
+
+A subtle knave; a finder out of occasions;
+That has an eye can stamp and counterfeit
+Advantages though true advantage never presents
+Itself; A devilish knave!
+
+_Othello_.
+
+
+A half hour spent with Hexford in and about the club-house, and
+Sweetwater was ready for the road. As he made his way through the
+northern gate, he cast a quick look back at the long, low building he
+had just left, with its tall chimneys and rows of sightless windows,
+half hidden, half revealed by the encroaching pines. The mystery of
+the place fascinated him. To his awakened imagination, there was a
+breathless suggestion in it--a suggestion which it was his foremost
+wish, just now, to understand.
+
+And those pines--gaunt, restless, communicative! ready with their
+secret, if one could only interpret their language. How their heads
+came together as their garrulous tongues repeated the tale, which would
+never grow old to them until age nipped their hoary heads and laid them
+low in the dust, with their horror half expressed, their gruesome tale
+unfinished.
+
+“Witnesses of it all,” commented the young detective as he watched
+the swaying boughs rising and dipping before a certain window. “They
+were peering into that room long before Clarke stole the glimpse which
+has undone the unfortunate Ranelagh. If I had their knowledge, I’d do
+something more than whisper.”
+
+Thus musing, thus muttering, he plodded up the road, his insignificant
+figure an unpromising break in the monotonous white of the wintry
+landscape. But could the prisoner who had indirectly speeded this young
+detective on his present course, have read his thoughts and rightly
+estimated the force of his purpose, would he have viewed with so much
+confidence the entrance of this unprepossessing stranger upon the
+no-thoroughfare into which his own carefully studied admissions had
+blindly sent him?
+
+As has been said before, this road was an outlying one and but little
+travelled save in the height of summer. Under ordinary circumstances
+Sweetwater would have met not more than a half-dozen carts or sledges
+between the club-house gates and the city streets. But to-day, the road
+was full of teams carrying all sorts of incongruous people, eager for
+a sight of the spot made forever notorious by a mysterious crime. He
+noted them all; the faces of the men, the gestures of the women; but he
+did not show any special interest till he came to that portion of the
+road where the long line of half-buried fences began to give way to a
+few scattered houses. Then his spirit woke, and he became quick, alert,
+and persuasive. He entered houses; he talked with the people. Though
+evidently not a dissipated man, he stopped at several saloons, taking
+his time with his glass and encouraging the chatter of all who chose to
+meet his advances. He was a natural talker and welcomed every topic,
+but his eye only sparkled at one. This he never introduced himself;
+he did not need to. Some one was always ready with the great theme;
+and once it was started, he did not let the conversation languish till
+every one present had given his or her quota of hearsay or opinion to
+the general fund.
+
+It seemed a great waste of time, for nobody had anything to say worth
+the breath expended on it. But Sweetwater showed no impatience, and
+proceeded to engage the attention of the next man, woman, or child he
+encountered with undiminished zest and hopefulness.
+
+He had left the country road behind, and had entered upon the jumble
+of sheds, shops, and streets which marked the beginnings of the town
+in this direction, when his quick and experienced eye fell on a woman
+standing with uncovered head in an open doorway, peering up the street
+in anxious expectation of some one not yet in sight. He liked the air
+and well-kept appearance of the woman; he appreciated the neatness of
+the house at her back and gauged at its proper value the interest she
+displayed in the expected arrival of one whom he hoped would delay
+that arrival long enough for him to get in the word which by this time
+dropped almost unconsciously from his lips.
+
+But a second survey of the woman’s face convinced him that his ordinary
+loquaciousness would not serve him here. There was a refinement in
+her aspect quite out of keeping with the locality in which she lived,
+and he was hesitating how to proceed, when fortune favoured him by
+driving against his knees a small lad on an ill-directed sled, bringing
+him almost to the ground and upsetting the child who began to scream
+vociferously.
+
+It was the woman’s child, for she made instantly for the gate which,
+for some reason, she found difficulty in opening. Sweetwater, seeing
+this, blessed his lucky stars. He was at his best with children, and
+catching the little fellow up, he soothed and fondled him and finally
+brought him with such a merry air of triumph straight to his mother’s
+arms, that confidence between them was immediately established and
+conversation started.
+
+He had in his pocket an ingenious little invention which he had
+exhibited all along the road as an indispensable article in every
+well-kept house. He wanted to show it to her, but it was too cold a day
+for her to stop outside. Wouldn’t she allow him to step in and explain
+how her work could be materially lessened and her labour turned to play
+by a contrivance so simple that a child could run it?
+
+It was all so ridiculous in face of this woman’s quiet intelligence,
+that he laughed at his own words, and this laughter, echoed by the
+child and in another instant by the mother, made everything so pleasant
+for the moment that she insensibly drew back while he pulled open the
+gate, only remarking, as she led the way in:
+
+“I was looking for my husband. He may come any minute and I’m afraid he
+won’t care much about contrivances to save me work--that is, if they
+cost very much.”
+
+Sweetwater, whose hand was in his pocket, drew it hastily out.
+
+“You were watching for your husband? Do you often stand in the open
+doorway, looking for him?”
+
+Her surprised eyes met his with a stare that would have embarrassed the
+most venturesome book agent, but this man was of another ilk.
+
+“If you do,” he went on imperturbably, but with a good-humoured smile
+which deepened her favourable impression of him, “how much I would give
+if you had been standing there last Tuesday night when a certain cutter
+and horse went by on its way up the hill.”
+
+She was a self-contained woman, this wife of a master mechanic in one
+of the great shops hard by; but her jaw fell at this, and she forgot to
+chide or resist her child when he began to pull her towards the open
+kitchen door.
+
+Sweetwater, sensitive to the least change in the human face, prayed
+that the husband might be detained, if only for five minutes longer,
+while he, Sweetwater, worked this promising mine.
+
+“You _were_ looking out,” he ventured. “And you _did_ see that horse
+and cutter. What luck! It may save a man’s life.”
+
+“Save!” she repeated, staggering back a few steps and dragging the
+child with her. “Save a man’s life! What do you mean by that?”
+
+“Not much if it was any cutter and any horse, and at any hour. But if
+it was the horse and cutter which left The Whispering Pines at ten or
+half past ten that night, then it may mean life and death to the man
+now in jail under the dreadful charge of murder.”
+
+Catching up her child, she slid into the kitchen and sat down with it,
+in the first chair she came to. Sweetwater following her, took up his
+stand in the doorway, unobtrusive, but patiently waiting for her to
+speak. The steaming kettles and the table set for dinner gave warning
+of the expected presence for which she had been watching, but she
+seemed to have forgotten her husband; forgotten everything but her own
+emotions.
+
+“Who are you?” she asked at length. “You have not told me your real
+business.”
+
+“No, madam, and I ask your pardon. I feared that my real business, if
+suddenly made known to you, might startle, perhaps frighten you. I
+am a detective on the look-out for evidence in the case I have just
+mentioned. I have a theory that a most important witness in the same,
+drove by here at the hour and on the night I have named. I want to
+substantiate that theory. Can you help me?”
+
+A sensitiveness to, and quick appreciation of, the character of those
+he addressed was one of Sweetwater’s most valuable attributes. No
+glossing of the truth, however skillfully applied, would have served
+him with this woman so well as this simple statement, followed by its
+equally simple and direct inquiry. Scrutinising him over the child’s
+head, she gave but a casual glance at the badge he took pains to show
+her, then in as quiet and simple tones as he had himself used, she made
+this reply:
+
+“I can help you some. You make it my duty, and I have never shrunk
+from duty. A horse and cutter did go by here on its way uphill, last
+Tuesday night at about eleven o’clock. I remember the hour because I
+was expecting my husband every minute, just as I am now. He had some
+extra work on hand that night which he expected to detain him till
+eleven or a quarter after. Supper was to be ready at a quarter after.
+To surprise him I had beaten up some biscuits, and I had just put them
+in the pan when I heard the clock strike the hour. Afraid that he would
+come before they were baked, I thrust the pan into the oven and ran
+to the front door to look out. It was snowing very hard, and the road
+looked white and empty, but as I stood there a horse and cutter came in
+sight, which, as it reached the gate, drew up in a great hurry, as if
+something was the matter. Frightened, because I’m always thinking of
+harm to my husband whose work is very dangerous, I ran out bare-headed
+to the gate, when I saw why the man in the sleigh was making me such
+wild gestures. His hat had blown off, and was lying close up against
+the fence in front of me. Anxious always to oblige, I made haste to
+snatch at it and carry it out to its owner. I received a sort of thank
+you, and would never have remembered the occurrence if it had not
+been for that murder and if--” She paused doubtfully, ran her fingers
+nervously over her child’s head, looked again at Sweetwater waiting
+expectantly for her next word, and faltered painfully--“if I had not
+recognised the horse.”
+
+Sweetwater drew a deep breath; it was such a happy climax. Then, as she
+showed no signs of saying more, asked as quietly as his rapidly beating
+heart permitted:
+
+“Didn’t you recognise the man?”
+
+Her answer was short but as candid as her expression.
+
+“No. The snow was blinding; besides he wore a high collar, in which his
+head was sunk down almost out of sight.”
+
+“But the horse--”
+
+“Was one which is often driven by here. I had rather not tell you whose
+it is. I have not told any one, not even my husband, about seeing it on
+the road that night. I couldn’t somehow. But if it will save a man’s
+life and make clear who killed that good woman, ask any one on the
+Hill, in what stable you can find a grey horse with a large black spot
+on his left shoulder, and you will know as much about it as I do. Isn’t
+that enough, sir? Now, I must dish up my dinner.”
+
+“Yes, yes; it’s almost enough. Just one question, madam. Was the hat
+what folks call a derby? Like this one, madam,” he explained, drawing
+his own from behind his back.
+
+“Yes, I think so. As well as I can remember, it was like that. I’m
+afraid I didn’t do it any good by my handling. I had to clutch it
+quick and I’m sure I bent the brim, to say nothing of smearing it with
+flour-marks.”
+
+“How?” Sweetwater had started for the door, but stopped, all eagerness
+at this last remark.
+
+“I had been cutting out biscuits, and my hands were white with flour,”
+she explained, simply. “But that brushes off easily; I don’t suppose it
+mattered.”
+
+“No, no,” he hastily assented. Then while he smiled and waved his hand
+to the little urchin who had been his means of introduction to this
+possibly invaluable witness, he made one final plea and that was for
+her name.
+
+“Eliza Simmons,” was the straightforward reply; and this ended the
+interview.
+
+The husband, whose anticipated approach had occasioned all this
+abruptness, was coming down the hill when Sweetwater left the gate. As
+this detective of ours was as careful in his finish as in all the rest
+of his work, he called out as he went by:
+
+“I’ve just been trying to sell a wonderful contrivance of mine to the
+missus. But it was no go.”
+
+The man looked, smiled, and went in at his own gate with the air of one
+happy in wife, child, and home.
+
+Sweetwater went on up the hill. Towards the top, he came upon a
+livery-stable. Stopping in his good-humoured way, he entered into talk
+with a man loitering inside the great door. Before he left him, he had
+asked him these questions:
+
+“Any grey horse in town?”
+
+“Yes, _one_.”
+
+“I think I’ve seen it--has a patch of black on its left shoulder.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Whose is it? I’ve a mighty curiosity about the horse. Looks like a
+trick horse.”
+
+“I don’t know what you mean by that. It belongs to a respectable
+family. A family you must have heard about if you ever heard anything.
+There’s a funeral there to-day--”
+
+“Not Miss Cumberland’s?” exclaimed Sweetwater, all agog in a moment.
+
+“Yes, Miss Cumberland’s. I thought you might have heard the name.”
+
+“Yes, I’ve heard it.”
+
+The tone was dry, the words abrupt, but the detective’s heart was
+dancing like a feather. The next turn he took was toward the handsome
+residence district crowning the hill.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+IN THE COACH HOUSE
+
+All things that we ordained festival
+Turn from their office to black funeral;
+Our instruments to melancholy bells;
+Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast;
+And all things change them to the contrary.
+
+_Romeo and Juliet_.
+
+
+Fifteen minutes later, he stood in a finely wooded street before an
+open gateway guarded by a policeman. Showing his badge, he passed in,
+and entered a long and slightly curved driveway. As he did so, he took
+a glance at the house. It was not as pretentious as he expected, but
+infinitely more inviting. Low and rambling, covered with vines, and
+nestling amid shrubbery which even in winter gave it a habitable air,
+it looked as much the abode of comfort as of luxury, and gave--in
+outward appearance at least--no hint of the dark shadow which had so
+lately fallen across it.
+
+The ceremonies had been set for three o’clock, and it was now half past
+two. As Sweetwater reached the head of the driveway, he saw the first
+of a long file of carriages approaching up the street.
+
+“Lucky that my business takes me to the stable,” thought he. “What is
+the coachman’s name? I ought to remember it. Ah--Zadok! Zadok Brown.
+There’s a combination for you!”
+
+He had reached this point in his soliloquy (a bad habit of his, for
+it sometimes took audible expression) when he ran against another
+policeman set to guard the side door. A moment’s parley, and he left
+this man behind; but not before he had noted this door and the wide and
+hospitable verandah which separated it from the driveway.
+
+“I am willing to go all odds that I shall find that verandah the most
+interesting part of the house,” he remarked, in quiet conviction, to
+himself, as he noted its nearness to the stable and the ease with which
+one could step from it into a vehicle passing down the driveway.
+
+It had another point of interest, or, rather the wing had to which
+it was attached. As his eye travelled back across this wing, in his
+lively walk towards the stable, he caught a passing glimpse of a
+nurse’s face and figure in one of its upper windows. This located the
+sick chamber, and unconsciously he hushed his step and moved with the
+greatest caution, though he knew that this sickness was not one of the
+nerves, and that the loudest sound would fail to reach ears lapsed in a
+blessed, if alarming, unconsciousness.
+
+Once around the corner, he resumed a more natural pace, and perceiving
+that the stable-door was closed but that a window well up the garden
+side was open, he cast a look towards the kitchen windows at his back,
+and, encountering no watchful eye, stepped up to the former one and
+peered in.
+
+A man sat with his back to him, polishing a bit of harness. This was
+probably Zadok, the coachman. As his interest was less with him than
+with the stalls beyond, he let his eye travel on in their direction,
+when he suddenly experienced a momentary confusion by observing the
+head and shoulders of Hexford leaning towards him from an opposite
+window--in much the same fashion, and certainly with exactly the same
+intent, as himself. As their glances crossed, both flushed and drew
+back, only to return again, each to his several peep-hole. Neither
+meant to lose the advantage of the moment. Both had heard of the grey
+horse and wished to identify it; Hexford for his own satisfaction,
+Sweetwater as the first link of the chain leading him into the
+mysterious course mapped out for him by fate. That each was more or
+less under the surveillance of the other did not trouble either.
+
+There were three stalls, and in each stall a horse stamped and
+fidgeted. Only one held their attention. This was a mare on the
+extreme left, a large grey animal with a curious black patch on its
+near shoulder. The faces of both men changed as they recognised this
+distinguishing mark, and instinctively their eyes met across the width
+of the open space separating them. Hexford’s finger rose to his mouth,
+but Sweetwater needed no such hint. He stood, silent as his own shadow,
+while the coachman rubbed away with less and less purpose, until his
+hands stood quite still and his whole figure drooped in irresistible
+despondency. As he raised his face, moved perhaps by that sense of a
+watchful presence to which all of us are more or less susceptible, they
+were both surprised to see tears on it. The next instant he had started
+to his feet and the bit of harness had rattled from his hands to the
+floor.
+
+“Who are you?” he asked, with a touch of anger, quite natural under the
+circumstances. “Can’t you come in by the door, and not creep sneaking
+up to take a man at disadvantage?”
+
+As he spoke, he dashed away the tears with which his cheeks were still
+wet.
+
+“I thought a heap of my young mistress,” he added, in evident apology
+for this display of what such men call weakness. “I didn’t know that it
+was in me to cry for anything, but I find that I can cry for her.”
+
+Hexford left his window, and Sweetwater slid from his; next minute they
+met at the stable door.
+
+“Had luck?” whispered the local officer.
+
+“Enough to bring me here,” acknowledged the other.
+
+“Do you mean to this house or to this stable?”
+
+“To this stable.”
+
+“Have you heard that the horse was out that night?”
+
+“Yes, she was out.”
+
+“Who driving?”
+
+“Ah, that’s the question!”
+
+“This man can’t tell you.”
+
+A jerk of Hexford’s thumb in Zadok’s direction emphasised this
+statement.
+
+“But I’m going to talk to him, for all that.”
+
+“He wasn’t here that night; he was at a dance. He only knows that the
+mare was out.”
+
+“But I’m going to talk to him.”
+
+“May I come in, too? I’ll not interrupt. I’ve just fifteen minutes to
+spare.”
+
+“You can do as you please. I’ve nothing to hide--from you, at any rate.”
+
+Which wasn’t quite true; but Sweetwater wasn’t a stickler for truth,
+except in the statements he gave his superiors.
+
+Hexford threw open the stable-door, and they both walked in. The
+coachman was not visible, but they could hear him moving about above,
+grumbling to himself in none too encouraging a way.
+
+Evidently he was in no mood for visitors.
+
+“I’ll be down in a minute,” he called out, as their steps sounded on
+the hardwood floor.
+
+Hexford sauntered over to the stalls. Sweetwater stopped near the
+doorway and glanced very carefully about him. Nothing seemed to escape
+his eye. He even took the trouble to peer into a waste-bin, and was
+just on the point of lifting down a bit of broken bottle from an open
+cupboard when Brown appeared on the staircase, dressed in his Sunday
+coat and carrying a bunch of fresh, hot-house roses.
+
+He stopped midway as Sweetwater turned towards him from the cupboard,
+but immediately resumed his descent and was ready with his reply when
+Hexford accosted him from the other end of the stable:
+
+“An odd beast, this. They don’t drive her for her beauty, that’s
+evident.”
+
+“She’s fast and she’s knowing,” grumbled the coachman. “Reason enough
+for overlooking her spots. Who’s that man?” he grunted, with a drop of
+his lantern jaws, and a slight gesture towards the unknown interloper.
+
+“Another of us,” replied Hexford, with a shrug. “We’re both rather
+interested in this horse.”
+
+“Wouldn’t another time do?” pleaded the coachman, looking gravely down
+at the flowers he held. “It’s most time for the funeral and I don’t
+feel like talking, indeed I don’t, gentlemen.”
+
+“We won’t keep you.” It was Sweetwater who spoke. “The mare’s company
+enough for us. She knows a lot, this mare. I can see it in her eye. I
+understand horses; we’ll have a little chat, she and I, when you are
+gone.”
+
+Brown cast an uneasy glance at Hexford.
+
+“He’d better not touch her,” he cautioned. “He don’t know the beast
+well enough for that.”
+
+“He won’t touch her,” Hexford assured him. “She does look knowing,
+don’t she? Would like to tell us something, perhaps. Was out _that_
+night, I’ve heard you say. Curious! How did you know it?”
+
+“I’ve said and said till I’m tired,” Brown answered, with sudden heat.
+“This is pestering a man at a very unfortunate time. Look! the people
+are coming. I must go. My poor mistress! and poor Miss Carmel! I liked
+’em, do ye understand? Liked ’em--and I do feel the trouble at the
+house, I do.”
+
+His distress was so genuine that Hexford was inclined to let him go;
+but Sweetwater with a cock of his keen eye put in his word and held the
+coachman where he was.
+
+“The old gal is telling me all about it,” muttered this sly, adaptable
+fellow. He had sidled up to the mare and their heads were certainly
+very close together. “Not touch her? See here!” Sweetwater had his
+arm round the filly’s neck and was looking straight into her fiery
+and intelligent eye. “Shall I pass her story on?” he asked, with a
+magnetic smile at the astonished coachman, which not only softened him
+but seemed to give the watchful Hexford quite a new idea of this gawky
+interloper.
+
+“You’ll oblige _me_ if you can put her knowledge into words,” the man
+Zadok declared, with one fascinated eye on the horse and the other on
+the house where he evidently felt that his presence was wanted. “She
+was out that night, and I know it, as any coachman would know, who
+doesn’t come home stone drunk. But where she was and who took her, get
+her to tell if you can, for I don’t know no more ’n the dead.”
+
+“The dead!” flashed out Sweetwater, wheeling suddenly about and
+pointing straight through the open stable-door towards the house where
+the young mistress the old servant mourned, lay in her funeral casket.
+“Do you mean her--the lady who is about to be buried? Could _she_ tell
+if her lips were not sealed by a murderer’s hand?”
+
+“She!” The word came low and awesomely. Rude and uncultured as the man
+was, he seemed to be strangely affected by this unexpected suggestion.
+“I haven’t the wit to answer that,” said he. “How can we tell what
+she knew. The man who killed her is in jail. _He_ might talk to some
+purpose. Why don’t you question him?”
+
+“For a very good reason,” replied Sweetwater, with an easy good-nature
+that was very reassuring. “He was arrested on the spot; so that it
+wasn’t he who drove this mare home, unharnessed her, put her back in
+her stall, locked the stable-door and hung up the key in its place in
+the kitchen. Somebody else did _that_.”
+
+“That’s true enough, and what does it show? That the mare was out on
+some other errand than the one which ended in blood and murder,” was
+the coachman’s unexpected retort.
+
+“Is that so?” whispered Sweetwater into the mare’s cocked ear.
+“She’s not quite ready to commit herself,” he drawled, with another
+enigmatical smile at the lingering Zadok. “She’s keeping something
+back. Are you?” he pointedly inquired, leaving the stalls and walking
+briskly up to Zadok.
+
+The coachman frowned and hastily retreated a step; but in another
+moment he leaped in a rage upon Sweetwater, when the sight of the
+flowers he held recalled him to himself and he let his hand fall again
+with the quiet remark:
+
+“You’re overstepping your dooty. I don’t know who you are or what you
+want with me, but you’re overstepping your dooty.”
+
+“He’s right,” muttered Hexford. “Better let the fellow go. See! one of
+the maids is beckoning to him.”
+
+“He shall go, and welcome, if he will tell me where he gets his taste
+for this especial brand of whiskey.” Sweetwater had crossed to the
+cupboard and taken down the lower half of the broken bottle which had
+attracted his notice on his first entrance, and was now holding it out,
+with a quizzical look at the departing coachman.
+
+Hexford was at his shoulder with a spring, and together they inspected
+the label still sticking to it--which was that of the very rare and
+expensive spirit found missing from the club-house vault.
+
+“This is a find,” muttered Hexford into his fellow detective’s ear.
+Then, with a quick move towards Zadok, he shouted out:
+
+“You’d better answer that question. Where did this bit of broken bottle
+come from? They don’t give you whiskey like this to drink.”
+
+“That they don’t,” muttered the coachman, not so much abashed as they
+had expected. “And I wouldn’t care for it if they did. I found that bit
+of bottle in the ash-barrel outside, and fished it out to put varnish
+in. I liked the shape.”
+
+“Broken this way?”
+
+“Yes; it’s just as good.”
+
+“Is it? Well, never mind, run along. We’ll close the stable-door for
+you.”
+
+“I’d rather do it myself and carry in the key.”
+
+“Here then; we’re going to the funeral, too. You’d like to?” This
+latter in a whisper to Sweetwater.
+
+The answer was a fervent one. Nothing in all the world would please
+this protean-natured man quite so well.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+“LILA--LILA!”
+
+O, treble woe Fall ten times treble on that cursed head, Whose wicked
+deed thy most ingenious sense Depriv’d thee of!--Hold off the earth
+awhile, Till I have caught her once more in my arms.
+
+_Hamlet_.
+
+
+“Let us enter by the side door,” suggested Sweetwater, as the two moved
+towards the house. “And be sure you place me where I can see without
+being seen. I have no wish to attract attention to myself, or to be
+identified with the police until the necessity is forced upon me.”
+
+“Then we won’t go in together,” decided Hexford. “Find your own
+place; you won’t have any difficulty. A crowd isn’t expected. Miss
+Cumberland’s condition forbids it.”
+
+Sweetwater nodded and slid in at the side door.
+
+He found himself at once in a narrow hall, from the end of which opened
+a large room. A few people were to be seen in this latter place, and
+his first instinct was to join them; but finding that a few minutes yet
+remained before the hour set for the services, he decided to improve
+them by a rapid glance about this hall, which, for certain reasons
+hardly as yet formulated in his own mind, had a peculiar interest for
+him.
+
+The most important object within view, according to his present
+judgment, was the staircase which connected it with the floor above;
+but if you had asked his reason for this conclusion, he would not have
+told you, as Ranelagh might have done, that it was because it was the
+most direct and convenient approach to Carmel Cumberland’s room. His
+thoughts were far from this young girl, intimately connected as she
+was with this crime; which shows through what a blind maze he was
+insensibly working. With his finger on the thread which had been put
+in his hand, he was feeling his way along inch by inch. It had brought
+him to this staircase, and it led him next to a rack upon which hung
+several coats and a gentleman’s hat.
+
+He inspected the former and noted that one was finished with a high
+collar; but he passed the latter by--it was not a derby. The table
+stood next the rack, and on its top lay nothing more interesting than a
+clothes-brush and one or two other insignificant objects; but, with his
+memory for details, he had recalled the keys which one of the maids had
+picked up somewhere about this house, and laid on a hall table. If this
+were the hall and this the table, then was every inch of the latter’s
+simple cloth-covered top of the greatest importance in his eyes.
+
+He had no further time for even these cursory investigations; Hexford’s
+step could be heard on the verandah, and Sweetwater was anxious to
+locate himself before the officer came in. Entering the room before
+him, he crossed to the small group clustered in its further doorway.
+There were several empty chairs in sight; but he passed around them
+all to a dark and inconspicuous corner, from which, without effort, he
+could take in every room on that floor--from the large parlour in which
+the casket stood, to the remotest region of the servants’ hall.
+
+The clergyman had not yet descended, and Sweetwater had time to
+observe the row of little girls sitting in front of the bearers, each
+with a small cluster of white flowers in her hand. Miss Cumberland’s
+Sunday-school class, he conjectured, and conjectured rightly. He also
+perceived that some of these children loved her.
+
+Near them sat a few relatives and friends. Among these was a very, very
+old man, whom he afterwards heard was a great-uncle and a centenarian.
+Between him and one of the little girls, there apparently existed a
+strong sympathy; for his hand reached out and drew her to him when
+the tears began to steal down her cheeks, and the looks which passed
+between the two had all the appeal and all the protection of a great
+love.
+
+Sweetwater, who had many a soft spot in his breast, felt his heart
+warm at this one innocent display of natural feeling in an assemblage
+otherwise frozen by the horror of the occasion. His eyes dwelt
+lingeringly on the child, and still more lingeringly on the old, old
+man, before passing to that heaped-up mound of flowers, under which lay
+a murdered body and a bruised heart. He could not see the face, but the
+spectacle was sufficiently awe-compelling without that.
+
+Would it have seemed yet more so, had he known at whose request the
+huge bunch of lilies had been placed over that silent heart?
+
+The sister sick, the brother invisible, there was little more to hold
+his attention in this quarter; so he let it roam across the heads
+of the people about him, to the distant hall communicating with the
+kitchen.
+
+Several persons were approaching from this direction, among them Zadok.
+The servants of the house, no doubt, for they came in all together
+and sat down, side by side, in the chairs Sweetwater had so carefully
+passed by. There were five persons in all: two men and three women.
+Only two interested him--Zadok, with whom he had already made a
+superficial acquaintance and had had one bout; and a smart, bright-eyed
+girl with a resolute mouth softened by an insistent dimple, who struck
+him as possessing excellent sense and some natural cleverness. A girl
+to know and a girl to talk to, was his instantaneous judgment. Then he
+forgot everything but the solemnity of the occasion, for the clergyman
+had entered and taken his place, and a great hush had fallen upon the
+rooms and upon every heart there present.
+
+
+“_I am the resurrection and the life_.”
+
+Never had these consoling words sounded more solemn than when they
+rang above the remains of Adelaide Cumberland, in this home where she
+had reigned as mistress ever since her seventeenth year. The nature of
+the tragedy which had robbed the town of one of its most useful young
+women; the awful fate impending over its supposed author,--a man who
+had come and gone in these rooms with a spell of fascination to which
+many of those present had themselves succumbed--the brooding sense
+of illness, if not of impending death, in the room above; gave to
+these services a peculiar poignancy which in some breasts of greater
+susceptibility than the rest, took the form of a vague expectancy
+bordering on terror.
+
+Sweetwater felt the poignancy, but did not suffer from the terror. His
+attention had been attracted in a new direction, and he found himself
+watching, with anxious curiosity, the attitude and absorbed expression
+of a good-looking young man whom he was far from suspecting to be the
+secret representative of the present suspect, whom nobody could forget,
+yet whom nobody wished to remember at this hallowed hour.
+
+Had this attitude and this absorption been directed towards the casket
+over which the clergyman’s words rose and fell with ever increasing
+impressiveness, he might have noted the man but would scarcely
+have been held by him. But this interest, sincere and strong as it
+undoubtedly was, centred not so much in the services, careful as he
+was to maintain a decorous attitude towards the same, but in the faint
+murmurs which now and then came down from above where unconsciousness
+reigned and the stricken brother watched over the delirious sister,
+with a concentration and abandonment to fear which made him oblivious
+of all other duties, and almost as unconscious of the rites then being
+held below over one who had been as a mother to him, as the sick girl
+herself with her ceaseless and importunate “Lila! Lila!” The detective,
+watching this preoccupied stranger, shared in some measure his secret
+emotions, and thus was prepared for the unexpected occurrence of a few
+minutes later.
+
+No one else had the least forewarning of any break in the services.
+There had been nothing in the subdued but impressive rendering of the
+prayers to foreshadow a dramatic episode; yet it came, and in this
+manner:
+
+The final words had been said, and the friends present invited to look
+their last on the calm face which, to many there, had never worn so
+sweet a smile in life. Some had hesitated; but most had obeyed the
+summons, among them Sweetwater. But he had not much time in which to
+fix those features in his mind; for the little girls, who had been
+waiting patiently for this moment, now came forward; and he stepped
+aside to watch them as they filed by, dropping as they did so, a
+tribute of fragrant flowers upon the quiet breast. They were followed
+by the servants, among whom Zadok had divided his roses. As the last
+cluster fell from the coachman’s trembling hand, the undertaker
+advanced with the lid, and, pausing a moment to be sure that all were
+satisfied, began to screw it on.
+
+Suddenly there was a cry, and the crowd about the door leading into
+the main hall started back, as wild steps were heard on the stairs and
+a young man rushed into the room where the casket stood, and advanced
+upon the officiating clergyman and the astonished undertaker with a
+fierceness which was not without its suggestion of authority.
+
+“Take it off!” he cried, pointing at the lid which had just been
+fastened down. “I have not seen her--I must see her. Take it off!”
+
+It was the brother, awake at last to the significance of the hour!
+
+The clergyman, aghast at the sacrilegious look and tone of the
+intruder, stepped back, raising one arm in remonstrance, and
+instinctively shielding the casket with the other. But the undertaker
+saw in the frenzied eye fixed upon his own, that which warned him
+to comply with the request thus harshly and peremptorily uttered.
+Unscrewing the lid, he made way for the intruder, who, drawing near,
+pushed aside the roses which had fallen on the upturned face, and,
+laying his hand on the brow, muttered a few low words to himself. Then
+he withdrew his hand, and without glancing to right or left, staggered
+back to the door amid a hush as unbroken as that which reigned behind
+him in that open casket. Another moment and his white, haggard face and
+disordered figure would be blotted from sight by the door-jamb.
+
+The minister recovered his poise and the bearers their breath; the men
+stirred in their seats and the women began to cast frightened looks
+at each other, and then at the children, some of whom had begun to
+whimper, when in an instant all were struck again into stone. The young
+man had turned and was facing them all, with his hands held out in a
+clench which in itself was horrible.
+
+“If they let the man go,” he called out in loud and threatening tones,
+“I will strangle him with these two hands.”
+
+The word, and not the shriek which burst irrepressibly from more
+than one woman before him, brought him to himself. With a ghastly
+look on his bloated features, he scanned for one moment the row of
+deeply shocked faces before him, then tottered back out of sight, and
+fled towards the staircase. All thought that an end had come to the
+harrowing scene, and minister and people faced each other once more;
+when, loud and sharp from above, there rang down the shrill cry of
+delirium, this time in articulate words which even the children could
+understand:
+
+“Break it open, I say! break it open, and see if her heart is there!”
+
+It was too awful. Men and women and children leaped to their feet
+and dashed away into the streets, uttering smothered cries and wild
+ejaculations. In vain the clergyman raised his voice and bade them
+respect the dead; the rooms were well-nigh empty before he had finished
+his appeal. Only the very old uncle and the least of the children
+remained of all who had come there in memory of their departed
+kinswoman and friend.
+
+The little one had fled to the old man’s arms before he could rise, and
+was now held close to his aged and shaking knees, while he strove to
+comfort her and explain.
+
+Soon these, too, were gone, and the casket was refastened and carried
+out by the shrinking bearers, leaving in those darkened rooms a trail
+of desolation which was only broken from time to time by the now faint
+and barely heard reiteration of the name of her who had just been borne
+away!
+
+“Lila! Lila!”
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+“WHAT WE WANT IS HERE”
+
+I’ll tell you, by the way,
+The greatest comfort in the world.
+You said
+There was a clew to all.
+Remember, Sweet,
+He said there was a clew!
+I hold it.
+Come!
+
+_A Blot in the ’Scutcheon._
+
+
+Sweetwater, however affected by this scene, had not lost control
+of himself or forgotten the claims of duty. He noted at a glance
+that, while the candid looking stranger, whose lead he had been
+following, was as much surprised as the rest at the nature of the
+interruption--which he had possibly anticipated and for which he was
+in some measure prepared--he was, of all present, the most deeply
+and peculiarly impressed by it. No element of fear had entered into
+his emotion; nor had it been heightened by any superstitious sense.
+Something deeper and more important by far had darkened his thoughtful
+eye and caused that ebb and flow of colour in a cheek unused, if
+Sweetwater read the man aright, to such quick and forcible changes.
+
+Sweetwater took occasion, likewise, while the excitement was at its
+height, to mark what effect had been made on the servants by the action
+and conduct of young Cumberland. “They know him better than we do,” was
+his inner comment; “what do they think of his words, and what do they
+think of him?”
+
+It was not so easy to determine as the anxious detective might wish.
+Only one of them showed a simple emotion, and that one was, without
+any possibility of doubt, the cook. She was a Roman Catholic, and was
+simply horrified by the sacrilege of which she had been witness. There
+was no mistaking her feelings. But those of the other two women were
+more complex.
+
+So were those of the men. Zadok specially watched each movement of
+his young master with open mistrust; and very nearly started upright,
+in his repugnance and dismay, when that intruding hand fell on the
+peaceful brow of her over whose fate, to his own surprise, he had been
+able to shed tears. Some personal prejudice lay back of this or some
+secret knowledge of the man from whose touch even the dead appeared to
+shrink.
+
+And the women! Might not the same explanation account for that curious
+droop of the eye with which the two younger clutched at each other’s
+hands, to keep from screaming, and interchanged whispered words which
+Sweetwater would have given considerable out of his carefully cherished
+hoard to have heard.
+
+It was impossible to tell, at present; but he was confident that it
+would not be long before he understood these latter, at least. He had
+great confidence in his success with women, homely as he was. He was
+not so sure of himself with men; and he felt that some difficulties
+and not a few pitfalls lay between him and, for instance, the
+uncommunicative Zadok. “But I’ve the whole long evening before me,” he
+added in quiet consolation to himself. “It will be a pity if I can’t
+work some of them in that time.”
+
+The last thing he had remarked, before Carmel’s unearthly cry had sent
+the horrified guests in disorder from the house, was the presence of
+Dr. Perry in a small room which Sweetwater had supposed empty, until
+the astonishing events I have endeavoured to describe brought its
+occupant to the door. What the detective then read in the countenance
+of the family’s best friend, he kept to himself; but his own lost a
+trace of its former anxiety, as the official slipped back out of sight
+and remained so, even after the funeral cortege had started on its
+course.
+
+Plans had been made for carrying the servants to the cemetery, and,
+despite the universal disturbance consequent upon these events, these
+plans were adhered to. Sweetwater watched them all ride away in the
+last two carriages.
+
+This gave him the opportunity he wanted. Leaving his corner, he looked
+up Hexford, and asked who was left in the house.
+
+“Dr. Perry, Mr. Clifton, the lawyer, Mr. Cumberland, his sick sister,
+and the nurse.”
+
+“Mr. Cumberland! Didn’t he go to the grave?”
+
+“Did you expect him to, after _that_?”
+
+Sweetwater’s shoulders rose, and his voice took on a tone of
+indifference.
+
+“There’s no telling. Where is he now, do you think? Upstairs?”
+
+“Yes. It seems he spends all his time in a little alcove opposite
+his sister’s door. They won’t let him inside, for fear of disturbing
+the patient; so he just sits where I’ve told you, doing nothing but
+listening to every sound that comes through the door.”
+
+“Is he there now?”
+
+“Yes, and shaking just like a leaf. I walked by him a moment ago and
+noticed particularly.”
+
+“Where’s his room? In sight of the alcove you mention?”
+
+“No; there’s a partition or two between. If you go up by the side
+staircase, you can slip into it without any one seeing you. Coroner
+Perry and Mr. Clifton are in front.”
+
+“Is the side door locked?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Lock it. The back door, of course, is.”
+
+“Yes, the cook attended to that.”
+
+“I want a few minutes all by myself. Help me, Hexford. If Dr. Perry has
+given you no orders, take your stand upstairs where you can give me
+warning if Mr. Cumberland makes a move to leave his post, or the nurse
+her patient.”
+
+“I’m ready; but I’ve been in that room and I’ve found nothing.”
+
+“I don’t know that I shall. You say that it is near the head of the
+stairs running up from the side door?”
+
+“Just a few feet away.”
+
+“I would have sworn to that fact, even if you hadn’t told me,” muttered
+Sweetwater.
+
+Five minutes later, he had slipped from sight; and for some time not
+even Hexford knew where he was.
+
+“Dr. Perry, may I have a few words with you?”
+
+The coroner turned quickly. Sweetwater was before him; but not the same
+Sweetwater he had interviewed some few hours before in his office. This
+was quite a different looking personage. Though nothing could change
+his features, the moment had come when their inharmonious lines no
+longer obtruded themselves upon the eye; and the anxious, nay, deeply
+troubled official whom he addressed, saw nothing but the ardour and
+quiet self-confidence they expressed.
+
+“It’ll not take long,” he added, with a short significant glance in the
+direction of Mr. Clifton.
+
+Dr. Perry nodded, excused himself to the lawyer and followed the
+detective into the small writing-room which he had occupied during
+the funeral. In the decision with which Sweetwater closed the door
+behind them there was something which caused the blood to mount to the
+coroner’s brow.
+
+“You have made some discovery?” said he.
+
+“A very important one,” was the quick, emphatic reply. And in a few
+brief words the detective related his interview with the master
+mechanic’s wife on the highroad. Then with an eager, “Now let me show
+you something,” he led the coroner through the dining-room into the
+side hall, where he paused before the staircase.
+
+“Up?” queried the coroner, with an obvious shrinking from what he might
+encounter above.
+
+“No,” was the whispered reply. “What we want is _here_.” And, pushing
+open a small door let into the under part of the stairway (if Ranelagh
+in his prison cell could have seen and understood this movement!), he
+disclosed a closet and in that closet a coat or two, and one derby hat.
+He took down the latter and, holding it out to the light, pointed to a
+spot on the under side of its brim.
+
+The coroner staggered as he saw it, and glanced helplessly about him.
+He had known this family all their lives and the father had been his
+dearest friend. But he could say nothing in face of this evidence. The
+spot was a flour-mark, in which could almost be discerned the outline
+of a woman’s thumb.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+THE MOTIONLESS FIGURE
+
+’S blood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy
+could find it out.
+
+_Hamlet_.
+
+
+“The coat is here, too,” whispered Sweetwater, after a moment of
+considerate silence. “I had searched the hall-rack for them; I had
+searched his closets; and was about owning myself to be on a false
+trail, when I spied this little door. We had better lock it, now, had
+we not, till you make up your mind what to do with this conclusive bit
+of evidence.”
+
+“Yes, lock it. I’m not quite myself, Sweetwater. I’m no stranger to
+this house, or to the unfortunate young people in it. I wish I had not
+been re-elected last year. I shall never survive the strain if--” He
+turned away.
+
+Sweetwater carefully returned the hat to its peg, turned the key in the
+door, and softly followed his superior back into the dining-room, and
+thence to their former retreat.
+
+“I can see that it’s likely to be a dreadful business,” he ventured
+to remark, as the two stood face to face again. “But we’ve no choice.
+Facts are facts, and we’ve got to make the best of them. You mean me to
+go on?”
+
+“Go on?”
+
+“Following up the clews which you have yourself given me? I’ve only
+finished with one; there’s another--”
+
+“The bottles?”
+
+“Yes, the bottles. I believe that I shall not fail there if you’ll give
+me a little time. I’m a stranger in town, you remember, and cannot be
+expected to move as fast as a local detective.”
+
+“Sweetwater, you have but one duty--to follow both clews as far as they
+will take you. As for my duty, that is equally plain, to uphold you in
+all reasonable efforts and to shrink at nothing which will save the
+innocent and bring penalty to the guilty. Only be careful. Remember
+the evidence against Ranelagh. You will have to forge an exceedingly
+strong chain to hold your own against the facts which have brought this
+recreant lover to book. You see--O, I wish that poor girl could get
+ease!” he impetuously cried, as “Lila! Lila!” rang again through the
+house.
+
+“There can never be any ease for her,” murmured Sweetwater. “Whatever
+the truth, she’s bound to suffer if ever she awakens to reality again.
+Do you agree with the reporters that she knew why and for what her
+unhappy sister left this house that night?”
+
+“If not, why this fever?”
+
+“That’s sound.”
+
+“_She_--” the coroner was emphatic, “_she_ is the only one who is
+wholly innocent in this whole business. Consider her at every point.
+Her life is invaluable to every one concerned. But she must not be
+roused to the fact; not yet. Nor must he be startled either; you know
+whom I mean. Quiet does it, Sweetwater. Quiet and a seeming deference
+to his wishes as the present head of the house.”
+
+“Is the place his? Has Miss Cumberland made a will?”
+
+“Her will will be read to-morrow. For to-night, Arthur Cumberland’s
+position here is the position of a master.”
+
+“I will respect it, sir, up to all reasonable bounds. I don’t think
+he meditates giving any trouble. He’s not at all impressed by our
+presence. All he seems to care about is what his sister may be led to
+say in her delirium.”
+
+“That’s how you look at it?” The coroner’s tone was one of gloom. Then,
+after a moment of silence: “You may call my carriage, Sweetwater. I can
+do nothing further here to-day. The atmosphere of this house stifles
+me. Dead flowers, dead hopes, and something worse than death lowering
+in the prospect. I remember my old friend--this was his desk. Let us
+go, I say.”
+
+Sweetwater threw open the door, but his wistful look did not escape the
+older man’s eye.
+
+“You’re not ready to go? Wish to search the house, perhaps.”
+
+“Naturally.”
+
+“It has already been done in a general way.”
+
+“I wish to do it thoroughly.”
+
+The coroner sighed.
+
+“I should be wrong to stand in your way. Get your warrant and the house
+is yours. But remember the sick girl.”
+
+“That’s why I wish to do the job my self.”
+
+“You’re a good fellow, Sweetwater.” Then as he was passing out, “I’m
+going to rely on you to see this thing through, quietly if you can,
+openly and in the public eye if you must. The keys tell the tale--the
+keys and the hat. If the former had been left in the club-house and
+the latter found without the mark set on it by the mechanic’s wife,
+Ranelagh’s chances would look as slim to-day as they did immediately
+after the event. But with things as they are, he may well rest easily
+to-night; the clouds are lifting for him.”
+
+Which shows how little we poor mortals realise what makes for the peace
+even of those who are the nearest to us and whose lives and hearts we
+think we can read like an open book.
+
+The coroner gone, Sweetwater made his way to the room where he had last
+seen Mr. Clifton. He found it empty and was soon told by Hexford that
+the lawyer had left. This was welcome news to him; he felt that he had
+a fair field before him now; and learning that it would be some fifteen
+minutes yet before he could hope to see the carriages back, he followed
+Hexford upstairs.
+
+“I wish I had your advantages,” he remarked as they reached the upper
+floor.
+
+“What would you do?”
+
+“I’d wander down that hall and take a long look at things.”
+
+“You would?”
+
+“I’d like to see the girl and I’d like to see the brother when he
+thought no one was watching him.”
+
+“Why see the girl?”
+
+“I don’t know. I’m afraid that’s just curiosity. I’ve heard she was a
+wonder for beauty.”
+
+“She was, once.”
+
+“And not now?”
+
+“You cannot tell; they have bound up her cheeks with cloths. She fell
+on the grate and got burned.”
+
+“But I say that’s dreadful, if she was so beautiful.”
+
+“Yes, it’s bad, but there are worse things than that. I wonder what she
+meant by that wild cry of ‘Tear it open! See if her heart is there?’
+Tear what open? the coffin?”
+
+“Of course. What else could she have meant?”
+
+“Well! delirium is a queer thing; makes a fellow feel creepy all over.
+I don’t reckon on my nights here.”
+
+“Hexford, help me to a peep. I’ve got a difficult job before me and I
+need all the aid I can get.”
+
+“Oh, there’s no trouble about that! Walk boldly along; he won’t
+notice--”
+
+“_He won’t notice_?”
+
+“No, he notices nothing but what comes from the sick room.”
+
+“I see.” Sweetwater’s jaw had fallen, but it righted itself at this
+last word.
+
+“Listening, eh?”
+
+“Yes--as a fellow never listened before.”
+
+“Expectant like?”
+
+“Yes, I should call it expectant.”
+
+“Does the nurse know this?”
+
+“The nurse is a puzzler.”
+
+“How so?”
+
+“Half nurse and half--but go see for yourself. Here’s a package to take
+in,--medicine from the drug store. Tell her there was no one else to
+bring it up. She’ll show no surprise.”
+
+Muttering his thanks, Sweetwater seized the proffered package, and
+hastened with it down the hall. He had been as far as the turn before,
+but now he passed the turn to find, just as he expected, a closed door
+on the left and an open alcove on the right. The door led into Miss
+Cumberland’s room; the alcove, circular in shape and lighted by several
+windows, projected from the rear of the extension, and had for its
+outlook the stable and the huge sycamore tree growing beside it.
+
+Sweetwater’s fingers passed thoughtfully across his chin as he remarked
+this and took in the expressive outline of its one occupant. He could
+not see his face; that was turned towards the table before which he
+sat. But his drooping head, rigid with desperate thinking; his relaxed
+hand closed around the neck of a decanter which, nevertheless, he did
+not lift, made upon Sweetwater an impression which nothing he saw
+afterwards ever quite effaced.
+
+“When I come back, that whiskey will be half gone,” thought he, and
+lingered to see the tumbler filled and the first draught taken.
+
+But no. The hand slowly unclasped and fell away from the decanter; his
+head sank forward until his chin rested on his breast; and a sigh,
+startling to Sweetwater, fell from his lips. Hexford was right; only
+one thing could arouse him.
+
+Sweetwater now tried that thing. He knocked softly on the sick-room
+door.
+
+This reached the ear oblivious to all else. Young Cumberland started
+to his feet; and for a moment Sweetwater saw again the heavy features
+which, an hour before, had produced such a repulsive effect upon him in
+the rooms below. Then the nerveless figure sank again into place, with
+the same constraint in its lines, and the same dejection.
+
+Sweetwater’s hand, lifted in repetition of his knock, hung suspended.
+He had not expected quite such indifference as this. It upset his
+calculations just a trifle. As his hand fell, he reminded himself of
+the coroner’s advice to go easy. “Easy it is,” was his internal reply.
+“I’ll walk as lightly as if eggshells were under my feet.”
+
+The door was opened to him, this time. As it swung back, he saw, first,
+a burst of rosy color as a room panelled in exquisite pink burst upon
+his sight; then the great picture of his life--the bloodless features
+of Carmel, calmed for the moment into sleep.
+
+Perfect beauty is so rare, its effect so magical! Not even the
+bandage which swathed one cheek could hide the exquisite symmetry
+of the features, or take from the whole face its sweet and natural
+distinction. Frenzy, which had distorted the muscles and lit the eyes
+with a baleful glare, was lacking at this moment. Repose had quieted
+the soul and left the body free to express its natural harmonies.
+
+Sweetwater gazed at the winsome, brown head over the nurse’s shoulder,
+and felt that for him a new and important factor had entered into this
+case, with his recognition of this woman’s great beauty. How deep
+a factor, he was far from suspecting, or he would not have met the
+nurse’s eye with quite so cheery and self-confident a smile.
+
+“Excuse the intrusion,” he said. “We thought you might need these
+things. Hexford signed for them.”
+
+“I’m obliged to you. Are you--one of them?” she sharply asked.
+
+“Would it disturb you if I were? I hope not. I’ve no wish to seem
+intrusive.”
+
+“What do you want? Something, I know. Give it a name before there’s a
+change there.”
+
+She nodded towards the bed, and Sweetwater took advantage of the
+moment to scrutinise more closely the nurse herself. She was a robust,
+fine-looking woman, producing an impression of capability united to
+kindness. Strength of mind and rigid attendance to duty dominated the
+kindness, however. If crossed in what she considered best for her
+patient, possibly for herself, she could be severe, if not biting, in
+her speech and manner. So much Sweetwater read in the cold, clear eye
+and firm, self-satisfied mouth of the woman awaiting his response to
+the curt demand she had made.
+
+“I want another good look at your patient, and I want your confidence
+since you and I may have to see much of each other before this matter
+is ended. You asked me to speak plainly and I have done so.”
+
+“You are from headquarters?”
+
+“Coroner Perry sent me.” Throwing back his coat, he showed his badge.
+“The coroner has returned to his office. He was quite upset by the
+outcry which came from this room at an unhappy moment during the
+funeral.”
+
+“I know. It was my fault; I opened the door just for an instant, and in
+that instant my patient broke through her torpor and spoke.”
+
+She had drawn him in, by this time, and, after another glance at her
+patient, softly closed the door behind him.
+
+“I have nothing to report,” said she, “but the one sentence everybody
+heard.”
+
+Sweetwater took in the little memorandum book and pencil which hung at
+her side, and understood her position and extraordinary amenability to
+his wishes. Unconsciously, a low exclamation escaped him. He was young
+and had not yet sunk the man entirely in the detective.
+
+“A cruel necessity to watch so interesting a patient, for anything but
+her own good,” he remarked. Yet, because he was a detective as well
+as a man, his eye went wandering all over the room as he spoke until
+it fell upon a peculiar-looking cabinet or closet, let into the wall
+directly opposite the bed. “What’s that?” he asked.
+
+“I don’t know; I can’t make it out, and I don’t like to ask.”
+
+Sweetwater examined it for a moment from where he stood; then crossed
+over, and scrutinised it more particularly. It was a unique specimen.
+What it lacked in height--it could not have measured more than a foot
+from the bottom to the top--it made up in length, which must have
+exceeded five feet. The doors, of which it had two, were both tightly
+locked; but as they were made of transparent glass, the objects
+behind them were quite visible. It was the nature of these objects
+which made the mystery. The longer Sweetwater examined them, the less
+he understood the reason for their collection, much less for their
+preservation in a room which in all other respects, expressed the
+quintessence of taste.
+
+At one end he saw a stuffed canary, not perched on a twig, but lying
+prone on its side. Near it was a doll, with scorched face and limbs
+half-consumed. Next this, the broken pieces of a china bowl and what
+looked like the torn remnants of some very fine lace. Further along,
+his eye lighted on a young girl’s bonnet, exquisite in colour and
+nicety of material, but crushed out of all shape and only betraying its
+identity by its dangling strings. The next article, in this long array
+of totally unhomogeneous objects, was a metronome, with its pendulum
+wrenched half off and one of its sides lacking. He could not determine
+the character of what came next, and only gave a casual examination to
+the rest. The whole affair was a puzzle to him, and he had no time for
+puzzles disconnected with the very serious affair he was engaged in
+investigating.
+
+“Some childish nonsense,” he remarked, and moved towards the door.
+“The servants will be coming back, and I had rather not be found here.
+You’ll see me again--I cannot tell just when. Perhaps you may want to
+send for me. If so, my name is Sweetwater.”
+
+His hand was on the knob, and he was almost out of the room when he
+started and looked back. A violent change in the patient had occurred.
+Disturbed by his voice or by some inner pulsation of the fever which
+devoured her, Carmel had risen from the pillow and now sat, staring
+straight before her with every feature working and lips opened as if to
+speak. Sweetwater held his breath, and the nurse leaped towards her and
+gently encircled her with protecting arms.
+
+“Lie down,” she prayed; “lie down. Everything is all right: I am
+looking after things. Lie down, little one, and rest.”
+
+The young girl drooped, and, yielding to the nurse’s touch, sank slowly
+back on the pillow; but in an instant she was up again, and flinging
+out her hand, she cried out loudly just as she had cried an hour before:
+
+“Break it open! Break the glass and look in. Her heart should be
+there--her heart--her heart!”
+
+“Go, or I cannot quiet her!” ordered the nurse, and Sweetwater turned
+to obey.
+
+But a new obstacle offered. The brother had heard this cry, and now
+stood in the doorway.
+
+“Who are you?” he impatiently demanded, surveying Sweetwater in sudden
+anger.
+
+“I brought up the drugs,” was the quiet explanation of the ever-ready
+detective. “I didn’t mean to alarm the young lady, and I don’t think I
+did. It’s the fever, sir, which makes her talk so wildly.”
+
+“We want no strangers here,” was young Cumberland’s response.
+“Remember, nurse, no strangers.” His tone was actually peremptory.
+
+Sweetwater observed him in real astonishment as he slid by and made his
+quiet escape. He was still more astonished when, on glancing towards
+the alcove, he perceived that, contrary to his own prognostication, the
+whiskey stood as high in the decanter as before.
+
+“I’ve got a puzzler this time,” was his comment, as he made his way
+downstairs. “Even Mr. Gryce would say that. I wonder how I’ll come out.
+Uppermost!” he finished in secret emphasis to himself. “_Uppermost_! It
+would never do for me to fail in the first big affair I’ve undertaken
+on my own account.”
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+HELEN SURPRISES SWEETWATER
+
+Lurk, lurk.
+
+_King Lear_.
+
+
+The returning servants drove up just as Sweetwater reached the lower
+floor. He was at the side door when they came in, and a single glance
+convinced him that all had gone off decorously at the grave, and that
+nothing further had occurred during their absence to disturb them.
+
+He followed them as they filed away into the kitchen, and, waiting till
+the men had gone about their work, turned his attention to the girls
+who stood about very much as if they did not know just what to do with
+themselves.
+
+“Sit, ladies,” said he, drawing up chairs quite as if he were doing the
+honours of the house. Then with a sly, compassionate look into each
+woe-begone face, he artfully remarked: “You’re all upset, you are, by
+what Mr. Cumberland said in such an unbecoming way at the funeral. He’d
+like to strangle Mr. Ranelagh! Why couldn’t he wait for the sheriff. It
+looks as if that gentleman would have the job, all right.”
+
+“Oh! don’t!” wailed out one of the girls, the impressionable,
+warm-hearted Maggie. “The horrors of this house’ll kill me. I can’t
+stand it a minute longer. I’ll go--I’ll go to-morrow.”
+
+“You won’t; you’re too kind-hearted to leave Mr. Cumberland and his
+sister in their desperate trouble,” Sweetwater put in, with a decision
+as suggestive of admiration as he dared to assume.
+
+Her eyes filled, and she said no more. Sweetwater shifted his attention
+to Helen. Working around by her side, he managed to drop these words
+into her ear:
+
+“She talks most, but she doesn’t feel her responsibilities any more
+than you do. I’ve had my experience with women, and you’re of the sort
+that stays.”
+
+She rolled her eyes towards him, in a slow, surprised way, that would
+have abashed most men.
+
+“I don’t know your name, or your business here,” said she; “but I do
+know that you take a good deal upon yourself when you say what I shall
+do or shan’t do. I don’t even know, myself.”
+
+“That’s because your eye is not so keen to your own virtues as--well, I
+won’t say as mine, but as those of any appreciative stranger. I can’t
+help seeing what you are, you know.”
+
+She turned her shoulder but not before he caught a slight disdainful
+twitch of her rosy, non-communicative mouth.
+
+“Ah, ah, my lady, not quick enough!” thought he; and, with the most
+innocent air in the world, he launched forth in a tirade against the
+man then in custody, as though his guilt were an accepted fact and
+nothing but the formalities of the law stood between him and his final
+doom. “It must make you all feel queer,” he wound up, “to think you
+have waited on him and seen him tramping about these rooms for months,
+just as if he had no wicked feelings in his heart and meant to marry
+Miss Cumberland, not to kill her.”
+
+“Oh, oh,” Maggie sobbed out. “And a perfect gentleman he was, too. I
+can’t believe no bad of him. He wasn’t like--” Her breath caught, and
+so suddenly that Sweetwater was always convinced that the more cautious
+Helen had twitched her by her skirt. “Like--like other gentlemen who
+came here. It was a kind word he had or a smile. I--I--” She made no
+attempt to finish but bounded to her feet, pulling up the more sedate
+Helen with her. “Let’s go,” she whispered, “I’m afeared of the man.”
+
+The other yielded and began to cross the floor behind the impetuous
+Maggie.
+
+Sweetwater summoned up his courage.
+
+“One moment,” he prayed. “Will you not tell me, before you go, whether
+the candlestick I have noticed on the dining-room mantel is not one of
+a pair?”
+
+“Yes, there were two--_once_,” said Helen, resisting Maggie’s effort to
+drag her out through the open door.
+
+“_Once_,” smiled Sweetwater; “by which you mean, three days ago.”
+
+A lowering of her head and a sudden make for the door.
+
+Sweetwater changed his tone to one of simple inquiry.
+
+“And was that where they always stood, the pair of them, one on each
+end of the dining-room mantel?”
+
+She nodded; involuntarily, perhaps, but decisively.
+
+Sweetwater hid his disappointment. The room mentioned was a
+thoroughfare for the whole family. Any member of it could have taken
+the candlestick.
+
+“I’m obliged to you,” said he; and might have ventured further had she
+given him the opportunity. But she was too near the door to resist the
+temptation of flight. In another moment she was gone, and Sweetwater
+found himself alone with his reflections.
+
+They were not altogether unpleasing. He was sure that he read the
+evidences of struggle in her slowly working lips and changing impulses.
+
+“So, so!” thought he. “The good seed has found its little corner of
+soil. I’ll leave it to take root and sprout. Perhaps the coroner will
+profit by it. If not, I’ve a way of coaxing tender plants which should
+bring this one to fruit. We’ll see.”
+
+The moon shone that night, much to Sweetwater’s discomforture. As he
+moved about the stable-yard, he momentarily expected to see the window
+of the alcove thrown up and to hear Mr. Cumberland’s voice raised in
+loud command for him to quit the premises. But no such interruption
+came. The lonely watcher, whose solitary figure he could just discern
+above the unshaded sill, remained immovable, with his head buried in
+his arms, but whether in sleep or in brooding misery, there was naught
+to tell.
+
+The rest of the house presented an equally dolorous and forsaken
+appearance. There were lights in the kitchen and lights in the
+servants’ rooms at the top of the house, but no sounds either of
+talking or laughing. All voices had sunk to a whisper, and if by chance
+a figure passed one of the windows, it was in a hurried, frightened
+way, which Sweetwater felt very ready to appreciate.
+
+In the stable it was no better. Zadok had bought an evening paper,
+and was seeking solace from its columns. Sweetwater had attempted the
+sociable but had been met by a decided rebuff. The coachman could
+not forget his attitude before the funeral and nothing, not even the
+pitcher of beer the detective proposed to bring in, softened the
+forbidding air with which this old servant met the other’s advances.
+
+Soon Sweetwater realised that his work was over for the night and
+planned to leave. But there was one point to be settled first. Was
+there any other means of exit from these grounds save that offered by
+the ordinary driveway?
+
+He had an impression that in one of his strolls about, he had detected
+the outlines of a door in what looked like a high brick wall in the
+extreme rear. If so, it were well worth his while to know where that
+door led. Working his way along in the shadow cast by the house and
+afterward by the stable itself, he came upon what was certainly a
+wall and a wall with a door in it. He could see the latter plainly
+from where he halted in the thick of the shadows. The moonlight shone
+broadly on it, and he could detect the very shape and size of its
+lock. It might be as well to try that lock, but he would have to cross
+a very wide strip of moonlight in order to do so, and he feared to
+attract attention to his extreme inquisitiveness. Yet who was there to
+notice him at this hour? Mr. Cumberland had not moved, the girls were
+upstairs, Zadok was busy with his paper, and the footman dozing over
+his pipe in his room over the stable. Sweetwater had just come from
+that room, and he knew.
+
+A quiet stable-yard and a closed door only ten feet away! He glanced
+again at the latter, and made up his mind. Advancing in a quiet,
+sidelong way he had, he laid his hand on the small knob above the
+lock and quickly turned it. The door was unlocked and swung under his
+gentle push. An alley-way opened before him, leading to what appeared
+to be another residence street. He was about to test the truth of this
+surmise when he heard a step behind him, and turning, encountered the
+heavy figure of the coachman advancing towards him, with a key in his
+hand.
+
+Zadok was of an easy turn, but he had been sorely tried that day, and
+his limit had been reached.
+
+“You snooper!” he bawled. “What do you want here? Won’t the run of the
+house content ye? Come! I want to lock that door. It’s my last duty
+before going to bed.”
+
+Sweetwater assumed the innocent.
+
+“And I was just going this way. It looks like a short road into town.
+It is, isn’t it?”
+
+“No! Yes,” growled the other. “Whichever it is, it isn’t your road
+to-night. That’s private property, sir. The alley you see, belongs to
+our neighbours. No one passes through there but myself and--”
+
+He caught himself in time, with a sullen grunt which may have been the
+result of fatigue or of that latent instinct of loyalty which is often
+the most difficult obstacle a detective has to encounter.
+
+“And Mr. Ranelagh, I suppose you would say?” was Sweetwater’s easy
+finish.
+
+No answer; the coachman simply locked the door and put the key in his
+pocket.
+
+Sweetwater made no effort to deter him. More than that he desisted from
+further questions though he was dying to ask where this key was kept at
+night, and whether it had been in its usual place on the evening of the
+murder. He had gone far enough, he thought. Another step and he might
+rouse this man’s suspicion, if not his enmity. But he did not leave
+the shadows into which he again receded until he had satisfied himself
+that the key went into the stable with the coachman, where it probably
+remained for this night, at least.
+
+It was after ten when Sweetwater re-entered the house to say good night
+to Hexford. He found him on watch in the upper hall, and the man,
+Clarke, below. He had a word with the former:
+
+“What is the purpose of the little door in the wall back of the stable?”
+
+“It connects these grounds with those of the Fultons. The Fultons live
+on Huested Street.”
+
+“Are the two families intimate?”
+
+“Very. Mr. Cumberland is sweet on the young lady there. She was at the
+funeral to-day. She fainted when--you know when.”
+
+“I can guess. God! What complications arise! You don’t say that any
+woman can care for _him_?”
+
+Hexford gave a shrug. He had seen a good deal of life.
+
+“He uses that door, then?” Sweetwater pursued, after a minute.
+
+“Probably.”
+
+“Did he use it that night?”
+
+“He didn’t visit _her_”
+
+“Where did he go?”
+
+“We can’t find out. He was first seen on Garden Street, coming home
+after a night of debauch. He had drunk hard. Asked where he got the
+liquor, he maundered out something about a saloon; but none of the
+places which he usually frequents had seen him that night. I have tried
+them all and some that weren’t in his books. It was no good.”
+
+“That door is supposed to be locked at night. Zadok says that’s his
+duty. Was it locked that night?”
+
+“Can’t say. Perhaps the coroner can. You see the inquiry ran in such a
+different direction, at first, that a small matter like that may have
+been overlooked.”
+
+Sweetwater subdued the natural retort, and, reverting to the subject of
+the saloons, got some specific information in regard to them. Then he
+passed thoughtfully down-stairs, only to come upon Helen who was just
+extinguishing the front-hall light.
+
+“Good night!” he said, in passing.
+
+“Good night, Mr. Sweetwater.”
+
+There was something in her tone which made him stop and look back. She
+had stepped into the library and was blowing out the lamp there. He
+paused a moment and sighed softly. Then he started towards the door,
+only to stop again and cast another look back. She was standing in one
+of the doorways, anxiously watching him and twisting her fingers in and
+out in an irresolute way truly significant in one of her disposition.
+
+He felt his heart leap.
+
+Returning softly, he took up his stand before her, looking her straight
+in the eye.
+
+“Good night,” he repeated, with an odd emphasis.
+
+“Good night,” she answered, with equal force and meaning.
+
+But the next moment she was speaking rapidly, earnestly.
+
+“I can’t sleep,” said she. “I never can when I’m not certain of my
+duty. Mr. Ranelagh is an injured man. Ask what was said and done at
+their last dinner here. I can’t tell you. I didn’t listen and I didn’t
+see what happened, but it was something out of the ordinary. Three
+broken wineglasses lay on the tablecloth when I went in to clear away.
+I heard the clatter when they fell and smashed, but I said nothing. I
+have said nothing since; but I know there was a quarrel, and that Mr.
+Ranelagh was not in it, for his glass was the only one which remained
+unbroken. Am I wrong in telling you? I wouldn’t if--if it were not
+for Mr. Ranelagh. He didn’t do right by Miss Cumberland, but he don’t
+deserve to be in prison; and so would Miss Carmel tell you if she knew
+what was going on and could speak. _She_ loved him and--I’ve said
+enough; I’ve said enough,” the agitated girl protested, as he leaned
+eagerly towards her. “I couldn’t tell the priest any more. Good night.”
+
+And she was gone.
+
+He hesitated a moment, then pursued his way to the side door, and so
+out of the house into the street. As he passed along the front of the
+now darkened building, he scanned it with a new interest and a new
+doubt. Soon he returned to his old habit of muttering to himself. “We
+don’t know the half of what has taken place within those walls during
+the last four weeks,” said he. “But one thing I will solve, and that is
+where this miserable fellow spent the hours between this dinner they
+speak of and the time of his return next day. Hexford has failed at it.
+Now we’ll see what a blooming stranger can do.”
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+62 CUTHBERT ROAD
+
+Tush! I will stir about,
+And all things will be well, I warrant thee.
+
+_Romeo and Juliet_.
+
+
+He was walking south and on the best lighted and most beautiful street
+in town, but his eyes were forever seeking a break in the long line of
+fence which marked off the grounds of a seemingly interminable stretch
+of neighbouring mansions, and when a corner was at last reached, he
+dashed around it and took a straight course for Huested Street, down
+which he passed with quickened steps and an air of growing assurance.
+
+He was soon at the bottom of the hill where the street, taking a turn,
+plunged him at once into a thickly populated district. As this was
+still the residence quarter, he passed on until he gained the heart
+of the town and the region of the saloons. Here he slackened pace and
+consulted a memorandum he had made while talking to Hexford. “A big
+job,” was his comment, sorry to find the hour quite so late. “But I’m
+not bound to finish it to-night. A start is all I can hope for, so here
+goes.”
+
+It was not his intention to revisit the places so thoroughly overhauled
+by the police. He carried another list, that of certain small groceries
+and quiet unobtrusive hotels where a man could find a private room
+in which to drink alone; it being Sweetwater’s conviction that in
+such a place, and in such a place only, would be found the tokens of
+those solitary hours spent by Arthur Cumberland between the time of
+his sister’s murder and his reappearance the next day. “Had they been
+spent in his old haunts or in any of the well-known drinking saloons
+of the city, some one would have peached on him before this,” he went
+on, in silent argument with himself. “He’s too well known, too much of
+a swell for all his lowering aspect and hang-dog look, to stroll along
+unnoticed through any of the principal streets, so soon after the news
+of his sister’s murder had set the whole town agog. Yet he was not seen
+till he struck Garden Street, a good quarter of a mile from his usual
+resorts.”
+
+Here, Sweetwater glanced up at the corner gas-lamp beneath which
+he stood, and seeing that he was in Garden Street, tried to locate
+himself in the exact spot where this young man had first been seen on
+the notable morning in question. Then he looked carefully about him.
+Nothing in the street or its immediate neighbourhood suggested the low
+and secret den he was in search of.
+
+“I shall have to make use of the list,” he decided, and asked the first
+passer-by the way to Hubbell’s Alley.
+
+It was a mile off. “That settles it,” muttered Sweetwater. “Besides, I
+doubt if he would go into an _alley_. The man has sunk low, but hardly
+so low as that. What’s the next address I have? Cuthbert Road. Where’s
+that?”
+
+Espying a policeman eyeing him with more or less curiosity from the
+other side of the street, he crossed over and requested to be directed
+to Cuthbert Road.
+
+“Cuthbert Road! That’s where the markets are. They’re closed at this
+time of night,” was the somewhat suspicious reply.
+
+Evidently the location was not a savoury one.
+
+“Are there nothing but markets there?” inquired Sweetwater, innocently.
+It was his present desire not to be recognised as a detective even by
+the men on beat. “I’m looking up a friend. He keeps a grocery or some
+kind of small hotel. I have his number, but I don’t know how to get to
+Cuthbert Road.”
+
+“Then turn straight about and go down the first street, and you’ll
+reach it before the trolley-car you see up there can strike this
+corner. But first, sew up your pockets. There’s a bad block between you
+and the markets.”
+
+Sweetwater slapped his trousers and laughed.
+
+“I wasn’t born yesterday,” he cried; and following the officer’s
+directions, made straight for the Road. “Worse than the alley,” he
+muttered; “but too near to be slighted. I wonder if I shouldn’t have
+borrowed somebody’s old coat.”
+
+It had been wiser, certainly. In Garden Street all the houses had been
+closed and dark, but here they were open and often brightly lighted and
+noisy from cellar to roof. Men, women, and frequently children, jostled
+him on the pavement, and he felt his pockets touched more than once.
+But he wasn’t Caleb Sweetwater of the New York department of police
+for nothing. He laughed, bantered, fought his way through and finally
+reached the quieter region and, at this hour, the almost deserted
+one, of the markets. Sixty-two was not far off, and, pausing a moment
+to consider his course, he mechanically took in the surroundings. He
+was surprised to find himself almost in the open country. The houses
+extending on his left were fronted by the booths and stalls of the
+market but beyond these were the fields. Interested in this discovery,
+and anxious to locate himself exactly, he took his stand under a
+favouring gas-lamp, and took out his map.
+
+What he saw, sent him forward in haste. Shops had now taken the place
+of tenements, and as these were mostly closed, there were very few
+persons on the block, and those were quiet and unobtrusive. He reached
+a corner before coming to 62 and was still more interested to perceive
+that the street which branched off thus immediately from the markets
+was a wide and busy one, offering both a safe and easy approach to
+dealer and customer. “I’m on the track,” he whispered almost aloud in
+his secret self-congratulation. “Sixty-two will prove a decent quiet
+resort which I may not be above patronising myself.”
+
+But he hesitated when he reached it. Some houses invite and some repel.
+This house repelled. Yet there was nothing shabby or mysterious about
+it. There was the decent entrance, lighted, but not too brilliantly; a
+row of dark windows over it; and, above it all, a sloping roof in which
+another sparkle of light drew his attention to an upper row of windows,
+this time, of the old dormer shape. An alley ran down one side of the
+house to the stables, now locked but later to be thrown open for the
+use of the farmers who begin to gather here as early as four o’clock.
+Nothing wrong in its appearance, everything ship-shape and yet--“I
+shall find some strange characters here,” was the Sweetwater comment
+with which our detective opened the door and walked into the house.
+
+It was an unusual hour for guests, and the woman whom he saw bending
+over a sort of desk in one corner of the room he strode into, looked up
+hastily, almost suspiciously.
+
+“Well, and what is your business?” she asked, with her eye on his
+clothes, which while not fashionable, were evidently of the sort not
+often seen in that place.
+
+“I want a room,” he tipsily confided to her, “in which I can drink and
+drink till I cannot see. I’m in trouble I am; but I don’t want to do
+any mischief; I only want to forget. I’ve money, and--” as he saw her
+mouth open, “and I’ve the stuff. Whiskey, just whiskey. Give me a room.
+I’ll be quiet.”
+
+“I’ll give you nothing.” She was hot, angry, and full of distrust.
+“This house is not for such as you. It’s a farmer’s lodging; honest
+men, who’d stare and go mad to see a feller like you about. Go along, I
+tell you, or I’ll call Jim. He’ll know what to do with you.”
+
+“Then, he’ll know mor’n I do myself,” mumbled the detective, with a
+crushed and discouraged air. “Money and not a place to spend it in! Why
+can’t I go in there?” he peevishly inquired with a tremulous gesture
+towards a half-open door through which a glimpse could be got of a neat
+little snuggery. “Nobody’ll see me. Give me a glass and leave me till I
+rap for you in the morning. That’s worth a fiver. Don’t you think so,
+missus?--And we’ll begin by passing over the fiver.”
+
+“No.”
+
+She was mighty peremptory and what was more, she was in a great hurry
+to get rid of him. This haste and the anxious ear she turned towards
+the hall enlightened him as to the situation. There was some one within
+hearing or liable to come within hearing, who possibly was not so stiff
+under temptation. Could it be her husband? If so, it might be worth his
+own while to await the good man’s coming, if only he could manage to
+hold his own for the next few minutes.
+
+Changing his tactics, he turned his back on the snuggery and surveyed
+the offended woman, with just a touch of maudlin sentiment.
+
+“I say,” he cried, just loud enough to attract the attention of any one
+within ear-shot. “You’re a mighty fine woman and the boss of this here
+establishment; that’s evident. I’d like to see the man who could say
+no to you. He’s never sat in that ’ere cashier’s seat where you be; of
+that I’m dead sure. He wouldn’t care for fivers if you didn’t, nor for
+tens either.”
+
+She was really a fine woman for her station, and a buxom, powerful one,
+too. But her glance wavered under these words and she showed a desire,
+with difficulty suppressed, to use the strength of her white but brawny
+arms, in shoving him out of the house. To aid her self-control, he, on
+his part, began to edge towards the door, always eyeing her and always
+speaking loudly in admirably acted tipsy unconsciousness of the fact.
+
+“I’m a man who likes my own way as well as anybody,” were the words
+with which he sought to save the situation, and further his own
+purposes. “But I never quarrel with a woman. Her whims are sacred to
+me. I may not believe in them; they may cost me money and comfort; but
+I yield, I do, when they are as strong in their wishes as you be. I’m
+going, missus --I’m going--Oh!”
+
+The exclamation burst from him. He could not help it. The door behind
+him had opened, and a man stepped in, causing him so much astonishment
+that he forgot himself. The woman was big, bigger than most women who
+rule the roost and do the work in haunts where work calls for muscle
+and a good head behind it. She was also rosy and of a make to draw the
+eye, if not the heart. But the man who now entered was small almost to
+the point of being a manikin, and more than that, he was weazen of face
+and ill-balanced on his two tiny, ridiculous legs. Yet she trembled
+at his presence, and turned a shade paler as she uttered the feeble
+protest:
+
+“Jim!”
+
+“Is she making a fool of herself?” asked the little man in a voice as
+shrill as it was weak. “Do your business with me. Women are no good.”
+And he stalked into the room as only little men can.
+
+Sweetwater took out his ten; pointed to the snuggery, and tapped his
+breast-pocket. “Whiskey here,” he confided. “Bring me a glass. I don’t
+mind your farmers. They won’t bother me. What I want is a locked door
+and a still mouth in your head.”
+
+The last he whispered in the husband’s ear as the wife crossed
+reluctantly back to her books.
+
+The man turned the bill he had received, over and over in his hand;
+then scrutinised Sweetwater, with his first show of hesitation.
+
+“You don’t want to kill yourself?” he asked.
+
+Sweetwater laughed with a show of good humour that appeared to relieve
+the woman, if it did not the man.
+
+“Oh, that’s it,” he cried. “That’s what the missus was afraid of, was
+it? Well, I vow! And ten thousand dollars to my credit in the bank!
+No, I don’t want to kill myself. I just want to booze to my heart’s
+content, with nobody by to count the glasses. You’ve known such fellers
+before, and that cosey, little room over there has known them, too.
+Just add me to the list; it won’t harm you.”
+
+The man’s hand closed on the bill. Sweetwater noted the action out of
+the corner of his eye, but his direct glance was on the woman. Her back
+was to him, but she had started as he mentioned the snuggery and made
+as if to turn; but thought better of it, and bent lower over her books.
+
+“I’ve struck the spot,” he murmured, exultantly to himself. “This is
+the place I want and here I’ll spend the night; but not to booze my
+wits away, oh, no.”
+
+Nevertheless it was a night virtually wasted. He learned nothing more
+than what was revealed by that one slight movement on the part of the
+woman.
+
+Though the man came in and sat with him for an hour, and they drank
+together out of the flask Sweetwater had brought with him, he was as
+impervious to all Sweetwater’s wiles and as blind to every bait he
+threw out, as any man the young detective had ever had to do with.
+When the door closed on him, and Sweetwater was left to sit out the
+tedious night alone, it was with small satisfaction to himself, and
+some regret for his sacrificed bill. The driving in of the farmers and
+the awakening of life in the market, and all the stir it occasioned
+inside the house and out, prevented sleep even if he had been inclined
+that way. He had to swallow his pill, and he did it with the best
+grace possible. Sooner than was expected of him, sooner than was wise,
+perhaps, he was on his feet and peering out of the one small window
+this most dismal day room contained. He had not mistaken the outlook.
+It gave on to the alley, and all that was visible from behind the
+curtains where he stood, was the high brick wall of the neighbouring
+house. This wall had not even a window in it; which in itself was a
+disappointment to one of his resources. He turned back into the room,
+disgusted; then crept to the window again, and, softly raising the
+sash, cast one of his lightning glances up and down the alley. Then he
+softly let the sash fall again and retreated to the centre of the room,
+where he stood for a moment with a growing smile of intelligence and
+hope on his face. He had detected close against the side of the wall,
+a box or hand-cart full of empty bottles. It gave him an idea. With an
+impetuosity he would have criticised in another man, he flung himself
+out of the room in which he had been for so many hours confined, and
+coming face to face with the landlady standing in unexpected watch
+before the door, found it a strain on his nerves to instantly assume
+the sullen, vaguely abused air with which he had decided to leave the
+house. Nevertheless, he made the attempt, and if he did not succeed to
+his own satisfaction, he evidently did to hers, for she made no effort
+to stop him as he stumbled out, and in her final look, which he managed
+with some address to intercept, he perceived nothing but relief. What
+had been in her mind? Fear for him or fear for themselves? He could
+not decide until he had rummaged that cart of bottles. But how was he
+to do this without attracting attention to himself in a way he still
+felt, to be undesirable. In his indecision, he paused on the sidewalk
+and let his glances wander vaguely over the busy scene before him.
+Before be knew it, his eye had left the market and travelled across
+the snow-covered fields to a building standing by itself in the far
+distance. Its appearance was not unfamiliar. Seizing hold of the first
+man who passed him, he pointed it out, crying:
+
+“What building is that?”
+
+“That? That’s The Whispering Pines, the country club-house, where--”
+
+He didn’t wait for the end of the sentence, but plunged into the
+thickest group of people he could find, with a determination greater
+than ever to turn those bottles over before he ate.
+
+His manner of going about this was characteristic. Lounging about
+the stalls until he found just the sort of old codger he wanted, he
+scraped up an acquaintance with him on the spot, and succeeded in
+making himself so agreeable that when the old fellow sauntered back to
+the stables to take a look at his horse, Sweetwater accompanied him.
+Hanging round the stable-door, he kept up his chatter, while sizing up
+the bottles heaped in the cart at his side. He even allowed himself to
+touch one or two in an absent way, and was meditating an accidental
+upset of the whole collection when a woman he had not seen before,
+thrust her head out of a rear window, shouting sharply:
+
+“Leave those bottles alone. They’re waiting for the old clothes man. He
+pays us money for them.”
+
+Sweetwater gaped and strolled away. He had used his eyes to purpose,
+and was quite assured that the bottle he wanted was not there. But
+the woman’s words had given him his cue, and when later in the day a
+certain old Jew peddler went his rounds through this portion of the
+city, a disreputable-looking fellow accompanied him, whom even the
+sharp landlady in Cuthbert Road would have failed to recognise as the
+same man who had occupied the snuggery the night before. He was many
+hours on the route and had many new experiences with human nature. But
+he gained little else, and was considering with what words he should
+acknowledge his defeat at police headquarters, when he found himself
+again at the markets and a minute later in the alley where the cart
+stood, with the contents of which he had busied himself earlier in the
+day.
+
+He had followed the peddler here because he had followed him to every
+other back door and alley. But he was tired and had small interest
+in the cart which looked quite undisturbed and in exactly the same
+condition as when he turned his back upon it in the morning. But when
+he drew nearer and began to lend a hand in removing the bottles to the
+waggon, he discovered that a bottle had been added to the pile, and
+that this bottle bore the label which marked it as being one of the two
+which had been taken from the club-house on the night of the murder.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+“MUST I TELL THESE THINGS?”
+
+Had I but died an hour before this chance,
+I had liv’d a blessed time; for from this instant,
+There’s nothing serious in mortality:
+All is but toys; renown, and grace is dead;
+The wine of life is drawn, and the lees
+Is left this vault to brag of.
+
+_Macbeth_.
+
+
+The lamp in the coroner’s room shone dully on the perturbed faces of
+three anxious men. They had been talking earnestly and long, but were
+now impatiently awaiting the appearance of a fourth party, as was shown
+by the glances which each threw from time to time towards the door
+leading into the main corridor.
+
+The district attorney courted the light, and sat where he would be the
+first seen by any one entering. He had nothing to hide, being entirely
+engrossed in his duty.
+
+Further back and rather behind the lamp than in front of it stood
+or sat, as his restlessness prompted, Coroner Perry, the old friend
+of Amasa Cumberland, with whose son he had now to do. Behind him,
+and still further in the shadow, could be seen the quiet figure of
+Sweetwater. All counted the minutes and all showed relief--the coroner
+by a loud sigh--when the door finally opened and an officer appeared,
+followed by the lounging form of Adelaide’s brother.
+
+Arthur Cumberland had come unwillingly, and his dissatisfaction did
+not improve his naturally heavy countenance. However, he brightened a
+little at sight of the two men sitting at the table, and, advancing,
+broke into speech before either of the two officials had planned their
+questions.
+
+“I call this hard,” he burst forth. “My place is at home and at the
+bedside of my suffering sister, and you drag me down here at nine
+o’clock at night to answer questions about things of which I am
+completely ignorant. I’ve said all I have to say about the trouble
+which has come into my family; but if another repetition of the same
+things will help to convict that scoundrel who has broken up my home
+and made me the wretchedest dog alive, then I’m ready to talk. So, fire
+ahead, Dr. Perry, and let’s be done with it.”
+
+“Sit down,” replied the district attorney, gravely, with a gesture
+of dismissal to the officer. “Mr. Cumberland, we have spared you up
+to this time, for two very good reasons. You were in great trouble,
+and you appeared to be in the possession of no testimony which
+would materially help us. But matters have changed since you held
+conversation with Dr. Perry on the day following your sister’s decease.
+You have laid that sister away; the will which makes you an independent
+man for life has been read in your hearing; you are in as much ease of
+mind as you can be while your remaining sister’s life hangs trembling
+in the balance; and, more important still, discoveries not made before
+the funeral, have been made since, rendering it very desirable for
+you to enter into particulars at this present moment, which were not
+thought necessary then.”
+
+“Particulars? What particulars? Don’t you know enough, as it is, to
+hang the fellow? Wasn’t he seen with his fingers on Adelaide’s throat?
+What can I tell you that is any more damaging than that? Particulars!”
+The word seemed to irritate him beyond endurance. Never had he looked
+more unprepossessing or a less likely subject for sympathy, than when
+he stumbled into the chair set for him by the district attorney.
+
+“Arthur!”
+
+The word had a subtle ring. The coroner, who uttered it, waited to
+watch its effect. Seemingly it had none, after the first sullen glance
+thrown him by the young man; and the coroner sighed again, but this
+time softly, and as a prelude to the following speech:
+
+“We can understand,” said he, “why you should feel so strongly against
+one who has divided the hearts of your sisters, and played with one,
+if not with both. Few men could feel differently. You have reason for
+your enmity and we excuse it; but you must not carry it to the point
+of open denunciation before the full evidence is in and the fact of
+murder settled beyond all dispute. Whatever you may think, whatever we
+may think, it has not been so settled. There are missing links still to
+be supplied, and this is why we have summoned you here and ask you to
+be patient and give the district attorney a little clearer account of
+what went on in your own house, before you broke up that evening and
+you went to your debauch, and your sister Adelaide to her death at The
+Whispering Pines.”
+
+“I don’t know what you mean.” He brought his fist down on the table
+with each word. “Nothing went on. That is,--”
+
+“Something went on at dinner-time. It was not a usual meal,” put in the
+district attorney. “You and your sisters--”
+
+“Stop!” He was at that point of passion which dulls the most
+self-controlled to all sense of propriety.
+
+“Don’t talk to me about that dinner. I want to forget that dinner. I
+want to forget everything but the two things I live for--to see that
+fellow hanged, and to--” The words choked him, and he let his head
+fall, but presently threw it up again. “That dastard, whom may God
+confound, passed a letter across Adelaide into Carmel’s hand,” he
+panted out. “I saw him, but I didn’t take it in; I wasn’t thinking. I
+was--”
+
+“Who broke the glasses?” urged his relentless inquisitor. “One at your
+plate, one at Carmel’s, and one at the head of the board where sat your
+sister Adelaide?”
+
+“God! Must I tell these things?” He had started to his feet and his
+hand, violent in all it did, struck his forehead impulsively, as he
+uttered this exclamation. “Have it, then! Heaven knows I think of it
+enough not to be afraid to speak it out in words. Adelaide”--the name
+came with passion, but once uttered, produced its own calming effect,
+so that he went on with more restraint--“Adelaide never had much
+patience with me. She was a girl who only saw one way. ‘The right! the
+right!’ was what she dinned into my ears from the time I was a small
+boy and didn’t know but that all youngsters were brought up by sisters.
+I grew to hate what she called ‘the right,’ I wanted pleasure, a free
+time, and a good drink whenever the fancy took me. You know what I
+am, Dr. Perry, and everybody in town knows; but the impulse which has
+always ruled me was not a downright evil one; or if it was, I called
+it natural independence, and let it go at that. But Adelaide suffered.
+I didn’t understand it and I didn’t care a fig for it, but she _did_
+suffer. God forgive me!”
+
+He stopped and mopped his forehead. Sweetwater moved a trifle on his
+seat, but the others--men who had passed the meridian of life, who
+had known temptations, possibly had succumbed to them, from time to
+time--sat like two statues, one in full light and the other in as dark
+a shadow as he could find.
+
+“That afternoon,” young Cumberland presently resumed, “she was keyed up
+more than usual. She loved Ranelagh,--damn him!--and he had played or
+was playing her false. She watched him with eyes that madden me, now,
+when I think of them. She saw him look at Carmel, and she saw Carmel
+look at him. Then her eyes fell on me. I was angry; angry at them all,
+and I wanted a drink. It was not her habit to have wine on the table;
+but sometimes, when Ranelagh was there, she did. She was a slave to
+Ranelagh, and he could make her do whatever he wished, just as he can
+make you and everybody else.”
+
+Here he shot insolent glances at his two interlocutors, one of whom
+changed colour--which, happily, he did not see. “‘Ring the bell,’ I
+ordered, ‘and have in the champagne. I want to drink to your marriage
+and the happy days in prospect for us all,’ It was brutal and I
+knew it; but I was reckless and wild for the wine. So, I guess, was
+Ranelagh, for he smiled at her, and she rang for the champagne. When
+the glasses had been set beside each plate, she turned towards Carmel.
+‘We will all drink,’ she said, ‘to my coming marriage,’ This made
+Carmel turn pale; for Adelaide had never been known to drink a drop
+of liquor in her life. I felt a little queer, myself; and not one
+of us spoke till the glasses were filled and the maid had left the
+dining-room and shut the door.
+
+“Then Adelaide rose. ‘We will drink standing,’ said she, and never
+had I seen her look as she did then. I thought of my evil life
+when I should have been watching Ranelagh; and when she lifted the
+glass to her lips and looked at me, almost as earnestly as she did
+at Ranelagh,--but it was a different kind of earnestness,--I felt
+like--like--well, like the wretch I was and always had been; possibly,
+always will be. She drank;--we wouldn’t call it drinking, for she just
+touched the wine with her lips; but to her it was debauch. Then she
+stood waiting, with the strangest gleam in her eyes, while Ranelagh
+drained his glass and I drained mine. Ranelagh thought she wanted some
+sentiment, and started to say something appropriate; but his eye fell
+on Carmel, who had tried to drink and couldn’t, and he bungled over his
+words and at last came to a pause under the steady stare of Adelaide’s
+eyes.
+
+“‘Never mind, Elwood,’ she said; ‘I know what you would like to
+say. But that’s not what I am thinking of now. I am thinking of my
+brother, the boy who will soon be left to find his way through life
+without even the unwelcome restraint of my presence. I want him to
+remember this day. I want him to remember me as I stand here before
+him with this glass in my hand. You see wine in it, Arthur; but I see
+poison--poison--nothing else, for one like you who cannot refuse a
+friend, cannot refuse your own longing. Never from this day on shall
+another bottle be opened under my roof. Carmel, you have grieved as
+well as I over what has passed for pleasure in this house. Do as I do,
+and may Arthur see and remember.’
+
+“Her fingers opened; the glass fell from her hand, and lay in broken
+fragments beside her plate. Carmel followed suit, and, before I knew
+it, my own fingers had opened, and my own glass lay in pieces on the
+table-cloth beneath me. Only Ranelagh’s hand remained steady. He did
+not choose to please her, or he was planning his perfidy and had
+not caught her words or understood her action. She held her breath,
+watching that hand; and I can hear the gasp yet with which she saw him
+set his glass down quietly on the board. That’s the story of those
+three broken glasses. If she had not died that night, I should be
+laughing at them now; but she did die and I don’t laugh! I curse--curse
+her recreant lover, and sometimes myself! Do you want anything more of
+me? I’m eager to be gone, if you don’t.”
+
+The district attorney sought out and lifted a paper from the others
+lying on the desk before him. It was the first movement he had made
+since Cumberland began his tale.
+
+“I’m sorry,” said he, with a rapid examination of the paper in his
+hand, “but I shall have to detain you a few minutes longer. What
+happened after the dinner? Where did you go from the table?”
+
+“I went to my room to smoke. I was upset and thirsty as a fish.”
+
+“Have you liquor in your room?”
+
+“Sometimes.”
+
+“Did you have any that night?”
+
+“Not a drop. I didn’t dare. I wanted that champagne bottle, but
+Adelaide had been too quick for me. It was thrown out--wasted--I do
+believe, wasted.”
+
+“So you did not drink? You only smoked in your room?”
+
+“Smoked one cigar. That was all. Then I went down town.”
+
+His tone had grown sulky, the emotion which had buoyed him up till now,
+seemed suddenly to have left him. With it went the fire from his eye,
+the quiver from his lip, and it is necessary to add, everything else
+calculated to awaken sympathy. He was simply sullen now.
+
+“May I ask by which door you left the house?”
+
+“The side door--the one I always take.”
+
+“What overcoat did you wear?”
+
+“I don’t remember. The first one I came to, I suppose.”
+
+“But you can surely tell what hat?”
+
+They expected a violent reply, and they got it.
+
+“No, I can’t. What has my hat got to do with the guilt of Elwood
+Ranelagh?”
+
+“Nothing, we hope,” was the imperturbable answer. “But we find it
+necessary to establish absolutely just what overcoat and what hat you
+wore down street that night.”
+
+“I’ve told you that I don’t remember.” The young man’s colour was
+rising.
+
+“Are not these the ones?” queried the district attorney, making a sign
+to Sweetwater, who immediately stepped forward, with a shabby old
+ulster over his arm, and a battered derby in his hand.
+
+The young man started, rose, then sat again, shouting out with angry
+emphasis:
+
+“_No!_”
+
+“Yet you recognise these?”
+
+“Why shouldn’t I? They’re mine. Only I don’t wear them any more.
+They’re done for. You must have rooted them out from some closet.”
+
+“We did; perhaps you can tell us what closet.”
+
+“I? No. What do I know about my old clothes? I leave that to the women.”
+
+The slight faltering observable in the latter word conveyed nothing to
+these men.
+
+“Mr. Cumberland,”--the district attorney was very serious,--“this hat
+and this coat, old as they are, were worn into town from your house
+that night. This we know, absolutely. We can even trace them to the
+club-house.”
+
+Mechanically, not spontaneously this time, the young man rose to his
+feet, staring first at the man who had uttered these words, then at the
+garments which Sweetwater still held in view. No anger now; he was too
+deeply shaken for that, too shaken to answer at once--too shaken to be
+quite the master of his own faculties. But he rallied after an interval
+during which these three men devoured his face, each under his own
+special anxiety, and read there possibly what each least wanted to see.
+
+“I don’t know anything about it,” were the words with which Arthur
+Cumberland sought to escape from the net which had been thus deftly
+cast about him. “I didn’t wear the things. Anybody can tell you what
+clothes I came home in. Ranelagh may have borrowed--”
+
+“Ranelagh wore his own coat and hat. We will let the subject of apparel
+drop, and come to a topic on which you may be better qualified to
+speak. Mr. Cumberland, you have told us that you didn’t know at the
+time, and can’t remember now, where you spent that night and most of
+the next morning. All you can remember is that it was in some place
+where they let you drink all you wished and leave when the fancy
+took you, and not before. It was none of your usual haunts. This
+seemed strange to your friends, at the time; but it is easier for us
+to understand, now that you have told us what had occurred at your
+home-table. You dreaded to have your sister know how soon you could
+escape the influence of that moment. You wished to drink your fill and
+leave your family none the wiser. Am I not right?”
+
+“Yes; it’s plain enough, isn’t it? Why harp on that string? Don’t you
+see that it maddens me? Do you want to drive me to drink again?”
+
+The coroner interposed. He had been very willing to leave the burden of
+this painful inquiry to the man who had no personal feelings to contend
+with; but at this indignant cry he started forward, and, with an air of
+fatherly persuasion, remarked kindly:
+
+“You mustn’t mind the official tone, or the official persistence. There
+is reason for all that Mr. Fox says. Answer him frankly, and this
+inquiry will terminate speedily. We have no wish to harry you--only to
+get at the truth.”
+
+“The truth? I thought you had that pat enough. The truth? The truth
+about what? Ranelagh or me? I should think it was about me, from the
+kind of questions you ask.”
+
+“It is, just now,” resumed the district attorney, as his colleague drew
+back out of sight once more. “You cannot remember the saloon in which
+you drank. That’s possible enough; but perhaps you can remember what
+they gave you. Was it whiskey, rum, absinthe, or what?”
+
+The question took his irritable listener by surprise. Arthur gasped,
+and tried to steal some comfort from Coroner Perry’s eye. But that old
+friend’s face was too much in shadow, and the young man was forced to
+meet the district attorney’s eye, instead, and answer the district
+attorney’s question.
+
+“I drank--absinthe,” he cried, at last.
+
+“From this bottle?” queried the other, motioning again to Sweetwater,
+who now brought forward the bottle he had picked up in Cuthbert Road.
+
+Arthur Cumberland glanced at the bottle the detective held up, saw the
+label, saw the shape, and sank limply in his chair, his eyes starting,
+his jaw falling.
+
+“Where did you get that?” he asked, pulling himself together with a
+sudden desperate self-possession that caused Sweetwater to cast a
+quick significant glance at the coroner, as he withdrew to his corner,
+leaving the bottle on the table.
+
+“That,” answered the district attorney, “was picked up at a small hotel
+on Cuthbert Road, just back of the markets.”
+
+“I don’t know the place.”
+
+“It’s not far from The Whispering Pines. In fact, you can see the
+club-house from the front door of this hotel.”
+
+“I don’t know the place, I tell you.”
+
+“It’s not a high-class resort; not select enough by a long shot, to
+have this brand of liquor in its cellar. They tell me that this is of
+very choice quality. That very few private families, even, indulge in
+it. That there were only two bottles of it left in the club-house when
+the inventory was last taken, that those two bottles are now gone, and
+that--”
+
+“This is one of them? Is that what you want to say? Well, it may be for
+all I know. I didn’t carry it there. I didn’t have the drinking of it.”
+
+“We have seen the man and woman who keep that hotel. They will talk, if
+they have to.”
+
+“They will?” His dogged self-possession rather astonished them. “Well,
+that ought to please you. I’ve nothing to do with the matter.”
+
+A change had taken place in him. The irritability approaching to
+violence, which had attended every speech and infused itself into every
+movement since he came into the room, had left him. He spoke quietly,
+and with a touch of irony in his tone. He seemed more the man, but not
+a whit more prepossessing, and, if anything, less calculated to inspire
+confidence. The district attorney showed that he was baffled, and Dr.
+Perry moved uneasily in his seat, until Sweetwater, coming forward,
+took up the cue and spoke for the first time since young Cumberland
+entered the room.
+
+“Then I have no doubt but you will do us this favour,” he volunteered,
+in his pleasantest manner. “It’s not a long walk from here. Will you go
+there in my company, with your coat-collar pulled up and your hat well
+down over your eyes, and ask for a seat in the snuggery and show them
+this bottle? They won’t know that it’s empty. The man is sharp and the
+woman intelligent. They will see that you are a stranger, and admit you
+readily. They are only shy of one man--the man who drank there on the
+night of your sister’s murder.”
+
+“You ’re a--” he began, with a touch of his old violence; but
+realising, perhaps, that his fingers were in a trap, he modified his
+manner again, and continued more quietly. “This is an odd request
+to make. I begin to feel as if my word were doubted here; as if my
+failings and reckless confession of the beastly way in which I spent
+that night, were making you feel that I have no good in me and am at
+once a liar and a sneak. I’m not. I won’t go with you to that low
+drinking hell, unless you make me, but I’ll swear--”
+
+“Don’t swear.” It is unnecessary to say who spoke. “We wouldn’t believe
+you, and it would be only adding perjury to the rest.”
+
+“You wouldn’t believe me?”
+
+“No; we have reasons, my boy. There were two bottles.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“The other has been found nearer your home.”
+
+“That’s a trick. You’re all up to tricks--”
+
+“Not in this case, Arthur. Let me entreat you in memory of your father
+to be candid with us. We have arrested a man. He denies his guilt,
+but can produce no witnesses in support of his assertions. Yet such
+witnesses may exist. Indeed, we think that one such does exist. The man
+who took the bottles from the club-house’s wine-vault did so within a
+few minutes of the time when this crime was perpetrated on your sister.
+He should be able to give valuable testimony for or against Elwood
+Ranelagh. Now, you can see why we are in search of this witness and
+why we think you can serve us in this secret and extraordinary matter.
+If you can’t, say so; and we will desist from all further questions.
+But this will not help you. It will only show that, in our opinion,
+you have gained the rights of a man suspected of something more than
+shirking his duty as an unknown and hitherto unsuspected witness.”
+
+“This is awful!” Young Cumberland had risen to his feet and was swaying
+to and fro before them like a man struck between the eyes by some
+maddening blow.
+
+“God! if I had only died that night!” he muttered, with his eyes upon
+the floor and every muscle tense with the shock of this last calamity.
+“Dr. Perry,” he moaned suddenly, stretching out one hand in entreaty,
+and clutching at the table for support with the other, “let me go
+for to-night. Let me think. My brain is all in a whirl. I’ll try to
+answer to-morrow.” But even as he spoke he realised the futility of his
+request. His eye had fallen again on the bottle, and, in its shape and
+tell-tale label, he beheld a witness bound to testify against him if he
+kept silent himself.
+
+“Don’t answer,” he went on, holding fast to the table, but letting his
+other hand fall. “I was always a fool. I’m nothing but a fool now. I
+may as well own the truth, and be done with it. I was in the clubhouse.
+I did rob the wine-vault; I did carry off the bottles to have a quiet
+spree, and it was to some place on Cuthbert Road I went. But, when
+I’ve admitted so much, I’ve admitted all. I saw nothing of my sister’s
+murder; saw nothing of what went on in the rooms upstairs. I crept in
+by the open window at the top of the kitchen stairs, and I came out by
+the same. I only wanted the liquor, and when I got it, I slid out as
+quickly as I could, and made my way over the golf-links to the Road.”
+
+Wiping the sweat from his brow, he stood trembling. There was something
+in the silence surrounding him which seemed to go to his heart; for
+his free right hand rose unconsciously to his breast, and clung there.
+Sweetwater began to wish himself a million of miles away from this
+scene. This was not the enjoyable part of his work. This was the part
+from which he always shrunk with overpowering distaste.
+
+The district attorney’s voice sounded thin, almost piercing, as he made
+this remark:
+
+“You entered by an open window. Why didn’t you go in by the door?”
+
+“I hadn’t the key. I had only abstracted the one which opens the
+wine-vault. The rest I left on the ring. It was the sight of this key,
+lying on our hall-table, which first gave me the idea. I feel like a
+cad when I think of it, but that’s of no account now. All I really care
+about is for you to believe what I tell you. I wasn’t mixed up in that
+matter of my sister’s death. I didn’t know about it--I wish I had.
+Adelaide might have been saved; we might all have been saved; _but it
+was not to be._”
+
+Flushed, he slowly sank back into his seat. No complaint, now, of being
+in a hurry, or of his anxiety to regain his sick sister’s bedside.
+He seemed to have forgotten those fears in the perturbations of the
+moment. His mind and interest were here; everything else had grown dim
+with distance.
+
+“Did you try the front door?”
+
+“What was the use? I knew it to be locked.”
+
+“What was the use of trying the window? Wasn’t it also, presumably,
+locked?”
+
+The red mounted hot and feverish to his cheek.
+
+“You’ll think me no better than a street urchin or something worse,” he
+exclaimed. “I knew that window; I had been through it before. You can
+move that lock with your knife-blade. I had calculated on entering that
+way.”
+
+“Mr. Ranelagh’s story receives confirmation,” commented the district
+attorney, wheeling suddenly towards the coroner. “He says that he found
+this window unlocked, when he approached it with the idea of escaping
+that way.”
+
+Arthur Cumberland remained unmoved.
+
+The district attorney wheeled back.
+
+“There were a number of bottles taken from the wine-vault; some half
+dozen were left on the kitchen table. Why did you trouble yourself to
+carry up so many?”
+
+“Because my greed outran my convenience. I thought I could lug away an
+armful, but there are limits to one’s ability. I realised this when I
+remembered how far I had to go, and so left the greater part of them
+behind.”
+
+“Why, when you had a team ready to carry you?”
+
+“A--I had no team.” But the denial cost him something. His cheek lost
+its ruddiness, and took on a sickly white which did not leave it again
+as long as the interview lasted.
+
+“You had no team? How then did you manage to reach home in time to make
+your way back to Cuthbert Road by half-past eleven?”
+
+“I didn’t go home. I went straight across the golf-links. If fresh snow
+hadn’t fallen, you would have seen my tracks all the way to Cuthbert
+Road.”
+
+“If fresh snow had not fallen, we should have known the whole story of
+that night before an hour had passed. How did you carry those bottles?”
+
+“In my overcoat pockets. These pockets,” he blurted out, clapping his
+hands on either side of him.
+
+“Had it begun to snow when you left the clubhouse?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Was it dark?”
+
+“I guess not; the links were bright as day, or I shouldn’t have got
+over them as quickly as I did.”
+
+“Quickly? How quickly?” The district attorney stole a glance at the
+coroner, which made Sweetwater advance a step from his corner.
+
+“I don’t know. I don’t understand these questions,” was the sullen
+reply.
+
+“You walked quickly. Does that mean you didn’t look back?”
+
+“How, look back?”
+
+“Your sister lit a candle in the small room where her coat was found.
+This light should have been visible from the golf-links.”
+
+“I didn’t see any light.”
+
+He was almost rough in these answers. He was showing himself now at his
+very worst.
+
+A few more questions followed, but they were of minor import, and
+aroused less violent feeling. The serious portion of the examination,
+if thus it might be called, was over, and all parties showed the
+reaction which follows all unnatural restraint or subdued excitement.
+
+The coroner glanced meaningly at the district attorney, who, tapping
+with his fingers on the table, hesitated for a moment before he finally
+turned again upon Arthur Cumberland.
+
+“You wish to return to your sister? You are at liberty to do so; I will
+trouble you no more to-night. Your sleigh is at the door, I presume.”
+
+The young man nodded, then rising slowly, looked first at the district
+attorney, then at the coroner, with a glance of searching inquiry which
+did not escape the watchful eye of Sweetwater, lurking in the rear.
+There was no display of anger, scarcely of impatience, in him now. If
+he spoke, they did not hear him; and when he moved, it was heavily and
+with a drooping head. They watched him go, each as silent as he. The
+coroner tried to speak, but succeeded no better than the boy himself.
+When the door opened under his hand, they all showed relief, but were
+startled back into their former attention by his turning suddenly in
+the doorway with this final remark:
+
+“What did you say about a bottle with a special label on it being found
+at our house? It never was, or, if it was, some fellow has been playing
+you a trick. I carried off those two bottles myself. One you see there;
+the other is--I can’t tell where; but I didn’t take it home. That you
+can bet on.”
+
+One more look, followed by a heavy frown and a low growling sound in
+his throat--which may have been his way of saying good-bye--and he was
+gone.
+
+Sweetwater came forward and shut the door; then the three men drew more
+closely together, and the district attorney remarked:
+
+“He is better at the house. I hadn’t the heart on your account, Dr.
+Perry, to hurry matters faster than necessity compels. What a lout he
+is! Pardon me, but what a lout he is to have had two such uncommon and
+attractive sisters.”
+
+“And such a father,” interposed the coroner.
+
+“Just so--and such a father. Sweetwater? Hey! what’s the matter? You
+don’t look satisfied. Didn’t I cover the ground?”
+
+“Fully, sir, so far as I see now, but--”
+
+“Well, well--out with it.”
+
+“I don’t know what to out with. It’s all right but--I guess I’m a
+fool, or tired, or something. Can I do anything more for you? If not,
+I should like to hunt up a bunk. A night’s sleep will make a man of me
+again.”
+
+“Go then; that is, if Dr. Perry has no orders for you.”
+
+“None. I want my sleep, too.” But Dr. Perry had not the aspect of one
+who expects to get it.
+
+Sweetwater brightened. A few more words, some understanding as to the
+morrow, and he was gone. The district attorney and the coroner still
+sat, but very little passed between them. The clock overhead struck
+the hour; both looked up but neither moved. Another fifteen minutes,
+then the telephone rang. The coroner rose and lifted the receiver. The
+message could be heard by both gentlemen, in the extreme quiet of this
+midnight hour.
+
+“Dr. Perry?”
+
+“Yes, I’m listening.”
+
+“He came in at a quarter to twelve, greatly agitated and very white.
+I ran upon him in the lower hall, and he looked angry enough to knock
+me down; but he simply let out a curse and passed straight up to his
+sister’s room. I waited till he came out; then I managed to get hold of
+the nurse and she told me this queer tale:
+
+“He was all in a tremble when he came in, but she declares he had not
+been drinking. He went immediately to the bedside; but his sister was
+asleep, and he didn’t stay there, but went over where the nurse was,
+and began to hang about her till suddenly she felt a twitch at her side
+and, looking quickly, saw the little book she carries there, falling
+back into place. He had lifted it, and probably read what she had
+written in it during his absence.
+
+“She was displeased, but he laughed when he saw that he had been caught
+and said boldly: ‘You are keeping a record of my sister’s ravings.
+Well, I think I’m as interested in them as you are, and have as much
+right to read as you to write. Thank God! they are innocent enough.
+Even you must acknowledge that,’ She made no answer, for they were
+innocent enough; but she’ll keep the book away from him after this--of
+that you may be sure.”
+
+“And what is he doing now? Is he going into his own room to-night?”
+
+“No. He went there but only to bring out his pillows. He will sleep in
+the alcove.”
+
+“Drink?”
+
+“No, not a drop. He has ordered the whiskey locked up. I hear him
+moaning sometimes to himself as if he missed it awfully, but not a
+thimbleful has left the decanter.”
+
+“Goodnight, Hexford.”
+
+“Good night.”
+
+“You heard?” This to the district attorney.
+
+“Every word.”
+
+Both went for their overcoats. Only on leaving did they speak again,
+and then it was to say:
+
+“At ten o’clock to-morrow morning.”
+
+“At ten o’clock.”
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+ON IT WAS WRITTEN--
+
+Can this avail thee? Look to it!
+
+_Prometheus Bound_.
+
+
+The district attorney was right; Sweetwater was not happy. His night’s
+rest had not benefited him. He had seemed natural enough when he first
+appeared at the coroner’s office in the early morning, and equally
+natural all through the lengthy conference which followed; but a half
+hour later, any one who knew him well,--any of his fellow detectives in
+New York; especially Mr. Gryce, who had almost fathered him since he
+came among them, a raw and inexperienced recruit--would have seen at
+first glance that his spirits were no longer at par, and that the cheer
+he displayed in manner and look was entirely assumed, and likely to
+disappear as soon as he found himself alone.
+
+And it did so disappear. When, at two o’clock, he entered the
+club-house grounds, it was without buoyancy or any of the natural
+animation with which he usually went about his work. Each step seemed
+weighted with thought, or, at least, heavy with inner dissatisfaction.
+But his eye was as keen as ever, and he began to use that eye from the
+moment he passed the gates. What was in his mind? Was he hunting for
+new clews, or was he merely seeking to establish the old?
+
+The officers on guard knew him, by this time, and let him pass hither,
+thither, and where he would, unmolested. He walked up and down the
+driveways, peering continuously at the well-trodden snow. He studied
+the spaces between. He sauntered to the rear, and looked out over the
+golf-links. Then he began to study the ground in this direction, as he
+had already studied it in front. The few mutterings which left his lips
+continued to speak of discontent. “If I had only had Clarke’s chance,
+or even Hexford’s,” was among his complaints. “But what can I hope now?
+The snow has been trampled till it is one solid cake of ice, to the
+very edge of the golf-links. Beyond that, the distance is too great
+for minute inspection. Yet it will have to be gone over, inch by inch,
+before I shall feel satisfied. I must know how much of his story is to
+be believed, and how much of it we can safely set aside.”
+
+He ended by wandering down on the golf-links. Taking out his watch, he
+satisfied himself that he had time for an experiment, and immediately
+started for Cuthbert Road. An hour later, he came wandering back, on a
+different line. He looked soured, disappointed. When near the building
+again, he cast his eye over its rear, and gazed long and earnestly at
+the window which had been pointed out to him as the one from which
+a possible light had shone forth that night. There were no trees on
+this side of the house--only vines. But the vines were bare of leaves
+and offered no obstruction to his view. “If there had been a light
+in that window, any one leaving this house by the rear would have
+seen it, unless he had been drunk or a fool,” muttered Sweetwater, in
+contemptuous comment to himself. “Arthur Cumberland’s story is one lie.
+I’ll take the district attorney’s suggestion and return to New York
+to-night. My work’s done here.”
+
+Yet he hung about the links for a long time, and finally ended by
+entering the house, and taking up his stand beneath the long, narrow
+window of the closet overlooking the golf-links. With chin resting on
+his arms, he stared out over the sill and sought from the space before
+him, and from the intricacies of his own mind, the hint he lacked
+to make this present solution of the case satisfactory to all his
+instincts.
+
+“Something is lacking.” Thus he blurted out after a look behind him
+into the adjoining room of death. “I can’t say what; nor can I explain
+my own unrest, or my disinclination to leave this spot. The district
+attorney is satisfied, and so, I’m afraid is the coroner; but I’m not,
+and I feel as guilty--”
+
+Here he threw open the window for air, and, thrusting his head out,
+glanced over the links, then aside at the pines, showing beyond the
+line of the house on the southern end, and then out of mere idleness,
+down at the ground beneath him. “As guilty,” he went on, “as Ranelagh
+appears to be, and some one really is. I--”
+
+Starting, he leaned farther out. What was that he saw in the vines--not
+on the snow of the ground, but half way up in the tangle of small
+branches clinging close to the stone of the lower story, just beneath
+this window? He would see. Something that glistened, something that
+could only have got there by falling from this window. Could he reach
+it? No; he would have to climb up from below to do that. Well, that
+was easy enough. With the thought, he rushed from the room. In another
+minute he was beneath that window; had climbed, pulled, pushed his way
+up; had found the little pocket of netted vines observable from above;
+had thrust in his fingers and worked a small object out; had looked
+at it, uttered an exclamation curious in its mixture of suppressed
+emotions, and let himself down again into the midst of the two or three
+men who had scented the adventure and hastened to be witnesses of its
+outcome.
+
+“A phial!” he exclaimed, “An empty phial, but--” Holding the little
+bottle up between his thumb and forefinger, he turned it slowly about
+until the label faced them.
+
+On it was written one word, but it was a word which invariably carries
+alarm with it.
+
+That word was: _Poison_.
+
+Sweetwater did not return to New York that night.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+“IT’S NOT WHAT YOU WILL FIND”
+
+I am not mad;--I would to heaven I were!
+For then, ’tis like I should forget myself:
+O, if I could, what grief should I forget!--
+Preach some philosophy to make me mad,
+For being not mad, but sensible of grief,
+My reasonable part produces reason
+How I may be delivered of these woes.
+
+_King John_.
+
+
+“I regret to disturb you, Arthur; but my business is of great
+importance, and should be made known to you at once. This I say as a
+friend. I might have waited for the report to have reached you from
+hearsay, or through the evening papers; but I preferred to be the one
+to tell you. You can understand why.”
+
+Sullen and unmollified, the young man thus addressed eyed,
+apprehensively, his father’s old friend, placed so unfortunately in his
+regard, and morosely exclaimed:
+
+“Out with it! I’m a poor hand at guessing. What has happened now?”
+
+“A discovery. A somewhat serious one I fear; at least, it will force
+the police to new action. Your sister may not have died entirely from
+strangulation; other causes may have been at work!”
+
+“Now, what do you mean by that?” Arthur Cumberland was under his own
+roof and in presence of one who should have inspired his respect; but
+he made no effort to hide the fury which these words called up. “I
+should like to know what deviltry is in your minds now. Am I never to
+have peace?”
+
+“Peace and tragedy do not often run together,” came in the mild tones
+of his would-be friend. “A great crime has taken place. All the members
+of this family are involved--to say nothing of the man who lies, now,
+under the odium of suspicion, in our common county jail. Peace can only
+come with the complete clearing up of this crime, and the punishment
+of the guilty. But the clearing up must antedate the punishment.
+Mr. Ranelagh’s assertion that he found Miss Cumberland dead when he
+approached her, may not be, as so many now believe, the reckless denial
+of a criminal, disturbed in his act. It may have had a basis in fact.”
+
+“I don’t believe it. Nothing will make me believe it,” stormed the
+other, jumping up, and wildly pacing the drawing-room floor. “It is all
+a scheme for saving the most popular man in society. Society! That for
+society!” he shouted out, snapping his fingers. “He is president of the
+club; the pet of women; the admired of all the dolts and gawks who are
+taken with his style, his easy laughter, and his knack at getting at
+men’s hearts. He won’t laugh so easily when he’s up before a jury for
+murder; and he’ll never again fool women or bulldoze men, even if they
+are weak enough to acquit him of this crime. Enough of the smirch will
+stick to prevent that. If it doesn’t, I’ll--”
+
+Again his hands went out in the horribly suggestive way they had done
+at his sister’s funeral. The coroner sat appalled,--confused, almost
+distracted between his doubts, his convictions, his sympathy for the
+man and his recoil from the passions he would be only too ready to
+pardon if he could feel quite sure of their real root and motive.
+Cumberland may have felt the other’s silence, or he may have realised
+the imprudence of his own fury; for he dropped his hands with an
+impatient sigh, and blurted out:
+
+“But you haven’t told me your discovery. It seems to me it is a little
+late to make discoveries now.”
+
+“This was brought about by the persistence of Sweetwater. He seems
+to have an instinct for things. He was leaning out of the window at
+the rear of the clubhouse--the window of that small room where your
+sister’s coat was found--and he saw, caught in the vines beneath, a--”
+
+“Why don’t you speak out? I cannot tell what he found unless you name
+it.”
+
+“A little bottle--an apothecary’s phial. It was labelled ‘Poison,’ and
+it came from this house.”
+
+Arthur Cumberland reeled; then he caught himself up and stood, staring,
+with a very obvious intent of getting a grip on himself before he spoke.
+
+The coroner waited, a slight flush deepening on his cheek.
+
+“How do you know that phial came from this house?”
+
+Dr. Perry looked up, astonished. He was prepared for the most frantic
+ebullitions of wrath, for violence even; or for dull, stupid, blank
+silence. But this calm, quiet questioning of fact took him by surprise.
+He dropped his anxious look, and replied:
+
+“It has been seen on the shelves by more than one of your servants.
+Your sister kept it with her medicines, and the druggist with whom you
+deal remembers selling it some time ago to a member of your family.”
+
+“Which member? I don’t believe this story; I don’t believe any of
+your--” He was fast verging on violence now.
+
+“You will have to, Arthur. Facts are facts, and we cannot go against
+them. The person who bought it was yourself. Perhaps you can recall the
+circumstance now.”
+
+“I cannot.” He did not seem to be quite master of himself. “I don’t
+know half the things I do; at least, I didn’t use to. But what are
+you coming to? What’s in your mind, and what are your intentions?
+Something to shame us further, I’ve no doubt. You’re soft on Ranelagh
+and don’t care how I feel, or how Carmel will feel when she comes to
+herself--poor girl. Are you going to call it suicide? You can’t, with
+those marks on her throat.”
+
+“We’re going to carry out our investigations to the full. We’re going
+to hold the autopsy, which we didn’t think necessary before. That’s
+why I am here, Arthur. I thought it your due to know our intentions
+in regard to this matter. If you wish to be present, you have only to
+say so; if you do not, you may trust me to remember that she was your
+father’s daughter, as well as my own highly esteemed friend.”
+
+Shaken to the core, the young man sat down amid innumerable tokens of
+the two near, if not dear, ones just mentioned; and for a moment had
+nothing to say. Gone was his violence, gone his self-assertion, and
+his insolent, captious attitude towards his visitor. The net had been
+drawn too tightly, or the blow fallen too heavily. He was no longer a
+man struggling with his misery, but a boy on whom had fallen a man’s
+responsibilities, sufferings, and cares.
+
+“My duty is here,” he said at last. “I cannot leave Carmel.”
+
+“The autopsy will take place to-morrow. How is Carmel to-day?”
+
+“No better.” The words came with a shudder. “Doctor, I’ve been a brute
+to you. I am a brute! I have misused my life and have no strength with
+which to meet trouble. What you propose to do with--with Adelaide is
+horrible to me. I didn’t love her much while she was living; I broke
+her heart and shamed her, from morning till night, every day of her
+life; but good-for-nothing as I am and good-for-nothing as I’ve always
+been, if I could save her body this last humiliation, I would willingly
+die right here and now, and be done with it. Must this autopsy take
+place?”
+
+“It must.”
+
+“Then--” He raised his arm; the blood swept up, dyeing his cheeks, his
+brow, his very neck a vivid scarlet. “Tell them to lock up every bottle
+the house holds, or I cannot answer for myself. I should like to drink
+and drink till I knew nothing, cared for nothing, was a madman or a
+beast.”
+
+“You will not drink.” The coroner’s voice rang deep; he was greatly
+moved. “You will not drink, and you will come to the office at five
+o’clock to-morrow. We may have only good news to impart. We may find
+nothing to complicate the situation.”
+
+Arthur Cumberland shook his head. “It’s not what you will find--” said
+he, and stopped, biting his lips and looking down.
+
+The coroner uttered a few words of consolation forced from him by the
+painfulness of the situation. The young man did not seem to hear them.
+The only sign of life he gave was to rush away the moment the coroner
+had taken his leave, and regain his seat within sight and hearing of
+his still unconscious sister. As he did so, these words came to his
+ears through the door which separated them:
+
+“Flowers--I smell flowers! Lila, you always loved flowers; but I never
+saw your hands so full of them.”
+
+Arthur uttered a sharp cry; then, bowing his face upon his aims, he
+broke into sobs which shook the table where he sat.
+
+Twenty-four hours later, in the coroner’s office, sat an anxious group
+discussing the great case and the possible revelations awaiting them.
+The district attorney, Mr. Clifton, the chief of police, and one or two
+others--among them Sweetwater--made up the group, and carried on the
+conversation. Dr. Perry only was absent. He had undertaken to make the
+autopsy and had been absent, for this purpose, several hours.
+
+Five o’clock had struck, and they were momentarily looking for his
+reappearance; but, when the door opened, as it did at this time, it was
+to admit young Cumberland, whose white face and shaking limbs betrayed
+his suspense and nervous anxiety.
+
+He was welcomed coldly, but not impolitely, and sat down in very much
+the same place he had occupied during his last visit, but in a very
+different, and much more quiet state of mind. To Sweetwater, his aspect
+was one of despair, but he made no remark upon it; only kept all his
+senses alert for the coming moment, of so much importance to them all.
+But even he failed to guess how important, until the door opened again,
+and the coroner appeared, looking not so much depressed as stunned.
+Picking out Arthur from the group, he advanced towards him with some
+commonplace remark; but desisted suddenly and turned upon the others
+instead.
+
+“I have finished the autopsy,” said he. “I knew just what poison the
+phial had held, and lost no time in my tests. A minute portion of
+this drug, which is dangerous only in large quantities, was found
+in the stomach of the deceased; but not enough to cause serious
+trouble, and she died, as we had already decided, from the effect of
+the murderous clutch upon her throat. But,” he went on sternly, as
+young Cumberland moved, and showed signs of breaking in with one of
+his violent invectives against the supposed assassin, “I made another
+discovery of still greater purport. When we lifted the body out of its
+resting-place, something beside withered flowers slid from her breast
+and fell at our feet. The ring, gentlemen--the ring which Ranelagh says
+was missing from her hand when he came upon her, and which certainly
+was not on her finger when she was laid in the casket,--rolled to the
+floor when we moved her. Here it is; there is one person here, at
+least, who can identify it. But I do not ask that person to speak. That
+we may well spare him.”
+
+He laid the ring on the table, not too near Arthur, not within reach
+of his hand, but close enough for him to see it. Then he sat down, and
+hid his face in his hands. The last few days had told on him. He looked
+older, by ten years, than he had at the beginning of the month.
+
+The silence which followed these words and this action, was memorable
+to everybody there concerned. Some had seen, and all had heard of young
+Cumberland’s desperate interruption of the funeral, and the way his
+hand had invaded the flowers which the children had cast in upon her
+breast. As the picture, real or fancied, rose before their eyes, one
+man rose and left his place at the table; then another, and presently
+another. Even Charles Clifton drew back. The district attorney remained
+where he was, and so did young Cumberland. The latter had reached out
+his hand, but he had not touched the ring, and he sat thus, frozen.
+What went on in his heart, no man there could guess, and he did not
+enlighten them. When at last he looked up, it was with a dazed air and
+an almost humble mien:
+
+“Providence has me this time,” he muttered. “I don’t understand these
+mysteries. You will have to deal with them as you think best.” His
+eyes, still glued to the jewel, dilated and filled with fierce light
+as he said this. “Damn the ring, and damn the man who gave it to her!
+However it came into her casket, he’s at the bottom of the business,
+just as he was at the bottom of her death. If you think anything else,
+you will think a lie.”
+
+Turning away, he made for the door. There was in his manner,
+desperation approaching to bravado, but no man made the least effort to
+detain him. Not till he was well out of the room did any one move, then
+the district attorney raised his finger, and Arthur Cumberland did not
+ride back to his home alone.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THREE
+
+HIDDEN SURPRISES
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+“HE OR YOU! THERE IS NO THIRD”
+
+A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,
+And yet I would not sleep Merciful powers!
+Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature
+Gives way to in repose.
+
+_Macbeth_.
+
+
+For several days I had been ill. They were merciful days to me since
+I was far too weak for thought. Then there came a period of conscious
+rest, then renewed interest in life and my own fate and reputation.
+What had happened during this interval?
+
+I had a confused memory of having seen Clifton’s face at my bedside,
+but I was sure that no words had passed between us. When would he come
+again? When should I hear about Carmel, and whether she were yet alive,
+or mercifully dead, like her sister? I might read the papers, but they
+had been carefully kept from me. Not one was in sight. The nurse would
+undoubtedly give me the information I desired, but, kind as she had
+been, I dreaded to consult a stranger about matters which involved my
+very existence and every remaining hope. Yet I must know; for I could
+not help thinking, now, and I dreaded to think amiss and pile up misery
+for myself when I needed support and consolation.
+
+I would risk one question, but no more. I would ask about the inquest.
+Had it been held? If she said yes--ah, if she said yes!--I should know
+that Carmel was dead; and the news, coming thus, would kill me. So I
+asked nothing, and was lying in a sufficiently feverish condition when
+the doctor came in, saw my state, and thinking to cheer me up, remarked
+blandly:
+
+“You are well enough this morning to hear good news. Do you recognise
+the room you are in?”
+
+“I’m in the hospital, am I not?”
+
+“Hardly. You are in one of Mr. O’Hagen’s own rooms.” (Mr. O’Hagen was
+the head keeper.) “You are detained, now, simply as a witness.”
+
+I was struck to the heart; terrified in an instant.
+
+“What? Why? What has happened?” I questioned, rapidly, half starting
+up, then falling back on my pillow under his astonished eye.
+
+“Nothing,” he parried, seeing his mistake, and resorting to the
+soothing process. “They simply have had time to think. You’re not the
+sort of man from which criminals are made.”
+
+“That’s nonsense,” I retorted, reckless of his opinion, and mad to know
+the truth, yet shrinking horribly from it. “Criminals are made from all
+kinds of men; neither are the police so philosophical. Something has
+occurred. But don’t tell me--” I protested inconsistently, as he opened
+his lips. “Send for Mr. Clifton. He’s my friend; I can better bear--”
+
+“Here he is,” said the doctor, as the door softly opened under the
+nurse’s careful hand.
+
+I looked up, saw Charles’s faithful face, and stretched out my hand
+without speaking. Never had I needed a friend more, and never had I
+been more constrained in my greeting. I feared to show my real heart,
+my real fears, my real reason for not hailing my release, as every one
+evidently expected me to!
+
+With a gesture to the nurse, the doctor tiptoed out, muttering to
+Clifton, as he passed, some word of warning or casual instruction. The
+nurse followed, and Clifton, coming forward, took a seat at my side.
+He was cheerful but not too cheerful; and the air of slight constraint
+which tinged his manner, as much as it did mine, did not escape me.
+
+“Well, old fellow,” he began--
+
+My hand went up in entreaty.
+
+“Tell me why they have withdrawn their suspicions. I’ve heard
+nothing--read nothing--for days. I don’t understand this move.”
+
+For reply, he laid his hand on mine.
+
+“You’re stanch,” he began. “You have my regard, Elwood. Not many men
+would have stood the racket and sacrificed themselves as you have done.
+The fact is recognised, now, and your motive--”
+
+I must have turned very white; for he stopped and sprang to his feet,
+searching for some restorative.
+
+I felt the need of blinding him to my condition. With an effort, which
+shook me from head to foot, I lifted myself from the depths into which
+his words had plunged me, and fighting for self-control, faltered
+forth, feebly enough:
+
+“Don’t be frightened. I’m all right again; I guess I’m not very strong
+yet. Sit down; I don’t need anything.”
+
+He turned and surveyed me carefully, and finding my colour restored,
+reseated himself, and proceeded, more circumspectly:
+
+“Perhaps I had better wait till to-morrow before I satisfy your
+curiosity,” said he.
+
+“And leave me to imagine all sorts of horrors? No! Tell me at once.
+Is--is--has anything happened at the Cumberlands’?”
+
+“Yes. What you feared has happened--No, no; Carmel is not dead. Did
+you think I meant that? Forgive me. I should have remembered that you
+had other causes for anxiety than the one weighing on our minds. She
+is holding her own--just holding it--but that is something, in one so
+young and naturally healthy.”
+
+I could see that I baffled him. It could not be helped. I did not dare
+to utter the question with which my whole soul was full. I could only
+look my entreaty. He misunderstood it, as was natural enough.
+
+“She does not know yet what is in store for her,” were his words;
+and I could only lie still, and look at him helplessly, and try
+not to show the despair that was sinking me deeper and deeper into
+semi-unconsciousness. “When she comes to herself, she will have to
+be told; but you will be on your feet, then, and will be allowed, no
+doubt, to soften the blow for her by your comfort and counsel. The fact
+that it must have been you, if not he--”
+
+
+“_He!_” Did I shout it, or was the shout simply in my own mind? I
+trembled as I rose on my elbow. I searched his face in terror of my
+self-betrayal; but his showed only compassion and an eager desire to
+clear the air between us by telling me the exact facts.
+
+“Yes--Arthur. His guilt has not been proven; he has not even been
+remanded; the sister’s case is too pitiful and Coroner Perry too
+soft-hearted, where any of that family is involved. But no one doubts
+his guilt, and he does not deny it himself. You know--probably no
+one better--that he cannot very consistently do this, in face of
+the evidence accumulated against him, evidence stronger in many
+regards, than that accumulated against yourself. The ungrateful boy!
+The--the--Pardon me, I don’t often indulge in invectives against
+unhappy men who have their punishment before them, but I was thinking
+of you and what you have suffered in this jail, where you have not
+belonged--no, not for a day.”
+
+“Don’t think of me.” The words came with a gasp. I was never so hard
+put to it--not when I first realised that I had been seen with my
+fingers on Adelaide’s throat. Arthur! A booby and a boor, but certainly
+not the slayer of his sister, unless I had been woefully mistaken in
+all that had taken place in that club-house previous to my entrance
+into it on that fatal night. As I caught Clifton’s eye fixed upon me,
+I repeated--though with more self-control, I hope: “Don’t think of me.
+I’m not thinking of myself. You speak of evidence. What evidence? Give
+me details. Don’t you see that I am burning with curiosity? I shan’t be
+myself till I hear.”
+
+This alarmed him.
+
+“It’s a risk,” said he. “The doctor told me to be careful not to excite
+you too much. But suspense is always more intolerable than certainty,
+and you have heard too much to be left in ignorance of the rest.”
+
+“Yes, yes,” I agreed feverishly, pressing his hand.
+
+“It all came about through you,” he blundered on. “You told me of the
+fellow you saw riding away from The Whispering Pines at the time you
+entered the grounds. I passed the story on to the coroner, and he to
+a New York detective they have put on this case. He and Arthur’s own
+surly nature did the rest.”
+
+I cringed where I lay. This was my work. The person who drove out
+of the club-house grounds while I stood in the club-house hall was
+Carmel--and the clew I had given, instead of baffling and confusing
+them, had led directly to Arthur!
+
+Seeing nothing peculiar--or at all events, giving no evidence of having
+noted anything peculiar in my movement--Clifton went evenly on, pouring
+into my astonished ears the whole long story of this detective’s
+investigations.
+
+I heard of his visit at the mechanic’s cottage and of the
+identification of the hat marked by Eliza Simmons’s floury thumb,
+with an old one of Arthur’s, fished out from one of the Cumberland
+closets; then, as I lay dumb, in my secret dismay and perturbation, of
+Arthur’s acknowledged visit to the club-house, and his abstraction of
+the bottles, which to all minds save my own, perhaps, connected him
+directly and well-nigh unmistakably, with the crime.
+
+“The finger of God! Nothing else. Such coincidences cannot be natural,”
+was my thought. And I braced myself to meet the further disclosures I
+saw awaiting me.
+
+But when these disclosures were made, and Arthur’s conduct at the
+funeral was given its natural explanation by the finding of the
+tell-tale ring in Adelaide’s casket, I was so affected, both by the
+extraordinary nature of the facts and the doubtful position in which
+they seemed to place one whom, even now, I found it difficult to
+believe guilty of Adelaide’s death, that Clifton, aroused, in spite of
+his own excitement, to a sudden realisation of my condition, bounded to
+his feet and impetuously cried out:
+
+“I had to tell you. It was your due and you would not have been
+satisfied if I had not. But I fear that I rushed my narrative too
+suddenly upon you; that you needed more preparation, and that the
+greatest kindness I can show you now, is to leave before I do further
+mischief.”
+
+I believe I answered. I know that his idea of leaving was insupportable
+to me. That I wanted him to stay until I had had time to think and
+adjust myself to these new conditions. Instinctively, I did not
+feel as certain of Arthur’s guilt as he did. My own case had taught
+me the insufficiency of circumstantial evidence to settle a mooted
+fact. Besides, I knew Arthur even better than I did his sisters. He
+was as full of faults, and as lacking in amiable and reliable traits
+as any fellow of my acquaintance. But he had not the inherent snap
+which makes for crime. He lacked the vigour which,--God forgive me
+the thought!--lay back of Carmers softer characteristics. I could not
+imagine him guilty; I could, for all my love, imagine his sister so,
+and did. The conviction would not leave my mind.
+
+“Charles,” said I, at last, struggling for calmness, and succeeding
+better in my task than either he or I expected; “what motive do
+they assign for this deed? Why should Arthur follow Adelaide to the
+club-house and kill her? Now, if he had followed me--”
+
+“You were at dinner with them that night, and know what she did and
+what she vowed about the wine. He was very angry. Though he dropped
+his glass, and let it shiver on the board, he himself says that he was
+desperately put out with her, and could only drown his mad emotions in
+drink. He knew that she would hear of it if he went to any saloon in
+town; so he stole the key from your bunch, and went to help himself
+out of the club-house wine-vault. That’s how he came to be there. What
+followed, who knows? He won’t tell, and we can only conjecture. The
+ring, which she certainly wore that night, might give the secret away;
+but it is not gifted with speech, though as a silent witness it is
+exceedingly eloquent.”
+
+The episode of the ring confused me. I could make nothing out of
+it, could not connect it with what I myself knew of the confused
+experiences of that night. But I could recall the dinner and the sullen
+aspect, not unmixed with awe, with which this boy contemplated his
+sister when his own glass fell from his nerveless fingers. My own heart
+was not in the business; it was on the elopement I had planned; but I
+could not help seeing what I have just mentioned, and it recurred to me
+now with fatal distinctness. The awe was as great as the sullenness.
+Did that offer a good foundation for crime? I disliked Arthur. I had
+no use for the boy, and I wished with all my heart to detect guilt in
+his actions, rather than in those of the woman I loved; but I could not
+forget that tinge of awe on features too heavy to mirror very readily
+the nicer feelings of the human soul. It would come up, and, under the
+influence of this impression I said:
+
+“Are you sure that he made no denial of this crime? That does not seem
+like Arthur, guilty or innocent.”
+
+“He made none in my presence and I was in the coroner’s office when
+the ring was produced from its secret hiding-place and set down before
+him. There was no open accusation made, but he must have understood the
+silence of all present. He acknowledged some days ago, when confronted
+with the bottle found in Cuthbert Road, that he had taken both it and
+another from the club-house just before the storm began to rage that
+night.”
+
+“The hour, the very hour!” I muttered.
+
+“He entered and left by that upper hall window, or so he says; but he
+is not to be believed in all his statements. Some of his declarations
+we know to be false.”
+
+“Which ones? Give me a specimen, Charlie. Mention something he has said
+that you know to be false.”
+
+“Well, it is hard to accuse a man of a direct lie. But he cannot be
+telling the truth when he says that he crossed the links immediately to
+Cuthbert Road, thus cutting out the ride home, of which we have such
+extraordinary proof.”
+
+Under the fear of betraying my thoughts, I hurriedly closed my eyes.
+I was in an extraordinary position, myself. What seemed falsehood to
+them, struck me as the absolute truth. Carmel had been the one to go
+home; he, without doubt, had crossed the links, as he said. As this
+conviction penetrated deeply and yet more deeply into my mind, I
+shrank inexpressibly from the renewed mental struggle into which it
+plunged me. To have suffered, myself,--to have fallen under the ban of
+suspicion and the disgrace of arrest--had certainly been hard; but it
+was nothing to beholding another in the same plight through my own rash
+and ill-advised attempt to better my position and Carmel’s by what I
+had considered a totally harmless subterfuge.
+
+I shuddered as I anticipated the sleepless hours of silent debate which
+lay before me. The voice which whispered that Arthur Cumberland was
+not over-gifted with sensitiveness and would not feel the shame of his
+position like another, did not carry with it an indisputable message,
+and could not impose on my conscience for more than a passing moment.
+The lout was human; and I could not stifle my convictions in his favour.
+
+But Carmel!
+
+I clenched my hands under the clothes. I wished it were not high
+noon, but dark night; that Clifton would only arise or turn his eyes
+away; that something or anything might happen to give me an instant
+of solitary contemplation, without the threatening possibility of
+beholding my thoughts and feelings reflected in another’s mind.
+
+Was this review instantaneous, or the work of many minutes? Forced by
+the doubt to open my eyes, I met Clifton’s full look turned watchfully
+on me. The result was calming; even to my apprehensive gaze it betrayed
+no new enlightenment. My struggle had been all within; no token of it
+had reached him.
+
+This he showed still more plainly when he spoke.
+
+“There will be a close sifting of evidence at the inquest. You will
+not enjoy this; but the situation, hard as it may prove, has certainly
+improved so far as you are concerned. That should hasten your
+convalescence.”
+
+“Poor Arthur!” burst from my lips, and the cry was echoed in my heart.
+Then, because I could no longer endure the pusillanimity which kept me
+silent, I rose impulsively into a sitting posture, and, summoning all
+my faculties into full play, endeavoured to put my finger on the one
+weak point in the evidence thus raised against Carmel’s brother.
+
+“What sort of a man would you make Arthur out to be, when you accuse
+him of robbing the wine-vault on top of a murderous assault on his
+sister?”
+
+“I know. It argues a brute, but he--”
+
+“Arthur Cumberland is selfish, unresponsive, and hard, but he is not a
+brute. I’m disposed to give him the benefit of my good opinion to this
+extent, Charlie; I cannot believe he first poisoned and then choked
+that noble woman.”
+
+Clifton drew himself up in his turn, astonishment battling with renewed
+distrust.
+
+“Either he or you, Ranelagh!” he exclaimed, firmly. “There is no third
+person. This you must realise.”
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+CARMEL AWAKES
+
+One woe doth tread upon another’s heel,
+So fast they follow.
+
+_Hamlet_.
+
+
+Later, I asked myself many questions, and wandered into mazes of
+speculation which only puzzled me and led nowhere. I remembered the
+bottles; I remembered the ring. I went back, in fancy, to the hour of
+my own entrance into the club-house, and, recalling each circumstance,
+endeavoured to fit the facts of Arthur’s story with those of my own
+experience.
+
+Was he in the building when I first stepped into it? It was just
+possible. I had been led to prevaricate as to the moment I entered the
+lower gateway, and he may have done the same as to the hour he left by
+the upper hall window. Whatever his denials on this or any subject, I
+was convinced that he knew, as well as I, that Carmel had been in the
+building with her sister, and was involved more or less personally in
+the crime committed there. Might it not be simply as his accessory
+after the fact? If only I could believe this! If my knowledge of him
+and of her would allow me to hug this forlorn hope, and behold, in
+this shock to her brain, and in her look and attitude on leaving the
+club-house, only a sister’s horror at a wilful brother’s crime!
+
+But one fact stood in the way of this--a fact which nothing but some
+predetermined, underhanded purpose on her part could explain. She had
+gone in disguise to The Whispering Pines, and she had returned home
+in the same suspicious fashion. The wearing of her brother’s hat and
+coat over her own womanly garments was no freak. There had been purpose
+in it--a purpose which demanded secrecy. That Adelaide should have
+accompanied her under these circumstances was a mystery. But then the
+whole affair was a mystery, totally out of keeping, in all its details,
+with the characters of these women, save--and what a fearful exception
+I here make--the awful end, which, alas! bespoke the fiery rush and
+impulse to destroy which marked Carmel’s unbridled rages.
+
+Of a less emotional attack she would be as incapable as any other
+good woman. Poison she would never use. Its presence there was due to
+another’s forethought, another’s determination. But the poison had
+not killed. Both glasses had been emptied, but--Ah! those glasses.
+What explanation had the police, now, for those two emptied glasses?
+They had hitherto supposed me to be the second person who had joined
+Adelaide in this totally uncharacteristic drinking.
+
+To whom did they now attribute this act? To Arthur, the brother whose
+love for liquor in every form she had always decried, and had publicly
+rebuked only a few hours before? Knowing nothing of Carmel having
+been on the scene, they must ascribe this act either to him or to me;
+and when they came to dwell upon this point more particularly--when
+they came to study the exact character of the relations which had
+always subsisted between Adelaide and her brother--they must see the
+improbability of her drinking with him under any circumstances. Then
+their thoughts would recur to me, and I should find myself again a
+suspect. The monstrous suggestion that Arthur had brought the liquor
+there himself, had poured it out and forced her to drink it, poison and
+all, out of revenge for her action at the dinner-table a short time
+before, did not occur to me then, but if it had, there were the three
+glasses--he would not bring _three_; nor would Adelaide; nor, as I saw
+it, would Carmel.
+
+Chaos! However one looked at it, chaos! Only one fact was clear--that
+Carmel knew the whole story and might communicate the same, if ever her
+brain cleared and she could be brought to reveal the mysteries of that
+hour. Did I desire such a consummation? Only God, who penetrates more
+deeply than ourselves into the hidden regions of the human heart, could
+tell. I only know that the fear and expectation of such an outcome made
+my anguish for the next two weeks.
+
+Would she live? Would she die? The question was on every tongue. The
+crisis of her disease was approaching, and the next twenty-four hours
+would decide her fate, and in consequence, my own, if not her brother
+Arthur’s. As I contemplated the suspense of these twenty-four hours,
+I revolted madly for the first time against the restrictions of my
+prison. I wanted air, movement, the rush into danger, which my horse
+or my automobile might afford. Anything which would drag my thoughts
+from that sick room, and the anticipated stir of that lovely form
+into conscious life and suffering. Her eyes--I could see her eyes
+wakening upon the world again, after her long wandering in the unknown
+and unimaginable intricacies of ungoverned thought and delirious
+suggestion. Eyes of violet colour and infinite expression; eyes which
+would make a man’s joy if they smiled on him in innocence; but which,
+as I well knew, had burned more than once, in her short but strenuous
+life, with fiery passions; and might, at the instant of waking, betray
+this same unholy gleam under the curious gaze of the unsympathetic ones
+set in watch over her.
+
+What would her first word be? Whither would her first thought fly? To
+Adelaide or to me; to Arthur or to her own frightened and appalled
+self? I maddened as I dwelt upon the possibilities of this moment. I
+envied Arthur; I envied the attendants; I envied even the servants in
+the house. They would all know sooner than I. Carmel! Carmel!
+
+Sending for Clifton, I begged him to keep himself in communication with
+the house, or with the authorities. He promised to do what he could;
+then, perceiving the state I was in, he related all he knew of present
+conditions. No one was allowed in the sick room but the nurse and the
+doctor. Even Arthur was denied admission, and was wearing himself
+out in his own room as I was wearing myself out here, in restless
+inactivity. He expected her to sink and never to recover consciousness,
+and was loud in his expressions of rebellion against the men who
+dared to keep him from her bedside when her life was trembling in the
+balance. But the nurse had hopes and so had the doctor. As for Carmel’s
+looks, they were greatly changed, but beautiful still in spite of the
+cruel scar left by her fall against the burning bars of her sister’s
+grate. No delirium disturbed the rigid immobility in which she now lay.
+I could await her awakening with quiet confidence in the justice of God.
+
+Thus Clifton, in his ignorance.
+
+The day was a bleak one, dispiriting in itself even to those who could
+go about the streets and lose themselves in their tasks and round of
+duties. To me it was a dead blank, marked by such interruptions as
+necessarily took place under the prison routine. The evening hours
+which followed them were no better. The hands on my watch crawled. When
+the door finally opened, it came as a shock. I seemed to be prepared
+for anything but the termination of my suspense. I knew that it was
+Clifton who entered, but I could not meet his eye. I dug my nails
+into my palms, and waited for his first word. When it came, I felt my
+spirits go down, down--I had thought them at their lowest ebb before.
+He hesitated, and I started up:
+
+“Tell me,” I cried. “Carmel is dead!”
+
+“Not dead,” said he, “but silly. Her testimony is no more to be relied
+upon than that of any other wandering mind.”
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+“BREAK IN THE GLASS!”
+
+This inundation of mistempered humour
+Rests by you only to be qualified.
+
+_King John_.
+
+
+It was some time before I learned the particulars of this awakening.
+
+It had occurred at sunset. A level beam of light had shot across the
+bed, and the nurse had moved to close the blind, when a low exclamation
+from the doctor drew her back, to mark the first faint fluttering of
+the snowy lids over the long-closed eyes. Afterwards she remembered
+what a picture her youthful patient made, with the hue of renewed life
+creeping into her cheeks, in faint reflection of the nest of roseate
+colour in which she lay.
+
+Carmel’s hair was dark; so were her exquisitely pencilled eye-brows,
+and the long lashes which curled upward from her cheek. In her
+surroundings of pink--warm pink, such as lives in the heart of the
+sea-shell--their duskiness took on an added beauty; and nothing, not
+even the long, dark scar running from eye to chin could rob the face
+of its individuality and suggestion of charm. She was lovely; but it
+was the loveliness of line and tint, just as a child is lovely. Soul
+and mind were still asleep, but momentarily rousing, as all thought,
+to conscious being--and, if to conscious being, then to conscious
+suffering as well.
+
+It was a solemn moment. If the man who loved her had been present--or
+even her brother, who, sullen as he was, must have felt the tie of
+close relationship rise superior even to his fears at an instant so
+critical,--it would have been more solemn yet. But with the exception
+of the doctor and possibly the nurse, only those interested in her as a
+witness in the most perplexing case on the police annals, were grouped
+in silent watchfulness about the room, waiting for the word or look
+which might cut the Gordian knot which none of them, as yet, had been
+able to untangle.
+
+It came suddenly, as all great changes come. One moment her lids were
+down, her face calm, her whole figure quiet in its statue-like repose;
+the next, her big violet eyes had flashed open upon the world, and
+lips and limbs were moving feebly, but certainly, in their suddenly
+recovered freedom. It was then--and not at a later moment when
+consciousness had fully regained its seat--that her face, to those who
+stood nearest wore the aspect of an angel’s. What she saw, or what
+vision remained to her from the mysterious world of which she had so
+long been a part, none ever knew--nor could she, perhaps, have told.
+But the rapture which informed her features and elevated her whole
+expression but poorly prepared them for the change which followed her
+first glance around on nurse and doctor. The beam which lay across
+the bed had been no brighter than her eye during that first tremulous
+instant of renewed life. But the clouds fell speedily and very
+human feelings peered from between those lids as she murmured, half
+petulantly:
+
+“Why do you look at me so? Oh, I remember, I remember!”
+
+And a flush, of which they little thought her weakened heart capable,
+spread over her features, hiding the scar and shaming her white lips.
+“What’s the matter?” she complained again, as she tried to raise her
+hands, possibly to hide her face. “I cannot move as I used to do, and I
+feel--I feel--”
+
+“You have been ill,” came soothingly from the doctor. “You have been
+in bed many days; now you are better and will soon be well. This is
+your nurse.” He said nothing of the others, who were so placed behind
+screens as to be invisible to her.
+
+She continued to gaze, first at one, then at the other; confidently at
+the doctor, doubtfully at the nurse. As she did so, the flush faded and
+gave way to an anxious, troubled expression. Not just the expression
+anticipated by those who believed that, with returning consciousness,
+would come returning memory of the mysterious scene which had taken
+place between herself and sister, or between her sister and her
+brother, prior to Adelaide’s departure for The Whispering Pines. Had
+they shared my knowledge--had they even so much as dreamed that their
+patient had been the companion of one or both of the others in this
+tragic escapade--how much greater would have been their wonder at the
+character of this awakening.
+
+“You have the same kind look for me as always,” were her next words,
+as her glance finally settled on the doctor. “But hers--Bring me the
+mirror,” she cried. “Let me see with my own eyes what I have now to
+expect from every one who looks at me. I want to know before Lila comes
+in. Why isn’t she here? Is she with--with--” She was breaking down, but
+caught herself back with surprising courage, and almost smiled, I was
+told. Then in the shrill tones which will not be denied, she demanded
+again, “The mirror!”
+
+Nurse Unwin brought it. Her patient evidently remembered the fall she
+had had in her sister’s room, and possibly the smart to her cheek when
+it touched the hot iron.
+
+“I see only my forehead,” she complained, as the nurse held the mirror
+before her. “Move it a little. Lower--lower,” she commanded. Then
+suddenly “Oh!”
+
+She was still for a long time, during which the nurse carried off the
+glass.
+
+“I--I don’t like it,” she acknowledged quaintly to the doctor, as
+he leaned over her with compassionate words. “I shall have to get
+acquainted with myself all over again. And so I have been ill! I
+shouldn’t have thought a little burn like that would make me ill. How
+Adelaide must have worried.”
+
+“Adelaide is--is not well herself. It distressed her to have been out
+when you fell. Don’t you remember that she went out that night?”
+
+“Did she? She was right. Adelaide must have every pleasure. She
+had earned her good times. I must be the one to stay home now, and
+look after things, and learn to be useful. I don’t expect anything
+different. Call Adelaide, and let me tell her how--how satisfied I am.”
+
+“But she’s ill. She cannot come. Wait till tomorrow, dear child. Rest
+is what you need now. Take these few drops and go to sleep again, and
+you’ll not know yourself to-morrow.”
+
+“I don’t know myself now,” she repeated, glancing with slowly dilating
+eyes at the medicine glass he proffered. “I can’t take it,” she
+protested. “I forget now why, but I can’t take anything more from a
+glass. I’ve promised not to, I think. Take it away; it makes me feel
+queer. Where is Adelaide?”
+
+Her memory was defective. She could not seem to take in what the doctor
+told her. But he tried her again. Once more he spoke of illness as the
+cause of Adelaide’s absence. Her attention wandered while he spoke of
+it.
+
+“How it did hurt!” she cried. “But I didn’t think much about it. I
+thought only of--” Next moment her voice rose in a shriek, thin but
+impetuous, and imbued with a note of excited feeling which made every
+person there start. “There should be _two_,” she cried. “_Two_! Why is
+there only one?”
+
+This sounded like raving. The doctor’s face took on a look of concern,
+and the nurse stirred uneasily.
+
+“One is not enough! That is why Adelaide is not satisfied; why she does
+not come and love and comfort me, as I expected her to. Tell her it is
+not too late yet, not too late yet, not too late--”
+
+The doctor’s hand was on her forehead. This “not too late,” whatever
+she meant by it, was indescribably painful to the listeners, oppressed
+as they were by the knowledge that Adelaide lay in her grave, and that
+all fancies, all hopes, all meditated actions between these two were
+now, so far as this world goes, forever at an end.
+
+“Rest,” came in Dr. Carpenter’s most soothing tones. “Rest, my
+little Carmel; forget everything and rest.” He thought he knew the
+significance of her revolt from the glass he had offered her. She
+remembered the scene at the Cumberland dinner-table on that fatal
+night and shrank from anything that reminded her of it. Ordering the
+medicine put in a cup, he offered it to her again, and she drank it
+without question. As she quieted under its influence, the disappointed
+listeners, now tip-toeing carefully from the room, heard her murmur in
+final appeal:
+
+“Cannot Adelaide spare one minute from--from her company downstairs, to
+wish me health and kiss me good night?”
+
+Was it weakness, or a settled inability to remember anything but that
+which filled her own mind?
+
+It proved to be a settled inability to take in any new ideas or even
+to remember much beyond the completion of that dinner. As the days
+passed and news of her condition came to me from time to time, I found
+that she had not only forgotten what had passed between herself and
+the rest of the family previous to their departure for the club-house,
+but all that had afterwards occurred at The Whispering Pines, even to
+her own presence there and the ride home. She could not even retain
+in her mind for any appreciable length of time the idea of Adelaide’s
+death. Even after Dr. Carpenter, with infinite precautions, revealed to
+her the truth--not that Adelaide had been murdered, but that Adelaide
+had passed away during the period of her own illness, Carmel gave but
+one cry of grief, then immediately burst forth in her old complaint
+that Adelaide neglected her. She had lost her happiness and hope, and
+Adelaide would not spare her an hour.
+
+This expression, when I heard of it, convinced me, as I believe it did
+some others, that her act of self-denial in not humouring my whim and
+flying from home and duty that night, had made a stronger impression on
+her mind than all that came after.
+
+She never asked for Arthur. This may have grieved him; but, according
+to my faithful friend and attorney, it appeared to have the contrary
+effect, and to bring him positive relief. When it was borne in on
+him, as it was soon to be borne in on all, that her mind was not what
+it was, and that the beautiful Carmel had lost something besides her
+physical perfection in the awful calamity which had made shipwreck of
+the whole family, he grew noticeably more cheerful and less suspicious
+in his manner. Was it because the impending inquiry must go on without
+her, and proceedings, which had halted till now, be pushed with all
+possible speed to a finish? So those who watched him interpreted his
+changed mood, with a result not favourable to him.
+
+With this new shock of Carmel’s inability to explain her own part in
+this tragedy and thus release my testimony and make me a man again
+in my own eyes, I lost the sustaining power which had previously
+held me up. I became apathetic; no longer counting the hours, and
+thankful when they passed. Arthur had not been arrested; but he
+understood--or allowed others to see that he understood, the reason
+for the surveillance under which he was now strictly kept; and, though
+he showed less patience than myself under the shameful suspicion which
+this betokened, he did not break out into open conflict with the
+authorities, nor did he protest his innocence, or take any other stand
+than the one he had assumed from the first.
+
+All this gave me much food for thought, but I declined to think. I
+had made up my mind from the moment I realised Carmel’s condition,
+that there was nothing for me to do till after the inquest. The
+public investigation which this would involve, would show the trend
+of popular opinion, and thus enlighten me as to my duty. Meanwhile, I
+would keep to the old lines and do the best I could for myself without
+revealing the fact of Carmel’s near interest in a matter she was in
+no better condition to discuss now than when in a state of complete
+unconsciousness.
+
+Of that inquest, which was held in due course, I shall not say much.
+Only one new fact was elicited by its means, and that of interest
+solely as making clear how there came to be evidences of poison in
+Adelaide’s stomach, without the quantity being great enough for more
+than a temporary disturbance.
+
+Maggie, the second girl, had something to say about this when the
+phial which had held the poison was handed about for inspection. She
+had handled that phial many times on the shelf where it was kept. Once
+she had dropped it, and the cork coming out, some of the contents had
+escaped. Frightened at the mishap, she had filled the phial up with
+water, and put it, thus diluted, back on the shelf. No one had noticed
+the difference, and she had forgotten all about the matter until now.
+From her description, there must have been very little of the dangerous
+drug left in the phial; and the conclusions of Dr. Perry’s autopsy
+received a confirmation which ended, after a mass of testimony tending
+rather to confuse than enlighten, the jury, in the non-committal
+verdict:
+
+Death by strangulation at the hands of some person unknown.
+
+I had expected this. The evidence, pointing as it did in two opposing
+directions, presented a problem which a coroner’s jury could hardly be
+expected to solve. What followed, showed that not only they but the
+police authorities as well, acknowledged the dilemma. I was allowed one
+sweet half hour of freedom, then I was detained to await the action of
+the grand jury, and so was Arthur.
+
+When I was informed of this latter fact, I made a solemn vow to myself.
+It was this: If it falls to my lot to be indicted for this murderous
+offence, I will continue to keep my own counsel, as I have already
+done, in face of lesser provocation and at less dangerous risk. But,
+if I escape and a true bill should be found against Arthur, then
+will I follow my better instinct, and reveal what I have hitherto
+kept concealed, even if the torment of the betrayal drive me to
+self-destruction afterwards. For I no longer cherished the smallest
+doubt, that to Carmel’s sudden rage and to that alone, the death of
+Adelaide was due.
+
+My reason for this change from troubled to absolute conviction can be
+easily explained. It dated from the inquest, and will best appear in
+the relation of an interview I held with my attorney, Charles Clifton,
+very soon after my second incarceration.
+
+We had discussed the situation till there seemed to be nothing left to
+discuss. I understood him, and he thought he understood me. He believed
+Arthur guilty, and credited me with the same convictions. Thus only
+could he explain my inconceivable reticence on certain points he was
+very well assured I could make clear if I would. That he was not the
+only man who had drawn these same conclusions from my attitude both
+before and during the inquest, troubled me greatly and deeply disturbed
+my conscience, but I could indulge in no protests--or, rather would
+indulge in no protests--as yet. There was an unsolved doubt connected
+with some facts which had come out at the inquest--or perhaps, I should
+call it a circumstance not as yet fully explained--which disturbed me
+more than did my conscience, and upon this circumstance I must have
+light before I let my counsel leave me.
+
+I introduced the topic thus:
+
+“You remember the detached sentences taken down by the nurse during the
+period of Carmel’s unconsciousness. They were regarded as senseless
+ravings, and such they doubtless were; but there was one of them which
+attracted my attention, and of which I should like an explanation. I
+wish I had that woman’s little book here; I should like to read for
+myself those wandering utterances.”
+
+“You can,” was the unexpected and welcome reply. “I took them all down
+in shorthand as they fell from Dr. Perry’s lips. I have not had time
+since to transcribe them, but I can read some of them to you, if you
+will give me an idea as to which ones you want.”
+
+“Read the first--what she said on the day of the funeral. I do not
+think the rest matter very much.”
+
+Clifton took a paper from his pocket, and, after only a short delay,
+read out these words:
+
+“_December the fifth_: Her sister’s name, uttered many times and with
+greatly varied expression--now in reproach, now in terror, now in what
+seemed to me in tones of wild pleading and even despair. This continued
+at intervals all through the day.
+
+“At three P.M., just as people were gathering for the funeral, the
+quick, glad cry: ‘I smell flowers, sweet, sweet flowers!’”
+
+Alas! she did.
+
+“At three-forty P.M., as the services neared their close, a violent
+change took place in her appearance, and she uttered in shrill tones
+those astonishing words which horrified all below and made us feel that
+she had a clairvoyant knowledge of the closing of the casket, then
+taking place:
+
+“‘Break it open! Break it open! and see if her heart is there!’”
+
+“Pause there,” I said; “that is what I mean. It was not the only time
+she uttered that cry. If you will glance further down, you will come
+across a second exclamation of the like character.”
+
+“Yes; here it is. It was while the ubiquitous Sweetwater was mousing
+about the room.”
+
+“Read the very words he heard. I have a reason, Clifton. Humour me for
+this once.”
+
+“Certainly--no trouble. She cried, this time: ‘Break it open! Break the
+glass and look in. Her heart should be there--her heart--her heart!
+Horrible! but you insisted, Ranelagh.”
+
+“I thought I heard that word glass,” I muttered, more to myself than to
+him. Then, with a choking fear of giving away my thought, but unable to
+resist the opportunity of settling my own fears, I asked: “Was there
+glass in the casket lid?”
+
+“No; there never is.”
+
+“But she may have thought there was,” I suggested hastily. “I’m
+much obliged to you, Clifton. I had to hear those sentences again.
+Morbidness, no doubt; the experience of the last three weeks would
+affect a stronger-minded man than myself.” Then before he could reply:
+“What do you think the nurse meant by a violent change in her patient?”
+
+“Why, she roused up, I suppose--moved, or made some wild or feverish
+gesture.”
+
+“That is what I should like to know. I may seem foolish and
+unnecessarily exacting about trifles; but I would give a great deal to
+learn precisely where she looked, and what she did at the moment she
+uttered those wild words. Is the detective Sweetwater still in town?”
+
+“I believe so. Came up for the inquest but goes back to-night.”
+
+“See him, Clifton. Ask him to relate this scene. He was present, you
+know. Get him to talk about it. You can, and without rousing his
+suspicion, keen as they all say he is. And when he talks, listen
+and remember what he says. But don’t ask questions. Do this for me,
+Clifton. Some day I may be able to explain my request, but not now.”
+
+“I’m at your service,” he replied; but he looked hurt at being thus set
+to work in the dark, and I dared say nothing to ease the situation. I
+did not dare even to prolong the conversation on this subject, or on
+any other subject. In consequence, he departed speedily, and I spent
+the afternoon wondering whether he would return before the day ended,
+or leave me to the endurance of a night of suspense. I was spared this
+final distress. He came in again towards evening, and this was what he
+told me:
+
+“I have seen Sweetwater, and was more fortunate in my interview than
+I expected. He talked freely, and in the course of the conversation,
+described the very occurrence in which you are so interested. Carmel
+had been lying quietly previous to this outbreak, but suddenly started
+into feverish life and, raising herself up in her bed, pointed straight
+before her and uttered the words we have so often repeated. That’s all
+there was to it, and I don’t see for my part, what you have gained by a
+repetition of the same, or why you lay so much stress upon her gesture.
+What she said was the thing, though even that is immaterial from a
+legal point of view--which is the only view of any importance to you or
+to me, at this juncture.”
+
+“You’re a true friend to me,” I answered, “and never more so than in
+this instance. Forgive me that I cannot show my appreciation of your
+goodness, or thank you properly for your performance of an uncongenial
+task. I am sunk deep in trouble. I’m not myself and cannot be till I
+know what action will be taken by the grand jury.”
+
+If he replied, I have no remembrance of it; neither do I recall his
+leave-taking. But I was presently aware that I was alone and could
+think out my hideous thought, undisturbed.
+
+Carmel had pointed straight before her, shouting out: “Break in the
+glass!”
+
+I knew her room; I had been taken in there once by Adelaide, as a
+sequence to a long conversation about Carmel, shortly after her first
+return from school. Adelaide wished to show me the cabinet in the wall,
+the cabinet at which Carmel undoubtedly pointed, if her bed stood as it
+had stood then. It was not quite full, at that time. It did not contain
+Adelaide’s heart among the other broken toys which Carmel had destroyed
+with her own hand or foot, in her moments of frenzied passion--the
+canary, that would not pick from her hand, the hat she hated, the bowl
+which held only bread and milk when she wanted meat or cake. Adelaide
+had kept them all, locked behind glass and in full view of the child’s
+eyes night and day, that the shame of those past destructive moments
+might guard her from their repetition and help her to understand her
+temper and herself. I had always thought it cruel of Adelaide, one of
+the evidences of the flint-like streak which ran through her otherwise
+generous and upright nature. But its awful prophecy was what affected
+me most now; for destruction had fallen on something more tender than
+aught that cabinet held.
+
+Adelaide’s heart! And Carmel acknowledged it--acknowledged that it
+should be there, with what else she had trampled upon and crushed
+in her white heat of rage. I could not doubt her guilt, after this.
+Whatever peace her forgetfulness had brought--whatever innocent longing
+after Adelaide--the wild cry of those first few hours, ere yet the
+impressions of her awful experience had succumbed to disease, revealed
+her secret and showed the workings of her conscience. It had not been
+understood; it had passed as an awesome episode. But for me, since
+hearing of it, she stood evermore convicted out of her own mouth--that
+lovely mouth which angels might kiss in her hours of joyous serenity;
+but from whose caress friends would fly, when the passion reigned in
+her heart and she must break, crush, kill, or go mad.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+AT TEN INSTEAD OF TWELVE
+
+Forget the world around you. Meantime friendship
+Shall keep strict vigils for you, anxious, active,
+Only be manageable when that friendship
+Points you the road to full accomplishment.
+
+_Coleridge_.
+
+
+“I don’t care a rush what you do to me. If you are so besotted by your
+prejudices that you refuse to see the nose before your face; if you
+don’t believe your own officer who swore he saw Ranelagh’s hands upon
+my sister’s throat, then this world is all a jumble and it makes very
+little difference to me whether I’m alive or dead.”
+
+When these words of Arthur Cumberland were repeated to me, I echoed
+them in my inmost soul. I, too, cared very little whether I lived or
+died.
+
+The grand jury reeled off its cases and finally took up ours. To the
+last I hoped--sincerely I think--that I should be the man to suffer
+indictment. But I hoped in vain. A true bill was brought against
+Arthur, and his trial was set for the eighteenth of January.
+
+The first use I made of my liberty was to visit Adelaide’s grave. In
+that sacred place I could best review my past and gather strength for
+the future. The future! Was it under my control? Did Arthur’s fate hang
+upon my word? I believed so. But had I strength to speak that word? I
+had expected to; I had seen my duty clearly enough before the sitting
+of the grand jury. But now that Arthur was indicted--now that it was an
+accepted fact that he would have to stand trial instead of myself, I
+was conscious of such a recoil from my contemplated action that I lost
+all confidence in myself and my stoical adherence to what I considered
+the claims of justice.
+
+Standing in the cemetery grounds with my eyes upon the snow-covered
+mound beneath which lay the doubly injured Adelaide, I had it out with
+myself, for good and all.
+
+I trusted Arthur; I distrusted Carmel. But she had claims to
+consideration, which he lacked. She was a woman. Her fall would mean
+infinitely more to her than any disgrace to him. Even he had seemed to
+recognise this. Miserable and half-hearted as his life had been, he had
+shown himself man enough not to implicate his young sister in the crime
+laid to his charge. What then was I that I should presume to disregard
+his lead in the difficult maze in which we were both lost. Yet, because
+of the self-restraint he manifested, he had my sympathy and when I left
+the cemetery and took my mournful way back into town, it was with the
+secret resolution to stand his friend if I saw the case really going
+against him. Till then, I would consider the helpless girl, tongue-tied
+by her condition, and injured enough already by my misplaced love and
+its direful consequences.
+
+The only change I now allowed myself was an occasional midnight stroll
+up Huested Street. This was as near as I dared approach Carmel’s
+windows. I feared some watchful police spy. Perhaps I feared my own
+hardly-to-be-restrained longings.
+
+Mr. Fulton’s house and extensive grounds lay between this street and
+the dismal walls beyond the huge sycamore which lifted itself like a
+beacon above the Cumberland estate. But I allowed myself the doubtful
+pleasure of traversing this course, and this course only, and if I
+obtained one glimpse through bush and tree of the spot whither all my
+thoughts ran continuously, I went home satisfied.
+
+This was before Carmel left with her nurse for Lakewood. After that
+event, I turned my head no more, in taking my midnight stroll. I was
+not told the day or hour of her departure. Happily, perhaps, for us
+both, for I could never have kept away from the station. I should have
+risked everything for one glimpse of her face, if only to satisfy
+my own judgment as to whether she would ever recognise me again, or
+remember what had occurred on that doleful night when the light of her
+intellect set in the darkness of sin and trouble.
+
+The police had the same idea, I think, for I heard later that she was
+deliberately driven past The Whispering Pines, though the other road
+was more direct and less free, if anything, from possible spectators.
+They thought, no doubt, that a sight of the place might reawaken
+whatever memories remained of the last desperate scene preceding her
+brother and sister’s departure for this out-of-the-way spot. They
+little knew how cruel was the test, or what a storm of realisation
+might have overwhelmed her mind as her eye fell on those accursed
+walls, peering from their bower of snow-laden, pines. But I did, and I
+never rested till I learned how she had borne herself in her slow drive
+by the two guarded gateways: merrily, it seems, and with no sign of the
+remembrances I feared. The test, if it were meant for such, availed
+them nothing; no more, indeed, than an encounter with her on the road,
+or at the station would have availed me. For the veil she begged for
+had shrouded her features completely, and it was only from her manner
+that those who accompanied her, perceived her light-heartedness and
+delight in this change.
+
+One sentence, and one only, reached my ears of all she said before she
+disappeared from town.
+
+“If Adelaide were only going, too! But I suppose I shall meet her and
+Mr. Ranelagh somewhere before my return. She must be very happy. But
+not so peaceful as I am. She will see that when we meet. I can hardly
+wait for the day.”
+
+Words which set me thinking; but which I was bound to acknowledge
+could be only the idle maunderings of a diseased mind from which all
+impressions had fled, save those of innocence and futile hope.
+
+One incident more before I enter upon the serious business of the
+trial. I had no purpose in what I did. I merely followed the impulse
+of the moment, as I had so often done before in my selfish and
+thoughtless life, when I started one night for my walk at ten o’clock
+instead of twelve. I went the old way; and the old longing recurring
+at the one charmed spot on the road, I cast a quick look at the
+towering sycamore and the desolated house beneath, which, short as it
+was, roused feelings which kept my head lowered for the remainder of
+my walk north and to the very moment, when, on my return, the same
+chimneys and overhanging roofs came again into view through the wintry
+branches. Then habit lifted my head, and I paused to look again, when
+the low sound of a human voice, suppressed into a moan or sob, caused
+me to glance about for the woman or child who had uttered this note
+of sorrow. No one was in sight; but as I started to move on, I heard
+my name uttered in choked tones from behind the hedge separating the
+Fulton grounds from the city sidewalk.
+
+I halted instantly. A lamp from the opposite side of the street threw
+a broad illumination across the walk where I stood, but the gate-posts
+behind threw a shadow. Had the voice issued from this isolated point of
+darkness? I went back to see. A pitiful figure was crouching there, a
+frail, agitated little being, whom I had no sooner recognised than my
+manner instantly assumed an air of friendly interest, called out by her
+timid and appealing attitude.
+
+“Ella Fulton!” I exclaimed. “You wish to speak to me?”
+
+“Hush!” she prayed, with a frightened gesture towards the house. “No
+one knows I am here. Mamma thinks me in bed, and papa, who is out, may
+come home any minute. Oh, Mr. Ranelagh, I’m in such misery and no one
+but you can give me any help. I have watched you go by night after
+night, and I have wanted to call out and beg you to come in and see me,
+or let me go and meet you somewhere, and I have not dared, it was so
+late. To-night you have come earlier, and I have slipped out and--O,
+Elwood, you won’t think badly of me? It’s all about Arthur, and I shall
+die if some one does not help me and tell me how I can reach him with a
+message.”
+
+As she spoke the last words, she caught at the gatepost which was too
+broad and ponderous to offer her any hold. Gravely I held out my arm,
+which she took; we were old friends and felt no necessity of standing
+on any sort of ceremony.
+
+“You don’t wish to bother,” was her sensitive cry. “You had rather not
+stop; rather not listen to my troubles.”
+
+Had I shown my feelings so plainly as that? I felt mortified. She was a
+girl of puny physique and nervous manner--the last sort of person you
+would expect Arthur Cumberland to admire or even to have patience with,
+and the very last sort who could be expected to endure his rough ways,
+or find anything congenial to herself in his dissipated and purposeless
+life. But the freaks of youthful passion are endless, and it was
+evident that they loved each other sincerely.
+
+Her tremulous condition and meek complaint went to my heart,
+notwithstanding my growing dread of any conversation between us on this
+all-absorbing but equally peace-destroying topic. Reassuringly pressing
+her hand, I was startled to find a small piece of paper clutched
+convulsively within it.
+
+“For Arthur,” she explained under her breath. “I thought you might find
+some way of getting it to him. Father and mother are so prejudiced.
+They have never liked him, and now they believe the very worst. They
+would lock me up if they knew I was speaking to you about him. Mother
+is very stern and says that all this nonsense between Arthur and
+myself must stop. That we must never--no matter whether he is cleared
+or--or--” Silence, then a little gasp, after which she added with an
+emphasis which bespoke the death of every hope: “She is very decided
+about it, Elwood.”
+
+I hardly blamed the mother.
+
+“I--I love Arthur. I don’t think him guilty and I would gladly stand by
+him if they would let me. I want him to know this. I want him to get
+such comfort as he can out of my belief and my desire to serve him.
+I want to sacrifice myself. But I can’t, I can’t,” she moaned. “You
+don’t know how mother frightens me. When she looks at me, the words
+falter on my tongue and I feel as if it would be easier to die than to
+acknowledge what is in my heart.”
+
+I could believe her. Mrs. Fulton was a notable woman, whom many men
+shrank from encountering needlessly. It was not her tongue, though
+that could be bitter enough, but a certain way she had of infusing her
+displeasure into attitude, tone, and manner, which insensibly sapped
+your self-confidence and forced you to accept her bad opinion of you as
+your rightful due. This, whether your judgment coincided with hers or
+not.
+
+“Yet your mother is your very best friend,” I ventured gently, with
+a realisation of my responsibility which did not add much to my
+self-possession.
+
+She seemed startled.
+
+“Not in this, not in this,” she objected, with a renewal of her anxious
+glances, this time up and down the street. “I must get a word to
+Arthur. I _must_.”
+
+I saw that she had some deeper reason than appeared, for desiring
+communication with him. I was debating how best to meet the situation
+and set her right as to my ability to serve her, without breaking down
+her spirit too seriously, when I felt her feverish hand pressing her
+little note into my unwilling palm.
+
+“Don’t read it,” she whispered, innocent of all offence and only
+anxious to secure my good offices. “It’s for Arthur. I’ve used the
+thinnest paper, so that you can secrete it in something he will be sure
+to get. Don’t disappoint me. I was sorry for you, too, and glad when
+they let you out. Both of you are old playmates of mine, but Arthur--”
+
+I had to tell her; I had to dash her small hopes to the ground.
+
+“Forgive me, Ella,” I said, “but I cannot carry him this message or
+even get it to him secretly. I am watched myself; I know it, though I
+have never really detected the man doing it.”
+
+“Oh!” she ejaculated, terror-stricken at once. “Is there any one here,
+behind these trees or in the street on the other side of the hedge-row?”
+
+I hastened to reassure her.
+
+“No, no. If I’ve been followed, it was not so near as that. I cannot do
+what you ask for several reasons. Arthur will credit you with the best
+of impulses without your incurring any such risk.”
+
+“Yes, yes, but that’s not enough. What shall I do? What shall I do?”
+
+I strove to help her.
+
+“There is a man,” said I, “who sees him constantly and may be induced
+to assure Arthur of your belief and continued interest in him. That man
+is his lawyer, Mr. Moffat. Any one will tell you how to reach him.”
+
+“No, no,” she disclaimed, hurriedly, breathlessly. “My last hope was in
+you. You wouldn’t think the worse of me for--for what I’ve done; or let
+mother know. I couldn’t tell a stranger even if he went right to Arthur
+with it. I’m not made that way. I couldn’t stand the shame.” Drawing
+back a step she wrung her small hands together, exclaiming, “What an
+unhappy girl I am!” Then stepping up to my side, she whispered in my
+ear: “There is something I could say which might--”
+
+I stopped her. Right or wrong, I stopped her. I hadn’t the courage just
+then to face the possibilities of what lay at the end of this simple
+sentence. She possessed evidence, or thought she did, which might help
+to clear Arthur. Evidence of what? Evidence which would implicate
+Carmel? The very thought unnerved me.
+
+“I had rather not be the recipient of this confidence if it is at
+all important or at all in the line of testimony. Remember the man I
+mentioned. He will be glad to hear of anything helpful to his client.”
+
+Her distress mounted to passion.
+
+“It’s--it’s something that will destroy my mother’s confidence in me.
+I disobeyed her. I did what she would never have let me do if she had
+known. I--I used to meet Arthur in the driveway back by the barns. I
+had a key made to the little side door so that I could do it. I used
+to meet him late. I would get up out of bed when mother was asleep,
+and dress myself and sit at the window until I heard him come up
+the street. Then I would steal down and catch him on his way to the
+stables. I--I had a good reason for this, Elwood. He knew I would be
+there, and it brought him home earlier and not quite so--so full of
+liquor. If he was very bad, he would come up the other way and I would
+sit waiting and crying till three o’clock struck, then creep into my
+bed and try to sleep. Nights and nights I have done this. Nothing else
+in life seemed so important, for it did hold him back a little. But not
+so much as if he had loved me more. He loved me some, but he couldn’t
+have loved me very much, or he would have sent me some word, or seen
+me, if but for a minute, since Adelaide’s death. And he hasn’t, he
+hasn’t! and that makes it harder for me to acknowledge the watch I kept
+on him, and how I know he never went through our grounds for the second
+time that night. He went once, about nine, but not later. I am certain
+of this, for I was looking out for him till three in the morning. If he
+came back and then returned afterwards to town, it was through his own
+street, and that takes so long, he would never have been able to get
+to the place they said he did at the time they have agreed upon. Oh! I
+have studied every word of the case, to see if what I had to tell would
+help him any. Father cannot bear to see me with a newspaper in my hand,
+and mother comes and takes them out of my room; but I have managed to
+read every word since they accused him of being at the club-house that
+night, and I know that he needs some one to come out boldly in his
+cause, and I want to be that some one, and I will be, too, whatever
+happens to me, if--if I must,” she faintly added.
+
+I was dumb, but not from lack of interest, God knows, or from
+unsympathetic feeling for this brave-hearted girl. The significance
+of the situation was what held me speechless. Here was help for
+Arthur without my braving all the horrors of Carmel’s downfall by any
+impulsive act of my own. For a moment, hope in one burning and renewing
+flame soared high in my breast. I was willing to accept my release
+in this way. I was willing to shift the load from my own back to the
+delicate shoulders of this shrinking but ardent girl. Then reason
+returned, if consideration halted, and I asked myself: “But is the
+help she offers of any practical worth? Would her timid declarations,
+trembling as she was between her awe of her parents and her desire to
+serve the man she loved, weigh in the balance against the evidence
+accumulated by the district attorney?”
+
+It seemed doubtful. She would not be believed, and I should have to
+back up her statement with my own hitherto suppressed testimony. It
+was a hard case, any way I looked at it. A woman to be sacrificed
+whichever course I took. Contemplating the tremulous, half-fainting
+figure drooping in the shadows before me, such native chivalry as
+remained to me, urged me to spare this little friend of mine, so
+ungifted by nature, so innocent in intention, so sensitive and so
+shrinking in temperament and habit. Then Carmel’s image rose before
+me, glorious, impassioned, driven by the fierce onrush of some mighty
+inherent force into violent deeds undreamed of by most women; but when
+thus undriven, gentle in manner, elevated in thought, refined as only
+a few rare characters are refined; and my heart stood still again
+with doubt, and I could not say: “It is your duty to save him at all
+hazards. Brave your father, brave your mother, brave public opinion and
+possibly the wrecking of your whole future, but tell the truth, and rid
+your days of doubt, your nights of remorse.” I could not say this. So
+many things might happen to save Arthur, to save Carmel, to save the
+little woman before me. I would trust that future, temporise a bit and
+give such advice as would relieve us both from immediate fear without
+compromising Arthur’s undoubted rights to justice.
+
+Meanwhile, Ella Fulton had become distracted by new fears. The sound
+of sleigh-bells could be heard on the hill. It might be her father.
+Should she try to reach the house, or hide her small body, like a
+trapped animal’s, on the dark side of the hedge? I was conscious of her
+thoughts, shared her uncertainties, notwithstanding the struggle then
+going on in my own mind. But I remained quiet and so did she, and the
+sleigh ultimately flew past us up the road. The sigh which broke from
+her lips as this terror subsided, brought my disordered thoughts to a
+focus. I must not keep her longer. Something must be said at once. As
+soon as she looked my way again, I spoke:
+
+“Ella, this is no easy problem you have offered me. You are right in
+thinking that this testimony of yours might be of benefit to Arthur,
+and that you ought to give it in case of extremity. But I cannot advise
+you to obtrude it yet. I understand what it would cost you, and the
+sacrifice you would make is too great for the doubtful good which might
+follow. Neither must you trust me to act for you in this matter. My
+own position is too unstable for me to be of assistance to any one.
+I can sympathise with you, possibly as no one else can; but I cannot
+reach Arthur, either by word or by message. Your father is the man to
+appeal to in case interference becomes necessary and you must speak.
+You have not quite the same fear of him that you have of your mother.
+Take him into your confidence--not now but later when things press and
+you must have a friend. He’s a just man. You may shock his fatherly
+susceptibilities, you may even lose some of his regard, but he will do
+the right thing by you and Arthur. Have confidence that this is so, and
+rest, little friend, in the hope and help it gives you. Will you?”
+
+“I will try. I could only tell father on my knees, but I will do it
+if--if I must,” she faltered out, unconsciously repeating her former
+phrase. “Now, I must go. You have been good; only I asked too much.”
+And with no other farewell she left me and disappeared up the walk.
+
+I lingered till I heard the faint click of her key in the door she had
+secretly made her own; then I moved on. As I did so, I heard a rustle
+somewhere about me on street or lawn. I never knew whence it came,
+but I felt assured that neither her fears nor mine had been quite
+unfounded; that a listener had been posted somewhere near us and that
+a part, if not all, we had said had been overheard. I was furious for
+an instant, then the soothing thought came that possibly Providence had
+ordained that the Gordian knot should be cut in just this way.
+
+But the event bore no ostensible fruit. The week ended, and the case of
+the People _against_ Arthur Cumberland was moved for trial.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+ALL THIS STOOD
+
+It’s fit this royal session do proceed;
+And that, without delay, their arguments
+Be now produc’d and heard
+
+_King Henry VIII_.
+
+
+There was difficulty, as you will conceive, in selecting an
+unprejudiced jury. But this once having been accomplished, the case
+went quickly and smoothly on under the able guidance of the prosecuting
+attorney.
+
+I shall spare you the opening details, also much of the preliminary
+testimony. Enough that at the close of the sixth day, the outlook was
+a serious one for Arthur Cumberland. The prosecution appeared to be
+making good its claims. The quiet and unexpectedly dignified way in
+which, at the beginning, the defendant had faced the whole antagonistic
+court-room, with the simple plea of “Not Guilty,” was being slowly but
+surely forgotten in the accumulated proofs of his discontented life
+under his sister’s dominating influence, his desire for independence
+and a free use of the money held in trust for him by this sister
+under their father’s will, the quarrels which such a situation would
+naturally evoke between characters cast in such different moulds
+and actuated by such opposing tastes and principles, and the final
+culmination of the same at the dinner-table when Adelaide forced him,
+as it were, to subscribe to her prohibition of all further use of
+liquor in their house. Following this evidence of motive, came the
+still more damaging one of opportunity. He was shown to have been in
+the club-house at or near the time of Adelaide’s death. The matter of
+the bottles was gone into and the event in Cuthbert Road. Then I was
+called to the stand, and my testimony asked for.
+
+I had prepared myself for the ordeal and faced it unflinchingly. That
+I might keep intact the one point necessary to Carmel’s safety, I met
+my inquisitors, now as before, with the utmost candour in all other
+respects. Indeed, in one particular I was even more exact in my details
+than at any previous examination. Anxious to explain my agitated and
+hesitating advance through the club-house, prior to my discovery of
+the crime which had been committed there, I acknowledged what I had
+hitherto concealed, that in my first entrance into the building, I had
+come upon a man’s derby hat and coat hanging in the lower hall, and
+when questioned more minutely on the subject, allowed it to appear that
+it was owing to the disappearance of these articles during my stay
+upstairs, that I had been led into saying that some one had driven away
+from The Whispering Pines before the coming of the police.
+
+This, as you will see, was in open contradiction of my former
+statements that I had _seen_ an unknown party, thus attired, driving
+away through the upper gateway just as I entered by the lower. But it
+was a contradiction which while noted by Mr. Moffat, failed to injure
+me with the jury, and much less with the spectators. The impression
+had become so firmly fixed in the public mind and in that of certain
+officials as well, that my early hesitations and misstatements were
+owing to a brotherly anxiety to distract attention from Arthur whose
+clothing they believed me to have recognised in these articles I
+have mentioned--that I rather gained than lost by what, under other
+circumstances would have seriously damaged my testimony. That I should
+prevaricate even to my own detriment, at a preliminary examination,
+only to tell the truth openly and like a man when in court and under
+the sanctity of an oath was, in the popular estimation, something to my
+credit; and Mr. Moffat, whose chief recommendation as counsel lay in
+his quick appreciation of the exigencies of the moment, did not press
+me too sharply on this point when he came to his cross-examination.
+
+But in other respects he drove me hard. An effort was made by him,
+first of all, to discredit me as a witness. My lack of appreciation for
+Adelaide and my secret but absorbing love for Carmel were inexorably
+brought out: also the easy, happy-go-lucky tenor of my life, and
+my dogged persistence in any course I thought consistent with my
+happiness. My character was well known in this town of my birth, and
+it would have been folly for me to attempt to gloss it over. I had not
+even the desire to do so. If my sins exacted penance, I would pay it
+here and now and to the full. Only Carmel should not suffer. I refused
+to admit that she had given any evidences of returning my reckless
+passion. My tongue would not speak the necessary words, and it was
+not made to. It was not her character but mine which Mr. Moffat was
+endeavouring to assail.
+
+But though I was thus shown up for what I was, in a manner most public
+and undesirable, neither the rulings of the court, nor the attitude of
+the jury betrayed any loss of confidence in me as a credible witness,
+and seeing this, the wily lawyer shifted his ground and confined
+himself to an endeavour to shake me on certain definite and important
+points. How were the pillows heaped upon the couch? What ones at top,
+what ones at bottom? Which did I remove first, and why did I remove any
+of them? What had I expected to find? These questions answered, the
+still more-to-be-dreaded ones followed of just how my betrothed looked
+at the moment I uncovered her face. Were the marks very plain upon her
+throat? How plain; and what did I mean by saying that I felt forced to
+lay my thumbs upon them? Was that a natural thing to do? Where was the
+candle at that moment? How many feet away? A candle does not give much
+light at that distance, was I sure that I saw those marks immediately;
+that they were dark enough and visible enough to draw my eyes from her
+face which would naturally attract my gaze first? It was horrible,
+devilish, but I won through, only to meet the still more disturbing
+question as to whether I saw any other evidences of strangulation
+besides the marks. I could only mention the appearance of the eyes;
+and when Mr. Moffat found that he could not shake me on this point,
+he branched off into a less harrowing topic and cross-examined me in
+regard to the ring. I had said that it was on her hand when I bade
+good-bye to her in her own house, and that it was not there when I came
+upon her dead. Had the fact made me curious to examine her hand? No.
+Then I could not tell whether the finger on which she wore it gave any
+evidence of this ring having been pulled off with violence? No. I could
+not swear that in my opinion it was? I could not.
+
+The small flask of cordial and the three glasses, one clean and the
+others showing signs of having been used, were next taken up, but
+with no result for the defence. I had told all I knew about these in
+my direct examination; also about such matters as the bottles found
+on the kitchen table, the leaving of my keys at the Cumberland house,
+and the fact, well known, that the two bottles of wine left in the
+wine-vault and tabulated by the steward as so left in the list found
+in my apartments, were of an exclusive brand unlikely to be found
+anywhere else in town. I could add nothing more, and, having spoken the
+exact truth concerning them, from the very first, I ran no chance of
+contradicting myself even under the close fire of the opposing counsel.
+
+But there was a matter I dreaded to see him approach, and, which, I was
+equally sure, with an insight unshared I believe by any one else in the
+whole courtroom, was equally dreaded by the prisoner.
+
+This was the presence in the club-house chimney of the half-burned
+letter I had long ago been compelled, in my own defence, to acknowledge
+having written to the victim’s young sister, Carmel Cumberland. As I
+saw District Attorney Fox about to enter upon this topic, I gathered
+myself together to meet the onslaught, for in this matter I could not
+be strictly truthful, since the least slip on my part might awaken the
+whole world to the fact that it could only have come there through the
+agency of Carmel herself.
+
+What Mr. Moffat thought of it--what he hoped to prove in the prisoner’s
+behalf by raking this subject over--it was left for me to discover
+later. The prisoner was an innocent man, in his eyes. I was not; and,
+while the time had not come for him to make this openly apparent, he
+was not above showing even now that the case contained a factor which
+weakened the prosecution--a factor totally dissociated with the openly
+accepted theory that the crime was simply the result of personal
+cupidity and drunken spite.
+
+And in this he was right. It did weaken it--weakened it to the point
+of collapse, if the counsel for the defence had fully acted up to his
+opportunity. But something withheld him. Just at the moment when I
+feared the truth must come out, he hesitated and veered gradually away
+from this subject. In his nervous pacings to and fro before the witness
+stand, his eye had rested for a moment on Arthur’s, and with this
+result. The situation was saved, but at a great loss to the defendant.
+
+I began to cherish softened feelings towards Arthur Cumberland, from
+this moment. Was it then, or later, that he began in his turn to
+cherish new and less hostile feelings towards myself? He had hated me
+and vowed my death if I escaped the fate he could now dimly see opening
+out before himself; yet I could see that he was glad to see me slip
+from my tormentor’s hands with my story unimpeached, and that he drew
+his breath more deeply and with much more evidence of freedom, now that
+my testimony had been thoroughly sifted and nothing had come to light
+implicating Carmel. I even thought I caught a kindly gleam in his eye
+as it met mine at this critical juncture, and by its light I understood
+my man and what he hoped from me. He wished me at any risk to himself,
+to unite with him in saving Carmel’s good name. That I should accede
+to this; that I should respect his generous wishes and let him go to
+unmerited destruction for even so imperative an obligation as we both
+lay under, was a question for the morrow. I could not decide upon it
+to-day--not while the smallest hope remained that he would yet escape
+conviction by other means than the one which would wreck the life we
+were both intent on saving.
+
+Several short examinations followed mine, all telling in their nature,
+all calculated to fix in the minds of the jury the following facts:
+
+(Pray pardon the repetition. It is necessary to present the case to you
+just as it stood at this period of my greatest struggle.)
+
+1.--That Arthur, swayed by cupidity and moved to rage by the scene at
+the dinner-table, had, by some unknown means of a more or less violent
+character, prevailed upon Adelaide to accompany him to The Whispering
+Pines, in the small cutter, to which, in the absence of every servant
+about the place, he himself had harnessed the grey mare.
+
+2.--That in preparation for this visit to a spot remote from
+observation and closed against all visitors, they, still for some
+unknown reason, had carried between them a candlestick and candle, a
+flask of cordial, three glasses, and a small bottle marked “Poison”;
+also some papers, letters, or scraps of correspondence, among them the
+compromising line I had written to Carmel.
+
+3.--That, while in this building, at an hour not yet settled, a second
+altercation had arisen between them, or some attempt been made by
+the brother which had alarmed Adelaide and sent her flying to the
+telephone, in great agitation, with an appeal to the police for help.
+This telephone was in a front room and the jury was led to judge
+that she had gained access to it while her companion ransacked the
+wine-vault and brought the six bottles of spirit up from the cellar.
+
+4.--That her outcry had alarmed the prisoner in his turn, causing him
+to leave most of the bottles below, and hasten up to the room, where he
+completed the deed with which he had previously threatened her.
+
+5.--That poison having failed, he resorted to strangulation; after
+which--or before--came the robbery of her ring, the piling up of the
+cushions over the body in a vain endeavour to hide the deed, or to
+prolong the search for the victim. Then the departure--the locking of
+the front door behind the perpetrator; the flight of the grey horse and
+cutter through the blinding storm; the blowing off of the driver’s hat;
+the identification of the same by means of the flour-mark left on its
+brim by the mechanic’s wife; the presence of a portion of one of the
+two abstracted bottles in the stable where the horse was put up; and
+the appearance of Arthur with the other bottle at the door of the inn
+in Cuthbert Road, just as the clock was striking half-past eleven.
+
+This latter fact might have been regarded as proving an alibi, owing
+to the length of road between the Cumberland house and the place just
+mentioned, if there had not been a short cut to town open to him by
+means of a door in the wall separating the Cumberland and Fulton
+grounds--a door which was found unlocked, and with the key in it, by
+Zadok Brown, the coachman, when he came home about three next morning.
+
+All this stood; not an item of this testimony could be shaken. Most of
+it was true; some of it false; but what was false, so unassailable by
+any ordinary means, that, as I have already said, the clouds seemed
+settling heavily over Arthur Cumberland when, at the end of the sixth
+day, the proceedings closed.
+
+The night that followed was a heavy one for me. Then came the fateful
+morrow, and, after that, the day of days destined to make a life-long
+impression on all who attended this trial.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+“I AM INNOCENT”
+
+All is oblique,
+There’s nothing level in our cursed natures,
+But direct villainy. Therefore, be abhorred
+All feasts, societies, and throngs of men!
+His semblable, yea, himself, Timon disdains.
+
+_Timon of Athens_.
+
+
+I was early in my seat. Feeling the momentousness of the occasion--for
+this day must decide my action for or against the prisoner--I searched
+the faces of the jury, of the several counsel, and of the judge. I was
+anxious to know what I had to expect from them, in case my conscience
+got the better of my devotion to Carmel’s interests and led me into
+that declaration of the real facts which was forever faltering on my
+tongue, without having, as yet, received the final impetus which could
+only end in speech.
+
+To give him his rightful precedence, the judge showed an impenetrable
+countenance but little changed from that with which he had faced
+us all from the start. He, like most of the men involved in these
+proceedings, had been a close friend of the prisoner’s father, and, in
+his capacity of judge in this momentous trial, had had to contend with
+his personal predilections, possibly with concealed sympathies, if not
+with equally well-concealed prejudices. This had lent to his aspect a
+sternness never observable in it before; but no man, even the captious
+Mr. Moffat, had seriously questioned his rulings; and, whatever the
+cost to himself, he had, up to this time, held the scales of justice so
+evenly that it would have taken an audacious mind to have ventured on
+an interpretation of his real attitude or mental leaning in this case.
+
+From this imposing presence, nobly sustained by a well-proportioned
+figure and a head and face indicative of intellect and every kindly
+attribute, I turned to gaze upon Mr. Fox and his colleagues. One spirit
+seemed to animate them--confidence in their case, and unqualified
+satisfaction at its present status.
+
+I was conscious of a certain ironic impulse to smile, as I noted the
+eager whisper and the bustle of preparation with which they settled
+upon their next witness and prepared to open their batteries upon him.
+How easily I could call down that high look, and into what a turmoil I
+could throw them all by an ingenuous demand to be recalled to the stand!
+
+But the psychological moment had not yet come, and I subdued the
+momentary impulse and proceeded with my scrutiny of the people about
+me. The jury looked tired, with the exception of one especially alert
+little man who drank in even the most uninteresting details with
+avidity. But they all had good faces, and none could doubt their
+interest, or that they were fully alive to the significance of the
+occasion.
+
+Mr. Moffat, leading counsel for the defendant, was a spare man of
+unusual height, modified a little, and only a little, by the forward
+droop of his shoulders. Nervous in manner, quick, short, sometimes
+rasping in speech, he had the changeful eye and mobile expression of
+a very sensitive nature; and from him, if from any one, I might hope
+to learn how much or how little Arthur had to fear from the day’s
+proceedings. But Mr. Moffat’s countenance was not as readable as usual.
+He looked preoccupied--a strange thing for him; and, instead of keeping
+his eye on the witness, as was his habitual practice, he allowed it
+to wander over the sea of heads before him, with a curious expectant
+interest which aroused my own curiosity, and led me to hunt about for
+its cause.
+
+My first glance was unproductive. I saw only the usual public, such as
+had confronted us the whole week, with curious and increasing interest.
+But as I searched further, I discerned in an inconspicuous corner, the
+bowed head, veiled almost beyond recognition, of Ella Fulton. It was
+her first appearance in court. Each day I had anticipated her presence,
+and each day I had failed to see my anticipations realised. But she
+was here now, and so were her father and her cold and dominating
+mother; and, beholding her thus accompanied, I fancied I understood Mr.
+Moffat’s poorly concealed excitement. But another glance at Mrs. Fulton
+assured me that I was mistaken in this hasty surmise. No such serious
+purpose, as I feared, lay back of their presence here to-day. Curiosity
+alone explained it; and as I realised what this meant, and how little
+understanding it betokened of the fierce struggle then going on in the
+timid breast of their distracted child, a sickening sense of my own
+responsibility drove Carmel’s beauty, and Carmel’s claims temporarily
+from my mind, and following the direction of Ella’s thoughts, if not
+her glances, I sought in the face of the prisoner a recognition of her
+presence, if not of the promise this presence brought him.
+
+His eye had just fallen on her. I was assured of this by the sudden
+softening of his expression--the first real softening I had ever seen
+in it. It was but a momentary flash, but it was unmistakable in its
+character, as was his speedy return to his former stolidity. Whatever
+his thoughts were at sight of his little sweetheart, he meant to hide
+them even from his counsel--most of all from his counsel, I decided
+after further contemplation of them both. If Mr. Moffat still showed
+nervousness, it was for some other reason than anxiety about this
+little body hiding from sight behind the proudly held figures of father
+and mother.
+
+The opening testimony of the day, while not vital, was favourable to
+the prosecution in that it showed Arthur’s conduct since the murder
+to have been inconsistent with perfect innocence. His belated return
+at noon the next day, raging against the man who had been found in
+an incriminating position on the scene of crime, while at the same
+time failing to betray his own presence there till driven to it by
+accumulating circumstances and the persistent inquiries of the police;
+the care he took to avoid drink, though constant tippling was habitual
+to him and formed the great cause of quarrel between himself and the
+murdered Adelaide; his haunting of Carmel’s door and anxious listening
+for any words she might let fall in her delirium; the suspicion which
+he constantly betrayed of the nurse when for any reason he was led to
+conclude that she had heard something which he had not; his behaviour
+at the funeral and finally his action in demanding to have the
+casket-lid removed that he might look again at the face he had made no
+effort to gaze upon when opportunity offered and time and place were
+seemly: these facts and many more were brought forward in grim array
+against the prisoner, with but little opposition from his counsel and
+small betrayal of feeling on the part of Arthur himself. His stolid
+face had remained stolid even when the ring which had fallen out of his
+sister’s casket was shown to the jury and the connection made between
+its presence there and the intrusion of his hand into the same, on
+the occasion above mentioned. This once thoughtless, pleasure-loving,
+and hopelessly dissipated boy had not miscalculated his nerve. It
+was sufficient for an ordeal which might have tried the courage and
+self-possession of the most hardened criminal.
+
+Then came the great event of the day, in anticipation of which the
+court-room had been packed, and every heart within it awakened by slow
+degrees to a state of great nervous expectancy. The prosecution rested
+and the junior counsel for the defence opened his case to the jury.
+
+If I had hoped for any startling disclosure, calculated to establish
+his client’s alleged alibi, or otherwise to free the same from the
+definite charge of murder, I had reason to be greatly disappointed by
+this maiden effort of a young and inexperienced lawyer. If not exactly
+weak, there was an unexpected vagueness in its statements which seemed
+quite out of keeping with the emphatic declaration which he made of the
+prisoner’s innocence.
+
+Even Arthur was sensible of the bad effect made by this preliminary
+address. More than once during its delivery and notably at its
+conclusion, he turned to Mr. Moffat, with a bitter remark, which was
+not without effect on that gentleman’s cheek, and at once called forth
+a retort stinging enough to cause Arthur to sink back into his place,
+with the first sign of restlessness I had observed in him.
+
+“Moffat is sly. Moffat has something up his sleeve. I will wait till
+he sees fit to show it,” was my thought; then, as I caught a wild and
+pleading look from Ella, I added in positive assertion to myself, “And
+so must she.”
+
+Answering her unspoken appeal with an admonitory shake of the head,
+I carelessly let my fingers rest upon my mouth until I saw that she
+understood me and was prepared to follow my lead for a little while
+longer.
+
+My satisfaction at this was curtailed by the calling of Arthur
+Cumberland to the stand to witness in his own defence.
+
+I had dreaded this contingency. I saw that for some reason, both his
+counsel and associate counsel, were not without their own misgivings as
+to the result of their somewhat doubtful experiment.
+
+A change was observable in this degenerate son of the Cumberlands since
+many there had confronted him face to face. Physically he was improved.
+Enough time had elapsed since his sudden dropping of old habits, for
+him to have risen above its first effects and to have acquired that
+tone of personal dignity which follows a successful issue to any moral
+conflict. But otherwise the difference was such as to arouse doubt as
+to the real man lurking behind his dogged, uncommunicative manner.
+
+Even with the knowledge of his motives which I believed myself to
+possess, I was at a loss to understand his indifference to self and the
+immobility of manner he maintained under all circumstances and during
+every fluctuation which took place in the presentation of his case, or
+in the temper of the people surrounding him. I felt that beyond the
+one fact that he could be relied upon to protect Carmel’s name and
+Carmel’s character, even to the jeopardising of his case, he was not
+to be counted on, and might yet startle many of us, and most notably
+of all, the little woman waiting to hear what he had to say in his own
+defence before she threw herself into the breach and made that devoted
+attempt to save him, in his own despite, which had been my terror from
+the first and was my terror now.
+
+Perjury! but not in his own defence--rather in opposition to it--that
+is what his counsel had to fear; and I wondered if they knew it.
+My attention became absorbed in the puzzle. Carmel’s fate, if not
+Ella’s--and certainly my own--hung upon the issue. This I knew, and
+this I faced, calmly, but very surely, as, the preliminary questions
+having been answered, Mr. Moffat proceeded.
+
+The witness’s name having been demanded and given and some other
+preliminary formalities gone through, he was asked:
+
+“Mr. Cumberland, did you have any quarrel with your sister during the
+afternoon or evening of December the second?”
+
+“I did.” Then, as if not satisfied with this simple statement, he
+blurted forth: “And it wasn’t the first. I hated the discipline she
+imposed upon me, and the disapproval she showed of my ways and the
+manner in which I chose to spend my money.”
+
+A straightforward expression of feeling, but hardly a judicious one.
+
+Judge Edwards glanced, in some surprise, from Mr. Moffat to the daring
+man who could choose thus to usher in his defence; and then, forgetting
+his own emotions, in his instinctive desire for order, rapped sharply
+with his gavel in correction of the audible expression of a like
+feeling on the part of the expectant audience.
+
+Mr. Moffat, apparently unaffected by this result of his daring move,
+pursued his course, with the quiet determination of one who sees his
+goal and is working deliberately towards it.
+
+“Do you mind particularising? Of what did she especially disapprove in
+your conduct or way of spending money?”
+
+“She disapproved of my fondness for drink. She didn’t like my late
+hours, or the condition in which I frequently came home. I did not like
+her expressions of displeasure, or the way she frequently cut me short
+when I wanted to have a good time with my friends. We never agreed. I
+made her suffer often and unnecessarily. I regret it now; she was a
+better sister to me than I could then understand.”
+
+This was uttered slowly and with a quiet emphasis which reawakened that
+excited hum the judge had been at such pains to quell a moment before.
+But he did not quell it now; he seemed to have forgotten his duty in
+the strong interest called up by these admissions from the tongue of
+the most imperturbable prisoner he had had before him in years.
+
+Mr. Moffat, with an eye on District Attorney Fox, who had shown his
+surprise at the trend the examination was taking by a slight indication
+of uneasiness, grateful enough, no doubt, to the daring counsellor,
+went on with his examination:
+
+“Mr. Cumberland, will you tell us when you first felt this change of
+opinion in regard to your sister?”
+
+Mr. Fox leaped to his feet. Then he slowly reseated himself. Evidently
+he thought it best to let the prisoner have his full say. Possibly he
+may have regretted his leniency the next moment when, with a solemn
+lowering of his head, Arthur answered:
+
+“When I saw my home desolated in one dreadful night. With one sister
+dead in the house, the victim of violence, and another delirious from
+fright or some other analogous cause, I had ample time to think--and I
+used that time. That’s all.”
+
+Simple words, read or repeated; but in that crowded court-room, with
+every ear strained to catch the lie which seemed the only refuge for
+the man so hemmed in by circumstance, these words, uttered without the
+least attempt at effect, fell with a force which gave new life to such
+as wished to see this man acquitted.
+
+His counsel, as if anxious to take advantage of this very expectation
+to heighten the effect of what followed, proceeded immediately to
+inquire:
+
+“When did you see your sister Adelaide for the last time alive?”
+
+A searching question. What would be his reply?
+
+A very quiet one.
+
+“That night at the dinner-table. When I left the room, I turned to
+look at her. She was not looking at me; so I slammed the door and went
+upstairs. In an hour or so, I had left the house to get a drink. I got
+the drink, but I never saw Adelaide again till I saw her in her coffin.”
+
+This blunt denial of the crime for which he stood there arraigned, fell
+on my heart with a weight which showed me how inextinguishable is the
+hope we cherish deep down under all surface convictions. I had been
+unconscious of this hope, but it was there. It seemed to die a double
+death at these words. For I believed him! Courage is needed for a lie.
+There were no signs visible in him, as yet, of his having drawn upon
+this last resource of the despairing. I should know it when he did; he
+could not hide the subtle change from me.
+
+To others, this declaration came with greater or less force, according
+as it was viewed in the light of a dramatic trick of Mr. Moffat’s, or
+as the natural outburst of a man fighting for his life in his own way
+and with his own weapons. I could not catch the eye of Ella cowering
+low in her seat, so could not judge what tender chords had been struck
+in her sensitive breast by these two assertions so dramatically offset
+against each other--the one, his antagonism to the dead; the other, his
+freedom from the crime in which that antagonism was supposed to have
+culminated.
+
+Mr. Moffat, satisfied so far, put his next question with equal
+directness:
+
+“Mr. Cumberland, you have mentioned seeing your sister in her coffin.
+When was this?”
+
+“At the close of her funeral, just before she was carried out.”
+
+“Was that the first and only time you had seen her so placed?”
+
+“It was.”
+
+“Had you seen the casket itself prior to this moment of which you
+speak?”
+
+“I had not.”
+
+“Had you been near it? Had you handled it in any way?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Mr. Cumberland, you have heard mention made of a ring worn by your
+sister in life, but missing from her finger after death?”
+
+“I have.”
+
+“You remember this ring?”
+
+“I do.”
+
+“Is this it?”
+
+“It is, so far as I can judge at this distance.”
+
+“Hand the ring to the witness,” ordered the judge.
+
+The ring was so handed.
+
+He glanced at it, and said bitterly: “I recognise it. It was her
+engagement ring.”
+
+“Was this ring on her finger that night at the dinner-table?”
+
+“I cannot say, positively, but I believe so. I should have noticed its
+absence.”
+
+“Why, may I ask?”
+
+For the first time the prisoner flushed and the look he darted at his
+counsel had the sting of a reproach in it. Yet he answered: “It was
+the token of an engagement I didn’t believe in or like. I should have
+hailed any proof that this engagement was off.”
+
+Mr. Moffat smiled enigmatically.
+
+“Mr. Cumberland, if you are not sure of having seen this ring then,
+when did you see it and where?”
+
+A rustle from end to end of that crowded court-room. This was an
+audacious move. What was coming? What would be the answer of the man
+who was believed not only to have made himself the possessor of this
+ring, but to have taken a most strange and uncanny method of disposing
+of it afterward? In the breathless hush which followed this first
+involuntary expression of feeling, Arthur’s voice rose, harsh but
+steady in this reply:
+
+“I saw it when the police showed it to me, and asked me if I could
+identify it.”
+
+“Was that the only time you have seen it up to the present moment?”
+
+Instinctively, the witness’s right hand rose; it was as if he were
+mentally repeating his oath before he uttered coldly and with emphasis,
+though without any show of emotion:
+
+“It is.”
+
+The universal silence gave way to a universal sigh of excitement and
+relief. District Attorney Fox’s lips curled with an imperceptible
+smile of disdain, which might have impressed the jury if they had been
+looking his way; but they were all looking with eager and interested
+eyes at the prisoner, who had just uttered this second distinct and
+unequivocal denial.
+
+Mr. Moffat noted this, and his own lip curled, but with a very
+different show of feeling from that which had animated his
+distinguished opponent. Without waiting for the present sentiment to
+cool, he proceeded immediately with his examination:
+
+“You swear that you have seen this ring but once since the night
+of your sister’s death, and that was when it was shown you in the
+coroner’s office?”
+
+“I do.”
+
+“Does this mean that it was not in your possession at any time during
+that interim?”
+
+“It certainly does.”
+
+“Mr. Cumberland, more than one witness has testified to the fact of
+your having been seen to place your hand in the casket of your sister,
+before the eyes of the minister and of others attending her funeral. Is
+this true?”
+
+“It is.”
+
+“Was not this a most unusual thing to do?”
+
+“Perhaps. I was not thinking about that. I had a duty to perform, and I
+performed it.”
+
+“A duty? Will you explain to the jury what duty?”
+
+The witness’s head rose, then sank. He, as well as every one else,
+seemed to be impressed by the solemnity of the moment. Though the
+intensity of my own interest would not allow my eyes to wander from his
+face, I could imagine the strained look in Ella’s, as she awaited his
+words.
+
+They came in another instant, but with less steadiness than he had
+shown before. I even thought I could detect a tremor in his muscles, as
+well as in his voice:
+
+“I had rebelled against my sister’s wishes; I had grieved and deceived
+her up to the very night of her foul and unnatural death--and all
+through _drink_.”
+
+Here his eye flashed, and for that fleeting moment he looked a man.
+“I wished to take an oath--an oath I would remember. It was for this
+purpose I ordered the casket opened, and thrust my fingers through
+the flowers I found there. When my fingers touched my sister’s brow,
+I inwardly swore never to taste liquor again. I have kept that oath.
+Difficult as it was, in my state of mind, and with all my troubles, I
+have kept it--and been misunderstood in doing so,” he added, in lower
+tones, and with just a touch of bitterness.
+
+It was such an unexpected explanation, and so calculated to cause a
+decided and favourable reaction in the minds of those who had looked
+upon this especial act of his as an irrefutable proof of guilt, that
+it was but natural that some show of public feeling should follow. But
+this was checked almost immediately, and Mr. Moffat’s voice was heard
+rising again in his strange but telling examination:
+
+“When you thrust your hand in to take this oath, did you drop anything
+into your sister’s casket?”
+
+“I did not. My hand was empty. I held no ring, and dropped none in. I
+simply touched her forehead.”
+
+This added to the feeling; and, in another instant, the excitement
+might have risen into hubbub, had not the emotions of one little woman
+found vent in a low and sobbing cry which relieved the tension and gave
+just the relief needed to hold in check the overstrained feelings of
+the crowd. I knew the voice and cast one quick glance that way, in time
+to see Ella sinking affrightedly out of sight under the dismayed looks
+of father and mother; then, anxious to note whether the prisoner had
+recognised her, too, looked hastily back to find him standing quietly
+and unmoved, with his eyes on his counsel and his lips set in the stern
+line which was slowly changing his expression.
+
+That counsel, strangely alive to the temper and feelings of his
+audience, waited just long enough for the few simple and solemn words
+uttered by the accused man to produce their full effect, then with a
+side glance at Mr. Fox, whose equanimity he had at last succeeded in
+disturbing, and whose cross-examination of the prisoner he had still
+to fear, continued his own examination by demanding why, when the ring
+was discovered in Adelaide’s casket and he saw what inferences would be
+drawn from the fact, he had not made an immediate public explanation of
+his conduct and the reasons he had had for putting his hand there.
+
+“I’m not a muff,” shot from the prisoner’s lips, in his old manner. “A
+man who would take such an oath, in such a way, and at such a time, is
+not the man to talk about it until he is forced to. I would not talk
+about it now--”
+
+He was checked at this point; but the glimpse we thus obtained of
+the natural man, in this indignant and sullen outburst, following so
+quickly upon the solemn declarations of the moment before, did more for
+him in the minds of those present than the suavest and most discreet
+answer given under the instigation of his counsel. Every face showed
+pleasure, and for a short space, if for no longer, all who listened
+were disposed to accept his assertions and accord the benefit of doubt
+to this wayward son of an esteemed father.
+
+To me, who had hoped nothing from Moffat’s efforts, the substantial
+nature of the defence thus openly made manifest, brought reanimation
+and an unexpected confidence in the future.
+
+The question as to who had dropped the ring into the casket if Arthur
+had not--the innocent children, the grieving servants--was latent, of
+course, in every breast, but it had not yet reached the point demanding
+expression.
+
+Meanwhile, the examination proceeded.
+
+“Mr. Cumberland, you have stated that you did not personally drop this
+ring into the place where it was ultimately found. Can you tell us of
+your own knowledge who did?”
+
+“I cannot. I know nothing about the ring. I was much surprised,
+probably more surprised than any one else, to hear of its discovery in
+that place.”
+
+The slip--and it was a slip for him to introduce that _more_--was
+immediately taken advantage of by his counsel.
+
+“You say ‘more,’ Why should it be more of a surprise to you than to any
+one else to learn where this missing engagement ring of your sister’s
+had been found?”
+
+Again that look of displeasure directed towards his questioner, and a
+certain additional hardness in his reply, when he finally made it.
+
+“I was her brother. I had a brother’s antipathies and rightful
+suspicions. I could not see how that ring came to be where it was, when
+the only one interested in its restoration was in prison.”
+
+This was a direct blow at myself, and of course called Mr. Fox to his
+feet, with a motion to strike out this answer. An altercation followed
+between him and Mr. Moffat, which, deeply as it involved my life and
+reputation, failed to impress me, as it might otherwise have done, if
+my whole mind had not been engaged in reconciling the difficulty about
+this ring with what I knew of Carmel and the probability which existed
+of her having been responsible for its removal from her sister’s hand.
+But Carmel had been ill since, desperately ill and unconscious. She
+could have had nothing to do with its disposal afterwards among the
+flowers at her sister’s funeral. Nor had she been in a condition to
+delegate this act of concealment to another. Who, then, had been the
+intermediary in this business? The question was no longer a latent one
+in my mind; it was an insistent one, compelling me either to discredit
+Arthur’s explanation (in which case anything might be believed of him)
+or to accept for good and all this new theory that some person of
+unknown identity had played an accessory’s part in this crime, whose
+full burden I had hitherto laid upon the shoulders of the impetuous
+Carmel. Either hypothesis brought light. I began to breathe again the
+air of hope, and if observed at that moment, must have presented the
+odd spectacle of a man rejoicing in his own shame and accepting with
+positive uplift, the inevitable stigma cast upon his honour by the
+suggestive sentence just hurled at him by an indignant witness.
+
+The point raised by the district attorney having been ruled upon
+and sustained by the court, Mr. Moffat made no effort to carry his
+inquiries any further in the direction indicated; but I could see,
+with all my inexperience of the law and the ways of attorneys before a
+jury, that the episode had produced its inevitable result, and that my
+position, as a man released from suspicion, had received a shock, the
+results of which I might yet be made to feel.
+
+A moment’s pause followed, during which some of Mr. Moffat’s
+nervousness returned. He eyed the prisoner doubtfully, found him
+stoical and as self-contained as at the beginning of his examination,
+and plunged into a topic which most people had expected him to avoid.
+I certainly had, and felt all the uncertainty and secret alarm which
+an unexpected move occasions where the issue is momentous with life
+or death. I was filled with terror, not for the man on trial, but for
+my secret. Was it shared by the defence? Was Mr. Moffat armed with
+the knowledge I thought confined to myself and Arthur? Had the latter
+betrayed the cause I had been led to believe he was ready to risk
+his life to defend? Had I mistaken his gratitude to myself; or had I
+underrated Mr. Moffat’s insight or powers of persuasion? We had just
+been made witness to one triumph on the part of this able lawyer in a
+quarter deemed unassailable by the prosecution. Were we about to be
+made witnesses of another? I felt the sweat start on my forehead, and
+was only able to force myself into some show of self-possession by
+the evident lack of perfect assurance with which this same lawyer now
+addressed his client.
+
+The topic which had awakened in me these doubts and consequent
+agitation will appear from the opening question.
+
+“Mr. Cumberland, to return to the night of your sister’s death. Can you
+tell us what overcoat you put on when leaving your house?”
+
+Arthur was as astonished and certainly as disconcerted, if not as
+seriously alarmed, as I was, by this extraordinary move. Surprise,
+anger, then some deeper feeling rang in his voice as he replied:
+
+“I cannot. I took down the first I saw and _the first hat._”
+
+The emphasis placed on the last three words may have been meant as a
+warning to his audacious counsel, but if so, it was not heeded.
+
+“Took down? Took down from where?”
+
+“From the rack in the hall where I hang my things; the side hall
+leading to the door where we usually go out.”
+
+“Have you many coats--overcoats, I mean?”
+
+“More than one.”
+
+“And you do not know which one you put on that cold night?”
+
+“I do not.”
+
+“But you know what one you wore back?”
+
+“No.”
+
+Short, sharp, and threatening was this _no_. A war was on between this
+man and his counsel, and the wonder it occasioned was visible in every
+eye. Perhaps Mr. Moffat realised this; this was what he had dreaded,
+perhaps. At all events, he proceeded with his strange task, in apparent
+oblivion of everything but his own purpose.
+
+“You do not know what one you wore back?”
+
+“I do not.”
+
+“You have seen the hat and coat which have been shown here and sworn to
+as being the ones in which you appeared on your return to the house,
+the day following your sister’s murder?”
+
+“I have.”
+
+“Also the hat and coat found on a remote hook in the closet under the
+stairs, bearing the flour-mark on its under brim?”
+
+“Yes, that too.”
+
+“Yet cannot say which of these two overcoats you put on when you left
+your home, an hour or so after finishing your dinner?”
+
+Trapped by his own lawyer--visibly and remorselessly trapped! The
+blood, shooting suddenly into the astounded prisoner’s face, was
+reflected on the cheeks of the other lawyers present. Even Mr.
+Fox betrayed his surprise; but it was a surprise not untinged by
+apprehension. Mr. Moffat must feel very sure of himself to venture thus
+far. I, who feared to ask myself the cause of this assurance, could
+only wait and search the partially visible face of little Ella for an
+enlightenment, which was no more to be found there than in the swollen
+features of the outraged Arthur. The excitement which this event
+caused, afforded the latter some few moments in which to quell his own
+indignation; and when he spoke, it was passionately, yet not without
+some effort at restraint.
+
+“I cannot. I was in no condition to notice. I was bent on going into
+town, and immediately upon coming downstairs went straight to the rack
+and pulled on the first things that offered.”
+
+It appeared to be a perfect give-a-way. And it was, but it was a
+give-a-way which, I feared, threatened Carmel rather than her brother.
+
+Mr. Moffat, still nervous, still avoiding the prisoner’s eye,
+relentlessly pursued his course, unmindful--wilfully so, it
+appeared--of the harm he was doing himself, as well as the witness.
+
+“Mr. Cumberland, were a coat and hat all that you took from that hall?”
+
+“No, I took a key--a key from the bunch which I saw lying on the table.”
+
+“Did you recognise this key?”
+
+“I did.”
+
+“What key was it?”
+
+“It belonged to Mr. Ranelagh, and was the key to the club-house
+wine-vault.”
+
+“Where did you put it after taking it up?”
+
+“In my trousers’ pocket.”
+
+“What did you do then?”
+
+“Went out, of course.”
+
+“Without seeing anybody?”
+
+“Of course. Whom should I see?”
+
+It was angrily said, and the flush, which had begun to die away, slowly
+made its way back into his cheeks.
+
+“Are you willing to repeat that you saw no one?”
+
+“There was no one.”
+
+A lie! All knew it, all felt it. The man was perjuring himself, under
+his own counsel’s persistent questioning on a point which that counsel
+had evidently been warned by him to avoid. I was assured of this by the
+way Moffat failed to meet Arthur’s eye, as he pressed on hastily, and
+in a way to forestall all opposition.
+
+“There are two ways of leaving your house for the city. Which way did
+you take?”
+
+“The shortest. I went through my neighbour’s grounds to Huested Street.”
+
+“Immediately?”
+
+“As soon as I could. I don’t know what you mean by immediately.”
+
+“Didn’t you stop at the stable?”
+
+A pause, during which more than one person present sat breathless.
+These questions were what might be expected from Mr. Fox in
+cross-examination. They seemed totally unsuited to a direct examination
+at the hands of his own counsel. What did such an innovation mean?
+
+“Yes, I stopped at the stable.”
+
+“What to do?”
+
+“To look at the horses.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“One of them had gone lame. I wanted to see his condition.”
+
+“Was it the grey mare?”
+
+Had the defence changed places with the prosecution? It looked like
+it; and Arthur looked as if he considered Mr. Moffat guilty of the
+unheard of, inexplainable act, of cross-examining his own witness. The
+situation was too tempting for Mr. Fox to resist calling additional
+attention to it. With an assumption of extreme consideration, he leaned
+forward and muttered under his breath to his nearest colleague, but
+still loud enough for those about him to hear:
+
+“The prisoner must know that he is not bound to answer questions when
+such answers tend to criminate him.”.
+
+A lightning glance, shot in his direction, was the eloquent advocate’s
+sole reply.
+
+But Arthur, nettled into speaking, answered the question put him, in a
+loud, quick tone: “It was not the grey mare; but I went up to the grey
+mare before going out; I patted her and bade her be a good girl.”
+
+“Where was she then?”
+
+“Where she belonged--in her stall.”
+
+The tones had sunk; so had the previously lifted head; he no longer
+commanded universal sympathy or credence. The effect of his former
+avowals was almost gone.
+
+Yet Mr. Moffat could smile. As I noticed this, and recognised the
+satisfaction it evinced, my heart went down, in great trouble. This
+esteemed advocate, the hero of a hundred cases, was not afraid to have
+it known that Arthur had harnessed that mare; he even wanted it known.
+Why? There could be but one answer to that--or, so I thought, at the
+moment. The next, I did not know what to think; for he failed to pursue
+this subject, and simply asked Arthur if, upon leaving, he had locked
+the stable-door.
+
+“Yes--no,--I don’t remember,” was the bungling, and greatly confused
+reply.
+
+Mr. Moffat glanced at the jury, the smile still on his lips. Did he
+wish to impress that body with the embarrassment of his client?
+
+“Relate what followed. I am sure the jury will be glad to hear your
+story from your own lips.”
+
+“It’s a beastly one, but if I’ve got to tell it, here it is: I went
+straight down to Cuthbert Road and across the fields to the club-house.
+I had not taken the key to the front door, because I knew of a window
+I could shake loose. I did this and went immediately down to the
+wine-vault. I used an electric torch of my own for light. I pulled
+out several bottles, and carried them up into the kitchen, meaning to
+light the gas, kindle a fire, and have a good time generally. But I
+soon found that I must do without light if I stayed there. The meter
+had been taken out; and to drink by the flash of an electric torch was
+anything but a pleasing prospect. Besides--” here he flashed at his
+counsel a glance, which for a moment took that gentleman aback--“I
+had heard certain vague sounds in the house which alarmed me, as well
+as roused my curiosity. Choosing the bottle I liked best, I went to
+investigate these sounds.”
+
+Mr. Moffat started. His witness was having his revenge. Kept in
+ignorance of his counsel’s plan of defence, he was evidently advancing
+testimony new to that counsel. I had not thought the lad so subtle, and
+quaked in secret contemplation of the consequences. So did some others;
+but the interest was intense. He had heard sounds--he acknowledged it.
+But what sounds?
+
+Observing the excitement he had caused, and gratified, perhaps, that
+he had succeeded in driving that faint but unwelcome smile from Mr.
+Moffat’s lips, Arthur hastened to add:
+
+“But I did not complete my investigations. Arrived at the top of
+the stairs, I heard what drove me from the house at once. It was my
+sister’s voice--Adelaide’s. She was in the building, and I stood almost
+on a level with her, with a bottle in my pocket. It did not take me a
+minute to clamber through the window. I did not stop to wonder, or ask
+why she was there, or to whom she was speaking. I just fled and made
+my way as well as I could across the golf-links to a little hotel on
+Cuthbert Road, where I had been once before. There I emptied my bottle,
+and was so overcome by it that I did not return home till noon the
+next day. It was on the way to the Hill that I was told of the awful
+occurrence which had taken place in the club-house after I had left it.
+That sobered me. I have been sober ever since.”
+
+Mr. Moffat’s smile came back. One might have said that he had been
+rather pleased than otherwise by the introduction of this unexpected
+testimony.
+
+But I doubt if any one but myself witnessed this evidence of
+good-humour on his part. Arthur’s attitude and Arthur’s manner had
+drawn all eyes to himself. As the last words I have recorded left
+his lips, he had raised his head and confronted the jury with a
+straightforward gaze. The sturdiness and immobility of his aspect were
+impressive, in spite of his plain features and the still unmistakable
+signs of long cherished discontent and habitual dissipation. He had
+struck bottom with his feet, and there he would stand,--or so I thought
+as I levelled my own glances at him.
+
+But I had not fully sounded all of Alonzo Moffat’s resources. That
+inscrutable lawyer and not-easily-to-be-understood man seemed
+determined to mar every good impression his unfortunate client managed
+to make.
+
+Ignoring the new facts just given, undoubtedly thinking that they would
+be amply sifted in the coming cross-examination, he drew the attention
+of the prisoner to himself by the following question:
+
+“Will you tell us again how many bottles of wine you took from the
+club-house?”
+
+“One. No--I’m not sure about that--I’m not sure of anything. I had only
+one when at the inn in Cuthbert Road.”
+
+“You remember but one?”
+
+“I had but one. One was enough. I had trouble in carrying that.”
+
+“Was the ground slippery?”
+
+“It was snowy and it was uneven. I stumbled more than once in crossing
+the links.”
+
+“Mr. Cumberland, is there anything you would like to say in your own
+defence before I close this examination?”
+
+The prisoner thus appealed to, let his eye rest for a moment on the
+judge, then on the jury, and finally on one little white face lifted
+from the crowd before him as if to meet and absorb his look. Then he
+straightened himself, and in a quiet and perfectly natural voice,
+uttered these simple words:
+
+“Nothing but this: I am innocent.”
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+THE SYLLABLE OF DOOM
+
+I alit
+On a great ship lightning-split,
+And speeded hither on the sigh
+Of one who gave an enemy
+His plank, then plunged aside to die.
+
+_Prometheus Unbound_.
+
+
+Recess followed. Clifton and I had the opportunity of exchanging a few
+words. He was voluble; I was reticent. I felt obliged to hide from
+him the true cause of the deep agitation under which I was labouring.
+Attached as he was to me, keenly as he must have felt my anomalous
+position, he was too full of Moffat’s unwarrantable introduction of
+testimony damaging to his client, to think or talk of anything else.
+
+“He has laid him open to attack on every side. Fox has but to follow
+his lead, and the thing is done. Poor Arthur may be guilty, but he
+certainly should have every chance a careful lawyer could give him.
+You can see--he makes it very evident--that he has no further use for
+Moffat. I wonder under whose advice he chose him for his counsel. I
+have never thought much of Moffat, myself. He wins his cases but--”
+
+“He will win this,” I muttered.
+
+Clifton started; looked at me very closely for a minute, paled a
+little--I fear that I was very pale myself--but did not ask the
+question rising to his lips.
+
+“There is method in the madness of a man like that,” I pursued with a
+gloom I could not entirely conceal. “He has come upon some evidence
+which he has not even communicated to his client. At least, I fear so.
+We must be prepared for any untoward event.” Then, noticing Clifton’s
+alarm and wishing to confine it within safe bounds, I added: “I feel
+that I am almost as much on trial as Arthur himself. Naturally I am
+anxious at the appearance of anything I do not understand.”
+
+Clifton frowned. We were quite alone. Leaning forward, he touched my
+arm.
+
+“Elwood,” said he, “you’ve not been quite open with me.”
+
+I smiled. If half the bitterness and sorrow in my heart went into that
+smile, it must have been a sad and bitter one indeed.
+
+“You have a right to reproach me,” said I, “but not wholly. I did not
+deceive you in essentials. You may still believe me as guiltless of
+Adelaide’s violent death as a man can be who drove her and hers into
+misery which death alone could end.”
+
+“I will believe it,” he muttered, “I must.” And he dropped the subject,
+as he made me see, forever.
+
+I drew a deep breath of relief. I had come very near to revealing my
+secret.
+
+When we returned to the court-room, we found it already packed with a
+very subdued and breathless crowd. It differed somewhat from the one
+which had faced us in the morning; but Ella and her parents were there
+and many others of the acknowledged friends of the accused and of his
+family.
+
+He, himself, wore the heavy and dogged air which became him least.
+Physically refreshed, he carried himself boldly, but it was a boldness
+which convinced me that any talk he may have had with his lawyer, had
+been no more productive of comfort than the one I had held with mine.
+
+As he took the witness chair, and prepared to meet the
+cross-examination of the district attorney, a solemn hush settled
+upon the room. Would the coming ordeal rob his brow of its present
+effrontery, or would he continue to bear himself with the same surly
+dignity, which, misunderstood as it was, produced its own effect, and
+at certain moments seemed to shake even the confidence of Mr. Fox,
+settled as he seemed to be in his belief in the integrity of his cause
+and the rights of the prosecution.
+
+Shaken or not, his attack was stern, swift, and to the point.
+
+“Was the visit you made to the wine-vault on the evening of the second
+of December, the first one you had ever paid there?”
+
+“No; I had been there once before. But I always paid for my
+depredations,” he added, proudly.
+
+“The categorical answer, Mr. Cumberland. Anything else is superfluous.”
+
+Arthur’s lip curled, but only for an instant; and nothing could have
+exceeded the impassiveness of his manner as Mr. Fox went on.
+
+“Then you knew the way?”
+
+“Perfectly.”
+
+“And the lock?”
+
+“Sufficiently well to open it without difficulty.”
+
+“How long do you think you were in entering the house and procuring
+these bottles?”
+
+“I cannot say. I have no means of knowing; I never thought of looking
+at my watch.”
+
+“Not when you started? Not when you left Cuthbert Road?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“But you know when you left the club-house to go back?”
+
+“Only by this--it had not yet begun to snow. I’m told that the
+first flakes fell that night at ten minutes to eleven. I was on the
+golf-links when this happened. You can fix the time yourself. Pardon
+me,” he added, with decided ill-grace as he met Mr. Fox’s frown. “I
+forgot your injunction.”
+
+Mr. Fox smiled an acrid smile, as he asked: “Whereabouts on the
+golf-links? They extend for some distance, you remember.”
+
+“They are six hundred yards across from first tee to the third hole,
+which is the nearest one to Cuthbert Road,” Arthur particularised. “I
+was--no, I can’t tell you just where I was at that moment. It was a
+good ways from the house. The snow came on very fiercely. For a little
+while I could not see my way.”
+
+“How, not see your way?”
+
+“The snow flew into my eyes.”
+
+“Crossing the links?”
+
+“Yes, sir, crossing the links.”
+
+“But the storm came from the west. It should have beaten against your
+back.”
+
+“Back or front, it bothered me. I could not get on as fast as I wished.”
+
+Mr. Fox cast a look at the jury. Did they remember the testimony of the
+landlord that Mr. Cumberland’s coat was as thickly plastered with snow
+on the front as it had been on the back. He seemed to gather that they
+did, for he went on at once to say:
+
+“You are accustomed to the links? You have crossed them often?”
+
+“Yes, I play golf there all summer.”
+
+“I’m not alluding to the times when you play. I mean to ask whether or
+not you had ever before crossed them directly to Cuthbert Road?”
+
+“Yes, I had.”
+
+“In a storm?”
+
+“No, not in a storm.”
+
+“How long did it take you that time to reach Cuthbert Road from The
+Whispering Pines?”
+
+Mr. Moffat bounded to his feet, but the prisoner had answered before he
+could speak.
+
+“Just fifteen minutes.”
+
+“How came you to know the time so exactly?”
+
+“Because that day I did look at my watch. I had an engagement in the
+lower town, and had only twenty minutes in which to keep it. I was on
+time.”
+
+Honest at the core. This boy was growing rapidly in my favour. But this
+frank but unwise answer was not pleasing to his counsel, who would have
+advised, no doubt, a more general and less precise reply. However, it
+had been made and Moffat was not a man to cry over spilled milk. He
+did not even wince when the district attorney proceeded to elicit from
+the prisoner that he was a good walker, not afraid in the least of
+snow-storms and had often walked, in the teeth of the gale twice that
+distance in less than half an hour. Now, as the storm that night had
+been at his back, and he was in a hurry to reach his destination, it
+was evidently incumbent upon him to explain how he had managed to use
+up the intervening time of forty minutes before entering the hotel at
+half-past eleven.
+
+“Did you stop in the midst of the storm to take a drink?” asked the
+district attorney.
+
+As the testimony of the landlord in Cuthbert Road had been explicit
+as to the fact of his having himself uncorked the bottle which the
+prisoner had brought into the hotel, Arthur could not plead yes. He
+must say no, and he did.
+
+“I drank nothing; I was too busy thinking. I was so busy thinking I
+wandered all over those links.”
+
+“In the blinding snow?”
+
+“Yes, in the snow. What did I care for the snow? I did not understand
+my sister being in the club-house. I did not like it; I was tempted at
+times to go back.”
+
+“And why didn’t you?”
+
+“Because I was more of a brute than a brother--because Cuthbert Road
+drew me in spite of myself--because--” He stopped with the first hint
+of emotion we had seen in him since the morning. “I did not know what
+was going on there or I should have gone back,” he flashed out, with a
+defiant look at his counsel.
+
+Again sympathy was with him. Mr. Fox had won but little in this first
+attempt. He seemed to realise this, and shifted his attack to a point
+more vulnerable.
+
+“When you heard your sister’s voice in the club-house, how did you
+think she had got into the building?”
+
+“By means of the keys Ranelagh had left at the house.”
+
+“When, instead of taking the whole bunch, you took the one key you
+wanted from the ring, did you do so with any idea she might want to
+make use of the rest?”
+
+“No, I never thought of it. I never thought of her at all.”
+
+“You took your one key, and let the rest lie?”
+
+“You’ve said it.”
+
+“Was this before or after you put on your overcoat?”
+
+“I’m not sure; after, I think. Yes, it was after; for I remember that
+I had a deuce of a time unbuttoning my coat to get at my trousers’
+pocket.”
+
+“You dropped this key into your trousers’ pocket?”
+
+“I did.”
+
+“Mr. Cumberland, let me ask you to fix your memory on the moments you
+spent in the hall. Did you put on your hat before you pocketed the key,
+or afterwards?”
+
+“My hat? How can I tell? My mind wasn’t on my hat. I don’t know when I
+put it on.”
+
+“You absolutely do not remember?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Nor where you took it from?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Whether you saw the keys first, and then went for your hat; or having
+pocketed the key, waited--”
+
+“I did not wait.”
+
+“Did not stand by the table thinking?”
+
+“No, I was in too much of a hurry.”
+
+“So that you went straight out?”
+
+“Yes, as quickly as I could.”
+
+The district attorney paused, to be sure of the attention of the jury.
+When he saw that every eye of that now thoroughly aroused body was on
+him, he proceeded to ask: “Does that mean immediately, or as soon as
+you could after you had made certain preparations, or held certain talk
+with some one you called, or who called to you?”
+
+“I called to nobody. I--I went out immediately.”
+
+It was evident that he lied; evident, too, that he had little hope from
+his lie. Uneasiness was taking the place of confidence in his youthful,
+untried, undisciplined mind. Carmel had spoken to him in the hall--I
+guessed it then, I knew it afterward--and he thought to deceive this
+court and blindfold a jury, whose attention had been drawn to this
+point by his own counsel.
+
+District Attorney Fox smiled. “How then did you get into the stable?”
+
+“The stable! Oh, I had no trouble in getting into the stable.”
+
+“Was it unlocked?”
+
+A slow flush broke over the prisoner’s whole face. He saw where he
+had been landed and took a minute to pull himself together before he
+replied: “I had the key to that door, too. I got it out of the kitchen.”
+
+“You have not spoken of going into the kitchen.”
+
+“I have not spoken of coming downstairs.”
+
+“You went into the kitchen?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“When?”
+
+“When I first came down.”
+
+“That is not in accordance with your direct testimony. On the contrary,
+you said that on coming downstairs you went straight to the rack for
+your overcoat. Stenographer read what the prisoner said on this topic.”
+
+A rustling of leaves, distinctly to be heard in the deathlike silence
+of the room, was followed by the reading of this reply and answer:
+
+“_Yet you cannot say which of these two overcoats you put on when you
+left your home an hour or so after finishing your dinner?_”
+
+“_I cannot. I was in no condition to notice. I was bent on going into
+town and, on coming downstairs, I went straight to the rack and pulled
+on the first things that offered._”
+
+The prisoner stood immobile but with a deepening line gathering on his
+brow until the last word fell. Then he said: “I forgot. I went for the
+key before I put on my overcoat. I wanted to see how the sick horse
+looked.”
+
+“Did you drop this key into your pocket, too?”
+
+“No, I carried it into the hall.”
+
+“What did you do with it there?”
+
+“I don’t know. Put it on the table, I suppose.”
+
+“Don’t you remember? There were other keys lying on this table. Don’t
+you remember what you did with the one in your hand while you took the
+club-house key from the midst of Mr. Ranelagh’s bunch?”
+
+“I laid it on the table. I must have--there was no other place to put
+it.”
+
+“Laid it down by itself?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And took it up when you went out?”
+
+“Of course.”
+
+“Carrying it straight to the stable?”
+
+“Naturally.”
+
+“What did you do with it when you came out?”
+
+“I left it in the stable-door.”
+
+“You did? What excuse have you to give for that?”
+
+“None. I was reckless, and didn’t care for anything--that’s all.”
+
+“Yet you took several minutes, for all your hurry and your
+indifference, to get the stable key and look in at a horse that wasn’t
+sick enough to keep your coachman home from a dance.”
+
+The prisoner was silent.
+
+“You have no further explanation to give on this subject?”
+
+“No. All fellows who love horses will understand.”
+
+The district attorney shrugged this answer away before he went on to
+say: “You have listened to Zadok Brown’s testimony. When he returned at
+three, he found the stable-door locked, and the key hanging up on its
+usual nail in the kitchen. How do you account for this?”
+
+“There are two ways.”
+
+“Mention them, if you please.”
+
+“Zadok had been to a dance, and may not have been quite clear as to
+what he saw. Or, finding the stable door open, may have blamed himself
+for the fact and sought to cover up his fault with a lie.”
+
+“Have you ever caught him in a lie?”
+
+“No; but there’s always a first time.”
+
+“You would impeach his testimony then?”
+
+“No. You asked me how this discrepancy could be explained, and I have
+tried to show you.”
+
+“Mr. Cumberland, the grey mare was out that night; this has been amply
+proved.”
+
+“If you believe Zadok, yes.”
+
+“You have heard other testimony corroborative of this fact. She was
+seen on the club-house road that night, by a person amply qualified to
+identify her.”
+
+“So I’ve been told.”
+
+“The person driving this horse wore a hat, identified as an old one
+of yours, which hat was afterwards found at your house on a remote
+peg in a seldom-used closet. If you were not this person, how can you
+explain the use of your horse, the use of your clothes, the locking of
+the stable-door--which you declare yourself to have left open--and the
+hanging up of the key on its own nail?”
+
+It was a crucial question--how crucial no one knew but our two selves.
+If he answered at all, he must compromise Carmel. I had no fear of his
+doing this, but I had great fear of what Ella might do if he let this
+implication stand and made no effort to exonerate himself by denying
+his presence in the cutter, and consequent return to the Cumberland
+home. The quick side glances I here observed cast in her direction
+by both father and mother, showed that she had made some impulsive
+demonstration visible to them, if not to others and fearful of the
+consequences if I did not make some effort to hold her in check, I kept
+my eyes in her direction, and so lost Arthur’s look and the look of his
+counsel as he answered, with just the word I had expected--a short and
+dogged:
+
+“I cannot explain.”
+
+It was my death warrant. I realised this even while I held Ella’s eye
+with mine and smoothed my countenance to meet the anguish in hers, in
+the effort to hold her back for a few minutes longer till I could quite
+satisfy myself that Arthur’s case was really lost and that I must speak
+or feel myself his murderer.
+
+The gloom which followed this recognition of his inability, real or
+fancied, to explain away the most damning feature of the case against
+him, taken with his own contradictions and growing despondency, could
+not escape my eye, accustomed as I was to the habitual expression of
+most every person there. But it was not yet the impenetrable gloom
+presaging conviction; and directing Ella’s gaze towards Mr. Moffat,
+who seemed but little disturbed either by Mr. Fox’s satisfaction or
+the prisoner’s open despair, I took heart of grace and waited for the
+district attorney’s next move. It was a fatal one. I began to recognise
+this very soon, simple as was the subject he now introduced.
+
+“When you went into the kitchen, Mr. Cumberland, to get the stable-door
+key, was the gas lit, or did you have to light it?”
+
+“It--it was lit, I think.”
+
+“Don’t you know?”
+
+“It was lit, but turned low. I could see well enough.”
+
+“Why, then, didn’t you take both keys?”
+
+“Both keys?”
+
+“You have said you went down town by the short cut through your
+neighbour’s yard. That cut is guarded by a door, which was locked that
+night. You needed the key to that door more than the one to the stable.
+Why didn’t you take it?”
+
+“I--I did.”
+
+“You haven’t said so.”
+
+“I--I took it when I took the other.”
+
+“Are you sure?”
+
+“Yes; they both hung on one nail. I grabbed them both at the same time.”
+
+“It does not appear so in your testimony. You mentioned a key, not
+keys, in all your answers to my questions.”
+
+“There were two; I didn’t weigh my words. I needed both and I took
+both.”
+
+“Which of the two hung foremost?”
+
+“I didn’t notice.”
+
+“You took both?”
+
+“Yes, I took both.”
+
+“And went straight out with them?”
+
+“Yes, to the stable.”
+
+“And then where?”
+
+“Through the adjoining grounds downtown.”
+
+“You are sure you went through Mr. Fulton’s grounds at this early hour
+in the evening?”
+
+“I am positive.”
+
+“Was it not at a later hour, much later, a little before eleven instead
+of a little before nine?”
+
+“No, sir. I was on the golf-links then.”
+
+“But some one drove into the stable.”
+
+“So you say.”
+
+“Unharnessed the horse, drew up the cutter, locked the stable-door,
+and, entering the house, hung up the key where it belonged.”
+
+No answer this time.
+
+“Mr. Cumberland, you admitted in your direct examination that you took
+with you out of the clubhouse only one bottle of the especial brand you
+favoured, although you carried up two into the kitchen?”
+
+“No, I said that I only had one when I got to Cuthbert Road. I don’t
+remember anything about the other.”
+
+“But you know where the other--or rather remnants of the other, was
+found?”
+
+“In my own stable, taken there by my man Zadok Brown, who says he
+picked it out of one of our waste barrels.”
+
+“This is the part of bottle referred to. Do you recognise the label
+still adhering to it as similar to the one to be found on the bottle
+you emptied in Cuthbert Road?”
+
+“It is like that one.”
+
+“Had you carried that other bottle off, and had it been broken as
+this has been broken would it not have presented an exactly similar
+appearance to this?”
+
+“Possibly.”
+
+“Only possibly?”
+
+“It would have looked the same. I cannot deny it. What’s the use
+fooling?”
+
+“Mr. Cumberland, the only two bottles known to contain this especial
+brand of wine were in the clubhouse at ten o’clock that night. How came
+one of them to get into the barrel outside your stable before your
+return the next day?”
+
+“I cannot say.”
+
+“This barrel stood where?”
+
+“In the passage behind the stable.”
+
+“The passage you pass through on your way to the door leading into your
+neighbour’s grounds?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+The dreaded moment had come. This “Yes” had no sooner left Arthur’s
+lips than I saw Ella throw out her innocent arms, and leap impetuously
+to her feet, with a loud “No, no, I can tell--”
+
+She did not say what, for at the hubbub roused by this outbreak in
+open court, she fainted dead away and was carried out in her dismayed
+father’s arms.
+
+This necessarily caused a break in the proceedings. Mr. Fox suspended
+his cross-examination and in a few minutes more, the judge adjourned
+the court. As the prisoner rose and turned to pass out, I cast him
+a hurried glance to see what effect had been made upon him by this
+ingenuous outburst from one he had possibly just a little depreciated.
+A great one, evidently. His features were transformed, and he seemed
+almost as oblivious of the countless eyes upon him as she had been when
+she rose to testify for him in her self-forgetful enthusiasm. As I
+observed this and the satisfaction with which Mr. Moffat scented this
+new witness,--a satisfaction which promised little consideration for
+her if she ever came upon the stand--I surrendered to fate.
+
+Inwardly committing Carmel’s future to the God who made her and who
+knew better than we the story of her life and what her fiery temper
+had cost her, I drew a piece of paper from my pocket, and, while the
+courtroom was slowly emptying, hastily addressed the following lines to
+Mr. Moffat who had lingered to have a few words with his colleague:
+
+“There is a witness in this building who can testify more clearly and
+definitely than Miss Fulton, that Arthur Cumberland, for all we have
+heard in seeming contradiction to the same, might have been on the
+golf-links at the time he swears to. That witness is myself.
+
+“ELWOOD RANELAGH.”
+
+The time which elapsed between my passing over this note and his
+receiving and reading it, was to me like the last few moments of
+a condemned criminal. How gladly would I have changed places with
+Arthur, and with what sensations of despair I saw flitting before me
+in my mind’s eye, the various visions of Carmel’s loveliness which had
+charmed me out of myself. But the die had been cast, and I was ready
+to meet the surprised lawyer’s look when his eye rose from the words I
+had written and settled steadily on my face. Next minute he was writing
+busily and in a second later I was reading these words:
+
+“Do you absolutely wish to be recalled as a witness, and by the
+defence? M.”
+
+My answer was brief:
+
+“I do. Not to make a confession of crime. I have no such confession to
+make. But I know who drove that horse. R.”
+
+I had sacrificed Carmel to my sense of right. Never had I loved her as
+I did at that moment.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+EXPECTANCY
+
+I see your end,
+’T is my undoing.
+
+_King Henry VIII_.
+
+
+A turning-point had been reached in the defence. That every one knew
+after the first glance at Mr. Moffat, on the opening of the next
+morning’s session. As I noted the excitement which this occasioned
+even in quarters where self-control is usually most marked and such
+emotions suppressed, I marvelled at the subtle influence of one man’s
+expectancy, and the powerful effect which can be produced on a feverish
+crowd by a well-ordered silence suggestive of coming action.
+
+I, who knew the basis of this expectancy and the nature of the action
+with which Mr. Moffat anticipated startling the court, was the quietest
+person present. Since it was my hand and none other which must give
+this fresh turn to the wheel of justice, it were well for me to
+do it calmly and without any of the old maddening throb of heart.
+But the time seemed long before Arthur was released from further
+cross-examination, and the opportunity given Mr. Moffat to call his
+next witness.
+
+Something in the attitude he now took, something in the way he bent
+over his client and whispered a few admonitory words, and still more
+the emotion with which these words were received and answered by some
+extraordinary protest, aroused expectation to a still greater pitch,
+and made my course seem even more painful to myself than I had foreseen
+when dreaming over and weighing the possibilities of this hour. With
+something like terror, I awaited the calling of my name; and, when it
+was delayed, it was with emotions inexplicable to myself that I looked
+up and saw Mr. Moffat holding open a door at the left of the judge,
+with that attitude of respect, which a man only assumes in the presence
+and under the dominating influence of woman.
+
+“Ella!” thought I. “Instead of saving her by my contemplated sacrifice
+of Carmel, I have only added one sacrifice to another.”
+
+But when the timid faltering step we could faintly hear crossing the
+room beyond, had brought its possessor within sight, and I perceived
+the tall, black-robed, heavily veiled woman who reached for Mr.
+Moffat’s sustaining arm, I did not need the startling picture of the
+prisoner, standing upright, with outheld and repellant hands, to
+realise that the impossible had happened, and that all which he, as
+well as I, had done and left undone, suffered and suppressed, had been
+in vain.
+
+Mr. Moffat, with no eye for him or for me, conducted his witness to a
+chair; then, as she loosened her veil and let it drop in her lap, he
+cried in tones which rang from end to end of the court-room: “I summon
+Carmel Cumberland to the stand, to witness in her brother’s defence.”
+
+The surprise was complete. It was a great moment for Mr. Moffat; but
+for me all was confusion, dread, a veil of misty darkness, through
+which shone her face, marred by its ineffaceable scar, but calm as I
+had never expected to see it again in this life, and beautiful with a
+smile under which her deeply shaken and hardly conscious brother sank
+slowly back into his seat, amid a silence as profound as the hold she
+had immediately taken upon all hearts.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+“WHERE IS MY BROTHER?”
+
+Let me see the writing.
+My lord, ’tis nothing.
+No matter, then, who sees it;
+I will be satisfied, let me see the writing.
+
+_Richard II_.
+
+
+What is the explanation of Carmel’s reappearance in town and of this
+sensational introduction of her into the court-room, in a restored
+state of health of which no one, so far as known, had had any
+intimation save the man who was responsible for her appearance? The
+particulars are due you.
+
+She had passed some weeks at Lakewood, under the eye of the nurse who
+was detailed to watch, as well as tend her. During these weeks she gave
+no sign of improvement mentally, though she constantly gained strength
+otherwise, and impressed everybody with the clear light in her eye and
+the absence of everything suggestive of gloom in her expression and
+language. There was the same complete loss of memory up to the time of
+the tragic occurrence which had desolated her home; the same harping
+at odd moments on Adelaide’s happiness and her own prospect of seeing
+this dear sister very soon which had marked the opening days of her
+convalescence. But beyond and back of all this was some secret joy,
+unintelligible to the nurse, which helped rather than retarded the sick
+girl’s recovery, and made Carmel appear at times as if she walked on
+air and breathed the very breath of Paradise--an anomaly which not only
+roused Miss Unwin’s curiosity, but led her to regard with something
+like apprehension, any change in her patient’s state of mind which
+would rob her of the strange and unseen delights which fed her secret
+soul and made her oblivious of the awful facts awaiting a restored
+memory.
+
+Meanwhile Carmel was allowed such liberty as her condition required;
+but was never left alone for a moment after a certain day when her
+eye suddenly took on a strange look of confused inquiry, totally
+dissociated with anything she saw or heard. A stir had taken place
+in her brain, and her nurse wanted to take her back home. But this
+awakening--if such it could be called, was so short in its duration and
+was followed so immediately by a string of innocent questions about
+Adelaide, that Nurse Unwin concluded to remain a few days longer before
+risking this delicately balanced mind amid old scenes and the curious
+glances of her townspeople.
+
+Alas! the awakening was to take place in Lakewood and under
+circumstances of the most ordinary nature. Carmel had been out and was
+just crossing the hall of her hotel to the elevator, when she stopped
+with a violent start and clutching the air, was caught by her nurse
+who had hurried up at the first intimation of anything unusual in the
+condition of her patient.
+
+The cause of this agitation was immediately apparent. Near them sat two
+ladies, each with a small wine-glass in her hand. One was drinking,
+the other waiting and watching, but with every apparent intention of
+drinking when the other had ceased. A common sight enough, but it
+worked a revolution in Carmel’s darkened mind. The light of youthful
+joyousness fled from her face; and the cheek, just pulsing softly with
+new life, blanched to the death-like hue of mortal suffering. Dropping
+her eyes from the women, who saw nothing and continued to sip their
+wine in happy ignorance of the soul-tragedy going on within ten feet of
+them, she looked down at her dress, then up at the walls about her; and
+then slowly, anxiously, and with unmistakable terror, at the woman in
+whose arms she felt herself supported.
+
+“Explain,” she murmured. “Where am I?”
+
+“At Lakewood, in a hotel. You have been ill, and are only just
+recovering.”
+
+Her hand went up to her cheek, the one that had been burned, and still
+showed the deep traces of that accident.
+
+“I remember,” said she. Then with another glance at her dress, which
+had studiously been kept cheerful, she remarked, with deep reproach:
+“My sister is dead; why am I not in black?”
+
+The nurse, realising her responsibility (she said afterwards that it
+was the most serious moment of her life), subdued her own astonishment
+at this proof of her young patient’s knowledge of a crime of which she
+was universally supposed to be entirely ignorant, and, bestowing a
+reassuring smile on the agitated girl, observed softly:
+
+“You wore too ill to be burdened with black. You are better now and may
+assume it if you will. I will help you buy your mourning.”
+
+“Yes, you look like a kind woman. What is your name, please, and are we
+here alone in this great hotel?”
+
+Now, as a matter of expediency--to save Carmel from the unendurable
+curiosity of the crowd, and herself from the importunities of the New
+York reporters, Miss Unwin had registered herself and her charge under
+assumed names. She was, therefore, forced to reply:
+
+“My name is Huckins, and we are here alone. But that need not worry
+you. I have watched over you night and day for many weeks.”
+
+“You have? Because of this slight burn?” Again Carmel’s hand went to
+her cheek.
+
+“Not on account of that only. You have had a serious illness quite
+apart from that injury. But you are better; you are almost well--well
+enough to go home, if you will.”
+
+“I cannot go home--not just yet. I’m--I’m not strong enough. But
+we shouldn’t be here alone without some man to look after us. Miss
+Huckins, _where is my brother_?”
+
+At this question, uttered with emphasis, with anxiety--with indignation
+even--Miss Unwin felt the emotion she had so successfully subdued up to
+this moment, betray itself in her voice as she answered, with a quiet
+motion towards the elevator: “Let us go up to our room. There I will
+answer all your questions.”
+
+But Carmel, with the waywardness of her years--or perhaps, with deeper
+reasoning powers than the other would be apt to attribute to her--broke
+softly away from Miss Unwin’s detaining hand, and walking directly
+into the office, looked about for the newspaper stand. Miss Unwin,
+over-anxious not to make a scene, followed, but did not seek to deter
+her, until they were once again by themselves in the centre of the
+room. Then she ventured to speak again:
+
+“We have all the papers in our room. Come up, and let me read them to
+you.”
+
+But Fate was making ready its great stroke. Just as Carmel seemed about
+to yield to this persuasion, some lingering doubt drew her eyes again
+to the stand, just at the very moment a boy stepped into view with the
+evening bulletin, on which had just been written these words:
+
+The Last Juror Obtained in the Trial of Arthur Cumberland for the
+Murder of His Sister, Adelaide.
+
+Carmel saw, and stood--a breathless image of horror. A couple of
+gentlemen came running; but the nurse waved them back, and herself
+caught Carmel and upheld her, in momentary dread of another mental, if
+not physical, collapse.
+
+But Carmel had come back into the world of consciousness to stay.
+Accepting her nurse’s support, but giving no sign of waning faculties
+or imperfect understanding of what she had seen, she spoke quite
+clearly and with her eyes fixed upon Miss Unwin:
+
+“So that is why I am here, away from all my friends. Was I too ill
+to be told? Couldn’t you make me know what was happening? You or the
+doctors or--or anybody?”
+
+“You were much too ill,” protested the nurse, leading her towards the
+elevator and so by degrees to her room. “I tried to arouse you after
+the crisis of your illness had passed; but you seemed to have forgotten
+everything which took place that night and the doctors warned me not to
+press you.”
+
+“And Arthur--poor Arthur, has been the sufferer! Tell me the whole
+story. I can bear it,” she pleaded. “I can bear anything but not
+knowing. Why should he have fallen under suspicion? He was not even
+there. I must go to him! Pack up our clothing, Miss Huckins. I must go
+to him at once.”
+
+They were in their own room now, and Carmel was standing quite by
+herself in the full light of the setting sun. With the utterance of
+this determination, she had turned upon her companion; and that astute
+and experienced woman had every opportunity for observing her face.
+There was a woman’s resolution in it. With the sudden rending of the
+clouds which had obscured her intellect, strange powers had awakened in
+this young girl, giving her a force of expression which, in connection
+with her inextinguishable beauty, formed a spectacle before which this
+older woman, in spite of her long experience, hesitated in doubt.
+
+“You shall go--” began the nurse, and stopped.
+
+Carmel was not listening. Another change of thought had come, and her
+features, as keenly alive now to every passing emotion as they had
+formerly been set in a dull placidity, mirrored doubts of her own,
+which had a deeper source than any which had disturbed the nurse, even
+in these moments of serious perplexity.
+
+“How can I?” fell in unconscious betrayal from her lips. “How can I!”
+Then she stood silent, ghastly with lack of colour one minute, and
+rosy red with its excess the next, until it was hard to tell in which
+extreme her feeling spoke most truly.
+
+What was the feeling? Nurse Unwin felt it imperative to know. Relying
+on the confidence shown her by this unfortunate girl, in her lonely
+position and unbearable distress, she approached Carmel, with renewed
+offers of help and such expressions of sympathy as she thought might
+lure her into open speech.
+
+But discretion had come with fear, and Carmel, while not disdaining the
+other’s kindness, instantly made it apparent that, whatever her burden,
+and however unsuited it was to her present weak condition, it was not
+one she felt willing to share.
+
+“I must think,” she murmured, as she finally followed the nurse’s lead
+and seated herself on a lounge. “Arthur on trial for his life! _Arthur
+on trial for his life!_ And Adelaide was not even murdered!”
+
+“No?” gasped the nurse, intent on every word this long-silenced witness
+let fall.
+
+“Had he no friend? Was there not some one to understand? Adelaide--”
+here her head fell till her face was lost to sight--“had--a--lover--”
+
+“Yes. Mr. Elwood Ranelagh. He was the first to be arrested for the
+crime.”
+
+The soul in Carmel seemed to vanish at this word. The eyes, which had
+been so far-seeing the moment before, grew blank, and the lithe young
+body stiff with that death in life which is almost worse to look upon
+than death itself. She did not speak; but presently she arose, as
+an automaton might arise at the touch of some invisible spring, and
+so stood, staring, until the nurse, frightened at the result of her
+words and the complete overthrow which might follow them, sprang for a
+newspaper and thrust it into her patient’s unwilling hand.
+
+Was it too late? For a minute it seemed to be so; then the stony eyes
+softened and fell, the rigidity of her frame relaxed, and Carmel sank
+back again on the sofa and tried to read the headlines on the open
+sheet before her. But her eyes were unequal to the task. With a sob she
+dropped the paper and entreated the nurse to relate to her from her own
+knowledge, all that had passed, sparing her nothing that would make the
+situation perfectly clear to one who had been asleep during the worst
+crisis of her life.
+
+Miss Unwin complied, but with reservations. She told of Adelaide having
+been found dead at The Whispering Pines by the police, whom she had
+evidently summoned during a moment of struggle or fear; of Ranelagh’s
+presence there, and of the suspicions to which it gave rise; of his
+denial of the crime; of his strange reticence on certain points, which
+served to keep him incarcerated till a New York detective got to work
+and found so much evidence against her brother that Mr. Ranelagh was
+subsequently released and Arthur Cumberland indicted. But she said
+nothing about the marks on Adelaide’s throat, or of the special reason
+which the police had for arresting Mr. Ranelagh. She did not dare.
+Strangulation was a horrible death to contemplate; and if this factor
+in the crime--she was not deceived by Carmel’s exclamation that there
+had been no murder--was unknown as yet to her patient, as it must be
+from what she had said, and the absolute impossibility, as she thought,
+of her having known what went on in The Whispering Pines, then it had
+better remain unknown to her until circumstances forced it on her
+knowledge, or she had gotten sufficient strength to bear it.
+
+Carmel received the account well. She started when she heard of
+the discovery of Ranelagh in the club-house on the entrance of the
+police, and seemed disposed to ask some questions. But though the
+nurse gave her an opportunity to do so, she appeared to hunt in vain
+for the necessary words, and the narrative proceeded without further
+interruption. When all was done, she sat quite still; then carefully,
+and with a show of more judgment than might be expected from one of
+her years, she propounded certain inquiries which brought out the main
+causes for her brother’s arraignment. When she had these fully in mind,
+she looked up into the nurse’s face again and repeated, quite calmly,
+but with immovable decision, the order of an hour before:
+
+“We must return at once. You will pack up immediately.”
+
+Miss Unwin nodded, and began to open the trunks.
+
+This, however, was a ruse. She did not intend to take her patient
+back that night. She was afraid to risk it. The next day would be
+soon enough. But she would calm her by making ready, and when the
+proper moment came, would find some complication of trains which would
+interfere with their immediate departure.
+
+Meanwhile, she would communicate at the earliest moment with Mr. Fox.
+She had been in the habit of sending him frequent telegrams as to her
+patient’s condition. They had been invariable so far: “No difference;
+mind still a blank,” or some code word significant of the same. But
+a new word was necessary now. She must look it up, and formulate her
+telegram before she did anything else.
+
+The code-book was in her top tray. She hunted and hunted for it,
+without being able to lay her hands on it. She grew very nervous. She
+was only human; she was in a very trying position, and she realised it.
+Where could that book be? Suddenly she espied it and, falling on her
+knees before the trunk, with her back still to Carmel, studied out the
+words she wanted. She was leaning over the tray to write these words
+in her note-book, when--no one ever knew how it happened--the lid of
+the heavy trunk fell forward and its iron edge struck her on the nape
+of the neck, with a keen blow which laid her senseless. When Carmel
+reached her side, she found herself the strong one and her stalwart
+nurse the patient.
+
+When help had been summoned, the accident explained, and everything
+done for the unconscious woman which medical skill could suggest,
+Carmel, finding a moment to herself, stole to the trunk, and, lifting
+up the lid, looked in. She had been watchful of her nurse from the
+first, and was suspicious of the actions which had led to this untoward
+accident. Seeing the two little books, she took them out. The note-book
+lay open and on the page thus disclosed, she beheld written:
+
+Ap Lox Fidestum Truhum
+
+Ridiculous nonsense--until she consulted the code. Then these detached
+and meaningless words took on a significance which she could not afford
+to ignore:
+
+Ap         A change.
+Lox        Makes remarkable statements.
+Fidestum   Shall we return?
+Trubum     Not tractable.
+
+Carmel endeavoured to find out for whom this telegram was intended.
+There was nothing to inform her. A moment of indecision was followed by
+quick action. She had noticed that she had been invariably addressed as
+Miss Campbell by every one who had come into the room. Whether this was
+a proof of the care with which she had been guarded from the curiosity
+of strangers, or whether it was part of a system of deception springing
+from quite different causes, she felt that in the present emergency it
+was a fact to be thankful for and to be utilised.
+
+Regaining her own room, which was on the other side of their common
+sitting-room, she collected a few necessary articles, and placed them
+in a bag which she thrust under her bed. Hunting for money, she found
+quite an adequate amount in her own purse, which was attached to her
+person. Satisfied thus far, she chose her most inconspicuous hat and
+coat, and putting them on, went out by her own door into the corridor.
+
+The time--it was the dinner-hour--favoured her attempt. She found her
+way to the office unobserved, and, going frankly up to the clerk,
+informed him that she had some telegrams to send and that she would
+be out for some little time. Would he see that Miss Huckins was not
+neglected in her absence?
+
+The clerk, startled at these evidences of sense and self-reliance in
+one he had been accustomed to see under the special protection of the
+very woman she was now confiding to his care, surveyed her eloquent
+features beaming with quiet resolve, and for a moment seemed at a loss
+how to take this change and control the strange situation. Perhaps she
+understood him, perhaps she only followed the impulses natural to her
+sex. She never knew; she only remembers that she smiled, and that his
+hesitation vanished at that smile.
+
+“I will see to it,” said he. Then, as she turned to go, he ventured
+to add, “It is quite dark now. If you would like one of the boys to
+go with you--”. But he received no encouragement, and allowed his
+suggestion to remain unfinished.
+
+She looked grateful for this, and was pulling down her veil when she
+perceived two or three men on the other side of the room, watching her
+in evident wonder. Stepping back to the desk, she addressed the clerk
+again, this time with a marked distinctness:
+
+“I have been very ill, I know, and not always quite myself. But the
+shock of this accident to my nurse has cleared my brain and made me
+capable again of attending to my own affairs. You can trust me; I can
+do my errands all right; but perhaps I had better have one of the boys
+go with me.”
+
+The clerk, greatly relieved, rang his bell, and the gentlemen at the
+other end of the room sauntered elsewhere to exchange their impressions
+of an incident which was remarkable enough in itself, without the
+accentuation put upon it by the extreme beauty of the girl and the
+one conspicuous blemish to that beauty--her unfortunate scar. With
+what additional wonder would they have regarded the occurrence, had
+they known that the object of their interest was not an unknown Miss
+Campbell, but the much pitied, much talked-of Carmel Cumberland, sister
+of the man then on trial for his life in a New York town.
+
+With her first step into the street, Carmel’s freshly freed mind began
+its work. She knew she was in a place called Lakewood, but she knew
+little of its location, save that it was somewhere in New Jersey.
+Another strange thing! she did not recognise the streets. They were new
+to her. She did not remember ever having been in them before.
+
+“Where is the railroad station?” she inquired of the boy who was
+trotting along at her side.
+
+“Over there,” he answered, vaguely.
+
+“Take me to it.”
+
+He obeyed, and they threaded several streets whose lighted shops
+pleased her, notwithstanding her cares; such a joy it was to be
+alive to things once more, and capable of remembrance, even though
+remembrance brought visions at which she shuddered, and turned away,
+appalled.
+
+The sight of the station, from which a train was just leaving,
+frightened her for a moment with its bustle and many lights; but she
+rallied under the stress of her purpose, and, entering, found the
+telegraph office, from which she sent this message, directed to her
+physician, at home, Dr. Carpenter:
+
+“Look for me on early train. All is clear to me now, and I must return.
+Preserve silence till we meet.”
+
+This she signed with a pet name, known only to themselves, and dating
+back to her childish days.
+
+Then she bought a ticket, and studied the time-table. When quite
+satisfied, she returned to the hotel. She was met in the doorway by the
+physician who was attending the so-called Miss Huckins. He paused when
+he saw her, and asked a few questions which she was penetrating enough
+to perceive were more for the purpose of testing her own condition
+than to express interest in his patient. She answered quietly, and
+was met by a surprise and curiosity which evinced that he was greatly
+drawn towards her case. This alarmed her. She did not wish to be the
+object of any one’s notice. On the contrary, she desired to obliterate
+herself; to be counted out so far as all these people were concerned.
+But above all, she was anxious not to rouse suspicion. So she stopped
+and talked as naturally as she could about Miss Huckins’s accident
+and what the prospects were for the night. These were favourable, or
+so the doctor declared, but the injured woman’s condition called for
+great care and he would send over a capable nurse at once. Meanwhile,
+the maid who was with her would do very well. She, herself, need have
+no worry. He would advise against worry, and suggested that she should
+have a good and nourishing dinner sent to her room, after which she
+should immediately retire and get what sleep she could by means of an
+anodyne he would send her.
+
+Carmel exerted herself.
+
+“You are very good,” said she, “I need no anodyne. I _am_ tired and
+when I once get to bed shall certainly sleep. I shall give orders not
+to be disturbed. Isn’t that right?”
+
+“Quite right. I will myself tell the nurse.”
+
+He was going, but turned to look at her again.
+
+“Shall I accompany you to the door of your room?” he asked.
+
+She shook her head, with a smile. This delay was a torment to her, but
+it must be endured.
+
+“I am quite capable of finding my room. I hope Miss Huckins will be
+as well in a week from now as I am at this moment. But, doctor--” she
+had been struck by a strange possibility--“I should like to settle one
+little matter before we part. The money I have may not be quite safe in
+my hands. My memory might leave me again, and then Miss Huckins might
+suffer. If you will take charge of some of it on her account, I shall
+feel relieved.”
+
+“It would be a wise precaution,” he admitted. “But you could just as
+well leave it at the desk.”
+
+“So I can,” she smiled. Then, as his eye remained fixed on her: “You
+are wondering if I have friends. We both have and I have just come
+from telegraphing to one of them. You can leave us, with an easy mind.
+All that I dread is that Miss Huckins will worry about me if her
+consciousness should return during the night.”
+
+“It will not return so soon. Next week we may look for it. Then you can
+be by to reassure her if she asks for you.”
+
+Carmers eyes fell.
+
+“I would not be a cause of distress to her for the world. She has been
+very good to me.” Bowing, she turned in the direction of the office.
+
+The doctor, lifting his hat, took his departure. The interview might
+have lasted five minutes. She felt as though it had lasted an hour.
+
+She followed the doctor’s advice and left half the money she had, in
+charge of the clerk. Then she went upstairs. She was not seen to come
+down again; but when the eight-forty-five train started out of the
+station that night, it had for a passenger, a young, heavily veiled
+girl, who went straight to her section. A balcony running by her window
+had favoured her escape. It led to a hall window at the head of a side
+staircase. She met no one on the staircase, and, once out of the door
+at its foot, her difficulties were over, and her escape effected.
+
+She was missed the next morning, and an account of her erratic flight
+reached the papers, and was published far and wide. But the name of
+Miss Caroline Campbell conveyed nothing to the public, and the great
+trial went on without a soul suspecting the significance of this
+midnight flitting of an unknown and partially demented girl.
+
+At the house of Dr. Carpenter she met Mr. Moffat. What she told him
+heartened him greatly for the struggle he saw before him. Indeed, it
+altered the whole tone of the defence. Perceiving from her story,
+and from what the doctor could tell him of their meeting at the
+station that her return to town was as yet a secret to every one but
+themselves, he begged that the secret should continue to be kept, in
+order that the _coup d’etat_ which he meditated might lose none of
+its force by anticipation. Carmel, whose mind was full of her coming
+ordeal, was willing enough to hide her head until it came; while Dr.
+Carpenter, alarmed at all this excitement, would have insisted on it in
+any event.
+
+Carmel wished her brother informed of her return, but the wily lawyer
+persuaded her to excuse him from taking Arthur into his confidence
+until the last moment. He knew that he would receive only opposition
+from his young and stubborn client; that Carmel’s presence and
+Carmel’s determination would have to be sprung upon Arthur even
+more than upon the prosecution; that the prisoner at the bar would
+struggle to the very last against Carmel’s appearance in court, and
+make an infinite lot of trouble, if he did not actually endanger his
+own cause. One of the stipulations which he had made in securing
+Mr. Moffat for his counsel was that Carmel’s name was to be kept as
+much as possible out of the proceedings; and to this Mr. Moffat had
+subscribed, notwithstanding his conviction that the crime laid to the
+defendant’s charge was a result of Ranelagh’s passion for Carmel, and,
+consequently, distinctly the work of Ranelagh’s own hand.
+
+He had thought that he could win his case by the powers of oratory and
+a somewhat free use of innuendo; but his view changed under the fresh
+enlightenment which he received in his conversation with Carmel. He
+saw unfolding before him a defence of unparalleled interest. True, it
+involved this interesting witness in a way that would be unpleasant
+to the brother; but he was not the man to sacrifice a client to any
+sentimental scruple--certainly not this client, whose worth he was just
+beginning to realise. Professional pride, as well as an inherent love
+of justice, led him to this conclusion. Nothing in God’s world appealed
+to him, or ever had appealed to him, like a prisoner in the dock facing
+a fate from which only legal address, added to an orator’s eloquence,
+could save him. His sympathies went out to a man so placed, even when
+he was a brute and his guilt far from doubtful. How much more, then,
+must he feel the claims of this surly but chivalrous-hearted boy,
+son of a good father and pious mother, who had been made the butt of
+circumstances, and of whose innocence he was hourly becoming more and
+more convinced.
+
+Could he have probed the whole matter, examined and re-examined this
+new witness until every detail was his and the whole story of that
+night stood bare before him, he might have hesitated a little longer
+and asked himself some very serious questions. But Carmel was not
+strong enough for much talk. Dr. Carpenter would not allow it, and the
+continued clearness of her mind was too invaluable to his case for this
+far-seeing advocate to take any risk. She had told him enough to assure
+him that circumstances and not guilt had put Arthur where he was,
+and had added to the assurance, details of an unexpected nature--so
+unexpected, indeed, that the lawyer was led away by the prospect they
+offered of confounding the prosecution by a line of defence to which no
+clew had been given by anything that had appeared.
+
+He planned then and there a dramatic climax which should take the
+breath away from his opponent, and change the whole feeling of the
+court towards the prisoner. It was a glorious prospect, and if the girl
+remained well--the bare possibility of her not doing so, drove him
+prematurely from her presence; and so it happened that, for the second
+time, the subject of Adelaide’s death was discussed in her hearing
+without any mention being made of strangulation as its immediate cause.
+Would her action have been different had she known that this was a
+conceded fact?
+
+Mr. Moffat did not repeat this visit. He was not willing to risk his
+secret by being seen too often at the doctor’s house; but telephonic
+communication was kept up between him and her present guardian, and
+he was able to bear himself quietly and with confidence until the
+time drew near for the introduction of her testimony. Then he grew
+nervous, fearing that Nurse Unwin would come to herself and telegraph
+Carmel’s escape, and so prepare the prosecution for his great stroke.
+But nothing of the kind happened; and, when the great day came, he had
+only to consider how he should prepare Arthur for the surprise awaiting
+him, and finally decided not to prepare him at all, but simply to state
+at the proper moment, and in the face of the whole court-room, that
+his sister had recovered and would soon take her place upon the stand.
+The restraint of the place would thus act as a guard between them,
+and Carmel’s immediate entrance put an end to the reproaches of whose
+bitterness he could well judge from his former experience of them.
+
+With all these anxieties and his deeply planned _coup d’etat_ awaiting
+the moment of action, Ella’s simple outburst and even Ranelagh’s
+unexpected and somewhat startling suggestion lost much of their
+significance. All his mind and heart were on his next move. It was to
+be made with the queen, and must threaten checkmate. Yet he did not
+forget the two pawns, silent in their places--but guarding certain
+squares which the queen, for all her royal prerogatives, might not be
+able to reach.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FOUR
+
+WHAT THE PINES WHISPERED
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+“I REMEMBERED THE ROOM”
+
+MERCURY.--If thou mightst dwell among the Gods the while
+          Lapped in voluptuous joy?
+
+PROMETHEUS.--I would not quit
+             This bleak ravine, these unrepentant pains.
+
+_Prometheus Unbound_.
+
+
+Great moments, whether of pain, surprise, or terror, awaken in the
+startled breast very different emotions from those we are led to
+anticipate from the agitation caused by lesser experiences. As Carmel
+disclosed her features to the court, my one absorbing thought was:
+Would she look at me? Could I hope for a glance of her eye? Did I wish
+it? My question was answered before Mr. Moffat had regained his place
+and turned to address the court.
+
+As her gaze passed from her brother’s face, it travelled slowly and
+with growing hesitation over the countenances of those near her, on and
+on past the judge, past the jury, until they reached the spot where I
+sat. There they seemed to falter, and the beating of my heart became so
+loud that I instinctively shrank away from my neighbour. By so doing,
+I drew her eye, which fell full upon mine for one overwhelming minute;
+then she shrank and looked away, but not before the colour had risen in
+a flood to her cheek.
+
+The hope which had sprung to life under her first beautiful aspect,
+vanished in despair at sight of this flush. For it was not one of
+joy, or surprise, or even of unconscious sympathy. It was the banner
+of a deep, unendurable shame. Versed in her every expression, I could
+not mistake the language of her dismayed soul, at this, the most
+critical instant of her life. She had hoped to find me absent; she was
+overwhelmed to find me there. Could she, with a look, have transported
+me a thousand miles from this scene of personal humiliation and
+unknown, unimaginable outcome, she would have bestowed that look and
+ignored the consequences.
+
+Nor was I behind her in the reckless passion of the moment. Could I, by
+means of a wish, have been transported those thousand miles, I should
+even now have been far from a spot where, in the face of a curious
+crowd, busy in associating us together, I must submit to the terror of
+hearing her speak and betray herself to these watchful lawyers, and to
+the just and impartial mind of the presiding judge.
+
+But the days of magic had passed. I could not escape the spot; I could
+not escape her eye. The ordeal to which she was thus committed, I must
+share. As she advanced step by step upon her uncertain road, it would
+be my unhappy fate to advance with her, in terror of the same pitfalls,
+with our faces set towards the same precipice--slipping, fainting,
+experiencing agonies together. She knew my secret, and I, alas! knew
+hers. So I interpreted this intolerable, overwhelming blush.
+
+Recoiling from the prospect, I buried my face in my hands, and so
+missed the surprising sight of this young girl, still in her teens,
+conquering a dismay which might well unnerve one of established years
+and untold experiences. In a few minutes, as I was afterward told by my
+friends, her features had settled into a strange placidity, undisturbed
+by the levelled gaze of a hundred eyes. Her whole attention was
+concentrated on her brother, and wavered only, when the duties of the
+occasion demanded a recognition of the various gentlemen concerned in
+the trial.
+
+Mr. Moffat prefaced his examination by the following words:
+
+“May it please your Honour, I wish to ask the indulgence of the court
+in my examination of this witness. She is just recovering from a long
+and dangerous illness; and while I shall endeavour to keep within the
+rules of examination, I shall be grateful for any consideration which
+may be shown her by your Honour and by the counsel on the other side.”
+
+Mr. Fox at once rose. He had by this time recovered from his
+astonishment at seeing before him, and in a fair state of health,
+the young girl whom he had every reason to believe to be still in a
+condition of partial forgetfulness at Lakewood, and under the care
+of a woman entirely in his confidence and under his express orders.
+He had also mastered his chagrin at the triumph which her presence
+here, and under these dramatic circumstances, had given his adversary.
+Moved, perhaps, by Miss Cumberland’s beauty, which he saw for the first
+time--or, perhaps, by the spectacle of this beauty devoting its first
+hours of health to an attempt to save a brother, of whose precarious
+position before the law she had been ignorant up to this time--or more
+possibly yet, by a fear that it might be bad tactics to show harshness
+to so interesting a personality before she had uttered a word of
+testimony, he expressed in warmer tones than usual, his deep desire to
+extend every possible indulgence.
+
+Mr. Moffat bowed his acknowledgments, and waited for his witness
+to take the oath, which she did with a simple grace which touched
+all hearts, even that of her constrained and unreconciled brother.
+Compelled by the silence and my own bounding pulses to look at her in
+my own despite, I caught the sweet and elevated look with which she
+laid her hand on the Book, and asked myself if her presence here was
+not a self-accusation, which would bring satisfaction to nobody--which
+would sink her and hers into an ignominy worse than the conviction of
+the brother whom she was supposedly there to save.
+
+Tortured by this fear, I awaited events in indescribable agitation.
+
+The cool voice of Mr. Moffat broke in upon my gloom. Carmel had
+reseated herself, after taking the oath, and the customary question
+could be heard:
+
+“Your name, if you please.”
+
+“Carmel Cumberland.”
+
+“Do you recognise the prisoner, Miss Cumberland?”
+
+“Yes; he is my brother.”
+
+A thrill ran through the room. The lingering tone, the tender accent,
+told. Some of the feeling she thus expressed seemed to pass into every
+heart which contemplated the two. From this moment on, he was looked
+upon with less harshness; people showed a disposition to discern
+innocence, where, perhaps, they had secretly desired, until now, to
+discover guilt.
+
+“Miss Cumberland, will you be good enough to tell us where you were, at
+or near the hour of ten, on the evening of your sister’s death?”
+
+“I was in the club-house--in the house you call The Whispering Pines.”
+
+At this astounding reply, unexpected by every one present save myself
+and the unhappy prisoner, incredulity, seasoned with amazement, marked
+every countenance. Carmel Cumberland in the club-house that night--she
+who had been found at a late hour, in her own home, injured and
+unconscious! It was not to be believed--or it would not have been, if
+Arthur with less self-control than he had hitherto maintained, had not
+shown by his morose air and the silent drooping of his head that he
+accepted this statement, wild and improbable as it seemed. Mr. Fox,
+whose mind without doubt had been engaged in a debate from the first,
+as to the desirability of challenging the testimony of this young girl,
+whose faculties had so lately recovered from a condition of great
+shock and avowed forgetfulness that no word as yet had come to him of
+her restored health, started to arise at her words; but noting the
+prisoner’s attitude, he hastily reseated himself, realising, perhaps,
+that evidence of which he had never dreamed lay at the bottom of the
+client’s manner and the counsel’s complacency. If so, then his own air
+of mingled disbelief and compassionate forbearance might strike the
+jury unfavourably; while, on the contrary, if his doubts were sound,
+and the witness were confounding the fancies of her late delirium with
+the actual incidents of this fatal night, then would he gain rather
+than lose by allowing her to proceed until her testimony fell of its
+own weight, or succumbed before the fire of his cross-examination.
+
+Modifying his manner, he steadied himself for either exigency, and, in
+steadying himself, steadied his colleagues also.
+
+Mr. Moffat, who saw everything, smiled slightly as he spoke
+encouragingly to his witness, and propounded his next question:
+
+“Miss Cumberland, was your sister with you when you went to the
+club-house?”
+
+“No; we went separately”
+
+“How? Will you explain?”
+
+“I drove there. I don’t know how Adelaide went.”
+
+“You drove there?”
+
+“Yes. I had Arthur harness up his horse for me and I drove there.”
+
+A moment of silence; then a slow awakening--on the part of judge, jury,
+and prosecution--to the fact that the case was taking a turn for which
+they were ill-prepared. To Mr. Moffat, it was a moment of intense
+self-congratulation, and something of the gratification he felt crept
+into his voice as he said:
+
+“Miss Cumberland, will you describe this horse?”
+
+“It was a grey horse. It has a large black spot on its left shoulder.”
+
+“To what vehicle was it attached?”
+
+“To a cutter--my brother’s cutter.”
+
+“Was that brother with you? Did he accompany you in your ride to The
+Whispering Pines?”
+
+“No, I went quite alone.”
+
+Entrancement had now seized upon every mind. Even if her testimony were
+not true, but merely the wanderings of a mind not fully restored, the
+interest of it was intense. Mr. Fox, glancing at the jury, saw there
+would be small use in questioning at this time the mental capacity of
+the witness. This was a story which all wished to hear. Perhaps he
+wished to hear it, too.
+
+Mr. Moffat rose to more than his accustomed height. The light which
+sometimes visited his face when feeling, or a sense of power, was
+strongest in him, shone from his eye and irradiated his whole aspect as
+he inquired tellingly:
+
+“And how did you return? With whom, and by what means, did you regain
+your own house?”
+
+The answer came, with simple directness:
+
+“In the same way I went. I drove back in my brother’s cutter and being
+all alone just as before, I put the horse away myself, and went into my
+empty home and up to Adelaide’s room, where I lost consciousness.”
+
+The excitement, which had been seething, broke out as she ceased; but
+the judge did not need to use his gavel, or the officers of the court
+exert their authority. At Mr. Moffat’s lifted hand, the turmoil ceased
+as if by magic.
+
+“Miss Cumberland, do you often ride out alone on nights like that?”
+
+“I never did before. I would not have dared to do it then, if I had not
+taken a certain precaution.”
+
+“And what was this precaution?”
+
+“I wore an old coat of my brother’s over my dress, and one of his hats
+on my head.”
+
+It was out--the fact for the suppression of which I had suffered arrest
+without a word; because of which Arthur had gone even further, and
+submitted to trial with the same constancy. Instinctively, his eyes
+and mine met, and, at that moment, there was established between us an
+understanding that was in strong contrast to the surrounding turmoil,
+which now exceeded all limits, as the highly wrought up spectators
+realised that these statements, if corroborated, destroyed one of the
+strongest points which had been made by the prosecution. This caused
+a stay in the proceedings until order was partially restored, and the
+judge’s voice could be heard in a warning that the court-room would be
+cleared of all spectators if this break of decorum was repeated.
+
+Meanwhile, my own mind had been busy. I had watched Arthur; I had
+watched Mr. Moffat. The discouragement of the former, the ill-concealed
+elation of the latter, proved the folly of any hope, on my part, that
+Carmel would be spared a full explanation of what I would have given
+worlds to leave in the darkness and ignorance of the present moment. To
+save Arthur, unwilling as he was, she was to be allowed to consummate
+the sacrifice which the real generosity of her heart drove her into
+making. Before these doors opened again and sent forth the crowd
+now pulsating under a preamble of whose terrible sequel none as yet
+dreamed, I should have to hear those sweet lips give utterance to the
+revelation which would consign her to opprobrium, and break, not only
+my heart, but her brother’s.
+
+Was there no way to stop it? The district attorney gave no evidence
+of suspecting any issue of this sort, nor did the friendly and humane
+judge. Only the scheming Moffat knew to what all this was tending,
+and Moffat could not be trusted. The case was his and he would gain
+it if he could. Tender and obliging as he was in his treatment of the
+witness, there was iron under the velvet of his glove. This was his
+reputation; and this I must now see exemplified before me, without
+the power to stop it. The consideration with which he approached his
+subject did not deceive me.
+
+“Miss Cumberland, will you now give the jury the full particulars
+of that evening’s occurrences, as witnessed by yourself. Begin your
+relation, if you please, with an account of the last meal you had
+together.”
+
+Carmel hesitated. Her youth--her conscience, perhaps--shrank in
+manifest distress from this inquisition.
+
+“Ask me a question,” she prayed. “I do not know how to begin.”
+
+“Very well. Who were seated at the dinner-table that night?”
+
+“My sister, my brother, Mr. Ranelagh, and myself.”
+
+“Did anything uncommon happen during the meal?”
+
+“Yes, my sister ordered wine, and had our glasses all filled. She
+never drank wine herself, but she had her glass filled also. Then she
+dismissed Helen, the waitress; and when the girl was gone, she rose and
+held up her glass, and invited us to do the same. ‘We will drink to my
+coming marriage,’ said she; but when we had done this, she turned upon
+Arthur, with bitter words about his habits, and, declaring that another
+bottle of wine should never be opened again in the house, unclosed her
+fingers and let her glass drop on the table where it broke. Arthur then
+let his fall, and I mine. We all three let our glasses fall and break.”
+
+“And Mr. Ranelagh?”
+
+“He did not let his fall. He set it down on the cloth. He had not drank
+from it.”
+
+Clear, perfectly clear--tallying with what we had heard from other
+sources. As this fact forced itself in upon the minds of the jury, new
+light shone in every eye and each and all waited eagerly for the next
+question.
+
+It came with a quiet, if not insinuating, intonation.
+
+“Miss Cumberland, where were you looking when you let your glass fall?”
+
+My heart gave a bound. I remembered that moment well. So did she, as
+could be seen from the tremulous flush and the determination with which
+she forced herself to speak.
+
+“At Mr. Ranelagh,” she answered, finally.
+
+“Not at your brother?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“And at whom was Mr. Ranelagh looking?”
+
+“At--at me.”
+
+“Not at your sister?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Was anything said?”
+
+“Not then. With the dropping of the glasses, we all drew back from the
+table, and walked towards a little room where we sometimes sat before
+going into the library. Arthur went first, and Mr. Ranelagh and I
+followed, Adelaide coming last. We--we went this way into the little
+room and--what other question do you wish to ask?” she finished, with a
+burning blush.
+
+Mr. Moffat was equal to the appeal.
+
+“Did anything happen? Did Mr. Ranelagh speak to you or you to him, or
+did your sister Adelaide speak?”
+
+“No one spoke; but Mr. Ranelagh put a little slip of paper into my
+hand--a--a note. As he did this, my brother looked round. I don’t know
+whether he saw the note or not; but his eye caught mine, and I may
+have blushed. Next moment he was looking past me; and presently he had
+flung himself out of the room, and I heard him going upstairs. Adelaide
+had joined me by this time, and Mr. Ranelagh turned to speak to her,
+and--and I went over to the book-shelves to read my note.”
+
+“And did you read it then?”
+
+“No, I was afraid. I waited till Mr. Ranelagh was gone; then I went up
+to my room and read it. It was not a--a note to be glad of. I mean,
+proud of. I’m afraid I was a little glad of it at first. I was a wicked
+girl.”
+
+Mr. Moffat glanced at Mr. Fox; but that gentleman, passing over this
+artless expression of feeling, as unworthy an objection, he went
+steadily on:
+
+“Miss Cumberland, before you tell us about this note, will you be good
+enough to inform us whether any words passed between you and your
+sister before you went upstairs?”
+
+“Oh, yes; we talked. We all three talked, but it was about indifferent
+matters. The servants were going to a ball, and we spoke of that. Mr.
+Ranelagh did not stay long. Very soon he remarked that he had a busy
+evening before him, and took his leave. I was not in the room with them
+when he did this. I was in the adjoining one, but I heard his remark
+and saw him go. I did not wait to talk to Adelaide.”
+
+“Now, about the note?”
+
+“I read it as soon as I reached my room. Then I sat still for a long
+time.”
+
+“Miss Cumberland, pardon my request, but will you tell us what was in
+that note?”
+
+She lifted her patient eyes, and looked straight at her brother. He
+did not meet her gaze; but the dull flush which lit up the dead-white
+of his cheek showed how he suffered under this ordeal. At me she never
+glanced; this was the only mercy shown me that dreadful morning. I grew
+to be thankful for it as she went on.
+
+“I do not remember the words,” she said, finally, as her eyes fell
+again to her lap. “But I remember its meaning. It was an invitation
+for me to leave town with him that very evening and be married at
+some place he mentioned. He said it would be the best way to--to
+end--matters.”
+
+This brought Mr. Fox to his feet. For all his self-command, he had been
+perceptibly growing more and more nervous as the examination proceeded;
+and he found himself still in the dark as to his opponent’s purpose and
+the character of the revelations he had to fear. Turning to the judge,
+he cried:
+
+“This testimony is irrelevant and incompetent, and I ask to have it
+stricken out.”
+
+Mr. Moffat’s voice, as he arose to answer this, was like honey poured
+upon gall.
+
+“It is neither irrelevant nor incompetent, and, if it were, the
+objection comes too late. My friend should have objected to the
+question.”
+
+“The whole course of counsel has been very unusual,” began Mr. Fox.
+
+“Yes, but so is the case. I beg your Honour to believe that, in some
+of its features, this case is not only unusual, but almost without a
+precedent. That it may be lightly understood, and justice shown my
+client, a full knowledge of the whole family’s experiences during
+those fatal hours is not only desirable, but absolutely essential. I
+beg, therefore, that my witness may be allowed to proceed and tell her
+story in all its details. Nothing will be introduced which will not
+ultimately be seen to have a direct bearing upon the attitude of my
+client towards the crime for which he stands here arraigned.”
+
+“The motion is denied,” declared the judge.
+
+Mr. Fox sat down, to the universal relief of all but the two persons
+most interested--Arthur and myself.
+
+Mr. Moffat, generous enough or discreet enough to take no note of his
+opponent’s discomfiture, lifted a paper from the table and held it
+towards the witness.
+
+“Do you recognise these lines?” he asked, placing the remnants of my
+half-burned communication in her hands.
+
+She started at sight of them. Evidently she had never expected to see
+them again.
+
+“Yes,” she answered, after a moment. “This is a portion of the note I
+have mentioned.”
+
+“You recognise it as such?”
+
+“I do.”
+
+Her eyes lingered on the scrap, and followed it as it was passed back
+and marked as an exhibit.
+
+Mr. Moffat recalled her to the matter in hand.
+
+“What did you do next, Miss Cumberland?”
+
+“I answered the note.”
+
+“May I ask to what effect?”
+
+“I refused Mr. Ranelagh’s request. I said that I could not do what he
+asked, and told him to wait till the next day, and he would see how I
+felt towards him and towards Adelaide. That was all. I could not write
+much. I was suffering greatly.”
+
+“Suffering in mind, or suffering in body?”
+
+“Suffering in my mind. I was terrified, but that feeling did not last
+very long. Soon I grew happy, happier than I had been in weeks, happier
+than I had ever been in all my life before. I found that I loved
+Adelaide better than I did myself. This made everything easy, even the
+sending of the answer I have told you about to Mr. Ranelagh.”
+
+“Miss Cumberland, how did you get this answer to Mr. Ranelagh?”
+
+“By means of a gentleman who was going away on the very train I had
+been asked to leave on. He was a guest next door, and I carried the
+note in to him.”
+
+“Did you do this openly?”
+
+“No. I’m afraid not; I slipped out by the side door, in as careful a
+way as I could.”
+
+“Did this attempt at secrecy succeed? Were you able to go and come
+without meeting any one?”
+
+“No. Adelaide was at the head of the stairs when I came back, standing
+there, very stiff and quiet.”
+
+“Did she speak to you?”
+
+“No. She just looked at me; but it wasn’t a common look. I shall never
+forget it.”
+
+“And what did you do then?”
+
+“I went to my room.”
+
+“Miss Cumberland, did you sec anybody else when you came in at this
+time?”
+
+“Yes, our maid Helen. She was just laying down a bunch of keys on
+the table in the lower hall. I stopped and looked at the keys. I had
+recognised them as the ones I had seen in Mr. Ranelagh’s hands many
+times. He had gone, yet there were his keys. One of them unlocked the
+club-house. I noticed it among the others, but I didn’t touch it then.
+Helen was still in the hall, and I ran straight upstairs, where I met
+my sister, as I have just told you.”
+
+“Miss Cumberland, continue the story. What did you do after re-entering
+your room?”
+
+“I don’t know what I did first. I was very excited--elated one minute,
+deeply wretched and very frightened the next. I must have sat down; for
+I was shaking very much, and felt a little sick. The sight of that key
+had brought up pictures of the club-house; and I thought and thought
+how quiet it was, and how far away and--how cold it was too, and how
+secret. I would go there for what I had to do; _there_! And then I saw
+in my fancy one of its rooms, with the moon in it, and--but I soon shut
+my eyes to that. I heard Arthur moving about his room, and this made me
+start up and go out into the hall again.”
+
+During all this Mr. Fox had sat by, understanding his right to object
+to the witness’s mixed statements of fact and of feelings, and quite
+confident that his objections would be sustained. But he had determined
+long since that he would not interrupt the witness in her relation.
+The air of patience he assumed was sufficiently indicative of his
+displeasure, and he confined himself to this. Mr. Moffat understood,
+and testified his appreciation by a slight bow.
+
+Carmel, who saw nothing, resumed her story.
+
+“Arthur’s room is near, and Adelaide’s far off; but I went to
+Adelaide’s first. Her door was shut and when I went to open it I found
+it locked. Calling her name, I said that I was tired and would be glad
+to say good night. She did not answer at once. When she did, her voice
+was strange, though what she said was very simple. I was to please
+myself; she was going to retire, too. And then she tried to say good
+night, but she only half said it, like one who is choked with tears
+or some other dreadful emotion. I cannot tell you how this made me
+feel--but you don’t care for that. You want to know what I did--what
+Adelaide did. I will tell you, but I cannot hurry. Every act of the
+evening was so crowded with purpose; all meant so much. I can see the
+end, but the steps leading to it are not so clear.”
+
+“Take your time, Miss Cumberland; we have no wish to hurry you.”
+
+“I can go on now. The next thing I did was to knock at Arthur’s door. I
+heard him getting ready to go out, and I wanted to speak to him before
+he went. When he heard me, he opened the door and let me in. He began
+at once on his grievances, but I could not listen to them. I wanted him
+to harness the grey mare for me and leave it standing in the stable.
+I explained the request by saying that it was necessary for me to see
+a certain friend of mine immediately, and that no one would notice me
+in the cutter under the bear-skins. He didn’t approve, but I persuaded
+him. I even persuaded him to wait till Zadok was gone, so that Adelaide
+would know nothing about it. He looked glum, but he promised.
+
+“He was going away when I heard Adelaide’s steps in the adjoining room.
+This frightened me. The partition is very thin between these two rooms,
+and I was afraid she had heard me ask Arthur for the grey mare and
+cutter. I could hear her rattling the bottles in the medicine cabinet
+hanging on this very wall. Looking back at Arthur, I asked him how
+long Adelaide had been there. He said, ‘For some time.’ This sent me
+flying from the room. I would join her, and find out if she had heard.
+But I was too late. As I stepped into the hall I saw her disappearing
+round the corner leading to her own room. This convinced me that she
+had heard nothing, and, light of heart once more, I went back to my
+own room, where I collected such little articles as I needed for the
+expedition before me.
+
+“I had hardly done this when I heard the servants on the walk outside,
+then Arthur going down. The impulse to see and speak to him again
+was irresistible. I flew after him and caught him in the lower hall.
+‘Arthur,’ I cried, ‘look at me, look at me well, and then--kiss me!’
+And he did kiss me--I’m glad when I think of it, though he did say,
+next minute: ‘What is the matter with you? What are you going to do? To
+meet that villain?’
+
+“I looked straight into his face. I waited till I saw I had his whole
+attention; then I said, as slowly and emphatically as I could: ‘If you
+mean Elwood--no! I shall never meet him again, except in Adelaide’s
+presence. He will not want to meet me. You may be at ease about that.
+To-morrow all will be well, and Adelaide very happy,’
+
+“He shrugged his shoulders, and reached for his coat and hat. As he
+was putting them on, I said, ‘Don’t forget to harness up Jenny.’ Jenny
+is the grey mare. ‘And leave off the bells,’ I urged. ‘I don’t want
+Adelaide to hear me go out.’
+
+“He swung about at this. ‘You and Adelaide are not very good friends
+it seems.’ ‘As good as you and she are,’ I answered. Then I flung my
+arms about him. ‘Don’t go down street to-night,’ I prayed. ‘Stay home
+for this one night. Stay in the house with Adelaide; stay till I come
+home.’ He stared, and I saw his colour change. Then he flung me off,
+but not rudely. ‘Why don’t _you_ stay?’ he asked. Then he laughed, and
+added, ‘I’ll go harness the mare.’
+
+“‘The key’s in the kitchen,’ I said. ‘I’ll go get it for you. I heard
+Zadok bring it in.’ He did not answer, and I went for the key. I found
+two on the nail, and I brought them both; but I only handed him one,
+the key to the stable-door. ‘Which way are you going?’ I asked, as he
+looked at the key, then back towards the kitchen. ‘The short way, of
+course,’ ‘Then here’s the key to the Fulton grounds,’
+
+“As he took the key, I prayed again, ‘Don’t do what’s in your mind,
+Arthur. Don’t drink to-night. He only laughed, and I said my last word:
+‘If you do, it will be for the last time. You’ll never drink again
+after to-morrow.’
+
+“He made no answer to this, and I went slowly upstairs. Everything was
+quiet--quiet as death--in the whole house. If Adelaide had heard us,
+she made no sign. Going to my own room, I waited until I heard Arthur
+come out of the stable and go away by the door in the rear wall. Then I
+stole out again. I carried a small bag with me, but no coat or hat.
+
+“Pausing and listening again and again, I crept downstairs and halted
+at the table under the rack. The keys were still there. Putting them
+in my bag, I searched the rack for one of my brother’s warm coats.
+But I took none I saw. I remembered an old one which Adelaide had put
+away in the closet under the stairs. Getting this, I put it on, and,
+finding a hat there too, I took that also; and when I had pulled it
+over my forehead and drawn up the collar of the coat, I was quite
+unrecognisable. I was going out, when I remembered there would be
+no light in the club-house. I had put a box of matches in my bag
+while I was upstairs, but I needed a candle. Slipping back, I took
+a candlestick and candle from the dining-room mantel, and finding
+that the bag would not hold them, thrust them into the pocket of the
+coat I wore, and quickly left the house. Jenny was in the stable, all
+harnessed; and hesitating no longer, I got in among the bear-skins and
+drove swiftly away.”
+
+There was a moment’s silence. Carmel had paused, and was sitting with
+her hand on her heart, looking past judge, past jury, upon the lonely
+and desolate scene in which she at this moment moved and suffered. An
+inexpressible fatality had entered into her tones, always rich and
+resonant with feeling. No one who listened could fail to share the
+dread by which she was moved.
+
+District Attorney Fox fumbled with his papers, and endeavoured to
+maintain his equanimity and show an indifference which his stern but
+fascinated glances at the youthful witness amply belied. He was biding
+his time, but biding it in decided perturbation of mind. Neither he
+nor any one else, unless it were Moffat, could tell whither this tale
+tended. While she held the straight course which had probably been
+laid out for her, he failed to object; but he could not prevent the
+subtle influence of her voice, her manner, and her supreme beauty on
+the entranced jury. Nevertheless, his pencil was busy; he was still
+sufficiently master of himself for that.
+
+Mr. Moffat, quite aware of the effect which was being produced on every
+side, but equally careful to make no show of it, put in a commonplace
+question at this point, possibly to rouse the witness from her own
+abstraction, possibly to restore the judicial tone of the inquiry.
+
+“How did you leave the stable-door?”
+
+“Open.”
+
+“Can you tell us what time it was when you started?”
+
+“No. I did not look. Time meant nothing to me. I drove as fast as I
+could, straight down the hill, and out towards The Whispering Pines. I
+had seen Adelaide in her window as I went flying by the house, but not
+a soul on the road, nor a sign of life, near or far. The whistle of a
+train blew as I stopped in the thicket near the club-house door. If it
+was the express train, you can tell--”
+
+“Never mind the _if_” said Mr. Moffat. “It is enough that you heard the
+whistle. Go on with what you did.”
+
+“I tied up my horse; then I went into the house. I had used Mr.
+Ranelagh’s key to open the door and for some reason I took it out of
+the lock when I got in, and put the whole bunch back into my satchel.
+But I did not lock the door. Then I lit my candle and then--I went
+upstairs.”
+
+Fainter and fainter the words fell, and slower and slower heaved the
+youthful breast under her heavily pressing palm. Mr. Moffat made a
+sign across the court-room, and I saw Dr. Carpenter get up and move
+nearer to the witness stand. But she stood in no need of his help. In
+an instant her cheek flushed; the eye I watched with such intensity of
+wonder that apprehension unconsciously left me, rose, glowed, and fixed
+itself at last--not on the judge, not on the prisoner, not even on that
+prisoner’s counsel--but on _me_; and as the soft light filled my soul
+and awoke awe, where it had hitherto awakened passion, she quietly said:
+
+“There is a room upstairs, in the club-house, where I have often been
+with Adelaide. It has a fireplace in it, and I had seen a box there,
+half filled with wood the day before. This is the room I went to, and
+here I built a fire. When it was quite bright, I took out something I
+had brought in my satchel, and thrust it into the flame. Then I got up
+and walked away. I--I did not feel very strong, and sank on my knees
+when I got to the couch, and buried my face in my arms. But I felt
+better when I came back to the fire again, and very brave till I caught
+a glimpse of my face in the mirror over the mantelpiece. That--that
+unnerved me, and I think I screamed. Some one screamed, and I think it
+was I. I know my hands went out--I saw them in the glass; then they
+fell straight down at my side, and I looked and looked at myself till I
+saw all the terror go out of my face, and when it was quite calm again,
+I stooped down and pulled out the little tongs I had been heating
+in the fire, and laid them quick--quick, before I could be sorry
+again--right across my cheek, and then--”
+
+Uproar in the court. If she had screamed when she said she did, so
+some one cried out loudly now. I think that pitiful person was myself.
+They say I had been standing straight up in my place for the last two
+minutes.
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+“CHOOSE”
+
+Let me have
+A dram of poison; such soon speeding geer
+As will disperse itself through all the veins,
+That the life-weary taker may fall dead.
+
+Come, bitter conduct, come unsavoury guide!
+Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
+The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark.
+
+_Romeo and Juliet_
+
+
+“I have not finished,” were the first words we heard, when order was
+restored, and we were all in a condition to listen again.
+
+“I had to relate what you have just heard, that you might understand
+what happened next. I was not used to pain, and I could never have
+kept on pressing those irons to my cheek if I had not had the strength
+given me by my own reflection in the glass. When I thought the burn was
+quite deep enough, I tore the tongs away, and was lifting them to the
+other cheek when I saw the door behind me open, inch by inch, as though
+pushed by hesitating touches.
+
+“Instantly, I forgot my pain, almost my purpose, watching that door. I
+saw it slowly swing to its full width, and disclose my sister standing
+in the gap, with a look and in an attitude which terrified me more than
+the fire had done. Dropping the tongs, I turned and faced her, covering
+my cheek instinctively with my hand.
+
+“I saw her eyes run over my elaborate dinner dress--my little hand-bag,
+and the candle burning in a room made warm with a fire on the hearth.
+This, before she spoke a single word. Then, with a deep labouring
+breath, she looked me in the eye again, with the simple question:
+
+“‘And where is he?’”
+
+Carmel’s head had drooped at this, but she raised it almost instantly.
+Mine did not rise so readily.
+
+“‘Do you mean Elwood?’ I asked. ‘You know!’ said she. ‘The veil is down
+between us, Carmel; we will speak plainly now. I saw him give you the
+letter. I heard you ask Arthur to harness up the horse. I have demeaned
+myself to follow you, and we will have no subterfuges now. You expect
+him here?’
+
+“‘No,’ I cried. ‘I am not so bad as that, Adelaide--nor is he. Here
+is the note. You will see by it what he expects, and at what place I
+should have joined him, if I had been the selfish creature you think,’
+I had the note hidden in my breast. I took it out, and held it towards
+her. I did not feel the burn at all, but I kept it covered. She glanced
+down at the words; and I felt like falling at her feet, she looked so
+miserable. I am told that I must keep to fact, and must not express my
+feelings, or those of others. I will try to remember this; but it is
+hard for a sister, relating such a frightful scene.
+
+“She glanced down at the paper and let it drop, almost immediately,
+from her hand, ‘I cannot read his words!’ she cried; ‘I do not need to;
+we both know which of us he loves best. You cannot say that it is I,
+his engaged wife.’ I was silent, and her face took on an awful pallor.
+‘Carmel,’ said she, ‘do you know what this man’s love has been to me?
+You are a child, a warm-hearted and passionate child; but you do not
+know a woman’s heart. Certainly, you do not know mine. I doubt if any
+one does--even he. Cares have warped my life. I do not quarrel with
+these cares; I only say that they have robbed me of what makes girlhood
+lovely. Duty is a stern task-master; and sternness, coming early into
+one’s life, hardens its edges, but does not sap passion from the soul
+or devotion from the heart. I was ready for joy when it came, but I
+was no longer capable of bestowing it. I thought I was, but I soon saw
+my mistake. You showed it to me--you with your beauty, your freshness,
+your warm and untried heart. I have no charms to rival these; I have
+only love, such love as you cannot dream of at your age. And _this_ is
+no longer desirable to him!’
+
+“You see that I remember every word she spoke. They burned more
+fiercely than the iron. That did not burn at all, just then. I was cold
+instead--bitterly, awfully cold. My very heart seemed frozen, and the
+silence was dreadful. But I could not speak, I could not answer her.
+
+“‘You have everything,’ she now went on. ‘Why did you rob me of my one
+happiness? And you have robbed me. I have seen your smile when his head
+turned your way. It was the smile which runs before a promise. I know
+it; I have had that smile in my heart a long, long time--but it never
+reached my lips. Carmel, do you know why I am here?’ I shook my head.
+Was it her teeth that were chattering or mine? ‘I am here to end it
+all,’ said she. ‘With my hope gone, my heart laid waste, life has no
+prospect for me. I believe in God, and I know that my act is sinful;
+but I can no more live than can a tree stricken at the root. To-morrow
+he will not need to write notes; he can come and comfort you in our
+home. But never let him look at me. As we are sisters, and I almost a
+mother to you, shut my face away from his eyes--or I shall rise in my
+casket and the tangle of our lives will be renewed.’
+
+“I tell you this--I bare my sister’s broken heart to you, giving you
+her very words, sacred as they are to me and--and to others, who are
+present, and must listen to all I say--because it is right that you
+should understand her frenzy, and know all that passed between us in
+that awful hour.”
+
+This was irregular, highly irregular--but District Attorney Fox sat
+on, unmoved. Possibly he feared to prejudice the jury; possibly
+he recognised the danger of an interruption now, not only to the
+continuity of her testimony, but to the witness herself; or--what
+is just as likely--possibly he cherished a hope that, in giving her
+a free rein and allowing her to tell her story thus artlessly, she
+would herself supply the clew he needed to reconstruct his case on the
+new lines upon which it was being slowly forced by these unexpected
+revelations. Whatever the cause, he let these expressions of feeling
+pass.
+
+At a gesture from Mr. Moffat, Carmel proceeded:
+
+“I tottered at this threat; and she, a mother to me from my cradle,
+started instinctively to catch me; but the feeling left her before
+she had taken two steps, and she stopped still. ‘Drop your hand,’
+she cried. ‘I want to see your whole face while I ask you one last
+question. I could not read the note. Why did you come _here?_ I dropped
+my hand, and she stood staring; then she uttered a cry and ran quickly
+towards me. ‘What is it?’ she cried. ‘What has happened to you? Is it
+the shadow or--’
+
+“I caught her by the hand. I could speak now. ‘Adelaide,’ said I,
+‘you are not the only one to love to the point of hurt. I love _you_.
+Let this little scar be witness,’ Then, as her eyes opened and she
+staggered, I caught her to my breast and hid my face on her shoulder.
+‘You say that to-morrow I shall be free to receive notes. He will
+not wish to write them, tomorrow. The beauty he liked is gone. If it
+weighed overmuch with him, then you and I are on a plane again--or I am
+on an inferior one. Your joy will be sweeter for this break!’
+
+“She started, raised my head from her shoulder, looked at me and
+shuddered--but no longer with hate. ‘Carmel!’ she whispered, ‘the
+story--the story I read you of Francis the First and--’
+
+“‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘that made me think,’ Her knees bent under her; she
+sank at my feet, but her eyes never left my face. ‘And--and Elwood?’
+‘He knows nothing. I did not make up my mind till to-night. Adelaide,
+it had to be. I hadn’t the strength to--to leave you all, or--or to say
+no, if he ever asked me to my face what he asked me in that note,’
+
+“And then I tried to lift her; but she was kissing my feet, kissing my
+dress, sobbing out her life on my hands. Oh, I was happy! My future
+looked very simple to me. But my cheek began to burn, and instinctively
+I put up my hand. This brought her to her feet. ‘You are suffering,’
+she cried. ‘You must go home, at once, at once, while I telephone to
+Dr. Carpenter,’ ‘We will go together,’ I said. ‘We can telephone from
+there.’ But at this, the awful look came back into her face, and seeing
+her forget my hurt, I forgot it, too, in dread of what she would say
+when she found strength to speak.
+
+“It was worse than anything I had imagined; she refused absolutely to
+go back home. ‘Carmel,’ said she, ‘I have done injustice to your youth.
+You love him, too--not like a child but a woman. The tangle is worse
+than I thought; your heart is caught in it, as well as mine, and you
+shall have your chance. My death will give it to you.’ I shook my head,
+pointing to my cheek. She shook hers, and quietly, calmly said, ‘You
+have never looked so beautiful. Should we go back together and take
+up the old life, the struggle which has undermined my conscience and
+my whole existence would only begin again. I cannot face that ordeal,
+Carmel. The morning light would bring me daily torture, the evening
+dusk a night of blasting dreams. We three cannot live in this world
+together. I am the least loved and so I should be the one to die. I am
+determined, Carmel. Life, with me, has come to this.’
+
+“I tried to dissuade her. I urged every plea, even that of my own
+sacrifice. But she was no more her natural self. She had taken up the
+note and read it during my entreaties, and my words fell on deaf ears.
+‘Why, these words have killed me,’ she cried crumpling the note in her
+hand. ‘What will a little poison do? It can only finish what he has
+begun.’
+
+“Poison! I remembered how I had heard her pushing about bottles in
+the medicine cabinet, and felt my legs grow weak and my head swim.
+‘You will not!’ I cried, watching her hand, in terror of seeing it
+rise to her breast. ‘You are crazed to-night; to-morrow you will feel
+differently.’
+
+“But the fixed set look of her bleak face gave me no hope. ‘I shall
+never feel differently. If I do not end it to-night, I shall do so
+soon. When a heart like mine goes down, it goes down forever,’ I could
+only shudder. I did not know what to do, or which way to turn. She
+stood between me and the door, and her presence was terrible. ‘When I
+came here,’ she said, ‘I brought a bottle of cordial with me and three
+glasses. I brought a little phial of poison too, once ordered for
+sickness. I expected to find Elwood here. If I had, I meant to drop
+the poison into one glass, and then fill them all up with the cordial.
+We should have drunk, each one of us his glass, and one of us would
+have fallen. I did not care which, you or Elwood or myself. But he is
+not here, and the cast of the die is between us two, unless you wish
+a certainty, Carmel,--in which case I will pour out but one glass and
+drink that myself.’
+
+“She was in a fever, now, and desperate. Death was in the room; I felt
+it in my lifted hair, and in her strangely drawn face. If I screamed,
+who would hear me? I never thought of the telephone, and I doubt if she
+would have let me use it then. The power she had always exerted over me
+was very strong in her at this moment; and not till afterwards did it
+cross my mind that I had never asked her how she got to the house, or
+whether we were as much alone in the building as I believed.
+
+“‘Shall I drink alone?’ she repeated, and I cried out ‘No’; at which
+her hand went to her breast, as I had so long expected, and I saw the
+glitter of a little phial as she drew it forth.
+
+“‘Oh, Adelaide!’ I began; but she heeded me no more than the dead.
+
+“On leaving home, she had put on a long coat with pockets and this coat
+was still on her, and the pockets gaping. Thrusting her other hand into
+one of these, she drew out a little flask covered with wicker, and set
+it on a stand beside her. Then she pulled out two small glasses, and
+set them down also, and then she turned her back. I could hear the
+drop, drop of the liquor; and, dark as the room was, it seemed to turn
+darker, till I put out my hands like one groping in a sudden night. But
+everything cleared before me when she turned around again. Features set
+like hers force themselves to be seen.
+
+“She advanced, a glass in either hand. As she came, the floor swayed,
+and the walls seemed to bow together; but they did not sway her. Step
+by step, she drew near, and when she reached my side she smiled in
+my face once. Then she said: ‘Choose aright, dear heart. Leave the
+poisoned one for me.’
+
+“Fascinated, I stared at one glass, then at the other. Had either of
+her hands trembled, I should have grasped at the glass it held; but not
+a tremor shook those icy fingers, nor did her eyes wander to the right
+hand or to the left. ‘Adelaide!’ I shrieked out. ‘Toss them behind you.
+Let us live--live!’ But she only reiterated that awful word: ‘Choose!’
+and I dare not hesitate longer, lest I lose my chance to save her.
+Groping, I touched a glass--I never knew which one--and drawing it from
+her fingers, I lifted it to my mouth. Instantly her other hand rose. ‘I
+don’t know which is which, myself,’ she said, and drank. That made me
+drink, also.
+
+“The two glasses sent out a clicking sound as we set them back on the
+stand. Then we waited, looking at each other. ‘Which?’ her lips seemed
+to say. ‘Which?’ In another moment we knew. ‘Your choice was the right
+one,’ said she, and she sank back into a chair. ‘Don’t leave me!’ she
+called out, for I was about to run shrieking out into the night. ‘I--I
+am happy now that it is all settled; but I do not want to die alone.
+Oh, how hot I am!’ And leaping up, she flung off her coat, and went
+gasping about the room for air. When she sank down again, it was on
+the lounge; and again I tried to fly for help, and again she would not
+let me. Suddenly she started up, and I saw a great change in her. The
+heavy, leaden look was gone; tenderness had come back to her eyes,
+and a human anxious expression to her whole face. ‘I have been mad!’
+she cried. ‘Carmel, Carmel, what have I done to you, my more than
+sister--my child, my child!’
+
+“I tried to soothe her--to keep down my awful fear and soothe her. But
+the nearness of death had calmed her poor heart into its old love and
+habitual thoughtfulness. She was terrified at my position. She recalled
+our mother, and the oath she had taken at that mother’s death-bed to
+protect me and care for me and my brother. ‘And I have failed to do
+either,’ she cried. ‘Arthur, I have alienated, and you I am leaving to
+unknown trouble and danger,’
+
+“She was not to be comforted. I saw her life ebbing and could do
+nothing. She clung to me while she called up all her powers, and made
+plans for me and showed me a way of escape. I was to burn the note,
+fling two of the glasses from the window and leave the other and the
+deadly phial near her hand. This, before I left the room. Then I was to
+call up the police and say there was something wrong at the club-house,
+but I was not to give my name or ever acknowledge I was there. ‘Nothing
+can save trouble,’ she said, ‘but that trouble must not come near you.
+Swear that you will heed my words--swear that you will do what I say,’
+
+“I swore. All that she asked I promised. I was almost dying, too;
+and had the light gone out and the rafters of the house fallen in
+and buried us both, it would have been better. But the light burned
+on, and the life in her eyes faded out, and the hands grasping mine
+relaxed. I heard one little gasp; then a low prayer: ‘Tell Arthur
+never--never--again to--’ Then--silence!”
+
+Sobs--cries--veiled faces--then silence in the courtroom, too. It was
+broken but by one sound, a heartrending sigh from the prisoner. But
+nobody looked at him, and thank God!--nobody looked at me. Every eye
+was on the face of this young girl, whose story bore such an impress
+of truth, and yet was so contradictory of all former evidence. What
+revelations were yet to follow. It would seem that she was speaking of
+her sister’s death.
+
+But her sister had not died that way; her sister had been strangled.
+Could this dainty creature, with beauty scarred and yet powerfully
+triumphant, be the victim of an hallucination as to the cause of that
+scar and the awesome circumstances which attended its infliction?
+Or, harder still to believe, were these soul-compelling tones, these
+evidences of grief, this pathetic yielding to the rights of the law
+in face of the heart’s natural shrinking from disclosures sacred as
+they were tragic--were these the medium by which she sought to mislead
+justice and to conceal truth?
+
+Even I, with my memory of her looks as she faltered down the staircase
+on that memorable night--pale, staring, her left hand to her cheek and
+rocking from side to side in pain or terror--could not but ask if this
+heart-rending story did not involve a still more terrible sequel. I
+searched her face, and racked my very soul, in my effort to discern
+what lay beneath this angelic surface--beneath this recital which if it
+were true and the whole truth, would call not only for the devotion of
+a lifetime, but a respect transcending love and elevating it to worship.
+
+But, in her cold and quiet features, I could detect nothing beyond the
+melancholy of grief; and the suspense from which all suffered, kept me
+also on the rack, until at a question from Mr. Moffat she spoke again,
+and we heard her say:
+
+“Yes, she died that way, with her hands in mine. There was no one else
+by; we were quite alone.”
+
+That settled it, and for a moment the revulsion of feeling threatened
+to throw the court into tumult. But one thing restrained them. Not the
+look of astonishment on her face, not the startled uplift of Arthur’s
+head, not the quiet complacency which in an instant replaced the
+defeated aspect of the district attorney; but the gesture and attitude
+of Mr. Moffat, the man who had put her on the stand, and who now from
+the very force of his personality, kept the storm in abeyance, and by
+his own composure, forced back attention to his witness and to his own
+confidence in his case. This result reached, he turned again towards
+Carmel, with renewed respect in his manner and a marked softening in
+his aspect and voice.
+
+“Can you fix the hour of this occurrence?” he asked. “In any way can
+you locate the time?”
+
+“No; for I did not move at once. I felt tied to that couch; I am very
+young, and I had never seen death before. When I did get up, I hobbled
+like an old woman and almost went distracted; but came to myself as I
+saw the note on the floor--the note I was told to burn. Lifting it, I
+moved towards the fireplace, but got a fright on the way, and stopped
+in the middle of the floor and looked back. I thought I had heard my
+sister speak!
+
+“But the fancy passed as I saw how still she lay, and I went on, after
+a while, and threw the note into the one small flame which was all that
+was left of the fire. I saw it caught by a draught from the door behind
+me, and go flaming up the chimney.
+
+“Some of my trouble seemed to go with it, but a great one yet remained.
+I didn’t know how I could ever turn around again and see my sister
+lying there behind me, with her face fixed in death, for which I was,
+in a way, responsible. I was abjectly frightened, and knelt there a
+long time, praying and shuddering, before I could rise again to my
+feet and move about as I had to, since God had not stricken me and I
+must live my life and do what my sister had bidden me. Courage--such
+courage as I had had--was all gone from me now; and while I knew there
+was something else for me to do before I left the room, I could not
+remember what it was, and stood hesitating, dreading to lift my eyes
+and yet feeling that I ought to, if only to aid my memory by a look at
+my sister’s face.
+
+“Suddenly I did look up, but it did not aid my memory; and, realising
+that I could never think with that lifeless figure before me, I lifted
+a pillow from the window-seat near by and covered her face. I must
+have done more; I must have covered the whole lounge with pillows and
+cushions; for, presently my mind cleared again, and I recollected
+that it was something about the poison. I was to put the phial in her
+hand--or was I to throw it from the window? Something was to be thrown
+from the window--it must be the phial. But I couldn’t lift the window,
+so having found the phial standing on the table beside the little
+flask, I carried it into the closet where there was a window opening
+inward, and I dropped it out of that, and thought I had done all. But
+when I came back and saw Adelaide’s coat lying in a heap where she had
+thrown it, I recalled that she had said something about this but what,
+I didn’t know. So I lifted it and put it in the closet--why, I cannot
+say. Then I set my mind on going home.
+
+“But there was something to do first--something not in that room. It
+was a long time before it came to me; then the sight of the empty
+hall recalled it. The door by which Adelaide had come in had never
+been closed, and as I went towards it I remembered the telephone, and
+that I was to call up the police. Lifting the candle, I went creeping
+towards the front hall. Adelaide had commanded me, or I could never
+have accomplished this task. I had to open a door; and when it swung to
+behind me and latched, I turned around and looked at it, as if I never
+expected it to open again. I almost think I fainted, if one can faint
+standing, for when I knew anything, after the appalling latching of
+that door, I was in quite another part of the room and the candle which
+I still held, looked to my dazed eyes shorter than when I started with
+it from the place where my sister lay.
+
+“I was wasting time. The thought drove me to the table. I caught up
+the receiver and when central answered, I said something about The
+Whispering Pines and wanting help. This is all I remember about that.
+
+“Some time afterward--I don’t know when--I was stumbling down the
+stairs on my way out. I had gone to--to the room again for my little
+bag; for the keys were in it, and I dared not leave them. But I didn’t
+stay a minute, and I cast but one glance at the lounge. What happened
+afterward is like a dream to me. I found the horse; the horse found the
+road; and some time later I reached home. As I came within sight of the
+house I grew suddenly strong again. The open stable door reminded me of
+my duty, and driving in, I quickly unharnessed Jenny and put her away.
+Then I dragged the cutter into place, and hung up the harness. Lastly,
+I locked the door and carried the key with me into the house and hung
+it up on its usual nail in the kitchen. I had obeyed Adelaide, and now
+I would go to my room. That is what she would wish; but I don’t know
+whether I did this or not. My mind was full of Adelaide till confusion
+came--then darkness--and then a perfect blank.”
+
+She had finished; she had done as she had been asked; she had told the
+story of that evening as she knew it, from the family dinner till her
+return home after midnight--and the mystery of Adelaide’s death was
+as great as ever. Did she realise this? Had I wronged this lovely,
+tempestuous nature by suspicions which this story put to blush? I
+was happy to think so--madly, unreasonably happy. Whatever happened,
+whatever the future threatening Arthur or myself, it was rapture to be
+restored to right thinking as regards this captivating and youthful
+spirit, who had suffered and must suffer always--and all through me,
+who thought it a pleasant pastime to play with hearts, and awoke to
+find I was playing with souls, and those of the two noblest women I had
+ever known!
+
+The cutting in of some half dozen questions from Mr. Moffat, which I
+scarcely heard and which did not at all affect the status of the case
+as it now stood, served to cool down the emotional element, which had
+almost superseded the judicial, in more minds than those of the jury;
+and having thus prepared his witness for an examination at other and
+less careful hands, he testified his satisfaction at her replies, and
+turned her over to the prosecution, with the time-worn phrase:
+
+“Mr. District Attorney, the witness is yours.”
+
+Mr. Fox at once arose; the moment was ripe for conquest. He put his
+most vital question first:
+
+“In all this interview with your sister, did you remark any
+discoloration on her throat?”
+
+The witness’s lips opened; surprise spoke from her every feature.
+“Discoloration?” she repeated. “I do not know what you mean.”
+
+“Any marks darker than the rest of her skin on her throat or neck?”
+
+“No. Adelaide had a spotless skin. It looked like marble as she lay
+there. No, I saw no marks.”
+
+“Miss Cumberland, have you heard or read a full account of this trial?”
+
+She was trembling, now. Was it from fear of the truth, or under that
+terror of the unknown embodied in this question.
+
+“I do not know,” said she. “What I heard was from my nurse and Mr.
+Moffat. I read very little, and that was only about the first days of
+the trial and the swearing in of jurors. This is the first time I have
+heard any mention made of marks, and I do not understand yet what you
+allude to.”
+
+District Attorney Fox cast at Mr. Moffat an eloquent glance, which that
+gentleman bore unmoved; then turning back to the witness, he addressed
+her in milder and more considerate tones than were usually heard from
+him in cross-examination, and asked: “Did you hold your sister’s hands
+all the time she lay dying, as you thought, on the lounge?”
+
+“Yes, yes.”
+
+“And did not see her raise them once?”
+
+“No, no.”
+
+“How was it when you let go of them? Where did they fall then?”
+
+“On her breast. I laid them down softly and crossed them. I did not
+leave her till I had done this and closed her eyes.”
+
+“And what did you do then?”
+
+“I went for the note, to burn it.”
+
+“Miss Cumberland, in your direct examination, you said that you stopped
+still as you crossed the floor at the time, thinking that your sister
+called, and that you looked back at her to see.”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Were her hands crossed then?”
+
+“Yes, sir, just the same.”
+
+“And afterward, when you came from the fire after waiting some little
+time for courage?”
+
+“Yes, yes. There were no signs of movement. Oh, she was dead--quite
+dead.”
+
+“No statements, Miss Cumberland. She looked the same, and you saw no
+change in the position of her hands?”
+
+“None; they were just as I left them.”
+
+“Miss Cumberland, you have told us how, immediately after taking the
+poison, she staggered about the room, and sank first on a chair and
+then on the lounge. Were you watching her then?”
+
+“Oh, yes--every moment.”
+
+“Her hands as well as her face?”
+
+“I don’t know about her hands. I should have observed it if she had
+done anything strange with them.”
+
+“Can you say she did not clutch or grip her throat during any of this
+time?”
+
+“Yes, yes. I couldn’t have forgotten it, if she had done that. I
+remember every move she made so well. She didn’t do that.”
+
+Mr. Fox’s eye stole towards the jury. To a man, they were alert,
+anxious for the next question, and serious, as the arbitrators of a
+man’s life ought to be.
+
+Satisfied, he put the question: “When, after telephoning, you returned
+to the room where your sister lay, you glanced at the lounge?”
+
+“Yes, I could not help it.”
+
+“Was it in the same condition as when you left--the pillows, I mean?”
+
+“I--I think so. I cannot say; I only half looked; I was terrified by
+it.”
+
+“Can you say they had not been disturbed?”
+
+“No. I can say nothing. But what does--”
+
+“Only the answer, Miss Cumberland. Can you tell us how those pillows
+were arranged?”
+
+“I’m afraid not. I threw them down quickly, madly, just as I collected
+them. I only know that I put the window cushion down first. The rest
+fell anyhow; but they quite covered her--quite.”
+
+“Hands and face?”
+
+“Her whole body.”
+
+“And did they cover her quite when you came back?”
+
+“They must have--Wait--wait! I know I have no right to say that, but I
+cannot swear that I saw any change.”
+
+“Can you swear that there was no change--that the pillows and the
+window cushion lay just as they did when you left the room?”
+
+She did not answer. Horror seemed to have seized hold of her. Her
+eyes, fixed on the attorney’s face, wavered and, had they followed
+their natural impulse, would have turned towards her brother, but her
+fear--possibly her love--was her counsellor and she brought them back
+to Mr. Fox. Resolutely, but with a shuddering insight of the importance
+of her reply, she answered with that one weighty monosyllable which can
+crush so many hopes, and even wreck a life:
+
+“No.”
+
+At the next moment she was in Dr. Carpenter’s arms. Her strength had
+given way for the time, and the court was hastily adjourned, to give
+her opportunity for rest and recuperation.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+“WERE HER HANDS CROSSED THEN?”
+
+Threescore and ten I can remember well:
+Within the volume of which time, I have seen
+Hours dreadful, and things strange; but this sore night
+Hath trifled former knowledge.
+
+_Macbeth_.
+
+
+I shall say nothing about myself at this juncture. That will come
+later. I have something of quite different purport to relate.
+
+When I left the court-room with the other witnesses, I noticed a man
+standing near the district attorney. He was a very plain man--with no
+especial claims to attention, that I could see, yet I looked at him
+longer than I did at any one else, and turned and looked at him again
+as I passed through the doorway.
+
+Afterward I heard that he was Sweetwater, the detective from New
+York who had had so much to do in unearthing the testimony against
+Arthur,--testimony which in the light of this morning’s revelations,
+had taken on quite a new aspect, as he was doubtless the first to
+acknowledge. It was the curious blending of professional disappointment
+and a personal and characteristic appreciation of the surprising
+situation, which made me observe him, I suppose. Certainly my heart
+and mind were full enough not to waste looks on a commonplace stranger
+unless there had been some such overpowering reason.
+
+I left him still talking to Mr. Fox, and later received this account of
+the interview which followed between them and Dr. Perry.
+
+“Is this girl telling the truth?” asked District Attorney Fox, as soon
+as the three were closeted and each could speak his own mind. “Doctor,
+what do you think?”
+
+“I do not question her veracity in the least. A woman who for purely
+moral reasons could defy pain and risk the loss of a beauty universally
+acknowledged as transcendent, would never stoop to falsehood even in
+her desire to save a brother’s life. I have every confidence in her.
+Fox, and I think you may safely have the same.”
+
+“You believe that she burnt herself--intentionally?”
+
+“I wouldn’t disbelieve it--you may think me sentimental; I knew and
+loved her father--for any fortune you might name.”
+
+“Say that you never knew her father; say that you had no more interest
+in the girl or the case, than the jurors have? What then---?
+
+“I should believe her for humanity’s sake; for the sake of the
+happiness it gives one to find something true and strong in this sordid
+work-a-day world--a jewel in a dust-heap. Oh, I’m a sentimentalist, I
+acknowledge.”
+
+Mr. Fox turned to Sweetwater. “And you?”
+
+“Mr. Fox, have you those tongs?”
+
+“Yes, I forgot; they were brought to my office, with the other
+exhibits. I attached no importance to them, and you will probably find
+them just where I thrust them into the box marked ‘Cumb.’”
+
+They were in the district attorney’s office, and Sweetwater at once
+rose and brought forward the tongs.
+
+“There is my answer,” he said pointing significantly at one of the legs.
+
+The district attorney turned pale, and motioned Sweetwater to carry
+them back. He sat silent for a moment, and then showed that he was a
+man.
+
+“Miss Cumberland has my respect,” said he.
+
+Sweetwater came back to his place.
+
+Dr. Perry waited.
+
+Finally Mr. Fox turned to him and put the anticipated question:
+
+“You are satisfied with your autopsy? Miss Cumberland’s death was due
+to strangulation and not to the poison she took?”
+
+“That was what I swore to, and what I should have to swear to again
+if you placed me back on the stand. The poison, taken with her great
+excitement, robbed her of consciousness, but there was too little of
+it, or it was too old and weakened to cause death. She would probably
+have revived, in time; possibly did revive. But the clutch of those
+fingers was fatal; she could not survive it. It costs me more than
+you can ever understand to say this, but questions like yours must be
+answered. I should not be an honest man otherwise.”
+
+Sweetwater made a movement. Mr. Fox turned and looked at him critically.
+
+“Speak out,” said he.
+
+But Sweetwater had nothing to say.
+
+Neither had Dr. Perry. The oppression of an unsolved problem, involving
+lives of whose value each formed a different estimate, was upon them
+all; possibly heaviest upon the district attorney, the most serious
+portion of whose work lay still before him.
+
+To the relief of all, Carmel was physically stronger than we expected
+when she came to retake the stand in the afternoon. But she had lost
+a little of her courage. Her expectation of clearing her brother at
+a word had left her, and with it the excitation of hope. Yet she
+made a noble picture as she sat there, meeting, without a blush, but
+with an air of sweet humility impossible to describe, the curious,
+all-devouring glances of the multitude, some of them anxious to repeat
+the experience of the morning; some of them new to the court, to her,
+and the cause for which she stood.
+
+Mr. Fox kept nobody waiting. With a gentleness such as he seldom showed
+to any witness for the defence, he resumed his cross-examination by
+propounding the following question:
+
+“Miss Cumberland, in your account of the final interview you had with
+your sister, you alluded to a story you had once read together. Will
+you tell us the name of this story?”
+
+“It was called ‘A Legend of Francis the First.’ It was not a novel, but
+a little tale she found in some old magazine. It had a great effect
+upon us; I have never forgotten it.”
+
+“Can you relate this tale to us in a few words?”
+
+“I will try. It was very simple; it merely told how a young girl marred
+her beauty to escape the attentions of the great king, and what respect
+he always showed her after that, even calling her sister.”
+
+Was the thrill in her voice or in my own heart, or in the
+story--emphasised as it was by her undeniable attempt upon her own
+beauty? As that last word fell so softly, yet with such tender
+suggestion, a sensation of sympathy passed between us for the first
+time; and I knew, from the purity of her look and the fearlessness of
+this covert appeal to one she could not address openly, that the doubts
+I had cherished of her up to this very moment were an outrage and that
+were it possible or seemly, I should be bowed down in the dust at her
+feet--in reality, as I was in spirit.
+
+Others may have shared my feeling; for the glances which flew from her
+face to mine were laden with an appreciation of the situation, which
+for the moment drove the prisoner from the minds of all, and centred
+attention on this tragedy of souls, bared in so cruel a way to the
+curiosity of the crowd. I could not bear it. The triumph of my heart
+battled with the shame of my fault, and I might have been tempted into
+some act of manifest imprudence, if Mr. Fox had not cut my misery short
+by recalling attention to the witness, with a question of the most
+vital importance.
+
+“While you were holding your sister’s hands in what you supposed to be
+her final moments, did you observe whether or not she still wore on her
+finger the curious ring given her by Mr. Ranelagh, and known as her
+engagement ring?”
+
+“Yes--I not only saw it, but felt it. It was the only one she wore on
+her left hand.”
+
+The district attorney paused. This was an admission unexpected,
+perhaps, by himself, which it was desirable to have sink into the minds
+of the jury. The ring had not been removed by Adelaide herself; it
+was still on her finger as the last hour drew nigh. An awful fact, if
+established--telling seriously against Arthur. Involuntarily I glanced
+his way. He was looking at me. The mutual glance struck fire. What I
+thought, he thought--but possibly with a difference. The moment was
+surcharged with emotion for all but the witness herself. She was calm;
+perhaps she did not understand the significance of the occasion.
+
+Mr. Fox pressed his advantage.
+
+“And when you rose from the lounge and crossed your sister’s hands?”
+
+“It was still there; I put that hand uppermost.”
+
+“And left the ring on?”
+
+“Oh, yes--oh, yes.” Her whole attitude and face were full of protest.
+
+“So that, to the best of your belief, it was still on your sister’s
+finger when you left the room?”
+
+“Certainly, sir, certainly.”
+
+There was alarm in her tone now, she was beginning to see that her
+testimony was not as entirely helpful to Arthur as she had been led
+to expect. In her helplessness, she cast a glance of entreaty at her
+brother’s counsel. But he was busily occupied with pencil and paper,
+and she received no encouragement unless it was from his studiously
+composed manner and general air of unconcern. She did not know--nor did
+I know then--what uneasiness such an air may cover.
+
+Mr. Fox had followed her glances, and perhaps understood his adversary
+better than she did; for he drew himself up with an appearance of
+satisfaction as he asked very quietly:
+
+“What material did you use in lighting the fire on the club-house
+hearth?”
+
+“Wood from the box, and a little kindling I found there.”
+
+“How large was this kindling?”
+
+“Not very large; some few stray pieces of finer wood I picked out from
+she rest.”
+
+“And how did you light these?”
+
+“With some scraps of paper I brought in my bag?”
+
+“Oh--you brought scraps?”
+
+“Yes. I had seen the box, seen the wood, but knew the wood would not
+kindle without paper. So I brought some.”
+
+“Did the fire light quickly?”
+
+“Not very quickly.”
+
+“You had trouble with it?”
+
+“Yes, sir. But I made it burn at last.”
+
+“Are you in the habit of kindling fires in your own home?”
+
+“Yes, on the hearth.”
+
+“You understand them?”
+
+“I have always found it a very simple matter, if you have paper and
+enough kindling.”
+
+“And the draught is good.”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Wasn’t the draught good at the club-house?”
+
+“Not at first.”
+
+“Oh--not at first. When did you see a change?”
+
+“When the note I was trying to burn flew up the chimney.”
+
+“I see. Was that after or before the door opened?”
+
+“After.”
+
+“Did the opening of this door alter the temperature of the room?”
+
+“I cannot say; I felt neither heat nor cold at any time.”
+
+“Didn’t you feel the icy cold when you opened the dressing-closet
+window to throw out the phial?”
+
+“I don’t remember.”
+
+“Wouldn’t you remember if you had?”
+
+“I cannot say.”
+
+“Can you say whether you noticed any especial chill in the hall when
+you went out to telephone?”
+
+“My teeth were chattering but--”
+
+“Had they chattered before?”
+
+“They may have. I only noticed it then; but--”
+
+“The facts, Miss Cumberland. Your teeth chattered while you were
+passing through the hall. Did this keep up after you entered the room
+where you found the telephone?”
+
+“I don’t remember; I was almost insensible.”
+
+“You don’t remember that they did?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“But you do remember having shut the door behind you?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+An open window in the hall! That was what he was trying to prove--open
+at this time. From the expression of such faces of the jury as I could
+see, I think he had proved it. The next point he made was in the same
+line. Had she, in all the time she was in the building, heard any
+noises she could not account for?
+
+“Yes, many times.”
+
+“Can you describe these noises?”
+
+“No; they were of all kinds. The pines sighed continually; I knew it
+was the pines, but I had to listen. Once I heard a rushing sound--it
+was when the pines stopped swaying for an instant--but I don’t know
+what it was. It was all very dreadful.”
+
+“Was this rushing sound such as a window might make on being opened?”
+
+“Possibly. I didn’t think of it at the time, but it might have been.”
+
+“From what direction did it come?”
+
+“Back of me, for I turned my head about.”
+
+“Where were you at the time?”
+
+“At the hearth. It was before Adelaide came in.”
+
+“A near sound, or a far?”
+
+“Far, but I cannot locate it--indeed, I cannot. I forgot it in a
+moment.”
+
+“But you remember it now?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And cannot you remember _now_ any other noises than those you speak
+of? That time you stepped into the hall--when your teeth chattered, you
+know--did you hear nothing then but the sighing of the pines?”
+
+She looked startled. Her hands went up and one of them clutched at her
+throat, then they fell, and slowly--carefully--like one feeling his
+way--she answered:
+
+“I had forgotten. I did hear something--a sound in one of the doorways.
+It was very faint--a sigh--a--a--I don’t know what. It conveyed nothing
+to me then, and not much now. But you asked, and I have answered.”
+
+“You have done right, Miss Cumberland. The jury ought to know these
+facts. Was it a human sigh?”
+
+“It wasn’t the sigh of the pines.”
+
+“And you heard it in one of the doorways? Which doorway?”
+
+“The one opposite the room in which I left my sister.”
+
+“The doorway to the large hall?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+Oh, the sinister memories! The moments which I myself had spent
+there--after this time of her passing through the hall, thank God!--but
+not long after. And some one had been there before me! Was it Arthur? I
+hardly had the courage to interrogate his face, but when I did, I, like
+every one else who looked that way, met nothing but the quietude of a
+fully composed man. There was nothing to be learned from him now; the
+hour for self-betrayal was past. I began to have a hideous doubt.
+
+Carmel being innocent, who could be guilty but he. I knew of no one.
+The misery under which I had suffered was only lightened, not removed.
+We were still to see evil days. The prosecution would prove its case,
+and--But there was Mr. Moffat. I must not reckon without Moffat. He had
+sprung one surprise. Was he not capable of springing another? Relieved,
+I fixed my mind again upon the proceedings. What was Mr. Fox asking her
+now?
+
+“Miss Cumberland, are you ready to swear that you did not hear a step
+at that time?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Or see a face?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“That you only heard a sigh?”
+
+“A sigh, or something like one.”
+
+“Which made you stop--”
+
+“No, I did not stop.”
+
+“You went right on?”
+
+“Immediately.”
+
+“Entering the telephone room?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“The door of which you shut?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Intentionally?”
+
+“No, not intentionally.”
+
+“Did you shut that door yourself?”
+
+“I do not know. I must have but I--”
+
+“Never mind explanations. You do not know whether you shut it, or
+whether some one else shut it?”
+
+“I do not.”
+
+The words fell weightily. They seemed to strike every heart.
+
+“Miss Cumberland, you have said that you telephoned for the police.”
+
+“I telephoned to central.”
+
+“For help?”
+
+“Yes, for help.”
+
+“You were some minutes doing this, you say?”
+
+“I have reason to think so, but I don’t know definitely. The candle
+seemed shorter when I went out than when I came in.”
+
+“Are you sure you telephoned for help?”
+
+“Help was what I wanted--help for my sister. I do not remember my
+words.”
+
+“And then you left the building?”
+
+“After going for my little bag.”
+
+“Did you see any one then?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Hear any one?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Did you see your sister again?”
+
+“I have said that I just glanced at the couch.”
+
+“Were the pillows there?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Just as you had left them?”
+
+“I have said that I could not tell.”
+
+“Wouldn’t you know if they had been disturbed?”
+
+“No, sir--not from the look I gave them.”
+
+“Then they might have been disturbed--might even have been
+rearranged---without your knowing it?”
+
+“They might.”
+
+“Miss Cumberland, when you left the building, did you leave it alone?”
+
+“I did.”
+
+“Was the moon shining?”
+
+“No, it was snowing.”
+
+“Did the moon shine when you went to throw the phial out of the window?”
+
+“Yes, very brightly.”
+
+“Bright enough for you to see the links?”
+
+“I didn’t look at the links.”
+
+“Where were you looking?”
+
+“Behind me.”
+
+“When you threw the phial out?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“What was there behind you?”
+
+“A dead sister.” Oh, the indescribable tone!
+
+“Nothing else?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Forgive me, Miss Cumberland, I do not want to trouble you, but was
+there not something or some one in the adjoining room besides your dead
+sister, to make you look back?”
+
+“I saw no one. But I looked back--I do not know why.”
+
+“And didn’t you turn at all?”
+
+“I do not think so.”
+
+“You threw the phial out without looking?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“How do you know you threw it out?”
+
+“I felt it slip from my hand.”
+
+“Where?”
+
+“Over the window ledge. I had pulled the window open before I turned
+my head. I had only to feel for the sill. When I touched its edge, I
+opened my fingers.”
+
+Triumph for the defence. Cross-examination on this point had only
+served to elucidate a mysterious fact. The position of the phial,
+caught in the vines, was accounted for in a very natural manner.
+
+Mr. Fox shifted his inquiries.
+
+“You have said that you wore a hat and coat of your brother’s in coming
+to the club-house? Did you keep these articles on?”
+
+“No; I left them in the lower hall.”
+
+“Where in the lower hall?”
+
+“On the rack there.”
+
+“Was your candle lit?”
+
+“Not then, sir.”
+
+“Yet you found the rack?”
+
+“I felt for it. I knew where it was.”
+
+“When did you light the candle?”
+
+“After I hung up the coat.”
+
+“And when you came down? Did you have the candle then?”
+
+“Yes, for a while. But I didn’t have any light when I went for the coat
+and hat. I remember feeling all along the wall. I don’t know what I did
+with the candlestick or the candle. I had them on the stairs; I didn’t
+have them when I put on the coat and hat.”
+
+I knew what she did with them. She flung them out of her hand upon the
+marble floor. Should I ever forget the darkness swallowing up that face
+of mental horror and physical suffering.
+
+“Miss Cumberland, you are sure about having telephoned for help, and
+that you mentioned The Whispering Pines in doing so?”
+
+“Quite sure.” Oh, what weariness was creeping into her voice!
+
+“Then, of course, you left the door unlocked when you went out of the
+building?”
+
+“No--no, I didn’t. I had the key and I locked it. But I didn’t realise
+this till I went to untie my horse; then I found the keys in my hand.
+But I didn’t go back.”
+
+“Do you mean that you didn’t know you locked the door?”
+
+“I don’t remember whether I knew or not at the time. I do remember
+being surprised and a little frightened when I saw the keys. But I
+didn’t go back.”
+
+“Yet you had telephoned for the police?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And then locked them out?”
+
+“I didn’t care--I didn’t care.”
+
+An infinite number of questions followed. The poor child was near
+fainting, but bore up wonderfully notwithstanding, contradicting
+herself but seldom; and then only from lack of understanding the
+question, or from sheer fatigue. Mr. Fox was considerate, and Mr.
+Moffat interrupted but seldom. All could see that this noble-hearted
+girl, this heroine of all hearts was trying to tell the truth, and
+sympathy was with her, even that of the prosecution. But certain facts
+had to be brought out, among them the blowing off of her hat on that
+hurried drive home through the ever thickening snow-storm--a fact
+easily accounted for, when one considered the thick coils of hair over
+which it had been drawn.
+
+The circumstances connected with her arrival at the house were all
+carefully sifted, but nothing new came up, nor was her credibility as
+a witness shaken. The prosecution had lost much by this witness, but
+it had also gained. No doubt now remained that the ring was still on
+the victim’s hand when she succumbed to the effects of the poison; and
+the possibility of another presence in the house during the fateful
+interview just recorded, had been strengthened, rather than lessened,
+by Carmel’ s hesitating admissions. And so the question hung poised,
+and I was expecting to see her dismissed from the stand, when the
+district attorney settled himself again into his accustomed attitude of
+inquiry, and launched this new question:
+
+“When you went into the stable to unharness your horse, what did you do
+with the little bag you carried?”
+
+“I took it out of the cutter.”
+
+“What, then?”
+
+“Set it down somewhere.”
+
+“Was there anything in the bag?”
+
+“Not now. I had left the tongs at the club-house, and the paper I had
+burned. I took nothing else.”
+
+“How about the candlestick?”
+
+“That I carried in one of the pockets of my coat. That I left, too.”
+
+“Was that all you carried in your pockets?”
+
+“Yes--the candlestick and the candle. The candlestick on one side and
+the candle on the other.”
+
+“And these you did not have on your return?”
+
+“No, I left both.”
+
+“So that your pockets were empty--entirely empty--when you drove into
+your own gate?”
+
+“Yes, sir, so far as I know. I never looked into them.”
+
+“And felt nothing there?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Took nothing out?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Then or when you unharnessed your horse, or afterward, as you passed
+back to the house?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“What path did you take in returning to the house?”
+
+“There is only one.”
+
+“Did you walk straight through it?”
+
+“As straight as I could. It was snowing heavily, and I was dizzy and
+felt strange, I may have zigzagged a little.”
+
+“Did you zigzag enough to go back of the stable?”
+
+“Oh, no.”
+
+“You are sure that you did not wander in back of the stable?”
+
+“As sure as I can be of anything.”
+
+“Miss Cumberland, I have but a few more questions to ask. Will you look
+at this portion of a broken bottle?”
+
+“I see it, sir.”
+
+“Will you take it in your hand and examine it carefully?”
+
+She reached out her hand; it was trembling visibly and her face
+expressed a deep distress, but she took the piece of broken bottle and
+looked at it before passing it back.
+
+“Miss Cumberland, did you ever see that bit of broken glass before?”
+
+She shook her head. Then she cast a quick look at her brother, and
+seemed to gain an instantaneous courage.
+
+“No,” said she. “I may have seen a whole bottle like that, at some time
+in the club-house, but I have no memory of this broken end--none at
+all.”
+
+“I am obliged to you, Miss Cumberland. I will trouble you no more
+to-day.”
+
+Then he threw up his head and smiled a slow, sarcastic smile at Mr.
+Moffat.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+AND I HAD SAID NOTHING!
+
+O my soul’s joy!
+If after every tempest come such calms
+May the winds blow till they have wakened death!
+
+_Othello_.
+
+
+I had always loved her; that I knew even in the hour of my darkest
+suspicion--but now I felt free to worship her. As the thought
+penetrated my whole being, it made the night gladsome. Whatever awaited
+her, whatever awaited Arthur, whatever awaited me, she had regenerated
+me. A change took place that night in my whole nature, in my aspect of
+life and my view of women. One fact rode triumphant above all other
+considerations and possible distresses. Fate--I was more inclined now
+to call it Providence--had shown me the heart of a great and true
+woman; and I was free to expend all my best impulses in honouring her
+and loving her, whether she ever looked my way again, received or even
+acknowledged a homage growing out of such wrong as I had done her
+and her unfortunate sister. It set a star in my firmament. It turned
+down all the ill-written and besmirched leaves in my book of life and
+opened up a new page on which her name, written in letters of gold,
+demanded clean work in the future and a record which should not shame
+the aura surrounding that pure name. Sorrow for the past, dread of the
+future--both were lost in the glad rebound of my distracted soul. The
+night was dedicated to joy, and to joy alone.
+
+The next day being Sunday, I had ample time for the reaction bound to
+follow hours of such exaltation. I had no wish for company. I even
+denied myself to Clifton. The sight of a human face was more than I
+could bear unless it were the one face; and that I could not hope
+for. But the desire to see her, to hear from her--if only to learn
+how she had endured the bitter ordeal of the day before--soon became
+unbearable. I must know this much at any cost to her feelings or to
+mine.
+
+After many a struggle with myself, I called up Dr. Carpenter on the
+telephone. From him I learned that she was physically prostrated, but
+still clear in mind and satisfied of her brother’s innocence. This
+latter statement might mean anything; but imparted by him to me, it
+seemed to be capable of but one interpretation. I must be prepared for
+whatever distrust of myself this confidence carried with it.
+
+This was intolerable. I had to speak; I had to inquire if she had yet
+heard the real reason why I was the first to be arrested.
+
+A decided “No,” cut short that agony. I could breathe again and proffer
+a humble request.
+
+“Doctor, I cannot approach her; I cannot even write,--it would seem too
+presumptuous. But tell her, as you find the opportunity, how I honour
+her. Do not let her remain under the impression that I am not capable
+of truly feeling what she has borne and must still bear.”
+
+“I will do what I can,” was his reply, and he mercifully cut short the
+conversation.
+
+This was the event of the morning.
+
+In the afternoon I sat in my window thinking. My powers of reasoning
+had returned, and the insoluble problem of Adelaide’s murder occupied
+my whole mind. With Carmel innocent, who was there left to suspect?
+Not Arthur. His fingers were as guiltless as my own of those marks on
+her throat. Of this I was convinced, difficult as it made my future.
+My mind refused to see guilt in a man who could meet my eye with just
+the look he gave me on leaving the courtroom, at the conclusion of his
+sister’s triumphant examination. It was a momentary glance, but I read
+it, I am sure, quite truthfully.
+
+“You are the man,” it said; but not in the old, bitter, and revengeful
+way voiced by his tongue before we came together in the one effort to
+save Carmel from what, in our short-sightedness and misunderstanding
+of her character, we had looked upon as the worst of humiliations and
+the most desperate of perils. There was sadness in his conviction and
+an honest man’s regret--which, if noted by those about us--was far more
+dangerous to my good name than the loudest of denunciations or the most
+acrimonious of assaults. It put me in the worst of positions. But one
+chance remained for me now.
+
+The secret man of guilt might yet come to light; but how or through
+whose agency, I found myself unable to conceive. I had neither the wit
+nor the experience to untangle this confused web. Should I find the law
+in shape to deal with it? A few days would show. With the termination
+of Arthur’s trial, the story of my future would begin. Meanwhile, I
+must have patience and such strength as could be got from the present.
+
+And so the afternoon passed.
+
+With the coming on of night, my mood changed. I wanted air, movement.
+The closeness of my rooms had become unbearable. As soon as the lamps
+were lit in the street, I started out and I went--toward the cemetery.
+
+I had no motive in choosing this direction for my walk. The road was an
+open one, and I should neither avoid people nor escape the chilly blast
+blowing directly in my face from the northeast. Whim, or shall I not
+say, true feeling, carried me there though I was quite conscious, all
+the time, of a strong desire to see Ella Fulton and learn from her the
+condition of affairs--whether she was at peace, or in utter disgrace,
+with her parents.
+
+It was a cold night, as I have said, and there were but few people in
+the streets. On the boulevard I met nobody. As I neared the cemetery,
+I passed one man; otherwise I was, to all appearance, alone on this
+remote avenue. The effect was sinister, or my mood made it so; yet
+I did not hasten my steps; the hours till midnight had to be lived
+through in some way, and why not in this? No companion would have been
+welcome, and had the solitude been less perfect, I should have murmured
+at the prospect of intrusion.
+
+The cemetery gates were shut. This I had expected, but I did not
+need to enter the grounds to have a view of Adelaide’s grave. The
+Cumberland lot occupied a knoll in close proximity to the fence, and
+my only intention had been to pass this spot and cast one look within,
+in memory of Adelaide. To reach the place, however, I had to turn
+a corner, and on doing so I saw good reason, as I thought, for not
+carrying out my intention at this especial time.
+
+Some man--I could not recognise him from where I stood--had forestalled
+me. Though the night was a dark one, sufficient light shone from the
+scattered lamps on the opposite side of the way for me to discern his
+intent figure, crouching against the iron bars and gazing, with an
+intentness which made him entirely oblivious of my presence, at the
+very plot--and on the very grave--which had been the end of my own
+pilgrimage. So motionless he stood, and so motionless I myself became
+at this unexpected and significant sight, that I presently imagined I
+could hear his sighs in the dread quiet into which the whole scene had
+sunk.
+
+Grief, deeper than mine, spoke in those labouring breaths. Adelaide was
+mourned by some one as I, for all my remorse, could never mourn her.
+
+_And I did not know the man_.
+
+Was not this strange enough to rouse my wonder?
+
+I thought so, and was on the point of satisfying this wonder by a quick
+advance upon this stranger, when there happened an uncanny thing,
+which held me in check from sheer astonishment. I was so placed, in
+reference to one of the street lamps I have already mentioned, that my
+shadow fell before me plainly along the snow. This had not attracted my
+attention until, at the point of moving, I cast my eyes down and saw
+two shadows where only one should be.
+
+As I had heard no one behind me, and had supposed myself entirely
+alone with the man absorbed in contemplation of Adelaide’s grave, I
+experienced a curious sensation which, without being fear, held me
+still for a moment, with my eyes on this second shadow. It did not
+move, any more than mine did. This was significant, and I turned.
+
+A man stood at my back--not looking at me but at the fellow in front
+of us. A quiet “hush!” sounded in my ear, and again I stood still. But
+only for an instant.
+
+The man at the fence--aroused by my movement, perhaps--had turned,
+and, seeing our two figures, started to fly in the opposite direction.
+Instinctively I darted forward in pursuit, but was soon passed by the
+man behind me. This caused me to slacken; for I had recognised this
+latter, as he flew by, as Sweetwater, the detective, and knew that he
+would do this work better than myself.
+
+But I reckoned without my host. He went only as far as the spot where
+the man had been standing. When, in my astonishment, I advanced upon
+him there, he wheeled about quite naturally in my direction and,
+accosting me by name, remarked, in his genial off-hand manner:
+
+“There is no need for us to tire our legs in a chase after that man. I
+know him well enough.”
+
+“And who--” I began.
+
+A quizzical smile answered me. The light was now in our faces, and I
+had a perfect view of his. Its expression quite disarmed me; but I
+knew, as well as if he had spoken, that I should receive no other reply
+to my half-formed question.
+
+“Are you going back into town?” he asked, as I paused and looked down
+at the umbrella swinging in his hand. I was sure that he had not held
+this umbrella when he started by me on the run. “If so, will you allow
+me to walk beside you for a little way?”
+
+I could not refuse him; besides, I was not sure that I wanted to.
+Homely as any man I had ever seen, there was a magnetic quality in his
+voice and manner that affected even one so fastidious as myself. I felt
+that I had rather talk to him, at that moment, than to any other person
+I knew. Of course, curiosity had something to do with it, and that
+community of interest which is the strongest bond that can link two
+people together.
+
+“You are quite welcome,” said I; and again cast my eye at the umbrella.
+
+“You are wondering where I got this,” he remarked, looking down at it
+in his turn. “I found it leaning against the fence. It gives me all the
+clue I need to our fleet-footed friend. Mr. Ranelagh, will you credit
+me with good intentions if I ask a question or two which you may or may
+not be willing to answer?”
+
+“You may ask what you will,” said I. “I have nothing to conceal, since
+hearing Miss Cumberland’s explanation of her presence at The Whispering
+Pines.”
+
+“Ah!”
+
+The ejaculation was eloquent. So was the silence which followed it.
+Without good reason, perhaps, I felt the strain upon my heart loosen a
+little. Was it possible that I should find a friend in this man?
+
+“The question I am going to ask,” he continued presently, “is one which
+you may consider unpardonable. Let me first express an opinion. You
+have not told all that you know of that evening’s doings.”
+
+This called for no reply and I made none.
+
+“I can understand your reticence, if your knowledge included the fact
+of Miss Cumberland’s heroic act and her sister’s manner of death at the
+club-house.”
+
+“But it did not,” I asserted, with deliberate emphasis. “I knew nothing
+of either. My arrival happened later. Miss Cumberland’s testimony gave
+me my first enlightenment on these points. But I did know that the two
+sisters were there together, for I had a glimpse of the younger as she
+was leaving the house.”
+
+“You had. And are willing to state it now?”
+
+“Assuredly. But any testimony of that kind is for the defence, and
+your interests are all with the prosecution. Mr. Moffat is the man who
+should talk to me.”
+
+“Does he know it?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Who told him?”
+
+“I did.”
+
+“You?”
+
+“Yes, it was my duty.”
+
+“You are interested then in seeing young Cumberland freed?”
+
+“I must be; he is innocent.”
+
+The man at my side turned, shot at me one glance which I met quite
+calmly, then, regulating his step by mine, moved on silently for a
+moment--thinking, as it appeared to me, some very serious thoughts.
+It was not until we had traversed a whole block in this way that he
+finally put his question. Whether it was the one he had first had in
+mind, I cannot say.
+
+“Mr. Ranelagh, will you tell me why, when you found yourself in such
+a dire extremity as to be arrested for this crime, on evidence as
+startling as to call for all and every possible testimony to your
+innocence, you preserved silence in regard to a fact which you must
+have then felt would have secured you a most invaluable witness? I can
+understand why Mr. Cumberland has been loth to speak of his younger
+sister’s presence in the club-house on that night; but his reason was
+not your reason. Yet you have been as hard to move on this point as he.”
+
+Then it was I regretted my thoughtless promise to be candid with this
+man. To answer were impossible, yet silence has its confidences, too.
+In my dilemma, I turned towards him and just then we stepped within the
+glare of an electric light pouring from some open doorway. I caught his
+eye, and was astonished at the change which took place in him.
+
+“Don’t answer,” he muttered, volubly. “It isn’t necessary. I understand
+the situation, now, and you shall never regret that you met Caleb
+Sweetwater on your walk this evening. Will you trust me, sir? A
+detective who loves his profession is no gabbler. Your secret is as
+safe with me as if you had buried it in the grave.”
+
+And I had said nothing!
+
+He started to go, then he stopped suddenly and observed, with one of
+his wise smiles:
+
+“I once spent several minutes in Miss Carmel Cumberland’s room, and I
+saw a cabinet there which I found it very hard to understand. But its
+meaning came to me later. I could not rest till it did.”
+
+At the next moment he was half way around a corner, and in another, out
+of sight.
+
+This was the evening’s event.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+THE ARROW OF DEATH
+
+O if you rear this house against this house,
+It will the wofulest division prove
+That ever fell upon this cursed earth.
+
+_Prometheus Unbound_.
+
+
+In my first glance around the court-room the next morning, I sought
+first for Carmel and then for the detective Sweetwater. Neither was
+visible. But this was not true of Ella. She had come in on her father’s
+arm, closely followed by the erect figure of her domineering mother.
+As I scrutinised the latter’s bearing, I seemed to penetrate the
+mystery of her nature. Whatever humiliation she may have felt at the
+public revelation of her daughter’s weakness, it had been absorbed by
+her love for that daughter, or had been forced, through the agency
+of her indomitable will, to become a ministrant to her pride which
+was unassailable. She had accepted the position exacted from her by
+the situation, and she looked for no loss of prestige, either on her
+daughter’s or her own account. Such was the language of her eyes; and
+it was a language which should have assured Ella that she had a better
+friend in her mother than she had ever dreamed of. The entrance of the
+defendant cut short my contemplation of any mere spectator. The change
+in him was so marked that I was conscious of it before I really saw
+him. Every eye had reflected it, and it was no surprise to me when I
+noted the relieved, almost cheerful aspect of his countenance as he
+took his place and met his counsel’s greeting with a smile--the first,
+I believe, which had been seen on his face since his sister’s death.
+That counsel I had already noted. He was cheerful also, but with a
+restrained cheerfulness. His task was not yet over, and the grimness of
+Mr. Fox, and the non-committal aspect of the jurymen, proved that it
+was not to be made too easy for him.
+
+The crier announced the opening of the court, and the defence proceeded
+by the calling of Ella Fulton to the witness stand.
+
+I need not linger over her testimony. It was very short and contained
+but one surprise. She had stated under direct examination that she
+had waited and watched for Arthur’s return that whole night, and was
+positive that he had not passed through their grounds again after that
+first time in the early evening. This was just what I had expected
+from her. But the prosecution remembered the snowfall, and in her
+cross-examination on this point, she acknowledged that it was very
+thick, much too thick for her to see her own gate distinctly; but
+added, that this only made her surer of the fact she had stated; for
+finding that she could not see, she had dressed herself for the storm
+and gone out into the driveway to watch there, and had so watched until
+the town clock struck three.
+
+This did not help the prosecution. Sympathy could not fail to be
+with this young and tremulous girl, heroic in her love, if weak in
+other respects, and when on her departure from the stand, she cast
+one deprecatory glance at the man for whom she had thus sacrificed
+her pride, and, meeting his eye fixed upon her with anything but
+ingratitude, flushed and faltered till she with difficulty found
+her way, the sentiments of the onlookers became so apparent that
+the judge’s gavel was called into requisition before order could be
+restored and the next witness summoned to testify.
+
+This witness was no less a person than Arthur himself. Recalled by his
+counsel, he was reminded of his former statement that he had left the
+club-house in a hurry because he heard his sister Adelaide’s voice, and
+was now asked if hers was the only voice he had heard.
+
+His answer revealed much of his mind.
+
+“No, I heard Carmel’s answering her.”
+
+This satisfying Mr. Moffat, he was passed over to Mr. Fox, and a short
+cross-examination ensued on this point.
+
+“You heard both your sisters speaking?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Any of their words, or only their voices?”
+
+“I heard one word.”
+
+“What word?”
+
+“The word, ‘Elwood.’”
+
+“In which voice?”
+
+“In that of my sister Adelaide.”
+
+“And you fled?”
+
+“Immediately.”
+
+“Leaving your two sisters alone in this cold and out-of-the-way house?”
+
+“I did not think they were alone.”
+
+“Who did you think was with them?”
+
+“I have already mentioned the name.”
+
+“Yet you left them?”
+
+“Yes, I’ve already explained that. I was engaged in a mean act. I was
+ashamed to be caught at it by Adelaide. I preferred flight. I had no
+premonition of tragedy--any such tragedy as afterwards occurred. I
+understood neither of my sisters and my thoughts were only for myself.”
+
+“Didn’t you so much as try to account for their both being there?”
+
+“Not then.”
+
+“Had you expected Adelaide to accompany your younger sister when you
+harnessed the horse for her?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Had not this younger sister even enjoined secrecy upon you in asking
+you to harness the horse?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Yet you heard the two together in this remote building without
+surprise?”
+
+“No, I must have felt surprise, but I didn’t stop to analyse my
+feelings. Afterward, I turned it over in my mind and tried to make
+something out of the whole thing. But that was when I was far out on
+the links.”
+
+A losing game thus far. This the district attorney seemed to feel;
+but he was not an ungenerous man though cursed (perhaps, I should say
+blessed, considering the position he held) by a tenacity which never
+let him lose his hold until the jury gave their verdict.
+
+“You have a right to explain yourself fully,” said he, after a
+momentary struggle in which his generosity triumphed over his pride.
+“When you did think of your sisters, what explanation did you give
+yourself of the facts we have just been considering?”
+
+“I could not imagine the truth, so I just satisfied myself that
+Adelaide had discovered Carmel’s intentions to ride into town and had
+insisted on accompanying her. They were having it out, I thought, in
+the presence of the man who had made all this trouble between them.”
+
+“And you left them to the task?”
+
+“Yes, sir, but not without a struggle. I was minded several times to
+return. This I have testified to before.”
+
+“Did this struggle consume forty minutes?”
+
+“It must have and more, if I entered the hold in Cuthbert Road at the
+hour they state.”
+
+Mr. Fox gave up the game, and I looked to be the next person called.
+But it was not a part of Mr. Moffat’s plan to weaken the effect
+of Carmel’s testimony by offering any weak corroboration of facts
+which nobody showed the least inclination to dispute. Satisfied with
+having given the jury an opportunity to contrast his client’s present
+cheerfulness and manly aspect with the sullenness he had maintained
+while in doubt of Carmel’s real connection with this crime, Mr. Moffat
+rested his case.
+
+There was no testimony offered in rebuttal and the court took a recess.
+
+When it reassembled I cast another anxious glance around. Still no
+Carmel, nor any signs of Sweetwater. I could understand her absence,
+but not his, and it was in a confusion of feeling which was fast
+getting the upper hand of me, that I turned my attention to Mr. Moffat
+and the plea he was about to make for his youthful client.
+
+I do not wish to obtrude myself too much into this trial of another man
+for the murder of my betrothed. But when, after a wait during which
+the prisoner had a chance to show his mettle under the concentrated
+gaze of an expectant crowd, the senior counsel for the defence slowly
+rose, and, lifting his ungainly length till his shoulders lost their
+stoop and his whole presence acquired a dignity which had been entirely
+absent from it up to this decisive moment, I felt a sudden slow and
+creeping chill seize and shake me, as I have heard people say they
+experienced when uttering the common expression, “Some one is walking
+over my grave.”
+
+It was not that he glanced my way, for this he did not do; yet I
+received a subtle message from him, by some telepathic means I could
+neither understand nor respond to--a message of warning, or, possibly
+of simple preparation for what his coming speech might convey.
+
+It laid my spirits low for a moment; then they rose as those of a
+better man might rise at the scent of danger. If he could warn, he
+could also withhold. I would trust him, or I would, at least, trust
+my fate. And so, good-bye to self. Arthur’s life and Carmel’s future
+peace were trembling in the balance. Surely these were worth the full
+attention of the man who loved the woman, who pitied the man.
+
+At the next moment I heard these words, delivered in the slow and
+but slightly raised tones with which Mr. Moffat invariably began his
+address:
+
+“May it please the court and gentlemen of the jury, my learned friend
+of the prosecution has shown great discretion in that, so far as
+appears from the trend of his examinations, he is planning no attempt
+to explain the many silences and the often forbidding attitude of my
+young client by any theory save the obvious one--the natural desire of
+a brother to hide his only remaining sister’s connection with a tragedy
+of whose details he was ignorant, and concerning which he had formed a
+theory derogatory to her position as a young and well-bred woman.
+
+“I am, therefore, spared the task of pressing upon your consideration
+these very natural and, I may add, laudable grounds for my client’s
+many hesitations and suppressions--which, under other circumstances,
+would militate so deeply against him in the eyes of an upright and
+impartial jury. Any man with a heart in his breast, and a sense of
+honour in his soul, can understand why this man--whatever his record,
+and however impervious he may have seemed in the days of his prosperity
+and the wilfulness of his youth--should recoil from revelations which
+would attack the honour, if not the life, of a young and beautiful
+sister, sole remnant of a family eminent in station, and in all those
+moral and civic attributes which make for the honour of a town and lend
+distinction to its history.
+
+“Fear for a loved one, even in one whom you will probably hear
+described as a dissipated man, of selfish tendencies and hitherto
+unbrotherly qualities, is a great miracle-worker. No sacrifice
+seems impossible which serves as a guard for one so situated and so
+threatened.
+
+“Let us review his history. Let us disentangle, if we can, our
+knowledge of what occurred in the clubhouse, from his knowledge of
+it at the time he showed these unexpected traits of self-control and
+brotherly anxiety, which you will yet hear so severely scored by my
+able opponent. His was a nature in which honourable instincts had
+forever battled with the secret predilections of youth for independence
+and free living. He rebelled at all monition; but this did not make
+him altogether insensible to the secret ties of kinship, or the
+claims upon his protection of two highly gifted sisters. Consciously
+or unconsciously, he kept watch upon the two; and when he saw that
+an extraneous influence was undermining their mutual confidence, he
+rebelled in his heart, whatever restraint he may have put upon his
+tongue and actions. Then came an evening, when, with heart already
+rasped by a personal humiliation, he saw a letter passed. You have
+heard the letter and listened to its answer; but he knew nothing beyond
+the fact--a fact which soon received a terrible significance from the
+events which so speedily followed.”
+
+Here Mr. Moffat recapitulated those events, but always from the
+standpoint of the defendant--a standpoint which necessarily brought
+before the jury the many excellent reasons which his client had for
+supposing this crime to have resulted solely from the conflicting
+interests represented by that furtively passed note, and the visit
+of two girls instead of one to The Whispering Pines. It was very
+convincing, especially his picture of Arthur’s impulsive flight from
+the club-house at the first sound of his sisters’ voices.
+
+“The learned counsel for the people may call this unnatural,” he
+cried. “He may say that no brother would leave the place under such
+circumstances, whether sober or not sober, alive to duty or dead to
+it--that curiosity would hold him there, if nothing else. But he
+forgets, if thus he thinks and thus would have you think, that the
+man who now confronts you from the bar is separated by an immense
+experience from the boy he was at that hour of surprise and selfish
+preoccupation.
+
+“You who have heard the defendant tell how he could not remember if
+he carried up one or two bottles from the kitchen, can imagine the
+blank condition of this untutored mind at the moment when those voices
+fell upon his ear, calling him to responsibilities he had never before
+shouldered, and which he saw no way of shouldering now. In that first
+instant of inconsiderate escape, he was alarmed for himself,--afraid of
+the discovery of the sneaking act of which he had just been guilty--not
+fearful for his sisters. _You_ would have done differently; but you are
+all men disciplined to forget yourselves and think first of others,
+taught, in the school of life to face responsibility rather than shirk
+it. But discipline had not yet reached this unhappy boy--the slave, so
+far, of his unfortunate habits. It began its work later; yet not much
+later. Before he had half crossed the golf-links, the sense of what he
+had done stopped him in middle course, and, reckless of the oncoming
+storm, he turned his back upon the place he was making for, only to
+switch around again, as craving got the better of his curiosity, or of
+that deeper feeling to which my experienced opponent will, no doubt,
+touchingly allude when he comes to survey this situation with you.
+
+“The storm, continuing, obliterated his steps as fast as the ever
+whitening spaces beneath received them; but if it had stopped then
+and there, leaving those wandering imprints to tell their story,
+what a tale we might have read of the first secret conflict in this
+awakening soul! I leave you to imagine this history, and pass to the
+bitter hour when, racked by a night of dissipation, he was aroused,
+indeed, to the magnitude of his fault and the awful consequences of his
+self-indulgence, by the news of his elder sister’s violent death and
+the hardly less pitiful condition of the younger.
+
+“The younger!” The pause he here made was more eloquent than any words.
+“Is it for me to laud her virtues, or to seek to impress upon you in
+this connection, the overwhelming nature of the events which in reality
+had laid her mind and body low? You have seen her; you have heard her;
+and the memory of the tale she has here told will never leave you, or
+lose its hold upon your sympathies or your admiration. If everything
+else connected with this case is forgotten, the recollection of that
+will remain. You, and I, and all who wait upon your verdict, will in
+due time pass from among the living, and leave small print behind us
+on the sands of time. But her act will not die, and to it I now offer
+the homage of silence, since that would best please her heroic soul,
+which broke the bonds of womanly reserve only to save from an unmerited
+charge a falsely arraigned brother.”
+
+The restraint and yet the fire with which Mr. Moffat uttered these
+simple words, lifted all hearts and surcharged the atmosphere with
+an emotion rarely awakened in a court of law. Not in my pulses
+alone was started the electric current of renewed life. The jury,
+to a man, glowed with enthusiasm, and from the audience rose one
+long and suppressed sigh of answering feeling, which was all the
+tribute he needed for his eloquence--or Carmel for her uncalculating,
+self-sacrificing deed. I could have called upon the mountains to cover
+_me_; but--God be praised--no one thought of me in that hour. Every
+throb, every thought was for her.
+
+At the proper moment of subsiding feeling, Mr. Moffat again raised his
+voice:
+
+“Gentlemen of the jury, you have seen point after point of the
+prosecution’s case demolished before your eyes by testimony which
+no one has had the temerity to attempt to controvert. What is left?
+Mr. Fox will tell you--three strong and unassailable facts. The ring
+found in the murdered woman’s casket, the remnants of the tell-tale
+bottle discovered in the Cumberland stable, and the opportunity for
+crime given by the acknowledged presence of the defendant on or near
+the scene of death. He will harp on these facts; he will make much of
+them; and he will be justified in doing so, for they are the only links
+remaining of the strong chain forged so carefully against my client.
+
+“But are these points so vital as they seem? Let us consider them, and
+see. My client has denied that he dropped anything into his sister’s
+casket, much less the ring missing from that sister’s finger. Dare you,
+then, convict on this point when, according to count, ten other persons
+were seen to drop flowers into this very place--any one of which might
+have carried this object with it?
+
+“And the bit of broken bottle found in or near the defendant’s own
+stable! Is he to be convicted on the similarity it offers to the one
+known to have come from the club-house wine-vault, while a reasonable
+doubt remains of his having been the hand which carried it there? No!
+Where there is a reasonable doubt, no high-minded jury will convict;
+and I claim that my client has made it plain that there is such a
+reasonable doubt.”
+
+All this and more did Mr. Moffat dilate upon. But I could no longer fix
+my mind on details, and much of this portion of his address escaped me.
+
+But I do remember the startling picture with which he closed. His
+argument so far, had been based on the assumption of Arthur’s ignorance
+of Carmers purpose in visiting the club-house, or of Adelaide’s attempt
+at suicide. His client had left the building when he said he did,
+and knew no more of what happened there afterward than circumstances
+showed, or his own imagination conceived. But now the advocate took
+a sudden turn, and calmly asked the jury to consider with him the
+alternative outlined by the prosecution in the evidence set before them.
+
+“My distinguished opponent,” said he, “would have you believe that the
+defendant did not fly at the moment declared, but that he waited to
+fulfil the foul deed which is the only serious matter in dispute in
+his so nearly destroyed case. I hear as though he were now speaking,
+the attack which he will make upon my client when he comes to review
+this matter with you. Let me see if I cannot make you hear those words,
+too.” And with a daring smile at his discomforted adversary, Alonzo
+Moffat launched forth into the following sarcasm:
+
+“Arthur Cumberland, coming up the kitchen stairs, hears voices
+where he had expected total silence--sees light where he had left
+total darkness. He has two bottles in his hands, or in his large
+coat-pockets. If they are in his hands, he sets them down and steals
+forward to listen. He has recognised the voices. They are those of
+his two sisters, one of whom had ordered him to hitch up the cutter
+for her to escape, as he had every reason to believe, the other.
+Curiosity--or is it some nobler feeling--causes him to draw nearer
+and nearer to the room in which they have taken up their stand. He
+can hear their words now and what are the words he hears? Words that
+would thrill the most impervious heart, call for the interference of
+the most indifferent. But _he_ is made of ice, welded together with
+steel. He sees--for no place save one from which he can watch and see,
+_viz_.: the dark dancing hall, would satisfy any man of such gigantic
+curiosity--Adelaide fall at Carmel’s feet, in recognition of the great
+sacrifice she has made for her. But he does not move; he falls at no
+one’s feet; he recognises no nobility, responds to no higher appeal.
+Stony and unmoved, he crouches there, and watches and watches--still
+curious, or still feeding his hate on the sufferings of the elder, the
+forbearance of the younger.
+
+“And on what does he look? You have already heard, but consider it.
+Adelaide, despairing of happiness, decides on death for herself or
+sister. Both loving one man, one of the two must give way to the other.
+Carmel has done her part; she must now do hers. She has brought poison;
+she has brought glasses--three glasses, for three persons, but only two
+are on the scene, and so she fills but two. One has only cordial in
+it, but the other is, as she believes, deadly. Carmel is to have her
+choice; but who believes that Adelaide would ever have let her drink
+the poisoned glass?
+
+“And this man looks on, as the two faces confront each other--one white
+with the overthrow of every earthly hope, the other under the stress
+of suffering and a fascination of horror sufficient to have laid her
+dead, without poison, at the other one’s feet. This is what he sees--_a
+brother!_--and he makes no move, then or afterwards, when, the die
+cast, Adelaide succumbs to her fear and falls into a seemingly dying
+state on the couch.
+
+“Does he go now? Is his hate or his cupidity satisfied? No! He remains
+and listens to the tender interchange of final words, and all the
+late precautions of the elder to guard the younger woman’s good name.
+Still he is not softened; and when, the critical moment passed, Carmel
+rises and totters about the room in her endeavour to fulfil the tasks
+enjoined upon her by her sister, he gloats over a death which will give
+him independence and gluts himself with every evil thought which could
+blind him to the pitiful aspects of a tragedy such as few men in this
+world could see unmoved. _A brother_!
+
+“But this is not the worst. The awful cup of human greed and hatred
+is but filled to the brim; it has not yet overflowed. Carmel leaves
+the room; she has a telephonic message to deliver. She may be gone a
+minute; she may be gone many. Little does he care which; he must see
+the dead, look down on the woman who has been like a mother to him, and
+see if her influence is forever removed, if his wealth is his, and his
+independence forever assured.
+
+“Safe in the darkness of the gloomy recesses of the dancing hall, he
+steals slowly forward. Drawn as by a magnet, he enters the room of
+seeming death, draws up to the pillow-laden couch, pulls off first one
+cushion, and then another, till face and hands are bare and--
+
+“Ah!--there is a movement! death has not, then, done its work. She
+lives--the hated one--_lives_! And he is no longer rich, no longer
+independent. With a clutch, he seizes her at the feeble seat of life;
+and as the breath ceases and her whole body becomes again inert, he
+stoops to pull off the ring, which can have no especial value or
+meaning for him--and then, repiling the cushions over her, creeps forth
+again, takes up the bottles, and disappears from the house.
+
+“Gentlemen of the jury, this is what my opponent would have you
+believe. This will be his explanation of this extraordinary murder. But
+when his eloquence meets your ears--when you hear this arraignment, and
+the emphasis he will place upon the few points remaining to his broken
+case, then ask yourself if you see such a monster in the prisoner now
+confronting you from the bar. I do not believe it. I do not believe
+that such a monster lives.
+
+“But you say, _some one_ entered that room--_some one_ stilled the
+fluttering life still remaining in that feeble breast. Some one may
+have, but that some one was not my client, and it is his guilt or
+innocence we are considering now, and it is his life and freedom for
+which you are responsible. No brother did that deed; no witness of the
+scene which hallowed this tragedy ever lifted hand against the fainting
+Adelaide, or choked back a life which kindly fate had spared.
+
+“Go further for the guilty perpetrator of this most inhuman act; he
+stands not in the dock. Guilt shows no such relief as you see in him
+to-day. Guilt would remember that his sister’s testimony, under the
+cross-examination of the people’s prosecutor, left the charge of murder
+still hanging over the defendant’s head. But the brother has forgotten
+this. His restored confidence in one who now represents to him father,
+mother, and sister has thrown his own fate into the background. Will
+you dim that joy--sustain this charge of murder?
+
+“If in your sense of justice you do so, you forever place this
+degenerate son of a noble father, on the list of the most unimaginative
+and hate-driven criminals of all time. Is he such a demon? Is he such a
+madman? Look in his face to-day, and decide. I am willing to leave his
+cause in your hands. It could be placed in no better.
+
+“May it please your Honour, and gentlemen of the jury, I am done.”
+
+If any one at that moment felt the arrow of death descending into his
+heart, it was not Arthur Cumberland.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+“STEADY!”
+
+I am a tainted wether of the flock,
+Meetest for death; the weakest kind of fruit
+Drops earliest to the ground, and so let me.
+You cannot better be employ’d, Bassanio,
+Than to live still, and write my epitaph.
+
+_Merchant of Venice_.
+
+
+Why linger over the result. Arthur Cumberland’s case was won before
+Mr. Fox arose to his feet. The usual routine was gone through. The
+district attorney made the most of the three facts which he declared
+inconsistent with the prisoner’s innocence, just as Mr. Moffat said
+he would; but the life was gone from his work, and the result was
+necessarily unsatisfactory.
+
+The judge’s charge was short, but studiously impartial. When the jury
+filed out, I said to myself, “They will return in fifteen minutes.”
+They returned in ten, with a verdict of acquittal.
+
+The demonstrations of joy which followed filled my ears, and doubtless
+left their impression upon my other senses; but my mind took in
+nothing but the apparition of my own form taking his place at the bar,
+under circumstances less favourable to acquittal than those which
+had exonerated him. It was a picture which set my brain whirling. A
+phantom judge, a phantom jury, a phantom circle of faces, lacking
+the consideration and confidence of those I saw before me; but not a
+phantom prisoner, or any mere dream of outrageous shame and suffering.
+
+That shame and that suffering had already seized hold of me. With the
+relief of young Arthur’s acquittal my faculties had cleared to the
+desperate position in which this very acquittal had placed me.
+
+I saw, as never before, how the testimony which had reinstated Carmel
+in my heart and won for her and through her the sympathies of the
+whole people, had overthrown every specious reason which I and those
+interested in me had been able to advance in contradiction of the
+natural conclusion to be drawn from the damning fact of my having been
+seen with my fingers on Adelaide’s throat.
+
+Mr. Moffat’s words rang in my ears: “Some one entered that room; some
+one stilled the fluttering life still remaining in that feeble breast;
+but that some one was not her brother. You must look further for the
+guilty perpetrator of this most inhuman act; some one who had not been
+a witness to the scene preceding this tragedy, some one--” he had not
+said this but every mind had supplied the omission,--“some one who had
+come in later, who came in after Carmel had gone, some one who knew
+nothing of the telephone message which was even then hastening the
+police to the spot; some one who had every reason for lifting those
+cushions and, on meeting _life_--”
+
+The horror stifled me; I was reeling in my place on the edge of the
+crowd, when I heard a quiet voice in my ear:
+
+“Steady! Their eyes will soon be off of Arthur, and then they will look
+at you.”
+
+It was Clifton, and his word came none too soon. I stiffened under its
+quiet force, and, taking his arm, let him lead me out of a side door,
+where the crowd was smaller and its attention even more absorbed.
+
+I soon saw its cause--Carmel was entering the doorway from the street.
+She had come to greet her brother; and her face, quite unveiled, was
+beaming with beauty and joy. In an instant I forgot myself, forgot
+everything but her and the effect she produced upon those about her. No
+noisy demonstration here; admiration and love were shown in looks and
+the low-breathed prayer for her welfare which escaped from more than
+one pair of lips. She smiled and their hearts were hers; she essayed to
+move forward and the people crowded back as if at a queen’s passage;
+but there was no noise.
+
+When she reappeared, it was on Arthur’s arm. I had not been able to
+move from the place in which we were hemmed; nor had I wished to. I
+was hungry for a glance of her eye. Would it turn my way, and, if it
+did, would it leave a curse or a blessing behind it? In anxiety for the
+blessing, I was willing to risk the curse; and I followed her every
+step with hungry glances, until she reached the doorway and turned to
+give another shake of the hand to Mr. Moffat, who had followed them.
+But she did not see me.
+
+“I cannot miss it! I must catch her eye!” I whispered to Clifton. “Get
+me out of this; it will be several minutes before they can reach the
+sleigh. Let me see her, for one instant, face to face.”
+
+Clifton disapproved, and made me aware of it; but he did my bidding,
+nevertheless. In a few moments we were on the sidewalk, and quite by
+ourselves; so that, if she turned again she could not fail to observe
+me. I had small hope, however, that she would so turn. She and Arthur
+were within a few feet of the curb and their own sleigh.
+
+I had just time to see this sleigh, and note the rejoicing face of
+Zadok leaning sideways from the box, when I beheld her pause and slowly
+turn her head around and peer eagerly--and with what divine anxiety in
+her eyes--back over the heads of those thronging about her, until her
+gaze rested fully and sweetly on mine. My heart leaped, then sank down,
+down into unutterable depths; for in that instant her face changed,
+horror seized upon her beauty, and shook her frantic hold on Arthur’s
+arm.
+
+I heard words uttered very near me, but I did not catch them. I did
+feel, however, the hand which was laid strongly and with authority
+upon my shoulder; and, tearing my eyes from her face only long enough
+to perceive that it was Sweetwater who had thus arrested me, I looked
+back at her, in time to see the questions leap from her lips to Arthur,
+whose answers I could well understand from the pitying movement in
+the crowd and the low hum of restrained voices which ran between her
+sinking figure and the spot where I stood apart, with the detective’s
+hand on my shoulder.
+
+She had never been told of the incriminating position in which I had
+been seen in the club-house. It had been carefully kept from her, and
+she had supposed that my acquittal in the public mind was as certain as
+Arthur’s. Now she saw herself undeceived, and the reaction into doubt
+and misery was too much for her, and I saw her sinking under my eyes.
+
+“Let me go to her!” I shrieked, utterly unconcerned with anything in
+the world but this tottering, fainting girl.
+
+But Sweetwater’s hand only tightened on my shoulder, while Arthur, with
+an awful look at me, caught his sister in his arms, just as she fell to
+the ground before the swaying multitude.
+
+But he was not the only one to kneel there. With a sound of love and
+misery impossible to describe, Zadok had leaped from the box and had
+grovelled at those dear feet, kissing the insensible hands and praying
+for those shut eyes to open. Even after Arthur had lifted her into
+the sleigh, the man remained crouching where she had fallen, with his
+eyes roaming back and forth in a sightless stare from her to myself,
+muttering and groaning, and totally unheedful of Arthur’s commands to
+mount the box and drive home. Finally some one else stepped from the
+crowd and mercifully took the reins. I caught one more glimpse of her
+face, with Arthur’s bent tenderly over it; then the sleigh slipped away.
+
+An officer shook Zadok by the arm and he got up and began to move
+aside. Then I had mind to face my own fate, and, looking up, I met
+Sweetwater’s eye.
+
+It was quietly apologetic.
+
+“I only wished to congratulate you,” said he, “on the conclusion of a
+case in which I know you are highly interested.” Lifting his hat, he
+nodded affably and was gone before I could recover from my stupor.
+
+It was for Clifton to show his indignation. I was past all feeling.
+Farce as an after-piece never appealed to me.
+
+Would I have considered it farce if I could have heard the words
+which this detective was at that moment whispering into the district
+attorney’s ears:
+
+“Do you want to know who throttled Adelaide Cumberland? It was not her
+brother; it was not her lover; it was her old and trusted coachman.”
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+“AS IF IT WERE A MECCA”
+
+--I have within my mind
+A thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks
+Which I will practise.
+
+_Merchant of Venice_.
+
+
+“Give me your reasons. They must be excellent ones, Sweetwater, or you
+would not risk making a second mistake in a case of this magnitude and
+publicity.”
+
+“Mr. Fox, they are excellent. But you shall judge of them. From the
+moment Miss Carmel Cumberland overthrew the very foundations of our
+case by her remarkable testimony, I have felt that my work was only
+half done. It was a strain on credulity to believe Arthur guilty of
+a crime so prefaced, and the alternative which Mr. Moffat believed
+in, which you were beginning to believe in, and perhaps are allowing
+yourself to believe in even now, never appealed to me.
+
+“I allude to the very natural suspicion that the act beheld by your
+man Clarke was a criminal act, and that Ranelagh is the man really
+responsible for Miss Cumberland’s death. Some instinct held me back
+from this conclusion, as well as the incontrovertible fact that he
+could have had no hand in carrying that piece of broken bottle into the
+Cumberland stable, or of dropping his engagement ring in the suggestive
+place where it was found. Where, then, should I look for the unknown,
+the unsuspected third party? Among the ten other persons who dropped
+something into that casket.
+
+“Most of these were children, but I made the acquaintance of every one.
+I spent most of my Sunday that way; then, finding no clouded eye among
+them, I began a study of the Cumberland servants, naturally starting
+with Zadok. For two hours I sat at his stable fire, talking and turning
+him inside out, as only we detectives know how. I found him actually
+overwhelmed with grief; not the grief of a sane man, but of one in whom
+the very springs of life are poisoned by some dreadful remorse.
+
+“He did not know he revealed this; he expressed himself as full of hope
+that his young master would be acquitted the next day; but I could see
+that this prospect could never still the worm working at his heart, and
+resolved to understand why. I left him ostensibly alone, but in reality
+shadowed him. The consequence was that, in the evening dusk, he led me
+to the cemetery, where he took up his watch at Miss Cumberland’s grave,
+as if it were a Mecca and he a passionate devotee. I could hear his
+groans as he hung to the fence and spoke softly to the dead; and though
+I was too far away to catch a single word, I felt confident that I had
+at last struck the right track, and should soon see my way more clearly
+than at any time since this baffling case opened.
+
+“But before I allowed my fancy to run away with me, I put in an evening
+of inquiry. If this man had an absolute alibi, what was the use of
+wasting effort upon him. But I could not find that he had, Mr. Fox. He
+went with the rest of the servants to the ball--which, you know, was
+held in Tibbitt’s Hall, on Ford Street and he was seen there later,
+dancing and making merry in a way not usual to him. But there was a
+space of time dangerously tallying with that of the tragic scene at the
+club-house, when he was not seen by any one there, so far as I can make
+out; and this fact gave me courage to consider a certain point which
+had struck me, and of which I thought something might be made.
+
+“Mr. Fox, after the fiasco I have made of this affair, it costs me
+something to go into petty details which must suggest my former
+failures and may not strike you with the force they did me. That broken
+bottle-- or rather, that piece of broken bottle! Where was the rest of
+it? Sought for almost immediately after the tragedy, it had not been
+found at the Cumberland place or on the golf-links. It had been looked
+for carefully when the first thaw came; but, though glass was picked
+up, it was not the same glass. The task had become hopeless and ere
+long was abandoned.
+
+“But with this idea of Zadok being the means of its transfer from The
+Whispering Pines to the house on the Hill, I felt the desire to look
+once more, and while court was in session this morning, I started
+a fresh search--this time not on the golf-links. Tibbitt’s Hall
+communicates more quickly with The Whispering Pines by the club-house
+road than by the market one. So I directed my attention to the ground
+in front, and on the further side of the driveways. _And I found the
+neck of that bottle_!
+
+“Yes, sir, I will show it to you later. I picked it up at some distance
+from the northern driveway, under a small tree, against the trunk of
+which it had evidently been struck off. This meant that the lower part
+had been carried away, broken.
+
+“Now, who would do this but Zadok, who saw in it, he has said, a
+receptacle for some varnish which he had; and if Zadok, how had he
+carried it, if not in some pocket of his greatcoat. But glass edges
+make quick work with pockets; and if this piece of bottle had gone from
+The Whispering Pines to Tibbitt’s Hall, and from there to the Hill,
+there should be some token of its work in Zadok’s overcoat pocket.
+
+“This led me to look for those tokens; and as I had by this time
+insinuated my way into his confidence by a free and cheerful manner
+which gave him a rest from his gloomy thoughts, I soon had a chance
+to see for myself the condition of those pockets. The result was
+quite satisfactory. In one of them I found a frayed lining, easily
+explainable on the theory I had advanced. That pocket can be seen by
+you.
+
+“But Mr. Fox, I wanted some real proof. I wasn’t willing to embarrass
+another man, or to risk my own reputation on a hazard so blind as this,
+without something really definite. A confession was what I wanted, or
+such a breakdown of the man as would warrant police action. How could I
+get this?
+
+“I am a pupil of Mr. Gryce, and I remembered some of his methods.
+
+“This man, guilty though he might be, loved this family, and was
+broken-hearted over the trouble in which he saw it plunged. Excused
+to-day from attendance at court, he was in constant telephonic
+communication with some friend of his, who kept him posted as to the
+conduct of the trial and the probabilities of a favourable verdict.
+
+“If the case had gone against Arthur, we should have heard from his
+coachman--that I verily believe, but when we all saw that he was likely
+to be acquitted, I realised that some other course must be taken to
+shake Zadok from his new won complacency, and I chose the most obvious
+one.
+
+“Just when everything looked most favourable to their restored peace
+and happiness, I shocked Miss Carmel and, through her, this Zadok,
+into the belief that the whole agony was to be gone over again, in the
+rearrest and consequent trial of the man she still loves, in spite of
+all that has happened to separate them.
+
+“He was not proof against this new responsibility. As she fainted, he
+leaped from the box; and, could I have heard the words he muttered in
+her ear, I am sure that I should have that to give you which would
+settle this matter for all time. As it is, I can only say that my own
+convictions are absolute; the rest remains with you.”
+
+“We will go see the man,” said District Attorney Fox.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI
+
+THE SURCHARGED MOMENT
+
+For Justice, when triumphant, will weep down
+Pity, not punishment, on her own wrongs,
+Too much avenged by those who err. I wait,
+Enduring thus, the retributive hour
+Which since we spake is even nearer now.
+
+_Prometheus Unbound_.
+
+
+The moment I felt Sweetwater’s hand lifted from my shoulder I sprang
+into the first hack I could find, and bade the driver follow the
+Cumberland sleigh post-haste. I was determined to see Carmel and have
+Carmel see me. Whatever cold judgment might say against the meeting,
+I could not live in my present anxiety. If the thunderbolt which had
+struck her had spared her life and reason she must know from my own
+lips that I was not only a free man, but as innocent of the awful
+charge conveyed in Sweetwater’s action as was the brother, who had just
+been acquitted of it by the verdict of his peers.
+
+I must declare this, and she must believe me. Nothing else
+mattered--nothing else in all the world. That Arthur might stop me,
+that anything could stop me, did not disturb my mind for a minute. All
+that I dreaded was that I might find myself too late; that this second
+blow might have proved to be too much for her, and that I should find
+my darling dead or passed from me into that living death which were the
+harder punishment of the two. But I was spared this killing grief. When
+our two conveyances stopped, it was in the driveway of her old home;
+and as I bounded upon the walk, it was to see her again in Arthur’s
+arms, but this time with open eyes and horror-drawn features.
+
+“Carmel!” rushed in a cry from my lips. “Don’t believe what they say. I
+cannot bear it--I cannot bear it!”
+
+She roused; she looked my way, and struggling to her feet, held back
+Arthur with one hand while she searched my face--and possibly searched
+her own soul--for answer to my plea. Never was moment more surcharged.
+Further word I could not speak; I could only meet her eyes with the
+steady, demanding look of a despairing heart, while Arthur moved in
+every fibre of his awakened manhood, waited--thinking, perhaps, how
+few minutes had passed since he hung upon the words of a fellow being
+for his condemnation to death, or release to the freedom which he now
+enjoyed.
+
+A moment! But what an eternity before I saw the rigid lines of her
+white, set face relax--before I marked the play of human, if not
+womanly, emotion break up the misery of her look and soften her
+youthful lips into some semblance of their old expression. Love
+might be dead--friendship, even, be a thing of the far past--but
+consideration was still alive and in another instant it spoke in these
+trembling sentences, uttered across a threshold made sacred by a
+tragedy involving our three lives:
+
+“Come in and explain yourself. No man should go unheard. I know you
+will not come where Adelaide’s spirit yet lingers, if you cannot bring
+hands clean from all actual violence.”
+
+I motioned my driver away, and as Carmel drew back out of sight, I
+caught at Arthur’s arm and faced him with the query:
+
+“Are you willing that I should enter? I only wish to declare to her,
+and to you, an innocence I have no means of proving, but which you
+cannot disbelieve if I swear it, here and now, by your sister Carmel’s
+sacred disfigurement. Such depravity could not exist, as such a vow
+from the lips guilty of the crime you charge me with. Look at me,
+Arthur. I considered you--now consider me.”
+
+Quickly he stepped back. “Enter,” said he.
+
+It was some minutes later--I cannot say how many--that one of the
+servants disturbed us by asking if we knew anything about Zadok.
+
+“He has not come home,” said he, “and here is a man who wants him.”
+
+“What man?” asked Arthur.
+
+“Oh, that detective chap. He never will leave us alone.”
+
+I arose. In an instant enlightenment had come to me. “It’s nothing,”
+said I with my eyes on Carmel; but the gesture I furtively made Arthur,
+said otherwise.
+
+A few minutes later we were both in the driveway. “We are on the brink
+of a surprise,” I whispered. “I think I understand this Sweetwater now.”
+
+Arthur looked bewildered, but he took the lead in the interview which
+followed with the man who had made him so much trouble and was now
+doing his best to make us all amends.
+
+Zadok could not be found; he was wanted by the district attorney, who
+wished to put some questions to him. Were there any objections to his
+searching the stable-loft for indications of his whereabouts?
+
+Arthur made none; and the detective, after sending the Cumberlands’
+second man before him to light up the stable, disappeared beneath the
+great door, whither we more slowly followed him.
+
+“Not here!” came in a shout from above, as we stepped in from the night
+air; and in a few minutes the detective came running down the stairs,
+baffled and very ill at ease. Suddenly he encountered my eye. “Oh--I
+know!” he cried, and started for the gate.
+
+“I am going to follow him,” I confided to Arthur. “Look for me again
+to-night; or, at least, expect a message. If fortune favours us, as
+I now expect, we two shall sleep to-night as we have not slept for
+months.” And waiting for no answer, not even to see if he comprehended
+my meaning, I made a run for the gate, and soon came up with Sweetwater.
+
+“To the cemetery?” I asked.
+
+“Yes, to the cemetery.”
+
+And there we found him, in the same place where we had seen him before,
+but not in the same position. He was sunken now to the ground; but his
+face was pressed against the rails, and in his stiff, cold hand was
+clutched a letter which afterwards we read.
+
+Let it be read by you here. It will explain the mystery which came near
+destroying the lives of more than Adelaide.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+No more unhappy wretch than I goes to his account. I killed her who had
+shown me only goodness, and will be the death of others if I do not
+confess my dreadful, my unsuspected secret. This is how it happened. I
+cannot give reasons; I cannot even ask for pardon.
+
+That night, just as I was preparing to leave the stable to join the
+other servants on their ride to Tibbitt’s Hall, the telephone rang and
+I heard Miss Cumberland’s voice. “Zadok,” she said--and at first I
+could hardly understand her,--“I am in trouble; I want help, and you
+are the only one who can aid me. Answer; do you hear me and are you
+quite alone in the stable?” I told her yes, and that I was listening to
+all she said. I suspected her trouble, and was ready to stand by her,
+if a man like me could do anything.
+
+I had been with her many years, and I loved her as well as I could love
+anybody; though you won’t think it when I tell you my whole story. What
+she wanted was this: I was to go to the ball just as if nothing had
+happened, but I was not to stay there. As soon as I could, I was to
+slip out, get a carriage from some near-by stable, and hurry back up
+the road to meet her and take her where she would tell me; or, if I did
+not meet her, to wait two houses below hers, till she came along. She
+would not want me long, and very soon I could go back and have as good
+a time as I pleased. But she would like me to be secret, for her errand
+was not one for gossip, even among her own servants.
+
+It was the first time she had ever asked me to do anything for her
+which any one else might not have done, and I was proud of her
+confidence, and happy to do just what she asked. I even tried to do
+better, and be even more secret about it than she expected. Instead of
+going to a stable, I took one of the rigs which I found fastened up
+in the big shed alongside the hall; and being so fortunate as not to
+attract anybody’s attention by this business, I was out on the road and
+half way to The Whispering Pines, before Helen and Maggie could wonder
+why I had not asked them to dance.
+
+A few minutes later I was on the Hill, for the horse I had chosen was a
+fast one; and I was just turning into our street when I was passed by
+Mr. Arthur’s grey mare and cutter. This made me pull up for a minute,
+for I hadn’t expected this; but on looking ahead and seeing Miss
+Cumberland peering from our own gateway, I drove quickly on and took
+her up.
+
+I was not so much astonished as you would think, to be ordered to
+follow fast after the mare and cutter, and to stop where it stopped.
+That was all she wanted--to follow that cutter, and to stop where it
+stopped. Well, it stopped at the club-house; and when she saw it turn
+in there, I heard her give a little gasp.
+
+“Wait,” she whispered. “Wait till she has had time to get out and go
+in; then drive in, too, and help me to find my way into the building
+after her.”
+
+And then I knew it was Miss Carmel we had been following. Before, I
+thought it was Mr. Arthur.
+
+Presently, she pulled me by the sleeve. “I heard the door shut,” said
+she--and I was a little frightened at her voice, but I was full of my
+importance, and went on doing just as she bade me. Driving in after the
+cutter, I drew up into the shadows where the grey mare was hid, and
+then, reaching out my hand to Miss Cumberland, I helped her out, and
+went with her as far as the door. “You may go back now,” said she. “If
+I survive the night, I shall never forget this service, my good Zadok.”
+And I saw her lift her hand to the door, then fall back white and
+trembling in the moonlight. “I can’t,” she whispered, over and over; “I
+can’t--I can’t.”
+
+“Shall I knock?” I asked.
+
+“No, no,” she whispered back. “I want to go in quietly; let’s see if
+there’s no other way. Run about the house, Zadok; I will submit to
+any humiliation; only find me some entrance other than this.” She was
+shaking so and her face looked so ghastly in the moonlight that I was
+afraid to leave her; but she made me a gesture of such command that I
+ran quickly down the steps, and so round the house till I came to a
+shed over the top of which I saw a window partly open.
+
+Could I get her up on to the shed? I thought I could, and went hurrying
+back to the big entrance where I had left her. She was still there,
+shivering with the cold, but just as determined as ever. “Come,” I
+whispered; “I have found a way.”
+
+She gave me her hand and I led her around to the shed. She was like
+a snow woman and her touch was ice itself. “Wait till I get a box or
+board or something,” I said. Hunting about, I found a box leaning
+against the kitchen side, and, bringing it, I helped her up and soon
+had her on a level with the window.
+
+As she made her way in, she turned and whispered to me: “Go back now.
+Carmel has a horse, and will see me home. You have served me well,
+Zadok.”
+
+I nodded, and she vanished into the darkness. Then I should have gone;
+but my curiosity was too great. I wanted to know just a little more.
+Two women in this desolate and bitterly cold club-house! What did it
+mean?
+
+I could not restrain myself from following her in and listening, for a
+few minutes, to what they had to say. But I did not catch much of it;
+and when I heard other sounds from some place below, and recognised
+these sounds as a man’s heavy footsteps coming up the rear stairs, I
+got a fright at being where I should not be, and slipped into the first
+door I found, expecting this man to come out and join the ladies.
+
+But he did not; he just lingered for a moment in the hall I had left,
+then I heard him clamber out of the window and go. I now know that this
+was Mr. Arthur. But I did not know it then, and I was frightened for
+the horse I had run off with, and so got out of the building as quickly
+as I could.
+
+And all might yet have been well if I had not found, lying on the snow
+at the foot of the shed, a bottle of whiskey such as I had never drunk
+and did not know how to resist. Catching it up, I ran about the house
+to where I had left my rig. It was safe, and in my relief at finding
+it, I knocked off the head of the bottle and took a long drink.
+
+Then I drank again; then I sat down in the snow and drank again. In
+short, I nearly finished it; then I became confused; I looked at the
+piece of broken bottle in my hand, took a fancy to its shape, and
+breaking off a bit more, thrust it into one of my big pockets. Then I
+staggered up to the horse; but I did not untie him.
+
+Curiosity seized me again, and I thought I would take another look at
+the ladies--perhaps they might want me--perhaps--I was pretty well
+confused, but I went back and crawled once more into the window.
+
+This time the place was silent--not a sound, not a breath,--but I could
+see a faint glimmer of light. I followed this glimmer. Still there was
+no sound.
+
+I came to an open door. A couch was before me, heaped with cushions. A
+long ray of moonlight had shot in through a communicating door, and I
+could see everything by it. This was where the ladies had been when I
+listened before, but they were not here now.
+
+Weren’t they? Why did I tremble so, then, and stare and stare at those
+cushions? Why did I feel I must pull them away, as I presently did? I
+was mad with liquor and might easily have imagined what I there saw;
+but I did not think of this then. I believed what I saw instantly. Miss
+Cumberland was dead, and I had discovered the crime. She had killed
+herself--no, she had been killed!
+
+Should I yell out murder? No, no; I could be sorry without that. I
+would not yell--mistresses were plenty. I had liked her, but I need not
+yell. There was something else I could do.
+
+She had a ring on her finger--a ring that for months I had gloated
+over and watched, as I had never watched and gloated over any other
+beautiful thing in my life. I wanted it--I had always wanted it. It was
+before me, for the taking now--I should be a fool to leave it there for
+some other wretch to pilfer. I had loved her--I would love the ring.
+
+Reaching down, I took it. I drew it from her finger; I put it in my
+pocket; I--God in heaven! The eyes I had seen glassed in death were
+looking at me.
+
+She was not dead--she had been witness of the theft. Without a
+thought of what I was doing, my hands closed round her throat. It was
+drink--fright--terror at the look she gave me--which made me kill her;
+not my real self. My real self could have shrieked when, in another
+instant, I saw my work.
+
+But shrieking would not bring her back and it would quite ruin me. Miss
+Carmel was somewhere near. I heard her now at the telephone; in another
+minute she would come out and meet me. I dared not linger.
+
+Tossing back the pillows, I stumbled from the place. Why I was not
+heard by my young mistress, I do not know; her ears were deaf, just as
+my eyes were half-blind. In a half hour I was dancing with the maids,
+telling them of the pretty stranger with whom I had been sitting out an
+hour of fun in a quiet corner. They believed me, and not a particle of
+suspicion has any man ever had of me since.
+
+But others have had to suffer, and that has made hell of my nights.
+I restored the ring to my poor mistress; but even that brought harm
+to one I had no quarrel with. But he has escaped conviction; and if I
+thought Mr. Ranelagh would also escape, I might have courage to live
+out my miserable life, and seek to make amends in the way she would
+have me.
+
+But I fear for him; I fear for Miss Carmel. Never could I testify in
+another trial which threatened her peace of mind. I see that, instead
+of being the selfish stealer of her sister’s happiness, as I had
+thought, she is an angel from whom all future suffering should be kept.
+
+This is my way of sparing her. Perhaps it will help her sister to
+forgive me when we meet in the world to which I am now going.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10083 ***
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+      The Project Gutenberg Ebook of the House of the Whispering Pines, by Anna Katharine Green, by Anna Katharine Green—A Project Gutenberg eBook
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+<body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10083 ***</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h1 class="nobreak" id="THE_HOUSE_OF_THE_WHISPERING_PINES">THE HOUSE OF THE WHISPERING PINES</h1>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center p2">By ANNA KATHARINE GREEN</p>
+
+<p class="center">1910</p>
+
+<p class="center">Author of</p>
+
+<p class="center">“The Leavenworth Case,” “That Affair Next Door,” “One of My Sons,” etc.</p>
+
+
+<p class="poetry p2">
+“Mazes intricate,<br>
+Eccentric, interwov’d, yet regular<br>
+Then most, when most irregular they seem”.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Milton</i></p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<table class="autotable">
+<tr><td class="tdc"><a href="#BOOK_I">BOOK I</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdc">SMOKE</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#I">I.—THE HESITATING STEP</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#II">II.—IT WAS SHE—SHE INDEED!</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#III">III.—“OPEN!”</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#IV">IV.—THE ODD CANDLESTICK</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#V">V.—A SCRAP OF PAPER</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#VI">VI.—COMMENTS AND REFLECTIONS</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#VII">VII.—CLIFTON ACCEPTS MY CASE</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#VIII">VIII.—A CHANCE! I TAKE IT</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+<table class="autotable">
+<tr><td class="tdc"><a href="#BOOK_II">BOOK II</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdc">SWEETWATER TO THE FRONT</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#IX">IX.—“WE KNOW OF No SUCH LETTER”</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#X">X.—“I CAN HELP YOU”</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XI">XI.—IN THE COACH HOUSE</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XII">XII.—“LILA—LILA!”</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XIII">XIII.—“WHAT WE WANT IS HERE”</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XIV">XIV.—THE MOTIONLESS FIGURE</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XV">XV.—HELEN SURPRISES SWEETWATER</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XVI">XVI.—62 CUTHBERT ROAD</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XVII">XVII.—“MUST I TELL THESE THINGS?”</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XVIII">XVIII.—ON IT WAS WRITTEN—</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XIX">XIX.—“IT’S NOT WHAT YOU WILL FIND”</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+<table class="autotable">
+<tr><td class="tdc"><a href="#BOOK_III">BOOK III</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdc">HIDDEN SURPRISES</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XX">XX.—-“HE OR YOU! THERE IS NO THIRD”</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXI">XXI.—CARMEL AWAKES</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXII">XXII.—-“BREAK IN THE GLASS!”</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXIII">XXIII.—AT TEN INSTEAD OF TWELVE</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXIV">XXIV.—ALL THIS STOOD</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXV">XXV.—“I AM INNOCENT”</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXVI">XXVI.—THE SYLLABLE OF DOOM</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXVII">XXVII.—EXPECTANCY</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXVIII">XXVIII.—“WHERE Is MY BROTHER?”</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+<table class="autotable">
+<tr><td class="tdc"><a href="#BOOK_IV">BOOK IV</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdc">WHAT THE PINES WHISPERED</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXIX">XXIX.—“I REMEMBERED THE ROOM”</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXX">XXX.—“CHOOSE”</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXXI">XXXI.—“WERE HER HANDS CROSSED THEN?”</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXXII">XXXII.—AND I HAD SAID NOTHING!</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXXIII">XXXIII.—THE ARROW OF DEATH</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXXIV">XXXIV.—“STEADY!”</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXXV">XXXV.—“As IF IT WERE A MECCA”</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXXVI">XXXVI.—THE SURCHARGED MOMENT</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_I">BOOK ONE<br><span class="small">SMOKE</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="I">I<br><span class="small">THE HESITATING STEP</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">To have reared a towering scheme<br>
+Of happiness, and to behold it razed,<br>
+Were nothing: all men hope, and see their hopes<br>
+Frustrate, and grieve awhile, and hope anew;<br>
+But—</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>A Blot in the ’Scutcheon.</i></p>
+
+
+<p>The moon rode high; but ominous clouds were rushing towards it—clouds
+heavy with snow. I watched these clouds as I drove recklessly,
+desperately, over the winter roads. I had just missed the desire
+of my life, the one precious treasure which I coveted with my
+whole undisciplined heart, and not being what you call a man of
+self-restraint, I was chafed by my defeat far beyond the bounds I have
+usually set for myself.</p>
+
+<p>The moon—with the wild skurry of clouds hastening to blot it out of
+sight—seemed to mirror the chaos threatening my better impulses; and,
+idly keeping it in view, I rode on, hardly conscious of my course till
+the rapid recurrence of several well-known landmarks warned me that I
+had taken the longest route home, and that in another moment I should
+be skirting the grounds of The Whispering Pines, our country clubhouse.
+<i>I</i> had taken? Let me rather say, my horse; for he and I had traversed
+this road many times together, and he had no means of knowing that the
+season was over and the club-house closed. I did not think of it myself
+at the moment, and was recklessly questioning whether I should not
+drive in and end my disappointment in a wild carouse, when, the great
+stack of chimneys coming suddenly into view against the broad disk of
+the still unclouded moon, I perceived a thin trail of smoke soaring up
+from their midst and realised, with a shock, that there should be no
+such sign of life in a house I myself had closed, locked, and barred
+that very day.</p>
+
+<p>I was the president of the club and felt responsible. Pausing only long
+enough to make sure that I had yielded to no delusion, and that fire of
+some kind was burning on one of the club-house’s deserted hearths, I
+turned in at the lower gateway. For reasons which I need not now state,
+there were no bells attached to my cutter and consequently my approach
+was noiseless. I was careful that it should be so, also careful to stop
+short of the front door and leave my horse and sleigh in the black
+depths of the pine-grove pressing up to the walls on either side. I was
+sure that all was not as it should be inside these walls, but, as God
+lives, I had no idea what was amiss or how deeply my own destiny was
+involved in the step I was about to take.</p>
+
+<p>Our club-house stands, as it may be necessary to remind you, on a
+knoll thickly wooded with the ancient trees I have mentioned. These
+trees—all pines and of a growth unusual and of an aspect well-nigh
+hoary—extend only to the rear end of the house, where a wide stretch
+of gently undulating ground opens at once upon the eye, suggesting to
+all lovers of golf the admirable use to which it is put from early
+spring to latest fall. Now, links, as well as parterres and driveways,
+are lying under an even blanket of winter snow, and even the building,
+with its picturesque gables and rows of be-diamonded windows, is
+well-nigh indistinguishable in the shadows cast by the heavy pines,
+which soar above it and twist their limbs over its roof and about its
+forsaken corners, with a moan and a whisper always desolate to the
+sensitive ear, but from this night on, simply appalling.</p>
+
+<p>No other building stood within a half-mile in any direction. It was
+veritably a country club, gay and full of life in the season, but
+isolated and lonesome beyond description after winter had set in and
+buried flower and leaf under a wide waste of untrodden snow.</p>
+
+<p>I felt this isolation as I stepped from the edge of the trees and
+prepared to cross the few feet of open space leading to the main door.
+The sudden darkness instantly enveloping me, as the clouds, whose
+advancing mass I had been watching, made their final rush upon the
+moon, added its physical shock to this inner sense of desolation,
+and, in some moods, I should have paused and thought twice before
+attempting the door, behind which lurked the unknown with its naturally
+accompanying suggestion of peril. But rage and disappointment, working
+hotly within me, had left no space for fear. Rather rejoicing in the
+doubtfulness of the adventure, I pushed my way over the snow until my
+feet struck the steps. Here, instinct caused me to stop and glance
+quickly up and down the building either way. Not a gleam of light met
+my eye from the smallest scintillating pane. Was the house as soundless
+as it was dark?</p>
+
+<p>I listened but heard nothing. I listened again and still heard nothing.
+Then I proceeded boldly up the steps and laid my hand on the door.</p>
+
+<p>It was unlatched and yielded to my touch. Light or no light, sound
+or no sound there was some one within. The fire which had sent its
+attenuated streak of smoke up into the moonlit air, was burning yet on
+one of the many hearths within, and before it I should presently see—</p>
+
+<p>Whom?</p>
+
+<p>What?</p>
+
+<p>The question scarcely interested me.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless I proceeded to enter and close the door carefully behind
+me. As I did so, I cast an involuntary glance without. The sky was inky
+and a few wandering flakes of the now rapidly advancing storm came
+whirling in, biting my cheeks and stinging my forehead.</p>
+
+<p>Once inside, I stopped short, possibly to listen again, possibly to
+assure myself as to what I had best do next. The silence was profound.
+Not a sound disturbed the great, empty building. My own footfall, as
+I stirred, seemed to wake extraordinary echoes. I had moved but a few
+steps, yet to my heightened senses, the noise seemed loud enough to
+wake the dead. Instinctively I stopped and stood stock-still. There was
+no answering cessation of movement. Darkness, silence everywhere. Yet
+not quite absolute darkness. As my eyes grew accustomed to the place,
+I found it possible to discern the outlines of the windows and locate
+the stairs and the arches where the side halls opened. I was even able
+to pick out the exact spot where the great antlers spread themselves
+above the hatrack, and presently the rack itself came into view, with
+its row of empty pegs, yesterday so full, to-day quite empty. That rack
+interested me,—I hardly knew why,—and regardless of the noise I made,
+I crossed over to it and ran my hand along the wall underneath. The
+result was startling. A man’s coat and hat hung from one of the pegs.</p>
+
+<p>I knew my business as president of this club. I also knew that no one
+should be in the house at this time—that no one could be in it on any
+honest errand. Some secret and sinister business must be at the bottom
+of this mysterious intrusion immediately after the place had been
+shut for the winter. Would this hat and coat identify the intruder?
+I would strike a light and see. But this involved difficulties. The
+gas had been turned off that very morning and I had no matches in my
+pocket. But I remembered where they could be found. I had seen them
+when I passed through the kitchen earlier in the day. They were very
+accessible from the end of the hall where I stood. I had but to feel my
+way through a passage or two and I should come to the kitchen door.</p>
+
+<p>I began to move that way, and presently came creeping back, with a
+match-box half full of matches in my hand. But I did not strike one
+then. I had just made a move to do so, when the unmistakable sound of a
+door opening somewhere in the house made me draw back into as quiet and
+dark a place as I could find. This lay in the rear and at the right of
+the staircase, and as the sound had appeared to come from above, it was
+the most natural retreat that offered. And a good one I found it.</p>
+
+<p>I had hardly taken up my stand when the darkness above gave way to a
+faint glimmer, and a step became audible coming from some one of the
+many small rooms in the second story, but so slowly and with such
+evident hesitation that my imagination had ample time to work and fill
+my mind with varying anticipations, each more disconcerting than the
+last. Now I seemed to be listening to the movements of an intoxicated
+man seeking an issue out of strange quarters, then to the wary approach
+of one who had his own reasons for dread and was as conscious of my
+presence as I was of his.</p>
+
+<p>But the light, steadily increasing with each lagging but surely
+advancing step, soon gave the lie to this latter supposition, since no
+sane man, afraid of an ambush, would be likely to offer such odds to
+the one lying in wait for him, as his own face illumined by a flaming
+candle, and I was yielding to the bewilderment of the moment when the
+uncertain step paused and a sob came faintly to my ears, wrung from
+lips so stiff with human anguish that my fears took on new shape and
+the event a significance which in my present mood of personal suffering
+and preoccupation was anything but welcome. Indeed, I was coward
+enough to contemplate flight and might in another moment have yielded
+to the unworthy impulse if the sound of a second sigh had not struck
+shudderingly on my ear, followed by the renewal of the step and the
+almost immediate appearance on the stairs of a young girl holding a
+candle in one hand and shielding her left cheek with the other.</p>
+
+<p>Life offers few such shocks to any man, whatever his story or whatever
+his temperament. I had been prepared by the sob I had heard to see
+a woman, but not this woman. Nothing could have prepared me for an
+encounter with this woman anywhere that night, after what had passed
+between us and the wreck she had made of my life. But here! in a place
+so remote and desolate I had hesitated to enter it myself! What was I
+to think? How was I to reconcile so inconceivable a fact with what I
+knew of her in the past, with what I hoped from her in the future.</p>
+
+<p>To steady my thoughts and bring my whirling brain again under
+control, I fixed my eyes on her well-known form and features as upon
+a stranger’s whom I would understand and judge. I have called her a
+woman and certainly I had loved her as such, but as, in this moment
+of strange detachment, I watched her descend, swaying foot following
+swaying foot falteringly down the stairs, I was able to see that only
+the emotions which denaturalised her expression were a woman’s; that
+her features, her pose, and the peculiar childlike contour of the
+one cheek open to view were those of one whose yesterday was in the
+playroom.</p>
+
+<p>But beautiful! You do not often see such beauty. Under all the
+disfigurement of an agitation so great as to daunt me and make me
+question if I were its sole cause, her face shone with an individual
+charm which marked her out as one of the few who are the making or
+marring of men, sometimes of nations. This is the heritage she was
+born to, this her lot, not to be shirked, not to be evaded even now
+at her early age of seventeen. So much any one could see even in a
+momentary scrutiny of her face and figure. But what was not so clear,
+not even to myself with the consciousness of what had passed between
+us during the last few hours, was why her heart should have so outrun
+her years, and the emotion I beheld betray such shuddering depths. Some
+grisly fear, some staring horror had met her in this strange retreat.
+Simple grief speaks with a different language from that which I read in
+her distorted features and tottering, slowly creeping form. What had
+happened above? She had escaped me to run upon what? My lips refused
+to ask, my limbs refused to move, and if I breathed at all, I did so
+with such fierceness of restraint that her eyes never turned my way,
+not even when she had reached the lowest step and paused for a moment
+there, oscillating in pain or uncertainty. Her face was turned more
+fully towards me now, and I had just begun to discern something in it
+besides its tragic beauty, when she made a quick move and blew out
+the candle she held. One moment that magical picture of superhuman
+loveliness, then darkness, I might say silence, for I do not think
+either of us so much as stirred for several instants. Then there came
+a crash, followed by the sound of flying feet. She had flung the
+candlestick out of her hand and was hurriedly crossing the hall. I
+thought she was coming my way, and instinctively drew back against the
+wall. But she stopped far short of me, and I heard her groping about,
+then give a sudden spring towards the front door. It opened and the
+wind soughed in. I felt the chill of snow upon my face, and realised
+the tempest. Then all was quiet and dark again. She had slid quickly
+out and the door had swung to behind her. Another instant and I heard
+the click of the key as it turned in the lock, heard it and made no
+outcry, such the spell, such the bewilderment of my faculties! But
+once the act was accomplished and egress made difficult, nay, for the
+moment, impossible, I felt all lesser emotions give way to an anxiety
+which demanded immediate action, for the girl had gone out without
+wraps or covering for her head, and my experience of the evening had
+told me how cold it was. I must follow and find her and rescue her if
+possible from the snow. The distance was long to town, the cold would
+seize and perhaps prostrate her, after which, the wind and snow would
+do the rest.</p>
+
+<p>Throwing myself against the door, I shook it violently. It was
+immovable. Then I flew to the windows. Their fastenings yielded readily
+enough, but not the windows themselves; one had a broken cord, another
+seemed glued to its frame, and I was still struggling with the latter
+when I heard a sound which lifted the hair on my head and turned my
+whole attention back to what lay behind and above me. There was still
+some one in the house. I had forgotten everything in this apparition
+of the woman I have described in a place so disassociated with any
+conception I could possibly have of her whereabouts on this especial
+evening. But this noise, short, sharp, but too distant to be altogether
+recognisable, roused doubts which once awakened changed the whole tenor
+of my thoughts and would not let me rest till I had probed the house
+from top to bottom. To find Carmel Cumberland alone in this desolation
+was a mystifying discovery to which I had found it hard enough to
+reconcile myself. But Carmel here in company with another at the very
+moment when I had expected the fruition of my own joy,—ah, that was to
+open hell’s door in my breast; a possibility too intolerable to remain
+unsettled for an instant. Though she had passed out before my eyes
+in a drooping, almost agonised condition, not she, dear as she was,
+and great as were my fears in her regard, was to be sought out first,
+but the man! The man who was back of all this, possibly back of my
+disappointment; the man whose work I may have witnessed, but at whose
+identity I could not even guess.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the window, I groped my way along the wall until I reached the
+rack where the man’s coat and hat hung. Whether it was my intention to
+carry them away and hide them, in my anxiety to secure this intruder
+and hold him to a bitter account for the misery he was causing me, or
+whether I only meant to satisfy myself that they were the habiliments
+of a stranger and not those of some sneaking member of the club, is of
+little importance in the light of the fact which presently burst upon
+me. The hat and coat were gone. Nothing hung from the rack. The wall
+was free from end to end. She had taken these articles of male apparel
+with her; she had not gone forth into the driving snow, unprotected,
+but—</p>
+
+<p>I did not know what to think. No acquaintanceship with her girlish
+impulses, nothing that had occurred between us before or during this
+night, had prepared me for a freak of this nature. I felt backward
+along the wall; I felt forward; I even handled the pegs and counted
+them as I passed to and fro, touching every one; but I could not alter
+the fact. The groping she had done had been in this direction. She was
+searching for this hat and coat (a man’s hat,—a derby, as I had been
+careful to assure myself at the first handling) and, in them, she had
+gone home as she had probably come, and there was no man in the case,
+or if there were—</p>
+
+<p>The doubt drove me to the staircase. Making no further effort to
+unravel the puzzle which only beclouded my faculties, I began my wary
+ascent. I had not the slightest fear, I was too full of cold rage for
+that.</p>
+
+<p>The arrangement of rooms on the second floor was well known to me. I
+understood every nook and corner and could find my way about the whole
+place without a light. I took but one precaution—that of slipping off
+my shoes at the foot of the stairs. I wished to surprise the intruder.
+I was willing to resort to any expedient to accomplish this. The
+matches I carried in my pocket would make this possible if once I heard
+him breathing. I held my own breath as I stole softly up, and waited
+for an instant at the top of the stairs to listen. There was an awesome
+silence everywhere, and I was hesitating whether to attack the front
+rooms first or to follow up a certain narrow hall leading to a rear
+staircase, when I remembered the thin line of smoke which, rising from
+one of the chimneys, had first attracted my attention to the house. In
+that was my clue. There was but one room on this floor where a fire
+could be lit. It lay a few feet beyond me down the narrow hall I have
+just mentioned. Why had I trusted everything to my ears when my nose
+would have been a better guide? As I took the few steps necessary, a
+slight smell of smoke became very perceptible, and no longer in doubt
+of my course, I pushed boldly on and entering the half-open door,
+struck a match and peered anxiously about.</p>
+
+<p>Emptiness here just as everywhere else. A few chairs, a dresser,—it
+was a ladies’ dressing-room,—some smouldering ashes on the hearth, a
+lounge piled up with cushions. But no person. The sound I had heard
+had not issued from this room, yet something withheld me from seeking
+further. Chilled to the bone, with teeth chattering in spite of myself,
+I paused just inside the door, and when the match went out in my hand
+remained shivering there in the darkness, a prey to sensations more
+nearly approaching those of fear than any I had ever before experienced
+in my whole life.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="II">II<br><span class="small">IT WAS SHE—SHE INDEED!</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">Look on death itself!—up, up, and see<br>
+The great doom’s visage!</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Macbeth</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>Why, I did not know. There seemed to be no reason for this excess of
+feeling. I had no dread of attack; my apprehension was of another sort.
+Besides, any attack here must come from the rear—from the open doorway
+in which I stood—and my dread lay before me, in the room itself,
+which, as I have already said, appeared to be totally empty. What
+could occasion my doubts, and why did I not fly the place? There were
+passage-ways yet to search, why linger here like a gaby in the dark
+when perhaps the man I believed to be in hiding somewhere within these
+walls, was improving the opportunity to escape?</p>
+
+<p>If I asked myself this question, I did not answer it, but I doubt if
+I asked it then. I had forgotten the intruder; the interest which had
+carried me thus far had become lost in a fresher one of which the
+beginning and ending lay hidden within the four walls I now stared
+upon, unseeing. Not to see and yet to feel—did that make the horror?
+If so, another lighted match must help me out. I struck one while the
+thought was hot within me, and again took a look at the room.</p>
+
+<p>I noted but one thing new, but that made me reel back till I was half
+way into the hall. Then a certain dogged persistency I possess came to
+my rescue, and I re-entered the room at a leap and stood before the
+lounge and its pile of cushions. They were numerous,—all that the room
+contained, and more! Chairs had been stripped, window-seats denuded,
+and the whole collection disposed here in a set way which struck me as
+unnatural. Was this the janitor’s idea? I hardly thought so, and was
+about to pluck one of these cushions off, when that most unreasonable
+horror seized me again and I found myself looking back over my shoulder
+at the fireplace from which rose a fading streak of smoke which some
+passing gust, perhaps, had blown out into the room.</p>
+
+<p>I felt sick. Was it the smell? It was not that of burning wood, hardly
+of burning paper, I—but here my second match went out.</p>
+
+<p>Thoroughly roused now (you will say, by what?) I felt my way out of
+the room and to the head of the staircase. I remembered the candle
+and candlestick I had heard thrown down on the lower floor by Carmel
+Cumberland. I would secure them and come back and settle these uncanny
+doubts. It might be the veriest fool business, but my mind was
+disturbed and must be set at ease. Nothing else seemed so important,
+yet I was not without anxiety for the lovely and delicate woman
+wandering the snow-covered roads in the teeth of a furious gale, any
+more than I was dead to the fact that I should never forgive myself if
+I allowed the man to escape whom I believed to be hiding somewhere in
+the rear of this house.</p>
+
+<p>I had a hunt for the candlestick and a still longer one for the candle,
+but finally I recovered both, and, lighting the latter, felt myself,
+for the first time, more or less master of the situation.</p>
+
+<p>Rapidly regaining the room in which my interest was now centred, I set
+the candlestick down on the dresser, and approached the lounge. Hardly
+knowing what I feared, or what I expected to find, I tore off one of
+the cushions and flung it behind me. More cushions were revealed—but
+that was not all.</p>
+
+<p>Escaping from the edge of one of them I saw a shiny tress of woman’s
+hair. I gave a gasp and pulled off more cushions, then I fell on my
+knees, struck down by the greatest horror which a man can feel. Death
+lay before me—violent, uncalled-for death—and the victim was a woman.
+But it was not that. Though the head was not yet revealed, I thought I
+knew the woman and that she—Did seconds pass or many minutes before
+I lifted that last cushion? I shall never know. It was an eternity
+to me and I am not of a sentimental cast, but I have some sort of a
+conscience and during that interval it awoke. It has never quite slept
+since.</p>
+
+<p>The cushion had not concealed the hands, but I did not look at them—I
+did not dare. I must first see the face. But I did not twitch this
+pillow off; I drew it aside slowly, as though held by the restraining
+clutch of some one behind me. And I was so held, but not by what was
+visible—rather by the terrors which gather in the soul at the summons
+of some dreadful doom. I could not meet the certainty without some
+preparation. I released another strand of hair; then the side of a
+cheek, half buried out of sight in the loosened locks and bulging
+pillows; then, with prayers to God for mercy, an icy brow; two staring
+eyes—which having seen I let the cushion drop, for mercy was not to be
+mine.</p>
+
+<p>It was <i>she</i>, she, indeed! and judgment was glassed in the look I
+met—judgment and nothing more kindly, however I might appeal to Heaven
+for mercy or whatever the need of my fiercely startled and repentant
+soul.</p>
+
+<p>Dead! Adelaide! the woman I had planned to wrong that very night, and
+who had thus wronged me! For a moment I could take in nothing but
+this one astounding fact, then the how and the why woke in maddening
+curiosity within me, and seizing the cushion, I dragged it aside and
+stared down into the pitiful and accusing features thus revealed, as
+though to tear from them the story of the crime which had released
+me as I would not have been released, no, not to have had my heart’s
+desire in all the fulness with which I had contemplated it a few short
+hours before.</p>
+
+<p>But beyond the ever accusing, protuberant stare, those features told
+nothing; and steeling myself to the situation, I made what observation
+I could of her condition and the surrounding circumstances. For this
+was my betrothed wife. Whatever my intentions, however far my love had
+strayed under the spell cast over me by her sister,—the young girl who
+had just passed out,—Adelaide and I had been engaged for many months;
+our wedding day was even set.</p>
+
+<p>But that was all over now—ended as her life was ended: suddenly,
+incomprehensibly, and by no stroke of God. Even the jewel on her finger
+was gone, the token of our betrothal. This was to be expected. She
+would be apt to take it off before committing herself to a fate that
+proclaimed me a traitor to this symbol. I should see that ring again. I
+should find it in a letter filled with bitter words. I would not think
+of it or of them now. I would try to learn how she had committed this
+act, whether by poison or—</p>
+
+<p>It must have been by poison; no other means would suggest themselves
+to one of her refined sense; but if so, why those marks on her neck,
+growing darker and darker as I stared at them!</p>
+
+<p>My senses reeled as I scrutinised those marks. Small, delicate but
+deadly, they stared upon me from either side of her white neck till
+nature could endure no more and I tottered back against the further
+wall, beholding no longer room, nor lounge, nor recumbent body, but a
+young girl’s exquisite face, set in lines which belied her seventeen
+years, and made futile any attempt on my part at self-deception when my
+reason inexorably demanded an explanation of this death. As suicide it
+was comprehensible, as murder, not, unless—</p>
+
+<p>And it had been murder!</p>
+
+<p>I sank to the floor as I fully realised this.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="III">III<br><span class="small">“OPEN!”</span></h3></div>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>PRINCE.—Bring forth the parties of suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>FRIAR.—I am the greatest, as the time and place Doth make against me,
+of this direful murder; And here I stand, both to impeach and purge.
+Myself condemned and myself excused.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Romeo and Juliet</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>I have mentioned poison as my first thought. It was a natural one, the
+result undoubtedly of having noticed two small cordial glasses standing
+on a little table over against the fireplace. When I was conscious
+again of my own fears, I crossed to the table and peered into these
+glasses. They were both empty. However, they had not been so long. In
+each I found traces of anisette cordial, and though no bottle stood
+near I was very confident that it could readily be found somewhere in
+the room. What had preceded and followed the drinking of this cordial?</p>
+
+<p>As I raised my head from bending over these glasses—not club glasses,
+by the way—I caught sight of my face in the mantel mirror. It gave me
+maddening thoughts. In this same mirror there had been reflected but a
+little while before, two other faces, for a sight of whose expression
+at that fatal moment I would gladly risk my soul.</p>
+
+<p>How had <i>she</i> looked—how that other? Would not the story of those
+awful, those irrevocable moments be plain to my eye, if the quickly
+responsive glass could but retain the impressions it receives and give
+back at need what had once informed its surface with moving life!</p>
+
+<p>I stared at the senseless glass, appealed to it with unreasoning
+frenzy, as to something which could give up its secret if it
+would, but only to meet my own features in every guise of fury and
+despair—features I no longer knew—features which insensibly increased
+my horror till I tore myself wildly from the spot, and cast about for
+further clues to enlightenment, before yielding to the conviction which
+was making a turmoil in mind, heart, and conscience. Alas! there was
+but little more to see. A pair of curling-irons lay on the hearth,
+but I had no sooner lifted them than I dropped them with a shudder of
+unspeakable loathing, only to start at the noise they made in striking
+the tiles. For it was the self-same noise I had heard when listening
+from below. These tongs, set up against the side of the fireplace had
+been jarred down by the forcible shutting of the large front door, and
+no man other than myself was in the house, or had been in the house;
+only the two women. But the time when this discovery would have brought
+comfort was passed. Better a hundred times that a man—I had almost
+said any man—should have been with them here, than that they should
+be closeted together in a spot so secluded, with rancour and cause for
+complaint in one heart, and a biting, deadly flame in the other, which
+once reaching up must from its very nature leave behind it a corrosive
+impress. I saw,-I felt,—but I did not desist from my investigations. A
+stick or two still smouldered on the hearthstone. In the ashes lay some
+scattered fragments of paper which crumbled at my touch. On the floor
+in front I espied only a stray hair-pin; everything else was in place
+throughout the room except the cushions and that horror on the lounge,
+waiting the second look I had so far refrained from giving it.</p>
+
+<p>That look I could no longer withhold. I must know the depth of the
+gulf over which I hung. I must not wrong with a thought one who had
+smiled upon me like an angel of light—a young girl, too, with the dew
+of innocence on her beauty to every eye but mine and only not to mine
+within—shall I say ten awful minutes? It seemed ages,—all of my life
+and more. Yet that lovely breast had heaved not so many times since I
+looked upon her as a deified mortal, and now two small spots on another
+woman’s pulseless throat had drawn a veil of blood over that beauty,
+and given to a child the attributes of a Medusa. Yet hope was not quite
+stilled. I would look again and perhaps discover that my own eyes had
+been at fault, that there were no marks, or if marks, not just the ones
+my fancy had painted there.</p>
+
+<p>Turning, I let my glance fall first on the feet. I had not noted them
+before, and I was startled to see that the arctics in which they
+were clad were filled all around with snow. She had walked then, as
+the other was walking now; she, who detested every effort and was of
+such delicate make that exertion of unusual kind could not readily be
+associated with her. Had she come alone or in Carmel’s company, and if
+in Carmel’s company, on what ostensible errand if not that of death?
+Her dress, which was of dark wool, showed that she had changed her
+garments for this trip. I had seen her at dinner, and this was not the
+gown she had worn then—the gown in which she had confronted me during
+those few intolerable minutes when I could not meet her eyes. Fatal
+cowardice! A moment of realisation then and we might all have been
+saved this horror of sin and death and shameful retribution.</p>
+
+<p>And yet who knows? Not understanding what I saw, how could I measure
+the might-have-beens! I would proceed with my task—note if she wore
+the diamond brooch I had given her. No, she was without ornament; I had
+never seen her so plainly clad. Might I draw a hope from this? Even
+the pins which had fallen from her hair were such as she wore when
+least adorned. Nothing spoke of the dinner party or of her having been
+dragged here unaware; but all of previous intent and premeditation.
+Surely hope was getting uppermost. If I had dreamed the marks—</p>
+
+<p>But no! There they were, unmistakable and damning, just where the
+breath struggles up. I put my own thumbs on these two dark spots to
+see if—when what was it? A lightning stroke or a call of fate which
+one must answer while sense remains? I felt my head pulled around by
+some unseen force from behind, and met staring into mine through the
+glass of the window a pair of burning eyes. Or was it fantasy? For in
+another moment they were gone, nor was I in the condition just then to
+dissociate the real from the unreal. But the possibility of a person
+having seen me in this position before the dead was enough to startle
+me to my feet, and though in another instant I became convinced that
+I had been the victim of hallucination, I nevertheless made haste to
+cross to the window and take a look through its dismal panes. A gale of
+blinding snow was sweeping past, making all things indistinguishable,
+but the absence of balcony outside was reassuring and I stepped hastily
+back, asking myself for the first time what I should do and where I
+should now go to ensure myself from being called as a witness to the
+awful occurrence which had just taken place in this house. Should I go
+home and by some sort of subterfuge now unthought of, try to deceive
+my servants as to the time of my return, or attempt to create an alibi
+elsewhere? Something I must do to save myself the anguish and Carmel
+the danger of my testimony in this matter. She must never know, the
+world must never know that I had seen her here.</p>
+
+<p>I had lost at a blow everything that gives zest or meaning to life, but
+I might still be spared the bottommost depth of misery—be saved the
+utterance of the word which would sink that erring but delicate soul
+into the hell yawning beneath her. It was my one thought now—though
+I knew that the woman who had fallen victim to her childish hate had
+loved me deeply and was well worth my avenging.</p>
+
+<p>I could not be the death of two women; the loss of one weighed heavily
+enough upon my conscience. I would fly the place—I would leave this
+ghastly find to tell its own story. The night was stormy, the hour
+late, the spot a remote one, and the road to it but little used. I
+could easily escape and when the morrow came—but it was the present I
+must think of now, this hour, this moment. How came I to stay so long!
+In feverish haste, I began to throw the pillows back over the quiet
+limbs, the accusing face. Shudderingly I hid those eyes (I understood
+their strange protuberance now) and recklessly bent on flight, was half
+way across the floor when my feet were stayed—I wonder that my reason
+was not unseated—by a sudden and tremendous attack on the great door
+below, mingled with loud cries to open which ran thundering through the
+house, calling up innumerable echoes from its dead and hidden corners.</p>
+
+<p>It was the police. The wild night, the biting storm had been of no
+avail. An alarm had reached headquarters, and all hope of escape on
+my part was at an end. Yet because at such crises instinct rises
+superior to reason, I blew out the candle and softly made my way into
+the hall. I had remembered a window opening over a shed at the head of
+the kitchen staircase. I could reach it from this rear hall by just
+a turn or two, and once on that shed, a short leap would land me on
+the ground; after which I could easily trust to the storm to conceal
+my flight across the open golf-links. It was worth trying at least;
+anything was better than being found in the house with my murdered
+betrothed.</p>
+
+<p>I had no reason to think that I was being sought, or that my presence
+in this building was even suspected. It might well be that the police
+were even ignorant of the tragedy awaiting them across the threshold
+of the door they seemed intent on battering down. The gleam of a
+candle burning in this closed-up house, or even the tale told by the
+rising smoke, may have drawn them from the road to investigate. Such
+coincidences had been. Such untoward happenings had misled people into
+useless self-betrayal. My case was too desperate for such weakness.
+Flight at this moment might save all; I would at least attempt it. The
+door was shaking on its hinges; these intruders seemed determined to
+enter.</p>
+
+<p>With a spring I reached the window by which I hoped to escape, and
+quickly raised it. A torrent of snow swept in, covering my face and
+breast in a moment. It did something more: it cleared my brain, and I
+remembered my poor horse standing in this blinding gale under cover
+of the snow-packed pines. Every one knew my horse. I could commit no
+greater folly than to flee by the rear fields while such a witness to
+my presence remained in full view in front. With the sensation of a
+trapped animal, I reclosed the window and cast about for a safe corner
+where I could lie concealed until I learned what had brought these men
+here and how much I really had to fear from their presence.</p>
+
+<p>I had but little time in which to choose. The door below had just given
+way and a party of at least three men were already stamping their feet
+free from snow in the hall. I did not like the tone of their voices,
+it was too low and steady to suit me. I had rather have heard drunken
+cries or a burst of wild hilarity than these stern and purposeful
+whispers. Men of resolution could have but one errand here. My doom
+was closing round me. I could only put off the fatal moment. But it
+was better to do this than to plunge headlong into the unknown fate
+awaiting me.</p>
+
+<p>I knew of a possible place of concealment. It was in the ballroom
+not far from where I stood. I remembered the spot well. It was at
+the top of a little staircase leading to the musicians’ gallery. A
+balustrade guarded this gallery, supported by a boarding wide enough
+to hide a man lying behind it at his full length. If the search I was
+endeavouring to evade was not minute enough to lead them to look behind
+this boarding, it would offer me the double advantage of concealment
+and an unobstructed view of what went on in the hall, through the main
+doorway opening directly opposite. I could reach this ballroom and
+its terminal gallery without going around to this door. A smaller one
+communicated directly with the corridor in which I was then lurking,
+and towards this I now made my way with all the precaution suggested by
+my desperate situation. No man ever moved more lightly. The shoes which
+I had taken off in the lower hall were yet in my hand. I had caught
+them up after replacing the cushions on Adelaide’s body. Even to my own
+straining ears I made no perceptible sound. I reached the balcony and
+had stretched myself out at full length behind the boarding, before the
+men below had left the lower floor.</p>
+
+<p>An interval of heart-torture and wearing suspense now followed. They
+were ransacking the rooms below by the aid of their own lanterns, as I
+could tell from their assured manner. That they had not made at once
+for the scene of crime brought me some small sense of comfort, but not
+much. They were too resolute in their movements and much too thorough
+and methodical in their search, for me to dream of their confining
+their investigations to the first floor. Unless I very much mistook
+their purpose, I should soon hear them ascending the stairs, after
+which, instinct, if not the faint smell of smoke still lingering in the
+air, would lead them to the room where my poor Adelaide lay.</p>
+
+<p>And thus it proved. More quickly than I expected, the total darkness
+in which I lay, brightened under an advancing lantern, and I heard the
+steps of two men coming down the hall. It was a steady if not rapid
+approach, and I was quite prepared for their presence when they finally
+reached the doorway opposite and stopped to look in at what must have
+appeared to them a vast and empty space. They were officials, true
+enough—one hasty glance through the balustrade assured me of that. I
+even knew one of them by name—he was a sergeant of police and a highly
+trustworthy man. But how they had been drawn to this place at a moment
+so critical, I could not surmise. Do men of this stamp scent crime
+as a hound scents out prey? They had the look of hounds. Even in the
+momentary glimpse I got of them, I noted the tense and expectant look
+with which they endeavoured to pierce the dim spaces between us. The
+chase was on. It was something more than curiosity or a chance exercise
+of their duty which had brought them here. Their object was definite,
+and if the sight of the low gallery in which I lay, should suggest to
+them all its possibilities as a hiding-place, I should know in just one
+moment more what it is for the helpless quarry to feel the clutch of
+the captor.</p>
+
+<p>But the moment passed without any attempt at approach on their part,
+and when I lifted my head again it was to catch a glimpse of their side
+faces as they turned to look elsewhere for what they were plainly in
+search of. An oath, muffled but stern, which was the first word above
+a whisper that I had heard issue from their lips, told me that they
+had reached <i>the</i> room and had come upon the horror which lay there.
+What would they say to it! Would they know who she was—her name,
+her quality, her story—and respect her dead as they certainly must
+have respected her living? I listened but caught only a low murmur
+as they conferred together. I imagined their movements; saw them in
+my mind’s eye leaning over that death-tenanted couch, pointing with
+accusing finger at those two dark marks, and consulting each other with
+side-long looks, as they passed from one detail of her appearance to
+another. I even imagined them crossing the floor and lifting the two
+cordial glasses just as I had done, and then slowly setting them down
+again, with perhaps a lift of the brows or a suggestive shake of the
+head; and maddened by my own intolerable position, drawn by a power I
+felt it impossible to resist, I crept to my feet and took my staggering
+way down the half-dozen steps of the gallery and thence along by the
+left-hand wall towards the further doorway, and through it to where
+these men stood weighing the chances in which my life and honour were
+involved, and those of one other of whom I dared not think and would
+not have these men think for all that was left me of hope and happiness.</p>
+
+<p>It was dark in the ballroom, and it was only a little less so in the
+corridor. All the light was in <i>that</i> room; but I still slid along the
+wall like a thief, with eyes set and ears agape for any chance word
+which might reach me. Suddenly I heard one. It was this, uttered with a
+decision which had the strange effect of lifting my head and making a
+man of me again:</p>
+
+<p>“That settles it. He will find it hard to escape after this.”</p>
+
+<p><i>He!</i> I had been dreading to hear a <i>she</i>. Yet why? Who on God’s earth,
+save myself, could know that Carmel had been within these woeful walls
+to-night. <i>He!</i> I never stopped to question who was meant by this
+definite pronoun. I was not even conscious of caring very much. I was
+in a coil of threatening troubles, but I was in it alone, and, greatly
+relieved by the discovery, I drew myself up and stepped quickly forward
+into the room where the two officials stood.</p>
+
+<p>Their faces, as they wheeled sharply about and took in my shoeless
+and more or less dishevelled figure, told me with an eloquence which
+made my heart sink, the unfortunate impression which my presence made
+upon them. It was but a fleeting look, for these men were both by
+nature and training easy masters of themselves; but its language was
+unmistakable and I knew that if I were to hold my own with them, I must
+get all the support I could from the truth, save where it would involve
+her—from the truth and my own consciousness of innocence, if I had any
+such consciousness. I was not sure that I had, for my falseness had
+precipitated this tragedy,—how I might never know, but a knowledge
+of the how was not necessary to my self-condemnation. Nevertheless my
+hands were clean of this murder, and allowing the surety of this fact
+to take a foremost place in my mind, I faced these men and with real
+feeling, but as little display of it as possible, I observed:</p>
+
+<p>“You have come to my aid in a critical moment. This is my betrothed
+wife—the woman I was to marry—and I find her lying here dead, in this
+closed and lonely house. What does it mean? I know no more than you do.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="IV">IV<br><span class="small">THE ODD CANDLESTICK</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">It is a damned and a bloody work;<br>
+The graceless action of a heavy hand,<br>
+If that it be the work of any hand.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>King John</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>The two men eyed me quietly, then Hexford pointed to my shoeless feet
+and sternly retorted:</p>
+
+<p>“Permit us to doubt your last assertion. You seem to be in better
+position than ourselves to explain the circumstances which puzzle you.”</p>
+
+<p>They were right. It was for me to talk, not for them. I conceded the
+point in these words:</p>
+
+<p>“Perhaps—but you cannot always trust appearances. I can explain my
+own presence here and the condition in which you find me, but I cannot
+explain this tragedy, near and dear as Miss Cumberland was to me. I
+did not know she was in the building, alive or dead. I came upon her
+here covered with the cushions just as you found her. I have felt the
+shock. I do not look like myself—I do not feel like myself; it was
+enough—” Here real emotion seized me and I almost broke down. I was in
+a position much more dreadful than any they could imagine or should be
+allowed to.</p>
+
+<p>Their silence led me to examine their faces. Hexford’s mouth had
+settled into a stiff, straight line and the other man’s wore a cynical
+smile I did not like. At this presage of the difficulties awaiting me,
+I felt one strand of the rope sustaining me above this yawning gulf
+of shame and ignominy crack and give way. Oh, for a better record in
+the past!—a staff on which to lean in such an hour as this! But while
+nothing serious clouded my name, I had more to blush for than to pride
+myself upon in my career as prince of good fellows,—and these men knew
+it, both of them, and let it weigh in the scale already tipped far off
+its balance by coincidences which a better man than myself would have
+found it embarrassing to explain. I recognised all this, I say, in the
+momentary glance I cast at their stern and unresponsive figures; but
+the courage which had served me in lesser extremities did not fail me
+now, and, kneeling down before my dead betrothed, I kissed her cold
+white hand with sincere compunction, before attempting the garbled and
+probably totally incoherent story with which I endeavoured to explain
+the inexplainable situation.</p>
+
+<p>They listened—I will do them that much justice; but it was with such
+an air of incredulity that my words fell with less and less continuity
+and finally lost themselves in a confused stammer as I reached the
+point where I pulled the cushions from the couch and made my ghastly
+discovery.</p>
+
+<p>“You see—see for yourselves—what confronted me. My betrothed—a
+dainty, delicate woman—dead—alone—in this solitary, far-away
+spot—the victim of what? I asked myself then—I ask myself now. I
+cannot understand it—or those glasses yonder—or <i>those marks!”</i> They
+were black by this time—unmistakable—not to be ignored by them or by
+me.</p>
+
+<p>“We understand those marks, and you ought to,” came from the second
+man, the one I did not know.</p>
+
+<p>My head fell forward; my lips refused to speak the words. I saw as in
+a flash, a picture of the one woman bending over the other; terror,
+reproach, anguish in the eyes whose fixed stare would never more
+leave my consciousness, an access of rage or some such sadden passion
+animating the other whose every curve spoke tenderness, whose every
+look up to this awful day had been as an angel’s look to me. The vision
+was a maddening one. I shook myself free from it by starting to my
+feet. “It’s—it’s—” I gasped.</p>
+
+<p>“She has been strangled,” quoth Hexford, doggedly.</p>
+
+<p>“A dog’s death,” mumbled the other.</p>
+
+<p>My hands came together involuntarily. At that instant, with the memory
+before me of the vision I have just described, I almost wished that it
+had been <i>my</i> hate, <i>my</i> anger which had brought those tell-tale marks
+out upon that livid skin. I should have suffered less. I should only
+have had to pay the penalty of my crime and not be forced to think
+of Carmel with terrible revulsion, as I was now thinking, minute by
+minute, fight with it as I would.</p>
+
+<p>“You had better sit down,” Hexford suddenly suggested, pushing a chair
+my way. “Clarke, look up the telephone and ask for three more men. I am
+going into this matter thoroughly. Perhaps you will tell us where the
+telephone is,” he asked, turning my way.</p>
+
+<p>It was some little time before I took in these words. When I did,
+I became conscious of his keen look, also of a change in my own
+expression. I had forgotten the telephone. It had not yet been taken
+out. If only I had remembered this before these men came—I might have
+saved—No, nothing could have saved her or me, except the snow, except
+the snow. That may already have saved her. All this time I was trying
+to tell where the telephone was.</p>
+
+<p>That I succeeded at last I judged from the fact that the second man
+left the room. As he did so, Hexford lit the candle. Idly watching,
+for nothing now could make me look at the lounge again, I noticed the
+candlestick. It was of brass and rare in style and workmanship—a
+candlestick to be remembered; one of a pair perhaps. I felt my hair
+stir as I took in the details of its shape and ornamentation. If its
+mate were in her house—No, no, no! I would not have it so. I could
+not control my emotion if I let my imagination stray too far. The
+candlestick must be the property of the club. I had only forgotten. It
+was bought when? While thinking, planning, I was conscious of Hexford’s
+eyes fixed steadily upon me.</p>
+
+<p>“Did you go into the kitchen in your wanderings below?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>“No,” I began, but seeing that I had made a mistake, I bungled and
+added weakly: “Yes; after matches.”</p>
+
+<p>“Only matches?”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s all.”</p>
+
+<p>“And did you get them?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“In the dark? You must have had trouble in finding them?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not at all. Only safety matches are allowed here, and they are put in
+a receptacle at the side of each door. I had but to open the kitchen
+door, feel along the jamb, find this receptacle, and pull the box out.
+I’m well used to all parts of the house.”</p>
+
+<p>“And you did this?”</p>
+
+<p>“I have said so.”</p>
+
+<p>“May I ask which door you allude to?”</p>
+
+<p>“The one communicating with the front hall.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where did you light your first match?”</p>
+
+<p>“Upstairs.”</p>
+
+<p>“Not in the kitchen?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“You are sure?”</p>
+
+<p>“Quite sure.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s a pity. I thought you might be able to tell me how so many wine
+and whiskey bottles came to be standing on the kitchen table.”</p>
+
+<p>I stared at him, dazed. Then I remembered the two small glasses on
+the little table across the room, and instinctively glanced at them.
+But no whiskey had been drunk out of them—the odor of anisette is
+unmistakable.</p>
+
+<p>“You carry the key to the wine-cellar?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>I considered a moment. I did not know what to make of bottles on the
+kitchen table. These women and <i>bottles</i>! They abhorred wine; they
+had reason to, God knows; T remembered the dinner and all that had
+signalised it, and felt my confusion grow. But a question had been
+asked, and I must answer it. It would not do for me to hesitate about a
+matter of this kind. Only what was the question. Something about a key.
+I had no key; the cellar had been ransacked without my help; should I
+acknowledge this?</p>
+
+<p>“The keys were given up by the janitor yesterday,” I managed to stammer
+at last. “But I did not bring them here to-night. They are in my rooms
+at home.”</p>
+
+<p>I finished with a gasp. I had suddenly remembered that these keys were
+not in my rooms. I had had them with me at Miss Cumberland’s and being
+given to fooling with something when embarrassed, I had fooled with
+them and dropped them while talking with Adelaide and watching Carmel.
+I had meant to pick them up but I forgot and—</p>
+
+<p>“You need say nothing more about it,” remarked Hexford. “I have no
+right to question you at all.” And stepping across the room, he took
+up the glasses one after the other and smelled of them. “Some sweet
+stuff,” he remarked. “Cordial, I should say anisette. There wasn’t
+anything like that on the kitchen table. Let us see what there is in
+here,” he added, stepping into the adjoining small room into which I
+had simply peered in my own investigation of the place.</p>
+
+<p>As he did so, a keen blast blew in; a window in the adjoining room was
+open. He cast me a hurried glance and with the door in his hand, made
+the following remark:</p>
+
+<p>“Your lady love—the victim here—could not have come through the snow
+with no more clothing on her than we see now. She must have worn a hat
+and coat or furs or something of that nature. Let us look for them.”</p>
+
+<p>I rose, stumbling. I saw that he did not mean to leave me alone for a
+moment. Indeed, I did not wish to be so left. Better any companionship
+than that of my own thoughts and of her white upturned face. As I
+followed him into this closet he pushed the door wide, pulling out an
+electric torch as he did so. By its light we saw almost at first glance
+the coat and hat he professed to seek, lying in a corner of the floor,
+beside an overturned chair.</p>
+
+<p>“Good!” left my companion’s lips. “That’s all straight. You recognise
+these garments?”</p>
+
+<p>I nodded, speechless. A thousand memories rushed upon me at the sight
+of the long plush coat which I had so often buttoned about her, with
+a troubled heart. How her eyes would seek mine as we stood thus close
+together, searching, searching for the old love or the fancied love of
+which the ashes only remained. Torment, all torment to remember now, as
+Hexford must have seen, if the keenness of his intelligence equalled
+that of his eye at this moment.</p>
+
+<p>The window which stood open was a small one,-a mere slit in the wall;
+but it let in a stream of zero air and I saw Hexford shiver as he
+stepped towards it and looked out. But I felt hot rather than cold, and
+when I instinctively put my hand to my forehead, it came away wet.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="V">V<br><span class="small">A SCRAP OF PAPER</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">Look to the lady:—<br>
+And when we have our naked frailties hid,<br>
+That suffer in exposure, let us meet,<br>
+And question this most bloody piece of work,<br>
+To know it further. Fears and scruples shake us;<br>
+In the great hand of God I stand; and, thence,<br>
+Against the undivulg’d pretence I fight<br>
+Of treasonous malice.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Macbeth</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>Shortly after this, a fresh relay of police arrived and I could hear
+the whole house being ransacked. I had found my shoes, and was sitting
+in my own private room before a fire which had been lighted for me on
+the hearth. I was in a state of stupor now, and if my body shook, as
+it did from time to time, it was not from cold, nor do I think from
+any special horror of mind or soul (I felt too dull for that), but in
+response to the shuddering pines which pressed up close to the house
+at this point and soughed and tapped at the walls and muttered among
+themselves with an insistence which I could not ignore, notwithstanding
+my many reasons for self-absorption.</p>
+
+<p>The storm, which had been exceedingly fierce while it lasted, had
+quieted down to a steady fall of snow. Had its mission been to serve as
+a blanket to this crime by wiping out from the old snow all tell-tale
+footsteps and such other records as simplify cases of this kind for the
+detectives, it could not have happened more <i>apropos</i> to the event.
+From the complaints which had already reached my ears from the two
+policemen, I was quite aware that even as early as their first arrival,
+they had found a clean page where possibly a few minutes before the
+whole secret of this tragedy may have been written in unmistakable
+characters; and while this tilled me with relief in one way, it added
+to my care in another, for the storm which could accomplish so much in
+so short a time was a bitter one for a young girl to meet, and Carmel
+must have met it at its worst, in her lonesome struggle homeward.</p>
+
+<p>Where was she? Living or dead, where was she now and where was
+Adelaide—the two women who for the last six weeks had filled my life
+with so many unhallowed and conflicting emotions? The conjecture
+passed incessantly through my brain, but it passed idly also and was
+not answered even in thought. Indeed, I seemed incapable of sustaining
+any line of thought for more than an instant, and when after an
+indefinite length of time the door behind me opened, the look I turned
+upon the gentleman who entered must have been a strange and far from
+encouraging one.</p>
+
+<p>He brought a lantern with him. So far the room had had no other
+illumination than such as came from the fire, and when he had set this
+lantern down on the mantel and turned to face me, I perceived, with
+a sort of sluggish hope, that he was Dr. Perry, once a practising
+physician and my father’s intimate friend, now a county official of no
+ordinary intelligence and, what was better, of no ordinary feeling.</p>
+
+<p>His attachment to my father had not descended to me and, for the
+moment, he treated me like a stranger.</p>
+
+<p>“I am the coroner of this district,” said he. “I have left my bed
+to have a few words with you and learn if your detention here is
+warranted. You are the president of this club, and the lady whose
+violent death in this place I have been called upon to investigate, is
+Miss Cumberland, your affianced wife?”</p>
+
+<p>My assent, though hardly audible, was not to be misunderstood. Drawing
+up a chair, he sat down and something in his manner which was not
+wholly without sympathy, heartened me still more, dispelling some of
+the cloudiness which had hitherto befogged my faculties.</p>
+
+<p>“They have told me what you had to say in explanation of your presence
+here where a crime of some nature has taken place. But I should
+like to hear the story from your own lips. I feel that I owe you
+this consideration. At all events, I am disposed to show it. This
+is no common case of violence and the parties to it are not of the
+common order. Miss Cumberland’s virtue and social standing no one
+can question, while you are the son of a man who has deservedly been
+regarded as an honour to the town. You have been intending to marry
+Miss Cumberland?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.” I looked the man directly in the eye. “Our wedding-day was set.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you love her? Pardon me; if I am to be of any benefit to you at
+this crisis I must strike at the root of things. If you do not wish to
+answer, say so, Mr. Ranelagh.”</p>
+
+<p>“I do wish.” This was a lie, but what was I to do, knowing how
+dangerous it would be for Carmel to have it publicly known where
+my affections were really centred and what a secret tragedy of
+heart-struggle and jealous passion underlay this open one of foul and
+murderous death. “I am in no position to conceal anything from you. I
+did love Miss Cumberland. We have been engaged for a year. She was a
+woman of fortune but I am not without means of my own and could have
+chosen a penniless girl and still been called prosperous.”</p>
+
+<p>“I see, and she returned your love?”</p>
+
+<p>“Sincerely.” Was the room light enough to reveal my guilty flush? She
+had loved me only too well, too jealously, too absorbingly for her
+happiness or mine.</p>
+
+<p>“And the sister?”</p>
+
+<p>It was gently but gravely put, and instantly I knew that our secret was
+out, however safe we had considered it. This man was cognisant of it,
+and if he, why not others! Why not the whole town! A danger which up to
+this moment I had heard whispered only by the pines, was opening in a
+gulf beneath our feet. Its imminence steadied me. I had kept my glance
+on Coroner Perry, and I do not think it changed. My tone, I am quite
+assured, was almost as quiet and grave as his as I made my reply in
+these words:</p>
+
+<p>“Her sister is her sister. I hardly think that either of us would be apt
+to forget that. Have you heard otherwise, sir?”</p>
+
+<p>He was prepared for equivocation, possibly for denial, but not for
+attack. His manner changed and showed distrust and I saw that I had lost
+rather than made by this venturous move.</p>
+
+<p>“Is this your writing?” he suddenly asked, showing me a morsel of paper
+which he had drawn from his vest pocket.</p>
+
+<p>I looked, and felt that I now understood what the pines had been trying
+to tell me for the last few hours. That compromising scrap of writing
+had not been destroyed. It existed for her and my undoing! Then doubt
+came. Fate could not juggle thus with human souls and purposes. I had
+simply imagined myself to have recognised the words lengthening and
+losing themselves in a blur before my eyes. Carmel was no fool even
+if she had wild and demoniacal moments. This could not be my note to
+her,—that fatal note which would make all denial of our mutual passion
+unavailing.</p>
+
+<p>“Is it your writing?” my watchful inquisitor repeated.</p>
+
+<p>I looked again. The scrap was smaller than my note had been when it
+left my hands. If it were the same, then some of the words were gone.
+Were they the first ones or the last? It would make a difference in the
+reading, or rather, in the conclusions to be drawn from what remained.
+If only the mist would clear from before my eyes, or he would hold the
+slip of paper nearer! The room was very dark. The—the—</p>
+
+<p>“Is it your writing?” Coroner Perry asked for the third time.</p>
+
+<p>There was no denying it. My writing was peculiar and quite
+unmistakable. I should gain nothing by saying no.</p>
+
+<p>“It looks like it,” I admitted reluctantly. “But I cannot be sure in
+this light. May I ask what this bit of paper is and where you found it?”</p>
+
+<p>“Its contents I think you know. As for the last question I think you
+can answer that also if you will.”</p>
+
+<p>Saying which, he quietly replaced the scrap of paper in his pocket-book.</p>
+
+<p>I followed the action with my eyes. I caught a fresh glimpse of a
+darkened edge, and realised the cause of the faint odour which I had
+hitherto experienced without being conscious of it. The scrap had been
+plucked out of the chimney. She had tried to burn it. I remembered the
+fire and the smouldering bits of paper which crumbled at my touch. And
+this one, this, the most important—the only important one of them all,
+had flown, half-scorched, up the chimney and clung there within easy
+reach.</p>
+
+<p>The whole incident was plain to me, and I could even fix upon the
+moment when Hexford or Clarke discovered this invaluable bit of
+evidence. It was just before I burst in upon them from the ballroom,
+and it was the undoubted occasion of the remark I then overheard:</p>
+
+<p>“<i>This settles it. He cannot escape us now</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>During the momentary silence which now ensued, I tried to remember the
+exact words which had composed this note. They were few—-sparks from
+my very heart—I ought to be able to recollect them.</p>
+
+<p>“To-night—10:30 train—we will be married at P——. Come, come, my
+darling, my life. She will forgive when all is done. Hesitation will
+only undo us. To-night at 10 30. Do not fail me. I shall never marry
+any one but you.”</p>
+
+<p>Was that all? I had an indistinct remembrance of having added some
+wild and incoherent words of passionate affection affixed to her name.
+<i>Her name</i>! But it may be that in the hurry and flurry of the moment,
+these terms of endearment simply passed through my mind and found no
+expression on paper. I could not be sure, any more than I could be
+positive from the half glimpse I got of these lines, which portion had
+been burned off,—the top in which the word <i>train</i> occurred, or the
+final words, emphasising a time of meeting and my determination to
+marry no one but the person addressed. The first gone, the latter might
+take on any sinister meaning. The latter gone, the first might prove a
+safeguard, corroborating my statement that an errand had taken me into
+town.</p>
+
+<p>I was oppressed by the uncertainty of my position. Even if I carried
+off this detail successfully, others of equal importance might be
+awaiting explanation. My poor, maddened, guilt-haunted girl had made
+the irreparable mistake of letting this note of mine fly unconsumed
+up the chimney, and she might have made others equally incriminating.
+It would be hard to find an alibi for her if suspicion once turned
+her way. She had not met me at the train. The unknown but doubtless
+easily-to-be-found man who had handed me her note could swear to that
+fact.</p>
+
+<p>Then the note itself! I had destroyed it, it is true, but its phrases
+were so present to my mind—had been so branded into it by the terrors
+of the tragedy which they appeared to foreshadow, that I had a dreadful
+feeling that this man’s eye could read them there. I remember that
+under the compelling power of this fancy, my hand rose to my brow
+outspread and concealing, as if to interpose a barrier between him
+and them. Is my folly past belief? Possibly. But then I have not told
+you the words of this fatal communication. They were these—innocent,
+if she were innocent, but how suggestive in the light of her probable
+guilt:</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot. Wait till to-morrow. Then you will see the depth of my love
+for you—what I owe you—what I owe Adelaide.”</p>
+
+<p>I should see!</p>
+
+<p>I was seeing.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly I dropped my hand; a new thought had come to me. Had Carmel
+been discovered on the road leading from this place?</p>
+
+<p>You perceive that by this time I had become the prey of every
+threatening possibility; even of that which made the present a
+nightmare from which I should yet wake to old conditions and old
+struggles, bad enough, God knows, but not like this—not like this.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime I was conscious that not a look or movement of mine had escaped
+the considerate but watchful eye of the man before me.</p>
+
+<p>“You do not relish my questions,” he dryly observed. “Perhaps you would
+rather tell your story without interruption. If so, I beg you to be as
+explicit as possible. The circumstances are serious enough for perfect
+candour on your part.”</p>
+
+<p>He was wrong. They were too serious for that. Perfect candour would
+involve Carmel. Seeming candour was all I could indulge in. I took a
+quick resolve. I would appear to throw discretion to the winds; to
+confide to him what men usually hold sacred; to risk my reputation as a
+gentleman, rather than incur a suspicion which might involve others
+more than it did myself. Perhaps I should yet win through and save her
+from an ignominy she possibly deserved but which she must never receive
+at my hands.</p>
+
+<p>“I will give you an account of my evening,” said I. “It will not aid
+you much, but will prove my good faith. You asked me a short time ago
+if I loved the lady whom I was engaged to marry and whose dead body I
+most unexpectedly came upon in this house some time before midnight. I
+answered yes, and you showed that you doubted me. You were justified
+in your doubts. I did love her once, or thought so, but my feelings
+changed. A great temptation came into my life. Carmel returned from
+school and—you know her beauty, her fascination. A week in her
+presence, and marriage with Adelaide became impossible. But how evade
+it? I only knew the coward’s way; to lure this inexperienced young
+girl, fresh from school, into a runaway match. A change which now
+became perceptible in Miss Cumberland’s manner, only egged me on. It
+was not sufficiently marked in character to call for open explanation,
+yet it was unmistakable to one on the watch as I was, and betokened
+a day of speedy reckoning for which I was little prepared. I know
+what the manly course would have been, but I preferred to skulk. I
+acknowledge it now; it is the only retribution I have to offer for a
+past I am ashamed of. Without losing one particle of my intention,
+I governed more carefully my looks and actions, and thought I had
+succeeded in blinding Adelaide to my real feelings and purpose. Whether
+I did or not, I cannot say. I have no means of knowing now. She has
+not been her natural self for these last few days, but she had other
+causes for worry, and I have been willing enough to think that these
+were the occasion of her restless ways and short, sharp speech and the
+blankness with which she met all my attempts to soothe and encourage
+her. This evening”—I choked at the word. The day had been one string
+of extraordinary experiences, accumulating in intensity to the one
+ghastly discovery which had overtopped and overwhelmed all the rest.
+“This evening,” I falteringly continued, “I had set as the limit to my
+endurance of the intolerable situation. During a minute of solitude
+preceding the dinner at Miss Cumberland’s house on the Hill, I wrote a
+few lines to her sister, urging her to trust me with her fate and meet
+me at the station in time for the ten-thirty train. I meant to carry
+her at once to P——, where I had a friend in the ministry who would at
+once unite us in marriage. I was very peremptory, for my nerves were
+giving way under the secret strain to which they had been subjected
+for so long, and she herself was looking worn with her own silent and
+uncommunicated conflict.</p>
+
+<p>“To write this note was easy, but to deliver it involved difficulties.
+Miss Cumberland’s eyes seemed to be more upon me than usual. Mine were
+obliged to respond and Carmel seeing this, kept hers on her plate
+or on the one other person seated at the table, her brother Arthur.
+But the opportunity came as we all rose and passed together into the
+drawing-room. Carmel fell into place at my side and I slipped the note
+into her hand. She had not expected it and I fear that the action was
+observed, for when I took my leave of Miss Cumberland shortly after,
+I was struck by her expression. I had never seen such a look on her
+face before, nor can I conceive of one presenting a more extraordinary
+contrast to the few and commonplace words with which she bade me
+good evening. I could not forget that look. I continued to see those
+pinched features and burning eyes all the way home where I went to get
+my grip-sack, and I saw them all the way to the station, though my
+thoughts were with her sister and the joys I had planned for myself.
+Man’s egotism, Dr. Perry. I neither knew Adelaide nor did I know the
+girl whose love I had so over-estimated. She failed me, Dr. Perry. I
+was met at the station not by herself, but by a letter—a few hurried
+lines given me by an unknown man—in which she stated that I had asked
+too much of her, that she could not so wrong her sister who had brought
+her up and done everything for her since her mother died. I have not
+that letter now, or I would show it to you. In my raging disappointment
+I tore it up on the place where I received it, and threw the pieces
+away. I had staked my whole future on one desperate throw and I had
+lost. If I had had a pistol—” I stopped, warned by an uneasy movement
+on the part of the man I addressed, that I had better not dilate too
+much upon my feelings. Indeed, I had forgotten to whom I was talking. I
+realised nothing, thought of nothing but the misery I was describing.
+His action recalled me to the infinitely deeper misery of my present
+situation, and conscious of the conclusions which might be drawn from
+such impulsive utterances, I pulled myself together and proceeded to
+finish my story with greater directness.</p>
+
+<p>“I did not leave the station till the ten-thirty train had gone. I had
+hopes, still, of seeing her, or possibly I dreaded the long ride back
+to my apartments. It was from sheer preoccupation of mind that I drove
+this way instead of straight out by Marshall Avenue. I had no intention
+of stopping here; the club-house was formally closed yesterday, as you
+may know, and I did not even have the keys with me. But, as I reached
+the bend in the road where you get your first sight of the buildings, I
+saw a thin streak of smoke rising from one of its chimneys, and anxious
+as to its meaning, I drove in—”</p>
+
+<p>“Wait, Mr. Ranelagh, I am sorry to interrupt you, but by which gate did
+you enter?”</p>
+
+<p>“By the lower one.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was it snowing at this time?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not yet. It was just before the clouds rushed upon the moon. I could
+see everything quite plainly.”</p>
+
+<p>My companion nodded and I went breathlessly on. Any question of his
+staggered me. I was so ignorant of the facts at his command, of the facts
+at any one’s command outside my own experience and observation, that the
+simplest admission I made might lead directly to some clew of whose very
+existence I was unaware. I was not even able to conjecture by what chance
+or at whose suggestion the police had raided the place and discovered
+the tragedy which had given point to that raid. No one had told me, and I
+had met with no encouragement to ask. I felt myself sliding amid
+pitfalls. My own act might precipitate the very doom I sought to avert.
+Yet I must preserve my self-possession and answer all questions as
+truthfully as possible lest I stumble into a web from which no skill of
+my own or of another could extricate me.</p>
+
+<p>“Fastening my horse to one of the pine trees in the thickest clump I
+saw—he is there now, I suppose—I crept up to the house, and tried the
+door. It was on the latch and I stole in. There was no light on the lower
+floor, and after listening for any signs of life, I began to feel my way
+about the house, searching for the intruder. As I did not wish to attract
+attention to myself, I took off my shoes. I went through the lower rooms,
+and then I came upstairs. It was some time before I reached the—the room
+where a fire had been lit; but when I did I knew—not,” I hastily
+corrected, as I caught his quick concentrated glance, “what had happened
+or whom I should find there, but that this was the spot where the
+intruder had been, possibly was now, and I determined to grapple with
+him. What—what have I said?” I asked in anguish, as I caught a look on
+the coroner’s face of irrepressible repulsion and disgust, slight and
+soon gone but unmistakable so long as it lasted.</p>
+
+<p>“Nothing,” he replied, “go on.”</p>
+
+<p>But his tone, considerate as it had been from the first, did not deceive
+me. I knew that I had been detected in some slip or prevarication. As I
+had omitted all mention of the most serious part of my adventure—had
+said nothing of my vision of Carmel or the terrible conclusions which her
+presence there had awakened—my conscience was in a state of perturbation
+which added greatly to my confusion. For a moment I did not know where I
+stood, and I am afraid I betrayed a sense of my position. He had to
+recall me to myself by an unimportant question or two before I could go
+on. When I did proceed, it was with less connection of ideas and a haste
+in speaking which was not due altogether to the harrowing nature of the
+tale itself.</p>
+
+<p>“I had matches in my pocket and I struck one,” I began. “Afterwards I lit
+the candle. The emptiness of the room did not alarm me. I experienced the
+sense of tragedy. Seeing the pillows heaped high and too regularly for
+chance along a lounge ordinarily holding only two, I tore them off. I saw
+a foot, a hand, a tress of bright hair. Even then I did not think of
+<i>her</i>. Why should I? Not till I uncovered the face did I know the terrors
+of my discovery, and then, the confusion of it all unmanned me and I fell
+on my knees—”</p>
+
+<p>“Go on! Go on!”</p>
+
+<p>The impetuosity, the suspense in the words astounded me. I stared at the
+coroner and lost the thread of my story—What had I to say more? How
+account for what must be ever unaccountable to him, to the world, to my
+own self, if in obedience to the demands of the situation I subdued my
+own memory and blotted out all I had seen but that which it was safe to
+confess to?</p>
+
+<p>“There is no more to say,” I murmured. “The horror of that moment made a
+chaos in my mind. I looked at the dead body of her who lay there as I
+have looked at everything since; as I looked at the police when they
+came—as I look at you now. But I know nothing. It is all a
+phantasmagoria to me—with no more meaning than a nightmare. She is
+dead—I know that—but beyond that, all is doubt—confusion—what the
+world and all its passing show is to a blind man. I can neither
+understand nor explain.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="VI">VI<br><span class="small">COMMENTS AND REFLECTIONS</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">There is no agony and no solace left;<br>
+Earth can console, Heaven can torment, no more</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Prometheus Unbound</i></p>
+
+
+<p>The coroner’s intent look which had more or less sustained me through
+this ordeal, remained fixed upon my face as though he were still
+anxious to see me exonerate myself. How much did he know? That was the
+question. <i>How much did he know</i>?</p>
+
+<p>Having no means of telling, I was forced to keep silent. I had revealed
+all I dared to. As I came to this conclusion, his eyes fell and I knew
+that the favorable minute had passed.</p>
+
+<p>The question he now asked proved it.</p>
+
+<p>“You say that you were not blind to surrounding objects, even if they
+conveyed but little meaning to you. You must have seen, then, that the
+room where Miss Cumberland lay contained two small cordial glasses,
+both still moist with some liqueur.”</p>
+
+<p>“I noticed that, yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“Some one must have drunk with her?”</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot contradict you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was Miss Cumberland fond of that sort of thing?”</p>
+
+<p>“She detested liquor of all kinds. She never drank I never saw a woman
+so averse to wine.” I spoke before I thought. I might better have been
+less emphatic, but the mystery of those glasses had affected me from
+the first. Neither she nor Carmel ever allowed themselves so much as a
+social glass, yet those glasses had been drained. “Perhaps the cold—”</p>
+
+<p>“There was a third glass. We found it in the adjoining closet. It had
+not been used. That third glass has a meaning if only we could find it
+out.”</p>
+
+<p>A possibility which had risen in my mind faded at these words.</p>
+
+<p>“Three glasses,” I dully repeated.</p>
+
+<p>“And a small flask of cordial. The latter seems pure enough.”</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot understand it.” The phrase had become stereotyped. No other
+suggested itself to me.</p>
+
+<p>“The problem would be simple enough if it were not for those-marks on
+her neck. You saw those, too, I take it?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes. Who made them? What man—”</p>
+
+<p>The lie, or rather the suggestion of a lie, flushed my face. I was
+conscious of this, but it did not trouble me. I was panting for relief.
+I could not rest till I knew the nature of the doubt in this man’s
+mind. If these words, or any words I could use, would serve to surprise
+his secret, then welcome the lie or suggestion of a lie. “It was a
+brute’s act,” I went on, bungling with my sentences in anxiety to see
+if my conclusions fitted in with his own. “<i>Who was the brute</i>? Do you
+know, Dr. Perry?”</p>
+
+<p>“There were three glasses in those rooms. Only two were drank from,”
+he answered, steadily. “Tomorrow I may be in a position to answer your
+question. I am not to-night.”</p>
+
+<p>Why did I take heart? Not a change, not the flicker of one had passed
+over his countenance at my utterance of the word <i>man</i>. Either his
+official habit had stood him in wonderful stead, or the police had
+failed so far to see any connection between this murder and the young
+girl whose footprints, for all I knew, still lingered on the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>Would the morrow arm them with completer knowledge? As I turned from
+his retreating figure and flung myself down before the hearth, this was
+the question I continually propounded to myself, in vain repetition.
+Would the morrow reveal the fact that Adelaide’s young sister had been
+with her in the hour of death, or would the fates propitiously aid her
+in preserving this secret as they had already aided her in selecting
+for the one man who shared it, him who of all others was bound by
+honour and personal consideration for her not to divulge what he knew.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the hours between two and seven passed when I fell into a fitful
+sleep, from which I was rudely wakened by a loud rattle at my door,
+followed by the entrance of the officer who had walked up and down the
+corridor all night.</p>
+
+<p>“The waggon is here,” said he. “Breakfast will be given you at the
+station.”</p>
+
+<p>To which Hexford, looking over his shoulder, added: “I’m sorry to say
+that we have here the warrant for your arrest. Can I do anything for
+you?”</p>
+
+<p>“Warrant!” I burst out, “what do you want of a warrant? It is as a
+witness you seek to detain me, I presume?”</p>
+
+<p>“No,” was his brusque reply. “The charge upon which you are arrested is
+one of murder. You will have to appear before a magistrate. I’m sorry
+to be the one to tell you this, but the evidence against you is very
+strong, and the police must do their duty.”</p>
+
+<p>“But I am innocent, absolutely innocent,” I protested, the perspiration
+starting from every pore as the full meaning of the charge burst upon
+me. “What I have told you was correct. I, myself, found her dead—”</p>
+
+<p>Hexford gave me a look.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t talk,” he kindly suggested. “Leave that to the lawyers.” Then,
+as the other man turned aside for a moment, he whispered in my ear,
+“It’s no go; one of our men saw you with your fingers on her throat. He
+had clambered into a pine tree and the shade of the window was up. You
+had better come quietly. Not a soul believes you innocent.”</p>
+
+<p>This, then, was what had doomed me from the start; this, and that
+partly burned letter. I understood now why the kind-hearted coroner,
+who loved my father, had urged me to tell my tale, hoping that I would
+explain this act and give him some opportunity to indulge in a doubt.
+And I had failed to respond to the hint he had given me. The act
+itself must appear so sinister and the impulse which drove me to it
+so incomprehensible, without the heart-rending explanation I dare not
+subjoin, that I never questioned the wisdom of silence in its regard.</p>
+
+<p>Yet this silence had undone me. I had been seen fingering my dead
+betrothed’s throat, and nothing I could now say or do would ever
+convince people that she was dead before my hands touched her,
+strangled by another’s clutch. One person only in the whole world would
+know and feel how false this accusation was. And yesterday that one’s
+trust in my guiltlessness would have thrown a ray of light upon the
+deepest infamy which could befall me. But to-day there had settled over
+that once innocent spirit, a cloud of too impenetrable a nature for any
+light to struggle to and fro between us.</p>
+
+<p>I could not contemplate that cloud. I could not dwell upon her misery,
+or upon the revulsion of feeling which follows such impetuous acts. And
+it had been an impetuous act—the result of one of her rages. I had
+been told of these rages. I had even seen her in one. When they passed
+she was her lovable self once more and very penitent and very downcast.
+If all I feared were true, she was suffering acutely now. But I gave no
+thought to this. I could dream of but one thing—how to save her from
+the penalty of crime, a penalty I might be forced to suffer myself and
+would prefer to suffer rather than see it fall upon one so young and so
+angelically beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>Turning to the officer next me, I put the question which had been
+burning in my mind for hours:</p>
+
+<p>“Tell me, how you came to know there was trouble here? What brought you
+to this house? There can be nothing wrong in telling me that.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, if you don’t know—” he began.</p>
+
+<p>“I do not,” I broke in.</p>
+
+<p>“I guess you’d better wait till the chief has had a word with you.”</p>
+
+<p>I suppressed all tokens of my disappointment, and by a not unnatural
+reaction, perhaps, began to take in, and busy myself with, the very
+considerations I had hitherto shunned. Where was Carmel, and how was
+she enduring these awful hours? Had repentance come, and with it a
+desire to own her guilt? Did she think of me and the effect this
+unlooked-for death would have upon my feelings? That I should suffer
+arrest for her crime could not have entered her mind. I had seen her,
+but she had not seen me, in the dark hall which I must now traverse as
+a prisoner and a suspect. No intimation of my dubious position or its
+inevitable consequences had reached her yet. When it did, what would
+she do? I did not know her well enough to tell. The attraction she
+had felt for me had not been strong enough to lead her to accommodate
+herself to my wishes and marry me off-hand, but it had been strong
+enough to nerve her arm in whatever altercation she may have had with
+her jealous-minded sister. It was the temper and not the strength
+of the love which would tell in a strait like this. Would it prove
+of a generous kind? Should I have to combat her desire to take upon
+herself the full blame of her deed, with all its shames and penalties?
+Or should I have the still deeper misery of finding her callous to
+my position and welcoming any chance which diverted suspicion from
+herself? Either supposition might be possible, according to my judgment
+in this evil hour. All communication between us, in spite of our
+ardent and ungovernable passion, had been so casual and so slight.
+Looks, a whispered word or so, one furtive clasp in which our hands
+seemed to grow together, were all I had to go upon as tests of her
+feeling towards me. Her character I had judged from her face, which
+was lovely. But faces deceive, and the loveliness of youth is not like
+the loveliness of age—an absolute mirror of the soul within. Was not
+Medusa captivating, for all her snaky locks? Hide those locks and one
+might have thought her a Daphne.</p>
+
+<p>What would relieve my doubts? As Hexford drew near me again on our way
+to the head of the staircase, I summoned up courage to ask:</p>
+
+<p>“Have you heard anything from the Hill? Has the news of this tragedy
+been communicated to Miss Cumberland’s family, and if so, how are they
+bearing this affliction?”</p>
+
+<p>His lip curled, and for a minute he hesitated; then something in my
+aspect or the straight-forward look I gave him, softened him and he
+answered frankly, if coldly:</p>
+
+<p>“Word has gone there, of course, but only the servants are affected by
+it so far. Miss Cumberland, the younger, is very ill, and the boy—I
+don’t know his name—has not shown up since last evening. He’s very
+dissipated, they say, and may be in any one of the joints in the lower
+part of the town.”</p>
+
+<p>I stopped in dismay, clutching wildly at the railing of the stairs we
+were descending. I had hardly heard the latter words, all my mind was
+on what he had said first.</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Carmel Cumberland ill?” I stammered, “too ill to be told?”</p>
+
+<p>I was sufficiently master of myself to put it this way.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” he rejoined, kindly, as he urged me down the very stairs I had
+seen her descend in such a state of mind a few hours before. “A servant
+who had been out late, heard the fall of some heavy body as she was
+passing Miss Cumberland’s rooms, and rushing in found Miss Carmel, as
+she called her, lying on the floor near the open fire. Her face had
+struck the bars of the grate in falling, and she was badly burned. But
+that was not all; she was delirious with fever, brought on, they think,
+by anxiety about her sister, whose name she was constantly repeating.
+They had a doctor for her and the whole house was up before ever the
+word came of what had happened here.”</p>
+
+<p>I thanked him with a look. I had no opportunity for more. Half a dozen
+officers were standing about the front door, and in another moment I
+was bustled into the conveyance provided and was being driven away from
+the death-haunted spot.</p>
+
+<p>I had heard the last whisper of those pines for many, many days. But
+not in my dreams; it ever came back at night, sinister, awesome,
+haunted with dead hopes and breathing of an ever doubtful future.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="VII">VII<br><span class="small">CLIFTON ACCEPTS MY CASE</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">This hand of mine<br>
+Is yet a maiden and an innocent hand,<br>
+Not painted with the crimson spots of blood.<br>
+Within this bosom never enter’d yet<br>
+The dreadful motion of a murd’rous thought.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>King John</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>My first thought (when I could think at all) was this:</p>
+
+<p>“She has some feeling, then! Her terror and remorse have maddened
+her. I can dwell upon her image with pity.” The next, “Will they find
+her wet clothes and discover that she was out last night?” The latter
+possibility troubled me. My mind was the seat of strange contradictions.</p>
+
+<p>As the day advanced and I began to realise that I, Elwood Ranelagh,
+easy-going man of the world, but with traditions of respectable living
+on both sides of my house and a list of friends of which any man might
+be proud, was in a place of detention on the awful charge of murder, I
+found that my keenest torment arose from the fact that I was shut off
+from the instant knowledge of what was going on in the house where all
+my thoughts, my fears, and shall I say it, latent hopes were centred.
+To know Carmel ill and not to know how ill! To feel the threatening
+arm of the law hovering constantly over her head and neither to know
+the instant of its fall nor be given the least opportunity to divert
+it. To realise that some small inadvertance on her part, some trivial
+but incriminating object left about, some heedless murmur or burst of
+unconscious frenzy might precipitate her doom, and I remain powerless,
+bearing my share of suspicion and ignominy, it is true, but not the
+chief share if matters befell as I have suggested, which they were
+liable to do at any hour, nay, at any minute.</p>
+
+<p>My examination before the magistrate held one element of comfort.
+Nothing in its whole tenor went to show that, as yet, she was in the
+least suspected of any participation in my so-called crime. But the
+knowledge which came later, of how the police first learned of trouble
+at the club-house did not add to this sense of relief, whatever
+satisfaction it gave my curiosity. A cry of distress had come to them
+over the telephone; a wild cry, in a woman’s choked and tremulous
+voice: “Help at The Whispering Pines! Help!” That was all, or all they
+revealed to me. In their endeavour to find out whether or not I was
+present when this call was made, I learned the nature of their own
+suspicions. They believed that Adelaide in some moment of prevision
+had managed to reach the telephone and send out this message. But what
+did I believe? What could I believe? All the incidents of the deadly
+struggle which must have preceded the fatal culminating act, were
+mysteries which my mind refused to penetrate. After hours of torturing
+uncertainty, and an evening which was the miserable precursor of a
+still more miserable night, I decided to drop conjecture and await the
+enlightenment which must come with the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>It was, therefore, in a condition of mingled dread and expectation that
+I opened the paper which was brought me the next morning. Of the shock
+which it gave me to see my own name blotting the page with suggestions
+of hideous crime, I will not speak, but pass at once to the few gleams
+of added knowledge I was able to gather from those abominable columns.
+Arthur, the good-for-nothing brother, had returned from his wild
+carouse and had taken affairs in charge with something like spirit
+and a decent show of repentance for his own shortcomings and the mad
+taste for liquor which had led him away from home that night. Carmel
+was still ill, and likely to be so for many days to come. Her case was
+diagnosed as one of brain fever and of a most dangerous type. Doctors
+and nurses were busy at her bedside and little hope was held out of
+her being able to tell soon, if ever, what she knew of her sister’s
+departure from the house on that fatal evening. That her testimony
+on this point would be invaluable was self-evident, for proofs were
+plenty of her having haunted her sister’s rooms all the evening in a
+condition of more or less delirium. She was alone in the house and this
+may have added to her anxieties, all of the servants having gone to the
+policemen’s ball. It was on their return in the early morning hours
+that she had been discovered, lying ill and injured before her sister’s
+fireplace.</p>
+
+<p>One fact was mentioned which set me thinking. The keys of the
+club-house had been found lying on a table in the side hall of the
+Cumberland mansion—the keys which I have already mentioned as missing
+from my pocket. An alarming discovery which might have acted as a
+clew to the suspicious I feared, if their presence there had not been
+explained by the waitress who had cleared the table after dinner.
+Coming upon these keys lying on the floor beside one of the chairs,
+she had carried them out into the hall and laid them where they would
+be more readily seen. She had not recognised the keys, but had taken
+it for granted that they belonged to Mr. Ranelagh who had dined at the
+house that night.</p>
+
+<p>They were my keys, and I have already related how I came to drop them
+on the floor. Had they but stayed there! Adelaide, or was it Carmel,
+might not have seen them and been led by some strange, if not tragic,
+purpose, incomprehensible to us now and possibly never to find full
+explanation, to enter the secret and forsaken spot where I later found
+them, the one dead, the other fleeing in frenzy, but not in such a
+thoughtless frenzy as to forget these keys or to fail to lock the
+club-house door behind her. That she, on her return home, should have
+had sufficient presence of mind to toss these keys down in the same
+place from which she or her sister had taken them, argued well for
+her clear-headedness up to that moment. The fever must have come on
+later—a fever which with my knowledge of what had occurred at The
+Whispering Pines, seemed the only natural outcome of the situation.</p>
+
+<p>The next paragraph detailed a fact startling enough to rouse my deepest
+interest. Zadok Brown, the Cumberlands’ coachman, declared that
+Arthur’s cutter and what he called the grey mare had been out that
+night. They were both in place when he returned to the stable towards
+early morning, but the signs were unmistakable that both had been out
+in the snow since he left the stable at about nine. He had locked the
+stable-door at that time, but the key always hung in the kitchen where
+any one could get it. This was on account of Arthur, who, if he wanted
+to go out late, sometimes harnessed a horse himself. Zadok judged that
+he had done so this night, though how the horse happened to be back and
+in her stall and no Mr. Arthur in the house, it would take wiser heads
+than his to explain. But he was sure the mare had been out.</p>
+
+<p>There was some comment made on this, because Arthur had denied using
+his cutter that night. He declared instead that he had gone out on foot
+and designated the coachman’s tale as all bosh. “I was not the only one
+who had a drop too much down-town,” was the dogged assertion with which
+he met all questions on this subject. “I wouldn’t give a snap of my
+finger for Zadok’s opinion on any subject, after five hours of dancing
+and the necessary drinks. There were no signs of the mare having been
+out when I got home.” As this was about noon the next day, his opinion
+on this point could not be said to count for much.</p>
+
+<p>As for myself, I felt inclined to believe that the mare had been out,
+that one or both of the women had harnessed him and that it was by
+these means they had reached The Whispering Pines. The night was too
+cold, a storm too imminent, for them to have contemplated so long a
+walk on a road so remote as that leading to the club-house. Arthur
+was athletic but Adelaide was far from strong and never addicted to
+walking under the most favourable conditions. Of all the mysteries
+surrounding her dead presence in the club-house, the one which from
+the first had struck me as the most inexplicable was the manner of her
+reaching there. Now I could understand both that fact and how Carmel
+had succeeded in returning in safety to her home. She had ridden both
+ways—a theory which likewise explained how she came to wear a man’s
+derby and possibly a man’s overcoat. With her skirts covered by a
+bear-skin she would present a very fair figure of a man to any one who
+chanced to pass her. This was desirable in her case. A man and woman
+driving at a late hour through the city streets would attract little,
+if any, attention, while two women might. Having no wish to attract
+attention, they had resorted to subterfuge—or Carmel had; it was not
+like Adelaide to do so. She was always perfectly open, both in manner
+and speech.</p>
+
+<p>These were my deductions drawn from my own knowledge. Would others who
+had not my knowledge be in any wise influenced to draw the same? Would
+the fact that the mare had been out during those mysterious hours when
+everybody had appeared to be absent from the house, saving the one
+young girl whom they afterwards found stark, staring mad with delirium,
+serve to awaken suspicion of her close and personal connection with
+this crime? There was nothing in this reporter’s article to show that
+such an idea had dawned upon his mind, but the police are not readily
+hoodwinked and I dreaded the result of their inquiries, if they chose
+to follow this undoubted clew.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, if they let this point slip, where should I be? Human nature is
+human all the way through, and I could not help having moments when I
+asked myself if this young girl were worth the sacrifice I contemplated
+making for her? She was lovely to look at, amiable and of womanly
+promise save at those rare and poignant moments when passion would
+seize her in a gust which drove everything before it. But were any
+of these considerations sufficient to justify me in letting my whole
+manhood slip for the sake of one who, whatever the provocation, had
+used the strength of her hands against the sister who had been as a
+mother to her for so many years. That she had had provocation I did
+not doubt. Adelaide, for all her virtues, was not an easy person to
+deal with. Upright and perfectly sincere herself, she had no sympathy
+with or commiseration for any lack of principle or any display of
+selfishness in others. A little cold, a little reserved, a little
+lacking in spontaneity, though always correct and always generous
+in her gifts and often in her acts, her whole nature would rise at
+any evidence of meanness or ingratitude, and though she said little,
+you would feel her disapprobation through and through. She would
+even change physically. Naturally pallid and of small inconspicuous
+features, her eyes on these occasions would so flame and her whole
+figure so dilate that she looked like another woman. I have seen her
+brother, six feet in height and weighty for his years, cringe under her
+few quiet words at these times till she absolutely seemed the taller
+of the two. It was only in these moments she was handsome, and had I
+loved her, I should probably have admired this passionate purity, this
+intolerance of all that was small or selfish or unworthy a good woman’s
+esteem. But not loving her, I had merely cherished a wholesome fear
+of her displeasure, and could quite comprehend what a full display
+of anger on her part might call up in her sensitive, already deeply
+suffering sister. The scathing arraignment, the unbearable taunt—Well,
+well, it was all dream-work, but I had time to dream and opportunity
+for little else, and pictures, which till now I had sedulously kept in
+the background of my imagination, would come to the front as I harped
+on this topic and weighed in my disturbed mind the following question:
+Should I continue the course which I had instinctively taken out of a
+natural sense of chivalry, or face my calumniators with the truth and
+leave my cause and hers to the justice of men, rather than to the slow
+but righteous workings of Providence?</p>
+
+<p>I struggled with the dilemma for hours, the more so, that I did not
+stand alone in the world. I had relatives and I had friends, some of
+whom had come to see me and gone away deeply grieved at my reticence.
+I was swayed, too, by another consideration. I had deeply loved my
+mother. She was dead, but I had her honour to think of. Should it
+be said she had a murderer for her son? In the height of my inner
+conflict, I had almost cried aloud the fierce denial which would arise
+at this thought. But ere the word could leave my lips, such a vision
+rose before me of a bewildering young face with wonderful eyes and
+a smile too innocent for guile and too loving for hypocrisy, that I
+forgot my late antagonistic feelings, forgot the claims of my dear,
+dead mother, and even those of my own future. Such passion and such
+devotion merited consideration from the man who had called them forth.
+I would not slight the claims of my dead mother but I would give this
+young girl a chance for her life. Let others ferret out the fact that
+she had visited the club-house with her sister; I would not proclaim
+it. It was enough for me to proclaim my innocence, and that I would do
+to the last.</p>
+
+<p>I was in this frame of mind when Charles Clifton called and was allowed
+to see me. I had sent for him in one of my discouraged moods. He was
+my friend, but he was also my legal adviser, and it was as such I
+had summoned him, and it was as such he had now come. Cordial as our
+relations had been—though he was hardly one of my ilk—I noted no
+instinctive outstretching of his hand, and so did not reach out mine.
+Appearances had been too strong against me for any such spontaneous
+outburst from even my best friends. I realised that to expect otherwise
+from him or from any other man would be to play the fool; and this was
+no time for folly. The day for that was passed.</p>
+
+<p>I was the first to speak.</p>
+
+<p>“You see me where you have never thought to see a friend of yours. But
+we won’t go into that. The police have good reasons for what they have
+done and I presume feel justified in my commitment. Notwithstanding, I
+am an innocent man so far as the attack made upon Miss Cumberland goes.
+I had no hand in her murder, if murder it is found out to be. My story
+which you have read in the papers and which I felt forced to give out,
+possibly to my own shame and that of another whom I would fain have
+saved, is an absolutely true one. I did not arrive at The Whispering
+Pines until after Miss Cumberland was dead. To this I am ready to
+swear and it is upon this fact you must rely, in any defence you may
+hereafter be called upon to make in my regard.”</p>
+
+<p>He listened as a lawyer would be apt to listen to such statements from
+the man who had summoned him to his aid. But I saw that I had made no
+impression on his convictions. He regarded me as a guilty man, and what
+was more to the point no doubt, as one for whom no plea could be made
+or any rational defence undertaken.</p>
+
+<p>“You don’t believe me,” I went on, still without any great bitterness.
+“I am not surprised at it, after what the man Clarke has said of seeing
+me with my hands on her throat. Any man, friend or not, would take me
+for a villain after that. But, Charles, to you I will confess what
+cowardice kept me from owning to Dr. Perry at the proper, possibly at
+the only proper moment, that I did this out of a wild desire to see
+if those marks were really the marks of strangling fingers. I could
+not believe that she had been so killed and, led away by my doubts, I
+leaned over her and—You shall believe me, you must,” I insisted, as
+I perceived his hard gaze remain unsoftened. “I don’t ask it of the
+rest of the world. I hardly expect any one to give me credit for good
+impulses or even for speaking the plain truth after the discovery which
+has been made of my treacherous attitude towards these two virtuous and
+devoted women. But you—if you are to act as my counsel—must take this
+denial from me as gospel truth. I may disappoint you in other ways.
+I may try you and often make you regret that you undertook my case,
+but on this fact you may safely pin your faith. She was dead before I
+touched her. Had the police spy whose testimony is likely to hang me,
+climbed the tree a moment sooner than he did, he would have seen that.
+Are you ready to take my case?”</p>
+
+<p>Clifton is a fair fellow and I knew if he once accepted the fact I thus
+urged upon him, he would work for me with all the skill and ability
+my desperate situation demanded. I, therefore, watched him with great
+anxiety for the least change in the constrained attitude and fixed,
+unpromising gaze with which he had listened to me, and was conscious of
+a great leap of heart as the set expression of his features relaxed,
+and he responded almost warmly:</p>
+
+<p>“I will take your case, Ranelagh. God help me to make it good against
+all odds.”</p>
+
+<p>I was conscious of few hopes, but some of the oppression under which I
+laboured lifted at those words. I had assured one man of my innocence!
+It was like a great rock in the weary desert. My sigh of relief bespoke
+my feelings and I longed to take his hand, but the moment had not yet
+come. Something was wanting to a perfect confidence between us, and I
+was in too sensitive a frame of mind to risk the slightest rebuff.</p>
+
+<p>He was ready to speak before I was. “Then, you had not been long on the
+scene of crime when the police arrived?”</p>
+
+<p>“I had been in the room but a few minutes. I do not know how long I was
+searching the house.”</p>
+
+<p>“The police say that fully twenty minutes elapsed between the time they
+received Miss Cumberland’s appeal for help and their arrival at the
+club-house. If you were there that long—”</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot say. Moments are hours at such a crisis—I—”</p>
+
+<p>My emotions were too much for me, and I confusedly stopped. He was
+surveying me with the old distrust. In a moment I saw why.</p>
+
+<p>“You are not open with me,” he protested. “Why should moments be hours
+to you previous to the instant when you stripped those pillows from the
+couch? You are not a fanciful man, nor have you any cowardly instincts.
+Why were you in such a turmoil going through a house where you could
+have expected to find nothing worse than some miserable sneak thief?”</p>
+
+<p>This was a poser. I had laid myself open to suspicion by one
+thoughtless admission, and what was worse, it was but the beginning
+in all probability of many other possible mistakes. I had never taken
+the trouble to measure my words and the whole truth being impossible,
+I necessarily must make a slip now and then. He had better be warned
+of this. I did not wish him to undertake my cause blindfolded. He must
+understand its difficulties while believing in my innocence. Then,
+if he chose to draw back, well and good. I should have to face the
+situation alone.</p>
+
+<p>“Charles,” said I, as soon as I could perfectly control my speech, “you
+are quite just in your remark. I am not and can not be perfectly open
+with you. I shall tell you no lies, but beyond that I cannot promise. I
+am caught in a net not altogether of my own weaving. So far I will be
+frank with you. A common question may trip me up, others find me free
+and ready with my defence. You have chanced upon one of the former. I
+was in a turmoil of mind from the moment of my entrance into that fatal
+house, but I can give no reason for it unless I am, as you hinted, a
+coward.”</p>
+
+<p>He settled that supposition with a gesture I had rather not have seen.
+It would be better for him to consider me a poltroon than to suspect my
+real reasons for the agitation which I had acknowledged.</p>
+
+<p>“You say you cannot be open with me. That means you have certain
+memories connected with that night which you cannot divulge.”</p>
+
+<p>“Right, Charles; but not memories of guilt—of active guilt, I mean.
+This I have previously insisted on, and this is what you must believe.
+I am not even an accessory before the fact. I am perfectly innocent so
+far as Adelaide’s death is concerned. You may proceed on that basis
+without fear. That is, if you continue to take an interest in my case.
+If not, I shall be the last to blame you. Little honour is likely to
+accrue to you from defending me.”</p>
+
+<p>“I have accepted the case and I shall continue to interest myself in
+it,” he assured me, with a dogged rather than genial persistence. “But
+I should like to know what I am to work upon, if it cannot be shown
+that her call for help came before you entered the building.”</p>
+
+<p>“That would be the best defence possible, of course,” I replied; “but
+neither from your standpoint nor mine is it a feasible one. I have no
+proof of my assertion, I never looked at my watch from the time I left
+the station till I found it run down this very morning. The club-house
+clock has been out of order for some time and was not running. All I
+know and can swear to about the length of time I was in that building
+prior to the arrival of the police, is that it could not have been very
+long, since she was not only dead and buried under those accumulated
+cushions, but in a room some little distance from the telephone.”</p>
+
+<p>“That will do for me,” said he, “but scarcely for those who are
+prejudiced against you. Everything points so indisputably to your
+guilt. The note which you say you wrote to Carmel to meet you at the
+station looks very much more like one to Miss Cumberland to meet you at
+the club-house.”</p>
+
+<p>It was thus I first learned which part of this letter had been burned
+off.<span class="fnanchor" id="fna1"><a href="#fn1">[1]</a></span></p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<p class="footnote" id="fn1"><a href="#fna1">[1]</a> It was the top portion, leaving the rest to read:</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><i>“Come, come my darling, my life. She will forgive when all is done.
+Hesitation will only undo us. To-night at 10:30. I shall never marry
+any one but you.”</i></p>
+<p class="footnote">It was also evident that I had failed to add those expressions of affection linked to Carmel’s name which had been in my mind and awakened my keenest apprehension.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>“Otherwise,” he pursued, “what could have taken her there? Everybody
+who knew her will ask that. Such a night! so soon after seeing you!
+It is a mystery any way, but one entirely inconceivable without some
+such excuse for her. These lines said ‘Come!’ and she went, for reasons
+which may be clear to you who were acquainted with her weak as well as
+strong points. Went how? No one knows. By chance or by intention on
+her part or yours, every servant was out of the house by nine o’clock,
+and her brother, too. Only the sister remained, the sister whom you
+profess to have urged to leave the town with you that very evening;
+and she can tell us nothing,—may die without ever being able to do
+so. Some shock to her feelings—you may know its character and you
+may not—drove her from a state of apparent health into the wildest
+delirium in a few hours. It was not your letter—if your story is true
+about that letter—or she would have shown its effect immediately upon
+receiving it; that is, in the early evening. And she did not. Helen,
+one of the maids, declares that she saw her some time after you left
+the house, and that she wore anything but a troubled look; that, in
+fact, her countenance was beaming and so beautiful that, accustomed
+as the girl was to her young mistress’s good looks, she was more than
+struck by her appearance and spoke of it afterwards at the ball. A
+telling circumstance against you, Ranelagh, not only contradicting your
+own story but showing that her after condition sprang from some sudden
+and extreme apprehension in connection with her sister. Did you speak?”</p>
+
+<p>No, I had not spoken. I had nothing to say. I was too deeply shaken
+by what he had just told me, to experience anything but the utmost
+confusion of ideas. Carmel beaming and beautiful at an hour I had
+supposed her suffering and full of struggle! I could not reconcile it
+with the letter she had written me, or with that understanding with her
+sister which ended so hideously in The Whispering Pines.</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer, seeing my helpless state, proceeded with his presentation
+of my case as it looked to unprejudiced eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland comes to the club-house; so do you. You have not the
+keys and so go searching about the building till you find an unlocked
+window by which you both enter. There are those who say you purposely
+left this window unfastened when you went about the house the day
+before; that you dropped the keys in her house where they would be
+sure to be found, and drove down to the station and stood about there
+for a good half hour, in order to divert suspicion from yourself
+afterwards and create an alibi in case it should be wanted. I do not
+believe any of this myself, not since accepting your assurance of
+innocence, but there are those who do believe it firmly and discern
+in the whole affair a cool and premeditated murder. Your passion for
+Carmel, while not generally known, has not passed unsuspected by your
+or her intimates; and this in itself is enough to give colour to these
+suspicions, even if you had not gone so far as to admit its power over
+you and the extremes to which you were willing to go to secure the wife
+you wished. So much for the situation as it appears to outsiders. Of
+the circumstantial evidence which links you personally to this crime,
+we have already spoken. It is very strong and apparently unassailable.
+But truth is truth, and if you only felt free to bare your whole soul
+to me as you now decline to do, I should not despair of finding some
+weak link in the chain which seems so satisfactory to the police and, I
+am forced to add, to the general public.”</p>
+
+<p>“Charles—”</p>
+
+<p>I was very near unbosoming myself to him at that moment. But I caught
+myself back in time. While Carmel lay ill and unconscious, I would not
+clear my name at her expense by so much as a suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>“Charles,” I repeated, but in a different tone and with a different
+purpose, “how do they account for the cordial that was drunk—the two
+emptied glasses and the flask which were found in the adjacent closet?”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s one of the affair’s conceded incongruities. Miss Cumberland is a
+well-known temperance woman. Had the flask and glasses not come from
+her house, you would get no one to believe that she had had anything to
+do with them. Have you any hint to give on this point? It would be a
+welcome addition to our case.”</p>
+
+<p>Alas! I was as much puzzled by those emptied cordial glasses as he
+was, and told him so; also by the presence of the third unused one.
+As I dwelt in thought on the latter circumstance, I remembered the
+observation which Coroner Perry had made concerning it.</p>
+
+<p>“Coroner Perry speaks of a third and unused glass which was found
+with the flask,” I ventured, tentatively. “He seemed to consider it
+an important item, hiding some truth that would materially help this
+case. What do you think, or rather, what is the general opinion on this
+point?”</p>
+
+<p>“I have not heard. I have seen the fact mentioned, but without comment.
+It is a curious circumstance. I will make a note of it. You have no
+suggestions to offer on the subject?”</p>
+
+<p>“None.”</p>
+
+<p>“The clew is a small one,” he smiled.</p>
+
+<p>“So is the one offered by the array of bottles found on the kitchen
+table; yet the latter may lead directly to the truth. Adelaide never
+dug those out of the cellar where they were locked up, and I’m sure I
+did not. Yet I suppose I’m given credit for doing so.”</p>
+
+<p>“Naturally. The key to the wine-vault was the only key which was
+lacking from the bunch left at Miss Cumberland’s. That it was used to
+open the wine-vault door is evident from the fact that it was found in
+the lock.”</p>
+
+<p>This was discouraging. Everything was against me. If the whole affair
+had been planned with an intent to inculpate me and me only, it
+could not have been done with more attention to detail, nor could I
+have found myself more completely enmeshed. Yet I knew, both from
+circumstances and my own instinct that no such planning had occurred.
+I was a victim, not of malice but of blind chance, or shall I say of
+Providence? As to this one key having been slipped from the rest and
+used to open the wine-vault for wine which nobody wanted and nobody
+drank—this must be classed with the other incongruities which might
+yet lead to my enlargement.</p>
+
+<p>“You may add this coincidence to the other,” I conceded, after I had
+gone thus far in my own mind. “I swear that I had nothing to do with
+that key.”</p>
+
+<p>Neither could I believe that it had been used or even carried there by
+Adelaide or Carmel, though I knew that the full ring of keys had been
+in their hands and that they had entered the building by means of one
+of them. So assured was I of their innocence in this regard that the
+idea which afterwards assumed such proportions in all our minds had, at
+this moment, its first dawning in mine, as well as its first outward
+expression.</p>
+
+<p>“Some other man than myself was thirsty that night,” I firmly declared.
+“We are getting on, Charles.”</p>
+
+<p>Evidently he did not consider the pace a very fast one, but being a
+cheerful fellow by nature, he simply expressed his dissatisfaction by
+an imperceptible shrug.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you know exactly what the club-house’s wine-vault contained?” he
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>“An inventory was given me by the steward the morning we closed. It
+must be in my rooms.”</p>
+
+<p>“Your rooms have been examined. You expected that, didn’t you? Probably
+this inventory has been found. I don’t suppose it will help any.”</p>
+
+<p>“How should it?”</p>
+
+<p>“Very true; how should it! No thoroughfare there, of course.”</p>
+
+<p>“No thoroughfare anywhere to-day,” I exclaimed. “To-morrow some
+loop-hole of escape may suggest itself to me. I should like to sleep on
+the matter. I—I should like to sleep on it.”</p>
+
+<p>He saw that I had something in mind of which I had thus far given him
+no intimation, and he waited anxiously for me to reconsider my last
+words before he earnestly remarked:</p>
+
+<p>“A day lost at a time like this is often a day never retrieved. Think
+well before you bid me leave you, unenlightened as to the direction in
+which you wish me to work.”</p>
+
+<p>But I was not ready, not by any means ready, and he detected this when
+I next spoke.</p>
+
+<p>“I will see you to-morrow; any time to-morrow; meantime I will give you
+a commission which you are at liberty to perform yourself or to entrust
+to some capable detective. The letter, of which a portion remains,
+<i>was</i> written to Carmel, and she sent me a reply which was handed me
+on the station platform by a man who was a perfect stranger to me. I
+have hardly any memory of how the man looked, but it should be an easy
+task to find him and if you cannot do that, the smallest scrap of the
+note he gave me, and which unfortunately I tore up and scattered to the
+winds, would prove my veracity in this one particular and so make it
+easier for them to believe the rest.”</p>
+
+<p>His eye lightened. I presume the prospect of making any practical
+attempt in my behalf was welcome.</p>
+
+<p>“One thing more,” I now added. “My ring was missing from Miss
+Cumberland’s hand when I took away those pillows. I have reason to
+think—or it is natural for me to think—that she planned to return
+it to me by some messenger or in some letter. Do you know if such
+messenger or such letter has been received at my apartments? Have you
+heard anything about this ring? It was a notable one and not to be
+confounded with any other. Any one who knew us or who had ever remarked
+it on her hand would be able to identify it.”</p>
+
+<p>“I have heard the ring mentioned,” he replied, “I have even heard that
+the police are interested in finding it; but I have not heard that they
+have been successful. You encourage me much by assuring me that it was
+missing from her hand when you first saw her. That ring may prove our
+most valuable clew.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, but you must also remember that she may have taken it off before
+she started for the club-house.”</p>
+
+<p>“That is very true.”</p>
+
+<p>“You do not know whether they have looked for it at her home?”</p>
+
+<p>“I do not.”</p>
+
+<p>“Will you find out, and will you see that I get all my letters?”</p>
+
+<p>“I certainly will, but you must not expect to receive the latter
+unopened.”</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose not.”</p>
+
+<p>I said this with more cheerfulness than he evidently expected. My heart
+had been lightened of one load. The ring had not been discovered on
+Carmel as I had secretly feared.</p>
+
+<p>“I will take good care of your interests from now on,” he remarked, in
+a tone much more natural than any he had before used. “Be hopeful and
+show a brave front to the district attorney when he comes to interview
+you. I hear that he is expected home to-morrow. If you are innocent,
+you can face him and his whole office with calm assurance.” Which
+showed how little he understood my real position.</p>
+
+<p>There was comfort in this very thought, however, and I quietly remarked
+that I did not despair.</p>
+
+<p>“And I <i>will</i> not,” he emphasised, rising with an assumption of ease
+which left him as he remained hesitating before me.</p>
+
+<p>It was my moment of advantage, and I improved it by proffering a
+request which had been more or less in my mind during the whole of this
+prolonged colloquy.</p>
+
+<p>First thanking him for his disinterestedness, I remarked that he had
+shown me so much consideration as a lawyer, that I now felt emboldened
+to ask something from him as my friend.</p>
+
+<p>“You are free,” said I; “I am not. Miss Cumberland will be buried
+before I leave these four walls. I hate to think of her going to
+her grave without one token from the man to whom she has been only
+too good and who, whatever outrage he may have planned to her
+feelings, is not without reverence for her character and a heartfelt
+repentance for whatever he may have done to grieve her. Charles, a
+few flowers,—white—no wreath, just a few which can be placed on her
+breast or in her hand. You need not say whom they are from. It would
+seem a mockery to any one but her. Lilies, Charles. I shall feel
+happier to know that they are there. Will you do this for me?”</p>
+
+<p>“I will.”</p>
+
+<p>“That is all.”</p>
+
+<p>Instinctively he held out his hand. I dropped mine in it; there was a
+slight pressure, some few more murmured words and he was gone.</p>
+
+<p>I slept that night.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="VIII">VIII<br><span class="small">A CHANCE! I TAKE IT</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">I entreat you then<br>
+From one that so imperfectly conjects,<br>
+You’d take no notice; nor build yourself a trouble<br>
+Out of his scattering and unsure observance:<br>
+It were not for your quiet, nor your good,<br>
+Nor for my manhood, honesty or wisdom,<br>
+To let you know my thoughts.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Othello</i></p>
+
+
+<p>I slept, though a question of no small importance was agitating my
+mind, demanding instant consideration and a definite answer before I
+again saw this friend and adviser. I woke to ask if the suggestion
+which had come to me in our brief conversation about the bottles taken
+from the wine-vault, was the promising one it had then appeared, or
+only a fool’s trick bound to end in disaster. I weighed the matter in
+every conceivable way, and ended by trusting to the instinct which
+impelled me to have resource to the one and only means by which the
+scent might be diverted from its original course, confusion be sown in
+the minds of the police, and Carmel, as well as myself, be saved from
+the pit gaping to receive us.</p>
+
+<p>This was my plan. I would acknowledge to having seen a horse and cutter
+leave the club-house by the upper gateway, simultaneously with my
+entrance through the lower one. I would even describe the appearance
+of the person driving this cutter. No one by the greatest stretch of
+imagination would be apt to associate this description with Carmel;
+but it might set the authorities thinking, and if by any good chance
+a cutter containing a person wearing a derby hat and a coat with an
+extra high collar should have been seen on this portion of the road, or
+if, as I earnestly hoped, the snow had left any signs of another horse
+having been tethered in the clump of trees opposite the one where I
+had concealed my own, enough of the truth might be furnished to divide
+public opinion and start fresh inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>That a woman’s form had sought concealment under these masculine
+habiliments would not, could not, strike anybody’s mind. Nothing in
+the crime had suggested a woman’s presence, much less a woman’s active
+agency.</p>
+
+<p>On the contrary, all the appearances, save such as I believed known to
+myself alone, spoke so openly of a man’s strength, a man’s methods,
+a man’s appetite, and a man’s brutal daring that the suspicion which
+had naturally fallen on myself as the one and only person implicated,
+would in shifting pass straight to another man, and, if he could not
+be found, return to me, or be lost in a maze of speculation. This
+seemed so evident after a long and close study of the situation that
+I was ready with my confession when Mr. Clifton next came. I had even
+forestalled it in a short interview forced upon me by the assistant
+district attorney and Chief Hudson. That it had made an altogether
+greater impression upon the latter than I had expected, gave me
+additional courage when I came to discuss this new line of defence with
+the young lawyer. I was even able to tell him that, to all appearance,
+my long silence on a point so favourable to my own interests had not
+militated against me to the extent one would expect from men so alive
+to the subterfuges and plausible inventions of suspected criminals.</p>
+
+<p>“Chief Hudson believes me, late as my statement is. I saw it in his
+eye.” Thus I went on. “And the assistant district attorney, too. At
+least, the latter is willing to give me the benefit of the doubt, which
+was more than I expected. What do you suppose has happened? Some new
+discovery on their part? If so, I ought to know what it is. Believe me,
+Charles, I ought to know what it is.”</p>
+
+<p>“I have heard of no new discovery,” he coldly replied, not quite
+pleased, as I could see, either with my words or my manner. “An old one
+may have served your purpose. If another cutter besides yours passed
+through the club-house grounds at the time you mention, it left tracks
+which all the fury of the storm would not have entirely obliterated
+in the fifteen minutes elapsing between that time and the arrival of
+the police. Perhaps they remember these tracks, and if you had been
+entirely frank that night—”</p>
+
+<p>“I know, I know,” I put in, “but I wasn’t. Lay it to my confusion
+of mind—to the great shock I had received, to anything but my own
+blood-guiltiness, and take up the matter as it now stands. Can’t
+you follow up my suggestion? A witness can certainly be found who
+encountered that cutter and its occupant somewhere on the long stretch
+of open road between The Whispering Pines and the resident district.”</p>
+
+<p>“Possibly. It would help. You have not asked for news from the Hill.”</p>
+
+<p>The trembling which seized and shook me at these words testified to the
+shock they gave me. “Carmel!” I cried. “She is worse—dead!”</p>
+
+<p>“No. She’s not worse and she’s not dead. But the doctors say it will
+be weeks before they can allow a question of any importance to be put
+to her. You can see what that will do for us. Her testimony is too
+important to the case to be ignored. A delay will follow which may or
+may not be favourable to you. I am inclined to think now that it will
+redound to your interests. You are ready to swear to the sleigh you
+speak of; that you saw it leave the club-house grounds and turn north?”</p>
+
+<p>“Quite ready; but you must not ask me to describe or in any way to
+identify its occupant. I saw nothing but the hat and coat I have told
+you about. It was just before the moon went under a cloud, or I could
+not have seen that much.”</p>
+
+<p>Is it so hard to preserve a natural aspect in telling or suggesting a
+lie that Charles’s look should change as I uttered the last sentence? I
+do not easily flush, and since my self-control had been called upon by
+the dreadful experiences of the last few days, I had learned to conceal
+all other manifestations of feeling except under some exceptional
+shock. But a lie embodied in so many words, never came easy to my
+lips, and I suppose my voice fell, for his glance became suddenly
+penetrating, and his voice slightly sarcastic as he remarked:</p>
+
+<p>“Those clouds obscured more than the moon, I fancy. I only wish that
+they had not risen between you and me. This is the blindest case that
+has ever been put in my hands. All the more credit to me if I see you
+through it, I suppose; but—”</p>
+
+<p>“Tell me,” I broke in, with equal desire to cut these recriminations
+short and to learn what was going on at the Cumberland house, “have
+you been to the Hill or seen anybody who has? Can’t you give me some
+details of—of Carmel’s condition; of the sort of nurse who cares for
+her, and how Arthur conducts himself under this double affliction?”</p>
+
+<p>“I was there last night. Miss Clifford was in the house and received
+me. She told me that Arthur’s state of mind was pitiful. He was never
+a very affectionate brother, you know, but now they cannot get him
+away from Carmel’s door. He sits or stands all day just outside the
+threshold and casts jealous and beseeching looks at those who are
+allowed to enter. They say you wouldn’t know him. I tried to get him to
+come down and see me, but he wouldn’t leave his post.”</p>
+
+<p>“Doesn’t he grieve for Adelaide? I always thought that of the two she
+had the greater influence over him.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, but they cannot get him to enter the place where she lies. His
+duty is to the living, he says; at least, his anxiety is there. He
+starts at every cry Carmel utters.”</p>
+
+<p>“She—cries out—then?”</p>
+
+<p>“Very often. I could hear her from where I sat downstairs.”</p>
+
+<p>“And what does she say?”</p>
+
+<p>“The one thing constantly. ‘Lila! Lila!’ Nothing more.”</p>
+
+<p>I kept my face in shadow. If he saw it at all, it must have looked as
+cold and hard as stone. After a moment, I went on with my queries:</p>
+
+<p>“Does he—Arthur—mention me at all?”</p>
+
+<p>“I did not discuss you greatly with Miss Clifford. I saw that she was
+prejudiced, and I preferred not to risk an argument; but she let fall
+this much: that Arthur felt very hard towards you and loudly insisted
+upon your guilt. She seemed to think him justified in this. You don’t
+mind my telling you? It is better for you to know what is being said
+about you in town.”</p>
+
+<p>I understood his motive. He was trying to drive me into giving him my
+full confidence. But I would not be driven. I simply retorted quietly
+but in a way to stop all such future attempts:</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Clifford is a very good girl and a true friend of the whole
+Cumberland family; but she is not the most discriminating person in the
+world, and even if she were, her opinion would not turn me from the
+course I have laid out for myself. Does the doctor—Dr. Carpenter, I
+presume,—venture to say how long Carmel’s present delirium will hold?”</p>
+
+<p>“He cannot, not knowing its real cause. Carmel fell ill before the
+news of her sister’s death arrived at the house, you remember. Some
+frightful scene must have occurred between the two, previous to
+Adelaide’s departure for The Whispering Pines. What that scene was can
+only be told by Carmel and for her account we must wait. Happily you
+have an alibi which will serve you in this instance. You were at the
+station during the time we are speaking of.”</p>
+
+<p>“Has that been proved?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; several men saw you there.”</p>
+
+<p>“And the gentleman who brought me the—her letter?” It was more than
+difficult for me to speak Carmel’s name. “He has not come forward?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not yet; not to my knowledge, at least.”</p>
+
+<p>“And the ring?”</p>
+
+<p>“No news.”</p>
+
+<p>“The nurse—you have told me nothing about her,” I now urged, reverting
+to the topic of gravest interest to me. “Is she any one we know or an
+importation of the doctor’s?”</p>
+
+<p>“I did not busy myself with that. She’s a competent woman, of course. I
+suppose that is what you mean?”</p>
+
+<p>Could I tell him that this was not what I meant at all—that it was
+her qualities as woman rather than her qualifications as nurse which
+were important in this case? If she were of a suspicious, prying
+disposition, given to weighing every word and marking every gesture of
+a delirious patient, what might we not fear from her circumspection
+when Carmel’s memory asserted itself and she grew more precise in the
+frenzy which now exhausted itself in unintelligible cries, or the
+ceaseless repetition of her sister’s name. The question seemed of such
+importance to me that I was tempted to give expression to my secret
+apprehension on this score, but I bethought myself in time and passed
+the matter over with the final remark:</p>
+
+<p>“Watch her, watch them all, and bring me each and every detail of the
+poor girl’s sickness. You will never regret humouring me in this. You
+ordered the flowers for—Adelaide?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; lilies, as you requested.”</p>
+
+<p>A short silence, then I observed:</p>
+
+<p>“There will be no autopsy the papers say. The evidences of death by
+strangulation are too well defined.”</p>
+
+<p>“Very true. Yet I wonder at their laxity in this. There were signs of
+some other agency having been at work also. Those two empty glasses
+smelling of cordial—innocent perhaps—yet—”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t! I can bear no more to-day. I shall be stronger to-morrow.”</p>
+
+<p>Another feeler turned aside. His cheek showed his displeasure, but the
+words were kind enough with which he speedily took his leave and left
+me to solitude and a long night of maddening thought.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_II">BOOK TWO<br><span class="small">SWEETWATER TO THE FRONT</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="IX">IX<br><span class="small">“WE KNOW OF NO SUCH LETTER”</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">O, he sits high in all the people’s hearts;<br>
+And that, which would appear offence in us,<br>
+His countenance like richest alchemy<br>
+Will change to virtue, and to worthiness.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Julius Caesar</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>“And you still hold him?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, but with growing uncertainty. He’s one of those fellows who
+affect your judgment in spite of yourself. Handsome beyond the
+ordinary, a finished gentleman and all that, he has, in addition to
+these advantages, a way with him that goes straight to the heart in
+spite of prejudice and the claims of conscience. That’s a dangerous
+factor in a case like this. It hampers a man in the exercise of his
+duties. You may escape the fascination, probably will; but at least you
+will understand my present position and why I telephoned to New York
+for an expert detective to help us on this job. I wish to give the son
+of my old friend a chance.”</p>
+
+<p>The man whom Coroner Perry thus addressed, leaned back in his chair and
+quietly replied:</p>
+
+<p>“You’re right; not because he’s the son of your old friend, a handsome
+fellow and all that, but for the reason that every man should have his
+full chance, whatever the appearances against him. Personally, I have
+no fear of my judgment being affected by his attractions. I’ve had to
+do with too many handsome scamps for that. But I shall be as just to
+him as you will, simply because it seems an incredibly brutal crime for
+a gentleman to commit, and also because I lay greater stress than you
+do on the two or three minor points which seem to favour his latest
+declaration, that a man had preceded him in his visit to this lonely
+club-house,—a man whom he had himself seen leaving the grounds in a
+cutter just as he entered by the opposite driveway.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah!” came in quick ejaculation from the coroner’s lips, “I like to
+hear you say that. I was purposely careful not to lay emphasis on the
+facts you allude to. I wished you to draw your own inferences, without
+any aid from me. The police did find traces of a second horse and
+cutter having passed through the club-house grounds. It was snowing
+hard, and these traces were speedily obliterated, but Hexford and
+Clarke saw them in time to satisfy themselves that they extended from
+the northern clump of trees to the upper gateway where they took the
+direction of the Hill.”</p>
+
+<p>“That is not all. A grip-sack, packed for travelling, was in Mr.
+Ranelagh’s cutter, showing that his story of an intended journey was
+not without some foundation.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes. We have retained that grip-sack. It is not the only proof we
+have of his intention to leave the city for a while. He had made other
+arrangements, business arrangements—But that’s neither here nor there.
+No one doubts that he planned an elopement with the beautiful Carmel;
+the question is, was his disappointment followed by the murder of the
+woman who stood in his way?”</p>
+
+<p>District Attorney Fox (you will have guessed his identity before now)
+took his time, deliberating carefully with himself before venturing
+to reply. Then when the coroner’s concealed impatience was about to
+disclose itself, he quietly remarked:</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose that no conclusion can be drawn from the condition of the
+body when our men reached it. I judge that it was still warm.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, but so it would have been if she had met her fate several minutes
+earlier than was supposed. Clarke and Hexford differ about the length
+of time which intervened between the moment when the former looked into
+the room from the outside and that of their final entrance. But whether
+it was five minutes or ten, the period was long enough to render their
+testimony uncertain as to the exact length of time she had lain there
+dead. Had I been there—But it’s useless to go into that. Let us take
+up something more tangible.”</p>
+
+<p>“Very good. Here it is. Of the six bottles of spirits which were
+surreptitiously taken from the club-house’s wine-vault, four were found
+standing unopened on the kitchen table. Where are the other two?”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s it! That’s the question I have put myself ever since I
+interrogated the steward and found him ready to swear to the
+correctness of his report and the disappearance of these two bottles.
+Ranelagh did not empty them, or the bottles themselves would have been
+found somewhere about the place. Now, who did?”</p>
+
+<p>“No one within the club-house precincts. They were opened and emptied
+elsewhere. There’s our clew and if the man you’ve got up from New York
+is worth his salt, he has his task ready to hand.”</p>
+
+<p>“A hard task for a stranger—and such a stranger! Not very
+prepossessing, to say the least. But he has a good eye, and will get
+along with the boys all right. Nothing assertive about him; not enough
+go, perhaps. Would you like to see him?”</p>
+
+<p>“In a moment. I want to clear my mind in reference to these bottles.
+Only some one addicted to drink would drag those six bottles out of
+that cold, unlighted cellar.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, and a connoisseur at that. The two missing bottles held the
+choicest brand in the whole stock. They were kept far back too—hidden,
+as it were, behind the other bottles. Yet they were hauled to the front
+and carried off, as you say, and by some one who knows a good thing in
+spirits.”</p>
+
+<p>“What was in the four bottles found on the kitchen table?”</p>
+
+<p>“Sherry, whiskey, and rum. Two bottles of rum and one each of sherry
+and whiskey.”</p>
+
+<p>“The thief meant to carry them all off, but had not time.”</p>
+
+<p>“The <i>gentleman</i> thief! No common man such as we are looking for,
+would make choice of just those bottles. So there we are again!
+Contradictions in every direction.”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t let us bother with the contradictions, but just follow the clew.
+Those bottles, full or empty, must be found. You know the labels?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, and the shape and colour of the bottles, both of which are
+peculiar.”</p>
+
+<p>“Good! Now let us see your detective.”</p>
+
+<p>But Sweetwater was not called in yet. Just as Coroner Perry offered to
+touch his bell, the door opened and Mr. Clifton was ushered in. Well
+and favourably known to both men, he had no difficulty in stating his
+business and preferring his request.</p>
+
+<p>“I am here in the interests of Elwood Ranelagh,” said he. “He is
+willing to concede, and so am I, that under the circumstances his
+arrest was justifiable, but not his prolonged detention. He has
+little excuse to offer for the mistakes he has made, or the various
+offences of which he has been guilty. His best friends must condemn his
+hypocrisy and fast-and-loose treatment of Miss Cumberland; but he vows
+that he had no hand in her violent death, and in this regard I feel not
+only bound but forced to believe him. At all events, I am going to act
+on that conviction, and have come here to entreat your aid in clearing
+up one or two points which may affect your own opinion of his guilt.</p>
+
+<p>“As his counsel I have been able to extract from him a fact or two
+which he has hitherto withheld from the police. Reticent as he has
+shown himself from the start,—and considering the character of the two
+women involved in this tragedy, this cannot be looked upon as entirely
+to his discredit,—he has confided to me a circumstance, which in
+the excitement attendant on Miss Carmel Cumberland’s sudden illness,
+may have escaped the notice of the family and very naturally, of the
+police. It is this:</p>
+
+<p>“The ring which Miss Cumberland wore as the sign and seal of her
+engagement to him was not on her hand when he came upon her, as he
+declares he did, dead. It was there at dinner-time—a curious ring
+which I have often noted myself and could accurately describe if
+required. If she took it off before starting for The Whispering Pines,
+it should be easily found. But if she did not, what a clew it offers to
+her unknown assailant! Up till now, Mr. Ranelagh has been anticipating
+receiving this ring back in a letter, written before she left her home.
+But he has heard of no such letter, and doubts now if you have. May I
+ask if he is correct in this surmise?”</p>
+
+<p>“We know of no such letter. None has come to his rooms,” replied the
+coroner.</p>
+
+<p>“I thought not. The whereabouts of this ring, then, is still to be
+determined. You will pardon my having called your attention to it.
+As Mr. Ranelagh’s legal adviser, I am very anxious to have that ring
+found.”</p>
+
+<p>“We are glad to receive your suggestion,” replied the district
+attorney. “But you must remember that some of its force is lost by its
+having originated with the accused.”</p>
+
+<p>“Very true; but Mr. Ranelagh was only induced to speak of this matter
+after I had worked with him for an hour. There is a mystery in his
+attitude which I, for one, have not yet fathomed. You must have noticed
+this also, Coroner Perry? Your inquest, when you hold it, will reveal
+some curious facts; but I doubt if it will reveal the secret underlying
+this man’s reticence. That we shall have to discover for ourselves.”</p>
+
+<p>“He has another secret, then, than the one involving his arrest as a
+suspected murderer?” was the subtle conclusion of the district attorney.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, or why does he balk so at the simplest inquiries? I have my
+notion as to its nature; but I’m not here to express notions unless you
+call my almost unfounded belief in him a notion. What I want to present
+to you is fact, and fact which can be utilised.”</p>
+
+<p>“In the cause of your client!”</p>
+
+<p>“Which is equally the cause of justice.”</p>
+
+<p>“Possibly. We’ll search for the ring, Mr. Clifton.”</p>
+
+<p>“Meanwhile, will you cast your eye over these fragments of a note which
+Mr. Ranelagh says he received from Miss Carmel Cumberland while waiting
+on the station platform for her coming.”</p>
+
+<p>Taking an envelope from his pocket, Mr. Clifton drew forth two small
+scraps of soiled and crumpled paper, one of which was the half of
+another envelope presenting very nearly the following appearance:</p>
+
+<p>As he pointed this out, he remarked:</p>
+
+<p>“Elwood is not so common a baptismal name, that there can be any doubt
+as to the person addressed.”</p>
+
+<p>The other scraps, also written in pencil and by the same hand,
+contained but two or three disconnected words; but one of those words
+was <i>Adelaide</i>.</p>
+
+<p>“I spent an hour and a half in the yards adjoining the station before
+I found those two bits,” explained the young lawyer with a simple
+earnestness not displeasing to the two seasoned men he addressed.
+“One was in hiding under a stacked-up pile of outgoing freight, and
+the other I picked out of a cart of stuff which had been swept up in
+the early morning. I offer them in corroboration of Mr. Ranelagh’s
+statement that the ‘<i>Come!</i>’ used in the partially consumed letter
+found in the clubhouse chimney was addressed to Miss Carmel Cumberland
+and not to Adelaide, and that the place of meeting suggested by this
+word was the station platform, and not the spot since made terrible by
+death.”</p>
+
+<p>“You are acquainted with Miss Carmel Cumberland’s handwriting?”</p>
+
+<p>“If I am not, the town is full of people who are. I believe these words
+to have been written by Carmel Cumberland.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fox placed the pieces back in their envelope and laid the whole
+carefully away.</p>
+
+<p>“For a second time we are obliged to you,” said he.</p>
+
+<p>“You can cancel the obligation,” was the quick retort, “by discovering
+the identity of the man who in derby hat and a coat with a very high
+collar, left the grounds of The Whispering Pines just as Mr. Ranelagh
+drove into them. I have no facilities for the job, and no desire to
+undertake it.”</p>
+
+<p>He had endeavoured to speak naturally, if not with an off-hand air; but
+he failed somehow—else why the quick glance of startled inquiry which
+Dr. Perry sent him from under his rather shaggy eyebrows.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, we’ll undertake that, too,” promised the district attorney.</p>
+
+<p>“I can ask no more,” returned Charles Clifton, arising to depart. “The
+confronting of that man with Ranelagh will cause the latter to unseal
+his lips. Before you have finished with my client, you will esteem him
+much more highly than you do now.”</p>
+
+<p>The district attorney smiled at what seemed the callow enthusiasm of
+a youthful lawyer; but the coroner who knew his district well, looked
+very thoughtfully down at the table before which he sat, and failed
+to raise his head until the young man had vanished from the room and
+his place had been taken by another of very different appearance and
+deportment. Then he roused himself and introduced the newcomer to
+the prosecuting attorney as Caleb Sweetwater, of the New York police
+department.</p>
+
+<p>Caleb Sweetwater was no beauty. He was plain-featured to the point
+of ugliness; so plain-featured that not even his quick, whimsical
+smile could make his face agreeable to one who did not know his many
+valuable qualities. His receding chin and far too projecting nose
+were not likely to create a favourable impression on one ignorant of
+his cheerful, modest, winsome disposition; and the district attorney,
+after eyeing him for a moment with ill-concealed disfavour, abruptly
+suggested:</p>
+
+<p>“You have brought some credentials with you, I hope.”</p>
+
+<p>“Here is a letter from one of the department. Mr. Gryce wrote it,” he
+added, with just a touch of pride.</p>
+
+<p>“The letter is all right,” hastily remarked Dr. Perry on looking it
+over. “Mr. Sweetwater is commended to us as a man of sagacity and
+becoming reserve.”</p>
+
+<p>“Very good. To business, then. The sooner we get to work on this new
+theory, the better. Mr. Sweetwater, we have some doubts if the man we
+have in hand is the man we really want. But first, how much do you know
+about this case?”</p>
+
+<p>“All that’s in the papers.”</p>
+
+<p>“Nothing more?”</p>
+
+<p>“Very little. I’ve not been in town above an hour.”</p>
+
+<p>“Are you known here?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t think so; it’s my first visit this way.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then you are as ignorant of the people as they are of you. Well, that
+has its disadvantages.”</p>
+
+<p>“And its advantages, if you will permit me to say so, sir. I have no
+prejudices, no preconceived notions to struggle against. I can take
+persons as I find them; and if there is any deep family secret to
+unearth, it’s mighty fortunate for a man to have nothing stand in the
+way of his own instincts. No likings, I mean—no leanings this way or
+that, for humane or other purely unprofessional reasons.”</p>
+
+<p>The eye of District Attorney Fox stole towards that of his brother
+official, but did not meet it. The coroner had turned his attention
+to the table again, and, while betraying no embarrassment, was not
+quite his usual self. The district attorney’s hand stole to his chin,
+which he softly rubbed with his lean forefinger as he again addressed
+Sweetwater.</p>
+
+<p>“This tragedy—the most lamentable which has ever occurred in this
+town—is really, and without exaggeration, a tragedy in high life. The
+lady who was strangled by a brute’s clutch, was a woman of the highest
+culture and most estimable character. Her sister, who is supposed
+to have been the unconscious cause of the crime, is a young girl of
+blameless record. Of the man who was seen bending over the victim with
+his hands on her throat, we cannot speak so well. He has the faults
+and has lived the life of a social favourite. Gifted in many ways, and
+popular with both men and women, he has swung on his course with an
+easy disregard of the claims of others, which, while leaving its traces
+no doubt in many a humble and uncomplaining heart, did not attract
+notice to his inherent lack of principle, until the horrors of this
+tragedy lifted him into public view stripped of all his charms. He’s
+an egotist, of the first water; there is no getting over that. But did
+he strangle the woman? He says not; that he was only following some
+extraordinary impulse of the moment in laying his thumbs on the marks
+he saw on Miss Cumberland’s neck. A fantastic story—told too late,
+besides, for perfect credence, and not worthy of the least attention
+if—”</p>
+
+<p>The reasons which followed are too well known to us for repetition.
+Sweetwater listened with snapping eyes to all that was said; and
+when he had been given the various clews indicating the presence of
+a third—and as yet unknown—party on the scene of crime, he rose
+excitedly to his feet and, declaring that it was a most promising case,
+begged permission to make his own investigations at The Whispering
+Pines, after which he would be quite ready to begin his search for the
+man in the derby hat and high coat-collar, whose love for wine was so
+great that he chose and carried off the two choicest bottles that the
+club-house contained.</p>
+
+<p>“A hardy act for any man, gentleman or otherwise, who had just
+strangled the life out of a fine woman like that. If he exists and the
+whole story is not a pure fabrication of the entrapped Ranelagh, he
+shouldn’t be hard to find. What do you say, gentlemen? He shouldn’t be
+hard to find.”</p>
+
+<p>“<i>We</i> have not found him,” emphasised the district attorney, with the
+shortest possible glance at the coroner’s face.</p>
+
+<p>“Then the field is all before me,” smiled Sweetwater. “Wish me luck,
+gentlemen. It’s a blind job, but that’s just in my line. A map of the
+town, a few general instructions, and I’m off.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fox turned towards the coroner, and opened his lips; but closed
+them again without speaking. Did Sweetwater notice this act of
+self-restraint? If he did, he failed to show it.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="X">X<br><span class="small">“I CAN HELP YOU”</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">A subtle knave; a finder out of occasions;<br>
+That has an eye can stamp and counterfeit<br>
+Advantages though true advantage never presents<br>
+Itself; A devilish knave!</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Othello</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>A half hour spent with Hexford in and about the club-house, and
+Sweetwater was ready for the road. As he made his way through the
+northern gate, he cast a quick look back at the long, low building he
+had just left, with its tall chimneys and rows of sightless windows,
+half hidden, half revealed by the encroaching pines. The mystery of
+the place fascinated him. To his awakened imagination, there was a
+breathless suggestion in it—a suggestion which it was his foremost
+wish, just now, to understand.</p>
+
+<p>And those pines—gaunt, restless, communicative! ready with their
+secret, if one could only interpret their language. How their heads
+came together as their garrulous tongues repeated the tale, which would
+never grow old to them until age nipped their hoary heads and laid them
+low in the dust, with their horror half expressed, their gruesome tale
+unfinished.</p>
+
+<p>“Witnesses of it all,” commented the young detective as he watched
+the swaying boughs rising and dipping before a certain window. “They
+were peering into that room long before Clarke stole the glimpse which
+has undone the unfortunate Ranelagh. If I had their knowledge, I’d do
+something more than whisper.”</p>
+
+<p>Thus musing, thus muttering, he plodded up the road, his insignificant
+figure an unpromising break in the monotonous white of the wintry
+landscape. But could the prisoner who had indirectly speeded this young
+detective on his present course, have read his thoughts and rightly
+estimated the force of his purpose, would he have viewed with so much
+confidence the entrance of this unprepossessing stranger upon the
+no-thoroughfare into which his own carefully studied admissions had
+blindly sent him?</p>
+
+<p>As has been said before, this road was an outlying one and but little
+travelled save in the height of summer. Under ordinary circumstances
+Sweetwater would have met not more than a half-dozen carts or sledges
+between the club-house gates and the city streets. But to-day, the road
+was full of teams carrying all sorts of incongruous people, eager for
+a sight of the spot made forever notorious by a mysterious crime. He
+noted them all; the faces of the men, the gestures of the women; but he
+did not show any special interest till he came to that portion of the
+road where the long line of half-buried fences began to give way to a
+few scattered houses. Then his spirit woke, and he became quick, alert,
+and persuasive. He entered houses; he talked with the people. Though
+evidently not a dissipated man, he stopped at several saloons, taking
+his time with his glass and encouraging the chatter of all who chose to
+meet his advances. He was a natural talker and welcomed every topic,
+but his eye only sparkled at one. This he never introduced himself;
+he did not need to. Some one was always ready with the great theme;
+and once it was started, he did not let the conversation languish till
+every one present had given his or her quota of hearsay or opinion to
+the general fund.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed a great waste of time, for nobody had anything to say worth
+the breath expended on it. But Sweetwater showed no impatience, and
+proceeded to engage the attention of the next man, woman, or child he
+encountered with undiminished zest and hopefulness.</p>
+
+<p>He had left the country road behind, and had entered upon the jumble
+of sheds, shops, and streets which marked the beginnings of the town
+in this direction, when his quick and experienced eye fell on a woman
+standing with uncovered head in an open doorway, peering up the street
+in anxious expectation of some one not yet in sight. He liked the air
+and well-kept appearance of the woman; he appreciated the neatness of
+the house at her back and gauged at its proper value the interest she
+displayed in the expected arrival of one whom he hoped would delay
+that arrival long enough for him to get in the word which by this time
+dropped almost unconsciously from his lips.</p>
+
+<p>But a second survey of the woman’s face convinced him that his ordinary
+loquaciousness would not serve him here. There was a refinement in
+her aspect quite out of keeping with the locality in which she lived,
+and he was hesitating how to proceed, when fortune favoured him by
+driving against his knees a small lad on an ill-directed sled, bringing
+him almost to the ground and upsetting the child who began to scream
+vociferously.</p>
+
+<p>It was the woman’s child, for she made instantly for the gate which,
+for some reason, she found difficulty in opening. Sweetwater, seeing
+this, blessed his lucky stars. He was at his best with children, and
+catching the little fellow up, he soothed and fondled him and finally
+brought him with such a merry air of triumph straight to his mother’s
+arms, that confidence between them was immediately established and
+conversation started.</p>
+
+<p>He had in his pocket an ingenious little invention which he had
+exhibited all along the road as an indispensable article in every
+well-kept house. He wanted to show it to her, but it was too cold a day
+for her to stop outside. Wouldn’t she allow him to step in and explain
+how her work could be materially lessened and her labour turned to play
+by a contrivance so simple that a child could run it?</p>
+
+<p>It was all so ridiculous in face of this woman’s quiet intelligence,
+that he laughed at his own words, and this laughter, echoed by the
+child and in another instant by the mother, made everything so pleasant
+for the moment that she insensibly drew back while he pulled open the
+gate, only remarking, as she led the way in:</p>
+
+<p>“I was looking for my husband. He may come any minute and I’m afraid he
+won’t care much about contrivances to save me work—that is, if they
+cost very much.”</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater, whose hand was in his pocket, drew it hastily out.</p>
+
+<p>“You were watching for your husband? Do you often stand in the open
+doorway, looking for him?”</p>
+
+<p>Her surprised eyes met his with a stare that would have embarrassed the
+most venturesome book agent, but this man was of another ilk.</p>
+
+<p>“If you do,” he went on imperturbably, but with a good-humoured smile
+which deepened her favourable impression of him, “how much I would give
+if you had been standing there last Tuesday night when a certain cutter
+and horse went by on its way up the hill.”</p>
+
+<p>She was a self-contained woman, this wife of a master mechanic in one
+of the great shops hard by; but her jaw fell at this, and she forgot to
+chide or resist her child when he began to pull her towards the open
+kitchen door.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater, sensitive to the least change in the human face, prayed
+that the husband might be detained, if only for five minutes longer,
+while he, Sweetwater, worked this promising mine.</p>
+
+<p>“You <i>were</i> looking out,” he ventured. “And you <i>did</i> see that horse
+and cutter. What luck! It may save a man’s life.”</p>
+
+<p>“Save!” she repeated, staggering back a few steps and dragging the
+child with her. “Save a man’s life! What do you mean by that?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not much if it was any cutter and any horse, and at any hour. But if
+it was the horse and cutter which left The Whispering Pines at ten or
+half past ten that night, then it may mean life and death to the man
+now in jail under the dreadful charge of murder.”</p>
+
+<p>Catching up her child, she slid into the kitchen and sat down with it,
+in the first chair she came to. Sweetwater following her, took up his
+stand in the doorway, unobtrusive, but patiently waiting for her to
+speak. The steaming kettles and the table set for dinner gave warning
+of the expected presence for which she had been watching, but she
+seemed to have forgotten her husband; forgotten everything but her own
+emotions.</p>
+
+<p>“Who are you?” she asked at length. “You have not told me your real
+business.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, madam, and I ask your pardon. I feared that my real business, if
+suddenly made known to you, might startle, perhaps frighten you. I
+am a detective on the look-out for evidence in the case I have just
+mentioned. I have a theory that a most important witness in the same,
+drove by here at the hour and on the night I have named. I want to
+substantiate that theory. Can you help me?”</p>
+
+<p>A sensitiveness to, and quick appreciation of, the character of those
+he addressed was one of Sweetwater’s most valuable attributes. No
+glossing of the truth, however skillfully applied, would have served
+him with this woman so well as this simple statement, followed by its
+equally simple and direct inquiry. Scrutinising him over the child’s
+head, she gave but a casual glance at the badge he took pains to show
+her, then in as quiet and simple tones as he had himself used, she made
+this reply:</p>
+
+<p>“I can help you some. You make it my duty, and I have never shrunk
+from duty. A horse and cutter did go by here on its way uphill, last
+Tuesday night at about eleven o’clock. I remember the hour because I
+was expecting my husband every minute, just as I am now. He had some
+extra work on hand that night which he expected to detain him till
+eleven or a quarter after. Supper was to be ready at a quarter after.
+To surprise him I had beaten up some biscuits, and I had just put them
+in the pan when I heard the clock strike the hour. Afraid that he would
+come before they were baked, I thrust the pan into the oven and ran
+to the front door to look out. It was snowing very hard, and the road
+looked white and empty, but as I stood there a horse and cutter came in
+sight, which, as it reached the gate, drew up in a great hurry, as if
+something was the matter. Frightened, because I’m always thinking of
+harm to my husband whose work is very dangerous, I ran out bare-headed
+to the gate, when I saw why the man in the sleigh was making me such
+wild gestures. His hat had blown off, and was lying close up against
+the fence in front of me. Anxious always to oblige, I made haste to
+snatch at it and carry it out to its owner. I received a sort of thank
+you, and would never have remembered the occurrence if it had not
+been for that murder and if—” She paused doubtfully, ran her fingers
+nervously over her child’s head, looked again at Sweetwater waiting
+expectantly for her next word, and faltered painfully—“if I had not
+recognised the horse.”</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater drew a deep breath; it was such a happy climax. Then, as she
+showed no signs of saying more, asked as quietly as his rapidly beating
+heart permitted:</p>
+
+<p>“Didn’t you recognise the man?”</p>
+
+<p>Her answer was short but as candid as her expression.</p>
+
+<p>“No. The snow was blinding; besides he wore a high collar, in which his
+head was sunk down almost out of sight.”</p>
+
+<p>“But the horse—”</p>
+
+<p>“Was one which is often driven by here. I had rather not tell you whose
+it is. I have not told any one, not even my husband, about seeing it on
+the road that night. I couldn’t somehow. But if it will save a man’s
+life and make clear who killed that good woman, ask any one on the
+Hill, in what stable you can find a grey horse with a large black spot
+on his left shoulder, and you will know as much about it as I do. Isn’t
+that enough, sir? Now, I must dish up my dinner.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, yes; it’s almost enough. Just one question, madam. Was the hat
+what folks call a derby? Like this one, madam,” he explained, drawing
+his own from behind his back.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I think so. As well as I can remember, it was like that. I’m
+afraid I didn’t do it any good by my handling. I had to clutch it
+quick and I’m sure I bent the brim, to say nothing of smearing it with
+flour-marks.”</p>
+
+<p>“How?” Sweetwater had started for the door, but stopped, all eagerness
+at this last remark.</p>
+
+<p>“I had been cutting out biscuits, and my hands were white with flour,”
+she explained, simply. “But that brushes off easily; I don’t suppose it
+mattered.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, no,” he hastily assented. Then while he smiled and waved his hand
+to the little urchin who had been his means of introduction to this
+possibly invaluable witness, he made one final plea and that was for
+her name.</p>
+
+<p>“Eliza Simmons,” was the straightforward reply; and this ended the
+interview.</p>
+
+<p>The husband, whose anticipated approach had occasioned all this
+abruptness, was coming down the hill when Sweetwater left the gate. As
+this detective of ours was as careful in his finish as in all the rest
+of his work, he called out as he went by:</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve just been trying to sell a wonderful contrivance of mine to the
+missus. But it was no go.”</p>
+
+<p>The man looked, smiled, and went in at his own gate with the air of one
+happy in wife, child, and home.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater went on up the hill. Towards the top, he came upon a
+livery-stable. Stopping in his good-humoured way, he entered into talk
+with a man loitering inside the great door. Before he left him, he had
+asked him these questions:</p>
+
+<p>“Any grey horse in town?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, <i>one</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>“I think I’ve seen it—has a patch of black on its left shoulder.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“Whose is it? I’ve a mighty curiosity about the horse. Looks like a
+trick horse.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know what you mean by that. It belongs to a respectable
+family. A family you must have heard about if you ever heard anything.
+There’s a funeral there to-day—”</p>
+
+<p>“Not Miss Cumberland’s?” exclaimed Sweetwater, all agog in a moment.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, Miss Cumberland’s. I thought you might have heard the name.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I’ve heard it.”</p>
+
+<p>The tone was dry, the words abrupt, but the detective’s heart was
+dancing like a feather. The next turn he took was toward the handsome
+residence district crowning the hill.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XI">XI<br><span class="small">IN THE COACH HOUSE</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">All things that we ordained festival<br>
+Turn from their office to black funeral;<br>
+Our instruments to melancholy bells;<br>
+Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast;<br>
+And all things change them to the contrary.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Romeo and Juliet</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>Fifteen minutes later, he stood in a finely wooded street before an
+open gateway guarded by a policeman. Showing his badge, he passed in,
+and entered a long and slightly curved driveway. As he did so, he took
+a glance at the house. It was not as pretentious as he expected, but
+infinitely more inviting. Low and rambling, covered with vines, and
+nestling amid shrubbery which even in winter gave it a habitable air,
+it looked as much the abode of comfort as of luxury, and gave—in
+outward appearance at least—no hint of the dark shadow which had so
+lately fallen across it.</p>
+
+<p>The ceremonies had been set for three o’clock, and it was now half past
+two. As Sweetwater reached the head of the driveway, he saw the first
+of a long file of carriages approaching up the street.</p>
+
+<p>“Lucky that my business takes me to the stable,” thought he. “What is
+the coachman’s name? I ought to remember it. Ah—Zadok! Zadok Brown.
+There’s a combination for you!”</p>
+
+<p>He had reached this point in his soliloquy (a bad habit of his, for
+it sometimes took audible expression) when he ran against another
+policeman set to guard the side door. A moment’s parley, and he left
+this man behind; but not before he had noted this door and the wide and
+hospitable verandah which separated it from the driveway.</p>
+
+<p>“I am willing to go all odds that I shall find that verandah the most
+interesting part of the house,” he remarked, in quiet conviction, to
+himself, as he noted its nearness to the stable and the ease with which
+one could step from it into a vehicle passing down the driveway.</p>
+
+<p>It had another point of interest, or, rather the wing had to which
+it was attached. As his eye travelled back across this wing, in his
+lively walk towards the stable, he caught a passing glimpse of a
+nurse’s face and figure in one of its upper windows. This located the
+sick chamber, and unconsciously he hushed his step and moved with the
+greatest caution, though he knew that this sickness was not one of the
+nerves, and that the loudest sound would fail to reach ears lapsed in a
+blessed, if alarming, unconsciousness.</p>
+
+<p>Once around the corner, he resumed a more natural pace, and perceiving
+that the stable-door was closed but that a window well up the garden
+side was open, he cast a look towards the kitchen windows at his back,
+and, encountering no watchful eye, stepped up to the former one and
+peered in.</p>
+
+<p>A man sat with his back to him, polishing a bit of harness. This was
+probably Zadok, the coachman. As his interest was less with him than
+with the stalls beyond, he let his eye travel on in their direction,
+when he suddenly experienced a momentary confusion by observing the
+head and shoulders of Hexford leaning towards him from an opposite
+window—in much the same fashion, and certainly with exactly the same
+intent, as himself. As their glances crossed, both flushed and drew
+back, only to return again, each to his several peep-hole. Neither
+meant to lose the advantage of the moment. Both had heard of the grey
+horse and wished to identify it; Hexford for his own satisfaction,
+Sweetwater as the first link of the chain leading him into the
+mysterious course mapped out for him by fate. That each was more or
+less under the surveillance of the other did not trouble either.</p>
+
+<p>There were three stalls, and in each stall a horse stamped and
+fidgeted. Only one held their attention. This was a mare on the
+extreme left, a large grey animal with a curious black patch on its
+near shoulder. The faces of both men changed as they recognised this
+distinguishing mark, and instinctively their eyes met across the width
+of the open space separating them. Hexford’s finger rose to his mouth,
+but Sweetwater needed no such hint. He stood, silent as his own shadow,
+while the coachman rubbed away with less and less purpose, until his
+hands stood quite still and his whole figure drooped in irresistible
+despondency. As he raised his face, moved perhaps by that sense of a
+watchful presence to which all of us are more or less susceptible, they
+were both surprised to see tears on it. The next instant he had started
+to his feet and the bit of harness had rattled from his hands to the
+floor.</p>
+
+<p>“Who are you?” he asked, with a touch of anger, quite natural under the
+circumstances. “Can’t you come in by the door, and not creep sneaking
+up to take a man at disadvantage?”</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke, he dashed away the tears with which his cheeks were still
+wet.</p>
+
+<p>“I thought a heap of my young mistress,” he added, in evident apology
+for this display of what such men call weakness. “I didn’t know that it
+was in me to cry for anything, but I find that I can cry for her.”</p>
+
+<p>Hexford left his window, and Sweetwater slid from his; next minute they
+met at the stable door.</p>
+
+<p>“Had luck?” whispered the local officer.</p>
+
+<p>“Enough to bring me here,” acknowledged the other.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you mean to this house or to this stable?”</p>
+
+<p>“To this stable.”</p>
+
+<p>“Have you heard that the horse was out that night?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, she was out.”</p>
+
+<p>“Who driving?”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah, that’s the question!”</p>
+
+<p>“This man can’t tell you.”</p>
+
+<p>A jerk of Hexford’s thumb in Zadok’s direction emphasised this
+statement.</p>
+
+<p>“But I’m going to talk to him, for all that.”</p>
+
+<p>“He wasn’t here that night; he was at a dance. He only knows that the
+mare was out.”</p>
+
+<p>“But I’m going to talk to him.”</p>
+
+<p>“May I come in, too? I’ll not interrupt. I’ve just fifteen minutes to
+spare.”</p>
+
+<p>“You can do as you please. I’ve nothing to hide—from you, at any rate.”</p>
+
+<p>Which wasn’t quite true; but Sweetwater wasn’t a stickler for truth,
+except in the statements he gave his superiors.</p>
+
+<p>Hexford threw open the stable-door, and they both walked in. The
+coachman was not visible, but they could hear him moving about above,
+grumbling to himself in none too encouraging a way.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently he was in no mood for visitors.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll be down in a minute,” he called out, as their steps sounded on
+the hardwood floor.</p>
+
+<p>Hexford sauntered over to the stalls. Sweetwater stopped near the
+doorway and glanced very carefully about him. Nothing seemed to escape
+his eye. He even took the trouble to peer into a waste-bin, and was
+just on the point of lifting down a bit of broken bottle from an open
+cupboard when Brown appeared on the staircase, dressed in his Sunday
+coat and carrying a bunch of fresh, hot-house roses.</p>
+
+<p>He stopped midway as Sweetwater turned towards him from the cupboard,
+but immediately resumed his descent and was ready with his reply when
+Hexford accosted him from the other end of the stable:</p>
+
+<p>“An odd beast, this. They don’t drive her for her beauty, that’s
+evident.”</p>
+
+<p>“She’s fast and she’s knowing,” grumbled the coachman. “Reason enough
+for overlooking her spots. Who’s that man?” he grunted, with a drop of
+his lantern jaws, and a slight gesture towards the unknown interloper.</p>
+
+<p>“Another of us,” replied Hexford, with a shrug. “We’re both rather
+interested in this horse.”</p>
+
+<p>“Wouldn’t another time do?” pleaded the coachman, looking gravely down
+at the flowers he held. “It’s most time for the funeral and I don’t
+feel like talking, indeed I don’t, gentlemen.”</p>
+
+<p>“We won’t keep you.” It was Sweetwater who spoke. “The mare’s company
+enough for us. She knows a lot, this mare. I can see it in her eye. I
+understand horses; we’ll have a little chat, she and I, when you are
+gone.”</p>
+
+<p>Brown cast an uneasy glance at Hexford.</p>
+
+<p>“He’d better not touch her,” he cautioned. “He don’t know the beast
+well enough for that.”</p>
+
+<p>“He won’t touch her,” Hexford assured him. “She does look knowing,
+don’t she? Would like to tell us something, perhaps. Was out <i>that</i>
+night, I’ve heard you say. Curious! How did you know it?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve said and said till I’m tired,” Brown answered, with sudden heat.
+“This is pestering a man at a very unfortunate time. Look! the people
+are coming. I must go. My poor mistress! and poor Miss Carmel! I liked
+’em, do ye understand? Liked ’em—and I do feel the trouble at the
+house, I do.”</p>
+
+<p>His distress was so genuine that Hexford was inclined to let him go;
+but Sweetwater with a cock of his keen eye put in his word and held the
+coachman where he was.</p>
+
+<p>“The old gal is telling me all about it,” muttered this sly, adaptable
+fellow. He had sidled up to the mare and their heads were certainly
+very close together. “Not touch her? See here!” Sweetwater had his
+arm round the filly’s neck and was looking straight into her fiery
+and intelligent eye. “Shall I pass her story on?” he asked, with a
+magnetic smile at the astonished coachman, which not only softened him
+but seemed to give the watchful Hexford quite a new idea of this gawky
+interloper.</p>
+
+<p>“You’ll oblige <i>me</i> if you can put her knowledge into words,” the man
+Zadok declared, with one fascinated eye on the horse and the other on
+the house where he evidently felt that his presence was wanted. “She
+was out that night, and I know it, as any coachman would know, who
+doesn’t come home stone drunk. But where she was and who took her, get
+her to tell if you can, for I don’t know no more ’n the dead.”</p>
+
+<p>“The dead!” flashed out Sweetwater, wheeling suddenly about and
+pointing straight through the open stable-door towards the house where
+the young mistress the old servant mourned, lay in her funeral casket.
+“Do you mean her—the lady who is about to be buried? Could <i>she</i> tell
+if her lips were not sealed by a murderer’s hand?”</p>
+
+<p>“She!” The word came low and awesomely. Rude and uncultured as the man
+was, he seemed to be strangely affected by this unexpected suggestion.
+“I haven’t the wit to answer that,” said he. “How can we tell what
+she knew. The man who killed her is in jail. <i>He</i> might talk to some
+purpose. Why don’t you question him?”</p>
+
+<p>“For a very good reason,” replied Sweetwater, with an easy good-nature
+that was very reassuring. “He was arrested on the spot; so that it
+wasn’t he who drove this mare home, unharnessed her, put her back in
+her stall, locked the stable-door and hung up the key in its place in
+the kitchen. Somebody else did <i>that</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s true enough, and what does it show? That the mare was out on
+some other errand than the one which ended in blood and murder,” was
+the coachman’s unexpected retort.</p>
+
+<p>“Is that so?” whispered Sweetwater into the mare’s cocked ear.
+“She’s not quite ready to commit herself,” he drawled, with another
+enigmatical smile at the lingering Zadok. “She’s keeping something
+back. Are you?” he pointedly inquired, leaving the stalls and walking
+briskly up to Zadok.</p>
+
+<p>The coachman frowned and hastily retreated a step; but in another
+moment he leaped in a rage upon Sweetwater, when the sight of the
+flowers he held recalled him to himself and he let his hand fall again
+with the quiet remark:</p>
+
+<p>“You’re overstepping your dooty. I don’t know who you are or what you
+want with me, but you’re overstepping your dooty.”</p>
+
+<p>“He’s right,” muttered Hexford. “Better let the fellow go. See! one of
+the maids is beckoning to him.”</p>
+
+<p>“He shall go, and welcome, if he will tell me where he gets his taste
+for this especial brand of whiskey.” Sweetwater had crossed to the
+cupboard and taken down the lower half of the broken bottle which had
+attracted his notice on his first entrance, and was now holding it out,
+with a quizzical look at the departing coachman.</p>
+
+<p>Hexford was at his shoulder with a spring, and together they inspected
+the label still sticking to it—which was that of the very rare and
+expensive spirit found missing from the club-house vault.</p>
+
+<p>“This is a find,” muttered Hexford into his fellow detective’s ear.
+Then, with a quick move towards Zadok, he shouted out:</p>
+
+<p>“You’d better answer that question. Where did this bit of broken bottle
+come from? They don’t give you whiskey like this to drink.”</p>
+
+<p>“That they don’t,” muttered the coachman, not so much abashed as they
+had expected. “And I wouldn’t care for it if they did. I found that bit
+of bottle in the ash-barrel outside, and fished it out to put varnish
+in. I liked the shape.”</p>
+
+<p>“Broken this way?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; it’s just as good.”</p>
+
+<p>“Is it? Well, never mind, run along. We’ll close the stable-door for
+you.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’d rather do it myself and carry in the key.”</p>
+
+<p>“Here then; we’re going to the funeral, too. You’d like to?” This
+latter in a whisper to Sweetwater.</p>
+
+<p>The answer was a fervent one. Nothing in all the world would please
+this protean-natured man quite so well.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XII">XII<br><span class="small">“LILA—LILA!”</span></h3></div>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>O, treble woe Fall ten times treble on that cursed head, Whose wicked
+deed thy most ingenious sense Depriv’d thee of!—Hold off the earth
+awhile, Till I have caught her once more in my arms.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Hamlet</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>“Let us enter by the side door,” suggested Sweetwater, as the two moved
+towards the house. “And be sure you place me where I can see without
+being seen. I have no wish to attract attention to myself, or to be
+identified with the police until the necessity is forced upon me.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then we won’t go in together,” decided Hexford. “Find your own
+place; you won’t have any difficulty. A crowd isn’t expected. Miss
+Cumberland’s condition forbids it.”</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater nodded and slid in at the side door.</p>
+
+<p>He found himself at once in a narrow hall, from the end of which opened
+a large room. A few people were to be seen in this latter place, and
+his first instinct was to join them; but finding that a few minutes yet
+remained before the hour set for the services, he decided to improve
+them by a rapid glance about this hall, which, for certain reasons
+hardly as yet formulated in his own mind, had a peculiar interest for
+him.</p>
+
+<p>The most important object within view, according to his present
+judgment, was the staircase which connected it with the floor above;
+but if you had asked his reason for this conclusion, he would not have
+told you, as Ranelagh might have done, that it was because it was the
+most direct and convenient approach to Carmel Cumberland’s room. His
+thoughts were far from this young girl, intimately connected as she
+was with this crime; which shows through what a blind maze he was
+insensibly working. With his finger on the thread which had been put
+in his hand, he was feeling his way along inch by inch. It had brought
+him to this staircase, and it led him next to a rack upon which hung
+several coats and a gentleman’s hat.</p>
+
+<p>He inspected the former and noted that one was finished with a high
+collar; but he passed the latter by—it was not a derby. The table
+stood next the rack, and on its top lay nothing more interesting than a
+clothes-brush and one or two other insignificant objects; but, with his
+memory for details, he had recalled the keys which one of the maids had
+picked up somewhere about this house, and laid on a hall table. If this
+were the hall and this the table, then was every inch of the latter’s
+simple cloth-covered top of the greatest importance in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>He had no further time for even these cursory investigations; Hexford’s
+step could be heard on the verandah, and Sweetwater was anxious to
+locate himself before the officer came in. Entering the room before
+him, he crossed to the small group clustered in its further doorway.
+There were several empty chairs in sight; but he passed around them
+all to a dark and inconspicuous corner, from which, without effort, he
+could take in every room on that floor—from the large parlour in which
+the casket stood, to the remotest region of the servants’ hall.</p>
+
+<p>The clergyman had not yet descended, and Sweetwater had time to
+observe the row of little girls sitting in front of the bearers, each
+with a small cluster of white flowers in her hand. Miss Cumberland’s
+Sunday-school class, he conjectured, and conjectured rightly. He also
+perceived that some of these children loved her.</p>
+
+<p>Near them sat a few relatives and friends. Among these was a very, very
+old man, whom he afterwards heard was a great-uncle and a centenarian.
+Between him and one of the little girls, there apparently existed a
+strong sympathy; for his hand reached out and drew her to him when
+the tears began to steal down her cheeks, and the looks which passed
+between the two had all the appeal and all the protection of a great
+love.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater, who had many a soft spot in his breast, felt his heart
+warm at this one innocent display of natural feeling in an assemblage
+otherwise frozen by the horror of the occasion. His eyes dwelt
+lingeringly on the child, and still more lingeringly on the old, old
+man, before passing to that heaped-up mound of flowers, under which lay
+a murdered body and a bruised heart. He could not see the face, but the
+spectacle was sufficiently awe-compelling without that.</p>
+
+<p>Would it have seemed yet more so, had he known at whose request the
+huge bunch of lilies had been placed over that silent heart?</p>
+
+<p>The sister sick, the brother invisible, there was little more to hold
+his attention in this quarter; so he let it roam across the heads
+of the people about him, to the distant hall communicating with the
+kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>Several persons were approaching from this direction, among them Zadok.
+The servants of the house, no doubt, for they came in all together
+and sat down, side by side, in the chairs Sweetwater had so carefully
+passed by. There were five persons in all: two men and three women.
+Only two interested him—Zadok, with whom he had already made a
+superficial acquaintance and had had one bout; and a smart, bright-eyed
+girl with a resolute mouth softened by an insistent dimple, who struck
+him as possessing excellent sense and some natural cleverness. A girl
+to know and a girl to talk to, was his instantaneous judgment. Then he
+forgot everything but the solemnity of the occasion, for the clergyman
+had entered and taken his place, and a great hush had fallen upon the
+rooms and upon every heart there present.</p>
+
+
+<p>“<i>I am the resurrection and the life</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>Never had these consoling words sounded more solemn than when they
+rang above the remains of Adelaide Cumberland, in this home where she
+had reigned as mistress ever since her seventeenth year. The nature of
+the tragedy which had robbed the town of one of its most useful young
+women; the awful fate impending over its supposed author,—a man who
+had come and gone in these rooms with a spell of fascination to which
+many of those present had themselves succumbed—the brooding sense
+of illness, if not of impending death, in the room above; gave to
+these services a peculiar poignancy which in some breasts of greater
+susceptibility than the rest, took the form of a vague expectancy
+bordering on terror.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater felt the poignancy, but did not suffer from the terror. His
+attention had been attracted in a new direction, and he found himself
+watching, with anxious curiosity, the attitude and absorbed expression
+of a good-looking young man whom he was far from suspecting to be the
+secret representative of the present suspect, whom nobody could forget,
+yet whom nobody wished to remember at this hallowed hour.</p>
+
+<p>Had this attitude and this absorption been directed towards the casket
+over which the clergyman’s words rose and fell with ever increasing
+impressiveness, he might have noted the man but would scarcely
+have been held by him. But this interest, sincere and strong as it
+undoubtedly was, centred not so much in the services, careful as he
+was to maintain a decorous attitude towards the same, but in the faint
+murmurs which now and then came down from above where unconsciousness
+reigned and the stricken brother watched over the delirious sister,
+with a concentration and abandonment to fear which made him oblivious
+of all other duties, and almost as unconscious of the rites then being
+held below over one who had been as a mother to him, as the sick girl
+herself with her ceaseless and importunate “Lila! Lila!” The detective,
+watching this preoccupied stranger, shared in some measure his secret
+emotions, and thus was prepared for the unexpected occurrence of a few
+minutes later.</p>
+
+<p>No one else had the least forewarning of any break in the services.
+There had been nothing in the subdued but impressive rendering of the
+prayers to foreshadow a dramatic episode; yet it came, and in this
+manner:</p>
+
+<p>The final words had been said, and the friends present invited to look
+their last on the calm face which, to many there, had never worn so
+sweet a smile in life. Some had hesitated; but most had obeyed the
+summons, among them Sweetwater. But he had not much time in which to
+fix those features in his mind; for the little girls, who had been
+waiting patiently for this moment, now came forward; and he stepped
+aside to watch them as they filed by, dropping as they did so, a
+tribute of fragrant flowers upon the quiet breast. They were followed
+by the servants, among whom Zadok had divided his roses. As the last
+cluster fell from the coachman’s trembling hand, the undertaker
+advanced with the lid, and, pausing a moment to be sure that all were
+satisfied, began to screw it on.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly there was a cry, and the crowd about the door leading into
+the main hall started back, as wild steps were heard on the stairs and
+a young man rushed into the room where the casket stood, and advanced
+upon the officiating clergyman and the astonished undertaker with a
+fierceness which was not without its suggestion of authority.</p>
+
+<p>“Take it off!” he cried, pointing at the lid which had just been
+fastened down. “I have not seen her—I must see her. Take it off!”</p>
+
+<p>It was the brother, awake at last to the significance of the hour!</p>
+
+<p>The clergyman, aghast at the sacrilegious look and tone of the
+intruder, stepped back, raising one arm in remonstrance, and
+instinctively shielding the casket with the other. But the undertaker
+saw in the frenzied eye fixed upon his own, that which warned him
+to comply with the request thus harshly and peremptorily uttered.
+Unscrewing the lid, he made way for the intruder, who, drawing near,
+pushed aside the roses which had fallen on the upturned face, and,
+laying his hand on the brow, muttered a few low words to himself. Then
+he withdrew his hand, and without glancing to right or left, staggered
+back to the door amid a hush as unbroken as that which reigned behind
+him in that open casket. Another moment and his white, haggard face and
+disordered figure would be blotted from sight by the door-jamb.</p>
+
+<p>The minister recovered his poise and the bearers their breath; the men
+stirred in their seats and the women began to cast frightened looks
+at each other, and then at the children, some of whom had begun to
+whimper, when in an instant all were struck again into stone. The young
+man had turned and was facing them all, with his hands held out in a
+clench which in itself was horrible.</p>
+
+<p>“If they let the man go,” he called out in loud and threatening tones,
+“I will strangle him with these two hands.”</p>
+
+<p>The word, and not the shriek which burst irrepressibly from more
+than one woman before him, brought him to himself. With a ghastly
+look on his bloated features, he scanned for one moment the row of
+deeply shocked faces before him, then tottered back out of sight, and
+fled towards the staircase. All thought that an end had come to the
+harrowing scene, and minister and people faced each other once more;
+when, loud and sharp from above, there rang down the shrill cry of
+delirium, this time in articulate words which even the children could
+understand:</p>
+
+<p>“Break it open, I say! break it open, and see if her heart is there!”</p>
+
+<p>It was too awful. Men and women and children leaped to their feet
+and dashed away into the streets, uttering smothered cries and wild
+ejaculations. In vain the clergyman raised his voice and bade them
+respect the dead; the rooms were well-nigh empty before he had finished
+his appeal. Only the very old uncle and the least of the children
+remained of all who had come there in memory of their departed
+kinswoman and friend.</p>
+
+<p>The little one had fled to the old man’s arms before he could rise, and
+was now held close to his aged and shaking knees, while he strove to
+comfort her and explain.</p>
+
+<p>Soon these, too, were gone, and the casket was refastened and carried
+out by the shrinking bearers, leaving in those darkened rooms a trail
+of desolation which was only broken from time to time by the now faint
+and barely heard reiteration of the name of her who had just been borne
+away!</p>
+
+<p>“Lila! Lila!”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XIII">XIII<br><span class="small">“WHAT WE WANT IS HERE”</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">I’ll tell you, by the way,<br>
+The greatest comfort in the world.<br>
+You said<br>
+There was a clew to all.<br>
+Remember, Sweet,<br>
+He said there was a clew!<br>
+I hold it.<br>
+Come!</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>A Blot in the ’Scutcheon.</i></p>
+
+
+<p>Sweetwater, however affected by this scene, had not lost control
+of himself or forgotten the claims of duty. He noted at a glance
+that, while the candid looking stranger, whose lead he had been
+following, was as much surprised as the rest at the nature of the
+interruption—which he had possibly anticipated and for which he was
+in some measure prepared—he was, of all present, the most deeply
+and peculiarly impressed by it. No element of fear had entered into
+his emotion; nor had it been heightened by any superstitious sense.
+Something deeper and more important by far had darkened his thoughtful
+eye and caused that ebb and flow of colour in a cheek unused, if
+Sweetwater read the man aright, to such quick and forcible changes.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater took occasion, likewise, while the excitement was at its
+height, to mark what effect had been made on the servants by the action
+and conduct of young Cumberland. “They know him better than we do,” was
+his inner comment; “what do they think of his words, and what do they
+think of him?”</p>
+
+<p>It was not so easy to determine as the anxious detective might wish.
+Only one of them showed a simple emotion, and that one was, without
+any possibility of doubt, the cook. She was a Roman Catholic, and was
+simply horrified by the sacrilege of which she had been witness. There
+was no mistaking her feelings. But those of the other two women were
+more complex.</p>
+
+<p>So were those of the men. Zadok specially watched each movement of
+his young master with open mistrust; and very nearly started upright,
+in his repugnance and dismay, when that intruding hand fell on the
+peaceful brow of her over whose fate, to his own surprise, he had been
+able to shed tears. Some personal prejudice lay back of this or some
+secret knowledge of the man from whose touch even the dead appeared to
+shrink.</p>
+
+<p>And the women! Might not the same explanation account for that curious
+droop of the eye with which the two younger clutched at each other’s
+hands, to keep from screaming, and interchanged whispered words which
+Sweetwater would have given considerable out of his carefully cherished
+hoard to have heard.</p>
+
+<p>It was impossible to tell, at present; but he was confident that it
+would not be long before he understood these latter, at least. He had
+great confidence in his success with women, homely as he was. He was
+not so sure of himself with men; and he felt that some difficulties
+and not a few pitfalls lay between him and, for instance, the
+uncommunicative Zadok. “But I’ve the whole long evening before me,” he
+added in quiet consolation to himself. “It will be a pity if I can’t
+work some of them in that time.”</p>
+
+<p>The last thing he had remarked, before Carmel’s unearthly cry had sent
+the horrified guests in disorder from the house, was the presence of
+Dr. Perry in a small room which Sweetwater had supposed empty, until
+the astonishing events I have endeavoured to describe brought its
+occupant to the door. What the detective then read in the countenance
+of the family’s best friend, he kept to himself; but his own lost a
+trace of its former anxiety, as the official slipped back out of sight
+and remained so, even after the funeral cortege had started on its
+course.</p>
+
+<p>Plans had been made for carrying the servants to the cemetery, and,
+despite the universal disturbance consequent upon these events, these
+plans were adhered to. Sweetwater watched them all ride away in the
+last two carriages.</p>
+
+<p>This gave him the opportunity he wanted. Leaving his corner, he looked
+up Hexford, and asked who was left in the house.</p>
+
+<p>“Dr. Perry, Mr. Clifton, the lawyer, Mr. Cumberland, his sick sister,
+and the nurse.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland! Didn’t he go to the grave?”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you expect him to, after <i>that</i>?”</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater’s shoulders rose, and his voice took on a tone of
+indifference.</p>
+
+<p>“There’s no telling. Where is he now, do you think? Upstairs?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes. It seems he spends all his time in a little alcove opposite
+his sister’s door. They won’t let him inside, for fear of disturbing
+the patient; so he just sits where I’ve told you, doing nothing but
+listening to every sound that comes through the door.”</p>
+
+<p>“Is he there now?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, and shaking just like a leaf. I walked by him a moment ago and
+noticed particularly.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where’s his room? In sight of the alcove you mention?”</p>
+
+<p>“No; there’s a partition or two between. If you go up by the side
+staircase, you can slip into it without any one seeing you. Coroner
+Perry and Mr. Clifton are in front.”</p>
+
+<p>“Is the side door locked?”</p>
+
+<p>“No.”</p>
+
+<p>“Lock it. The back door, of course, is.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, the cook attended to that.”</p>
+
+<p>“I want a few minutes all by myself. Help me, Hexford. If Dr. Perry has
+given you no orders, take your stand upstairs where you can give me
+warning if Mr. Cumberland makes a move to leave his post, or the nurse
+her patient.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m ready; but I’ve been in that room and I’ve found nothing.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know that I shall. You say that it is near the head of the
+stairs running up from the side door?”</p>
+
+<p>“Just a few feet away.”</p>
+
+<p>“I would have sworn to that fact, even if you hadn’t told me,” muttered
+Sweetwater.</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes later, he had slipped from sight; and for some time not
+even Hexford knew where he was.</p>
+
+<p>“Dr. Perry, may I have a few words with you?”</p>
+
+<p>The coroner turned quickly. Sweetwater was before him; but not the same
+Sweetwater he had interviewed some few hours before in his office. This
+was quite a different looking personage. Though nothing could change
+his features, the moment had come when their inharmonious lines no
+longer obtruded themselves upon the eye; and the anxious, nay, deeply
+troubled official whom he addressed, saw nothing but the ardour and
+quiet self-confidence they expressed.</p>
+
+<p>“It’ll not take long,” he added, with a short significant glance in the
+direction of Mr. Clifton.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Perry nodded, excused himself to the lawyer and followed the
+detective into the small writing-room which he had occupied during
+the funeral. In the decision with which Sweetwater closed the door
+behind them there was something which caused the blood to mount to the
+coroner’s brow.</p>
+
+<p>“You have made some discovery?” said he.</p>
+
+<p>“A very important one,” was the quick, emphatic reply. And in a few
+brief words the detective related his interview with the master
+mechanic’s wife on the highroad. Then with an eager, “Now let me show
+you something,” he led the coroner through the dining-room into the
+side hall, where he paused before the staircase.</p>
+
+<p>“Up?” queried the coroner, with an obvious shrinking from what he might
+encounter above.</p>
+
+<p>“No,” was the whispered reply. “What we want is <i>here</i>.” And, pushing
+open a small door let into the under part of the stairway (if Ranelagh
+in his prison cell could have seen and understood this movement!), he
+disclosed a closet and in that closet a coat or two, and one derby hat.
+He took down the latter and, holding it out to the light, pointed to a
+spot on the under side of its brim.</p>
+
+<p>The coroner staggered as he saw it, and glanced helplessly about him.
+He had known this family all their lives and the father had been his
+dearest friend. But he could say nothing in face of this evidence. The
+spot was a flour-mark, in which could almost be discerned the outline
+of a woman’s thumb.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XIV">XIV<br><span class="small">THE MOTIONLESS FIGURE</span></h3></div>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>’S blood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy
+could find it out.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Hamlet</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>“The coat is here, too,” whispered Sweetwater, after a moment of
+considerate silence. “I had searched the hall-rack for them; I had
+searched his closets; and was about owning myself to be on a false
+trail, when I spied this little door. We had better lock it, now, had
+we not, till you make up your mind what to do with this conclusive bit
+of evidence.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, lock it. I’m not quite myself, Sweetwater. I’m no stranger to
+this house, or to the unfortunate young people in it. I wish I had not
+been re-elected last year. I shall never survive the strain if—” He
+turned away.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater carefully returned the hat to its peg, turned the key in the
+door, and softly followed his superior back into the dining-room, and
+thence to their former retreat.</p>
+
+<p>“I can see that it’s likely to be a dreadful business,” he ventured
+to remark, as the two stood face to face again. “But we’ve no choice.
+Facts are facts, and we’ve got to make the best of them. You mean me to
+go on?”</p>
+
+<p>“Go on?”</p>
+
+<p>“Following up the clews which you have yourself given me? I’ve only
+finished with one; there’s another—”</p>
+
+<p>“The bottles?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, the bottles. I believe that I shall not fail there if you’ll give
+me a little time. I’m a stranger in town, you remember, and cannot be
+expected to move as fast as a local detective.”</p>
+
+<p>“Sweetwater, you have but one duty—to follow both clews as far as they
+will take you. As for my duty, that is equally plain, to uphold you in
+all reasonable efforts and to shrink at nothing which will save the
+innocent and bring penalty to the guilty. Only be careful. Remember
+the evidence against Ranelagh. You will have to forge an exceedingly
+strong chain to hold your own against the facts which have brought this
+recreant lover to book. You see—O, I wish that poor girl could get
+ease!” he impetuously cried, as “Lila! Lila!” rang again through the
+house.</p>
+
+<p>“There can never be any ease for her,” murmured Sweetwater. “Whatever
+the truth, she’s bound to suffer if ever she awakens to reality again.
+Do you agree with the reporters that she knew why and for what her
+unhappy sister left this house that night?”</p>
+
+<p>“If not, why this fever?”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s sound.”</p>
+
+<p>“<i>She</i>—” the coroner was emphatic, “<i>she</i> is the only one who is
+wholly innocent in this whole business. Consider her at every point.
+Her life is invaluable to every one concerned. But she must not be
+roused to the fact; not yet. Nor must he be startled either; you know
+whom I mean. Quiet does it, Sweetwater. Quiet and a seeming deference
+to his wishes as the present head of the house.”</p>
+
+<p>“Is the place his? Has Miss Cumberland made a will?”</p>
+
+<p>“Her will will be read to-morrow. For to-night, Arthur Cumberland’s
+position here is the position of a master.”</p>
+
+<p>“I will respect it, sir, up to all reasonable bounds. I don’t think
+he meditates giving any trouble. He’s not at all impressed by our
+presence. All he seems to care about is what his sister may be led to
+say in her delirium.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s how you look at it?” The coroner’s tone was one of gloom. Then,
+after a moment of silence: “You may call my carriage, Sweetwater. I can
+do nothing further here to-day. The atmosphere of this house stifles
+me. Dead flowers, dead hopes, and something worse than death lowering
+in the prospect. I remember my old friend—this was his desk. Let us
+go, I say.”</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater threw open the door, but his wistful look did not escape the
+older man’s eye.</p>
+
+<p>“You’re not ready to go? Wish to search the house, perhaps.”</p>
+
+<p>“Naturally.”</p>
+
+<p>“It has already been done in a general way.”</p>
+
+<p>“I wish to do it thoroughly.”</p>
+
+<p>The coroner sighed.</p>
+
+<p>“I should be wrong to stand in your way. Get your warrant and the house
+is yours. But remember the sick girl.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s why I wish to do the job my self.”</p>
+
+<p>“You’re a good fellow, Sweetwater.” Then as he was passing out, “I’m
+going to rely on you to see this thing through, quietly if you can,
+openly and in the public eye if you must. The keys tell the tale—the
+keys and the hat. If the former had been left in the club-house and
+the latter found without the mark set on it by the mechanic’s wife,
+Ranelagh’s chances would look as slim to-day as they did immediately
+after the event. But with things as they are, he may well rest easily
+to-night; the clouds are lifting for him.”</p>
+
+<p>Which shows how little we poor mortals realise what makes for the peace
+even of those who are the nearest to us and whose lives and hearts we
+think we can read like an open book.</p>
+
+<p>The coroner gone, Sweetwater made his way to the room where he had last
+seen Mr. Clifton. He found it empty and was soon told by Hexford that
+the lawyer had left. This was welcome news to him; he felt that he had
+a fair field before him now; and learning that it would be some fifteen
+minutes yet before he could hope to see the carriages back, he followed
+Hexford upstairs.</p>
+
+<p>“I wish I had your advantages,” he remarked as they reached the upper
+floor.</p>
+
+<p>“What would you do?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’d wander down that hall and take a long look at things.”</p>
+
+<p>“You would?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’d like to see the girl and I’d like to see the brother when he
+thought no one was watching him.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why see the girl?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know. I’m afraid that’s just curiosity. I’ve heard she was a
+wonder for beauty.”</p>
+
+<p>“She was, once.”</p>
+
+<p>“And not now?”</p>
+
+<p>“You cannot tell; they have bound up her cheeks with cloths. She fell
+on the grate and got burned.”</p>
+
+<p>“But I say that’s dreadful, if she was so beautiful.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, it’s bad, but there are worse things than that. I wonder what she
+meant by that wild cry of ‘Tear it open! See if her heart is there?’
+Tear what open? the coffin?”</p>
+
+<p>“Of course. What else could she have meant?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well! delirium is a queer thing; makes a fellow feel creepy all over.
+I don’t reckon on my nights here.”</p>
+
+<p>“Hexford, help me to a peep. I’ve got a difficult job before me and I
+need all the aid I can get.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, there’s no trouble about that! Walk boldly along; he won’t
+notice—”</p>
+
+<p>“<i>He won’t notice</i>?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, he notices nothing but what comes from the sick room.”</p>
+
+<p>“I see.” Sweetwater’s jaw had fallen, but it righted itself at this
+last word.</p>
+
+<p>“Listening, eh?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes—as a fellow never listened before.”</p>
+
+<p>“Expectant like?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I should call it expectant.”</p>
+
+<p>“Does the nurse know this?”</p>
+
+<p>“The nurse is a puzzler.”</p>
+
+<p>“How so?”</p>
+
+<p>“Half nurse and half—but go see for yourself. Here’s a package to take
+in,—medicine from the drug store. Tell her there was no one else to
+bring it up. She’ll show no surprise.”</p>
+
+<p>Muttering his thanks, Sweetwater seized the proffered package, and
+hastened with it down the hall. He had been as far as the turn before,
+but now he passed the turn to find, just as he expected, a closed door
+on the left and an open alcove on the right. The door led into Miss
+Cumberland’s room; the alcove, circular in shape and lighted by several
+windows, projected from the rear of the extension, and had for its
+outlook the stable and the huge sycamore tree growing beside it.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater’s fingers passed thoughtfully across his chin as he remarked
+this and took in the expressive outline of its one occupant. He could
+not see his face; that was turned towards the table before which he
+sat. But his drooping head, rigid with desperate thinking; his relaxed
+hand closed around the neck of a decanter which, nevertheless, he did
+not lift, made upon Sweetwater an impression which nothing he saw
+afterwards ever quite effaced.</p>
+
+<p>“When I come back, that whiskey will be half gone,” thought he, and
+lingered to see the tumbler filled and the first draught taken.</p>
+
+<p>But no. The hand slowly unclasped and fell away from the decanter; his
+head sank forward until his chin rested on his breast; and a sigh,
+startling to Sweetwater, fell from his lips. Hexford was right; only
+one thing could arouse him.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater now tried that thing. He knocked softly on the sick-room
+door.</p>
+
+<p>This reached the ear oblivious to all else. Young Cumberland started
+to his feet; and for a moment Sweetwater saw again the heavy features
+which, an hour before, had produced such a repulsive effect upon him in
+the rooms below. Then the nerveless figure sank again into place, with
+the same constraint in its lines, and the same dejection.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater’s hand, lifted in repetition of his knock, hung suspended.
+He had not expected quite such indifference as this. It upset his
+calculations just a trifle. As his hand fell, he reminded himself of
+the coroner’s advice to go easy. “Easy it is,” was his internal reply.
+“I’ll walk as lightly as if eggshells were under my feet.”</p>
+
+<p>The door was opened to him, this time. As it swung back, he saw, first,
+a burst of rosy color as a room panelled in exquisite pink burst upon
+his sight; then the great picture of his life—the bloodless features
+of Carmel, calmed for the moment into sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Perfect beauty is so rare, its effect so magical! Not even the
+bandage which swathed one cheek could hide the exquisite symmetry
+of the features, or take from the whole face its sweet and natural
+distinction. Frenzy, which had distorted the muscles and lit the eyes
+with a baleful glare, was lacking at this moment. Repose had quieted
+the soul and left the body free to express its natural harmonies.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater gazed at the winsome, brown head over the nurse’s shoulder,
+and felt that for him a new and important factor had entered into this
+case, with his recognition of this woman’s great beauty. How deep
+a factor, he was far from suspecting, or he would not have met the
+nurse’s eye with quite so cheery and self-confident a smile.</p>
+
+<p>“Excuse the intrusion,” he said. “We thought you might need these
+things. Hexford signed for them.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m obliged to you. Are you—one of them?” she sharply asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Would it disturb you if I were? I hope not. I’ve no wish to seem
+intrusive.”</p>
+
+<p>“What do you want? Something, I know. Give it a name before there’s a
+change there.”</p>
+
+<p>She nodded towards the bed, and Sweetwater took advantage of the
+moment to scrutinise more closely the nurse herself. She was a robust,
+fine-looking woman, producing an impression of capability united to
+kindness. Strength of mind and rigid attendance to duty dominated the
+kindness, however. If crossed in what she considered best for her
+patient, possibly for herself, she could be severe, if not biting, in
+her speech and manner. So much Sweetwater read in the cold, clear eye
+and firm, self-satisfied mouth of the woman awaiting his response to
+the curt demand she had made.</p>
+
+<p>“I want another good look at your patient, and I want your confidence
+since you and I may have to see much of each other before this matter
+is ended. You asked me to speak plainly and I have done so.”</p>
+
+<p>“You are from headquarters?”</p>
+
+<p>“Coroner Perry sent me.” Throwing back his coat, he showed his badge.
+“The coroner has returned to his office. He was quite upset by the
+outcry which came from this room at an unhappy moment during the
+funeral.”</p>
+
+<p>“I know. It was my fault; I opened the door just for an instant, and in
+that instant my patient broke through her torpor and spoke.”</p>
+
+<p>She had drawn him in, by this time, and, after another glance at her
+patient, softly closed the door behind him.</p>
+
+<p>“I have nothing to report,” said she, “but the one sentence everybody
+heard.”</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater took in the little memorandum book and pencil which hung at
+her side, and understood her position and extraordinary amenability to
+his wishes. Unconsciously, a low exclamation escaped him. He was young
+and had not yet sunk the man entirely in the detective.</p>
+
+<p>“A cruel necessity to watch so interesting a patient, for anything but
+her own good,” he remarked. Yet, because he was a detective as well
+as a man, his eye went wandering all over the room as he spoke until
+it fell upon a peculiar-looking cabinet or closet, let into the wall
+directly opposite the bed. “What’s that?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know; I can’t make it out, and I don’t like to ask.”</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater examined it for a moment from where he stood; then crossed
+over, and scrutinised it more particularly. It was a unique specimen.
+What it lacked in height—it could not have measured more than a foot
+from the bottom to the top—it made up in length, which must have
+exceeded five feet. The doors, of which it had two, were both tightly
+locked; but as they were made of transparent glass, the objects
+behind them were quite visible. It was the nature of these objects
+which made the mystery. The longer Sweetwater examined them, the less
+he understood the reason for their collection, much less for their
+preservation in a room which in all other respects, expressed the
+quintessence of taste.</p>
+
+<p>At one end he saw a stuffed canary, not perched on a twig, but lying
+prone on its side. Near it was a doll, with scorched face and limbs
+half-consumed. Next this, the broken pieces of a china bowl and what
+looked like the torn remnants of some very fine lace. Further along,
+his eye lighted on a young girl’s bonnet, exquisite in colour and
+nicety of material, but crushed out of all shape and only betraying its
+identity by its dangling strings. The next article, in this long array
+of totally unhomogeneous objects, was a metronome, with its pendulum
+wrenched half off and one of its sides lacking. He could not determine
+the character of what came next, and only gave a casual examination to
+the rest. The whole affair was a puzzle to him, and he had no time for
+puzzles disconnected with the very serious affair he was engaged in
+investigating.</p>
+
+<p>“Some childish nonsense,” he remarked, and moved towards the door.
+“The servants will be coming back, and I had rather not be found here.
+You’ll see me again—I cannot tell just when. Perhaps you may want to
+send for me. If so, my name is Sweetwater.”</p>
+
+<p>His hand was on the knob, and he was almost out of the room when he
+started and looked back. A violent change in the patient had occurred.
+Disturbed by his voice or by some inner pulsation of the fever which
+devoured her, Carmel had risen from the pillow and now sat, staring
+straight before her with every feature working and lips opened as if to
+speak. Sweetwater held his breath, and the nurse leaped towards her and
+gently encircled her with protecting arms.</p>
+
+<p>“Lie down,” she prayed; “lie down. Everything is all right: I am
+looking after things. Lie down, little one, and rest.”</p>
+
+<p>The young girl drooped, and, yielding to the nurse’s touch, sank slowly
+back on the pillow; but in an instant she was up again, and flinging
+out her hand, she cried out loudly just as she had cried an hour before:</p>
+
+<p>“Break it open! Break the glass and look in. Her heart should be
+there—her heart—her heart!”</p>
+
+<p>“Go, or I cannot quiet her!” ordered the nurse, and Sweetwater turned
+to obey.</p>
+
+<p>But a new obstacle offered. The brother had heard this cry, and now
+stood in the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>“Who are you?” he impatiently demanded, surveying Sweetwater in sudden
+anger.</p>
+
+<p>“I brought up the drugs,” was the quiet explanation of the ever-ready
+detective. “I didn’t mean to alarm the young lady, and I don’t think I
+did. It’s the fever, sir, which makes her talk so wildly.”</p>
+
+<p>“We want no strangers here,” was young Cumberland’s response.
+“Remember, nurse, no strangers.” His tone was actually peremptory.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater observed him in real astonishment as he slid by and made his
+quiet escape. He was still more astonished when, on glancing towards
+the alcove, he perceived that, contrary to his own prognostication, the
+whiskey stood as high in the decanter as before.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve got a puzzler this time,” was his comment, as he made his way
+downstairs. “Even Mr. Gryce would say that. I wonder how I’ll come out.
+Uppermost!” he finished in secret emphasis to himself. “<i>Uppermost</i>! It
+would never do for me to fail in the first big affair I’ve undertaken
+on my own account.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XV">XV<br><span class="small">HELEN SURPRISES SWEETWATER</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">Lurk, lurk.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>King Lear</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>The returning servants drove up just as Sweetwater reached the lower
+floor. He was at the side door when they came in, and a single glance
+convinced him that all had gone off decorously at the grave, and that
+nothing further had occurred during their absence to disturb them.</p>
+
+<p>He followed them as they filed away into the kitchen, and, waiting till
+the men had gone about their work, turned his attention to the girls
+who stood about very much as if they did not know just what to do with
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>“Sit, ladies,” said he, drawing up chairs quite as if he were doing the
+honours of the house. Then with a sly, compassionate look into each
+woe-begone face, he artfully remarked: “You’re all upset, you are, by
+what Mr. Cumberland said in such an unbecoming way at the funeral. He’d
+like to strangle Mr. Ranelagh! Why couldn’t he wait for the sheriff. It
+looks as if that gentleman would have the job, all right.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! don’t!” wailed out one of the girls, the impressionable,
+warm-hearted Maggie. “The horrors of this house’ll kill me. I can’t
+stand it a minute longer. I’ll go—I’ll go to-morrow.”</p>
+
+<p>“You won’t; you’re too kind-hearted to leave Mr. Cumberland and his
+sister in their desperate trouble,” Sweetwater put in, with a decision
+as suggestive of admiration as he dared to assume.</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes filled, and she said no more. Sweetwater shifted his attention
+to Helen. Working around by her side, he managed to drop these words
+into her ear:</p>
+
+<p>“She talks most, but she doesn’t feel her responsibilities any more
+than you do. I’ve had my experience with women, and you’re of the sort
+that stays.”</p>
+
+<p>She rolled her eyes towards him, in a slow, surprised way, that would
+have abashed most men.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know your name, or your business here,” said she; “but I do
+know that you take a good deal upon yourself when you say what I shall
+do or shan’t do. I don’t even know, myself.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s because your eye is not so keen to your own virtues as—well, I
+won’t say as mine, but as those of any appreciative stranger. I can’t
+help seeing what you are, you know.”</p>
+
+<p>She turned her shoulder but not before he caught a slight disdainful
+twitch of her rosy, non-communicative mouth.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah, ah, my lady, not quick enough!” thought he; and, with the most
+innocent air in the world, he launched forth in a tirade against the
+man then in custody, as though his guilt were an accepted fact and
+nothing but the formalities of the law stood between him and his final
+doom. “It must make you all feel queer,” he wound up, “to think you
+have waited on him and seen him tramping about these rooms for months,
+just as if he had no wicked feelings in his heart and meant to marry
+Miss Cumberland, not to kill her.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, oh,” Maggie sobbed out. “And a perfect gentleman he was, too. I
+can’t believe no bad of him. He wasn’t like—” Her breath caught, and
+so suddenly that Sweetwater was always convinced that the more cautious
+Helen had twitched her by her skirt. “Like—like other gentlemen who
+came here. It was a kind word he had or a smile. I—I—” She made no
+attempt to finish but bounded to her feet, pulling up the more sedate
+Helen with her. “Let’s go,” she whispered, “I’m afeared of the man.”</p>
+
+<p>The other yielded and began to cross the floor behind the impetuous
+Maggie.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater summoned up his courage.</p>
+
+<p>“One moment,” he prayed. “Will you not tell me, before you go, whether
+the candlestick I have noticed on the dining-room mantel is not one of
+a pair?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, there were two—<i>once</i>,” said Helen, resisting Maggie’s effort to
+drag her out through the open door.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Once</i>,” smiled Sweetwater; “by which you mean, three days ago.”</p>
+
+<p>A lowering of her head and a sudden make for the door.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater changed his tone to one of simple inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>“And was that where they always stood, the pair of them, one on each
+end of the dining-room mantel?”</p>
+
+<p>She nodded; involuntarily, perhaps, but decisively.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater hid his disappointment. The room mentioned was a
+thoroughfare for the whole family. Any member of it could have taken
+the candlestick.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m obliged to you,” said he; and might have ventured further had she
+given him the opportunity. But she was too near the door to resist the
+temptation of flight. In another moment she was gone, and Sweetwater
+found himself alone with his reflections.</p>
+
+<p>They were not altogether unpleasing. He was sure that he read the
+evidences of struggle in her slowly working lips and changing impulses.</p>
+
+<p>“So, so!” thought he. “The good seed has found its little corner of
+soil. I’ll leave it to take root and sprout. Perhaps the coroner will
+profit by it. If not, I’ve a way of coaxing tender plants which should
+bring this one to fruit. We’ll see.”</p>
+
+<p>The moon shone that night, much to Sweetwater’s discomforture. As he
+moved about the stable-yard, he momentarily expected to see the window
+of the alcove thrown up and to hear Mr. Cumberland’s voice raised in
+loud command for him to quit the premises. But no such interruption
+came. The lonely watcher, whose solitary figure he could just discern
+above the unshaded sill, remained immovable, with his head buried in
+his arms, but whether in sleep or in brooding misery, there was naught
+to tell.</p>
+
+<p>The rest of the house presented an equally dolorous and forsaken
+appearance. There were lights in the kitchen and lights in the
+servants’ rooms at the top of the house, but no sounds either of
+talking or laughing. All voices had sunk to a whisper, and if by chance
+a figure passed one of the windows, it was in a hurried, frightened
+way, which Sweetwater felt very ready to appreciate.</p>
+
+<p>In the stable it was no better. Zadok had bought an evening paper,
+and was seeking solace from its columns. Sweetwater had attempted the
+sociable but had been met by a decided rebuff. The coachman could
+not forget his attitude before the funeral and nothing, not even the
+pitcher of beer the detective proposed to bring in, softened the
+forbidding air with which this old servant met the other’s advances.</p>
+
+<p>Soon Sweetwater realised that his work was over for the night and
+planned to leave. But there was one point to be settled first. Was
+there any other means of exit from these grounds save that offered by
+the ordinary driveway?</p>
+
+<p>He had an impression that in one of his strolls about, he had detected
+the outlines of a door in what looked like a high brick wall in the
+extreme rear. If so, it were well worth his while to know where that
+door led. Working his way along in the shadow cast by the house and
+afterward by the stable itself, he came upon what was certainly a
+wall and a wall with a door in it. He could see the latter plainly
+from where he halted in the thick of the shadows. The moonlight shone
+broadly on it, and he could detect the very shape and size of its
+lock. It might be as well to try that lock, but he would have to cross
+a very wide strip of moonlight in order to do so, and he feared to
+attract attention to his extreme inquisitiveness. Yet who was there to
+notice him at this hour? Mr. Cumberland had not moved, the girls were
+upstairs, Zadok was busy with his paper, and the footman dozing over
+his pipe in his room over the stable. Sweetwater had just come from
+that room, and he knew.</p>
+
+<p>A quiet stable-yard and a closed door only ten feet away! He glanced
+again at the latter, and made up his mind. Advancing in a quiet,
+sidelong way he had, he laid his hand on the small knob above the
+lock and quickly turned it. The door was unlocked and swung under his
+gentle push. An alley-way opened before him, leading to what appeared
+to be another residence street. He was about to test the truth of this
+surmise when he heard a step behind him, and turning, encountered the
+heavy figure of the coachman advancing towards him, with a key in his
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>Zadok was of an easy turn, but he had been sorely tried that day, and
+his limit had been reached.</p>
+
+<p>“You snooper!” he bawled. “What do you want here? Won’t the run of the
+house content ye? Come! I want to lock that door. It’s my last duty
+before going to bed.”</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater assumed the innocent.</p>
+
+<p>“And I was just going this way. It looks like a short road into town.
+It is, isn’t it?”</p>
+
+<p>“No! Yes,” growled the other. “Whichever it is, it isn’t your road
+to-night. That’s private property, sir. The alley you see, belongs to
+our neighbours. No one passes through there but myself and—”</p>
+
+<p>He caught himself in time, with a sullen grunt which may have been the
+result of fatigue or of that latent instinct of loyalty which is often
+the most difficult obstacle a detective has to encounter.</p>
+
+<p>“And Mr. Ranelagh, I suppose you would say?” was Sweetwater’s easy
+finish.</p>
+
+<p>No answer; the coachman simply locked the door and put the key in his
+pocket.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater made no effort to deter him. More than that he desisted from
+further questions though he was dying to ask where this key was kept at
+night, and whether it had been in its usual place on the evening of the
+murder. He had gone far enough, he thought. Another step and he might
+rouse this man’s suspicion, if not his enmity. But he did not leave
+the shadows into which he again receded until he had satisfied himself
+that the key went into the stable with the coachman, where it probably
+remained for this night, at least.</p>
+
+<p>It was after ten when Sweetwater re-entered the house to say good night
+to Hexford. He found him on watch in the upper hall, and the man,
+Clarke, below. He had a word with the former:</p>
+
+<p>“What is the purpose of the little door in the wall back of the stable?”</p>
+
+<p>“It connects these grounds with those of the Fultons. The Fultons live
+on Huested Street.”</p>
+
+<p>“Are the two families intimate?”</p>
+
+<p>“Very. Mr. Cumberland is sweet on the young lady there. She was at the
+funeral to-day. She fainted when—you know when.”</p>
+
+<p>“I can guess. God! What complications arise! You don’t say that any
+woman can care for <i>him</i>?”</p>
+
+<p>Hexford gave a shrug. He had seen a good deal of life.</p>
+
+<p>“He uses that door, then?” Sweetwater pursued, after a minute.</p>
+
+<p>“Probably.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did he use it that night?”</p>
+
+<p>“He didn’t visit <i>her</i>”</p>
+
+<p>“Where did he go?”</p>
+
+<p>“We can’t find out. He was first seen on Garden Street, coming home
+after a night of debauch. He had drunk hard. Asked where he got the
+liquor, he maundered out something about a saloon; but none of the
+places which he usually frequents had seen him that night. I have tried
+them all and some that weren’t in his books. It was no good.”</p>
+
+<p>“That door is supposed to be locked at night. Zadok says that’s his
+duty. Was it locked that night?”</p>
+
+<p>“Can’t say. Perhaps the coroner can. You see the inquiry ran in such a
+different direction, at first, that a small matter like that may have
+been overlooked.”</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater subdued the natural retort, and, reverting to the subject of
+the saloons, got some specific information in regard to them. Then he
+passed thoughtfully down-stairs, only to come upon Helen who was just
+extinguishing the front-hall light.</p>
+
+<p>“Good night!” he said, in passing.</p>
+
+<p>“Good night, Mr. Sweetwater.”</p>
+
+<p>There was something in her tone which made him stop and look back. She
+had stepped into the library and was blowing out the lamp there. He
+paused a moment and sighed softly. Then he started towards the door,
+only to stop again and cast another look back. She was standing in one
+of the doorways, anxiously watching him and twisting her fingers in and
+out in an irresolute way truly significant in one of her disposition.</p>
+
+<p>He felt his heart leap.</p>
+
+<p>Returning softly, he took up his stand before her, looking her straight
+in the eye.</p>
+
+<p>“Good night,” he repeated, with an odd emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>“Good night,” she answered, with equal force and meaning.</p>
+
+<p>But the next moment she was speaking rapidly, earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>“I can’t sleep,” said she. “I never can when I’m not certain of my
+duty. Mr. Ranelagh is an injured man. Ask what was said and done at
+their last dinner here. I can’t tell you. I didn’t listen and I didn’t
+see what happened, but it was something out of the ordinary. Three
+broken wineglasses lay on the tablecloth when I went in to clear away.
+I heard the clatter when they fell and smashed, but I said nothing. I
+have said nothing since; but I know there was a quarrel, and that Mr.
+Ranelagh was not in it, for his glass was the only one which remained
+unbroken. Am I wrong in telling you? I wouldn’t if—if it were not
+for Mr. Ranelagh. He didn’t do right by Miss Cumberland, but he don’t
+deserve to be in prison; and so would Miss Carmel tell you if she knew
+what was going on and could speak. <i>She</i> loved him and—I’ve said
+enough; I’ve said enough,” the agitated girl protested, as he leaned
+eagerly towards her. “I couldn’t tell the priest any more. Good night.”</p>
+
+<p>And she was gone.</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated a moment, then pursued his way to the side door, and so
+out of the house into the street. As he passed along the front of the
+now darkened building, he scanned it with a new interest and a new
+doubt. Soon he returned to his old habit of muttering to himself. “We
+don’t know the half of what has taken place within those walls during
+the last four weeks,” said he. “But one thing I will solve, and that is
+where this miserable fellow spent the hours between this dinner they
+speak of and the time of his return next day. Hexford has failed at it.
+Now we’ll see what a blooming stranger can do.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XVI">XVI<br><span class="small">62 CUTHBERT ROAD</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">Tush! I will stir about,<br>
+And all things will be well, I warrant thee.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Romeo and Juliet</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>He was walking south and on the best lighted and most beautiful street
+in town, but his eyes were forever seeking a break in the long line of
+fence which marked off the grounds of a seemingly interminable stretch
+of neighbouring mansions, and when a corner was at last reached, he
+dashed around it and took a straight course for Huested Street, down
+which he passed with quickened steps and an air of growing assurance.</p>
+
+<p>He was soon at the bottom of the hill where the street, taking a turn,
+plunged him at once into a thickly populated district. As this was
+still the residence quarter, he passed on until he gained the heart
+of the town and the region of the saloons. Here he slackened pace and
+consulted a memorandum he had made while talking to Hexford. “A big
+job,” was his comment, sorry to find the hour quite so late. “But I’m
+not bound to finish it to-night. A start is all I can hope for, so here
+goes.”</p>
+
+<p>It was not his intention to revisit the places so thoroughly overhauled
+by the police. He carried another list, that of certain small groceries
+and quiet unobtrusive hotels where a man could find a private room
+in which to drink alone; it being Sweetwater’s conviction that in
+such a place, and in such a place only, would be found the tokens of
+those solitary hours spent by Arthur Cumberland between the time of
+his sister’s murder and his reappearance the next day. “Had they been
+spent in his old haunts or in any of the well-known drinking saloons
+of the city, some one would have peached on him before this,” he went
+on, in silent argument with himself. “He’s too well known, too much of
+a swell for all his lowering aspect and hang-dog look, to stroll along
+unnoticed through any of the principal streets, so soon after the news
+of his sister’s murder had set the whole town agog. Yet he was not seen
+till he struck Garden Street, a good quarter of a mile from his usual
+resorts.”</p>
+
+<p>Here, Sweetwater glanced up at the corner gas-lamp beneath which
+he stood, and seeing that he was in Garden Street, tried to locate
+himself in the exact spot where this young man had first been seen on
+the notable morning in question. Then he looked carefully about him.
+Nothing in the street or its immediate neighbourhood suggested the low
+and secret den he was in search of.</p>
+
+<p>“I shall have to make use of the list,” he decided, and asked the first
+passer-by the way to Hubbell’s Alley.</p>
+
+<p>It was a mile off. “That settles it,” muttered Sweetwater. “Besides, I
+doubt if he would go into an <i>alley</i>. The man has sunk low, but hardly
+so low as that. What’s the next address I have? Cuthbert Road. Where’s
+that?”</p>
+
+<p>Espying a policeman eyeing him with more or less curiosity from the
+other side of the street, he crossed over and requested to be directed
+to Cuthbert Road.</p>
+
+<p>“Cuthbert Road! That’s where the markets are. They’re closed at this
+time of night,” was the somewhat suspicious reply.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently the location was not a savoury one.</p>
+
+<p>“Are there nothing but markets there?” inquired Sweetwater, innocently.
+It was his present desire not to be recognised as a detective even by
+the men on beat. “I’m looking up a friend. He keeps a grocery or some
+kind of small hotel. I have his number, but I don’t know how to get to
+Cuthbert Road.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then turn straight about and go down the first street, and you’ll
+reach it before the trolley-car you see up there can strike this
+corner. But first, sew up your pockets. There’s a bad block between you
+and the markets.”</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater slapped his trousers and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>“I wasn’t born yesterday,” he cried; and following the officer’s
+directions, made straight for the Road. “Worse than the alley,” he
+muttered; “but too near to be slighted. I wonder if I shouldn’t have
+borrowed somebody’s old coat.”</p>
+
+<p>It had been wiser, certainly. In Garden Street all the houses had been
+closed and dark, but here they were open and often brightly lighted and
+noisy from cellar to roof. Men, women, and frequently children, jostled
+him on the pavement, and he felt his pockets touched more than once.
+But he wasn’t Caleb Sweetwater of the New York department of police
+for nothing. He laughed, bantered, fought his way through and finally
+reached the quieter region and, at this hour, the almost deserted
+one, of the markets. Sixty-two was not far off, and, pausing a moment
+to consider his course, he mechanically took in the surroundings. He
+was surprised to find himself almost in the open country. The houses
+extending on his left were fronted by the booths and stalls of the
+market but beyond these were the fields. Interested in this discovery,
+and anxious to locate himself exactly, he took his stand under a
+favouring gas-lamp, and took out his map.</p>
+
+<p>What he saw, sent him forward in haste. Shops had now taken the place
+of tenements, and as these were mostly closed, there were very few
+persons on the block, and those were quiet and unobtrusive. He reached
+a corner before coming to 62 and was still more interested to perceive
+that the street which branched off thus immediately from the markets
+was a wide and busy one, offering both a safe and easy approach to
+dealer and customer. “I’m on the track,” he whispered almost aloud in
+his secret self-congratulation. “Sixty-two will prove a decent quiet
+resort which I may not be above patronising myself.”</p>
+
+<p>But he hesitated when he reached it. Some houses invite and some repel.
+This house repelled. Yet there was nothing shabby or mysterious about
+it. There was the decent entrance, lighted, but not too brilliantly; a
+row of dark windows over it; and, above it all, a sloping roof in which
+another sparkle of light drew his attention to an upper row of windows,
+this time, of the old dormer shape. An alley ran down one side of the
+house to the stables, now locked but later to be thrown open for the
+use of the farmers who begin to gather here as early as four o’clock.
+Nothing wrong in its appearance, everything ship-shape and yet—“I
+shall find some strange characters here,” was the Sweetwater comment
+with which our detective opened the door and walked into the house.</p>
+
+<p>It was an unusual hour for guests, and the woman whom he saw bending
+over a sort of desk in one corner of the room he strode into, looked up
+hastily, almost suspiciously.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, and what is your business?” she asked, with her eye on his
+clothes, which while not fashionable, were evidently of the sort not
+often seen in that place.</p>
+
+<p>“I want a room,” he tipsily confided to her, “in which I can drink and
+drink till I cannot see. I’m in trouble I am; but I don’t want to do
+any mischief; I only want to forget. I’ve money, and—” as he saw her
+mouth open, “and I’ve the stuff. Whiskey, just whiskey. Give me a room.
+I’ll be quiet.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll give you nothing.” She was hot, angry, and full of distrust.
+“This house is not for such as you. It’s a farmer’s lodging; honest
+men, who’d stare and go mad to see a feller like you about. Go along, I
+tell you, or I’ll call Jim. He’ll know what to do with you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then, he’ll know mor’n I do myself,” mumbled the detective, with a
+crushed and discouraged air. “Money and not a place to spend it in! Why
+can’t I go in there?” he peevishly inquired with a tremulous gesture
+towards a half-open door through which a glimpse could be got of a neat
+little snuggery. “Nobody’ll see me. Give me a glass and leave me till I
+rap for you in the morning. That’s worth a fiver. Don’t you think so,
+missus?—And we’ll begin by passing over the fiver.”</p>
+
+<p>“No.”</p>
+
+<p>She was mighty peremptory and what was more, she was in a great hurry
+to get rid of him. This haste and the anxious ear she turned towards
+the hall enlightened him as to the situation. There was some one within
+hearing or liable to come within hearing, who possibly was not so stiff
+under temptation. Could it be her husband? If so, it might be worth his
+own while to await the good man’s coming, if only he could manage to
+hold his own for the next few minutes.</p>
+
+<p>Changing his tactics, he turned his back on the snuggery and surveyed
+the offended woman, with just a touch of maudlin sentiment.</p>
+
+<p>“I say,” he cried, just loud enough to attract the attention of any one
+within ear-shot. “You’re a mighty fine woman and the boss of this here
+establishment; that’s evident. I’d like to see the man who could say
+no to you. He’s never sat in that ’ere cashier’s seat where you be; of
+that I’m dead sure. He wouldn’t care for fivers if you didn’t, nor for
+tens either.”</p>
+
+<p>She was really a fine woman for her station, and a buxom, powerful one,
+too. But her glance wavered under these words and she showed a desire,
+with difficulty suppressed, to use the strength of her white but brawny
+arms, in shoving him out of the house. To aid her self-control, he, on
+his part, began to edge towards the door, always eyeing her and always
+speaking loudly in admirably acted tipsy unconsciousness of the fact.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m a man who likes my own way as well as anybody,” were the words
+with which he sought to save the situation, and further his own
+purposes. “But I never quarrel with a woman. Her whims are sacred to
+me. I may not believe in them; they may cost me money and comfort; but
+I yield, I do, when they are as strong in their wishes as you be. I’m
+going, missus —I’m going—Oh!”</p>
+
+<p>The exclamation burst from him. He could not help it. The door behind
+him had opened, and a man stepped in, causing him so much astonishment
+that he forgot himself. The woman was big, bigger than most women who
+rule the roost and do the work in haunts where work calls for muscle
+and a good head behind it. She was also rosy and of a make to draw the
+eye, if not the heart. But the man who now entered was small almost to
+the point of being a manikin, and more than that, he was weazen of face
+and ill-balanced on his two tiny, ridiculous legs. Yet she trembled
+at his presence, and turned a shade paler as she uttered the feeble
+protest:</p>
+
+<p>“Jim!”</p>
+
+<p>“Is she making a fool of herself?” asked the little man in a voice as
+shrill as it was weak. “Do your business with me. Women are no good.”
+And he stalked into the room as only little men can.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater took out his ten; pointed to the snuggery, and tapped his
+breast-pocket. “Whiskey here,” he confided. “Bring me a glass. I don’t
+mind your farmers. They won’t bother me. What I want is a locked door
+and a still mouth in your head.”</p>
+
+<p>The last he whispered in the husband’s ear as the wife crossed
+reluctantly back to her books.</p>
+
+<p>The man turned the bill he had received, over and over in his hand;
+then scrutinised Sweetwater, with his first show of hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>“You don’t want to kill yourself?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater laughed with a show of good humour that appeared to relieve
+the woman, if it did not the man.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, that’s it,” he cried. “That’s what the missus was afraid of, was
+it? Well, I vow! And ten thousand dollars to my credit in the bank!
+No, I don’t want to kill myself. I just want to booze to my heart’s
+content, with nobody by to count the glasses. You’ve known such fellers
+before, and that cosey, little room over there has known them, too.
+Just add me to the list; it won’t harm you.”</p>
+
+<p>The man’s hand closed on the bill. Sweetwater noted the action out of
+the corner of his eye, but his direct glance was on the woman. Her back
+was to him, but she had started as he mentioned the snuggery and made
+as if to turn; but thought better of it, and bent lower over her books.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve struck the spot,” he murmured, exultantly to himself. “This is
+the place I want and here I’ll spend the night; but not to booze my
+wits away, oh, no.”</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless it was a night virtually wasted. He learned nothing more
+than what was revealed by that one slight movement on the part of the
+woman.</p>
+
+<p>Though the man came in and sat with him for an hour, and they drank
+together out of the flask Sweetwater had brought with him, he was as
+impervious to all Sweetwater’s wiles and as blind to every bait he
+threw out, as any man the young detective had ever had to do with.
+When the door closed on him, and Sweetwater was left to sit out the
+tedious night alone, it was with small satisfaction to himself, and
+some regret for his sacrificed bill. The driving in of the farmers and
+the awakening of life in the market, and all the stir it occasioned
+inside the house and out, prevented sleep even if he had been inclined
+that way. He had to swallow his pill, and he did it with the best
+grace possible. Sooner than was expected of him, sooner than was wise,
+perhaps, he was on his feet and peering out of the one small window
+this most dismal day room contained. He had not mistaken the outlook.
+It gave on to the alley, and all that was visible from behind the
+curtains where he stood, was the high brick wall of the neighbouring
+house. This wall had not even a window in it; which in itself was a
+disappointment to one of his resources. He turned back into the room,
+disgusted; then crept to the window again, and, softly raising the
+sash, cast one of his lightning glances up and down the alley. Then he
+softly let the sash fall again and retreated to the centre of the room,
+where he stood for a moment with a growing smile of intelligence and
+hope on his face. He had detected close against the side of the wall,
+a box or hand-cart full of empty bottles. It gave him an idea. With an
+impetuosity he would have criticised in another man, he flung himself
+out of the room in which he had been for so many hours confined, and
+coming face to face with the landlady standing in unexpected watch
+before the door, found it a strain on his nerves to instantly assume
+the sullen, vaguely abused air with which he had decided to leave the
+house. Nevertheless, he made the attempt, and if he did not succeed to
+his own satisfaction, he evidently did to hers, for she made no effort
+to stop him as he stumbled out, and in her final look, which he managed
+with some address to intercept, he perceived nothing but relief. What
+had been in her mind? Fear for him or fear for themselves? He could
+not decide until he had rummaged that cart of bottles. But how was he
+to do this without attracting attention to himself in a way he still
+felt, to be undesirable. In his indecision, he paused on the sidewalk
+and let his glances wander vaguely over the busy scene before him.
+Before be knew it, his eye had left the market and travelled across
+the snow-covered fields to a building standing by itself in the far
+distance. Its appearance was not unfamiliar. Seizing hold of the first
+man who passed him, he pointed it out, crying:</p>
+
+<p>“What building is that?”</p>
+
+<p>“That? That’s The Whispering Pines, the country club-house, where—”</p>
+
+<p>He didn’t wait for the end of the sentence, but plunged into the
+thickest group of people he could find, with a determination greater
+than ever to turn those bottles over before he ate.</p>
+
+<p>His manner of going about this was characteristic. Lounging about
+the stalls until he found just the sort of old codger he wanted, he
+scraped up an acquaintance with him on the spot, and succeeded in
+making himself so agreeable that when the old fellow sauntered back to
+the stables to take a look at his horse, Sweetwater accompanied him.
+Hanging round the stable-door, he kept up his chatter, while sizing up
+the bottles heaped in the cart at his side. He even allowed himself to
+touch one or two in an absent way, and was meditating an accidental
+upset of the whole collection when a woman he had not seen before,
+thrust her head out of a rear window, shouting sharply:</p>
+
+<p>“Leave those bottles alone. They’re waiting for the old clothes man. He
+pays us money for them.”</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater gaped and strolled away. He had used his eyes to purpose,
+and was quite assured that the bottle he wanted was not there. But
+the woman’s words had given him his cue, and when later in the day a
+certain old Jew peddler went his rounds through this portion of the
+city, a disreputable-looking fellow accompanied him, whom even the
+sharp landlady in Cuthbert Road would have failed to recognise as the
+same man who had occupied the snuggery the night before. He was many
+hours on the route and had many new experiences with human nature. But
+he gained little else, and was considering with what words he should
+acknowledge his defeat at police headquarters, when he found himself
+again at the markets and a minute later in the alley where the cart
+stood, with the contents of which he had busied himself earlier in the
+day.</p>
+
+<p>He had followed the peddler here because he had followed him to every
+other back door and alley. But he was tired and had small interest
+in the cart which looked quite undisturbed and in exactly the same
+condition as when he turned his back upon it in the morning. But when
+he drew nearer and began to lend a hand in removing the bottles to the
+waggon, he discovered that a bottle had been added to the pile, and
+that this bottle bore the label which marked it as being one of the two
+which had been taken from the club-house on the night of the murder.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XVII">XVII<br><span class="small">“MUST I TELL THESE THINGS?”</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">Had I but died an hour before this chance,<br>
+I had liv’d a blessed time; for from this instant,<br>
+There’s nothing serious in mortality:<br>
+All is but toys; renown, and grace is dead;<br>
+The wine of life is drawn, and the lees<br>
+Is left this vault to brag of.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Macbeth</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>The lamp in the coroner’s room shone dully on the perturbed faces of
+three anxious men. They had been talking earnestly and long, but were
+now impatiently awaiting the appearance of a fourth party, as was shown
+by the glances which each threw from time to time towards the door
+leading into the main corridor.</p>
+
+<p>The district attorney courted the light, and sat where he would be the
+first seen by any one entering. He had nothing to hide, being entirely
+engrossed in his duty.</p>
+
+<p>Further back and rather behind the lamp than in front of it stood
+or sat, as his restlessness prompted, Coroner Perry, the old friend
+of Amasa Cumberland, with whose son he had now to do. Behind him,
+and still further in the shadow, could be seen the quiet figure of
+Sweetwater. All counted the minutes and all showed relief—the coroner
+by a loud sigh—when the door finally opened and an officer appeared,
+followed by the lounging form of Adelaide’s brother.</p>
+
+<p>Arthur Cumberland had come unwillingly, and his dissatisfaction did
+not improve his naturally heavy countenance. However, he brightened a
+little at sight of the two men sitting at the table, and, advancing,
+broke into speech before either of the two officials had planned their
+questions.</p>
+
+<p>“I call this hard,” he burst forth. “My place is at home and at the
+bedside of my suffering sister, and you drag me down here at nine
+o’clock at night to answer questions about things of which I am
+completely ignorant. I’ve said all I have to say about the trouble
+which has come into my family; but if another repetition of the same
+things will help to convict that scoundrel who has broken up my home
+and made me the wretchedest dog alive, then I’m ready to talk. So, fire
+ahead, Dr. Perry, and let’s be done with it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Sit down,” replied the district attorney, gravely, with a gesture
+of dismissal to the officer. “Mr. Cumberland, we have spared you up
+to this time, for two very good reasons. You were in great trouble,
+and you appeared to be in the possession of no testimony which
+would materially help us. But matters have changed since you held
+conversation with Dr. Perry on the day following your sister’s decease.
+You have laid that sister away; the will which makes you an independent
+man for life has been read in your hearing; you are in as much ease of
+mind as you can be while your remaining sister’s life hangs trembling
+in the balance; and, more important still, discoveries not made before
+the funeral, have been made since, rendering it very desirable for
+you to enter into particulars at this present moment, which were not
+thought necessary then.”</p>
+
+<p>“Particulars? What particulars? Don’t you know enough, as it is, to
+hang the fellow? Wasn’t he seen with his fingers on Adelaide’s throat?
+What can I tell you that is any more damaging than that? Particulars!”
+The word seemed to irritate him beyond endurance. Never had he looked
+more unprepossessing or a less likely subject for sympathy, than when
+he stumbled into the chair set for him by the district attorney.</p>
+
+<p>“Arthur!”</p>
+
+<p>The word had a subtle ring. The coroner, who uttered it, waited to
+watch its effect. Seemingly it had none, after the first sullen glance
+thrown him by the young man; and the coroner sighed again, but this
+time softly, and as a prelude to the following speech:</p>
+
+<p>“We can understand,” said he, “why you should feel so strongly against
+one who has divided the hearts of your sisters, and played with one,
+if not with both. Few men could feel differently. You have reason for
+your enmity and we excuse it; but you must not carry it to the point
+of open denunciation before the full evidence is in and the fact of
+murder settled beyond all dispute. Whatever you may think, whatever we
+may think, it has not been so settled. There are missing links still to
+be supplied, and this is why we have summoned you here and ask you to
+be patient and give the district attorney a little clearer account of
+what went on in your own house, before you broke up that evening and
+you went to your debauch, and your sister Adelaide to her death at The
+Whispering Pines.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know what you mean.” He brought his fist down on the table
+with each word. “Nothing went on. That is,—”</p>
+
+<p>“Something went on at dinner-time. It was not a usual meal,” put in the
+district attorney. “You and your sisters—”</p>
+
+<p>“Stop!” He was at that point of passion which dulls the most
+self-controlled to all sense of propriety.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t talk to me about that dinner. I want to forget that dinner. I
+want to forget everything but the two things I live for—to see that
+fellow hanged, and to—” The words choked him, and he let his head
+fall, but presently threw it up again. “That dastard, whom may God
+confound, passed a letter across Adelaide into Carmel’s hand,” he
+panted out. “I saw him, but I didn’t take it in; I wasn’t thinking. I
+was—”</p>
+
+<p>“Who broke the glasses?” urged his relentless inquisitor. “One at your
+plate, one at Carmel’s, and one at the head of the board where sat your
+sister Adelaide?”</p>
+
+<p>“God! Must I tell these things?” He had started to his feet and his
+hand, violent in all it did, struck his forehead impulsively, as he
+uttered this exclamation. “Have it, then! Heaven knows I think of it
+enough not to be afraid to speak it out in words. Adelaide”—the name
+came with passion, but once uttered, produced its own calming effect,
+so that he went on with more restraint—“Adelaide never had much
+patience with me. She was a girl who only saw one way. ‘The right! the
+right!’ was what she dinned into my ears from the time I was a small
+boy and didn’t know but that all youngsters were brought up by sisters.
+I grew to hate what she called ‘the right,’ I wanted pleasure, a free
+time, and a good drink whenever the fancy took me. You know what I
+am, Dr. Perry, and everybody in town knows; but the impulse which has
+always ruled me was not a downright evil one; or if it was, I called
+it natural independence, and let it go at that. But Adelaide suffered.
+I didn’t understand it and I didn’t care a fig for it, but she <i>did</i>
+suffer. God forgive me!”</p>
+
+<p>He stopped and mopped his forehead. Sweetwater moved a trifle on his
+seat, but the others—men who had passed the meridian of life, who
+had known temptations, possibly had succumbed to them, from time to
+time—sat like two statues, one in full light and the other in as dark
+a shadow as he could find.</p>
+
+<p>“That afternoon,” young Cumberland presently resumed, “she was keyed up
+more than usual. She loved Ranelagh,—damn him!—and he had played or
+was playing her false. She watched him with eyes that madden me, now,
+when I think of them. She saw him look at Carmel, and she saw Carmel
+look at him. Then her eyes fell on me. I was angry; angry at them all,
+and I wanted a drink. It was not her habit to have wine on the table;
+but sometimes, when Ranelagh was there, she did. She was a slave to
+Ranelagh, and he could make her do whatever he wished, just as he can
+make you and everybody else.”</p>
+
+<p>Here he shot insolent glances at his two interlocutors, one of whom
+changed colour—which, happily, he did not see. “‘Ring the bell,’ I
+ordered, ‘and have in the champagne. I want to drink to your marriage
+and the happy days in prospect for us all,’ It was brutal and I
+knew it; but I was reckless and wild for the wine. So, I guess, was
+Ranelagh, for he smiled at her, and she rang for the champagne. When
+the glasses had been set beside each plate, she turned towards Carmel.
+‘We will all drink,’ she said, ‘to my coming marriage,’ This made
+Carmel turn pale; for Adelaide had never been known to drink a drop
+of liquor in her life. I felt a little queer, myself; and not one
+of us spoke till the glasses were filled and the maid had left the
+dining-room and shut the door.</p>
+
+<p>“Then Adelaide rose. ‘We will drink standing,’ said she, and never
+had I seen her look as she did then. I thought of my evil life
+when I should have been watching Ranelagh; and when she lifted the
+glass to her lips and looked at me, almost as earnestly as she did
+at Ranelagh,—but it was a different kind of earnestness,—I felt
+like—like—well, like the wretch I was and always had been; possibly,
+always will be. She drank;—we wouldn’t call it drinking, for she just
+touched the wine with her lips; but to her it was debauch. Then she
+stood waiting, with the strangest gleam in her eyes, while Ranelagh
+drained his glass and I drained mine. Ranelagh thought she wanted some
+sentiment, and started to say something appropriate; but his eye fell
+on Carmel, who had tried to drink and couldn’t, and he bungled over his
+words and at last came to a pause under the steady stare of Adelaide’s
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Never mind, Elwood,’ she said; ‘I know what you would like to
+say. But that’s not what I am thinking of now. I am thinking of my
+brother, the boy who will soon be left to find his way through life
+without even the unwelcome restraint of my presence. I want him to
+remember this day. I want him to remember me as I stand here before
+him with this glass in my hand. You see wine in it, Arthur; but I see
+poison—poison—nothing else, for one like you who cannot refuse a
+friend, cannot refuse your own longing. Never from this day on shall
+another bottle be opened under my roof. Carmel, you have grieved as
+well as I over what has passed for pleasure in this house. Do as I do,
+and may Arthur see and remember.’</p>
+
+<p>“Her fingers opened; the glass fell from her hand, and lay in broken
+fragments beside her plate. Carmel followed suit, and, before I knew
+it, my own fingers had opened, and my own glass lay in pieces on the
+table-cloth beneath me. Only Ranelagh’s hand remained steady. He did
+not choose to please her, or he was planning his perfidy and had
+not caught her words or understood her action. She held her breath,
+watching that hand; and I can hear the gasp yet with which she saw him
+set his glass down quietly on the board. That’s the story of those
+three broken glasses. If she had not died that night, I should be
+laughing at them now; but she did die and I don’t laugh! I curse—curse
+her recreant lover, and sometimes myself! Do you want anything more of
+me? I’m eager to be gone, if you don’t.”</p>
+
+<p>The district attorney sought out and lifted a paper from the others
+lying on the desk before him. It was the first movement he had made
+since Cumberland began his tale.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m sorry,” said he, with a rapid examination of the paper in his
+hand, “but I shall have to detain you a few minutes longer. What
+happened after the dinner? Where did you go from the table?”</p>
+
+<p>“I went to my room to smoke. I was upset and thirsty as a fish.”</p>
+
+<p>“Have you liquor in your room?”</p>
+
+<p>“Sometimes.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you have any that night?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not a drop. I didn’t dare. I wanted that champagne bottle, but
+Adelaide had been too quick for me. It was thrown out—wasted—I do
+believe, wasted.”</p>
+
+<p>“So you did not drink? You only smoked in your room?”</p>
+
+<p>“Smoked one cigar. That was all. Then I went down town.”</p>
+
+<p>His tone had grown sulky, the emotion which had buoyed him up till now,
+seemed suddenly to have left him. With it went the fire from his eye,
+the quiver from his lip, and it is necessary to add, everything else
+calculated to awaken sympathy. He was simply sullen now.</p>
+
+<p>“May I ask by which door you left the house?”</p>
+
+<p>“The side door—the one I always take.”</p>
+
+<p>“What overcoat did you wear?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t remember. The first one I came to, I suppose.”</p>
+
+<p>“But you can surely tell what hat?”</p>
+
+<p>They expected a violent reply, and they got it.</p>
+
+<p>“No, I can’t. What has my hat got to do with the guilt of Elwood
+Ranelagh?”</p>
+
+<p>“Nothing, we hope,” was the imperturbable answer. “But we find it
+necessary to establish absolutely just what overcoat and what hat you
+wore down street that night.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve told you that I don’t remember.” The young man’s colour was
+rising.</p>
+
+<p>“Are not these the ones?” queried the district attorney, making a sign
+to Sweetwater, who immediately stepped forward, with a shabby old
+ulster over his arm, and a battered derby in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>The young man started, rose, then sat again, shouting out with angry
+emphasis:</p>
+
+<p>“<i>No!</i>”</p>
+
+<p>“Yet you recognise these?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why shouldn’t I? They’re mine. Only I don’t wear them any more.
+They’re done for. You must have rooted them out from some closet.”</p>
+
+<p>“We did; perhaps you can tell us what closet.”</p>
+
+<p>“I? No. What do I know about my old clothes? I leave that to the women.”</p>
+
+<p>The slight faltering observable in the latter word conveyed nothing to
+these men.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland,”—the district attorney was very serious,—“this hat
+and this coat, old as they are, were worn into town from your house
+that night. This we know, absolutely. We can even trace them to the
+club-house.”</p>
+
+<p>Mechanically, not spontaneously this time, the young man rose to his
+feet, staring first at the man who had uttered these words, then at the
+garments which Sweetwater still held in view. No anger now; he was too
+deeply shaken for that, too shaken to answer at once—too shaken to be
+quite the master of his own faculties. But he rallied after an interval
+during which these three men devoured his face, each under his own
+special anxiety, and read there possibly what each least wanted to see.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know anything about it,” were the words with which Arthur
+Cumberland sought to escape from the net which had been thus deftly
+cast about him. “I didn’t wear the things. Anybody can tell you what
+clothes I came home in. Ranelagh may have borrowed—”</p>
+
+<p>“Ranelagh wore his own coat and hat. We will let the subject of apparel
+drop, and come to a topic on which you may be better qualified to
+speak. Mr. Cumberland, you have told us that you didn’t know at the
+time, and can’t remember now, where you spent that night and most of
+the next morning. All you can remember is that it was in some place
+where they let you drink all you wished and leave when the fancy
+took you, and not before. It was none of your usual haunts. This
+seemed strange to your friends, at the time; but it is easier for us
+to understand, now that you have told us what had occurred at your
+home-table. You dreaded to have your sister know how soon you could
+escape the influence of that moment. You wished to drink your fill and
+leave your family none the wiser. Am I not right?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; it’s plain enough, isn’t it? Why harp on that string? Don’t you
+see that it maddens me? Do you want to drive me to drink again?”</p>
+
+<p>The coroner interposed. He had been very willing to leave the burden of
+this painful inquiry to the man who had no personal feelings to contend
+with; but at this indignant cry he started forward, and, with an air of
+fatherly persuasion, remarked kindly:</p>
+
+<p>“You mustn’t mind the official tone, or the official persistence. There
+is reason for all that Mr. Fox says. Answer him frankly, and this
+inquiry will terminate speedily. We have no wish to harry you—only to
+get at the truth.”</p>
+
+<p>“The truth? I thought you had that pat enough. The truth? The truth
+about what? Ranelagh or me? I should think it was about me, from the
+kind of questions you ask.”</p>
+
+<p>“It is, just now,” resumed the district attorney, as his colleague drew
+back out of sight once more. “You cannot remember the saloon in which
+you drank. That’s possible enough; but perhaps you can remember what
+they gave you. Was it whiskey, rum, absinthe, or what?”</p>
+
+<p>The question took his irritable listener by surprise. Arthur gasped,
+and tried to steal some comfort from Coroner Perry’s eye. But that old
+friend’s face was too much in shadow, and the young man was forced to
+meet the district attorney’s eye, instead, and answer the district
+attorney’s question.</p>
+
+<p>“I drank—absinthe,” he cried, at last.</p>
+
+<p>“From this bottle?” queried the other, motioning again to Sweetwater,
+who now brought forward the bottle he had picked up in Cuthbert Road.</p>
+
+<p>Arthur Cumberland glanced at the bottle the detective held up, saw the
+label, saw the shape, and sank limply in his chair, his eyes starting,
+his jaw falling.</p>
+
+<p>“Where did you get that?” he asked, pulling himself together with a
+sudden desperate self-possession that caused Sweetwater to cast a
+quick significant glance at the coroner, as he withdrew to his corner,
+leaving the bottle on the table.</p>
+
+<p>“That,” answered the district attorney, “was picked up at a small hotel
+on Cuthbert Road, just back of the markets.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know the place.”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s not far from The Whispering Pines. In fact, you can see the
+club-house from the front door of this hotel.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know the place, I tell you.”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s not a high-class resort; not select enough by a long shot, to
+have this brand of liquor in its cellar. They tell me that this is of
+very choice quality. That very few private families, even, indulge in
+it. That there were only two bottles of it left in the club-house when
+the inventory was last taken, that those two bottles are now gone, and
+that—”</p>
+
+<p>“This is one of them? Is that what you want to say? Well, it may be for
+all I know. I didn’t carry it there. I didn’t have the drinking of it.”</p>
+
+<p>“We have seen the man and woman who keep that hotel. They will talk, if
+they have to.”</p>
+
+<p>“They will?” His dogged self-possession rather astonished them. “Well,
+that ought to please you. I’ve nothing to do with the matter.”</p>
+
+<p>A change had taken place in him. The irritability approaching to
+violence, which had attended every speech and infused itself into every
+movement since he came into the room, had left him. He spoke quietly,
+and with a touch of irony in his tone. He seemed more the man, but not
+a whit more prepossessing, and, if anything, less calculated to inspire
+confidence. The district attorney showed that he was baffled, and Dr.
+Perry moved uneasily in his seat, until Sweetwater, coming forward,
+took up the cue and spoke for the first time since young Cumberland
+entered the room.</p>
+
+<p>“Then I have no doubt but you will do us this favour,” he volunteered,
+in his pleasantest manner. “It’s not a long walk from here. Will you go
+there in my company, with your coat-collar pulled up and your hat well
+down over your eyes, and ask for a seat in the snuggery and show them
+this bottle? They won’t know that it’s empty. The man is sharp and the
+woman intelligent. They will see that you are a stranger, and admit you
+readily. They are only shy of one man—the man who drank there on the
+night of your sister’s murder.”</p>
+
+<p>“You ’re a—” he began, with a touch of his old violence; but
+realising, perhaps, that his fingers were in a trap, he modified his
+manner again, and continued more quietly. “This is an odd request
+to make. I begin to feel as if my word were doubted here; as if my
+failings and reckless confession of the beastly way in which I spent
+that night, were making you feel that I have no good in me and am at
+once a liar and a sneak. I’m not. I won’t go with you to that low
+drinking hell, unless you make me, but I’ll swear—”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t swear.” It is unnecessary to say who spoke. “We wouldn’t believe
+you, and it would be only adding perjury to the rest.”</p>
+
+<p>“You wouldn’t believe me?”</p>
+
+<p>“No; we have reasons, my boy. There were two bottles.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well?”</p>
+
+<p>“The other has been found nearer your home.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s a trick. You’re all up to tricks—”</p>
+
+<p>“Not in this case, Arthur. Let me entreat you in memory of your father
+to be candid with us. We have arrested a man. He denies his guilt,
+but can produce no witnesses in support of his assertions. Yet such
+witnesses may exist. Indeed, we think that one such does exist. The man
+who took the bottles from the club-house’s wine-vault did so within a
+few minutes of the time when this crime was perpetrated on your sister.
+He should be able to give valuable testimony for or against Elwood
+Ranelagh. Now, you can see why we are in search of this witness and
+why we think you can serve us in this secret and extraordinary matter.
+If you can’t, say so; and we will desist from all further questions.
+But this will not help you. It will only show that, in our opinion,
+you have gained the rights of a man suspected of something more than
+shirking his duty as an unknown and hitherto unsuspected witness.”</p>
+
+<p>“This is awful!” Young Cumberland had risen to his feet and was swaying
+to and fro before them like a man struck between the eyes by some
+maddening blow.</p>
+
+<p>“God! if I had only died that night!” he muttered, with his eyes upon
+the floor and every muscle tense with the shock of this last calamity.
+“Dr. Perry,” he moaned suddenly, stretching out one hand in entreaty,
+and clutching at the table for support with the other, “let me go
+for to-night. Let me think. My brain is all in a whirl. I’ll try to
+answer to-morrow.” But even as he spoke he realised the futility of his
+request. His eye had fallen again on the bottle, and, in its shape and
+tell-tale label, he beheld a witness bound to testify against him if he
+kept silent himself.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t answer,” he went on, holding fast to the table, but letting his
+other hand fall. “I was always a fool. I’m nothing but a fool now. I
+may as well own the truth, and be done with it. I was in the clubhouse.
+I did rob the wine-vault; I did carry off the bottles to have a quiet
+spree, and it was to some place on Cuthbert Road I went. But, when
+I’ve admitted so much, I’ve admitted all. I saw nothing of my sister’s
+murder; saw nothing of what went on in the rooms upstairs. I crept in
+by the open window at the top of the kitchen stairs, and I came out by
+the same. I only wanted the liquor, and when I got it, I slid out as
+quickly as I could, and made my way over the golf-links to the Road.”</p>
+
+<p>Wiping the sweat from his brow, he stood trembling. There was something
+in the silence surrounding him which seemed to go to his heart; for
+his free right hand rose unconsciously to his breast, and clung there.
+Sweetwater began to wish himself a million of miles away from this
+scene. This was not the enjoyable part of his work. This was the part
+from which he always shrunk with overpowering distaste.</p>
+
+<p>The district attorney’s voice sounded thin, almost piercing, as he made
+this remark:</p>
+
+<p>“You entered by an open window. Why didn’t you go in by the door?”</p>
+
+<p>“I hadn’t the key. I had only abstracted the one which opens the
+wine-vault. The rest I left on the ring. It was the sight of this key,
+lying on our hall-table, which first gave me the idea. I feel like a
+cad when I think of it, but that’s of no account now. All I really care
+about is for you to believe what I tell you. I wasn’t mixed up in that
+matter of my sister’s death. I didn’t know about it—I wish I had.
+Adelaide might have been saved; we might all have been saved; <i>but it
+was not to be.</i>”</p>
+
+<p>Flushed, he slowly sank back into his seat. No complaint, now, of being
+in a hurry, or of his anxiety to regain his sick sister’s bedside.
+He seemed to have forgotten those fears in the perturbations of the
+moment. His mind and interest were here; everything else had grown dim
+with distance.</p>
+
+<p>“Did you try the front door?”</p>
+
+<p>“What was the use? I knew it to be locked.”</p>
+
+<p>“What was the use of trying the window? Wasn’t it also, presumably,
+locked?”</p>
+
+<p>The red mounted hot and feverish to his cheek.</p>
+
+<p>“You’ll think me no better than a street urchin or something worse,” he
+exclaimed. “I knew that window; I had been through it before. You can
+move that lock with your knife-blade. I had calculated on entering that
+way.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Ranelagh’s story receives confirmation,” commented the district
+attorney, wheeling suddenly towards the coroner. “He says that he found
+this window unlocked, when he approached it with the idea of escaping
+that way.”</p>
+
+<p>Arthur Cumberland remained unmoved.</p>
+
+<p>The district attorney wheeled back.</p>
+
+<p>“There were a number of bottles taken from the wine-vault; some half
+dozen were left on the kitchen table. Why did you trouble yourself to
+carry up so many?”</p>
+
+<p>“Because my greed outran my convenience. I thought I could lug away an
+armful, but there are limits to one’s ability. I realised this when I
+remembered how far I had to go, and so left the greater part of them
+behind.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, when you had a team ready to carry you?”</p>
+
+<p>“A—I had no team.” But the denial cost him something. His cheek lost
+its ruddiness, and took on a sickly white which did not leave it again
+as long as the interview lasted.</p>
+
+<p>“You had no team? How then did you manage to reach home in time to make
+your way back to Cuthbert Road by half-past eleven?”</p>
+
+<p>“I didn’t go home. I went straight across the golf-links. If fresh snow
+hadn’t fallen, you would have seen my tracks all the way to Cuthbert
+Road.”</p>
+
+<p>“If fresh snow had not fallen, we should have known the whole story of
+that night before an hour had passed. How did you carry those bottles?”</p>
+
+<p>“In my overcoat pockets. These pockets,” he blurted out, clapping his
+hands on either side of him.</p>
+
+<p>“Had it begun to snow when you left the clubhouse?”</p>
+
+<p>“No.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was it dark?”</p>
+
+<p>“I guess not; the links were bright as day, or I shouldn’t have got
+over them as quickly as I did.”</p>
+
+<p>“Quickly? How quickly?” The district attorney stole a glance at the
+coroner, which made Sweetwater advance a step from his corner.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know. I don’t understand these questions,” was the sullen
+reply.</p>
+
+<p>“You walked quickly. Does that mean you didn’t look back?”</p>
+
+<p>“How, look back?”</p>
+
+<p>“Your sister lit a candle in the small room where her coat was found.
+This light should have been visible from the golf-links.”</p>
+
+<p>“I didn’t see any light.”</p>
+
+<p>He was almost rough in these answers. He was showing himself now at his
+very worst.</p>
+
+<p>A few more questions followed, but they were of minor import, and
+aroused less violent feeling. The serious portion of the examination,
+if thus it might be called, was over, and all parties showed the
+reaction which follows all unnatural restraint or subdued excitement.</p>
+
+<p>The coroner glanced meaningly at the district attorney, who, tapping
+with his fingers on the table, hesitated for a moment before he finally
+turned again upon Arthur Cumberland.</p>
+
+<p>“You wish to return to your sister? You are at liberty to do so; I will
+trouble you no more to-night. Your sleigh is at the door, I presume.”</p>
+
+<p>The young man nodded, then rising slowly, looked first at the district
+attorney, then at the coroner, with a glance of searching inquiry which
+did not escape the watchful eye of Sweetwater, lurking in the rear.
+There was no display of anger, scarcely of impatience, in him now. If
+he spoke, they did not hear him; and when he moved, it was heavily and
+with a drooping head. They watched him go, each as silent as he. The
+coroner tried to speak, but succeeded no better than the boy himself.
+When the door opened under his hand, they all showed relief, but were
+startled back into their former attention by his turning suddenly in
+the doorway with this final remark:</p>
+
+<p>“What did you say about a bottle with a special label on it being found
+at our house? It never was, or, if it was, some fellow has been playing
+you a trick. I carried off those two bottles myself. One you see there;
+the other is—I can’t tell where; but I didn’t take it home. That you
+can bet on.”</p>
+
+<p>One more look, followed by a heavy frown and a low growling sound in
+his throat—which may have been his way of saying good-bye—and he was
+gone.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater came forward and shut the door; then the three men drew more
+closely together, and the district attorney remarked:</p>
+
+<p>“He is better at the house. I hadn’t the heart on your account, Dr.
+Perry, to hurry matters faster than necessity compels. What a lout he
+is! Pardon me, but what a lout he is to have had two such uncommon and
+attractive sisters.”</p>
+
+<p>“And such a father,” interposed the coroner.</p>
+
+<p>“Just so—and such a father. Sweetwater? Hey! what’s the matter? You
+don’t look satisfied. Didn’t I cover the ground?”</p>
+
+<p>“Fully, sir, so far as I see now, but—”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, well—out with it.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know what to out with. It’s all right but—I guess I’m a
+fool, or tired, or something. Can I do anything more for you? If not,
+I should like to hunt up a bunk. A night’s sleep will make a man of me
+again.”</p>
+
+<p>“Go then; that is, if Dr. Perry has no orders for you.”</p>
+
+<p>“None. I want my sleep, too.” But Dr. Perry had not the aspect of one
+who expects to get it.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater brightened. A few more words, some understanding as to the
+morrow, and he was gone. The district attorney and the coroner still
+sat, but very little passed between them. The clock overhead struck
+the hour; both looked up but neither moved. Another fifteen minutes,
+then the telephone rang. The coroner rose and lifted the receiver. The
+message could be heard by both gentlemen, in the extreme quiet of this
+midnight hour.</p>
+
+<p>“Dr. Perry?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I’m listening.”</p>
+
+<p>“He came in at a quarter to twelve, greatly agitated and very white.
+I ran upon him in the lower hall, and he looked angry enough to knock
+me down; but he simply let out a curse and passed straight up to his
+sister’s room. I waited till he came out; then I managed to get hold of
+the nurse and she told me this queer tale:</p>
+
+<p>“He was all in a tremble when he came in, but she declares he had not
+been drinking. He went immediately to the bedside; but his sister was
+asleep, and he didn’t stay there, but went over where the nurse was,
+and began to hang about her till suddenly she felt a twitch at her side
+and, looking quickly, saw the little book she carries there, falling
+back into place. He had lifted it, and probably read what she had
+written in it during his absence.</p>
+
+<p>“She was displeased, but he laughed when he saw that he had been caught
+and said boldly: ‘You are keeping a record of my sister’s ravings.
+Well, I think I’m as interested in them as you are, and have as much
+right to read as you to write. Thank God! they are innocent enough.
+Even you must acknowledge that,’ She made no answer, for they were
+innocent enough; but she’ll keep the book away from him after this—of
+that you may be sure.”</p>
+
+<p>“And what is he doing now? Is he going into his own room to-night?”</p>
+
+<p>“No. He went there but only to bring out his pillows. He will sleep in
+the alcove.”</p>
+
+<p>“Drink?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, not a drop. He has ordered the whiskey locked up. I hear him
+moaning sometimes to himself as if he missed it awfully, but not a
+thimbleful has left the decanter.”</p>
+
+<p>“Goodnight, Hexford.”</p>
+
+<p>“Good night.”</p>
+
+<p>“You heard?” This to the district attorney.</p>
+
+<p>“Every word.”</p>
+
+<p>Both went for their overcoats. Only on leaving did they speak again,
+and then it was to say:</p>
+
+<p>“At ten o’clock to-morrow morning.”</p>
+
+<p>“At ten o’clock.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XVIII">XVIII<br><span class="small">ON IT WAS WRITTEN—</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">Can this avail thee? Look to it!</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Prometheus Bound</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>The district attorney was right; Sweetwater was not happy. His night’s
+rest had not benefited him. He had seemed natural enough when he first
+appeared at the coroner’s office in the early morning, and equally
+natural all through the lengthy conference which followed; but a half
+hour later, any one who knew him well,—any of his fellow detectives in
+New York; especially Mr. Gryce, who had almost fathered him since he
+came among them, a raw and inexperienced recruit—would have seen at
+first glance that his spirits were no longer at par, and that the cheer
+he displayed in manner and look was entirely assumed, and likely to
+disappear as soon as he found himself alone.</p>
+
+<p>And it did so disappear. When, at two o’clock, he entered the
+club-house grounds, it was without buoyancy or any of the natural
+animation with which he usually went about his work. Each step seemed
+weighted with thought, or, at least, heavy with inner dissatisfaction.
+But his eye was as keen as ever, and he began to use that eye from the
+moment he passed the gates. What was in his mind? Was he hunting for
+new clews, or was he merely seeking to establish the old?</p>
+
+<p>The officers on guard knew him, by this time, and let him pass hither,
+thither, and where he would, unmolested. He walked up and down the
+driveways, peering continuously at the well-trodden snow. He studied
+the spaces between. He sauntered to the rear, and looked out over the
+golf-links. Then he began to study the ground in this direction, as he
+had already studied it in front. The few mutterings which left his lips
+continued to speak of discontent. “If I had only had Clarke’s chance,
+or even Hexford’s,” was among his complaints. “But what can I hope now?
+The snow has been trampled till it is one solid cake of ice, to the
+very edge of the golf-links. Beyond that, the distance is too great
+for minute inspection. Yet it will have to be gone over, inch by inch,
+before I shall feel satisfied. I must know how much of his story is to
+be believed, and how much of it we can safely set aside.”</p>
+
+<p>He ended by wandering down on the golf-links. Taking out his watch, he
+satisfied himself that he had time for an experiment, and immediately
+started for Cuthbert Road. An hour later, he came wandering back, on a
+different line. He looked soured, disappointed. When near the building
+again, he cast his eye over its rear, and gazed long and earnestly at
+the window which had been pointed out to him as the one from which
+a possible light had shone forth that night. There were no trees on
+this side of the house—only vines. But the vines were bare of leaves
+and offered no obstruction to his view. “If there had been a light
+in that window, any one leaving this house by the rear would have
+seen it, unless he had been drunk or a fool,” muttered Sweetwater, in
+contemptuous comment to himself. “Arthur Cumberland’s story is one lie.
+I’ll take the district attorney’s suggestion and return to New York
+to-night. My work’s done here.”</p>
+
+<p>Yet he hung about the links for a long time, and finally ended by
+entering the house, and taking up his stand beneath the long, narrow
+window of the closet overlooking the golf-links. With chin resting on
+his arms, he stared out over the sill and sought from the space before
+him, and from the intricacies of his own mind, the hint he lacked
+to make this present solution of the case satisfactory to all his
+instincts.</p>
+
+<p>“Something is lacking.” Thus he blurted out after a look behind him
+into the adjoining room of death. “I can’t say what; nor can I explain
+my own unrest, or my disinclination to leave this spot. The district
+attorney is satisfied, and so, I’m afraid is the coroner; but I’m not,
+and I feel as guilty—”</p>
+
+<p>Here he threw open the window for air, and, thrusting his head out,
+glanced over the links, then aside at the pines, showing beyond the
+line of the house on the southern end, and then out of mere idleness,
+down at the ground beneath him. “As guilty,” he went on, “as Ranelagh
+appears to be, and some one really is. I—”</p>
+
+<p>Starting, he leaned farther out. What was that he saw in the vines—not
+on the snow of the ground, but half way up in the tangle of small
+branches clinging close to the stone of the lower story, just beneath
+this window? He would see. Something that glistened, something that
+could only have got there by falling from this window. Could he reach
+it? No; he would have to climb up from below to do that. Well, that
+was easy enough. With the thought, he rushed from the room. In another
+minute he was beneath that window; had climbed, pulled, pushed his way
+up; had found the little pocket of netted vines observable from above;
+had thrust in his fingers and worked a small object out; had looked
+at it, uttered an exclamation curious in its mixture of suppressed
+emotions, and let himself down again into the midst of the two or three
+men who had scented the adventure and hastened to be witnesses of its
+outcome.</p>
+
+<p>“A phial!” he exclaimed, “An empty phial, but—” Holding the little
+bottle up between his thumb and forefinger, he turned it slowly about
+until the label faced them.</p>
+
+<p>On it was written one word, but it was a word which invariably carries
+alarm with it.</p>
+
+<p>That word was: <i>Poison</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater did not return to New York that night.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XIX">XIX<br><span class="small">“IT’S NOT WHAT YOU WILL FIND”</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">I am not mad;—I would to heaven I were!<br>
+For then, ’tis like I should forget myself:<br>
+O, if I could, what grief should I forget!—<br>
+Preach some philosophy to make me mad,<br>
+For being not mad, but sensible of grief,<br>
+My reasonable part produces reason<br>
+How I may be delivered of these woes.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>King John</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>“I regret to disturb you, Arthur; but my business is of great
+importance, and should be made known to you at once. This I say as a
+friend. I might have waited for the report to have reached you from
+hearsay, or through the evening papers; but I preferred to be the one
+to tell you. You can understand why.”</p>
+
+<p>Sullen and unmollified, the young man thus addressed eyed,
+apprehensively, his father’s old friend, placed so unfortunately in his
+regard, and morosely exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>“Out with it! I’m a poor hand at guessing. What has happened now?”</p>
+
+<p>“A discovery. A somewhat serious one I fear; at least, it will force
+the police to new action. Your sister may not have died entirely from
+strangulation; other causes may have been at work!”</p>
+
+<p>“Now, what do you mean by that?” Arthur Cumberland was under his own
+roof and in presence of one who should have inspired his respect; but
+he made no effort to hide the fury which these words called up. “I
+should like to know what deviltry is in your minds now. Am I never to
+have peace?”</p>
+
+<p>“Peace and tragedy do not often run together,” came in the mild tones
+of his would-be friend. “A great crime has taken place. All the members
+of this family are involved—to say nothing of the man who lies, now,
+under the odium of suspicion, in our common county jail. Peace can only
+come with the complete clearing up of this crime, and the punishment
+of the guilty. But the clearing up must antedate the punishment.
+Mr. Ranelagh’s assertion that he found Miss Cumberland dead when he
+approached her, may not be, as so many now believe, the reckless denial
+of a criminal, disturbed in his act. It may have had a basis in fact.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t believe it. Nothing will make me believe it,” stormed the
+other, jumping up, and wildly pacing the drawing-room floor. “It is all
+a scheme for saving the most popular man in society. Society! That for
+society!” he shouted out, snapping his fingers. “He is president of the
+club; the pet of women; the admired of all the dolts and gawks who are
+taken with his style, his easy laughter, and his knack at getting at
+men’s hearts. He won’t laugh so easily when he’s up before a jury for
+murder; and he’ll never again fool women or bulldoze men, even if they
+are weak enough to acquit him of this crime. Enough of the smirch will
+stick to prevent that. If it doesn’t, I’ll—”</p>
+
+<p>Again his hands went out in the horribly suggestive way they had done
+at his sister’s funeral. The coroner sat appalled,—confused, almost
+distracted between his doubts, his convictions, his sympathy for the
+man and his recoil from the passions he would be only too ready to
+pardon if he could feel quite sure of their real root and motive.
+Cumberland may have felt the other’s silence, or he may have realised
+the imprudence of his own fury; for he dropped his hands with an
+impatient sigh, and blurted out:</p>
+
+<p>“But you haven’t told me your discovery. It seems to me it is a little
+late to make discoveries now.”</p>
+
+<p>“This was brought about by the persistence of Sweetwater. He seems
+to have an instinct for things. He was leaning out of the window at
+the rear of the clubhouse—the window of that small room where your
+sister’s coat was found—and he saw, caught in the vines beneath, a—”</p>
+
+<p>“Why don’t you speak out? I cannot tell what he found unless you name
+it.”</p>
+
+<p>“A little bottle—an apothecary’s phial. It was labelled ‘Poison,’ and
+it came from this house.”</p>
+
+<p>Arthur Cumberland reeled; then he caught himself up and stood, staring,
+with a very obvious intent of getting a grip on himself before he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>The coroner waited, a slight flush deepening on his cheek.</p>
+
+<p>“How do you know that phial came from this house?”</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Perry looked up, astonished. He was prepared for the most frantic
+ebullitions of wrath, for violence even; or for dull, stupid, blank
+silence. But this calm, quiet questioning of fact took him by surprise.
+He dropped his anxious look, and replied:</p>
+
+<p>“It has been seen on the shelves by more than one of your servants.
+Your sister kept it with her medicines, and the druggist with whom you
+deal remembers selling it some time ago to a member of your family.”</p>
+
+<p>“Which member? I don’t believe this story; I don’t believe any of
+your—” He was fast verging on violence now.</p>
+
+<p>“You will have to, Arthur. Facts are facts, and we cannot go against
+them. The person who bought it was yourself. Perhaps you can recall the
+circumstance now.”</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot.” He did not seem to be quite master of himself. “I don’t
+know half the things I do; at least, I didn’t use to. But what are
+you coming to? What’s in your mind, and what are your intentions?
+Something to shame us further, I’ve no doubt. You’re soft on Ranelagh
+and don’t care how I feel, or how Carmel will feel when she comes to
+herself—poor girl. Are you going to call it suicide? You can’t, with
+those marks on her throat.”</p>
+
+<p>“We’re going to carry out our investigations to the full. We’re going
+to hold the autopsy, which we didn’t think necessary before. That’s
+why I am here, Arthur. I thought it your due to know our intentions
+in regard to this matter. If you wish to be present, you have only to
+say so; if you do not, you may trust me to remember that she was your
+father’s daughter, as well as my own highly esteemed friend.”</p>
+
+<p>Shaken to the core, the young man sat down amid innumerable tokens of
+the two near, if not dear, ones just mentioned; and for a moment had
+nothing to say. Gone was his violence, gone his self-assertion, and
+his insolent, captious attitude towards his visitor. The net had been
+drawn too tightly, or the blow fallen too heavily. He was no longer a
+man struggling with his misery, but a boy on whom had fallen a man’s
+responsibilities, sufferings, and cares.</p>
+
+<p>“My duty is here,” he said at last. “I cannot leave Carmel.”</p>
+
+<p>“The autopsy will take place to-morrow. How is Carmel to-day?”</p>
+
+<p>“No better.” The words came with a shudder. “Doctor, I’ve been a brute
+to you. I am a brute! I have misused my life and have no strength with
+which to meet trouble. What you propose to do with—with Adelaide is
+horrible to me. I didn’t love her much while she was living; I broke
+her heart and shamed her, from morning till night, every day of her
+life; but good-for-nothing as I am and good-for-nothing as I’ve always
+been, if I could save her body this last humiliation, I would willingly
+die right here and now, and be done with it. Must this autopsy take
+place?”</p>
+
+<p>“It must.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then—” He raised his arm; the blood swept up, dyeing his cheeks, his
+brow, his very neck a vivid scarlet. “Tell them to lock up every bottle
+the house holds, or I cannot answer for myself. I should like to drink
+and drink till I knew nothing, cared for nothing, was a madman or a
+beast.”</p>
+
+<p>“You will not drink.” The coroner’s voice rang deep; he was greatly
+moved. “You will not drink, and you will come to the office at five
+o’clock to-morrow. We may have only good news to impart. We may find
+nothing to complicate the situation.”</p>
+
+<p>Arthur Cumberland shook his head. “It’s not what you will find—” said
+he, and stopped, biting his lips and looking down.</p>
+
+<p>The coroner uttered a few words of consolation forced from him by the
+painfulness of the situation. The young man did not seem to hear them.
+The only sign of life he gave was to rush away the moment the coroner
+had taken his leave, and regain his seat within sight and hearing of
+his still unconscious sister. As he did so, these words came to his
+ears through the door which separated them:</p>
+
+<p>“Flowers—I smell flowers! Lila, you always loved flowers; but I never
+saw your hands so full of them.”</p>
+
+<p>Arthur uttered a sharp cry; then, bowing his face upon his aims, he
+broke into sobs which shook the table where he sat.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty-four hours later, in the coroner’s office, sat an anxious group
+discussing the great case and the possible revelations awaiting them.
+The district attorney, Mr. Clifton, the chief of police, and one or two
+others—among them Sweetwater—made up the group, and carried on the
+conversation. Dr. Perry only was absent. He had undertaken to make the
+autopsy and had been absent, for this purpose, several hours.</p>
+
+<p>Five o’clock had struck, and they were momentarily looking for his
+reappearance; but, when the door opened, as it did at this time, it was
+to admit young Cumberland, whose white face and shaking limbs betrayed
+his suspense and nervous anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>He was welcomed coldly, but not impolitely, and sat down in very much
+the same place he had occupied during his last visit, but in a very
+different, and much more quiet state of mind. To Sweetwater, his aspect
+was one of despair, but he made no remark upon it; only kept all his
+senses alert for the coming moment, of so much importance to them all.
+But even he failed to guess how important, until the door opened again,
+and the coroner appeared, looking not so much depressed as stunned.
+Picking out Arthur from the group, he advanced towards him with some
+commonplace remark; but desisted suddenly and turned upon the others
+instead.</p>
+
+<p>“I have finished the autopsy,” said he. “I knew just what poison the
+phial had held, and lost no time in my tests. A minute portion of
+this drug, which is dangerous only in large quantities, was found
+in the stomach of the deceased; but not enough to cause serious
+trouble, and she died, as we had already decided, from the effect of
+the murderous clutch upon her throat. But,” he went on sternly, as
+young Cumberland moved, and showed signs of breaking in with one of
+his violent invectives against the supposed assassin, “I made another
+discovery of still greater purport. When we lifted the body out of its
+resting-place, something beside withered flowers slid from her breast
+and fell at our feet. The ring, gentlemen—the ring which Ranelagh says
+was missing from her hand when he came upon her, and which certainly
+was not on her finger when she was laid in the casket,—rolled to the
+floor when we moved her. Here it is; there is one person here, at
+least, who can identify it. But I do not ask that person to speak. That
+we may well spare him.”</p>
+
+<p>He laid the ring on the table, not too near Arthur, not within reach
+of his hand, but close enough for him to see it. Then he sat down, and
+hid his face in his hands. The last few days had told on him. He looked
+older, by ten years, than he had at the beginning of the month.</p>
+
+<p>The silence which followed these words and this action, was memorable
+to everybody there concerned. Some had seen, and all had heard of young
+Cumberland’s desperate interruption of the funeral, and the way his
+hand had invaded the flowers which the children had cast in upon her
+breast. As the picture, real or fancied, rose before their eyes, one
+man rose and left his place at the table; then another, and presently
+another. Even Charles Clifton drew back. The district attorney remained
+where he was, and so did young Cumberland. The latter had reached out
+his hand, but he had not touched the ring, and he sat thus, frozen.
+What went on in his heart, no man there could guess, and he did not
+enlighten them. When at last he looked up, it was with a dazed air and
+an almost humble mien:</p>
+
+<p>“Providence has me this time,” he muttered. “I don’t understand these
+mysteries. You will have to deal with them as you think best.” His
+eyes, still glued to the jewel, dilated and filled with fierce light
+as he said this. “Damn the ring, and damn the man who gave it to her!
+However it came into her casket, he’s at the bottom of the business,
+just as he was at the bottom of her death. If you think anything else,
+you will think a lie.”</p>
+
+<p>Turning away, he made for the door. There was in his manner,
+desperation approaching to bravado, but no man made the least effort to
+detain him. Not till he was well out of the room did any one move, then
+the district attorney raised his finger, and Arthur Cumberland did not
+ride back to his home alone.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_III">BOOK THREE<br><span class="small">HIDDEN SURPRISES</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XX">XX<br><span class="small">“HE OR YOU! THERE IS NO THIRD”</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,<br>
+And yet I would not sleep Merciful powers!<br>
+Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature<br>
+Gives way to in repose.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Macbeth</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>For several days I had been ill. They were merciful days to me since
+I was far too weak for thought. Then there came a period of conscious
+rest, then renewed interest in life and my own fate and reputation.
+What had happened during this interval?</p>
+
+<p>I had a confused memory of having seen Clifton’s face at my bedside,
+but I was sure that no words had passed between us. When would he come
+again? When should I hear about Carmel, and whether she were yet alive,
+or mercifully dead, like her sister? I might read the papers, but they
+had been carefully kept from me. Not one was in sight. The nurse would
+undoubtedly give me the information I desired, but, kind as she had
+been, I dreaded to consult a stranger about matters which involved my
+very existence and every remaining hope. Yet I must know; for I could
+not help thinking, now, and I dreaded to think amiss and pile up misery
+for myself when I needed support and consolation.</p>
+
+<p>I would risk one question, but no more. I would ask about the inquest.
+Had it been held? If she said yes—ah, if she said yes!—I should know
+that Carmel was dead; and the news, coming thus, would kill me. So I
+asked nothing, and was lying in a sufficiently feverish condition when
+the doctor came in, saw my state, and thinking to cheer me up, remarked
+blandly:</p>
+
+<p>“You are well enough this morning to hear good news. Do you recognise
+the room you are in?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m in the hospital, am I not?”</p>
+
+<p>“Hardly. You are in one of Mr. O’Hagen’s own rooms.” (Mr. O’Hagen was
+the head keeper.) “You are detained, now, simply as a witness.”</p>
+
+<p>I was struck to the heart; terrified in an instant.</p>
+
+<p>“What? Why? What has happened?” I questioned, rapidly, half starting
+up, then falling back on my pillow under his astonished eye.</p>
+
+<p>“Nothing,” he parried, seeing his mistake, and resorting to the
+soothing process. “They simply have had time to think. You’re not the
+sort of man from which criminals are made.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s nonsense,” I retorted, reckless of his opinion, and mad to know
+the truth, yet shrinking horribly from it. “Criminals are made from all
+kinds of men; neither are the police so philosophical. Something has
+occurred. But don’t tell me—” I protested inconsistently, as he opened
+his lips. “Send for Mr. Clifton. He’s my friend; I can better bear—”</p>
+
+<p>“Here he is,” said the doctor, as the door softly opened under the
+nurse’s careful hand.</p>
+
+<p>I looked up, saw Charles’s faithful face, and stretched out my hand
+without speaking. Never had I needed a friend more, and never had I
+been more constrained in my greeting. I feared to show my real heart,
+my real fears, my real reason for not hailing my release, as every one
+evidently expected me to!</p>
+
+<p>With a gesture to the nurse, the doctor tiptoed out, muttering to
+Clifton, as he passed, some word of warning or casual instruction. The
+nurse followed, and Clifton, coming forward, took a seat at my side.
+He was cheerful but not too cheerful; and the air of slight constraint
+which tinged his manner, as much as it did mine, did not escape me.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, old fellow,” he began—</p>
+
+<p>My hand went up in entreaty.</p>
+
+<p>“Tell me why they have withdrawn their suspicions. I’ve heard
+nothing—read nothing—for days. I don’t understand this move.”</p>
+
+<p>For reply, he laid his hand on mine.</p>
+
+<p>“You’re stanch,” he began. “You have my regard, Elwood. Not many men
+would have stood the racket and sacrificed themselves as you have done.
+The fact is recognised, now, and your motive—”</p>
+
+<p>I must have turned very white; for he stopped and sprang to his feet,
+searching for some restorative.</p>
+
+<p>I felt the need of blinding him to my condition. With an effort, which
+shook me from head to foot, I lifted myself from the depths into which
+his words had plunged me, and fighting for self-control, faltered
+forth, feebly enough:</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t be frightened. I’m all right again; I guess I’m not very strong
+yet. Sit down; I don’t need anything.”</p>
+
+<p>He turned and surveyed me carefully, and finding my colour restored,
+reseated himself, and proceeded, more circumspectly:</p>
+
+<p>“Perhaps I had better wait till to-morrow before I satisfy your
+curiosity,” said he.</p>
+
+<p>“And leave me to imagine all sorts of horrors? No! Tell me at once.
+Is—is—has anything happened at the Cumberlands’?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes. What you feared has happened—No, no; Carmel is not dead. Did
+you think I meant that? Forgive me. I should have remembered that you
+had other causes for anxiety than the one weighing on our minds. She
+is holding her own—just holding it—but that is something, in one so
+young and naturally healthy.”</p>
+
+<p>I could see that I baffled him. It could not be helped. I did not dare
+to utter the question with which my whole soul was full. I could only
+look my entreaty. He misunderstood it, as was natural enough.</p>
+
+<p>“She does not know yet what is in store for her,” were his words;
+and I could only lie still, and look at him helplessly, and try
+not to show the despair that was sinking me deeper and deeper into
+semi-unconsciousness. “When she comes to herself, she will have to
+be told; but you will be on your feet, then, and will be allowed, no
+doubt, to soften the blow for her by your comfort and counsel. The fact
+that it must have been you, if not he—”</p>
+
+
+<p>“<i>He!</i>” Did I shout it, or was the shout simply in my own mind? I
+trembled as I rose on my elbow. I searched his face in terror of my
+self-betrayal; but his showed only compassion and an eager desire to
+clear the air between us by telling me the exact facts.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes—Arthur. His guilt has not been proven; he has not even been
+remanded; the sister’s case is too pitiful and Coroner Perry too
+soft-hearted, where any of that family is involved. But no one doubts
+his guilt, and he does not deny it himself. You know—probably no
+one better—that he cannot very consistently do this, in face of
+the evidence accumulated against him, evidence stronger in many
+regards, than that accumulated against yourself. The ungrateful boy!
+The—the—Pardon me, I don’t often indulge in invectives against
+unhappy men who have their punishment before them, but I was thinking
+of you and what you have suffered in this jail, where you have not
+belonged—no, not for a day.”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t think of me.” The words came with a gasp. I was never so hard
+put to it—not when I first realised that I had been seen with my
+fingers on Adelaide’s throat. Arthur! A booby and a boor, but certainly
+not the slayer of his sister, unless I had been woefully mistaken in
+all that had taken place in that club-house previous to my entrance
+into it on that fatal night. As I caught Clifton’s eye fixed upon me,
+I repeated—though with more self-control, I hope: “Don’t think of me.
+I’m not thinking of myself. You speak of evidence. What evidence? Give
+me details. Don’t you see that I am burning with curiosity? I shan’t be
+myself till I hear.”</p>
+
+<p>This alarmed him.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s a risk,” said he. “The doctor told me to be careful not to excite
+you too much. But suspense is always more intolerable than certainty,
+and you have heard too much to be left in ignorance of the rest.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, yes,” I agreed feverishly, pressing his hand.</p>
+
+<p>“It all came about through you,” he blundered on. “You told me of the
+fellow you saw riding away from The Whispering Pines at the time you
+entered the grounds. I passed the story on to the coroner, and he to
+a New York detective they have put on this case. He and Arthur’s own
+surly nature did the rest.”</p>
+
+<p>I cringed where I lay. This was my work. The person who drove out
+of the club-house grounds while I stood in the club-house hall was
+Carmel—and the clew I had given, instead of baffling and confusing
+them, had led directly to Arthur!</p>
+
+<p>Seeing nothing peculiar—or at all events, giving no evidence of having
+noted anything peculiar in my movement—Clifton went evenly on, pouring
+into my astonished ears the whole long story of this detective’s
+investigations.</p>
+
+<p>I heard of his visit at the mechanic’s cottage and of the
+identification of the hat marked by Eliza Simmons’s floury thumb,
+with an old one of Arthur’s, fished out from one of the Cumberland
+closets; then, as I lay dumb, in my secret dismay and perturbation, of
+Arthur’s acknowledged visit to the club-house, and his abstraction of
+the bottles, which to all minds save my own, perhaps, connected him
+directly and well-nigh unmistakably, with the crime.</p>
+
+<p>“The finger of God! Nothing else. Such coincidences cannot be natural,”
+was my thought. And I braced myself to meet the further disclosures I
+saw awaiting me.</p>
+
+<p>But when these disclosures were made, and Arthur’s conduct at the
+funeral was given its natural explanation by the finding of the
+tell-tale ring in Adelaide’s casket, I was so affected, both by the
+extraordinary nature of the facts and the doubtful position in which
+they seemed to place one whom, even now, I found it difficult to
+believe guilty of Adelaide’s death, that Clifton, aroused, in spite of
+his own excitement, to a sudden realisation of my condition, bounded to
+his feet and impetuously cried out:</p>
+
+<p>“I had to tell you. It was your due and you would not have been
+satisfied if I had not. But I fear that I rushed my narrative too
+suddenly upon you; that you needed more preparation, and that the
+greatest kindness I can show you now, is to leave before I do further
+mischief.”</p>
+
+<p>I believe I answered. I know that his idea of leaving was insupportable
+to me. That I wanted him to stay until I had had time to think and
+adjust myself to these new conditions. Instinctively, I did not
+feel as certain of Arthur’s guilt as he did. My own case had taught
+me the insufficiency of circumstantial evidence to settle a mooted
+fact. Besides, I knew Arthur even better than I did his sisters. He
+was as full of faults, and as lacking in amiable and reliable traits
+as any fellow of my acquaintance. But he had not the inherent snap
+which makes for crime. He lacked the vigour which,—God forgive me
+the thought!—lay back of Carmers softer characteristics. I could not
+imagine him guilty; I could, for all my love, imagine his sister so,
+and did. The conviction would not leave my mind.</p>
+
+<p>“Charles,” said I, at last, struggling for calmness, and succeeding
+better in my task than either he or I expected; “what motive do
+they assign for this deed? Why should Arthur follow Adelaide to the
+club-house and kill her? Now, if he had followed me—”</p>
+
+<p>“You were at dinner with them that night, and know what she did and
+what she vowed about the wine. He was very angry. Though he dropped
+his glass, and let it shiver on the board, he himself says that he was
+desperately put out with her, and could only drown his mad emotions in
+drink. He knew that she would hear of it if he went to any saloon in
+town; so he stole the key from your bunch, and went to help himself
+out of the club-house wine-vault. That’s how he came to be there. What
+followed, who knows? He won’t tell, and we can only conjecture. The
+ring, which she certainly wore that night, might give the secret away;
+but it is not gifted with speech, though as a silent witness it is
+exceedingly eloquent.”</p>
+
+<p>The episode of the ring confused me. I could make nothing out of
+it, could not connect it with what I myself knew of the confused
+experiences of that night. But I could recall the dinner and the sullen
+aspect, not unmixed with awe, with which this boy contemplated his
+sister when his own glass fell from his nerveless fingers. My own heart
+was not in the business; it was on the elopement I had planned; but I
+could not help seeing what I have just mentioned, and it recurred to me
+now with fatal distinctness. The awe was as great as the sullenness.
+Did that offer a good foundation for crime? I disliked Arthur. I had
+no use for the boy, and I wished with all my heart to detect guilt in
+his actions, rather than in those of the woman I loved; but I could not
+forget that tinge of awe on features too heavy to mirror very readily
+the nicer feelings of the human soul. It would come up, and, under the
+influence of this impression I said:</p>
+
+<p>“Are you sure that he made no denial of this crime? That does not seem
+like Arthur, guilty or innocent.”</p>
+
+<p>“He made none in my presence and I was in the coroner’s office when
+the ring was produced from its secret hiding-place and set down before
+him. There was no open accusation made, but he must have understood the
+silence of all present. He acknowledged some days ago, when confronted
+with the bottle found in Cuthbert Road, that he had taken both it and
+another from the club-house just before the storm began to rage that
+night.”</p>
+
+<p>“The hour, the very hour!” I muttered.</p>
+
+<p>“He entered and left by that upper hall window, or so he says; but he
+is not to be believed in all his statements. Some of his declarations
+we know to be false.”</p>
+
+<p>“Which ones? Give me a specimen, Charlie. Mention something he has said
+that you know to be false.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, it is hard to accuse a man of a direct lie. But he cannot be
+telling the truth when he says that he crossed the links immediately to
+Cuthbert Road, thus cutting out the ride home, of which we have such
+extraordinary proof.”</p>
+
+<p>Under the fear of betraying my thoughts, I hurriedly closed my eyes.
+I was in an extraordinary position, myself. What seemed falsehood to
+them, struck me as the absolute truth. Carmel had been the one to go
+home; he, without doubt, had crossed the links, as he said. As this
+conviction penetrated deeply and yet more deeply into my mind, I
+shrank inexpressibly from the renewed mental struggle into which it
+plunged me. To have suffered, myself,—to have fallen under the ban of
+suspicion and the disgrace of arrest—had certainly been hard; but it
+was nothing to beholding another in the same plight through my own rash
+and ill-advised attempt to better my position and Carmel’s by what I
+had considered a totally harmless subterfuge.</p>
+
+<p>I shuddered as I anticipated the sleepless hours of silent debate which
+lay before me. The voice which whispered that Arthur Cumberland was
+not over-gifted with sensitiveness and would not feel the shame of his
+position like another, did not carry with it an indisputable message,
+and could not impose on my conscience for more than a passing moment.
+The lout was human; and I could not stifle my convictions in his favour.</p>
+
+<p>But Carmel!</p>
+
+<p>I clenched my hands under the clothes. I wished it were not high
+noon, but dark night; that Clifton would only arise or turn his eyes
+away; that something or anything might happen to give me an instant
+of solitary contemplation, without the threatening possibility of
+beholding my thoughts and feelings reflected in another’s mind.</p>
+
+<p>Was this review instantaneous, or the work of many minutes? Forced by
+the doubt to open my eyes, I met Clifton’s full look turned watchfully
+on me. The result was calming; even to my apprehensive gaze it betrayed
+no new enlightenment. My struggle had been all within; no token of it
+had reached him.</p>
+
+<p>This he showed still more plainly when he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>“There will be a close sifting of evidence at the inquest. You will
+not enjoy this; but the situation, hard as it may prove, has certainly
+improved so far as you are concerned. That should hasten your
+convalescence.”</p>
+
+<p>“Poor Arthur!” burst from my lips, and the cry was echoed in my heart.
+Then, because I could no longer endure the pusillanimity which kept me
+silent, I rose impulsively into a sitting posture, and, summoning all
+my faculties into full play, endeavoured to put my finger on the one
+weak point in the evidence thus raised against Carmel’s brother.</p>
+
+<p>“What sort of a man would you make Arthur out to be, when you accuse
+him of robbing the wine-vault on top of a murderous assault on his
+sister?”</p>
+
+<p>“I know. It argues a brute, but he—”</p>
+
+<p>“Arthur Cumberland is selfish, unresponsive, and hard, but he is not a
+brute. I’m disposed to give him the benefit of my good opinion to this
+extent, Charlie; I cannot believe he first poisoned and then choked
+that noble woman.”</p>
+
+<p>Clifton drew himself up in his turn, astonishment battling with renewed
+distrust.</p>
+
+<p>“Either he or you, Ranelagh!” he exclaimed, firmly. “There is no third
+person. This you must realise.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXI">XXI<br><span class="small">CARMEL AWAKES</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">One woe doth tread upon another’s heel,<br>
+So fast they follow.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Hamlet</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>Later, I asked myself many questions, and wandered into mazes of
+speculation which only puzzled me and led nowhere. I remembered the
+bottles; I remembered the ring. I went back, in fancy, to the hour of
+my own entrance into the club-house, and, recalling each circumstance,
+endeavoured to fit the facts of Arthur’s story with those of my own
+experience.</p>
+
+<p>Was he in the building when I first stepped into it? It was just
+possible. I had been led to prevaricate as to the moment I entered the
+lower gateway, and he may have done the same as to the hour he left by
+the upper hall window. Whatever his denials on this or any subject, I
+was convinced that he knew, as well as I, that Carmel had been in the
+building with her sister, and was involved more or less personally in
+the crime committed there. Might it not be simply as his accessory
+after the fact? If only I could believe this! If my knowledge of him
+and of her would allow me to hug this forlorn hope, and behold, in
+this shock to her brain, and in her look and attitude on leaving the
+club-house, only a sister’s horror at a wilful brother’s crime!</p>
+
+<p>But one fact stood in the way of this—a fact which nothing but some
+predetermined, underhanded purpose on her part could explain. She had
+gone in disguise to The Whispering Pines, and she had returned home
+in the same suspicious fashion. The wearing of her brother’s hat and
+coat over her own womanly garments was no freak. There had been purpose
+in it—a purpose which demanded secrecy. That Adelaide should have
+accompanied her under these circumstances was a mystery. But then the
+whole affair was a mystery, totally out of keeping, in all its details,
+with the characters of these women, save—and what a fearful exception
+I here make—the awful end, which, alas! bespoke the fiery rush and
+impulse to destroy which marked Carmel’s unbridled rages.</p>
+
+<p>Of a less emotional attack she would be as incapable as any other
+good woman. Poison she would never use. Its presence there was due to
+another’s forethought, another’s determination. But the poison had
+not killed. Both glasses had been emptied, but—Ah! those glasses.
+What explanation had the police, now, for those two emptied glasses?
+They had hitherto supposed me to be the second person who had joined
+Adelaide in this totally uncharacteristic drinking.</p>
+
+<p>To whom did they now attribute this act? To Arthur, the brother whose
+love for liquor in every form she had always decried, and had publicly
+rebuked only a few hours before? Knowing nothing of Carmel having
+been on the scene, they must ascribe this act either to him or to me;
+and when they came to dwell upon this point more particularly—when
+they came to study the exact character of the relations which had
+always subsisted between Adelaide and her brother—they must see the
+improbability of her drinking with him under any circumstances. Then
+their thoughts would recur to me, and I should find myself again a
+suspect. The monstrous suggestion that Arthur had brought the liquor
+there himself, had poured it out and forced her to drink it, poison and
+all, out of revenge for her action at the dinner-table a short time
+before, did not occur to me then, but if it had, there were the three
+glasses—he would not bring <i>three</i>; nor would Adelaide; nor, as I saw
+it, would Carmel.</p>
+
+<p>Chaos! However one looked at it, chaos! Only one fact was clear—that
+Carmel knew the whole story and might communicate the same, if ever her
+brain cleared and she could be brought to reveal the mysteries of that
+hour. Did I desire such a consummation? Only God, who penetrates more
+deeply than ourselves into the hidden regions of the human heart, could
+tell. I only know that the fear and expectation of such an outcome made
+my anguish for the next two weeks.</p>
+
+<p>Would she live? Would she die? The question was on every tongue. The
+crisis of her disease was approaching, and the next twenty-four hours
+would decide her fate, and in consequence, my own, if not her brother
+Arthur’s. As I contemplated the suspense of these twenty-four hours,
+I revolted madly for the first time against the restrictions of my
+prison. I wanted air, movement, the rush into danger, which my horse
+or my automobile might afford. Anything which would drag my thoughts
+from that sick room, and the anticipated stir of that lovely form
+into conscious life and suffering. Her eyes—I could see her eyes
+wakening upon the world again, after her long wandering in the unknown
+and unimaginable intricacies of ungoverned thought and delirious
+suggestion. Eyes of violet colour and infinite expression; eyes which
+would make a man’s joy if they smiled on him in innocence; but which,
+as I well knew, had burned more than once, in her short but strenuous
+life, with fiery passions; and might, at the instant of waking, betray
+this same unholy gleam under the curious gaze of the unsympathetic ones
+set in watch over her.</p>
+
+<p>What would her first word be? Whither would her first thought fly? To
+Adelaide or to me; to Arthur or to her own frightened and appalled
+self? I maddened as I dwelt upon the possibilities of this moment. I
+envied Arthur; I envied the attendants; I envied even the servants in
+the house. They would all know sooner than I. Carmel! Carmel!</p>
+
+<p>Sending for Clifton, I begged him to keep himself in communication with
+the house, or with the authorities. He promised to do what he could;
+then, perceiving the state I was in, he related all he knew of present
+conditions. No one was allowed in the sick room but the nurse and the
+doctor. Even Arthur was denied admission, and was wearing himself
+out in his own room as I was wearing myself out here, in restless
+inactivity. He expected her to sink and never to recover consciousness,
+and was loud in his expressions of rebellion against the men who
+dared to keep him from her bedside when her life was trembling in the
+balance. But the nurse had hopes and so had the doctor. As for Carmel’s
+looks, they were greatly changed, but beautiful still in spite of the
+cruel scar left by her fall against the burning bars of her sister’s
+grate. No delirium disturbed the rigid immobility in which she now lay.
+I could await her awakening with quiet confidence in the justice of God.</p>
+
+<p>Thus Clifton, in his ignorance.</p>
+
+<p>The day was a bleak one, dispiriting in itself even to those who could
+go about the streets and lose themselves in their tasks and round of
+duties. To me it was a dead blank, marked by such interruptions as
+necessarily took place under the prison routine. The evening hours
+which followed them were no better. The hands on my watch crawled. When
+the door finally opened, it came as a shock. I seemed to be prepared
+for anything but the termination of my suspense. I knew that it was
+Clifton who entered, but I could not meet his eye. I dug my nails
+into my palms, and waited for his first word. When it came, I felt my
+spirits go down, down—I had thought them at their lowest ebb before.
+He hesitated, and I started up:</p>
+
+<p>“Tell me,” I cried. “Carmel is dead!”</p>
+
+<p>“Not dead,” said he, “but silly. Her testimony is no more to be relied
+upon than that of any other wandering mind.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXII">XXII<br><span class="small">“BREAK IN THE GLASS!”</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">This inundation of mistempered humour
+Rests by you only to be qualified.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>King John</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>It was some time before I learned the particulars of this awakening.</p>
+
+<p>It had occurred at sunset. A level beam of light had shot across the
+bed, and the nurse had moved to close the blind, when a low exclamation
+from the doctor drew her back, to mark the first faint fluttering of
+the snowy lids over the long-closed eyes. Afterwards she remembered
+what a picture her youthful patient made, with the hue of renewed life
+creeping into her cheeks, in faint reflection of the nest of roseate
+colour in which she lay.</p>
+
+<p>Carmel’s hair was dark; so were her exquisitely pencilled eye-brows,
+and the long lashes which curled upward from her cheek. In her
+surroundings of pink—warm pink, such as lives in the heart of the
+sea-shell—their duskiness took on an added beauty; and nothing, not
+even the long, dark scar running from eye to chin could rob the face
+of its individuality and suggestion of charm. She was lovely; but it
+was the loveliness of line and tint, just as a child is lovely. Soul
+and mind were still asleep, but momentarily rousing, as all thought,
+to conscious being—and, if to conscious being, then to conscious
+suffering as well.</p>
+
+<p>It was a solemn moment. If the man who loved her had been present—or
+even her brother, who, sullen as he was, must have felt the tie of
+close relationship rise superior even to his fears at an instant so
+critical,—it would have been more solemn yet. But with the exception
+of the doctor and possibly the nurse, only those interested in her as a
+witness in the most perplexing case on the police annals, were grouped
+in silent watchfulness about the room, waiting for the word or look
+which might cut the Gordian knot which none of them, as yet, had been
+able to untangle.</p>
+
+<p>It came suddenly, as all great changes come. One moment her lids were
+down, her face calm, her whole figure quiet in its statue-like repose;
+the next, her big violet eyes had flashed open upon the world, and
+lips and limbs were moving feebly, but certainly, in their suddenly
+recovered freedom. It was then—and not at a later moment when
+consciousness had fully regained its seat—that her face, to those who
+stood nearest wore the aspect of an angel’s. What she saw, or what
+vision remained to her from the mysterious world of which she had so
+long been a part, none ever knew—nor could she, perhaps, have told.
+But the rapture which informed her features and elevated her whole
+expression but poorly prepared them for the change which followed her
+first glance around on nurse and doctor. The beam which lay across
+the bed had been no brighter than her eye during that first tremulous
+instant of renewed life. But the clouds fell speedily and very
+human feelings peered from between those lids as she murmured, half
+petulantly:</p>
+
+<p>“Why do you look at me so? Oh, I remember, I remember!”</p>
+
+<p>And a flush, of which they little thought her weakened heart capable,
+spread over her features, hiding the scar and shaming her white lips.
+“What’s the matter?” she complained again, as she tried to raise her
+hands, possibly to hide her face. “I cannot move as I used to do, and I
+feel—I feel—”</p>
+
+<p>“You have been ill,” came soothingly from the doctor. “You have been
+in bed many days; now you are better and will soon be well. This is
+your nurse.” He said nothing of the others, who were so placed behind
+screens as to be invisible to her.</p>
+
+<p>She continued to gaze, first at one, then at the other; confidently at
+the doctor, doubtfully at the nurse. As she did so, the flush faded and
+gave way to an anxious, troubled expression. Not just the expression
+anticipated by those who believed that, with returning consciousness,
+would come returning memory of the mysterious scene which had taken
+place between herself and sister, or between her sister and her
+brother, prior to Adelaide’s departure for The Whispering Pines. Had
+they shared my knowledge—had they even so much as dreamed that their
+patient had been the companion of one or both of the others in this
+tragic escapade—how much greater would have been their wonder at the
+character of this awakening.</p>
+
+<p>“You have the same kind look for me as always,” were her next words,
+as her glance finally settled on the doctor. “But hers—Bring me the
+mirror,” she cried. “Let me see with my own eyes what I have now to
+expect from every one who looks at me. I want to know before Lila comes
+in. Why isn’t she here? Is she with—with—” She was breaking down, but
+caught herself back with surprising courage, and almost smiled, I was
+told. Then in the shrill tones which will not be denied, she demanded
+again, “The mirror!”</p>
+
+<p>Nurse Unwin brought it. Her patient evidently remembered the fall she
+had had in her sister’s room, and possibly the smart to her cheek when
+it touched the hot iron.</p>
+
+<p>“I see only my forehead,” she complained, as the nurse held the mirror
+before her. “Move it a little. Lower—lower,” she commanded. Then
+suddenly “Oh!”</p>
+
+<p>She was still for a long time, during which the nurse carried off the
+glass.</p>
+
+<p>“I—I don’t like it,” she acknowledged quaintly to the doctor, as
+he leaned over her with compassionate words. “I shall have to get
+acquainted with myself all over again. And so I have been ill! I
+shouldn’t have thought a little burn like that would make me ill. How
+Adelaide must have worried.”</p>
+
+<p>“Adelaide is—is not well herself. It distressed her to have been out
+when you fell. Don’t you remember that she went out that night?”</p>
+
+<p>“Did she? She was right. Adelaide must have every pleasure. She
+had earned her good times. I must be the one to stay home now, and
+look after things, and learn to be useful. I don’t expect anything
+different. Call Adelaide, and let me tell her how—how satisfied I am.”</p>
+
+<p>“But she’s ill. She cannot come. Wait till tomorrow, dear child. Rest
+is what you need now. Take these few drops and go to sleep again, and
+you’ll not know yourself to-morrow.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know myself now,” she repeated, glancing with slowly dilating
+eyes at the medicine glass he proffered. “I can’t take it,” she
+protested. “I forget now why, but I can’t take anything more from a
+glass. I’ve promised not to, I think. Take it away; it makes me feel
+queer. Where is Adelaide?”</p>
+
+<p>Her memory was defective. She could not seem to take in what the doctor
+told her. But he tried her again. Once more he spoke of illness as the
+cause of Adelaide’s absence. Her attention wandered while he spoke of
+it.</p>
+
+<p>“How it did hurt!” she cried. “But I didn’t think much about it. I
+thought only of—” Next moment her voice rose in a shriek, thin but
+impetuous, and imbued with a note of excited feeling which made every
+person there start. “There should be <i>two</i>,” she cried. “<i>Two</i>! Why is
+there only one?”</p>
+
+<p>This sounded like raving. The doctor’s face took on a look of concern,
+and the nurse stirred uneasily.</p>
+
+<p>“One is not enough! That is why Adelaide is not satisfied; why she does
+not come and love and comfort me, as I expected her to. Tell her it is
+not too late yet, not too late yet, not too late—”</p>
+
+<p>The doctor’s hand was on her forehead. This “not too late,” whatever
+she meant by it, was indescribably painful to the listeners, oppressed
+as they were by the knowledge that Adelaide lay in her grave, and that
+all fancies, all hopes, all meditated actions between these two were
+now, so far as this world goes, forever at an end.</p>
+
+<p>“Rest,” came in Dr. Carpenter’s most soothing tones. “Rest, my
+little Carmel; forget everything and rest.” He thought he knew the
+significance of her revolt from the glass he had offered her. She
+remembered the scene at the Cumberland dinner-table on that fatal
+night and shrank from anything that reminded her of it. Ordering the
+medicine put in a cup, he offered it to her again, and she drank it
+without question. As she quieted under its influence, the disappointed
+listeners, now tip-toeing carefully from the room, heard her murmur in
+final appeal:</p>
+
+<p>“Cannot Adelaide spare one minute from—from her company downstairs, to
+wish me health and kiss me good night?”</p>
+
+<p>Was it weakness, or a settled inability to remember anything but that
+which filled her own mind?</p>
+
+<p>It proved to be a settled inability to take in any new ideas or even
+to remember much beyond the completion of that dinner. As the days
+passed and news of her condition came to me from time to time, I found
+that she had not only forgotten what had passed between herself and
+the rest of the family previous to their departure for the club-house,
+but all that had afterwards occurred at The Whispering Pines, even to
+her own presence there and the ride home. She could not even retain
+in her mind for any appreciable length of time the idea of Adelaide’s
+death. Even after Dr. Carpenter, with infinite precautions, revealed to
+her the truth—not that Adelaide had been murdered, but that Adelaide
+had passed away during the period of her own illness, Carmel gave but
+one cry of grief, then immediately burst forth in her old complaint
+that Adelaide neglected her. She had lost her happiness and hope, and
+Adelaide would not spare her an hour.</p>
+
+<p>This expression, when I heard of it, convinced me, as I believe it did
+some others, that her act of self-denial in not humouring my whim and
+flying from home and duty that night, had made a stronger impression on
+her mind than all that came after.</p>
+
+<p>She never asked for Arthur. This may have grieved him; but, according
+to my faithful friend and attorney, it appeared to have the contrary
+effect, and to bring him positive relief. When it was borne in on
+him, as it was soon to be borne in on all, that her mind was not what
+it was, and that the beautiful Carmel had lost something besides her
+physical perfection in the awful calamity which had made shipwreck of
+the whole family, he grew noticeably more cheerful and less suspicious
+in his manner. Was it because the impending inquiry must go on without
+her, and proceedings, which had halted till now, be pushed with all
+possible speed to a finish? So those who watched him interpreted his
+changed mood, with a result not favourable to him.</p>
+
+<p>With this new shock of Carmel’s inability to explain her own part in
+this tragedy and thus release my testimony and make me a man again
+in my own eyes, I lost the sustaining power which had previously
+held me up. I became apathetic; no longer counting the hours, and
+thankful when they passed. Arthur had not been arrested; but he
+understood—or allowed others to see that he understood, the reason
+for the surveillance under which he was now strictly kept; and, though
+he showed less patience than myself under the shameful suspicion which
+this betokened, he did not break out into open conflict with the
+authorities, nor did he protest his innocence, or take any other stand
+than the one he had assumed from the first.</p>
+
+<p>All this gave me much food for thought, but I declined to think. I
+had made up my mind from the moment I realised Carmel’s condition,
+that there was nothing for me to do till after the inquest. The
+public investigation which this would involve, would show the trend
+of popular opinion, and thus enlighten me as to my duty. Meanwhile, I
+would keep to the old lines and do the best I could for myself without
+revealing the fact of Carmel’s near interest in a matter she was in
+no better condition to discuss now than when in a state of complete
+unconsciousness.</p>
+
+<p>Of that inquest, which was held in due course, I shall not say much.
+Only one new fact was elicited by its means, and that of interest
+solely as making clear how there came to be evidences of poison in
+Adelaide’s stomach, without the quantity being great enough for more
+than a temporary disturbance.</p>
+
+<p>Maggie, the second girl, had something to say about this when the
+phial which had held the poison was handed about for inspection. She
+had handled that phial many times on the shelf where it was kept. Once
+she had dropped it, and the cork coming out, some of the contents had
+escaped. Frightened at the mishap, she had filled the phial up with
+water, and put it, thus diluted, back on the shelf. No one had noticed
+the difference, and she had forgotten all about the matter until now.
+From her description, there must have been very little of the dangerous
+drug left in the phial; and the conclusions of Dr. Perry’s autopsy
+received a confirmation which ended, after a mass of testimony tending
+rather to confuse than enlighten, the jury, in the non-committal
+verdict:</p>
+
+<p>Death by strangulation at the hands of some person unknown.</p>
+
+<p>I had expected this. The evidence, pointing as it did in two opposing
+directions, presented a problem which a coroner’s jury could hardly be
+expected to solve. What followed, showed that not only they but the
+police authorities as well, acknowledged the dilemma. I was allowed one
+sweet half hour of freedom, then I was detained to await the action of
+the grand jury, and so was Arthur.</p>
+
+<p>When I was informed of this latter fact, I made a solemn vow to myself.
+It was this: If it falls to my lot to be indicted for this murderous
+offence, I will continue to keep my own counsel, as I have already
+done, in face of lesser provocation and at less dangerous risk. But,
+if I escape and a true bill should be found against Arthur, then
+will I follow my better instinct, and reveal what I have hitherto
+kept concealed, even if the torment of the betrayal drive me to
+self-destruction afterwards. For I no longer cherished the smallest
+doubt, that to Carmel’s sudden rage and to that alone, the death of
+Adelaide was due.</p>
+
+<p>My reason for this change from troubled to absolute conviction can be
+easily explained. It dated from the inquest, and will best appear in
+the relation of an interview I held with my attorney, Charles Clifton,
+very soon after my second incarceration.</p>
+
+<p>We had discussed the situation till there seemed to be nothing left to
+discuss. I understood him, and he thought he understood me. He believed
+Arthur guilty, and credited me with the same convictions. Thus only
+could he explain my inconceivable reticence on certain points he was
+very well assured I could make clear if I would. That he was not the
+only man who had drawn these same conclusions from my attitude both
+before and during the inquest, troubled me greatly and deeply disturbed
+my conscience, but I could indulge in no protests—or, rather would
+indulge in no protests—as yet. There was an unsolved doubt connected
+with some facts which had come out at the inquest—or perhaps, I should
+call it a circumstance not as yet fully explained—which disturbed me
+more than did my conscience, and upon this circumstance I must have
+light before I let my counsel leave me.</p>
+
+<p>I introduced the topic thus:</p>
+
+<p>“You remember the detached sentences taken down by the nurse during the
+period of Carmel’s unconsciousness. They were regarded as senseless
+ravings, and such they doubtless were; but there was one of them which
+attracted my attention, and of which I should like an explanation. I
+wish I had that woman’s little book here; I should like to read for
+myself those wandering utterances.”</p>
+
+<p>“You can,” was the unexpected and welcome reply. “I took them all down
+in shorthand as they fell from Dr. Perry’s lips. I have not had time
+since to transcribe them, but I can read some of them to you, if you
+will give me an idea as to which ones you want.”</p>
+
+<p>“Read the first—what she said on the day of the funeral. I do not
+think the rest matter very much.”</p>
+
+<p>Clifton took a paper from his pocket, and, after only a short delay,
+read out these words:</p>
+
+<p>“<i>December the fifth</i>: Her sister’s name, uttered many times and with
+greatly varied expression—now in reproach, now in terror, now in what
+seemed to me in tones of wild pleading and even despair. This continued
+at intervals all through the day.</p>
+
+<p>“At three P.M., just as people were gathering for the funeral, the
+quick, glad cry: ‘I smell flowers, sweet, sweet flowers!’”</p>
+
+<p>Alas! she did.</p>
+
+<p>“At three-forty P.M., as the services neared their close, a violent
+change took place in her appearance, and she uttered in shrill tones
+those astonishing words which horrified all below and made us feel that
+she had a clairvoyant knowledge of the closing of the casket, then
+taking place:</p>
+
+<p>“‘Break it open! Break it open! and see if her heart is there!’”</p>
+
+<p>“Pause there,” I said; “that is what I mean. It was not the only time
+she uttered that cry. If you will glance further down, you will come
+across a second exclamation of the like character.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; here it is. It was while the ubiquitous Sweetwater was mousing
+about the room.”</p>
+
+<p>“Read the very words he heard. I have a reason, Clifton. Humour me for
+this once.”</p>
+
+<p>“Certainly—no trouble. She cried, this time: ‘Break it open! Break the
+glass and look in. Her heart should be there—her heart—her heart!
+Horrible! but you insisted, Ranelagh.”</p>
+
+<p>“I thought I heard that word glass,” I muttered, more to myself than to
+him. Then, with a choking fear of giving away my thought, but unable to
+resist the opportunity of settling my own fears, I asked: “Was there
+glass in the casket lid?”</p>
+
+<p>“No; there never is.”</p>
+
+<p>“But she may have thought there was,” I suggested hastily. “I’m
+much obliged to you, Clifton. I had to hear those sentences again.
+Morbidness, no doubt; the experience of the last three weeks would
+affect a stronger-minded man than myself.” Then before he could reply:
+“What do you think the nurse meant by a violent change in her patient?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, she roused up, I suppose—moved, or made some wild or feverish
+gesture.”</p>
+
+<p>“That is what I should like to know. I may seem foolish and
+unnecessarily exacting about trifles; but I would give a great deal to
+learn precisely where she looked, and what she did at the moment she
+uttered those wild words. Is the detective Sweetwater still in town?”</p>
+
+<p>“I believe so. Came up for the inquest but goes back to-night.”</p>
+
+<p>“See him, Clifton. Ask him to relate this scene. He was present, you
+know. Get him to talk about it. You can, and without rousing his
+suspicion, keen as they all say he is. And when he talks, listen
+and remember what he says. But don’t ask questions. Do this for me,
+Clifton. Some day I may be able to explain my request, but not now.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m at your service,” he replied; but he looked hurt at being thus set
+to work in the dark, and I dared say nothing to ease the situation. I
+did not dare even to prolong the conversation on this subject, or on
+any other subject. In consequence, he departed speedily, and I spent
+the afternoon wondering whether he would return before the day ended,
+or leave me to the endurance of a night of suspense. I was spared this
+final distress. He came in again towards evening, and this was what he
+told me:</p>
+
+<p>“I have seen Sweetwater, and was more fortunate in my interview than
+I expected. He talked freely, and in the course of the conversation,
+described the very occurrence in which you are so interested. Carmel
+had been lying quietly previous to this outbreak, but suddenly started
+into feverish life and, raising herself up in her bed, pointed straight
+before her and uttered the words we have so often repeated. That’s all
+there was to it, and I don’t see for my part, what you have gained by a
+repetition of the same, or why you lay so much stress upon her gesture.
+What she said was the thing, though even that is immaterial from a
+legal point of view—which is the only view of any importance to you or
+to me, at this juncture.”</p>
+
+<p>“You’re a true friend to me,” I answered, “and never more so than in
+this instance. Forgive me that I cannot show my appreciation of your
+goodness, or thank you properly for your performance of an uncongenial
+task. I am sunk deep in trouble. I’m not myself and cannot be till I
+know what action will be taken by the grand jury.”</p>
+
+<p>If he replied, I have no remembrance of it; neither do I recall his
+leave-taking. But I was presently aware that I was alone and could
+think out my hideous thought, undisturbed.</p>
+
+<p>Carmel had pointed straight before her, shouting out: “Break in the
+glass!”</p>
+
+<p>I knew her room; I had been taken in there once by Adelaide, as a
+sequence to a long conversation about Carmel, shortly after her first
+return from school. Adelaide wished to show me the cabinet in the wall,
+the cabinet at which Carmel undoubtedly pointed, if her bed stood as it
+had stood then. It was not quite full, at that time. It did not contain
+Adelaide’s heart among the other broken toys which Carmel had destroyed
+with her own hand or foot, in her moments of frenzied passion—the
+canary, that would not pick from her hand, the hat she hated, the bowl
+which held only bread and milk when she wanted meat or cake. Adelaide
+had kept them all, locked behind glass and in full view of the child’s
+eyes night and day, that the shame of those past destructive moments
+might guard her from their repetition and help her to understand her
+temper and herself. I had always thought it cruel of Adelaide, one of
+the evidences of the flint-like streak which ran through her otherwise
+generous and upright nature. But its awful prophecy was what affected
+me most now; for destruction had fallen on something more tender than
+aught that cabinet held.</p>
+
+<p>Adelaide’s heart! And Carmel acknowledged it—acknowledged that it
+should be there, with what else she had trampled upon and crushed
+in her white heat of rage. I could not doubt her guilt, after this.
+Whatever peace her forgetfulness had brought—whatever innocent longing
+after Adelaide—the wild cry of those first few hours, ere yet the
+impressions of her awful experience had succumbed to disease, revealed
+her secret and showed the workings of her conscience. It had not been
+understood; it had passed as an awesome episode. But for me, since
+hearing of it, she stood evermore convicted out of her own mouth—that
+lovely mouth which angels might kiss in her hours of joyous serenity;
+but from whose caress friends would fly, when the passion reigned in
+her heart and she must break, crush, kill, or go mad.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXIII">XXIII<br><span class="small">AT TEN INSTEAD OF TWELVE</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">Forget the world around you. Meantime friendship<br>
+Shall keep strict vigils for you, anxious, active,<br>
+Only be manageable when that friendship<br>
+Points you the road to full accomplishment.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Coleridge</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>“I don’t care a rush what you do to me. If you are so besotted by your
+prejudices that you refuse to see the nose before your face; if you
+don’t believe your own officer who swore he saw Ranelagh’s hands upon
+my sister’s throat, then this world is all a jumble and it makes very
+little difference to me whether I’m alive or dead.”</p>
+
+<p>When these words of Arthur Cumberland were repeated to me, I echoed
+them in my inmost soul. I, too, cared very little whether I lived or
+died.</p>
+
+<p>The grand jury reeled off its cases and finally took up ours. To the
+last I hoped—sincerely I think—that I should be the man to suffer
+indictment. But I hoped in vain. A true bill was brought against
+Arthur, and his trial was set for the eighteenth of January.</p>
+
+<p>The first use I made of my liberty was to visit Adelaide’s grave. In
+that sacred place I could best review my past and gather strength for
+the future. The future! Was it under my control? Did Arthur’s fate hang
+upon my word? I believed so. But had I strength to speak that word? I
+had expected to; I had seen my duty clearly enough before the sitting
+of the grand jury. But now that Arthur was indicted—now that it was an
+accepted fact that he would have to stand trial instead of myself, I
+was conscious of such a recoil from my contemplated action that I lost
+all confidence in myself and my stoical adherence to what I considered
+the claims of justice.</p>
+
+<p>Standing in the cemetery grounds with my eyes upon the snow-covered
+mound beneath which lay the doubly injured Adelaide, I had it out with
+myself, for good and all.</p>
+
+<p>I trusted Arthur; I distrusted Carmel. But she had claims to
+consideration, which he lacked. She was a woman. Her fall would mean
+infinitely more to her than any disgrace to him. Even he had seemed to
+recognise this. Miserable and half-hearted as his life had been, he had
+shown himself man enough not to implicate his young sister in the crime
+laid to his charge. What then was I that I should presume to disregard
+his lead in the difficult maze in which we were both lost. Yet, because
+of the self-restraint he manifested, he had my sympathy and when I left
+the cemetery and took my mournful way back into town, it was with the
+secret resolution to stand his friend if I saw the case really going
+against him. Till then, I would consider the helpless girl, tongue-tied
+by her condition, and injured enough already by my misplaced love and
+its direful consequences.</p>
+
+<p>The only change I now allowed myself was an occasional midnight stroll
+up Huested Street. This was as near as I dared approach Carmel’s
+windows. I feared some watchful police spy. Perhaps I feared my own
+hardly-to-be-restrained longings.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fulton’s house and extensive grounds lay between this street and
+the dismal walls beyond the huge sycamore which lifted itself like a
+beacon above the Cumberland estate. But I allowed myself the doubtful
+pleasure of traversing this course, and this course only, and if I
+obtained one glimpse through bush and tree of the spot whither all my
+thoughts ran continuously, I went home satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>This was before Carmel left with her nurse for Lakewood. After that
+event, I turned my head no more, in taking my midnight stroll. I was
+not told the day or hour of her departure. Happily, perhaps, for us
+both, for I could never have kept away from the station. I should have
+risked everything for one glimpse of her face, if only to satisfy
+my own judgment as to whether she would ever recognise me again, or
+remember what had occurred on that doleful night when the light of her
+intellect set in the darkness of sin and trouble.</p>
+
+<p>The police had the same idea, I think, for I heard later that she was
+deliberately driven past The Whispering Pines, though the other road
+was more direct and less free, if anything, from possible spectators.
+They thought, no doubt, that a sight of the place might reawaken
+whatever memories remained of the last desperate scene preceding her
+brother and sister’s departure for this out-of-the-way spot. They
+little knew how cruel was the test, or what a storm of realisation
+might have overwhelmed her mind as her eye fell on those accursed
+walls, peering from their bower of snow-laden, pines. But I did, and I
+never rested till I learned how she had borne herself in her slow drive
+by the two guarded gateways: merrily, it seems, and with no sign of the
+remembrances I feared. The test, if it were meant for such, availed
+them nothing; no more, indeed, than an encounter with her on the road,
+or at the station would have availed me. For the veil she begged for
+had shrouded her features completely, and it was only from her manner
+that those who accompanied her, perceived her light-heartedness and
+delight in this change.</p>
+
+<p>One sentence, and one only, reached my ears of all she said before she
+disappeared from town.</p>
+
+<p>“If Adelaide were only going, too! But I suppose I shall meet her and
+Mr. Ranelagh somewhere before my return. She must be very happy. But
+not so peaceful as I am. She will see that when we meet. I can hardly
+wait for the day.”</p>
+
+<p>Words which set me thinking; but which I was bound to acknowledge
+could be only the idle maunderings of a diseased mind from which all
+impressions had fled, save those of innocence and futile hope.</p>
+
+<p>One incident more before I enter upon the serious business of the
+trial. I had no purpose in what I did. I merely followed the impulse
+of the moment, as I had so often done before in my selfish and
+thoughtless life, when I started one night for my walk at ten o’clock
+instead of twelve. I went the old way; and the old longing recurring
+at the one charmed spot on the road, I cast a quick look at the
+towering sycamore and the desolated house beneath, which, short as it
+was, roused feelings which kept my head lowered for the remainder of
+my walk north and to the very moment, when, on my return, the same
+chimneys and overhanging roofs came again into view through the wintry
+branches. Then habit lifted my head, and I paused to look again, when
+the low sound of a human voice, suppressed into a moan or sob, caused
+me to glance about for the woman or child who had uttered this note
+of sorrow. No one was in sight; but as I started to move on, I heard
+my name uttered in choked tones from behind the hedge separating the
+Fulton grounds from the city sidewalk.</p>
+
+<p>I halted instantly. A lamp from the opposite side of the street threw
+a broad illumination across the walk where I stood, but the gate-posts
+behind threw a shadow. Had the voice issued from this isolated point of
+darkness? I went back to see. A pitiful figure was crouching there, a
+frail, agitated little being, whom I had no sooner recognised than my
+manner instantly assumed an air of friendly interest, called out by her
+timid and appealing attitude.</p>
+
+<p>“Ella Fulton!” I exclaimed. “You wish to speak to me?”</p>
+
+<p>“Hush!” she prayed, with a frightened gesture towards the house. “No
+one knows I am here. Mamma thinks me in bed, and papa, who is out, may
+come home any minute. Oh, Mr. Ranelagh, I’m in such misery and no one
+but you can give me any help. I have watched you go by night after
+night, and I have wanted to call out and beg you to come in and see me,
+or let me go and meet you somewhere, and I have not dared, it was so
+late. To-night you have come earlier, and I have slipped out and—O,
+Elwood, you won’t think badly of me? It’s all about Arthur, and I shall
+die if some one does not help me and tell me how I can reach him with a
+message.”</p>
+
+<p>As she spoke the last words, she caught at the gatepost which was too
+broad and ponderous to offer her any hold. Gravely I held out my arm,
+which she took; we were old friends and felt no necessity of standing
+on any sort of ceremony.</p>
+
+<p>“You don’t wish to bother,” was her sensitive cry. “You had rather not
+stop; rather not listen to my troubles.”</p>
+
+<p>Had I shown my feelings so plainly as that? I felt mortified. She was a
+girl of puny physique and nervous manner—the last sort of person you
+would expect Arthur Cumberland to admire or even to have patience with,
+and the very last sort who could be expected to endure his rough ways,
+or find anything congenial to herself in his dissipated and purposeless
+life. But the freaks of youthful passion are endless, and it was
+evident that they loved each other sincerely.</p>
+
+<p>Her tremulous condition and meek complaint went to my heart,
+notwithstanding my growing dread of any conversation between us on this
+all-absorbing but equally peace-destroying topic. Reassuringly pressing
+her hand, I was startled to find a small piece of paper clutched
+convulsively within it.</p>
+
+<p>“For Arthur,” she explained under her breath. “I thought you might find
+some way of getting it to him. Father and mother are so prejudiced.
+They have never liked him, and now they believe the very worst. They
+would lock me up if they knew I was speaking to you about him. Mother
+is very stern and says that all this nonsense between Arthur and
+myself must stop. That we must never—no matter whether he is cleared
+or—or—” Silence, then a little gasp, after which she added with an
+emphasis which bespoke the death of every hope: “She is very decided
+about it, Elwood.”</p>
+
+<p>I hardly blamed the mother.</p>
+
+<p>“I—I love Arthur. I don’t think him guilty and I would gladly stand by
+him if they would let me. I want him to know this. I want him to get
+such comfort as he can out of my belief and my desire to serve him.
+I want to sacrifice myself. But I can’t, I can’t,” she moaned. “You
+don’t know how mother frightens me. When she looks at me, the words
+falter on my tongue and I feel as if it would be easier to die than to
+acknowledge what is in my heart.”</p>
+
+<p>I could believe her. Mrs. Fulton was a notable woman, whom many men
+shrank from encountering needlessly. It was not her tongue, though
+that could be bitter enough, but a certain way she had of infusing her
+displeasure into attitude, tone, and manner, which insensibly sapped
+your self-confidence and forced you to accept her bad opinion of you as
+your rightful due. This, whether your judgment coincided with hers or
+not.</p>
+
+<p>“Yet your mother is your very best friend,” I ventured gently, with
+a realisation of my responsibility which did not add much to my
+self-possession.</p>
+
+<p>She seemed startled.</p>
+
+<p>“Not in this, not in this,” she objected, with a renewal of her anxious
+glances, this time up and down the street. “I must get a word to
+Arthur. I <i>must</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>I saw that she had some deeper reason than appeared, for desiring
+communication with him. I was debating how best to meet the situation
+and set her right as to my ability to serve her, without breaking down
+her spirit too seriously, when I felt her feverish hand pressing her
+little note into my unwilling palm.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t read it,” she whispered, innocent of all offence and only
+anxious to secure my good offices. “It’s for Arthur. I’ve used the
+thinnest paper, so that you can secrete it in something he will be sure
+to get. Don’t disappoint me. I was sorry for you, too, and glad when
+they let you out. Both of you are old playmates of mine, but Arthur—”</p>
+
+<p>I had to tell her; I had to dash her small hopes to the ground.</p>
+
+<p>“Forgive me, Ella,” I said, “but I cannot carry him this message or
+even get it to him secretly. I am watched myself; I know it, though I
+have never really detected the man doing it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh!” she ejaculated, terror-stricken at once. “Is there any one here,
+behind these trees or in the street on the other side of the hedge-row?”</p>
+
+<p>I hastened to reassure her.</p>
+
+<p>“No, no. If I’ve been followed, it was not so near as that. I cannot do
+what you ask for several reasons. Arthur will credit you with the best
+of impulses without your incurring any such risk.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, yes, but that’s not enough. What shall I do? What shall I do?”</p>
+
+<p>I strove to help her.</p>
+
+<p>“There is a man,” said I, “who sees him constantly and may be induced
+to assure Arthur of your belief and continued interest in him. That man
+is his lawyer, Mr. Moffat. Any one will tell you how to reach him.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, no,” she disclaimed, hurriedly, breathlessly. “My last hope was in
+you. You wouldn’t think the worse of me for—for what I’ve done; or let
+mother know. I couldn’t tell a stranger even if he went right to Arthur
+with it. I’m not made that way. I couldn’t stand the shame.” Drawing
+back a step she wrung her small hands together, exclaiming, “What an
+unhappy girl I am!” Then stepping up to my side, she whispered in my
+ear: “There is something I could say which might—”</p>
+
+<p>I stopped her. Right or wrong, I stopped her. I hadn’t the courage just
+then to face the possibilities of what lay at the end of this simple
+sentence. She possessed evidence, or thought she did, which might help
+to clear Arthur. Evidence of what? Evidence which would implicate
+Carmel? The very thought unnerved me.</p>
+
+<p>“I had rather not be the recipient of this confidence if it is at
+all important or at all in the line of testimony. Remember the man I
+mentioned. He will be glad to hear of anything helpful to his client.”</p>
+
+<p>Her distress mounted to passion.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s—it’s something that will destroy my mother’s confidence in me.
+I disobeyed her. I did what she would never have let me do if she had
+known. I—I used to meet Arthur in the driveway back by the barns. I
+had a key made to the little side door so that I could do it. I used
+to meet him late. I would get up out of bed when mother was asleep,
+and dress myself and sit at the window until I heard him come up
+the street. Then I would steal down and catch him on his way to the
+stables. I—I had a good reason for this, Elwood. He knew I would be
+there, and it brought him home earlier and not quite so—so full of
+liquor. If he was very bad, he would come up the other way and I would
+sit waiting and crying till three o’clock struck, then creep into my
+bed and try to sleep. Nights and nights I have done this. Nothing else
+in life seemed so important, for it did hold him back a little. But not
+so much as if he had loved me more. He loved me some, but he couldn’t
+have loved me very much, or he would have sent me some word, or seen
+me, if but for a minute, since Adelaide’s death. And he hasn’t, he
+hasn’t! and that makes it harder for me to acknowledge the watch I kept
+on him, and how I know he never went through our grounds for the second
+time that night. He went once, about nine, but not later. I am certain
+of this, for I was looking out for him till three in the morning. If he
+came back and then returned afterwards to town, it was through his own
+street, and that takes so long, he would never have been able to get
+to the place they said he did at the time they have agreed upon. Oh! I
+have studied every word of the case, to see if what I had to tell would
+help him any. Father cannot bear to see me with a newspaper in my hand,
+and mother comes and takes them out of my room; but I have managed to
+read every word since they accused him of being at the club-house that
+night, and I know that he needs some one to come out boldly in his
+cause, and I want to be that some one, and I will be, too, whatever
+happens to me, if—if I must,” she faintly added.</p>
+
+<p>I was dumb, but not from lack of interest, God knows, or from
+unsympathetic feeling for this brave-hearted girl. The significance
+of the situation was what held me speechless. Here was help for
+Arthur without my braving all the horrors of Carmel’s downfall by any
+impulsive act of my own. For a moment, hope in one burning and renewing
+flame soared high in my breast. I was willing to accept my release
+in this way. I was willing to shift the load from my own back to the
+delicate shoulders of this shrinking but ardent girl. Then reason
+returned, if consideration halted, and I asked myself: “But is the
+help she offers of any practical worth? Would her timid declarations,
+trembling as she was between her awe of her parents and her desire to
+serve the man she loved, weigh in the balance against the evidence
+accumulated by the district attorney?”</p>
+
+<p>It seemed doubtful. She would not be believed, and I should have to
+back up her statement with my own hitherto suppressed testimony. It
+was a hard case, any way I looked at it. A woman to be sacrificed
+whichever course I took. Contemplating the tremulous, half-fainting
+figure drooping in the shadows before me, such native chivalry as
+remained to me, urged me to spare this little friend of mine, so
+ungifted by nature, so innocent in intention, so sensitive and so
+shrinking in temperament and habit. Then Carmel’s image rose before
+me, glorious, impassioned, driven by the fierce onrush of some mighty
+inherent force into violent deeds undreamed of by most women; but when
+thus undriven, gentle in manner, elevated in thought, refined as only
+a few rare characters are refined; and my heart stood still again
+with doubt, and I could not say: “It is your duty to save him at all
+hazards. Brave your father, brave your mother, brave public opinion and
+possibly the wrecking of your whole future, but tell the truth, and rid
+your days of doubt, your nights of remorse.” I could not say this. So
+many things might happen to save Arthur, to save Carmel, to save the
+little woman before me. I would trust that future, temporise a bit and
+give such advice as would relieve us both from immediate fear without
+compromising Arthur’s undoubted rights to justice.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Ella Fulton had become distracted by new fears. The sound
+of sleigh-bells could be heard on the hill. It might be her father.
+Should she try to reach the house, or hide her small body, like a
+trapped animal’s, on the dark side of the hedge? I was conscious of her
+thoughts, shared her uncertainties, notwithstanding the struggle then
+going on in my own mind. But I remained quiet and so did she, and the
+sleigh ultimately flew past us up the road. The sigh which broke from
+her lips as this terror subsided, brought my disordered thoughts to a
+focus. I must not keep her longer. Something must be said at once. As
+soon as she looked my way again, I spoke:</p>
+
+<p>“Ella, this is no easy problem you have offered me. You are right in
+thinking that this testimony of yours might be of benefit to Arthur,
+and that you ought to give it in case of extremity. But I cannot advise
+you to obtrude it yet. I understand what it would cost you, and the
+sacrifice you would make is too great for the doubtful good which might
+follow. Neither must you trust me to act for you in this matter. My
+own position is too unstable for me to be of assistance to any one.
+I can sympathise with you, possibly as no one else can; but I cannot
+reach Arthur, either by word or by message. Your father is the man to
+appeal to in case interference becomes necessary and you must speak.
+You have not quite the same fear of him that you have of your mother.
+Take him into your confidence—not now but later when things press and
+you must have a friend. He’s a just man. You may shock his fatherly
+susceptibilities, you may even lose some of his regard, but he will do
+the right thing by you and Arthur. Have confidence that this is so, and
+rest, little friend, in the hope and help it gives you. Will you?”</p>
+
+<p>“I will try. I could only tell father on my knees, but I will do it
+if—if I must,” she faltered out, unconsciously repeating her former
+phrase. “Now, I must go. You have been good; only I asked too much.”
+And with no other farewell she left me and disappeared up the walk.</p>
+
+<p>I lingered till I heard the faint click of her key in the door she had
+secretly made her own; then I moved on. As I did so, I heard a rustle
+somewhere about me on street or lawn. I never knew whence it came,
+but I felt assured that neither her fears nor mine had been quite
+unfounded; that a listener had been posted somewhere near us and that
+a part, if not all, we had said had been overheard. I was furious for
+an instant, then the soothing thought came that possibly Providence had
+ordained that the Gordian knot should be cut in just this way.</p>
+
+<p>But the event bore no ostensible fruit. The week ended, and the case of
+the People <i>against</i> Arthur Cumberland was moved for trial.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXIV">XXIV<br><span class="small">ALL THIS STOOD</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">It’s fit this royal session do proceed;<br>
+And that, without delay, their arguments<br>
+Be now produc’d and heard</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>King Henry VIII</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>There was difficulty, as you will conceive, in selecting an
+unprejudiced jury. But this once having been accomplished, the case
+went quickly and smoothly on under the able guidance of the prosecuting
+attorney.</p>
+
+<p>I shall spare you the opening details, also much of the preliminary
+testimony. Enough that at the close of the sixth day, the outlook was
+a serious one for Arthur Cumberland. The prosecution appeared to be
+making good its claims. The quiet and unexpectedly dignified way in
+which, at the beginning, the defendant had faced the whole antagonistic
+court-room, with the simple plea of “Not Guilty,” was being slowly but
+surely forgotten in the accumulated proofs of his discontented life
+under his sister’s dominating influence, his desire for independence
+and a free use of the money held in trust for him by this sister
+under their father’s will, the quarrels which such a situation would
+naturally evoke between characters cast in such different moulds
+and actuated by such opposing tastes and principles, and the final
+culmination of the same at the dinner-table when Adelaide forced him,
+as it were, to subscribe to her prohibition of all further use of
+liquor in their house. Following this evidence of motive, came the
+still more damaging one of opportunity. He was shown to have been in
+the club-house at or near the time of Adelaide’s death. The matter of
+the bottles was gone into and the event in Cuthbert Road. Then I was
+called to the stand, and my testimony asked for.</p>
+
+<p>I had prepared myself for the ordeal and faced it unflinchingly. That
+I might keep intact the one point necessary to Carmel’s safety, I met
+my inquisitors, now as before, with the utmost candour in all other
+respects. Indeed, in one particular I was even more exact in my details
+than at any previous examination. Anxious to explain my agitated and
+hesitating advance through the club-house, prior to my discovery of
+the crime which had been committed there, I acknowledged what I had
+hitherto concealed, that in my first entrance into the building, I had
+come upon a man’s derby hat and coat hanging in the lower hall, and
+when questioned more minutely on the subject, allowed it to appear that
+it was owing to the disappearance of these articles during my stay
+upstairs, that I had been led into saying that some one had driven away
+from The Whispering Pines before the coming of the police.</p>
+
+<p>This, as you will see, was in open contradiction of my former
+statements that I had <i>seen</i> an unknown party, thus attired, driving
+away through the upper gateway just as I entered by the lower. But it
+was a contradiction which while noted by Mr. Moffat, failed to injure
+me with the jury, and much less with the spectators. The impression
+had become so firmly fixed in the public mind and in that of certain
+officials as well, that my early hesitations and misstatements were
+owing to a brotherly anxiety to distract attention from Arthur whose
+clothing they believed me to have recognised in these articles I
+have mentioned—that I rather gained than lost by what, under other
+circumstances would have seriously damaged my testimony. That I should
+prevaricate even to my own detriment, at a preliminary examination,
+only to tell the truth openly and like a man when in court and under
+the sanctity of an oath was, in the popular estimation, something to my
+credit; and Mr. Moffat, whose chief recommendation as counsel lay in
+his quick appreciation of the exigencies of the moment, did not press
+me too sharply on this point when he came to his cross-examination.</p>
+
+<p>But in other respects he drove me hard. An effort was made by him,
+first of all, to discredit me as a witness. My lack of appreciation for
+Adelaide and my secret but absorbing love for Carmel were inexorably
+brought out: also the easy, happy-go-lucky tenor of my life, and
+my dogged persistence in any course I thought consistent with my
+happiness. My character was well known in this town of my birth, and
+it would have been folly for me to attempt to gloss it over. I had not
+even the desire to do so. If my sins exacted penance, I would pay it
+here and now and to the full. Only Carmel should not suffer. I refused
+to admit that she had given any evidences of returning my reckless
+passion. My tongue would not speak the necessary words, and it was
+not made to. It was not her character but mine which Mr. Moffat was
+endeavouring to assail.</p>
+
+<p>But though I was thus shown up for what I was, in a manner most public
+and undesirable, neither the rulings of the court, nor the attitude of
+the jury betrayed any loss of confidence in me as a credible witness,
+and seeing this, the wily lawyer shifted his ground and confined
+himself to an endeavour to shake me on certain definite and important
+points. How were the pillows heaped upon the couch? What ones at top,
+what ones at bottom? Which did I remove first, and why did I remove any
+of them? What had I expected to find? These questions answered, the
+still more-to-be-dreaded ones followed of just how my betrothed looked
+at the moment I uncovered her face. Were the marks very plain upon her
+throat? How plain; and what did I mean by saying that I felt forced to
+lay my thumbs upon them? Was that a natural thing to do? Where was the
+candle at that moment? How many feet away? A candle does not give much
+light at that distance, was I sure that I saw those marks immediately;
+that they were dark enough and visible enough to draw my eyes from her
+face which would naturally attract my gaze first? It was horrible,
+devilish, but I won through, only to meet the still more disturbing
+question as to whether I saw any other evidences of strangulation
+besides the marks. I could only mention the appearance of the eyes;
+and when Mr. Moffat found that he could not shake me on this point,
+he branched off into a less harrowing topic and cross-examined me in
+regard to the ring. I had said that it was on her hand when I bade
+good-bye to her in her own house, and that it was not there when I came
+upon her dead. Had the fact made me curious to examine her hand? No.
+Then I could not tell whether the finger on which she wore it gave any
+evidence of this ring having been pulled off with violence? No. I could
+not swear that in my opinion it was? I could not.</p>
+
+<p>The small flask of cordial and the three glasses, one clean and the
+others showing signs of having been used, were next taken up, but
+with no result for the defence. I had told all I knew about these in
+my direct examination; also about such matters as the bottles found
+on the kitchen table, the leaving of my keys at the Cumberland house,
+and the fact, well known, that the two bottles of wine left in the
+wine-vault and tabulated by the steward as so left in the list found
+in my apartments, were of an exclusive brand unlikely to be found
+anywhere else in town. I could add nothing more, and, having spoken the
+exact truth concerning them, from the very first, I ran no chance of
+contradicting myself even under the close fire of the opposing counsel.</p>
+
+<p>But there was a matter I dreaded to see him approach, and, which, I was
+equally sure, with an insight unshared I believe by any one else in the
+whole courtroom, was equally dreaded by the prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>This was the presence in the club-house chimney of the half-burned
+letter I had long ago been compelled, in my own defence, to acknowledge
+having written to the victim’s young sister, Carmel Cumberland. As I
+saw District Attorney Fox about to enter upon this topic, I gathered
+myself together to meet the onslaught, for in this matter I could not
+be strictly truthful, since the least slip on my part might awaken the
+whole world to the fact that it could only have come there through the
+agency of Carmel herself.</p>
+
+<p>What Mr. Moffat thought of it—what he hoped to prove in the prisoner’s
+behalf by raking this subject over—it was left for me to discover
+later. The prisoner was an innocent man, in his eyes. I was not; and,
+while the time had not come for him to make this openly apparent, he
+was not above showing even now that the case contained a factor which
+weakened the prosecution—a factor totally dissociated with the openly
+accepted theory that the crime was simply the result of personal
+cupidity and drunken spite.</p>
+
+<p>And in this he was right. It did weaken it—weakened it to the point
+of collapse, if the counsel for the defence had fully acted up to his
+opportunity. But something withheld him. Just at the moment when I
+feared the truth must come out, he hesitated and veered gradually away
+from this subject. In his nervous pacings to and fro before the witness
+stand, his eye had rested for a moment on Arthur’s, and with this
+result. The situation was saved, but at a great loss to the defendant.</p>
+
+<p>I began to cherish softened feelings towards Arthur Cumberland, from
+this moment. Was it then, or later, that he began in his turn to
+cherish new and less hostile feelings towards myself? He had hated me
+and vowed my death if I escaped the fate he could now dimly see opening
+out before himself; yet I could see that he was glad to see me slip
+from my tormentor’s hands with my story unimpeached, and that he drew
+his breath more deeply and with much more evidence of freedom, now that
+my testimony had been thoroughly sifted and nothing had come to light
+implicating Carmel. I even thought I caught a kindly gleam in his eye
+as it met mine at this critical juncture, and by its light I understood
+my man and what he hoped from me. He wished me at any risk to himself,
+to unite with him in saving Carmel’s good name. That I should accede
+to this; that I should respect his generous wishes and let him go to
+unmerited destruction for even so imperative an obligation as we both
+lay under, was a question for the morrow. I could not decide upon it
+to-day—not while the smallest hope remained that he would yet escape
+conviction by other means than the one which would wreck the life we
+were both intent on saving.</p>
+
+<p>Several short examinations followed mine, all telling in their nature,
+all calculated to fix in the minds of the jury the following facts:</p>
+
+<p>(Pray pardon the repetition. It is necessary to present the case to you
+just as it stood at this period of my greatest struggle.)</p>
+
+<p>1.—That Arthur, swayed by cupidity and moved to rage by the scene at
+the dinner-table, had, by some unknown means of a more or less violent
+character, prevailed upon Adelaide to accompany him to The Whispering
+Pines, in the small cutter, to which, in the absence of every servant
+about the place, he himself had harnessed the grey mare.</p>
+
+<p>2.—That in preparation for this visit to a spot remote from
+observation and closed against all visitors, they, still for some
+unknown reason, had carried between them a candlestick and candle, a
+flask of cordial, three glasses, and a small bottle marked “Poison”;
+also some papers, letters, or scraps of correspondence, among them the
+compromising line I had written to Carmel.</p>
+
+<p>3.—That, while in this building, at an hour not yet settled, a second
+altercation had arisen between them, or some attempt been made by
+the brother which had alarmed Adelaide and sent her flying to the
+telephone, in great agitation, with an appeal to the police for help.
+This telephone was in a front room and the jury was led to judge
+that she had gained access to it while her companion ransacked the
+wine-vault and brought the six bottles of spirit up from the cellar.</p>
+
+<p>4.—That her outcry had alarmed the prisoner in his turn, causing him
+to leave most of the bottles below, and hasten up to the room, where he
+completed the deed with which he had previously threatened her.</p>
+
+<p>5.—That poison having failed, he resorted to strangulation; after
+which—or before—came the robbery of her ring, the piling up of the
+cushions over the body in a vain endeavour to hide the deed, or to
+prolong the search for the victim. Then the departure—the locking of
+the front door behind the perpetrator; the flight of the grey horse and
+cutter through the blinding storm; the blowing off of the driver’s hat;
+the identification of the same by means of the flour-mark left on its
+brim by the mechanic’s wife; the presence of a portion of one of the
+two abstracted bottles in the stable where the horse was put up; and
+the appearance of Arthur with the other bottle at the door of the inn
+in Cuthbert Road, just as the clock was striking half-past eleven.</p>
+
+<p>This latter fact might have been regarded as proving an alibi, owing
+to the length of road between the Cumberland house and the place just
+mentioned, if there had not been a short cut to town open to him by
+means of a door in the wall separating the Cumberland and Fulton
+grounds—a door which was found unlocked, and with the key in it, by
+Zadok Brown, the coachman, when he came home about three next morning.</p>
+
+<p>All this stood; not an item of this testimony could be shaken. Most of
+it was true; some of it false; but what was false, so unassailable by
+any ordinary means, that, as I have already said, the clouds seemed
+settling heavily over Arthur Cumberland when, at the end of the sixth
+day, the proceedings closed.</p>
+
+<p>The night that followed was a heavy one for me. Then came the fateful
+morrow, and, after that, the day of days destined to make a life-long
+impression on all who attended this trial.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXV">XXV<br><span class="small">“I AM INNOCENT”</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">All is oblique,<br>
+There’s nothing level in our cursed natures,<br>
+But direct villainy. Therefore, be abhorred<br>
+All feasts, societies, and throngs of men!<br>
+His semblable, yea, himself, Timon disdains.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Timon of Athens</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>I was early in my seat. Feeling the momentousness of the occasion—for
+this day must decide my action for or against the prisoner—I searched
+the faces of the jury, of the several counsel, and of the judge. I was
+anxious to know what I had to expect from them, in case my conscience
+got the better of my devotion to Carmel’s interests and led me into
+that declaration of the real facts which was forever faltering on my
+tongue, without having, as yet, received the final impetus which could
+only end in speech.</p>
+
+<p>To give him his rightful precedence, the judge showed an impenetrable
+countenance but little changed from that with which he had faced
+us all from the start. He, like most of the men involved in these
+proceedings, had been a close friend of the prisoner’s father, and, in
+his capacity of judge in this momentous trial, had had to contend with
+his personal predilections, possibly with concealed sympathies, if not
+with equally well-concealed prejudices. This had lent to his aspect a
+sternness never observable in it before; but no man, even the captious
+Mr. Moffat, had seriously questioned his rulings; and, whatever the
+cost to himself, he had, up to this time, held the scales of justice so
+evenly that it would have taken an audacious mind to have ventured on
+an interpretation of his real attitude or mental leaning in this case.</p>
+
+<p>From this imposing presence, nobly sustained by a well-proportioned
+figure and a head and face indicative of intellect and every kindly
+attribute, I turned to gaze upon Mr. Fox and his colleagues. One spirit
+seemed to animate them—confidence in their case, and unqualified
+satisfaction at its present status.</p>
+
+<p>I was conscious of a certain ironic impulse to smile, as I noted the
+eager whisper and the bustle of preparation with which they settled
+upon their next witness and prepared to open their batteries upon him.
+How easily I could call down that high look, and into what a turmoil I
+could throw them all by an ingenuous demand to be recalled to the stand!</p>
+
+<p>But the psychological moment had not yet come, and I subdued the
+momentary impulse and proceeded with my scrutiny of the people about
+me. The jury looked tired, with the exception of one especially alert
+little man who drank in even the most uninteresting details with
+avidity. But they all had good faces, and none could doubt their
+interest, or that they were fully alive to the significance of the
+occasion.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat, leading counsel for the defendant, was a spare man of
+unusual height, modified a little, and only a little, by the forward
+droop of his shoulders. Nervous in manner, quick, short, sometimes
+rasping in speech, he had the changeful eye and mobile expression of
+a very sensitive nature; and from him, if from any one, I might hope
+to learn how much or how little Arthur had to fear from the day’s
+proceedings. But Mr. Moffat’s countenance was not as readable as usual.
+He looked preoccupied—a strange thing for him; and, instead of keeping
+his eye on the witness, as was his habitual practice, he allowed it
+to wander over the sea of heads before him, with a curious expectant
+interest which aroused my own curiosity, and led me to hunt about for
+its cause.</p>
+
+<p>My first glance was unproductive. I saw only the usual public, such as
+had confronted us the whole week, with curious and increasing interest.
+But as I searched further, I discerned in an inconspicuous corner, the
+bowed head, veiled almost beyond recognition, of Ella Fulton. It was
+her first appearance in court. Each day I had anticipated her presence,
+and each day I had failed to see my anticipations realised. But she
+was here now, and so were her father and her cold and dominating
+mother; and, beholding her thus accompanied, I fancied I understood Mr.
+Moffat’s poorly concealed excitement. But another glance at Mrs. Fulton
+assured me that I was mistaken in this hasty surmise. No such serious
+purpose, as I feared, lay back of their presence here to-day. Curiosity
+alone explained it; and as I realised what this meant, and how little
+understanding it betokened of the fierce struggle then going on in the
+timid breast of their distracted child, a sickening sense of my own
+responsibility drove Carmel’s beauty, and Carmel’s claims temporarily
+from my mind, and following the direction of Ella’s thoughts, if not
+her glances, I sought in the face of the prisoner a recognition of her
+presence, if not of the promise this presence brought him.</p>
+
+<p>His eye had just fallen on her. I was assured of this by the sudden
+softening of his expression—the first real softening I had ever seen
+in it. It was but a momentary flash, but it was unmistakable in its
+character, as was his speedy return to his former stolidity. Whatever
+his thoughts were at sight of his little sweetheart, he meant to hide
+them even from his counsel—most of all from his counsel, I decided
+after further contemplation of them both. If Mr. Moffat still showed
+nervousness, it was for some other reason than anxiety about this
+little body hiding from sight behind the proudly held figures of father
+and mother.</p>
+
+<p>The opening testimony of the day, while not vital, was favourable to
+the prosecution in that it showed Arthur’s conduct since the murder
+to have been inconsistent with perfect innocence. His belated return
+at noon the next day, raging against the man who had been found in
+an incriminating position on the scene of crime, while at the same
+time failing to betray his own presence there till driven to it by
+accumulating circumstances and the persistent inquiries of the police;
+the care he took to avoid drink, though constant tippling was habitual
+to him and formed the great cause of quarrel between himself and the
+murdered Adelaide; his haunting of Carmel’s door and anxious listening
+for any words she might let fall in her delirium; the suspicion which
+he constantly betrayed of the nurse when for any reason he was led to
+conclude that she had heard something which he had not; his behaviour
+at the funeral and finally his action in demanding to have the
+casket-lid removed that he might look again at the face he had made no
+effort to gaze upon when opportunity offered and time and place were
+seemly: these facts and many more were brought forward in grim array
+against the prisoner, with but little opposition from his counsel and
+small betrayal of feeling on the part of Arthur himself. His stolid
+face had remained stolid even when the ring which had fallen out of his
+sister’s casket was shown to the jury and the connection made between
+its presence there and the intrusion of his hand into the same, on
+the occasion above mentioned. This once thoughtless, pleasure-loving,
+and hopelessly dissipated boy had not miscalculated his nerve. It
+was sufficient for an ordeal which might have tried the courage and
+self-possession of the most hardened criminal.</p>
+
+<p>Then came the great event of the day, in anticipation of which the
+court-room had been packed, and every heart within it awakened by slow
+degrees to a state of great nervous expectancy. The prosecution rested
+and the junior counsel for the defence opened his case to the jury.</p>
+
+<p>If I had hoped for any startling disclosure, calculated to establish
+his client’s alleged alibi, or otherwise to free the same from the
+definite charge of murder, I had reason to be greatly disappointed by
+this maiden effort of a young and inexperienced lawyer. If not exactly
+weak, there was an unexpected vagueness in its statements which seemed
+quite out of keeping with the emphatic declaration which he made of the
+prisoner’s innocence.</p>
+
+<p>Even Arthur was sensible of the bad effect made by this preliminary
+address. More than once during its delivery and notably at its
+conclusion, he turned to Mr. Moffat, with a bitter remark, which was
+not without effect on that gentleman’s cheek, and at once called forth
+a retort stinging enough to cause Arthur to sink back into his place,
+with the first sign of restlessness I had observed in him.</p>
+
+<p>“Moffat is sly. Moffat has something up his sleeve. I will wait till
+he sees fit to show it,” was my thought; then, as I caught a wild and
+pleading look from Ella, I added in positive assertion to myself, “And
+so must she.”</p>
+
+<p>Answering her unspoken appeal with an admonitory shake of the head,
+I carelessly let my fingers rest upon my mouth until I saw that she
+understood me and was prepared to follow my lead for a little while
+longer.</p>
+
+<p>My satisfaction at this was curtailed by the calling of Arthur
+Cumberland to the stand to witness in his own defence.</p>
+
+<p>I had dreaded this contingency. I saw that for some reason, both his
+counsel and associate counsel, were not without their own misgivings as
+to the result of their somewhat doubtful experiment.</p>
+
+<p>A change was observable in this degenerate son of the Cumberlands since
+many there had confronted him face to face. Physically he was improved.
+Enough time had elapsed since his sudden dropping of old habits, for
+him to have risen above its first effects and to have acquired that
+tone of personal dignity which follows a successful issue to any moral
+conflict. But otherwise the difference was such as to arouse doubt as
+to the real man lurking behind his dogged, uncommunicative manner.</p>
+
+<p>Even with the knowledge of his motives which I believed myself to
+possess, I was at a loss to understand his indifference to self and the
+immobility of manner he maintained under all circumstances and during
+every fluctuation which took place in the presentation of his case, or
+in the temper of the people surrounding him. I felt that beyond the
+one fact that he could be relied upon to protect Carmel’s name and
+Carmel’s character, even to the jeopardising of his case, he was not
+to be counted on, and might yet startle many of us, and most notably
+of all, the little woman waiting to hear what he had to say in his own
+defence before she threw herself into the breach and made that devoted
+attempt to save him, in his own despite, which had been my terror from
+the first and was my terror now.</p>
+
+<p>Perjury! but not in his own defence—rather in opposition to it—that
+is what his counsel had to fear; and I wondered if they knew it.
+My attention became absorbed in the puzzle. Carmel’s fate, if not
+Ella’s—and certainly my own—hung upon the issue. This I knew, and
+this I faced, calmly, but very surely, as, the preliminary questions
+having been answered, Mr. Moffat proceeded.</p>
+
+<p>The witness’s name having been demanded and given and some other
+preliminary formalities gone through, he was asked:</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland, did you have any quarrel with your sister during the
+afternoon or evening of December the second?”</p>
+
+<p>“I did.” Then, as if not satisfied with this simple statement, he
+blurted forth: “And it wasn’t the first. I hated the discipline she
+imposed upon me, and the disapproval she showed of my ways and the
+manner in which I chose to spend my money.”</p>
+
+<p>A straightforward expression of feeling, but hardly a judicious one.</p>
+
+<p>Judge Edwards glanced, in some surprise, from Mr. Moffat to the daring
+man who could choose thus to usher in his defence; and then, forgetting
+his own emotions, in his instinctive desire for order, rapped sharply
+with his gavel in correction of the audible expression of a like
+feeling on the part of the expectant audience.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat, apparently unaffected by this result of his daring move,
+pursued his course, with the quiet determination of one who sees his
+goal and is working deliberately towards it.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you mind particularising? Of what did she especially disapprove in
+your conduct or way of spending money?”</p>
+
+<p>“She disapproved of my fondness for drink. She didn’t like my late
+hours, or the condition in which I frequently came home. I did not like
+her expressions of displeasure, or the way she frequently cut me short
+when I wanted to have a good time with my friends. We never agreed. I
+made her suffer often and unnecessarily. I regret it now; she was a
+better sister to me than I could then understand.”</p>
+
+<p>This was uttered slowly and with a quiet emphasis which reawakened that
+excited hum the judge had been at such pains to quell a moment before.
+But he did not quell it now; he seemed to have forgotten his duty in
+the strong interest called up by these admissions from the tongue of
+the most imperturbable prisoner he had had before him in years.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat, with an eye on District Attorney Fox, who had shown his
+surprise at the trend the examination was taking by a slight indication
+of uneasiness, grateful enough, no doubt, to the daring counsellor,
+went on with his examination:</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland, will you tell us when you first felt this change of
+opinion in regard to your sister?”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fox leaped to his feet. Then he slowly reseated himself. Evidently
+he thought it best to let the prisoner have his full say. Possibly he
+may have regretted his leniency the next moment when, with a solemn
+lowering of his head, Arthur answered:</p>
+
+<p>“When I saw my home desolated in one dreadful night. With one sister
+dead in the house, the victim of violence, and another delirious from
+fright or some other analogous cause, I had ample time to think—and I
+used that time. That’s all.”</p>
+
+<p>Simple words, read or repeated; but in that crowded court-room, with
+every ear strained to catch the lie which seemed the only refuge for
+the man so hemmed in by circumstance, these words, uttered without the
+least attempt at effect, fell with a force which gave new life to such
+as wished to see this man acquitted.</p>
+
+<p>His counsel, as if anxious to take advantage of this very expectation
+to heighten the effect of what followed, proceeded immediately to
+inquire:</p>
+
+<p>“When did you see your sister Adelaide for the last time alive?”</p>
+
+<p>A searching question. What would be his reply?</p>
+
+<p>A very quiet one.</p>
+
+<p>“That night at the dinner-table. When I left the room, I turned to
+look at her. She was not looking at me; so I slammed the door and went
+upstairs. In an hour or so, I had left the house to get a drink. I got
+the drink, but I never saw Adelaide again till I saw her in her coffin.”</p>
+
+<p>This blunt denial of the crime for which he stood there arraigned, fell
+on my heart with a weight which showed me how inextinguishable is the
+hope we cherish deep down under all surface convictions. I had been
+unconscious of this hope, but it was there. It seemed to die a double
+death at these words. For I believed him! Courage is needed for a lie.
+There were no signs visible in him, as yet, of his having drawn upon
+this last resource of the despairing. I should know it when he did; he
+could not hide the subtle change from me.</p>
+
+<p>To others, this declaration came with greater or less force, according
+as it was viewed in the light of a dramatic trick of Mr. Moffat’s, or
+as the natural outburst of a man fighting for his life in his own way
+and with his own weapons. I could not catch the eye of Ella cowering
+low in her seat, so could not judge what tender chords had been struck
+in her sensitive breast by these two assertions so dramatically offset
+against each other—the one, his antagonism to the dead; the other, his
+freedom from the crime in which that antagonism was supposed to have
+culminated.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat, satisfied so far, put his next question with equal
+directness:</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland, you have mentioned seeing your sister in her coffin.
+When was this?”</p>
+
+<p>“At the close of her funeral, just before she was carried out.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was that the first and only time you had seen her so placed?”</p>
+
+<p>“It was.”</p>
+
+<p>“Had you seen the casket itself prior to this moment of which you
+speak?”</p>
+
+<p>“I had not.”</p>
+
+<p>“Had you been near it? Had you handled it in any way?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland, you have heard mention made of a ring worn by your
+sister in life, but missing from her finger after death?”</p>
+
+<p>“I have.”</p>
+
+<p>“You remember this ring?”</p>
+
+<p>“I do.”</p>
+
+<p>“Is this it?”</p>
+
+<p>“It is, so far as I can judge at this distance.”</p>
+
+<p>“Hand the ring to the witness,” ordered the judge.</p>
+
+<p>The ring was so handed.</p>
+
+<p>He glanced at it, and said bitterly: “I recognise it. It was her
+engagement ring.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was this ring on her finger that night at the dinner-table?”</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot say, positively, but I believe so. I should have noticed its
+absence.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, may I ask?”</p>
+
+<p>For the first time the prisoner flushed and the look he darted at his
+counsel had the sting of a reproach in it. Yet he answered: “It was
+the token of an engagement I didn’t believe in or like. I should have
+hailed any proof that this engagement was off.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat smiled enigmatically.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland, if you are not sure of having seen this ring then,
+when did you see it and where?”</p>
+
+<p>A rustle from end to end of that crowded court-room. This was an
+audacious move. What was coming? What would be the answer of the man
+who was believed not only to have made himself the possessor of this
+ring, but to have taken a most strange and uncanny method of disposing
+of it afterward? In the breathless hush which followed this first
+involuntary expression of feeling, Arthur’s voice rose, harsh but
+steady in this reply:</p>
+
+<p>“I saw it when the police showed it to me, and asked me if I could
+identify it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was that the only time you have seen it up to the present moment?”</p>
+
+<p>Instinctively, the witness’s right hand rose; it was as if he were
+mentally repeating his oath before he uttered coldly and with emphasis,
+though without any show of emotion:</p>
+
+<p>“It is.”</p>
+
+<p>The universal silence gave way to a universal sigh of excitement and
+relief. District Attorney Fox’s lips curled with an imperceptible
+smile of disdain, which might have impressed the jury if they had been
+looking his way; but they were all looking with eager and interested
+eyes at the prisoner, who had just uttered this second distinct and
+unequivocal denial.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat noted this, and his own lip curled, but with a very
+different show of feeling from that which had animated his
+distinguished opponent. Without waiting for the present sentiment to
+cool, he proceeded immediately with his examination:</p>
+
+<p>“You swear that you have seen this ring but once since the night
+of your sister’s death, and that was when it was shown you in the
+coroner’s office?”</p>
+
+<p>“I do.”</p>
+
+<p>“Does this mean that it was not in your possession at any time during
+that interim?”</p>
+
+<p>“It certainly does.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland, more than one witness has testified to the fact of
+your having been seen to place your hand in the casket of your sister,
+before the eyes of the minister and of others attending her funeral. Is
+this true?”</p>
+
+<p>“It is.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was not this a most unusual thing to do?”</p>
+
+<p>“Perhaps. I was not thinking about that. I had a duty to perform, and I
+performed it.”</p>
+
+<p>“A duty? Will you explain to the jury what duty?”</p>
+
+<p>The witness’s head rose, then sank. He, as well as every one else,
+seemed to be impressed by the solemnity of the moment. Though the
+intensity of my own interest would not allow my eyes to wander from his
+face, I could imagine the strained look in Ella’s, as she awaited his
+words.</p>
+
+<p>They came in another instant, but with less steadiness than he had
+shown before. I even thought I could detect a tremor in his muscles, as
+well as in his voice:</p>
+
+<p>“I had rebelled against my sister’s wishes; I had grieved and deceived
+her up to the very night of her foul and unnatural death—and all
+through <i>drink</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>Here his eye flashed, and for that fleeting moment he looked a man.
+“I wished to take an oath—an oath I would remember. It was for this
+purpose I ordered the casket opened, and thrust my fingers through
+the flowers I found there. When my fingers touched my sister’s brow,
+I inwardly swore never to taste liquor again. I have kept that oath.
+Difficult as it was, in my state of mind, and with all my troubles, I
+have kept it—and been misunderstood in doing so,” he added, in lower
+tones, and with just a touch of bitterness.</p>
+
+<p>It was such an unexpected explanation, and so calculated to cause a
+decided and favourable reaction in the minds of those who had looked
+upon this especial act of his as an irrefutable proof of guilt, that
+it was but natural that some show of public feeling should follow. But
+this was checked almost immediately, and Mr. Moffat’s voice was heard
+rising again in his strange but telling examination:</p>
+
+<p>“When you thrust your hand in to take this oath, did you drop anything
+into your sister’s casket?”</p>
+
+<p>“I did not. My hand was empty. I held no ring, and dropped none in. I
+simply touched her forehead.”</p>
+
+<p>This added to the feeling; and, in another instant, the excitement
+might have risen into hubbub, had not the emotions of one little woman
+found vent in a low and sobbing cry which relieved the tension and gave
+just the relief needed to hold in check the overstrained feelings of
+the crowd. I knew the voice and cast one quick glance that way, in time
+to see Ella sinking affrightedly out of sight under the dismayed looks
+of father and mother; then, anxious to note whether the prisoner had
+recognised her, too, looked hastily back to find him standing quietly
+and unmoved, with his eyes on his counsel and his lips set in the stern
+line which was slowly changing his expression.</p>
+
+<p>That counsel, strangely alive to the temper and feelings of his
+audience, waited just long enough for the few simple and solemn words
+uttered by the accused man to produce their full effect, then with a
+side glance at Mr. Fox, whose equanimity he had at last succeeded in
+disturbing, and whose cross-examination of the prisoner he had still
+to fear, continued his own examination by demanding why, when the ring
+was discovered in Adelaide’s casket and he saw what inferences would be
+drawn from the fact, he had not made an immediate public explanation of
+his conduct and the reasons he had had for putting his hand there.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m not a muff,” shot from the prisoner’s lips, in his old manner. “A
+man who would take such an oath, in such a way, and at such a time, is
+not the man to talk about it until he is forced to. I would not talk
+about it now—”</p>
+
+<p>He was checked at this point; but the glimpse we thus obtained of
+the natural man, in this indignant and sullen outburst, following so
+quickly upon the solemn declarations of the moment before, did more for
+him in the minds of those present than the suavest and most discreet
+answer given under the instigation of his counsel. Every face showed
+pleasure, and for a short space, if for no longer, all who listened
+were disposed to accept his assertions and accord the benefit of doubt
+to this wayward son of an esteemed father.</p>
+
+<p>To me, who had hoped nothing from Moffat’s efforts, the substantial
+nature of the defence thus openly made manifest, brought reanimation
+and an unexpected confidence in the future.</p>
+
+<p>The question as to who had dropped the ring into the casket if Arthur
+had not—the innocent children, the grieving servants—was latent, of
+course, in every breast, but it had not yet reached the point demanding
+expression.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the examination proceeded.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland, you have stated that you did not personally drop this
+ring into the place where it was ultimately found. Can you tell us of
+your own knowledge who did?”</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot. I know nothing about the ring. I was much surprised,
+probably more surprised than any one else, to hear of its discovery in
+that place.”</p>
+
+<p>The slip—and it was a slip for him to introduce that <i>more</i>—was
+immediately taken advantage of by his counsel.</p>
+
+<p>“You say ‘more,’ Why should it be more of a surprise to you than to any
+one else to learn where this missing engagement ring of your sister’s
+had been found?”</p>
+
+<p>Again that look of displeasure directed towards his questioner, and a
+certain additional hardness in his reply, when he finally made it.</p>
+
+<p>“I was her brother. I had a brother’s antipathies and rightful
+suspicions. I could not see how that ring came to be where it was, when
+the only one interested in its restoration was in prison.”</p>
+
+<p>This was a direct blow at myself, and of course called Mr. Fox to his
+feet, with a motion to strike out this answer. An altercation followed
+between him and Mr. Moffat, which, deeply as it involved my life and
+reputation, failed to impress me, as it might otherwise have done, if
+my whole mind had not been engaged in reconciling the difficulty about
+this ring with what I knew of Carmel and the probability which existed
+of her having been responsible for its removal from her sister’s hand.
+But Carmel had been ill since, desperately ill and unconscious. She
+could have had nothing to do with its disposal afterwards among the
+flowers at her sister’s funeral. Nor had she been in a condition to
+delegate this act of concealment to another. Who, then, had been the
+intermediary in this business? The question was no longer a latent one
+in my mind; it was an insistent one, compelling me either to discredit
+Arthur’s explanation (in which case anything might be believed of him)
+or to accept for good and all this new theory that some person of
+unknown identity had played an accessory’s part in this crime, whose
+full burden I had hitherto laid upon the shoulders of the impetuous
+Carmel. Either hypothesis brought light. I began to breathe again the
+air of hope, and if observed at that moment, must have presented the
+odd spectacle of a man rejoicing in his own shame and accepting with
+positive uplift, the inevitable stigma cast upon his honour by the
+suggestive sentence just hurled at him by an indignant witness.</p>
+
+<p>The point raised by the district attorney having been ruled upon
+and sustained by the court, Mr. Moffat made no effort to carry his
+inquiries any further in the direction indicated; but I could see,
+with all my inexperience of the law and the ways of attorneys before a
+jury, that the episode had produced its inevitable result, and that my
+position, as a man released from suspicion, had received a shock, the
+results of which I might yet be made to feel.</p>
+
+<p>A moment’s pause followed, during which some of Mr. Moffat’s
+nervousness returned. He eyed the prisoner doubtfully, found him
+stoical and as self-contained as at the beginning of his examination,
+and plunged into a topic which most people had expected him to avoid.
+I certainly had, and felt all the uncertainty and secret alarm which
+an unexpected move occasions where the issue is momentous with life
+or death. I was filled with terror, not for the man on trial, but for
+my secret. Was it shared by the defence? Was Mr. Moffat armed with
+the knowledge I thought confined to myself and Arthur? Had the latter
+betrayed the cause I had been led to believe he was ready to risk
+his life to defend? Had I mistaken his gratitude to myself; or had I
+underrated Mr. Moffat’s insight or powers of persuasion? We had just
+been made witness to one triumph on the part of this able lawyer in a
+quarter deemed unassailable by the prosecution. Were we about to be
+made witnesses of another? I felt the sweat start on my forehead, and
+was only able to force myself into some show of self-possession by
+the evident lack of perfect assurance with which this same lawyer now
+addressed his client.</p>
+
+<p>The topic which had awakened in me these doubts and consequent
+agitation will appear from the opening question.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland, to return to the night of your sister’s death. Can you
+tell us what overcoat you put on when leaving your house?”</p>
+
+<p>Arthur was as astonished and certainly as disconcerted, if not as
+seriously alarmed, as I was, by this extraordinary move. Surprise,
+anger, then some deeper feeling rang in his voice as he replied:</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot. I took down the first I saw and <i>the first hat.</i>”</p>
+
+<p>The emphasis placed on the last three words may have been meant as a
+warning to his audacious counsel, but if so, it was not heeded.</p>
+
+<p>“Took down? Took down from where?”</p>
+
+<p>“From the rack in the hall where I hang my things; the side hall
+leading to the door where we usually go out.”</p>
+
+<p>“Have you many coats—overcoats, I mean?”</p>
+
+<p>“More than one.”</p>
+
+<p>“And you do not know which one you put on that cold night?”</p>
+
+<p>“I do not.”</p>
+
+<p>“But you know what one you wore back?”</p>
+
+<p>“No.”</p>
+
+<p>Short, sharp, and threatening was this <i>no</i>. A war was on between this
+man and his counsel, and the wonder it occasioned was visible in every
+eye. Perhaps Mr. Moffat realised this; this was what he had dreaded,
+perhaps. At all events, he proceeded with his strange task, in apparent
+oblivion of everything but his own purpose.</p>
+
+<p>“You do not know what one you wore back?”</p>
+
+<p>“I do not.”</p>
+
+<p>“You have seen the hat and coat which have been shown here and sworn to
+as being the ones in which you appeared on your return to the house,
+the day following your sister’s murder?”</p>
+
+<p>“I have.”</p>
+
+<p>“Also the hat and coat found on a remote hook in the closet under the
+stairs, bearing the flour-mark on its under brim?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, that too.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yet cannot say which of these two overcoats you put on when you left
+your home, an hour or so after finishing your dinner?”</p>
+
+<p>Trapped by his own lawyer—visibly and remorselessly trapped! The
+blood, shooting suddenly into the astounded prisoner’s face, was
+reflected on the cheeks of the other lawyers present. Even Mr.
+Fox betrayed his surprise; but it was a surprise not untinged by
+apprehension. Mr. Moffat must feel very sure of himself to venture thus
+far. I, who feared to ask myself the cause of this assurance, could
+only wait and search the partially visible face of little Ella for an
+enlightenment, which was no more to be found there than in the swollen
+features of the outraged Arthur. The excitement which this event
+caused, afforded the latter some few moments in which to quell his own
+indignation; and when he spoke, it was passionately, yet not without
+some effort at restraint.</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot. I was in no condition to notice. I was bent on going into
+town, and immediately upon coming downstairs went straight to the rack
+and pulled on the first things that offered.”</p>
+
+<p>It appeared to be a perfect give-a-way. And it was, but it was a
+give-a-way which, I feared, threatened Carmel rather than her brother.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat, still nervous, still avoiding the prisoner’s eye,
+relentlessly pursued his course, unmindful—wilfully so, it
+appeared—of the harm he was doing himself, as well as the witness.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland, were a coat and hat all that you took from that hall?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, I took a key—a key from the bunch which I saw lying on the table.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you recognise this key?”</p>
+
+<p>“I did.”</p>
+
+<p>“What key was it?”</p>
+
+<p>“It belonged to Mr. Ranelagh, and was the key to the club-house
+wine-vault.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where did you put it after taking it up?”</p>
+
+<p>“In my trousers’ pocket.”</p>
+
+<p>“What did you do then?”</p>
+
+<p>“Went out, of course.”</p>
+
+<p>“Without seeing anybody?”</p>
+
+<p>“Of course. Whom should I see?”</p>
+
+<p>It was angrily said, and the flush, which had begun to die away, slowly
+made its way back into his cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you willing to repeat that you saw no one?”</p>
+
+<p>“There was no one.”</p>
+
+<p>A lie! All knew it, all felt it. The man was perjuring himself, under
+his own counsel’s persistent questioning on a point which that counsel
+had evidently been warned by him to avoid. I was assured of this by the
+way Moffat failed to meet Arthur’s eye, as he pressed on hastily, and
+in a way to forestall all opposition.</p>
+
+<p>“There are two ways of leaving your house for the city. Which way did
+you take?”</p>
+
+<p>“The shortest. I went through my neighbour’s grounds to Huested Street.”</p>
+
+<p>“Immediately?”</p>
+
+<p>“As soon as I could. I don’t know what you mean by immediately.”</p>
+
+<p>“Didn’t you stop at the stable?”</p>
+
+<p>A pause, during which more than one person present sat breathless.
+These questions were what might be expected from Mr. Fox in
+cross-examination. They seemed totally unsuited to a direct examination
+at the hands of his own counsel. What did such an innovation mean?</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I stopped at the stable.”</p>
+
+<p>“What to do?”</p>
+
+<p>“To look at the horses.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why?”</p>
+
+<p>“One of them had gone lame. I wanted to see his condition.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was it the grey mare?”</p>
+
+<p>Had the defence changed places with the prosecution? It looked like
+it; and Arthur looked as if he considered Mr. Moffat guilty of the
+unheard of, inexplainable act, of cross-examining his own witness. The
+situation was too tempting for Mr. Fox to resist calling additional
+attention to it. With an assumption of extreme consideration, he leaned
+forward and muttered under his breath to his nearest colleague, but
+still loud enough for those about him to hear:</p>
+
+<p>“The prisoner must know that he is not bound to answer questions when
+such answers tend to criminate him.”.</p>
+
+<p>A lightning glance, shot in his direction, was the eloquent advocate’s
+sole reply.</p>
+
+<p>But Arthur, nettled into speaking, answered the question put him, in a
+loud, quick tone: “It was not the grey mare; but I went up to the grey
+mare before going out; I patted her and bade her be a good girl.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where was she then?”</p>
+
+<p>“Where she belonged—in her stall.”</p>
+
+<p>The tones had sunk; so had the previously lifted head; he no longer
+commanded universal sympathy or credence. The effect of his former
+avowals was almost gone.</p>
+
+<p>Yet Mr. Moffat could smile. As I noticed this, and recognised the
+satisfaction it evinced, my heart went down, in great trouble. This
+esteemed advocate, the hero of a hundred cases, was not afraid to have
+it known that Arthur had harnessed that mare; he even wanted it known.
+Why? There could be but one answer to that—or, so I thought, at the
+moment. The next, I did not know what to think; for he failed to pursue
+this subject, and simply asked Arthur if, upon leaving, he had locked
+the stable-door.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes—no,—I don’t remember,” was the bungling, and greatly confused
+reply.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat glanced at the jury, the smile still on his lips. Did he
+wish to impress that body with the embarrassment of his client?</p>
+
+<p>“Relate what followed. I am sure the jury will be glad to hear your
+story from your own lips.”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s a beastly one, but if I’ve got to tell it, here it is: I went
+straight down to Cuthbert Road and across the fields to the club-house.
+I had not taken the key to the front door, because I knew of a window
+I could shake loose. I did this and went immediately down to the
+wine-vault. I used an electric torch of my own for light. I pulled
+out several bottles, and carried them up into the kitchen, meaning to
+light the gas, kindle a fire, and have a good time generally. But I
+soon found that I must do without light if I stayed there. The meter
+had been taken out; and to drink by the flash of an electric torch was
+anything but a pleasing prospect. Besides—” here he flashed at his
+counsel a glance, which for a moment took that gentleman aback—“I
+had heard certain vague sounds in the house which alarmed me, as well
+as roused my curiosity. Choosing the bottle I liked best, I went to
+investigate these sounds.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat started. His witness was having his revenge. Kept in
+ignorance of his counsel’s plan of defence, he was evidently advancing
+testimony new to that counsel. I had not thought the lad so subtle, and
+quaked in secret contemplation of the consequences. So did some others;
+but the interest was intense. He had heard sounds—he acknowledged it.
+But what sounds?</p>
+
+<p>Observing the excitement he had caused, and gratified, perhaps, that
+he had succeeded in driving that faint but unwelcome smile from Mr.
+Moffat’s lips, Arthur hastened to add:</p>
+
+<p>“But I did not complete my investigations. Arrived at the top of
+the stairs, I heard what drove me from the house at once. It was my
+sister’s voice—Adelaide’s. She was in the building, and I stood almost
+on a level with her, with a bottle in my pocket. It did not take me a
+minute to clamber through the window. I did not stop to wonder, or ask
+why she was there, or to whom she was speaking. I just fled and made
+my way as well as I could across the golf-links to a little hotel on
+Cuthbert Road, where I had been once before. There I emptied my bottle,
+and was so overcome by it that I did not return home till noon the
+next day. It was on the way to the Hill that I was told of the awful
+occurrence which had taken place in the club-house after I had left it.
+That sobered me. I have been sober ever since.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat’s smile came back. One might have said that he had been
+rather pleased than otherwise by the introduction of this unexpected
+testimony.</p>
+
+<p>But I doubt if any one but myself witnessed this evidence of
+good-humour on his part. Arthur’s attitude and Arthur’s manner had
+drawn all eyes to himself. As the last words I have recorded left
+his lips, he had raised his head and confronted the jury with a
+straightforward gaze. The sturdiness and immobility of his aspect were
+impressive, in spite of his plain features and the still unmistakable
+signs of long cherished discontent and habitual dissipation. He had
+struck bottom with his feet, and there he would stand,—or so I thought
+as I levelled my own glances at him.</p>
+
+<p>But I had not fully sounded all of Alonzo Moffat’s resources. That
+inscrutable lawyer and not-easily-to-be-understood man seemed
+determined to mar every good impression his unfortunate client managed
+to make.</p>
+
+<p>Ignoring the new facts just given, undoubtedly thinking that they would
+be amply sifted in the coming cross-examination, he drew the attention
+of the prisoner to himself by the following question:</p>
+
+<p>“Will you tell us again how many bottles of wine you took from the
+club-house?”</p>
+
+<p>“One. No—I’m not sure about that—I’m not sure of anything. I had only
+one when at the inn in Cuthbert Road.”</p>
+
+<p>“You remember but one?”</p>
+
+<p>“I had but one. One was enough. I had trouble in carrying that.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was the ground slippery?”</p>
+
+<p>“It was snowy and it was uneven. I stumbled more than once in crossing
+the links.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland, is there anything you would like to say in your own
+defence before I close this examination?”</p>
+
+<p>The prisoner thus appealed to, let his eye rest for a moment on the
+judge, then on the jury, and finally on one little white face lifted
+from the crowd before him as if to meet and absorb his look. Then he
+straightened himself, and in a quiet and perfectly natural voice,
+uttered these simple words:</p>
+
+<p>“Nothing but this: I am innocent.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXVI">XXVI<br><span class="small">THE SYLLABLE OF DOOM</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">I alit<br>
+On a great ship lightning-split,<br>
+And speeded hither on the sigh<br>
+Of one who gave an enemy<br>
+His plank, then plunged aside to die.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Prometheus Unbound</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>Recess followed. Clifton and I had the opportunity of exchanging a few
+words. He was voluble; I was reticent. I felt obliged to hide from
+him the true cause of the deep agitation under which I was labouring.
+Attached as he was to me, keenly as he must have felt my anomalous
+position, he was too full of Moffat’s unwarrantable introduction of
+testimony damaging to his client, to think or talk of anything else.</p>
+
+<p>“He has laid him open to attack on every side. Fox has but to follow
+his lead, and the thing is done. Poor Arthur may be guilty, but he
+certainly should have every chance a careful lawyer could give him.
+You can see—he makes it very evident—that he has no further use for
+Moffat. I wonder under whose advice he chose him for his counsel. I
+have never thought much of Moffat, myself. He wins his cases but—”</p>
+
+<p>“He will win this,” I muttered.</p>
+
+<p>Clifton started; looked at me very closely for a minute, paled a
+little—I fear that I was very pale myself—but did not ask the
+question rising to his lips.</p>
+
+<p>“There is method in the madness of a man like that,” I pursued with a
+gloom I could not entirely conceal. “He has come upon some evidence
+which he has not even communicated to his client. At least, I fear so.
+We must be prepared for any untoward event.” Then, noticing Clifton’s
+alarm and wishing to confine it within safe bounds, I added: “I feel
+that I am almost as much on trial as Arthur himself. Naturally I am
+anxious at the appearance of anything I do not understand.”</p>
+
+<p>Clifton frowned. We were quite alone. Leaning forward, he touched my
+arm.</p>
+
+<p>“Elwood,” said he, “you’ve not been quite open with me.”</p>
+
+<p>I smiled. If half the bitterness and sorrow in my heart went into that
+smile, it must have been a sad and bitter one indeed.</p>
+
+<p>“You have a right to reproach me,” said I, “but not wholly. I did not
+deceive you in essentials. You may still believe me as guiltless of
+Adelaide’s violent death as a man can be who drove her and hers into
+misery which death alone could end.”</p>
+
+<p>“I will believe it,” he muttered, “I must.” And he dropped the subject,
+as he made me see, forever.</p>
+
+<p>I drew a deep breath of relief. I had come very near to revealing my
+secret.</p>
+
+<p>When we returned to the court-room, we found it already packed with a
+very subdued and breathless crowd. It differed somewhat from the one
+which had faced us in the morning; but Ella and her parents were there
+and many others of the acknowledged friends of the accused and of his
+family.</p>
+
+<p>He, himself, wore the heavy and dogged air which became him least.
+Physically refreshed, he carried himself boldly, but it was a boldness
+which convinced me that any talk he may have had with his lawyer, had
+been no more productive of comfort than the one I had held with mine.</p>
+
+<p>As he took the witness chair, and prepared to meet the
+cross-examination of the district attorney, a solemn hush settled
+upon the room. Would the coming ordeal rob his brow of its present
+effrontery, or would he continue to bear himself with the same surly
+dignity, which, misunderstood as it was, produced its own effect, and
+at certain moments seemed to shake even the confidence of Mr. Fox,
+settled as he seemed to be in his belief in the integrity of his cause
+and the rights of the prosecution.</p>
+
+<p>Shaken or not, his attack was stern, swift, and to the point.</p>
+
+<p>“Was the visit you made to the wine-vault on the evening of the second
+of December, the first one you had ever paid there?”</p>
+
+<p>“No; I had been there once before. But I always paid for my
+depredations,” he added, proudly.</p>
+
+<p>“The categorical answer, Mr. Cumberland. Anything else is superfluous.”</p>
+
+<p>Arthur’s lip curled, but only for an instant; and nothing could have
+exceeded the impassiveness of his manner as Mr. Fox went on.</p>
+
+<p>“Then you knew the way?”</p>
+
+<p>“Perfectly.”</p>
+
+<p>“And the lock?”</p>
+
+<p>“Sufficiently well to open it without difficulty.”</p>
+
+<p>“How long do you think you were in entering the house and procuring
+these bottles?”</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot say. I have no means of knowing; I never thought of looking
+at my watch.”</p>
+
+<p>“Not when you started? Not when you left Cuthbert Road?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“But you know when you left the club-house to go back?”</p>
+
+<p>“Only by this—it had not yet begun to snow. I’m told that the
+first flakes fell that night at ten minutes to eleven. I was on the
+golf-links when this happened. You can fix the time yourself. Pardon
+me,” he added, with decided ill-grace as he met Mr. Fox’s frown. “I
+forgot your injunction.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fox smiled an acrid smile, as he asked: “Whereabouts on the
+golf-links? They extend for some distance, you remember.”</p>
+
+<p>“They are six hundred yards across from first tee to the third hole,
+which is the nearest one to Cuthbert Road,” Arthur particularised. “I
+was—no, I can’t tell you just where I was at that moment. It was a
+good ways from the house. The snow came on very fiercely. For a little
+while I could not see my way.”</p>
+
+<p>“How, not see your way?”</p>
+
+<p>“The snow flew into my eyes.”</p>
+
+<p>“Crossing the links?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir, crossing the links.”</p>
+
+<p>“But the storm came from the west. It should have beaten against your
+back.”</p>
+
+<p>“Back or front, it bothered me. I could not get on as fast as I wished.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fox cast a look at the jury. Did they remember the testimony of the
+landlord that Mr. Cumberland’s coat was as thickly plastered with snow
+on the front as it had been on the back. He seemed to gather that they
+did, for he went on at once to say:</p>
+
+<p>“You are accustomed to the links? You have crossed them often?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I play golf there all summer.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m not alluding to the times when you play. I mean to ask whether or
+not you had ever before crossed them directly to Cuthbert Road?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I had.”</p>
+
+<p>“In a storm?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, not in a storm.”</p>
+
+<p>“How long did it take you that time to reach Cuthbert Road from The
+Whispering Pines?”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat bounded to his feet, but the prisoner had answered before he
+could speak.</p>
+
+<p>“Just fifteen minutes.”</p>
+
+<p>“How came you to know the time so exactly?”</p>
+
+<p>“Because that day I did look at my watch. I had an engagement in the
+lower town, and had only twenty minutes in which to keep it. I was on
+time.”</p>
+
+<p>Honest at the core. This boy was growing rapidly in my favour. But this
+frank but unwise answer was not pleasing to his counsel, who would have
+advised, no doubt, a more general and less precise reply. However, it
+had been made and Moffat was not a man to cry over spilled milk. He
+did not even wince when the district attorney proceeded to elicit from
+the prisoner that he was a good walker, not afraid in the least of
+snow-storms and had often walked, in the teeth of the gale twice that
+distance in less than half an hour. Now, as the storm that night had
+been at his back, and he was in a hurry to reach his destination, it
+was evidently incumbent upon him to explain how he had managed to use
+up the intervening time of forty minutes before entering the hotel at
+half-past eleven.</p>
+
+<p>“Did you stop in the midst of the storm to take a drink?” asked the
+district attorney.</p>
+
+<p>As the testimony of the landlord in Cuthbert Road had been explicit
+as to the fact of his having himself uncorked the bottle which the
+prisoner had brought into the hotel, Arthur could not plead yes. He
+must say no, and he did.</p>
+
+<p>“I drank nothing; I was too busy thinking. I was so busy thinking I
+wandered all over those links.”</p>
+
+<p>“In the blinding snow?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, in the snow. What did I care for the snow? I did not understand
+my sister being in the club-house. I did not like it; I was tempted at
+times to go back.”</p>
+
+<p>“And why didn’t you?”</p>
+
+<p>“Because I was more of a brute than a brother—because Cuthbert Road
+drew me in spite of myself—because—” He stopped with the first hint
+of emotion we had seen in him since the morning. “I did not know what
+was going on there or I should have gone back,” he flashed out, with a
+defiant look at his counsel.</p>
+
+<p>Again sympathy was with him. Mr. Fox had won but little in this first
+attempt. He seemed to realise this, and shifted his attack to a point
+more vulnerable.</p>
+
+<p>“When you heard your sister’s voice in the club-house, how did you
+think she had got into the building?”</p>
+
+<p>“By means of the keys Ranelagh had left at the house.”</p>
+
+<p>“When, instead of taking the whole bunch, you took the one key you
+wanted from the ring, did you do so with any idea she might want to
+make use of the rest?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, I never thought of it. I never thought of her at all.”</p>
+
+<p>“You took your one key, and let the rest lie?”</p>
+
+<p>“You’ve said it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was this before or after you put on your overcoat?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m not sure; after, I think. Yes, it was after; for I remember that
+I had a deuce of a time unbuttoning my coat to get at my trousers’
+pocket.”</p>
+
+<p>“You dropped this key into your trousers’ pocket?”</p>
+
+<p>“I did.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland, let me ask you to fix your memory on the moments you
+spent in the hall. Did you put on your hat before you pocketed the key,
+or afterwards?”</p>
+
+<p>“My hat? How can I tell? My mind wasn’t on my hat. I don’t know when I
+put it on.”</p>
+
+<p>“You absolutely do not remember?”</p>
+
+<p>“No.”</p>
+
+<p>“Nor where you took it from?”</p>
+
+<p>“No.”</p>
+
+<p>“Whether you saw the keys first, and then went for your hat; or having
+pocketed the key, waited—”</p>
+
+<p>“I did not wait.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did not stand by the table thinking?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, I was in too much of a hurry.”</p>
+
+<p>“So that you went straight out?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, as quickly as I could.”</p>
+
+<p>The district attorney paused, to be sure of the attention of the jury.
+When he saw that every eye of that now thoroughly aroused body was on
+him, he proceeded to ask: “Does that mean immediately, or as soon as
+you could after you had made certain preparations, or held certain talk
+with some one you called, or who called to you?”</p>
+
+<p>“I called to nobody. I—I went out immediately.”</p>
+
+<p>It was evident that he lied; evident, too, that he had little hope from
+his lie. Uneasiness was taking the place of confidence in his youthful,
+untried, undisciplined mind. Carmel had spoken to him in the hall—I
+guessed it then, I knew it afterward—and he thought to deceive this
+court and blindfold a jury, whose attention had been drawn to this
+point by his own counsel.</p>
+
+<p>District Attorney Fox smiled. “How then did you get into the stable?”</p>
+
+<p>“The stable! Oh, I had no trouble in getting into the stable.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was it unlocked?”</p>
+
+<p>A slow flush broke over the prisoner’s whole face. He saw where he
+had been landed and took a minute to pull himself together before he
+replied: “I had the key to that door, too. I got it out of the kitchen.”</p>
+
+<p>“You have not spoken of going into the kitchen.”</p>
+
+<p>“I have not spoken of coming downstairs.”</p>
+
+<p>“You went into the kitchen?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“When?”</p>
+
+<p>“When I first came down.”</p>
+
+<p>“That is not in accordance with your direct testimony. On the contrary,
+you said that on coming downstairs you went straight to the rack for
+your overcoat. Stenographer read what the prisoner said on this topic.”</p>
+
+<p>A rustling of leaves, distinctly to be heard in the deathlike silence
+of the room, was followed by the reading of this reply and answer:</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Yet you cannot say which of these two overcoats you put on when you
+left your home an hour or so after finishing your dinner?</i>”</p>
+
+<p>“<i>I cannot. I was in no condition to notice. I was bent on going into
+town and, on coming downstairs, I went straight to the rack and pulled
+on the first things that offered.</i>”</p>
+
+<p>The prisoner stood immobile but with a deepening line gathering on his
+brow until the last word fell. Then he said: “I forgot. I went for the
+key before I put on my overcoat. I wanted to see how the sick horse
+looked.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you drop this key into your pocket, too?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, I carried it into the hall.”</p>
+
+<p>“What did you do with it there?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know. Put it on the table, I suppose.”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t you remember? There were other keys lying on this table. Don’t
+you remember what you did with the one in your hand while you took the
+club-house key from the midst of Mr. Ranelagh’s bunch?”</p>
+
+<p>“I laid it on the table. I must have—there was no other place to put
+it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Laid it down by itself?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“And took it up when you went out?”</p>
+
+<p>“Of course.”</p>
+
+<p>“Carrying it straight to the stable?”</p>
+
+<p>“Naturally.”</p>
+
+<p>“What did you do with it when you came out?”</p>
+
+<p>“I left it in the stable-door.”</p>
+
+<p>“You did? What excuse have you to give for that?”</p>
+
+<p>“None. I was reckless, and didn’t care for anything—that’s all.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yet you took several minutes, for all your hurry and your
+indifference, to get the stable key and look in at a horse that wasn’t
+sick enough to keep your coachman home from a dance.”</p>
+
+<p>The prisoner was silent.</p>
+
+<p>“You have no further explanation to give on this subject?”</p>
+
+<p>“No. All fellows who love horses will understand.”</p>
+
+<p>The district attorney shrugged this answer away before he went on to
+say: “You have listened to Zadok Brown’s testimony. When he returned at
+three, he found the stable-door locked, and the key hanging up on its
+usual nail in the kitchen. How do you account for this?”</p>
+
+<p>“There are two ways.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mention them, if you please.”</p>
+
+<p>“Zadok had been to a dance, and may not have been quite clear as to
+what he saw. Or, finding the stable door open, may have blamed himself
+for the fact and sought to cover up his fault with a lie.”</p>
+
+<p>“Have you ever caught him in a lie?”</p>
+
+<p>“No; but there’s always a first time.”</p>
+
+<p>“You would impeach his testimony then?”</p>
+
+<p>“No. You asked me how this discrepancy could be explained, and I have
+tried to show you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland, the grey mare was out that night; this has been amply
+proved.”</p>
+
+<p>“If you believe Zadok, yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“You have heard other testimony corroborative of this fact. She was
+seen on the club-house road that night, by a person amply qualified to
+identify her.”</p>
+
+<p>“So I’ve been told.”</p>
+
+<p>“The person driving this horse wore a hat, identified as an old one
+of yours, which hat was afterwards found at your house on a remote
+peg in a seldom-used closet. If you were not this person, how can you
+explain the use of your horse, the use of your clothes, the locking of
+the stable-door—which you declare yourself to have left open—and the
+hanging up of the key on its own nail?”</p>
+
+<p>It was a crucial question—how crucial no one knew but our two selves.
+If he answered at all, he must compromise Carmel. I had no fear of his
+doing this, but I had great fear of what Ella might do if he let this
+implication stand and made no effort to exonerate himself by denying
+his presence in the cutter, and consequent return to the Cumberland
+home. The quick side glances I here observed cast in her direction
+by both father and mother, showed that she had made some impulsive
+demonstration visible to them, if not to others and fearful of the
+consequences if I did not make some effort to hold her in check, I kept
+my eyes in her direction, and so lost Arthur’s look and the look of his
+counsel as he answered, with just the word I had expected—a short and
+dogged:</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot explain.”</p>
+
+<p>It was my death warrant. I realised this even while I held Ella’s eye
+with mine and smoothed my countenance to meet the anguish in hers, in
+the effort to hold her back for a few minutes longer till I could quite
+satisfy myself that Arthur’s case was really lost and that I must speak
+or feel myself his murderer.</p>
+
+<p>The gloom which followed this recognition of his inability, real or
+fancied, to explain away the most damning feature of the case against
+him, taken with his own contradictions and growing despondency, could
+not escape my eye, accustomed as I was to the habitual expression of
+most every person there. But it was not yet the impenetrable gloom
+presaging conviction; and directing Ella’s gaze towards Mr. Moffat,
+who seemed but little disturbed either by Mr. Fox’s satisfaction or
+the prisoner’s open despair, I took heart of grace and waited for the
+district attorney’s next move. It was a fatal one. I began to recognise
+this very soon, simple as was the subject he now introduced.</p>
+
+<p>“When you went into the kitchen, Mr. Cumberland, to get the stable-door
+key, was the gas lit, or did you have to light it?”</p>
+
+<p>“It—it was lit, I think.”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t you know?”</p>
+
+<p>“It was lit, but turned low. I could see well enough.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, then, didn’t you take both keys?”</p>
+
+<p>“Both keys?”</p>
+
+<p>“You have said you went down town by the short cut through your
+neighbour’s yard. That cut is guarded by a door, which was locked that
+night. You needed the key to that door more than the one to the stable.
+Why didn’t you take it?”</p>
+
+<p>“I—I did.”</p>
+
+<p>“You haven’t said so.”</p>
+
+<p>“I—I took it when I took the other.”</p>
+
+<p>“Are you sure?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; they both hung on one nail. I grabbed them both at the same time.”</p>
+
+<p>“It does not appear so in your testimony. You mentioned a key, not
+keys, in all your answers to my questions.”</p>
+
+<p>“There were two; I didn’t weigh my words. I needed both and I took
+both.”</p>
+
+<p>“Which of the two hung foremost?”</p>
+
+<p>“I didn’t notice.”</p>
+
+<p>“You took both?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I took both.”</p>
+
+<p>“And went straight out with them?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, to the stable.”</p>
+
+<p>“And then where?”</p>
+
+<p>“Through the adjoining grounds downtown.”</p>
+
+<p>“You are sure you went through Mr. Fulton’s grounds at this early hour
+in the evening?”</p>
+
+<p>“I am positive.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was it not at a later hour, much later, a little before eleven instead
+of a little before nine?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir. I was on the golf-links then.”</p>
+
+<p>“But some one drove into the stable.”</p>
+
+<p>“So you say.”</p>
+
+<p>“Unharnessed the horse, drew up the cutter, locked the stable-door,
+and, entering the house, hung up the key where it belonged.”</p>
+
+<p>No answer this time.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland, you admitted in your direct examination that you took
+with you out of the clubhouse only one bottle of the especial brand you
+favoured, although you carried up two into the kitchen?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, I said that I only had one when I got to Cuthbert Road. I don’t
+remember anything about the other.”</p>
+
+<p>“But you know where the other—or rather remnants of the other, was
+found?”</p>
+
+<p>“In my own stable, taken there by my man Zadok Brown, who says he
+picked it out of one of our waste barrels.”</p>
+
+<p>“This is the part of bottle referred to. Do you recognise the label
+still adhering to it as similar to the one to be found on the bottle
+you emptied in Cuthbert Road?”</p>
+
+<p>“It is like that one.”</p>
+
+<p>“Had you carried that other bottle off, and had it been broken as
+this has been broken would it not have presented an exactly similar
+appearance to this?”</p>
+
+<p>“Possibly.”</p>
+
+<p>“Only possibly?”</p>
+
+<p>“It would have looked the same. I cannot deny it. What’s the use
+fooling?”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland, the only two bottles known to contain this especial
+brand of wine were in the clubhouse at ten o’clock that night. How came
+one of them to get into the barrel outside your stable before your
+return the next day?”</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot say.”</p>
+
+<p>“This barrel stood where?”</p>
+
+<p>“In the passage behind the stable.”</p>
+
+<p>“The passage you pass through on your way to the door leading into your
+neighbour’s grounds?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>The dreaded moment had come. This “Yes” had no sooner left Arthur’s
+lips than I saw Ella throw out her innocent arms, and leap impetuously
+to her feet, with a loud “No, no, I can tell—”</p>
+
+<p>She did not say what, for at the hubbub roused by this outbreak in
+open court, she fainted dead away and was carried out in her dismayed
+father’s arms.</p>
+
+<p>This necessarily caused a break in the proceedings. Mr. Fox suspended
+his cross-examination and in a few minutes more, the judge adjourned
+the court. As the prisoner rose and turned to pass out, I cast him
+a hurried glance to see what effect had been made upon him by this
+ingenuous outburst from one he had possibly just a little depreciated.
+A great one, evidently. His features were transformed, and he seemed
+almost as oblivious of the countless eyes upon him as she had been when
+she rose to testify for him in her self-forgetful enthusiasm. As I
+observed this and the satisfaction with which Mr. Moffat scented this
+new witness,—a satisfaction which promised little consideration for
+her if she ever came upon the stand—I surrendered to fate.</p>
+
+<p>Inwardly committing Carmel’s future to the God who made her and who
+knew better than we the story of her life and what her fiery temper
+had cost her, I drew a piece of paper from my pocket, and, while the
+courtroom was slowly emptying, hastily addressed the following lines to
+Mr. Moffat who had lingered to have a few words with his colleague:</p>
+
+<p>“There is a witness in this building who can testify more clearly and
+definitely than Miss Fulton, that Arthur Cumberland, for all we have
+heard in seeming contradiction to the same, might have been on the
+golf-links at the time he swears to. That witness is myself.</p>
+
+<p>“ELWOOD RANELAGH.”</p>
+
+<p>The time which elapsed between my passing over this note and his
+receiving and reading it, was to me like the last few moments of
+a condemned criminal. How gladly would I have changed places with
+Arthur, and with what sensations of despair I saw flitting before me
+in my mind’s eye, the various visions of Carmel’s loveliness which had
+charmed me out of myself. But the die had been cast, and I was ready
+to meet the surprised lawyer’s look when his eye rose from the words I
+had written and settled steadily on my face. Next minute he was writing
+busily and in a second later I was reading these words:</p>
+
+<p>“Do you absolutely wish to be recalled as a witness, and by the
+defence? M.”</p>
+
+<p>My answer was brief:</p>
+
+<p>“I do. Not to make a confession of crime. I have no such confession to
+make. But I know who drove that horse. R.”</p>
+
+<p>I had sacrificed Carmel to my sense of right. Never had I loved her as
+I did at that moment.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXVII">XXVII<br><span class="small">EXPECTANCY</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">I see your end,<br>
+’T is my undoing.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>King Henry VIII</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>A turning-point had been reached in the defence. That every one knew
+after the first glance at Mr. Moffat, on the opening of the next
+morning’s session. As I noted the excitement which this occasioned
+even in quarters where self-control is usually most marked and such
+emotions suppressed, I marvelled at the subtle influence of one man’s
+expectancy, and the powerful effect which can be produced on a feverish
+crowd by a well-ordered silence suggestive of coming action.</p>
+
+<p>I, who knew the basis of this expectancy and the nature of the action
+with which Mr. Moffat anticipated startling the court, was the quietest
+person present. Since it was my hand and none other which must give
+this fresh turn to the wheel of justice, it were well for me to
+do it calmly and without any of the old maddening throb of heart.
+But the time seemed long before Arthur was released from further
+cross-examination, and the opportunity given Mr. Moffat to call his
+next witness.</p>
+
+<p>Something in the attitude he now took, something in the way he bent
+over his client and whispered a few admonitory words, and still more
+the emotion with which these words were received and answered by some
+extraordinary protest, aroused expectation to a still greater pitch,
+and made my course seem even more painful to myself than I had foreseen
+when dreaming over and weighing the possibilities of this hour. With
+something like terror, I awaited the calling of my name; and, when it
+was delayed, it was with emotions inexplicable to myself that I looked
+up and saw Mr. Moffat holding open a door at the left of the judge,
+with that attitude of respect, which a man only assumes in the presence
+and under the dominating influence of woman.</p>
+
+<p>“Ella!” thought I. “Instead of saving her by my contemplated sacrifice
+of Carmel, I have only added one sacrifice to another.”</p>
+
+<p>But when the timid faltering step we could faintly hear crossing the
+room beyond, had brought its possessor within sight, and I perceived
+the tall, black-robed, heavily veiled woman who reached for Mr.
+Moffat’s sustaining arm, I did not need the startling picture of the
+prisoner, standing upright, with outheld and repellant hands, to
+realise that the impossible had happened, and that all which he, as
+well as I, had done and left undone, suffered and suppressed, had been
+in vain.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat, with no eye for him or for me, conducted his witness to a
+chair; then, as she loosened her veil and let it drop in her lap, he
+cried in tones which rang from end to end of the court-room: “I summon
+Carmel Cumberland to the stand, to witness in her brother’s defence.”</p>
+
+<p>The surprise was complete. It was a great moment for Mr. Moffat; but
+for me all was confusion, dread, a veil of misty darkness, through
+which shone her face, marred by its ineffaceable scar, but calm as I
+had never expected to see it again in this life, and beautiful with a
+smile under which her deeply shaken and hardly conscious brother sank
+slowly back into his seat, amid a silence as profound as the hold she
+had immediately taken upon all hearts.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXVIII">XXVIII<br><span class="small">“WHERE IS MY BROTHER?”</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">Let me see the writing.<br>
+My lord, ’tis nothing.<br>
+No matter, then, who sees it;<br>
+I will be satisfied, let me see the writing.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Richard II</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>What is the explanation of Carmel’s reappearance in town and of this
+sensational introduction of her into the court-room, in a restored
+state of health of which no one, so far as known, had had any
+intimation save the man who was responsible for her appearance? The
+particulars are due you.</p>
+
+<p>She had passed some weeks at Lakewood, under the eye of the nurse who
+was detailed to watch, as well as tend her. During these weeks she gave
+no sign of improvement mentally, though she constantly gained strength
+otherwise, and impressed everybody with the clear light in her eye and
+the absence of everything suggestive of gloom in her expression and
+language. There was the same complete loss of memory up to the time of
+the tragic occurrence which had desolated her home; the same harping
+at odd moments on Adelaide’s happiness and her own prospect of seeing
+this dear sister very soon which had marked the opening days of her
+convalescence. But beyond and back of all this was some secret joy,
+unintelligible to the nurse, which helped rather than retarded the sick
+girl’s recovery, and made Carmel appear at times as if she walked on
+air and breathed the very breath of Paradise—an anomaly which not only
+roused Miss Unwin’s curiosity, but led her to regard with something
+like apprehension, any change in her patient’s state of mind which
+would rob her of the strange and unseen delights which fed her secret
+soul and made her oblivious of the awful facts awaiting a restored
+memory.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Carmel was allowed such liberty as her condition required;
+but was never left alone for a moment after a certain day when her
+eye suddenly took on a strange look of confused inquiry, totally
+dissociated with anything she saw or heard. A stir had taken place
+in her brain, and her nurse wanted to take her back home. But this
+awakening—if such it could be called, was so short in its duration and
+was followed so immediately by a string of innocent questions about
+Adelaide, that Nurse Unwin concluded to remain a few days longer before
+risking this delicately balanced mind amid old scenes and the curious
+glances of her townspeople.</p>
+
+<p>Alas! the awakening was to take place in Lakewood and under
+circumstances of the most ordinary nature. Carmel had been out and was
+just crossing the hall of her hotel to the elevator, when she stopped
+with a violent start and clutching the air, was caught by her nurse
+who had hurried up at the first intimation of anything unusual in the
+condition of her patient.</p>
+
+<p>The cause of this agitation was immediately apparent. Near them sat two
+ladies, each with a small wine-glass in her hand. One was drinking,
+the other waiting and watching, but with every apparent intention of
+drinking when the other had ceased. A common sight enough, but it
+worked a revolution in Carmel’s darkened mind. The light of youthful
+joyousness fled from her face; and the cheek, just pulsing softly with
+new life, blanched to the death-like hue of mortal suffering. Dropping
+her eyes from the women, who saw nothing and continued to sip their
+wine in happy ignorance of the soul-tragedy going on within ten feet of
+them, she looked down at her dress, then up at the walls about her; and
+then slowly, anxiously, and with unmistakable terror, at the woman in
+whose arms she felt herself supported.</p>
+
+<p>“Explain,” she murmured. “Where am I?”</p>
+
+<p>“At Lakewood, in a hotel. You have been ill, and are only just
+recovering.”</p>
+
+<p>Her hand went up to her cheek, the one that had been burned, and still
+showed the deep traces of that accident.</p>
+
+<p>“I remember,” said she. Then with another glance at her dress, which
+had studiously been kept cheerful, she remarked, with deep reproach:
+“My sister is dead; why am I not in black?”</p>
+
+<p>The nurse, realising her responsibility (she said afterwards that it
+was the most serious moment of her life), subdued her own astonishment
+at this proof of her young patient’s knowledge of a crime of which she
+was universally supposed to be entirely ignorant, and, bestowing a
+reassuring smile on the agitated girl, observed softly:</p>
+
+<p>“You wore too ill to be burdened with black. You are better now and may
+assume it if you will. I will help you buy your mourning.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, you look like a kind woman. What is your name, please, and are we
+here alone in this great hotel?”</p>
+
+<p>Now, as a matter of expediency—to save Carmel from the unendurable
+curiosity of the crowd, and herself from the importunities of the New
+York reporters, Miss Unwin had registered herself and her charge under
+assumed names. She was, therefore, forced to reply:</p>
+
+<p>“My name is Huckins, and we are here alone. But that need not worry
+you. I have watched over you night and day for many weeks.”</p>
+
+<p>“You have? Because of this slight burn?” Again Carmel’s hand went to
+her cheek.</p>
+
+<p>“Not on account of that only. You have had a serious illness quite
+apart from that injury. But you are better; you are almost well—well
+enough to go home, if you will.”</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot go home—not just yet. I’m—I’m not strong enough. But
+we shouldn’t be here alone without some man to look after us. Miss
+Huckins, <i>where is my brother</i>?”</p>
+
+<p>At this question, uttered with emphasis, with anxiety—with indignation
+even—Miss Unwin felt the emotion she had so successfully subdued up to
+this moment, betray itself in her voice as she answered, with a quiet
+motion towards the elevator: “Let us go up to our room. There I will
+answer all your questions.”</p>
+
+<p>But Carmel, with the waywardness of her years—or perhaps, with deeper
+reasoning powers than the other would be apt to attribute to her—broke
+softly away from Miss Unwin’s detaining hand, and walking directly
+into the office, looked about for the newspaper stand. Miss Unwin,
+over-anxious not to make a scene, followed, but did not seek to deter
+her, until they were once again by themselves in the centre of the
+room. Then she ventured to speak again:</p>
+
+<p>“We have all the papers in our room. Come up, and let me read them to
+you.”</p>
+
+<p>But Fate was making ready its great stroke. Just as Carmel seemed about
+to yield to this persuasion, some lingering doubt drew her eyes again
+to the stand, just at the very moment a boy stepped into view with the
+evening bulletin, on which had just been written these words:</p>
+
+<p>The Last Juror Obtained in the Trial of Arthur Cumberland for the
+Murder of His Sister, Adelaide.</p>
+
+<p>Carmel saw, and stood—a breathless image of horror. A couple of
+gentlemen came running; but the nurse waved them back, and herself
+caught Carmel and upheld her, in momentary dread of another mental, if
+not physical, collapse.</p>
+
+<p>But Carmel had come back into the world of consciousness to stay.
+Accepting her nurse’s support, but giving no sign of waning faculties
+or imperfect understanding of what she had seen, she spoke quite
+clearly and with her eyes fixed upon Miss Unwin:</p>
+
+<p>“So that is why I am here, away from all my friends. Was I too ill
+to be told? Couldn’t you make me know what was happening? You or the
+doctors or—or anybody?”</p>
+
+<p>“You were much too ill,” protested the nurse, leading her towards the
+elevator and so by degrees to her room. “I tried to arouse you after
+the crisis of your illness had passed; but you seemed to have forgotten
+everything which took place that night and the doctors warned me not to
+press you.”</p>
+
+<p>“And Arthur—poor Arthur, has been the sufferer! Tell me the whole
+story. I can bear it,” she pleaded. “I can bear anything but not
+knowing. Why should he have fallen under suspicion? He was not even
+there. I must go to him! Pack up our clothing, Miss Huckins. I must go
+to him at once.”</p>
+
+<p>They were in their own room now, and Carmel was standing quite by
+herself in the full light of the setting sun. With the utterance of
+this determination, she had turned upon her companion; and that astute
+and experienced woman had every opportunity for observing her face.
+There was a woman’s resolution in it. With the sudden rending of the
+clouds which had obscured her intellect, strange powers had awakened in
+this young girl, giving her a force of expression which, in connection
+with her inextinguishable beauty, formed a spectacle before which this
+older woman, in spite of her long experience, hesitated in doubt.</p>
+
+<p>“You shall go—” began the nurse, and stopped.</p>
+
+<p>Carmel was not listening. Another change of thought had come, and her
+features, as keenly alive now to every passing emotion as they had
+formerly been set in a dull placidity, mirrored doubts of her own,
+which had a deeper source than any which had disturbed the nurse, even
+in these moments of serious perplexity.</p>
+
+<p>“How can I?” fell in unconscious betrayal from her lips. “How can I!”
+Then she stood silent, ghastly with lack of colour one minute, and
+rosy red with its excess the next, until it was hard to tell in which
+extreme her feeling spoke most truly.</p>
+
+<p>What was the feeling? Nurse Unwin felt it imperative to know. Relying
+on the confidence shown her by this unfortunate girl, in her lonely
+position and unbearable distress, she approached Carmel, with renewed
+offers of help and such expressions of sympathy as she thought might
+lure her into open speech.</p>
+
+<p>But discretion had come with fear, and Carmel, while not disdaining the
+other’s kindness, instantly made it apparent that, whatever her burden,
+and however unsuited it was to her present weak condition, it was not
+one she felt willing to share.</p>
+
+<p>“I must think,” she murmured, as she finally followed the nurse’s lead
+and seated herself on a lounge. “Arthur on trial for his life! <i>Arthur
+on trial for his life!</i> And Adelaide was not even murdered!”</p>
+
+<p>“No?” gasped the nurse, intent on every word this long-silenced witness
+let fall.</p>
+
+<p>“Had he no friend? Was there not some one to understand? Adelaide—”
+here her head fell till her face was lost to sight—“had—a—lover—”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes. Mr. Elwood Ranelagh. He was the first to be arrested for the
+crime.”</p>
+
+<p>The soul in Carmel seemed to vanish at this word. The eyes, which had
+been so far-seeing the moment before, grew blank, and the lithe young
+body stiff with that death in life which is almost worse to look upon
+than death itself. She did not speak; but presently she arose, as
+an automaton might arise at the touch of some invisible spring, and
+so stood, staring, until the nurse, frightened at the result of her
+words and the complete overthrow which might follow them, sprang for a
+newspaper and thrust it into her patient’s unwilling hand.</p>
+
+<p>Was it too late? For a minute it seemed to be so; then the stony eyes
+softened and fell, the rigidity of her frame relaxed, and Carmel sank
+back again on the sofa and tried to read the headlines on the open
+sheet before her. But her eyes were unequal to the task. With a sob she
+dropped the paper and entreated the nurse to relate to her from her own
+knowledge, all that had passed, sparing her nothing that would make the
+situation perfectly clear to one who had been asleep during the worst
+crisis of her life.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Unwin complied, but with reservations. She told of Adelaide having
+been found dead at The Whispering Pines by the police, whom she had
+evidently summoned during a moment of struggle or fear; of Ranelagh’s
+presence there, and of the suspicions to which it gave rise; of his
+denial of the crime; of his strange reticence on certain points, which
+served to keep him incarcerated till a New York detective got to work
+and found so much evidence against her brother that Mr. Ranelagh was
+subsequently released and Arthur Cumberland indicted. But she said
+nothing about the marks on Adelaide’s throat, or of the special reason
+which the police had for arresting Mr. Ranelagh. She did not dare.
+Strangulation was a horrible death to contemplate; and if this factor
+in the crime—she was not deceived by Carmel’s exclamation that there
+had been no murder—was unknown as yet to her patient, as it must be
+from what she had said, and the absolute impossibility, as she thought,
+of her having known what went on in The Whispering Pines, then it had
+better remain unknown to her until circumstances forced it on her
+knowledge, or she had gotten sufficient strength to bear it.</p>
+
+<p>Carmel received the account well. She started when she heard of
+the discovery of Ranelagh in the club-house on the entrance of the
+police, and seemed disposed to ask some questions. But though the
+nurse gave her an opportunity to do so, she appeared to hunt in vain
+for the necessary words, and the narrative proceeded without further
+interruption. When all was done, she sat quite still; then carefully,
+and with a show of more judgment than might be expected from one of
+her years, she propounded certain inquiries which brought out the main
+causes for her brother’s arraignment. When she had these fully in mind,
+she looked up into the nurse’s face again and repeated, quite calmly,
+but with immovable decision, the order of an hour before:</p>
+
+<p>“We must return at once. You will pack up immediately.”</p>
+
+<p>Miss Unwin nodded, and began to open the trunks.</p>
+
+<p>This, however, was a ruse. She did not intend to take her patient
+back that night. She was afraid to risk it. The next day would be
+soon enough. But she would calm her by making ready, and when the
+proper moment came, would find some complication of trains which would
+interfere with their immediate departure.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, she would communicate at the earliest moment with Mr. Fox.
+She had been in the habit of sending him frequent telegrams as to her
+patient’s condition. They had been invariable so far: “No difference;
+mind still a blank,” or some code word significant of the same. But
+a new word was necessary now. She must look it up, and formulate her
+telegram before she did anything else.</p>
+
+<p>The code-book was in her top tray. She hunted and hunted for it,
+without being able to lay her hands on it. She grew very nervous. She
+was only human; she was in a very trying position, and she realised it.
+Where could that book be? Suddenly she espied it and, falling on her
+knees before the trunk, with her back still to Carmel, studied out the
+words she wanted. She was leaning over the tray to write these words
+in her note-book, when—no one ever knew how it happened—the lid of
+the heavy trunk fell forward and its iron edge struck her on the nape
+of the neck, with a keen blow which laid her senseless. When Carmel
+reached her side, she found herself the strong one and her stalwart
+nurse the patient.</p>
+
+<p>When help had been summoned, the accident explained, and everything
+done for the unconscious woman which medical skill could suggest,
+Carmel, finding a moment to herself, stole to the trunk, and, lifting
+up the lid, looked in. She had been watchful of her nurse from the
+first, and was suspicious of the actions which had led to this untoward
+accident. Seeing the two little books, she took them out. The note-book
+lay open and on the page thus disclosed, she beheld written:</p>
+
+<p class="poetry">Ap Lox Fidestum Truhum</p>
+
+<p>Ridiculous nonsense—until she consulted the code. Then these detached
+and meaningless words took on a significance which she could not afford
+to ignore:</p>
+
+<p class="poetry">Ap&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;A change.<br>
+Lox&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;Makes remarkable statements.<br>
+Fidestum&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;Shall we return?<br>
+Trubum&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;Not tractable.</p>
+
+<p>Carmel endeavoured to find out for whom this telegram was intended.
+There was nothing to inform her. A moment of indecision was followed by
+quick action. She had noticed that she had been invariably addressed as
+Miss Campbell by every one who had come into the room. Whether this was
+a proof of the care with which she had been guarded from the curiosity
+of strangers, or whether it was part of a system of deception springing
+from quite different causes, she felt that in the present emergency it
+was a fact to be thankful for and to be utilised.</p>
+
+<p>Regaining her own room, which was on the other side of their common
+sitting-room, she collected a few necessary articles, and placed them
+in a bag which she thrust under her bed. Hunting for money, she found
+quite an adequate amount in her own purse, which was attached to her
+person. Satisfied thus far, she chose her most inconspicuous hat and
+coat, and putting them on, went out by her own door into the corridor.</p>
+
+<p>The time—it was the dinner-hour—favoured her attempt. She found her
+way to the office unobserved, and, going frankly up to the clerk,
+informed him that she had some telegrams to send and that she would
+be out for some little time. Would he see that Miss Huckins was not
+neglected in her absence?</p>
+
+<p>The clerk, startled at these evidences of sense and self-reliance in
+one he had been accustomed to see under the special protection of the
+very woman she was now confiding to his care, surveyed her eloquent
+features beaming with quiet resolve, and for a moment seemed at a loss
+how to take this change and control the strange situation. Perhaps she
+understood him, perhaps she only followed the impulses natural to her
+sex. She never knew; she only remembers that she smiled, and that his
+hesitation vanished at that smile.</p>
+
+<p>“I will see to it,” said he. Then, as she turned to go, he ventured
+to add, “It is quite dark now. If you would like one of the boys to
+go with you—”. But he received no encouragement, and allowed his
+suggestion to remain unfinished.</p>
+
+<p>She looked grateful for this, and was pulling down her veil when she
+perceived two or three men on the other side of the room, watching her
+in evident wonder. Stepping back to the desk, she addressed the clerk
+again, this time with a marked distinctness:</p>
+
+<p>“I have been very ill, I know, and not always quite myself. But the
+shock of this accident to my nurse has cleared my brain and made me
+capable again of attending to my own affairs. You can trust me; I can
+do my errands all right; but perhaps I had better have one of the boys
+go with me.”</p>
+
+<p>The clerk, greatly relieved, rang his bell, and the gentlemen at the
+other end of the room sauntered elsewhere to exchange their impressions
+of an incident which was remarkable enough in itself, without the
+accentuation put upon it by the extreme beauty of the girl and the
+one conspicuous blemish to that beauty—her unfortunate scar. With
+what additional wonder would they have regarded the occurrence, had
+they known that the object of their interest was not an unknown Miss
+Campbell, but the much pitied, much talked-of Carmel Cumberland, sister
+of the man then on trial for his life in a New York town.</p>
+
+<p>With her first step into the street, Carmel’s freshly freed mind began
+its work. She knew she was in a place called Lakewood, but she knew
+little of its location, save that it was somewhere in New Jersey.
+Another strange thing! she did not recognise the streets. They were new
+to her. She did not remember ever having been in them before.</p>
+
+<p>“Where is the railroad station?” she inquired of the boy who was
+trotting along at her side.</p>
+
+<p>“Over there,” he answered, vaguely.</p>
+
+<p>“Take me to it.”</p>
+
+<p>He obeyed, and they threaded several streets whose lighted shops
+pleased her, notwithstanding her cares; such a joy it was to be
+alive to things once more, and capable of remembrance, even though
+remembrance brought visions at which she shuddered, and turned away,
+appalled.</p>
+
+<p>The sight of the station, from which a train was just leaving,
+frightened her for a moment with its bustle and many lights; but she
+rallied under the stress of her purpose, and, entering, found the
+telegraph office, from which she sent this message, directed to her
+physician, at home, Dr. Carpenter:</p>
+
+<p>“Look for me on early train. All is clear to me now, and I must return.
+Preserve silence till we meet.”</p>
+
+<p>This she signed with a pet name, known only to themselves, and dating
+back to her childish days.</p>
+
+<p>Then she bought a ticket, and studied the time-table. When quite
+satisfied, she returned to the hotel. She was met in the doorway by the
+physician who was attending the so-called Miss Huckins. He paused when
+he saw her, and asked a few questions which she was penetrating enough
+to perceive were more for the purpose of testing her own condition
+than to express interest in his patient. She answered quietly, and
+was met by a surprise and curiosity which evinced that he was greatly
+drawn towards her case. This alarmed her. She did not wish to be the
+object of any one’s notice. On the contrary, she desired to obliterate
+herself; to be counted out so far as all these people were concerned.
+But above all, she was anxious not to rouse suspicion. So she stopped
+and talked as naturally as she could about Miss Huckins’s accident
+and what the prospects were for the night. These were favourable, or
+so the doctor declared, but the injured woman’s condition called for
+great care and he would send over a capable nurse at once. Meanwhile,
+the maid who was with her would do very well. She, herself, need have
+no worry. He would advise against worry, and suggested that she should
+have a good and nourishing dinner sent to her room, after which she
+should immediately retire and get what sleep she could by means of an
+anodyne he would send her.</p>
+
+<p>Carmel exerted herself.</p>
+
+<p>“You are very good,” said she, “I need no anodyne. I <i>am</i> tired and
+when I once get to bed shall certainly sleep. I shall give orders not
+to be disturbed. Isn’t that right?”</p>
+
+<p>“Quite right. I will myself tell the nurse.”</p>
+
+<p>He was going, but turned to look at her again.</p>
+
+<p>“Shall I accompany you to the door of your room?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head, with a smile. This delay was a torment to her, but
+it must be endured.</p>
+
+<p>“I am quite capable of finding my room. I hope Miss Huckins will be
+as well in a week from now as I am at this moment. But, doctor—” she
+had been struck by a strange possibility—“I should like to settle one
+little matter before we part. The money I have may not be quite safe in
+my hands. My memory might leave me again, and then Miss Huckins might
+suffer. If you will take charge of some of it on her account, I shall
+feel relieved.”</p>
+
+<p>“It would be a wise precaution,” he admitted. “But you could just as
+well leave it at the desk.”</p>
+
+<p>“So I can,” she smiled. Then, as his eye remained fixed on her: “You
+are wondering if I have friends. We both have and I have just come
+from telegraphing to one of them. You can leave us, with an easy mind.
+All that I dread is that Miss Huckins will worry about me if her
+consciousness should return during the night.”</p>
+
+<p>“It will not return so soon. Next week we may look for it. Then you can
+be by to reassure her if she asks for you.”</p>
+
+<p>Carmers eyes fell.</p>
+
+<p>“I would not be a cause of distress to her for the world. She has been
+very good to me.” Bowing, she turned in the direction of the office.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor, lifting his hat, took his departure. The interview might
+have lasted five minutes. She felt as though it had lasted an hour.</p>
+
+<p>She followed the doctor’s advice and left half the money she had, in
+charge of the clerk. Then she went upstairs. She was not seen to come
+down again; but when the eight-forty-five train started out of the
+station that night, it had for a passenger, a young, heavily veiled
+girl, who went straight to her section. A balcony running by her window
+had favoured her escape. It led to a hall window at the head of a side
+staircase. She met no one on the staircase, and, once out of the door
+at its foot, her difficulties were over, and her escape effected.</p>
+
+<p>She was missed the next morning, and an account of her erratic flight
+reached the papers, and was published far and wide. But the name of
+Miss Caroline Campbell conveyed nothing to the public, and the great
+trial went on without a soul suspecting the significance of this
+midnight flitting of an unknown and partially demented girl.</p>
+
+<p>At the house of Dr. Carpenter she met Mr. Moffat. What she told him
+heartened him greatly for the struggle he saw before him. Indeed, it
+altered the whole tone of the defence. Perceiving from her story,
+and from what the doctor could tell him of their meeting at the
+station that her return to town was as yet a secret to every one but
+themselves, he begged that the secret should continue to be kept, in
+order that the <i>coup d’etat</i> which he meditated might lose none of
+its force by anticipation. Carmel, whose mind was full of her coming
+ordeal, was willing enough to hide her head until it came; while Dr.
+Carpenter, alarmed at all this excitement, would have insisted on it in
+any event.</p>
+
+<p>Carmel wished her brother informed of her return, but the wily lawyer
+persuaded her to excuse him from taking Arthur into his confidence
+until the last moment. He knew that he would receive only opposition
+from his young and stubborn client; that Carmel’s presence and
+Carmel’s determination would have to be sprung upon Arthur even
+more than upon the prosecution; that the prisoner at the bar would
+struggle to the very last against Carmel’s appearance in court, and
+make an infinite lot of trouble, if he did not actually endanger his
+own cause. One of the stipulations which he had made in securing
+Mr. Moffat for his counsel was that Carmel’s name was to be kept as
+much as possible out of the proceedings; and to this Mr. Moffat had
+subscribed, notwithstanding his conviction that the crime laid to the
+defendant’s charge was a result of Ranelagh’s passion for Carmel, and,
+consequently, distinctly the work of Ranelagh’s own hand.</p>
+
+<p>He had thought that he could win his case by the powers of oratory and
+a somewhat free use of innuendo; but his view changed under the fresh
+enlightenment which he received in his conversation with Carmel. He
+saw unfolding before him a defence of unparalleled interest. True, it
+involved this interesting witness in a way that would be unpleasant
+to the brother; but he was not the man to sacrifice a client to any
+sentimental scruple—certainly not this client, whose worth he was just
+beginning to realise. Professional pride, as well as an inherent love
+of justice, led him to this conclusion. Nothing in God’s world appealed
+to him, or ever had appealed to him, like a prisoner in the dock facing
+a fate from which only legal address, added to an orator’s eloquence,
+could save him. His sympathies went out to a man so placed, even when
+he was a brute and his guilt far from doubtful. How much more, then,
+must he feel the claims of this surly but chivalrous-hearted boy,
+son of a good father and pious mother, who had been made the butt of
+circumstances, and of whose innocence he was hourly becoming more and
+more convinced.</p>
+
+<p>Could he have probed the whole matter, examined and re-examined this
+new witness until every detail was his and the whole story of that
+night stood bare before him, he might have hesitated a little longer
+and asked himself some very serious questions. But Carmel was not
+strong enough for much talk. Dr. Carpenter would not allow it, and the
+continued clearness of her mind was too invaluable to his case for this
+far-seeing advocate to take any risk. She had told him enough to assure
+him that circumstances and not guilt had put Arthur where he was,
+and had added to the assurance, details of an unexpected nature—so
+unexpected, indeed, that the lawyer was led away by the prospect they
+offered of confounding the prosecution by a line of defence to which no
+clew had been given by anything that had appeared.</p>
+
+<p>He planned then and there a dramatic climax which should take the
+breath away from his opponent, and change the whole feeling of the
+court towards the prisoner. It was a glorious prospect, and if the girl
+remained well—the bare possibility of her not doing so, drove him
+prematurely from her presence; and so it happened that, for the second
+time, the subject of Adelaide’s death was discussed in her hearing
+without any mention being made of strangulation as its immediate cause.
+Would her action have been different had she known that this was a
+conceded fact?</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat did not repeat this visit. He was not willing to risk his
+secret by being seen too often at the doctor’s house; but telephonic
+communication was kept up between him and her present guardian, and
+he was able to bear himself quietly and with confidence until the
+time drew near for the introduction of her testimony. Then he grew
+nervous, fearing that Nurse Unwin would come to herself and telegraph
+Carmel’s escape, and so prepare the prosecution for his great stroke.
+But nothing of the kind happened; and, when the great day came, he had
+only to consider how he should prepare Arthur for the surprise awaiting
+him, and finally decided not to prepare him at all, but simply to state
+at the proper moment, and in the face of the whole court-room, that
+his sister had recovered and would soon take her place upon the stand.
+The restraint of the place would thus act as a guard between them,
+and Carmel’s immediate entrance put an end to the reproaches of whose
+bitterness he could well judge from his former experience of them.</p>
+
+<p>With all these anxieties and his deeply planned <i>coup d’etat</i> awaiting
+the moment of action, Ella’s simple outburst and even Ranelagh’s
+unexpected and somewhat startling suggestion lost much of their
+significance. All his mind and heart were on his next move. It was to
+be made with the queen, and must threaten checkmate. Yet he did not
+forget the two pawns, silent in their places—but guarding certain
+squares which the queen, for all her royal prerogatives, might not be
+able to reach.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_IV">BOOK FOUR<br><span class="small">WHAT THE PINES WHISPERED</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXIX">XXIX<br><span class="small">“I REMEMBERED THE ROOM”</span></h3></div>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>MERCURY.—If thou mightst dwell among the Gods the while<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Lapped in voluptuous joy?</span><br>
+
+<p>PROMETHEUS.—I would not quit<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 6.5em;">This bleak ravine, these unrepentant pains.</span><br>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Prometheus Unbound</i>.</p>
+
+</div>
+<p>Great moments, whether of pain, surprise, or terror, awaken in the
+startled breast very different emotions from those we are led to
+anticipate from the agitation caused by lesser experiences. As Carmel
+disclosed her features to the court, my one absorbing thought was:
+Would she look at me? Could I hope for a glance of her eye? Did I wish
+it? My question was answered before Mr. Moffat had regained his place
+and turned to address the court.</p>
+
+<p>As her gaze passed from her brother’s face, it travelled slowly and
+with growing hesitation over the countenances of those near her, on and
+on past the judge, past the jury, until they reached the spot where I
+sat. There they seemed to falter, and the beating of my heart became so
+loud that I instinctively shrank away from my neighbour. By so doing,
+I drew her eye, which fell full upon mine for one overwhelming minute;
+then she shrank and looked away, but not before the colour had risen in
+a flood to her cheek.</p>
+
+<p>The hope which had sprung to life under her first beautiful aspect,
+vanished in despair at sight of this flush. For it was not one of
+joy, or surprise, or even of unconscious sympathy. It was the banner
+of a deep, unendurable shame. Versed in her every expression, I could
+not mistake the language of her dismayed soul, at this, the most
+critical instant of her life. She had hoped to find me absent; she was
+overwhelmed to find me there. Could she, with a look, have transported
+me a thousand miles from this scene of personal humiliation and
+unknown, unimaginable outcome, she would have bestowed that look and
+ignored the consequences.</p>
+
+<p>Nor was I behind her in the reckless passion of the moment. Could I, by
+means of a wish, have been transported those thousand miles, I should
+even now have been far from a spot where, in the face of a curious
+crowd, busy in associating us together, I must submit to the terror of
+hearing her speak and betray herself to these watchful lawyers, and to
+the just and impartial mind of the presiding judge.</p>
+
+<p>But the days of magic had passed. I could not escape the spot; I could
+not escape her eye. The ordeal to which she was thus committed, I must
+share. As she advanced step by step upon her uncertain road, it would
+be my unhappy fate to advance with her, in terror of the same pitfalls,
+with our faces set towards the same precipice—slipping, fainting,
+experiencing agonies together. She knew my secret, and I, alas! knew
+hers. So I interpreted this intolerable, overwhelming blush.</p>
+
+<p>Recoiling from the prospect, I buried my face in my hands, and so
+missed the surprising sight of this young girl, still in her teens,
+conquering a dismay which might well unnerve one of established years
+and untold experiences. In a few minutes, as I was afterward told by my
+friends, her features had settled into a strange placidity, undisturbed
+by the levelled gaze of a hundred eyes. Her whole attention was
+concentrated on her brother, and wavered only, when the duties of the
+occasion demanded a recognition of the various gentlemen concerned in
+the trial.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat prefaced his examination by the following words:</p>
+
+<p>“May it please your Honour, I wish to ask the indulgence of the court
+in my examination of this witness. She is just recovering from a long
+and dangerous illness; and while I shall endeavour to keep within the
+rules of examination, I shall be grateful for any consideration which
+may be shown her by your Honour and by the counsel on the other side.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fox at once rose. He had by this time recovered from his
+astonishment at seeing before him, and in a fair state of health,
+the young girl whom he had every reason to believe to be still in a
+condition of partial forgetfulness at Lakewood, and under the care
+of a woman entirely in his confidence and under his express orders.
+He had also mastered his chagrin at the triumph which her presence
+here, and under these dramatic circumstances, had given his adversary.
+Moved, perhaps, by Miss Cumberland’s beauty, which he saw for the first
+time—or, perhaps, by the spectacle of this beauty devoting its first
+hours of health to an attempt to save a brother, of whose precarious
+position before the law she had been ignorant up to this time—or more
+possibly yet, by a fear that it might be bad tactics to show harshness
+to so interesting a personality before she had uttered a word of
+testimony, he expressed in warmer tones than usual, his deep desire to
+extend every possible indulgence.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat bowed his acknowledgments, and waited for his witness
+to take the oath, which she did with a simple grace which touched
+all hearts, even that of her constrained and unreconciled brother.
+Compelled by the silence and my own bounding pulses to look at her in
+my own despite, I caught the sweet and elevated look with which she
+laid her hand on the Book, and asked myself if her presence here was
+not a self-accusation, which would bring satisfaction to nobody—which
+would sink her and hers into an ignominy worse than the conviction of
+the brother whom she was supposedly there to save.</p>
+
+<p>Tortured by this fear, I awaited events in indescribable agitation.</p>
+
+<p>The cool voice of Mr. Moffat broke in upon my gloom. Carmel had
+reseated herself, after taking the oath, and the customary question
+could be heard:</p>
+
+<p>“Your name, if you please.”</p>
+
+<p>“Carmel Cumberland.”</p>
+
+<p>“Do you recognise the prisoner, Miss Cumberland?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; he is my brother.”</p>
+
+<p>A thrill ran through the room. The lingering tone, the tender accent,
+told. Some of the feeling she thus expressed seemed to pass into every
+heart which contemplated the two. From this moment on, he was looked
+upon with less harshness; people showed a disposition to discern
+innocence, where, perhaps, they had secretly desired, until now, to
+discover guilt.</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, will you be good enough to tell us where you were, at
+or near the hour of ten, on the evening of your sister’s death?”</p>
+
+<p>“I was in the club-house—in the house you call The Whispering Pines.”</p>
+
+<p>At this astounding reply, unexpected by every one present save myself
+and the unhappy prisoner, incredulity, seasoned with amazement, marked
+every countenance. Carmel Cumberland in the club-house that night—she
+who had been found at a late hour, in her own home, injured and
+unconscious! It was not to be believed—or it would not have been, if
+Arthur with less self-control than he had hitherto maintained, had not
+shown by his morose air and the silent drooping of his head that he
+accepted this statement, wild and improbable as it seemed. Mr. Fox,
+whose mind without doubt had been engaged in a debate from the first,
+as to the desirability of challenging the testimony of this young girl,
+whose faculties had so lately recovered from a condition of great
+shock and avowed forgetfulness that no word as yet had come to him of
+her restored health, started to arise at her words; but noting the
+prisoner’s attitude, he hastily reseated himself, realising, perhaps,
+that evidence of which he had never dreamed lay at the bottom of the
+client’s manner and the counsel’s complacency. If so, then his own air
+of mingled disbelief and compassionate forbearance might strike the
+jury unfavourably; while, on the contrary, if his doubts were sound,
+and the witness were confounding the fancies of her late delirium with
+the actual incidents of this fatal night, then would he gain rather
+than lose by allowing her to proceed until her testimony fell of its
+own weight, or succumbed before the fire of his cross-examination.</p>
+
+<p>Modifying his manner, he steadied himself for either exigency, and, in
+steadying himself, steadied his colleagues also.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat, who saw everything, smiled slightly as he spoke
+encouragingly to his witness, and propounded his next question:</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, was your sister with you when you went to the
+club-house?”</p>
+
+<p>“No; we went separately”</p>
+
+<p>“How? Will you explain?”</p>
+
+<p>“I drove there. I don’t know how Adelaide went.”</p>
+
+<p>“You drove there?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes. I had Arthur harness up his horse for me and I drove there.”</p>
+
+<p>A moment of silence; then a slow awakening—on the part of judge, jury,
+and prosecution—to the fact that the case was taking a turn for which
+they were ill-prepared. To Mr. Moffat, it was a moment of intense
+self-congratulation, and something of the gratification he felt crept
+into his voice as he said:</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, will you describe this horse?”</p>
+
+<p>“It was a grey horse. It has a large black spot on its left shoulder.”</p>
+
+<p>“To what vehicle was it attached?”</p>
+
+<p>“To a cutter—my brother’s cutter.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was that brother with you? Did he accompany you in your ride to The
+Whispering Pines?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, I went quite alone.”</p>
+
+<p>Entrancement had now seized upon every mind. Even if her testimony were
+not true, but merely the wanderings of a mind not fully restored, the
+interest of it was intense. Mr. Fox, glancing at the jury, saw there
+would be small use in questioning at this time the mental capacity of
+the witness. This was a story which all wished to hear. Perhaps he
+wished to hear it, too.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat rose to more than his accustomed height. The light which
+sometimes visited his face when feeling, or a sense of power, was
+strongest in him, shone from his eye and irradiated his whole aspect as
+he inquired tellingly:</p>
+
+<p>“And how did you return? With whom, and by what means, did you regain
+your own house?”</p>
+
+<p>The answer came, with simple directness:</p>
+
+<p>“In the same way I went. I drove back in my brother’s cutter and being
+all alone just as before, I put the horse away myself, and went into my
+empty home and up to Adelaide’s room, where I lost consciousness.”</p>
+
+<p>The excitement, which had been seething, broke out as she ceased; but
+the judge did not need to use his gavel, or the officers of the court
+exert their authority. At Mr. Moffat’s lifted hand, the turmoil ceased
+as if by magic.</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, do you often ride out alone on nights like that?”</p>
+
+<p>“I never did before. I would not have dared to do it then, if I had not
+taken a certain precaution.”</p>
+
+<p>“And what was this precaution?”</p>
+
+<p>“I wore an old coat of my brother’s over my dress, and one of his hats
+on my head.”</p>
+
+<p>It was out—the fact for the suppression of which I had suffered arrest
+without a word; because of which Arthur had gone even further, and
+submitted to trial with the same constancy. Instinctively, his eyes
+and mine met, and, at that moment, there was established between us an
+understanding that was in strong contrast to the surrounding turmoil,
+which now exceeded all limits, as the highly wrought up spectators
+realised that these statements, if corroborated, destroyed one of the
+strongest points which had been made by the prosecution. This caused
+a stay in the proceedings until order was partially restored, and the
+judge’s voice could be heard in a warning that the court-room would be
+cleared of all spectators if this break of decorum was repeated.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, my own mind had been busy. I had watched Arthur; I had
+watched Mr. Moffat. The discouragement of the former, the ill-concealed
+elation of the latter, proved the folly of any hope, on my part, that
+Carmel would be spared a full explanation of what I would have given
+worlds to leave in the darkness and ignorance of the present moment. To
+save Arthur, unwilling as he was, she was to be allowed to consummate
+the sacrifice which the real generosity of her heart drove her into
+making. Before these doors opened again and sent forth the crowd
+now pulsating under a preamble of whose terrible sequel none as yet
+dreamed, I should have to hear those sweet lips give utterance to the
+revelation which would consign her to opprobrium, and break, not only
+my heart, but her brother’s.</p>
+
+<p>Was there no way to stop it? The district attorney gave no evidence
+of suspecting any issue of this sort, nor did the friendly and humane
+judge. Only the scheming Moffat knew to what all this was tending,
+and Moffat could not be trusted. The case was his and he would gain
+it if he could. Tender and obliging as he was in his treatment of the
+witness, there was iron under the velvet of his glove. This was his
+reputation; and this I must now see exemplified before me, without
+the power to stop it. The consideration with which he approached his
+subject did not deceive me.</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, will you now give the jury the full particulars
+of that evening’s occurrences, as witnessed by yourself. Begin your
+relation, if you please, with an account of the last meal you had
+together.”</p>
+
+<p>Carmel hesitated. Her youth—her conscience, perhaps—shrank in
+manifest distress from this inquisition.</p>
+
+<p>“Ask me a question,” she prayed. “I do not know how to begin.”</p>
+
+<p>“Very well. Who were seated at the dinner-table that night?”</p>
+
+<p>“My sister, my brother, Mr. Ranelagh, and myself.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did anything uncommon happen during the meal?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, my sister ordered wine, and had our glasses all filled. She
+never drank wine herself, but she had her glass filled also. Then she
+dismissed Helen, the waitress; and when the girl was gone, she rose and
+held up her glass, and invited us to do the same. ‘We will drink to my
+coming marriage,’ said she; but when we had done this, she turned upon
+Arthur, with bitter words about his habits, and, declaring that another
+bottle of wine should never be opened again in the house, unclosed her
+fingers and let her glass drop on the table where it broke. Arthur then
+let his fall, and I mine. We all three let our glasses fall and break.”</p>
+
+<p>“And Mr. Ranelagh?”</p>
+
+<p>“He did not let his fall. He set it down on the cloth. He had not drank
+from it.”</p>
+
+<p>Clear, perfectly clear—tallying with what we had heard from other
+sources. As this fact forced itself in upon the minds of the jury, new
+light shone in every eye and each and all waited eagerly for the next
+question.</p>
+
+<p>It came with a quiet, if not insinuating, intonation.</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, where were you looking when you let your glass fall?”</p>
+
+<p>My heart gave a bound. I remembered that moment well. So did she, as
+could be seen from the tremulous flush and the determination with which
+she forced herself to speak.</p>
+
+<p>“At Mr. Ranelagh,” she answered, finally.</p>
+
+<p>“Not at your brother?”</p>
+
+<p>“No.”</p>
+
+<p>“And at whom was Mr. Ranelagh looking?”</p>
+
+<p>“At—at me.”</p>
+
+<p>“Not at your sister?”</p>
+
+<p>“No.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was anything said?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not then. With the dropping of the glasses, we all drew back from the
+table, and walked towards a little room where we sometimes sat before
+going into the library. Arthur went first, and Mr. Ranelagh and I
+followed, Adelaide coming last. We—we went this way into the little
+room and—what other question do you wish to ask?” she finished, with a
+burning blush.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat was equal to the appeal.</p>
+
+<p>“Did anything happen? Did Mr. Ranelagh speak to you or you to him, or
+did your sister Adelaide speak?”</p>
+
+<p>“No one spoke; but Mr. Ranelagh put a little slip of paper into my
+hand—a—a note. As he did this, my brother looked round. I don’t know
+whether he saw the note or not; but his eye caught mine, and I may
+have blushed. Next moment he was looking past me; and presently he had
+flung himself out of the room, and I heard him going upstairs. Adelaide
+had joined me by this time, and Mr. Ranelagh turned to speak to her,
+and—and I went over to the book-shelves to read my note.”</p>
+
+<p>“And did you read it then?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, I was afraid. I waited till Mr. Ranelagh was gone; then I went up
+to my room and read it. It was not a—a note to be glad of. I mean,
+proud of. I’m afraid I was a little glad of it at first. I was a wicked
+girl.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat glanced at Mr. Fox; but that gentleman, passing over this
+artless expression of feeling, as unworthy an objection, he went
+steadily on:</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, before you tell us about this note, will you be good
+enough to inform us whether any words passed between you and your
+sister before you went upstairs?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes; we talked. We all three talked, but it was about indifferent
+matters. The servants were going to a ball, and we spoke of that. Mr.
+Ranelagh did not stay long. Very soon he remarked that he had a busy
+evening before him, and took his leave. I was not in the room with them
+when he did this. I was in the adjoining one, but I heard his remark
+and saw him go. I did not wait to talk to Adelaide.”</p>
+
+<p>“Now, about the note?”</p>
+
+<p>“I read it as soon as I reached my room. Then I sat still for a long
+time.”</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, pardon my request, but will you tell us what was in
+that note?”</p>
+
+<p>She lifted her patient eyes, and looked straight at her brother. He
+did not meet her gaze; but the dull flush which lit up the dead-white
+of his cheek showed how he suffered under this ordeal. At me she never
+glanced; this was the only mercy shown me that dreadful morning. I grew
+to be thankful for it as she went on.</p>
+
+<p>“I do not remember the words,” she said, finally, as her eyes fell
+again to her lap. “But I remember its meaning. It was an invitation
+for me to leave town with him that very evening and be married at
+some place he mentioned. He said it would be the best way to—to
+end—matters.”</p>
+
+<p>This brought Mr. Fox to his feet. For all his self-command, he had been
+perceptibly growing more and more nervous as the examination proceeded;
+and he found himself still in the dark as to his opponent’s purpose and
+the character of the revelations he had to fear. Turning to the judge,
+he cried:</p>
+
+<p>“This testimony is irrelevant and incompetent, and I ask to have it
+stricken out.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat’s voice, as he arose to answer this, was like honey poured
+upon gall.</p>
+
+<p>“It is neither irrelevant nor incompetent, and, if it were, the
+objection comes too late. My friend should have objected to the
+question.”</p>
+
+<p>“The whole course of counsel has been very unusual,” began Mr. Fox.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, but so is the case. I beg your Honour to believe that, in some
+of its features, this case is not only unusual, but almost without a
+precedent. That it may be lightly understood, and justice shown my
+client, a full knowledge of the whole family’s experiences during
+those fatal hours is not only desirable, but absolutely essential. I
+beg, therefore, that my witness may be allowed to proceed and tell her
+story in all its details. Nothing will be introduced which will not
+ultimately be seen to have a direct bearing upon the attitude of my
+client towards the crime for which he stands here arraigned.”</p>
+
+<p>“The motion is denied,” declared the judge.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fox sat down, to the universal relief of all but the two persons
+most interested—Arthur and myself.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat, generous enough or discreet enough to take no note of his
+opponent’s discomfiture, lifted a paper from the table and held it
+towards the witness.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you recognise these lines?” he asked, placing the remnants of my
+half-burned communication in her hands.</p>
+
+<p>She started at sight of them. Evidently she had never expected to see
+them again.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” she answered, after a moment. “This is a portion of the note I
+have mentioned.”</p>
+
+<p>“You recognise it as such?”</p>
+
+<p>“I do.”</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes lingered on the scrap, and followed it as it was passed back
+and marked as an exhibit.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat recalled her to the matter in hand.</p>
+
+<p>“What did you do next, Miss Cumberland?”</p>
+
+<p>“I answered the note.”</p>
+
+<p>“May I ask to what effect?”</p>
+
+<p>“I refused Mr. Ranelagh’s request. I said that I could not do what he
+asked, and told him to wait till the next day, and he would see how I
+felt towards him and towards Adelaide. That was all. I could not write
+much. I was suffering greatly.”</p>
+
+<p>“Suffering in mind, or suffering in body?”</p>
+
+<p>“Suffering in my mind. I was terrified, but that feeling did not last
+very long. Soon I grew happy, happier than I had been in weeks, happier
+than I had ever been in all my life before. I found that I loved
+Adelaide better than I did myself. This made everything easy, even the
+sending of the answer I have told you about to Mr. Ranelagh.”</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, how did you get this answer to Mr. Ranelagh?”</p>
+
+<p>“By means of a gentleman who was going away on the very train I had
+been asked to leave on. He was a guest next door, and I carried the
+note in to him.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you do this openly?”</p>
+
+<p>“No. I’m afraid not; I slipped out by the side door, in as careful a
+way as I could.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did this attempt at secrecy succeed? Were you able to go and come
+without meeting any one?”</p>
+
+<p>“No. Adelaide was at the head of the stairs when I came back, standing
+there, very stiff and quiet.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did she speak to you?”</p>
+
+<p>“No. She just looked at me; but it wasn’t a common look. I shall never
+forget it.”</p>
+
+<p>“And what did you do then?”</p>
+
+<p>“I went to my room.”</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, did you sec anybody else when you came in at this
+time?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, our maid Helen. She was just laying down a bunch of keys on
+the table in the lower hall. I stopped and looked at the keys. I had
+recognised them as the ones I had seen in Mr. Ranelagh’s hands many
+times. He had gone, yet there were his keys. One of them unlocked the
+club-house. I noticed it among the others, but I didn’t touch it then.
+Helen was still in the hall, and I ran straight upstairs, where I met
+my sister, as I have just told you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, continue the story. What did you do after re-entering
+your room?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know what I did first. I was very excited—elated one minute,
+deeply wretched and very frightened the next. I must have sat down; for
+I was shaking very much, and felt a little sick. The sight of that key
+had brought up pictures of the club-house; and I thought and thought
+how quiet it was, and how far away and—how cold it was too, and how
+secret. I would go there for what I had to do; <i>there</i>! And then I saw
+in my fancy one of its rooms, with the moon in it, and—but I soon shut
+my eyes to that. I heard Arthur moving about his room, and this made me
+start up and go out into the hall again.”</p>
+
+<p>During all this Mr. Fox had sat by, understanding his right to object
+to the witness’s mixed statements of fact and of feelings, and quite
+confident that his objections would be sustained. But he had determined
+long since that he would not interrupt the witness in her relation.
+The air of patience he assumed was sufficiently indicative of his
+displeasure, and he confined himself to this. Mr. Moffat understood,
+and testified his appreciation by a slight bow.</p>
+
+<p>Carmel, who saw nothing, resumed her story.</p>
+
+<p>“Arthur’s room is near, and Adelaide’s far off; but I went to
+Adelaide’s first. Her door was shut and when I went to open it I found
+it locked. Calling her name, I said that I was tired and would be glad
+to say good night. She did not answer at once. When she did, her voice
+was strange, though what she said was very simple. I was to please
+myself; she was going to retire, too. And then she tried to say good
+night, but she only half said it, like one who is choked with tears
+or some other dreadful emotion. I cannot tell you how this made me
+feel—but you don’t care for that. You want to know what I did—what
+Adelaide did. I will tell you, but I cannot hurry. Every act of the
+evening was so crowded with purpose; all meant so much. I can see the
+end, but the steps leading to it are not so clear.”</p>
+
+<p>“Take your time, Miss Cumberland; we have no wish to hurry you.”</p>
+
+<p>“I can go on now. The next thing I did was to knock at Arthur’s door. I
+heard him getting ready to go out, and I wanted to speak to him before
+he went. When he heard me, he opened the door and let me in. He began
+at once on his grievances, but I could not listen to them. I wanted him
+to harness the grey mare for me and leave it standing in the stable.
+I explained the request by saying that it was necessary for me to see
+a certain friend of mine immediately, and that no one would notice me
+in the cutter under the bear-skins. He didn’t approve, but I persuaded
+him. I even persuaded him to wait till Zadok was gone, so that Adelaide
+would know nothing about it. He looked glum, but he promised.</p>
+
+<p>“He was going away when I heard Adelaide’s steps in the adjoining room.
+This frightened me. The partition is very thin between these two rooms,
+and I was afraid she had heard me ask Arthur for the grey mare and
+cutter. I could hear her rattling the bottles in the medicine cabinet
+hanging on this very wall. Looking back at Arthur, I asked him how
+long Adelaide had been there. He said, ‘For some time.’ This sent me
+flying from the room. I would join her, and find out if she had heard.
+But I was too late. As I stepped into the hall I saw her disappearing
+round the corner leading to her own room. This convinced me that she
+had heard nothing, and, light of heart once more, I went back to my
+own room, where I collected such little articles as I needed for the
+expedition before me.</p>
+
+<p>“I had hardly done this when I heard the servants on the walk outside,
+then Arthur going down. The impulse to see and speak to him again
+was irresistible. I flew after him and caught him in the lower hall.
+‘Arthur,’ I cried, ‘look at me, look at me well, and then—kiss me!’
+And he did kiss me—I’m glad when I think of it, though he did say,
+next minute: ‘What is the matter with you? What are you going to do? To
+meet that villain?’</p>
+
+<p>“I looked straight into his face. I waited till I saw I had his whole
+attention; then I said, as slowly and emphatically as I could: ‘If you
+mean Elwood—no! I shall never meet him again, except in Adelaide’s
+presence. He will not want to meet me. You may be at ease about that.
+To-morrow all will be well, and Adelaide very happy,’</p>
+
+<p>“He shrugged his shoulders, and reached for his coat and hat. As he
+was putting them on, I said, ‘Don’t forget to harness up Jenny.’ Jenny
+is the grey mare. ‘And leave off the bells,’ I urged. ‘I don’t want
+Adelaide to hear me go out.’</p>
+
+<p>“He swung about at this. ‘You and Adelaide are not very good friends
+it seems.’ ‘As good as you and she are,’ I answered. Then I flung my
+arms about him. ‘Don’t go down street to-night,’ I prayed. ‘Stay home
+for this one night. Stay in the house with Adelaide; stay till I come
+home.’ He stared, and I saw his colour change. Then he flung me off,
+but not rudely. ‘Why don’t <i>you</i> stay?’ he asked. Then he laughed, and
+added, ‘I’ll go harness the mare.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘The key’s in the kitchen,’ I said. ‘I’ll go get it for you. I heard
+Zadok bring it in.’ He did not answer, and I went for the key. I found
+two on the nail, and I brought them both; but I only handed him one,
+the key to the stable-door. ‘Which way are you going?’ I asked, as he
+looked at the key, then back towards the kitchen. ‘The short way, of
+course,’ ‘Then here’s the key to the Fulton grounds,’</p>
+
+<p>“As he took the key, I prayed again, ‘Don’t do what’s in your mind,
+Arthur. Don’t drink to-night. He only laughed, and I said my last word:
+‘If you do, it will be for the last time. You’ll never drink again
+after to-morrow.’</p>
+
+<p>“He made no answer to this, and I went slowly upstairs. Everything was
+quiet—quiet as death—in the whole house. If Adelaide had heard us,
+she made no sign. Going to my own room, I waited until I heard Arthur
+come out of the stable and go away by the door in the rear wall. Then I
+stole out again. I carried a small bag with me, but no coat or hat.</p>
+
+<p>“Pausing and listening again and again, I crept downstairs and halted
+at the table under the rack. The keys were still there. Putting them
+in my bag, I searched the rack for one of my brother’s warm coats.
+But I took none I saw. I remembered an old one which Adelaide had put
+away in the closet under the stairs. Getting this, I put it on, and,
+finding a hat there too, I took that also; and when I had pulled it
+over my forehead and drawn up the collar of the coat, I was quite
+unrecognisable. I was going out, when I remembered there would be
+no light in the club-house. I had put a box of matches in my bag
+while I was upstairs, but I needed a candle. Slipping back, I took
+a candlestick and candle from the dining-room mantel, and finding
+that the bag would not hold them, thrust them into the pocket of the
+coat I wore, and quickly left the house. Jenny was in the stable, all
+harnessed; and hesitating no longer, I got in among the bear-skins and
+drove swiftly away.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment’s silence. Carmel had paused, and was sitting with
+her hand on her heart, looking past judge, past jury, upon the lonely
+and desolate scene in which she at this moment moved and suffered. An
+inexpressible fatality had entered into her tones, always rich and
+resonant with feeling. No one who listened could fail to share the
+dread by which she was moved.</p>
+
+<p>District Attorney Fox fumbled with his papers, and endeavoured to
+maintain his equanimity and show an indifference which his stern but
+fascinated glances at the youthful witness amply belied. He was biding
+his time, but biding it in decided perturbation of mind. Neither he
+nor any one else, unless it were Moffat, could tell whither this tale
+tended. While she held the straight course which had probably been
+laid out for her, he failed to object; but he could not prevent the
+subtle influence of her voice, her manner, and her supreme beauty on
+the entranced jury. Nevertheless, his pencil was busy; he was still
+sufficiently master of himself for that.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat, quite aware of the effect which was being produced on every
+side, but equally careful to make no show of it, put in a commonplace
+question at this point, possibly to rouse the witness from her own
+abstraction, possibly to restore the judicial tone of the inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>“How did you leave the stable-door?”</p>
+
+<p>“Open.”</p>
+
+<p>“Can you tell us what time it was when you started?”</p>
+
+<p>“No. I did not look. Time meant nothing to me. I drove as fast as I
+could, straight down the hill, and out towards The Whispering Pines. I
+had seen Adelaide in her window as I went flying by the house, but not
+a soul on the road, nor a sign of life, near or far. The whistle of a
+train blew as I stopped in the thicket near the club-house door. If it
+was the express train, you can tell—”</p>
+
+<p>“Never mind the <i>if</i>” said Mr. Moffat. “It is enough that you heard the
+whistle. Go on with what you did.”</p>
+
+<p>“I tied up my horse; then I went into the house. I had used Mr.
+Ranelagh’s key to open the door and for some reason I took it out of
+the lock when I got in, and put the whole bunch back into my satchel.
+But I did not lock the door. Then I lit my candle and then—I went
+upstairs.”</p>
+
+<p>Fainter and fainter the words fell, and slower and slower heaved the
+youthful breast under her heavily pressing palm. Mr. Moffat made a
+sign across the court-room, and I saw Dr. Carpenter get up and move
+nearer to the witness stand. But she stood in no need of his help. In
+an instant her cheek flushed; the eye I watched with such intensity of
+wonder that apprehension unconsciously left me, rose, glowed, and fixed
+itself at last—not on the judge, not on the prisoner, not even on that
+prisoner’s counsel—but on <i>me</i>; and as the soft light filled my soul
+and awoke awe, where it had hitherto awakened passion, she quietly said:</p>
+
+<p>“There is a room upstairs, in the club-house, where I have often been
+with Adelaide. It has a fireplace in it, and I had seen a box there,
+half filled with wood the day before. This is the room I went to, and
+here I built a fire. When it was quite bright, I took out something I
+had brought in my satchel, and thrust it into the flame. Then I got up
+and walked away. I—I did not feel very strong, and sank on my knees
+when I got to the couch, and buried my face in my arms. But I felt
+better when I came back to the fire again, and very brave till I caught
+a glimpse of my face in the mirror over the mantelpiece. That—that
+unnerved me, and I think I screamed. Some one screamed, and I think it
+was I. I know my hands went out—I saw them in the glass; then they
+fell straight down at my side, and I looked and looked at myself till I
+saw all the terror go out of my face, and when it was quite calm again,
+I stooped down and pulled out the little tongs I had been heating
+in the fire, and laid them quick—quick, before I could be sorry
+again—right across my cheek, and then—”</p>
+
+<p>Uproar in the court. If she had screamed when she said she did, so
+some one cried out loudly now. I think that pitiful person was myself.
+They say I had been standing straight up in my place for the last two
+minutes.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXX">XXX<br><span class="small">“CHOOSE”</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">Let me have<br>
+A dram of poison; such soon speeding geer<br>
+As will disperse itself through all the veins,<br>
+That the life-weary taker may fall dead.</p>
+
+<p class="poetry">Come, bitter conduct, come unsavoury guide!<br>
+Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on<br>
+The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Romeo and Juliet</i></p>
+
+
+<p>“I have not finished,” were the first words we heard, when order was
+restored, and we were all in a condition to listen again.</p>
+
+<p>“I had to relate what you have just heard, that you might understand
+what happened next. I was not used to pain, and I could never have
+kept on pressing those irons to my cheek if I had not had the strength
+given me by my own reflection in the glass. When I thought the burn was
+quite deep enough, I tore the tongs away, and was lifting them to the
+other cheek when I saw the door behind me open, inch by inch, as though
+pushed by hesitating touches.</p>
+
+<p>“Instantly, I forgot my pain, almost my purpose, watching that door. I
+saw it slowly swing to its full width, and disclose my sister standing
+in the gap, with a look and in an attitude which terrified me more than
+the fire had done. Dropping the tongs, I turned and faced her, covering
+my cheek instinctively with my hand.</p>
+
+<p>“I saw her eyes run over my elaborate dinner dress—my little hand-bag,
+and the candle burning in a room made warm with a fire on the hearth.
+This, before she spoke a single word. Then, with a deep labouring
+breath, she looked me in the eye again, with the simple question:</p>
+
+<p>“‘And where is he?’”</p>
+
+<p>Carmel’s head had drooped at this, but she raised it almost instantly.
+Mine did not rise so readily.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Do you mean Elwood?’ I asked. ‘You know!’ said she. ‘The veil is down
+between us, Carmel; we will speak plainly now. I saw him give you the
+letter. I heard you ask Arthur to harness up the horse. I have demeaned
+myself to follow you, and we will have no subterfuges now. You expect
+him here?’</p>
+
+<p>“‘No,’ I cried. ‘I am not so bad as that, Adelaide—nor is he. Here
+is the note. You will see by it what he expects, and at what place I
+should have joined him, if I had been the selfish creature you think,’
+I had the note hidden in my breast. I took it out, and held it towards
+her. I did not feel the burn at all, but I kept it covered. She glanced
+down at the words; and I felt like falling at her feet, she looked so
+miserable. I am told that I must keep to fact, and must not express my
+feelings, or those of others. I will try to remember this; but it is
+hard for a sister, relating such a frightful scene.</p>
+
+<p>“She glanced down at the paper and let it drop, almost immediately,
+from her hand, ‘I cannot read his words!’ she cried; ‘I do not need to;
+we both know which of us he loves best. You cannot say that it is I,
+his engaged wife.’ I was silent, and her face took on an awful pallor.
+‘Carmel,’ said she, ‘do you know what this man’s love has been to me?
+You are a child, a warm-hearted and passionate child; but you do not
+know a woman’s heart. Certainly, you do not know mine. I doubt if any
+one does—even he. Cares have warped my life. I do not quarrel with
+these cares; I only say that they have robbed me of what makes girlhood
+lovely. Duty is a stern task-master; and sternness, coming early into
+one’s life, hardens its edges, but does not sap passion from the soul
+or devotion from the heart. I was ready for joy when it came, but I
+was no longer capable of bestowing it. I thought I was, but I soon saw
+my mistake. You showed it to me—you with your beauty, your freshness,
+your warm and untried heart. I have no charms to rival these; I have
+only love, such love as you cannot dream of at your age. And <i>this</i> is
+no longer desirable to him!’</p>
+
+<p>“You see that I remember every word she spoke. They burned more
+fiercely than the iron. That did not burn at all, just then. I was cold
+instead—bitterly, awfully cold. My very heart seemed frozen, and the
+silence was dreadful. But I could not speak, I could not answer her.</p>
+
+<p>“‘You have everything,’ she now went on. ‘Why did you rob me of my one
+happiness? And you have robbed me. I have seen your smile when his head
+turned your way. It was the smile which runs before a promise. I know
+it; I have had that smile in my heart a long, long time—but it never
+reached my lips. Carmel, do you know why I am here?’ I shook my head.
+Was it her teeth that were chattering or mine? ‘I am here to end it
+all,’ said she. ‘With my hope gone, my heart laid waste, life has no
+prospect for me. I believe in God, and I know that my act is sinful;
+but I can no more live than can a tree stricken at the root. To-morrow
+he will not need to write notes; he can come and comfort you in our
+home. But never let him look at me. As we are sisters, and I almost a
+mother to you, shut my face away from his eyes—or I shall rise in my
+casket and the tangle of our lives will be renewed.’</p>
+
+<p>“I tell you this—I bare my sister’s broken heart to you, giving you
+her very words, sacred as they are to me and—and to others, who are
+present, and must listen to all I say—because it is right that you
+should understand her frenzy, and know all that passed between us in
+that awful hour.”</p>
+
+<p>This was irregular, highly irregular—but District Attorney Fox sat
+on, unmoved. Possibly he feared to prejudice the jury; possibly
+he recognised the danger of an interruption now, not only to the
+continuity of her testimony, but to the witness herself; or—what
+is just as likely—possibly he cherished a hope that, in giving her
+a free rein and allowing her to tell her story thus artlessly, she
+would herself supply the clew he needed to reconstruct his case on the
+new lines upon which it was being slowly forced by these unexpected
+revelations. Whatever the cause, he let these expressions of feeling
+pass.</p>
+
+<p>At a gesture from Mr. Moffat, Carmel proceeded:</p>
+
+<p>“I tottered at this threat; and she, a mother to me from my cradle,
+started instinctively to catch me; but the feeling left her before
+she had taken two steps, and she stopped still. ‘Drop your hand,’
+she cried. ‘I want to see your whole face while I ask you one last
+question. I could not read the note. Why did you come <i>here?</i> I dropped
+my hand, and she stood staring; then she uttered a cry and ran quickly
+towards me. ‘What is it?’ she cried. ‘What has happened to you? Is it
+the shadow or—’</p>
+
+<p>“I caught her by the hand. I could speak now. ‘Adelaide,’ said I,
+‘you are not the only one to love to the point of hurt. I love <i>you</i>.
+Let this little scar be witness,’ Then, as her eyes opened and she
+staggered, I caught her to my breast and hid my face on her shoulder.
+‘You say that to-morrow I shall be free to receive notes. He will
+not wish to write them, tomorrow. The beauty he liked is gone. If it
+weighed overmuch with him, then you and I are on a plane again—or I am
+on an inferior one. Your joy will be sweeter for this break!’</p>
+
+<p>“She started, raised my head from her shoulder, looked at me and
+shuddered—but no longer with hate. ‘Carmel!’ she whispered, ‘the
+story—the story I read you of Francis the First and—’</p>
+
+<p>“‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘that made me think,’ Her knees bent under her; she
+sank at my feet, but her eyes never left my face. ‘And—and Elwood?’
+‘He knows nothing. I did not make up my mind till to-night. Adelaide,
+it had to be. I hadn’t the strength to—to leave you all, or—or to say
+no, if he ever asked me to my face what he asked me in that note,’</p>
+
+<p>“And then I tried to lift her; but she was kissing my feet, kissing my
+dress, sobbing out her life on my hands. Oh, I was happy! My future
+looked very simple to me. But my cheek began to burn, and instinctively
+I put up my hand. This brought her to her feet. ‘You are suffering,’
+she cried. ‘You must go home, at once, at once, while I telephone to
+Dr. Carpenter,’ ‘We will go together,’ I said. ‘We can telephone from
+there.’ But at this, the awful look came back into her face, and seeing
+her forget my hurt, I forgot it, too, in dread of what she would say
+when she found strength to speak.</p>
+
+<p>“It was worse than anything I had imagined; she refused absolutely to
+go back home. ‘Carmel,’ said she, ‘I have done injustice to your youth.
+You love him, too—not like a child but a woman. The tangle is worse
+than I thought; your heart is caught in it, as well as mine, and you
+shall have your chance. My death will give it to you.’ I shook my head,
+pointing to my cheek. She shook hers, and quietly, calmly said, ‘You
+have never looked so beautiful. Should we go back together and take
+up the old life, the struggle which has undermined my conscience and
+my whole existence would only begin again. I cannot face that ordeal,
+Carmel. The morning light would bring me daily torture, the evening
+dusk a night of blasting dreams. We three cannot live in this world
+together. I am the least loved and so I should be the one to die. I am
+determined, Carmel. Life, with me, has come to this.’</p>
+
+<p>“I tried to dissuade her. I urged every plea, even that of my own
+sacrifice. But she was no more her natural self. She had taken up the
+note and read it during my entreaties, and my words fell on deaf ears.
+‘Why, these words have killed me,’ she cried crumpling the note in her
+hand. ‘What will a little poison do? It can only finish what he has
+begun.’</p>
+
+<p>“Poison! I remembered how I had heard her pushing about bottles in
+the medicine cabinet, and felt my legs grow weak and my head swim.
+‘You will not!’ I cried, watching her hand, in terror of seeing it
+rise to her breast. ‘You are crazed to-night; to-morrow you will feel
+differently.’</p>
+
+<p>“But the fixed set look of her bleak face gave me no hope. ‘I shall
+never feel differently. If I do not end it to-night, I shall do so
+soon. When a heart like mine goes down, it goes down forever,’ I could
+only shudder. I did not know what to do, or which way to turn. She
+stood between me and the door, and her presence was terrible. ‘When I
+came here,’ she said, ‘I brought a bottle of cordial with me and three
+glasses. I brought a little phial of poison too, once ordered for
+sickness. I expected to find Elwood here. If I had, I meant to drop
+the poison into one glass, and then fill them all up with the cordial.
+We should have drunk, each one of us his glass, and one of us would
+have fallen. I did not care which, you or Elwood or myself. But he is
+not here, and the cast of the die is between us two, unless you wish
+a certainty, Carmel,—in which case I will pour out but one glass and
+drink that myself.’</p>
+
+<p>“She was in a fever, now, and desperate. Death was in the room; I felt
+it in my lifted hair, and in her strangely drawn face. If I screamed,
+who would hear me? I never thought of the telephone, and I doubt if she
+would have let me use it then. The power she had always exerted over me
+was very strong in her at this moment; and not till afterwards did it
+cross my mind that I had never asked her how she got to the house, or
+whether we were as much alone in the building as I believed.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Shall I drink alone?’ she repeated, and I cried out ‘No’; at which
+her hand went to her breast, as I had so long expected, and I saw the
+glitter of a little phial as she drew it forth.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Oh, Adelaide!’ I began; but she heeded me no more than the dead.</p>
+
+<p>“On leaving home, she had put on a long coat with pockets and this coat
+was still on her, and the pockets gaping. Thrusting her other hand into
+one of these, she drew out a little flask covered with wicker, and set
+it on a stand beside her. Then she pulled out two small glasses, and
+set them down also, and then she turned her back. I could hear the
+drop, drop of the liquor; and, dark as the room was, it seemed to turn
+darker, till I put out my hands like one groping in a sudden night. But
+everything cleared before me when she turned around again. Features set
+like hers force themselves to be seen.</p>
+
+<p>“She advanced, a glass in either hand. As she came, the floor swayed,
+and the walls seemed to bow together; but they did not sway her. Step
+by step, she drew near, and when she reached my side she smiled in
+my face once. Then she said: ‘Choose aright, dear heart. Leave the
+poisoned one for me.’</p>
+
+<p>“Fascinated, I stared at one glass, then at the other. Had either of
+her hands trembled, I should have grasped at the glass it held; but not
+a tremor shook those icy fingers, nor did her eyes wander to the right
+hand or to the left. ‘Adelaide!’ I shrieked out. ‘Toss them behind you.
+Let us live—live!’ But she only reiterated that awful word: ‘Choose!’
+and I dare not hesitate longer, lest I lose my chance to save her.
+Groping, I touched a glass—I never knew which one—and drawing it from
+her fingers, I lifted it to my mouth. Instantly her other hand rose. ‘I
+don’t know which is which, myself,’ she said, and drank. That made me
+drink, also.</p>
+
+<p>“The two glasses sent out a clicking sound as we set them back on the
+stand. Then we waited, looking at each other. ‘Which?’ her lips seemed
+to say. ‘Which?’ In another moment we knew. ‘Your choice was the right
+one,’ said she, and she sank back into a chair. ‘Don’t leave me!’ she
+called out, for I was about to run shrieking out into the night. ‘I—I
+am happy now that it is all settled; but I do not want to die alone.
+Oh, how hot I am!’ And leaping up, she flung off her coat, and went
+gasping about the room for air. When she sank down again, it was on
+the lounge; and again I tried to fly for help, and again she would not
+let me. Suddenly she started up, and I saw a great change in her. The
+heavy, leaden look was gone; tenderness had come back to her eyes,
+and a human anxious expression to her whole face. ‘I have been mad!’
+she cried. ‘Carmel, Carmel, what have I done to you, my more than
+sister—my child, my child!’</p>
+
+<p>“I tried to soothe her—to keep down my awful fear and soothe her. But
+the nearness of death had calmed her poor heart into its old love and
+habitual thoughtfulness. She was terrified at my position. She recalled
+our mother, and the oath she had taken at that mother’s death-bed to
+protect me and care for me and my brother. ‘And I have failed to do
+either,’ she cried. ‘Arthur, I have alienated, and you I am leaving to
+unknown trouble and danger,’</p>
+
+<p>“She was not to be comforted. I saw her life ebbing and could do
+nothing. She clung to me while she called up all her powers, and made
+plans for me and showed me a way of escape. I was to burn the note,
+fling two of the glasses from the window and leave the other and the
+deadly phial near her hand. This, before I left the room. Then I was to
+call up the police and say there was something wrong at the club-house,
+but I was not to give my name or ever acknowledge I was there. ‘Nothing
+can save trouble,’ she said, ‘but that trouble must not come near you.
+Swear that you will heed my words—swear that you will do what I say,’</p>
+
+<p>“I swore. All that she asked I promised. I was almost dying, too;
+and had the light gone out and the rafters of the house fallen in
+and buried us both, it would have been better. But the light burned
+on, and the life in her eyes faded out, and the hands grasping mine
+relaxed. I heard one little gasp; then a low prayer: ‘Tell Arthur
+never—never—again to—’ Then—silence!”</p>
+
+<p>Sobs—cries—veiled faces—then silence in the courtroom, too. It was
+broken but by one sound, a heartrending sigh from the prisoner. But
+nobody looked at him, and thank God!—nobody looked at me. Every eye
+was on the face of this young girl, whose story bore such an impress
+of truth, and yet was so contradictory of all former evidence. What
+revelations were yet to follow. It would seem that she was speaking of
+her sister’s death.</p>
+
+<p>But her sister had not died that way; her sister had been strangled.
+Could this dainty creature, with beauty scarred and yet powerfully
+triumphant, be the victim of an hallucination as to the cause of that
+scar and the awesome circumstances which attended its infliction?
+Or, harder still to believe, were these soul-compelling tones, these
+evidences of grief, this pathetic yielding to the rights of the law
+in face of the heart’s natural shrinking from disclosures sacred as
+they were tragic—were these the medium by which she sought to mislead
+justice and to conceal truth?</p>
+
+<p>Even I, with my memory of her looks as she faltered down the staircase
+on that memorable night—pale, staring, her left hand to her cheek and
+rocking from side to side in pain or terror—could not but ask if this
+heart-rending story did not involve a still more terrible sequel. I
+searched her face, and racked my very soul, in my effort to discern
+what lay beneath this angelic surface—beneath this recital which if it
+were true and the whole truth, would call not only for the devotion of
+a lifetime, but a respect transcending love and elevating it to worship.</p>
+
+<p>But, in her cold and quiet features, I could detect nothing beyond the
+melancholy of grief; and the suspense from which all suffered, kept me
+also on the rack, until at a question from Mr. Moffat she spoke again,
+and we heard her say:</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, she died that way, with her hands in mine. There was no one else
+by; we were quite alone.”</p>
+
+<p>That settled it, and for a moment the revulsion of feeling threatened
+to throw the court into tumult. But one thing restrained them. Not the
+look of astonishment on her face, not the startled uplift of Arthur’s
+head, not the quiet complacency which in an instant replaced the
+defeated aspect of the district attorney; but the gesture and attitude
+of Mr. Moffat, the man who had put her on the stand, and who now from
+the very force of his personality, kept the storm in abeyance, and by
+his own composure, forced back attention to his witness and to his own
+confidence in his case. This result reached, he turned again towards
+Carmel, with renewed respect in his manner and a marked softening in
+his aspect and voice.</p>
+
+<p>“Can you fix the hour of this occurrence?” he asked. “In any way can
+you locate the time?”</p>
+
+<p>“No; for I did not move at once. I felt tied to that couch; I am very
+young, and I had never seen death before. When I did get up, I hobbled
+like an old woman and almost went distracted; but came to myself as I
+saw the note on the floor—the note I was told to burn. Lifting it, I
+moved towards the fireplace, but got a fright on the way, and stopped
+in the middle of the floor and looked back. I thought I had heard my
+sister speak!</p>
+
+<p>“But the fancy passed as I saw how still she lay, and I went on, after
+a while, and threw the note into the one small flame which was all that
+was left of the fire. I saw it caught by a draught from the door behind
+me, and go flaming up the chimney.</p>
+
+<p>“Some of my trouble seemed to go with it, but a great one yet remained.
+I didn’t know how I could ever turn around again and see my sister
+lying there behind me, with her face fixed in death, for which I was,
+in a way, responsible. I was abjectly frightened, and knelt there a
+long time, praying and shuddering, before I could rise again to my
+feet and move about as I had to, since God had not stricken me and I
+must live my life and do what my sister had bidden me. Courage—such
+courage as I had had—was all gone from me now; and while I knew there
+was something else for me to do before I left the room, I could not
+remember what it was, and stood hesitating, dreading to lift my eyes
+and yet feeling that I ought to, if only to aid my memory by a look at
+my sister’s face.</p>
+
+<p>“Suddenly I did look up, but it did not aid my memory; and, realising
+that I could never think with that lifeless figure before me, I lifted
+a pillow from the window-seat near by and covered her face. I must
+have done more; I must have covered the whole lounge with pillows and
+cushions; for, presently my mind cleared again, and I recollected
+that it was something about the poison. I was to put the phial in her
+hand—or was I to throw it from the window? Something was to be thrown
+from the window—it must be the phial. But I couldn’t lift the window,
+so having found the phial standing on the table beside the little
+flask, I carried it into the closet where there was a window opening
+inward, and I dropped it out of that, and thought I had done all. But
+when I came back and saw Adelaide’s coat lying in a heap where she had
+thrown it, I recalled that she had said something about this but what,
+I didn’t know. So I lifted it and put it in the closet—why, I cannot
+say. Then I set my mind on going home.</p>
+
+<p>“But there was something to do first—something not in that room. It
+was a long time before it came to me; then the sight of the empty
+hall recalled it. The door by which Adelaide had come in had never
+been closed, and as I went towards it I remembered the telephone, and
+that I was to call up the police. Lifting the candle, I went creeping
+towards the front hall. Adelaide had commanded me, or I could never
+have accomplished this task. I had to open a door; and when it swung to
+behind me and latched, I turned around and looked at it, as if I never
+expected it to open again. I almost think I fainted, if one can faint
+standing, for when I knew anything, after the appalling latching of
+that door, I was in quite another part of the room and the candle which
+I still held, looked to my dazed eyes shorter than when I started with
+it from the place where my sister lay.</p>
+
+<p>“I was wasting time. The thought drove me to the table. I caught up
+the receiver and when central answered, I said something about The
+Whispering Pines and wanting help. This is all I remember about that.</p>
+
+<p>“Some time afterward—I don’t know when—I was stumbling down the
+stairs on my way out. I had gone to—to the room again for my little
+bag; for the keys were in it, and I dared not leave them. But I didn’t
+stay a minute, and I cast but one glance at the lounge. What happened
+afterward is like a dream to me. I found the horse; the horse found the
+road; and some time later I reached home. As I came within sight of the
+house I grew suddenly strong again. The open stable door reminded me of
+my duty, and driving in, I quickly unharnessed Jenny and put her away.
+Then I dragged the cutter into place, and hung up the harness. Lastly,
+I locked the door and carried the key with me into the house and hung
+it up on its usual nail in the kitchen. I had obeyed Adelaide, and now
+I would go to my room. That is what she would wish; but I don’t know
+whether I did this or not. My mind was full of Adelaide till confusion
+came—then darkness—and then a perfect blank.”</p>
+
+<p>She had finished; she had done as she had been asked; she had told the
+story of that evening as she knew it, from the family dinner till her
+return home after midnight—and the mystery of Adelaide’s death was
+as great as ever. Did she realise this? Had I wronged this lovely,
+tempestuous nature by suspicions which this story put to blush? I
+was happy to think so—madly, unreasonably happy. Whatever happened,
+whatever the future threatening Arthur or myself, it was rapture to be
+restored to right thinking as regards this captivating and youthful
+spirit, who had suffered and must suffer always—and all through me,
+who thought it a pleasant pastime to play with hearts, and awoke to
+find I was playing with souls, and those of the two noblest women I had
+ever known!</p>
+
+<p>The cutting in of some half dozen questions from Mr. Moffat, which I
+scarcely heard and which did not at all affect the status of the case
+as it now stood, served to cool down the emotional element, which had
+almost superseded the judicial, in more minds than those of the jury;
+and having thus prepared his witness for an examination at other and
+less careful hands, he testified his satisfaction at her replies, and
+turned her over to the prosecution, with the time-worn phrase:</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. District Attorney, the witness is yours.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fox at once arose; the moment was ripe for conquest. He put his
+most vital question first:</p>
+
+<p>“In all this interview with your sister, did you remark any
+discoloration on her throat?”</p>
+
+<p>The witness’s lips opened; surprise spoke from her every feature.
+“Discoloration?” she repeated. “I do not know what you mean.”</p>
+
+<p>“Any marks darker than the rest of her skin on her throat or neck?”</p>
+
+<p>“No. Adelaide had a spotless skin. It looked like marble as she lay
+there. No, I saw no marks.”</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, have you heard or read a full account of this trial?”</p>
+
+<p>She was trembling, now. Was it from fear of the truth, or under that
+terror of the unknown embodied in this question.</p>
+
+<p>“I do not know,” said she. “What I heard was from my nurse and Mr.
+Moffat. I read very little, and that was only about the first days of
+the trial and the swearing in of jurors. This is the first time I have
+heard any mention made of marks, and I do not understand yet what you
+allude to.”</p>
+
+<p>District Attorney Fox cast at Mr. Moffat an eloquent glance, which that
+gentleman bore unmoved; then turning back to the witness, he addressed
+her in milder and more considerate tones than were usually heard from
+him in cross-examination, and asked: “Did you hold your sister’s hands
+all the time she lay dying, as you thought, on the lounge?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“And did not see her raise them once?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, no.”</p>
+
+<p>“How was it when you let go of them? Where did they fall then?”</p>
+
+<p>“On her breast. I laid them down softly and crossed them. I did not
+leave her till I had done this and closed her eyes.”</p>
+
+<p>“And what did you do then?”</p>
+
+<p>“I went for the note, to burn it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, in your direct examination, you said that you stopped
+still as you crossed the floor at the time, thinking that your sister
+called, and that you looked back at her to see.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Were her hands crossed then?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir, just the same.”</p>
+
+<p>“And afterward, when you came from the fire after waiting some little
+time for courage?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, yes. There were no signs of movement. Oh, she was dead—quite
+dead.”</p>
+
+<p>“No statements, Miss Cumberland. She looked the same, and you saw no
+change in the position of her hands?”</p>
+
+<p>“None; they were just as I left them.”</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, you have told us how, immediately after taking the
+poison, she staggered about the room, and sank first on a chair and
+then on the lounge. Were you watching her then?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes—every moment.”</p>
+
+<p>“Her hands as well as her face?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know about her hands. I should have observed it if she had
+done anything strange with them.”</p>
+
+<p>“Can you say she did not clutch or grip her throat during any of this
+time?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, yes. I couldn’t have forgotten it, if she had done that. I
+remember every move she made so well. She didn’t do that.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fox’s eye stole towards the jury. To a man, they were alert,
+anxious for the next question, and serious, as the arbitrators of a
+man’s life ought to be.</p>
+
+<p>Satisfied, he put the question: “When, after telephoning, you returned
+to the room where your sister lay, you glanced at the lounge?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I could not help it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was it in the same condition as when you left—the pillows, I mean?”</p>
+
+<p>“I—I think so. I cannot say; I only half looked; I was terrified by
+it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Can you say they had not been disturbed?”</p>
+
+<p>“No. I can say nothing. But what does—”</p>
+
+<p>“Only the answer, Miss Cumberland. Can you tell us how those pillows
+were arranged?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m afraid not. I threw them down quickly, madly, just as I collected
+them. I only know that I put the window cushion down first. The rest
+fell anyhow; but they quite covered her—quite.”</p>
+
+<p>“Hands and face?”</p>
+
+<p>“Her whole body.”</p>
+
+<p>“And did they cover her quite when you came back?”</p>
+
+<p>“They must have—Wait—wait! I know I have no right to say that, but I
+cannot swear that I saw any change.”</p>
+
+<p>“Can you swear that there was no change—that the pillows and the
+window cushion lay just as they did when you left the room?”</p>
+
+<p>She did not answer. Horror seemed to have seized hold of her. Her
+eyes, fixed on the attorney’s face, wavered and, had they followed
+their natural impulse, would have turned towards her brother, but her
+fear—possibly her love—was her counsellor and she brought them back
+to Mr. Fox. Resolutely, but with a shuddering insight of the importance
+of her reply, she answered with that one weighty monosyllable which can
+crush so many hopes, and even wreck a life:</p>
+
+<p>“No.”</p>
+
+<p>At the next moment she was in Dr. Carpenter’s arms. Her strength had
+given way for the time, and the court was hastily adjourned, to give
+her opportunity for rest and recuperation.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXXI">XXXI<br><span class="small">“WERE HER HANDS CROSSED THEN?”</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">Threescore and ten I can remember well:<br>
+Within the volume of which time, I have seen<br>
+Hours dreadful, and things strange; but this sore night<br>
+Hath trifled former knowledge.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Macbeth</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>I shall say nothing about myself at this juncture. That will come
+later. I have something of quite different purport to relate.</p>
+
+<p>When I left the court-room with the other witnesses, I noticed a man
+standing near the district attorney. He was a very plain man—with no
+especial claims to attention, that I could see, yet I looked at him
+longer than I did at any one else, and turned and looked at him again
+as I passed through the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>Afterward I heard that he was Sweetwater, the detective from New
+York who had had so much to do in unearthing the testimony against
+Arthur,—testimony which in the light of this morning’s revelations,
+had taken on quite a new aspect, as he was doubtless the first to
+acknowledge. It was the curious blending of professional disappointment
+and a personal and characteristic appreciation of the surprising
+situation, which made me observe him, I suppose. Certainly my heart
+and mind were full enough not to waste looks on a commonplace stranger
+unless there had been some such overpowering reason.</p>
+
+<p>I left him still talking to Mr. Fox, and later received this account of
+the interview which followed between them and Dr. Perry.</p>
+
+<p>“Is this girl telling the truth?” asked District Attorney Fox, as soon
+as the three were closeted and each could speak his own mind. “Doctor,
+what do you think?”</p>
+
+<p>“I do not question her veracity in the least. A woman who for purely
+moral reasons could defy pain and risk the loss of a beauty universally
+acknowledged as transcendent, would never stoop to falsehood even in
+her desire to save a brother’s life. I have every confidence in her.
+Fox, and I think you may safely have the same.”</p>
+
+<p>“You believe that she burnt herself—intentionally?”</p>
+
+<p>“I wouldn’t disbelieve it—you may think me sentimental; I knew and
+loved her father—for any fortune you might name.”</p>
+
+<p>“Say that you never knew her father; say that you had no more interest
+in the girl or the case, than the jurors have? What then—-?</p>
+
+<p>“I should believe her for humanity’s sake; for the sake of the
+happiness it gives one to find something true and strong in this sordid
+work-a-day world—a jewel in a dust-heap. Oh, I’m a sentimentalist, I
+acknowledge.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fox turned to Sweetwater. “And you?”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Fox, have you those tongs?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I forgot; they were brought to my office, with the other
+exhibits. I attached no importance to them, and you will probably find
+them just where I thrust them into the box marked ‘Cumb.’”</p>
+
+<p>They were in the district attorney’s office, and Sweetwater at once
+rose and brought forward the tongs.</p>
+
+<p>“There is my answer,” he said pointing significantly at one of the legs.</p>
+
+<p>The district attorney turned pale, and motioned Sweetwater to carry
+them back. He sat silent for a moment, and then showed that he was a
+man.</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland has my respect,” said he.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater came back to his place.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Perry waited.</p>
+
+<p>Finally Mr. Fox turned to him and put the anticipated question:</p>
+
+<p>“You are satisfied with your autopsy? Miss Cumberland’s death was due
+to strangulation and not to the poison she took?”</p>
+
+<p>“That was what I swore to, and what I should have to swear to again
+if you placed me back on the stand. The poison, taken with her great
+excitement, robbed her of consciousness, but there was too little of
+it, or it was too old and weakened to cause death. She would probably
+have revived, in time; possibly did revive. But the clutch of those
+fingers was fatal; she could not survive it. It costs me more than
+you can ever understand to say this, but questions like yours must be
+answered. I should not be an honest man otherwise.”</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater made a movement. Mr. Fox turned and looked at him critically.</p>
+
+<p>“Speak out,” said he.</p>
+
+<p>But Sweetwater had nothing to say.</p>
+
+<p>Neither had Dr. Perry. The oppression of an unsolved problem, involving
+lives of whose value each formed a different estimate, was upon them
+all; possibly heaviest upon the district attorney, the most serious
+portion of whose work lay still before him.</p>
+
+<p>To the relief of all, Carmel was physically stronger than we expected
+when she came to retake the stand in the afternoon. But she had lost
+a little of her courage. Her expectation of clearing her brother at
+a word had left her, and with it the excitation of hope. Yet she
+made a noble picture as she sat there, meeting, without a blush, but
+with an air of sweet humility impossible to describe, the curious,
+all-devouring glances of the multitude, some of them anxious to repeat
+the experience of the morning; some of them new to the court, to her,
+and the cause for which she stood.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fox kept nobody waiting. With a gentleness such as he seldom showed
+to any witness for the defence, he resumed his cross-examination by
+propounding the following question:</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, in your account of the final interview you had with
+your sister, you alluded to a story you had once read together. Will
+you tell us the name of this story?”</p>
+
+<p>“It was called ‘A Legend of Francis the First.’ It was not a novel, but
+a little tale she found in some old magazine. It had a great effect
+upon us; I have never forgotten it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Can you relate this tale to us in a few words?”</p>
+
+<p>“I will try. It was very simple; it merely told how a young girl marred
+her beauty to escape the attentions of the great king, and what respect
+he always showed her after that, even calling her sister.”</p>
+
+<p>Was the thrill in her voice or in my own heart, or in the
+story—emphasised as it was by her undeniable attempt upon her own
+beauty? As that last word fell so softly, yet with such tender
+suggestion, a sensation of sympathy passed between us for the first
+time; and I knew, from the purity of her look and the fearlessness of
+this covert appeal to one she could not address openly, that the doubts
+I had cherished of her up to this very moment were an outrage and that
+were it possible or seemly, I should be bowed down in the dust at her
+feet—in reality, as I was in spirit.</p>
+
+<p>Others may have shared my feeling; for the glances which flew from her
+face to mine were laden with an appreciation of the situation, which
+for the moment drove the prisoner from the minds of all, and centred
+attention on this tragedy of souls, bared in so cruel a way to the
+curiosity of the crowd. I could not bear it. The triumph of my heart
+battled with the shame of my fault, and I might have been tempted into
+some act of manifest imprudence, if Mr. Fox had not cut my misery short
+by recalling attention to the witness, with a question of the most
+vital importance.</p>
+
+<p>“While you were holding your sister’s hands in what you supposed to be
+her final moments, did you observe whether or not she still wore on her
+finger the curious ring given her by Mr. Ranelagh, and known as her
+engagement ring?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes—I not only saw it, but felt it. It was the only one she wore on
+her left hand.”</p>
+
+<p>The district attorney paused. This was an admission unexpected,
+perhaps, by himself, which it was desirable to have sink into the minds
+of the jury. The ring had not been removed by Adelaide herself; it
+was still on her finger as the last hour drew nigh. An awful fact, if
+established—telling seriously against Arthur. Involuntarily I glanced
+his way. He was looking at me. The mutual glance struck fire. What I
+thought, he thought—but possibly with a difference. The moment was
+surcharged with emotion for all but the witness herself. She was calm;
+perhaps she did not understand the significance of the occasion.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fox pressed his advantage.</p>
+
+<p>“And when you rose from the lounge and crossed your sister’s hands?”</p>
+
+<p>“It was still there; I put that hand uppermost.”</p>
+
+<p>“And left the ring on?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes—oh, yes.” Her whole attitude and face were full of protest.</p>
+
+<p>“So that, to the best of your belief, it was still on your sister’s
+finger when you left the room?”</p>
+
+<p>“Certainly, sir, certainly.”</p>
+
+<p>There was alarm in her tone now, she was beginning to see that her
+testimony was not as entirely helpful to Arthur as she had been led
+to expect. In her helplessness, she cast a glance of entreaty at her
+brother’s counsel. But he was busily occupied with pencil and paper,
+and she received no encouragement unless it was from his studiously
+composed manner and general air of unconcern. She did not know—nor did
+I know then—what uneasiness such an air may cover.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fox had followed her glances, and perhaps understood his adversary
+better than she did; for he drew himself up with an appearance of
+satisfaction as he asked very quietly:</p>
+
+<p>“What material did you use in lighting the fire on the club-house
+hearth?”</p>
+
+<p>“Wood from the box, and a little kindling I found there.”</p>
+
+<p>“How large was this kindling?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not very large; some few stray pieces of finer wood I picked out from
+she rest.”</p>
+
+<p>“And how did you light these?”</p>
+
+<p>“With some scraps of paper I brought in my bag?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh—you brought scraps?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes. I had seen the box, seen the wood, but knew the wood would not
+kindle without paper. So I brought some.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did the fire light quickly?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not very quickly.”</p>
+
+<p>“You had trouble with it?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir. But I made it burn at last.”</p>
+
+<p>“Are you in the habit of kindling fires in your own home?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, on the hearth.”</p>
+
+<p>“You understand them?”</p>
+
+<p>“I have always found it a very simple matter, if you have paper and
+enough kindling.”</p>
+
+<p>“And the draught is good.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Wasn’t the draught good at the club-house?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not at first.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh—not at first. When did you see a change?”</p>
+
+<p>“When the note I was trying to burn flew up the chimney.”</p>
+
+<p>“I see. Was that after or before the door opened?”</p>
+
+<p>“After.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did the opening of this door alter the temperature of the room?”</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot say; I felt neither heat nor cold at any time.”</p>
+
+<p>“Didn’t you feel the icy cold when you opened the dressing-closet
+window to throw out the phial?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t remember.”</p>
+
+<p>“Wouldn’t you remember if you had?”</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot say.”</p>
+
+<p>“Can you say whether you noticed any especial chill in the hall when
+you went out to telephone?”</p>
+
+<p>“My teeth were chattering but—”</p>
+
+<p>“Had they chattered before?”</p>
+
+<p>“They may have. I only noticed it then; but—”</p>
+
+<p>“The facts, Miss Cumberland. Your teeth chattered while you were
+passing through the hall. Did this keep up after you entered the room
+where you found the telephone?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t remember; I was almost insensible.”</p>
+
+<p>“You don’t remember that they did?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“But you do remember having shut the door behind you?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>An open window in the hall! That was what he was trying to prove—open
+at this time. From the expression of such faces of the jury as I could
+see, I think he had proved it. The next point he made was in the same
+line. Had she, in all the time she was in the building, heard any
+noises she could not account for?</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, many times.”</p>
+
+<p>“Can you describe these noises?”</p>
+
+<p>“No; they were of all kinds. The pines sighed continually; I knew it
+was the pines, but I had to listen. Once I heard a rushing sound—it
+was when the pines stopped swaying for an instant—but I don’t know
+what it was. It was all very dreadful.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was this rushing sound such as a window might make on being opened?”</p>
+
+<p>“Possibly. I didn’t think of it at the time, but it might have been.”</p>
+
+<p>“From what direction did it come?”</p>
+
+<p>“Back of me, for I turned my head about.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where were you at the time?”</p>
+
+<p>“At the hearth. It was before Adelaide came in.”</p>
+
+<p>“A near sound, or a far?”</p>
+
+<p>“Far, but I cannot locate it—indeed, I cannot. I forgot it in a
+moment.”</p>
+
+<p>“But you remember it now?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“And cannot you remember <i>now</i> any other noises than those you speak
+of? That time you stepped into the hall—when your teeth chattered, you
+know—did you hear nothing then but the sighing of the pines?”</p>
+
+<p>She looked startled. Her hands went up and one of them clutched at her
+throat, then they fell, and slowly—carefully—like one feeling his
+way—she answered:</p>
+
+<p>“I had forgotten. I did hear something—a sound in one of the doorways.
+It was very faint—a sigh—a—a—I don’t know what. It conveyed nothing
+to me then, and not much now. But you asked, and I have answered.”</p>
+
+<p>“You have done right, Miss Cumberland. The jury ought to know these
+facts. Was it a human sigh?”</p>
+
+<p>“It wasn’t the sigh of the pines.”</p>
+
+<p>“And you heard it in one of the doorways? Which doorway?”</p>
+
+<p>“The one opposite the room in which I left my sister.”</p>
+
+<p>“The doorway to the large hall?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>Oh, the sinister memories! The moments which I myself had spent
+there—after this time of her passing through the hall, thank God!—but
+not long after. And some one had been there before me! Was it Arthur? I
+hardly had the courage to interrogate his face, but when I did, I, like
+every one else who looked that way, met nothing but the quietude of a
+fully composed man. There was nothing to be learned from him now; the
+hour for self-betrayal was past. I began to have a hideous doubt.</p>
+
+<p>Carmel being innocent, who could be guilty but he. I knew of no one.
+The misery under which I had suffered was only lightened, not removed.
+We were still to see evil days. The prosecution would prove its case,
+and—But there was Mr. Moffat. I must not reckon without Moffat. He had
+sprung one surprise. Was he not capable of springing another? Relieved,
+I fixed my mind again upon the proceedings. What was Mr. Fox asking her
+now?</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, are you ready to swear that you did not hear a step
+at that time?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Or see a face?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“That you only heard a sigh?”</p>
+
+<p>“A sigh, or something like one.”</p>
+
+<p>“Which made you stop—”</p>
+
+<p>“No, I did not stop.”</p>
+
+<p>“You went right on?”</p>
+
+<p>“Immediately.”</p>
+
+<p>“Entering the telephone room?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“The door of which you shut?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“Intentionally?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, not intentionally.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you shut that door yourself?”</p>
+
+<p>“I do not know. I must have but I—”</p>
+
+<p>“Never mind explanations. You do not know whether you shut it, or
+whether some one else shut it?”</p>
+
+<p>“I do not.”</p>
+
+<p>The words fell weightily. They seemed to strike every heart.</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, you have said that you telephoned for the police.”</p>
+
+<p>“I telephoned to central.”</p>
+
+<p>“For help?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, for help.”</p>
+
+<p>“You were some minutes doing this, you say?”</p>
+
+<p>“I have reason to think so, but I don’t know definitely. The candle
+seemed shorter when I went out than when I came in.”</p>
+
+<p>“Are you sure you telephoned for help?”</p>
+
+<p>“Help was what I wanted—help for my sister. I do not remember my
+words.”</p>
+
+<p>“And then you left the building?”</p>
+
+<p>“After going for my little bag.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you see any one then?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Hear any one?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you see your sister again?”</p>
+
+<p>“I have said that I just glanced at the couch.”</p>
+
+<p>“Were the pillows there?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Just as you had left them?”</p>
+
+<p>“I have said that I could not tell.”</p>
+
+<p>“Wouldn’t you know if they had been disturbed?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir—not from the look I gave them.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then they might have been disturbed—might even have been
+rearranged—-without your knowing it?”</p>
+
+<p>“They might.”</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, when you left the building, did you leave it alone?”</p>
+
+<p>“I did.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was the moon shining?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, it was snowing.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did the moon shine when you went to throw the phial out of the window?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, very brightly.”</p>
+
+<p>“Bright enough for you to see the links?”</p>
+
+<p>“I didn’t look at the links.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where were you looking?”</p>
+
+<p>“Behind me.”</p>
+
+<p>“When you threw the phial out?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“What was there behind you?”</p>
+
+<p>“A dead sister.” Oh, the indescribable tone!</p>
+
+<p>“Nothing else?”</p>
+
+<p>“No.”</p>
+
+<p>“Forgive me, Miss Cumberland, I do not want to trouble you, but was
+there not something or some one in the adjoining room besides your dead
+sister, to make you look back?”</p>
+
+<p>“I saw no one. But I looked back—I do not know why.”</p>
+
+<p>“And didn’t you turn at all?”</p>
+
+<p>“I do not think so.”</p>
+
+<p>“You threw the phial out without looking?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“How do you know you threw it out?”</p>
+
+<p>“I felt it slip from my hand.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where?”</p>
+
+<p>“Over the window ledge. I had pulled the window open before I turned
+my head. I had only to feel for the sill. When I touched its edge, I
+opened my fingers.”</p>
+
+<p>Triumph for the defence. Cross-examination on this point had only
+served to elucidate a mysterious fact. The position of the phial,
+caught in the vines, was accounted for in a very natural manner.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fox shifted his inquiries.</p>
+
+<p>“You have said that you wore a hat and coat of your brother’s in coming
+to the club-house? Did you keep these articles on?”</p>
+
+<p>“No; I left them in the lower hall.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where in the lower hall?”</p>
+
+<p>“On the rack there.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was your candle lit?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not then, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yet you found the rack?”</p>
+
+<p>“I felt for it. I knew where it was.”</p>
+
+<p>“When did you light the candle?”</p>
+
+<p>“After I hung up the coat.”</p>
+
+<p>“And when you came down? Did you have the candle then?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, for a while. But I didn’t have any light when I went for the coat
+and hat. I remember feeling all along the wall. I don’t know what I did
+with the candlestick or the candle. I had them on the stairs; I didn’t
+have them when I put on the coat and hat.”</p>
+
+<p>I knew what she did with them. She flung them out of her hand upon the
+marble floor. Should I ever forget the darkness swallowing up that face
+of mental horror and physical suffering.</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, you are sure about having telephoned for help, and
+that you mentioned The Whispering Pines in doing so?”</p>
+
+<p>“Quite sure.” Oh, what weariness was creeping into her voice!</p>
+
+<p>“Then, of course, you left the door unlocked when you went out of the
+building?”</p>
+
+<p>“No—no, I didn’t. I had the key and I locked it. But I didn’t realise
+this till I went to untie my horse; then I found the keys in my hand.
+But I didn’t go back.”</p>
+
+<p>“Do you mean that you didn’t know you locked the door?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t remember whether I knew or not at the time. I do remember
+being surprised and a little frightened when I saw the keys. But I
+didn’t go back.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yet you had telephoned for the police?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“And then locked them out?”</p>
+
+<p>“I didn’t care—I didn’t care.”</p>
+
+<p>An infinite number of questions followed. The poor child was near
+fainting, but bore up wonderfully notwithstanding, contradicting
+herself but seldom; and then only from lack of understanding the
+question, or from sheer fatigue. Mr. Fox was considerate, and Mr.
+Moffat interrupted but seldom. All could see that this noble-hearted
+girl, this heroine of all hearts was trying to tell the truth, and
+sympathy was with her, even that of the prosecution. But certain facts
+had to be brought out, among them the blowing off of her hat on that
+hurried drive home through the ever thickening snow-storm—a fact
+easily accounted for, when one considered the thick coils of hair over
+which it had been drawn.</p>
+
+<p>The circumstances connected with her arrival at the house were all
+carefully sifted, but nothing new came up, nor was her credibility as
+a witness shaken. The prosecution had lost much by this witness, but
+it had also gained. No doubt now remained that the ring was still on
+the victim’s hand when she succumbed to the effects of the poison; and
+the possibility of another presence in the house during the fateful
+interview just recorded, had been strengthened, rather than lessened,
+by Carmel’ s hesitating admissions. And so the question hung poised,
+and I was expecting to see her dismissed from the stand, when the
+district attorney settled himself again into his accustomed attitude of
+inquiry, and launched this new question:</p>
+
+<p>“When you went into the stable to unharness your horse, what did you do
+with the little bag you carried?”</p>
+
+<p>“I took it out of the cutter.”</p>
+
+<p>“What, then?”</p>
+
+<p>“Set it down somewhere.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was there anything in the bag?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not now. I had left the tongs at the club-house, and the paper I had
+burned. I took nothing else.”</p>
+
+<p>“How about the candlestick?”</p>
+
+<p>“That I carried in one of the pockets of my coat. That I left, too.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was that all you carried in your pockets?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes—the candlestick and the candle. The candlestick on one side and
+the candle on the other.”</p>
+
+<p>“And these you did not have on your return?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, I left both.”</p>
+
+<p>“So that your pockets were empty—entirely empty—when you drove into
+your own gate?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir, so far as I know. I never looked into them.”</p>
+
+<p>“And felt nothing there?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Took nothing out?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then or when you unharnessed your horse, or afterward, as you passed
+back to the house?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“What path did you take in returning to the house?”</p>
+
+<p>“There is only one.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you walk straight through it?”</p>
+
+<p>“As straight as I could. It was snowing heavily, and I was dizzy and
+felt strange, I may have zigzagged a little.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you zigzag enough to go back of the stable?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, no.”</p>
+
+<p>“You are sure that you did not wander in back of the stable?”</p>
+
+<p>“As sure as I can be of anything.”</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, I have but a few more questions to ask. Will you look
+at this portion of a broken bottle?”</p>
+
+<p>“I see it, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Will you take it in your hand and examine it carefully?”</p>
+
+<p>She reached out her hand; it was trembling visibly and her face
+expressed a deep distress, but she took the piece of broken bottle and
+looked at it before passing it back.</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, did you ever see that bit of broken glass before?”</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head. Then she cast a quick look at her brother, and
+seemed to gain an instantaneous courage.</p>
+
+<p>“No,” said she. “I may have seen a whole bottle like that, at some time
+in the club-house, but I have no memory of this broken end—none at
+all.”</p>
+
+<p>“I am obliged to you, Miss Cumberland. I will trouble you no more
+to-day.”</p>
+
+<p>Then he threw up his head and smiled a slow, sarcastic smile at Mr.
+Moffat.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXXII">XXXII<br><span class="small">AND I HAD SAID NOTHING!</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">O my soul’s joy!<br>
+If after every tempest come such calms<br>
+May the winds blow till they have wakened death!</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Othello</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>I had always loved her; that I knew even in the hour of my darkest
+suspicion—but now I felt free to worship her. As the thought
+penetrated my whole being, it made the night gladsome. Whatever awaited
+her, whatever awaited Arthur, whatever awaited me, she had regenerated
+me. A change took place that night in my whole nature, in my aspect of
+life and my view of women. One fact rode triumphant above all other
+considerations and possible distresses. Fate—I was more inclined now
+to call it Providence—had shown me the heart of a great and true
+woman; and I was free to expend all my best impulses in honouring her
+and loving her, whether she ever looked my way again, received or even
+acknowledged a homage growing out of such wrong as I had done her
+and her unfortunate sister. It set a star in my firmament. It turned
+down all the ill-written and besmirched leaves in my book of life and
+opened up a new page on which her name, written in letters of gold,
+demanded clean work in the future and a record which should not shame
+the aura surrounding that pure name. Sorrow for the past, dread of the
+future—both were lost in the glad rebound of my distracted soul. The
+night was dedicated to joy, and to joy alone.</p>
+
+<p>The next day being Sunday, I had ample time for the reaction bound to
+follow hours of such exaltation. I had no wish for company. I even
+denied myself to Clifton. The sight of a human face was more than I
+could bear unless it were the one face; and that I could not hope
+for. But the desire to see her, to hear from her—if only to learn
+how she had endured the bitter ordeal of the day before—soon became
+unbearable. I must know this much at any cost to her feelings or to
+mine.</p>
+
+<p>After many a struggle with myself, I called up Dr. Carpenter on the
+telephone. From him I learned that she was physically prostrated, but
+still clear in mind and satisfied of her brother’s innocence. This
+latter statement might mean anything; but imparted by him to me, it
+seemed to be capable of but one interpretation. I must be prepared for
+whatever distrust of myself this confidence carried with it.</p>
+
+<p>This was intolerable. I had to speak; I had to inquire if she had yet
+heard the real reason why I was the first to be arrested.</p>
+
+<p>A decided “No,” cut short that agony. I could breathe again and proffer
+a humble request.</p>
+
+<p>“Doctor, I cannot approach her; I cannot even write,—it would seem too
+presumptuous. But tell her, as you find the opportunity, how I honour
+her. Do not let her remain under the impression that I am not capable
+of truly feeling what she has borne and must still bear.”</p>
+
+<p>“I will do what I can,” was his reply, and he mercifully cut short the
+conversation.</p>
+
+<p>This was the event of the morning.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon I sat in my window thinking. My powers of reasoning
+had returned, and the insoluble problem of Adelaide’s murder occupied
+my whole mind. With Carmel innocent, who was there left to suspect?
+Not Arthur. His fingers were as guiltless as my own of those marks on
+her throat. Of this I was convinced, difficult as it made my future.
+My mind refused to see guilt in a man who could meet my eye with just
+the look he gave me on leaving the courtroom, at the conclusion of his
+sister’s triumphant examination. It was a momentary glance, but I read
+it, I am sure, quite truthfully.</p>
+
+<p>“You are the man,” it said; but not in the old, bitter, and revengeful
+way voiced by his tongue before we came together in the one effort to
+save Carmel from what, in our short-sightedness and misunderstanding
+of her character, we had looked upon as the worst of humiliations and
+the most desperate of perils. There was sadness in his conviction and
+an honest man’s regret—which, if noted by those about us—was far more
+dangerous to my good name than the loudest of denunciations or the most
+acrimonious of assaults. It put me in the worst of positions. But one
+chance remained for me now.</p>
+
+<p>The secret man of guilt might yet come to light; but how or through
+whose agency, I found myself unable to conceive. I had neither the wit
+nor the experience to untangle this confused web. Should I find the law
+in shape to deal with it? A few days would show. With the termination
+of Arthur’s trial, the story of my future would begin. Meanwhile, I
+must have patience and such strength as could be got from the present.</p>
+
+<p>And so the afternoon passed.</p>
+
+<p>With the coming on of night, my mood changed. I wanted air, movement.
+The closeness of my rooms had become unbearable. As soon as the lamps
+were lit in the street, I started out and I went—toward the cemetery.</p>
+
+<p>I had no motive in choosing this direction for my walk. The road was an
+open one, and I should neither avoid people nor escape the chilly blast
+blowing directly in my face from the northeast. Whim, or shall I not
+say, true feeling, carried me there though I was quite conscious, all
+the time, of a strong desire to see Ella Fulton and learn from her the
+condition of affairs—whether she was at peace, or in utter disgrace,
+with her parents.</p>
+
+<p>It was a cold night, as I have said, and there were but few people in
+the streets. On the boulevard I met nobody. As I neared the cemetery,
+I passed one man; otherwise I was, to all appearance, alone on this
+remote avenue. The effect was sinister, or my mood made it so; yet
+I did not hasten my steps; the hours till midnight had to be lived
+through in some way, and why not in this? No companion would have been
+welcome, and had the solitude been less perfect, I should have murmured
+at the prospect of intrusion.</p>
+
+<p>The cemetery gates were shut. This I had expected, but I did not
+need to enter the grounds to have a view of Adelaide’s grave. The
+Cumberland lot occupied a knoll in close proximity to the fence, and
+my only intention had been to pass this spot and cast one look within,
+in memory of Adelaide. To reach the place, however, I had to turn
+a corner, and on doing so I saw good reason, as I thought, for not
+carrying out my intention at this especial time.</p>
+
+<p>Some man—I could not recognise him from where I stood—had forestalled
+me. Though the night was a dark one, sufficient light shone from the
+scattered lamps on the opposite side of the way for me to discern his
+intent figure, crouching against the iron bars and gazing, with an
+intentness which made him entirely oblivious of my presence, at the
+very plot—and on the very grave—which had been the end of my own
+pilgrimage. So motionless he stood, and so motionless I myself became
+at this unexpected and significant sight, that I presently imagined I
+could hear his sighs in the dread quiet into which the whole scene had
+sunk.</p>
+
+<p>Grief, deeper than mine, spoke in those labouring breaths. Adelaide was
+mourned by some one as I, for all my remorse, could never mourn her.</p>
+
+<p><i>And I did not know the man</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Was not this strange enough to rouse my wonder?</p>
+
+<p>I thought so, and was on the point of satisfying this wonder by a quick
+advance upon this stranger, when there happened an uncanny thing,
+which held me in check from sheer astonishment. I was so placed, in
+reference to one of the street lamps I have already mentioned, that my
+shadow fell before me plainly along the snow. This had not attracted my
+attention until, at the point of moving, I cast my eyes down and saw
+two shadows where only one should be.</p>
+
+<p>As I had heard no one behind me, and had supposed myself entirely
+alone with the man absorbed in contemplation of Adelaide’s grave, I
+experienced a curious sensation which, without being fear, held me
+still for a moment, with my eyes on this second shadow. It did not
+move, any more than mine did. This was significant, and I turned.</p>
+
+<p>A man stood at my back—not looking at me but at the fellow in front
+of us. A quiet “hush!” sounded in my ear, and again I stood still. But
+only for an instant.</p>
+
+<p>The man at the fence—aroused by my movement, perhaps—had turned,
+and, seeing our two figures, started to fly in the opposite direction.
+Instinctively I darted forward in pursuit, but was soon passed by the
+man behind me. This caused me to slacken; for I had recognised this
+latter, as he flew by, as Sweetwater, the detective, and knew that he
+would do this work better than myself.</p>
+
+<p>But I reckoned without my host. He went only as far as the spot where
+the man had been standing. When, in my astonishment, I advanced upon
+him there, he wheeled about quite naturally in my direction and,
+accosting me by name, remarked, in his genial off-hand manner:</p>
+
+<p>“There is no need for us to tire our legs in a chase after that man. I
+know him well enough.”</p>
+
+<p>“And who—” I began.</p>
+
+<p>A quizzical smile answered me. The light was now in our faces, and I
+had a perfect view of his. Its expression quite disarmed me; but I
+knew, as well as if he had spoken, that I should receive no other reply
+to my half-formed question.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you going back into town?” he asked, as I paused and looked down
+at the umbrella swinging in his hand. I was sure that he had not held
+this umbrella when he started by me on the run. “If so, will you allow
+me to walk beside you for a little way?”</p>
+
+<p>I could not refuse him; besides, I was not sure that I wanted to.
+Homely as any man I had ever seen, there was a magnetic quality in his
+voice and manner that affected even one so fastidious as myself. I felt
+that I had rather talk to him, at that moment, than to any other person
+I knew. Of course, curiosity had something to do with it, and that
+community of interest which is the strongest bond that can link two
+people together.</p>
+
+<p>“You are quite welcome,” said I; and again cast my eye at the umbrella.</p>
+
+<p>“You are wondering where I got this,” he remarked, looking down at it
+in his turn. “I found it leaning against the fence. It gives me all the
+clue I need to our fleet-footed friend. Mr. Ranelagh, will you credit
+me with good intentions if I ask a question or two which you may or may
+not be willing to answer?”</p>
+
+<p>“You may ask what you will,” said I. “I have nothing to conceal, since
+hearing Miss Cumberland’s explanation of her presence at The Whispering
+Pines.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah!”</p>
+
+<p>The ejaculation was eloquent. So was the silence which followed it.
+Without good reason, perhaps, I felt the strain upon my heart loosen a
+little. Was it possible that I should find a friend in this man?</p>
+
+<p>“The question I am going to ask,” he continued presently, “is one which
+you may consider unpardonable. Let me first express an opinion. You
+have not told all that you know of that evening’s doings.”</p>
+
+<p>This called for no reply and I made none.</p>
+
+<p>“I can understand your reticence, if your knowledge included the fact
+of Miss Cumberland’s heroic act and her sister’s manner of death at the
+club-house.”</p>
+
+<p>“But it did not,” I asserted, with deliberate emphasis. “I knew nothing
+of either. My arrival happened later. Miss Cumberland’s testimony gave
+me my first enlightenment on these points. But I did know that the two
+sisters were there together, for I had a glimpse of the younger as she
+was leaving the house.”</p>
+
+<p>“You had. And are willing to state it now?”</p>
+
+<p>“Assuredly. But any testimony of that kind is for the defence, and
+your interests are all with the prosecution. Mr. Moffat is the man who
+should talk to me.”</p>
+
+<p>“Does he know it?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“Who told him?”</p>
+
+<p>“I did.”</p>
+
+<p>“You?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, it was my duty.”</p>
+
+<p>“You are interested then in seeing young Cumberland freed?”</p>
+
+<p>“I must be; he is innocent.”</p>
+
+<p>The man at my side turned, shot at me one glance which I met quite
+calmly, then, regulating his step by mine, moved on silently for a
+moment—thinking, as it appeared to me, some very serious thoughts.
+It was not until we had traversed a whole block in this way that he
+finally put his question. Whether it was the one he had first had in
+mind, I cannot say.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Ranelagh, will you tell me why, when you found yourself in such
+a dire extremity as to be arrested for this crime, on evidence as
+startling as to call for all and every possible testimony to your
+innocence, you preserved silence in regard to a fact which you must
+have then felt would have secured you a most invaluable witness? I can
+understand why Mr. Cumberland has been loth to speak of his younger
+sister’s presence in the club-house on that night; but his reason was
+not your reason. Yet you have been as hard to move on this point as he.”</p>
+
+<p>Then it was I regretted my thoughtless promise to be candid with this
+man. To answer were impossible, yet silence has its confidences, too.
+In my dilemma, I turned towards him and just then we stepped within the
+glare of an electric light pouring from some open doorway. I caught his
+eye, and was astonished at the change which took place in him.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t answer,” he muttered, volubly. “It isn’t necessary. I understand
+the situation, now, and you shall never regret that you met Caleb
+Sweetwater on your walk this evening. Will you trust me, sir? A
+detective who loves his profession is no gabbler. Your secret is as
+safe with me as if you had buried it in the grave.”</p>
+
+<p>And I had said nothing!</p>
+
+<p>He started to go, then he stopped suddenly and observed, with one of
+his wise smiles:</p>
+
+<p>“I once spent several minutes in Miss Carmel Cumberland’s room, and I
+saw a cabinet there which I found it very hard to understand. But its
+meaning came to me later. I could not rest till it did.”</p>
+
+<p>At the next moment he was half way around a corner, and in another, out
+of sight.</p>
+
+<p>This was the evening’s event.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXXIII">XXXIII<br><span class="small">THE ARROW OF DEATH</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">O if you rear this house against this house,<br>
+It will the wofulest division prove<br>
+That ever fell upon this cursed earth.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Prometheus Unbound</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>In my first glance around the court-room the next morning, I sought
+first for Carmel and then for the detective Sweetwater. Neither was
+visible. But this was not true of Ella. She had come in on her father’s
+arm, closely followed by the erect figure of her domineering mother.
+As I scrutinised the latter’s bearing, I seemed to penetrate the
+mystery of her nature. Whatever humiliation she may have felt at the
+public revelation of her daughter’s weakness, it had been absorbed by
+her love for that daughter, or had been forced, through the agency
+of her indomitable will, to become a ministrant to her pride which
+was unassailable. She had accepted the position exacted from her by
+the situation, and she looked for no loss of prestige, either on her
+daughter’s or her own account. Such was the language of her eyes; and
+it was a language which should have assured Ella that she had a better
+friend in her mother than she had ever dreamed of. The entrance of the
+defendant cut short my contemplation of any mere spectator. The change
+in him was so marked that I was conscious of it before I really saw
+him. Every eye had reflected it, and it was no surprise to me when I
+noted the relieved, almost cheerful aspect of his countenance as he
+took his place and met his counsel’s greeting with a smile—the first,
+I believe, which had been seen on his face since his sister’s death.
+That counsel I had already noted. He was cheerful also, but with a
+restrained cheerfulness. His task was not yet over, and the grimness of
+Mr. Fox, and the non-committal aspect of the jurymen, proved that it
+was not to be made too easy for him.</p>
+
+<p>The crier announced the opening of the court, and the defence proceeded
+by the calling of Ella Fulton to the witness stand.</p>
+
+<p>I need not linger over her testimony. It was very short and contained
+but one surprise. She had stated under direct examination that she
+had waited and watched for Arthur’s return that whole night, and was
+positive that he had not passed through their grounds again after that
+first time in the early evening. This was just what I had expected
+from her. But the prosecution remembered the snowfall, and in her
+cross-examination on this point, she acknowledged that it was very
+thick, much too thick for her to see her own gate distinctly; but
+added, that this only made her surer of the fact she had stated; for
+finding that she could not see, she had dressed herself for the storm
+and gone out into the driveway to watch there, and had so watched until
+the town clock struck three.</p>
+
+<p>This did not help the prosecution. Sympathy could not fail to be
+with this young and tremulous girl, heroic in her love, if weak in
+other respects, and when on her departure from the stand, she cast
+one deprecatory glance at the man for whom she had thus sacrificed
+her pride, and, meeting his eye fixed upon her with anything but
+ingratitude, flushed and faltered till she with difficulty found
+her way, the sentiments of the onlookers became so apparent that
+the judge’s gavel was called into requisition before order could be
+restored and the next witness summoned to testify.</p>
+
+<p>This witness was no less a person than Arthur himself. Recalled by his
+counsel, he was reminded of his former statement that he had left the
+club-house in a hurry because he heard his sister Adelaide’s voice, and
+was now asked if hers was the only voice he had heard.</p>
+
+<p>His answer revealed much of his mind.</p>
+
+<p>“No, I heard Carmel’s answering her.”</p>
+
+<p>This satisfying Mr. Moffat, he was passed over to Mr. Fox, and a short
+cross-examination ensued on this point.</p>
+
+<p>“You heard both your sisters speaking?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Any of their words, or only their voices?”</p>
+
+<p>“I heard one word.”</p>
+
+<p>“What word?”</p>
+
+<p>“The word, ‘Elwood.’”</p>
+
+<p>“In which voice?”</p>
+
+<p>“In that of my sister Adelaide.”</p>
+
+<p>“And you fled?”</p>
+
+<p>“Immediately.”</p>
+
+<p>“Leaving your two sisters alone in this cold and out-of-the-way house?”</p>
+
+<p>“I did not think they were alone.”</p>
+
+<p>“Who did you think was with them?”</p>
+
+<p>“I have already mentioned the name.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yet you left them?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I’ve already explained that. I was engaged in a mean act. I was
+ashamed to be caught at it by Adelaide. I preferred flight. I had no
+premonition of tragedy—any such tragedy as afterwards occurred. I
+understood neither of my sisters and my thoughts were only for myself.”</p>
+
+<p>“Didn’t you so much as try to account for their both being there?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not then.”</p>
+
+<p>“Had you expected Adelaide to accompany your younger sister when you
+harnessed the horse for her?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Had not this younger sister even enjoined secrecy upon you in asking
+you to harness the horse?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yet you heard the two together in this remote building without
+surprise?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, I must have felt surprise, but I didn’t stop to analyse my
+feelings. Afterward, I turned it over in my mind and tried to make
+something out of the whole thing. But that was when I was far out on
+the links.”</p>
+
+<p>A losing game thus far. This the district attorney seemed to feel;
+but he was not an ungenerous man though cursed (perhaps, I should say
+blessed, considering the position he held) by a tenacity which never
+let him lose his hold until the jury gave their verdict.</p>
+
+<p>“You have a right to explain yourself fully,” said he, after a
+momentary struggle in which his generosity triumphed over his pride.
+“When you did think of your sisters, what explanation did you give
+yourself of the facts we have just been considering?”</p>
+
+<p>“I could not imagine the truth, so I just satisfied myself that
+Adelaide had discovered Carmel’s intentions to ride into town and had
+insisted on accompanying her. They were having it out, I thought, in
+the presence of the man who had made all this trouble between them.”</p>
+
+<p>“And you left them to the task?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir, but not without a struggle. I was minded several times to
+return. This I have testified to before.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did this struggle consume forty minutes?”</p>
+
+<p>“It must have and more, if I entered the hold in Cuthbert Road at the
+hour they state.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fox gave up the game, and I looked to be the next person called.
+But it was not a part of Mr. Moffat’s plan to weaken the effect
+of Carmel’s testimony by offering any weak corroboration of facts
+which nobody showed the least inclination to dispute. Satisfied with
+having given the jury an opportunity to contrast his client’s present
+cheerfulness and manly aspect with the sullenness he had maintained
+while in doubt of Carmel’s real connection with this crime, Mr. Moffat
+rested his case.</p>
+
+<p>There was no testimony offered in rebuttal and the court took a recess.</p>
+
+<p>When it reassembled I cast another anxious glance around. Still no
+Carmel, nor any signs of Sweetwater. I could understand her absence,
+but not his, and it was in a confusion of feeling which was fast
+getting the upper hand of me, that I turned my attention to Mr. Moffat
+and the plea he was about to make for his youthful client.</p>
+
+<p>I do not wish to obtrude myself too much into this trial of another man
+for the murder of my betrothed. But when, after a wait during which
+the prisoner had a chance to show his mettle under the concentrated
+gaze of an expectant crowd, the senior counsel for the defence slowly
+rose, and, lifting his ungainly length till his shoulders lost their
+stoop and his whole presence acquired a dignity which had been entirely
+absent from it up to this decisive moment, I felt a sudden slow and
+creeping chill seize and shake me, as I have heard people say they
+experienced when uttering the common expression, “Some one is walking
+over my grave.”</p>
+
+<p>It was not that he glanced my way, for this he did not do; yet I
+received a subtle message from him, by some telepathic means I could
+neither understand nor respond to—a message of warning, or, possibly
+of simple preparation for what his coming speech might convey.</p>
+
+<p>It laid my spirits low for a moment; then they rose as those of a
+better man might rise at the scent of danger. If he could warn, he
+could also withhold. I would trust him, or I would, at least, trust
+my fate. And so, good-bye to self. Arthur’s life and Carmel’s future
+peace were trembling in the balance. Surely these were worth the full
+attention of the man who loved the woman, who pitied the man.</p>
+
+<p>At the next moment I heard these words, delivered in the slow and
+but slightly raised tones with which Mr. Moffat invariably began his
+address:</p>
+
+<p>“May it please the court and gentlemen of the jury, my learned friend
+of the prosecution has shown great discretion in that, so far as
+appears from the trend of his examinations, he is planning no attempt
+to explain the many silences and the often forbidding attitude of my
+young client by any theory save the obvious one—the natural desire of
+a brother to hide his only remaining sister’s connection with a tragedy
+of whose details he was ignorant, and concerning which he had formed a
+theory derogatory to her position as a young and well-bred woman.</p>
+
+<p>“I am, therefore, spared the task of pressing upon your consideration
+these very natural and, I may add, laudable grounds for my client’s
+many hesitations and suppressions—which, under other circumstances,
+would militate so deeply against him in the eyes of an upright and
+impartial jury. Any man with a heart in his breast, and a sense of
+honour in his soul, can understand why this man—whatever his record,
+and however impervious he may have seemed in the days of his prosperity
+and the wilfulness of his youth—should recoil from revelations which
+would attack the honour, if not the life, of a young and beautiful
+sister, sole remnant of a family eminent in station, and in all those
+moral and civic attributes which make for the honour of a town and lend
+distinction to its history.</p>
+
+<p>“Fear for a loved one, even in one whom you will probably hear
+described as a dissipated man, of selfish tendencies and hitherto
+unbrotherly qualities, is a great miracle-worker. No sacrifice
+seems impossible which serves as a guard for one so situated and so
+threatened.</p>
+
+<p>“Let us review his history. Let us disentangle, if we can, our
+knowledge of what occurred in the clubhouse, from his knowledge of
+it at the time he showed these unexpected traits of self-control and
+brotherly anxiety, which you will yet hear so severely scored by my
+able opponent. His was a nature in which honourable instincts had
+forever battled with the secret predilections of youth for independence
+and free living. He rebelled at all monition; but this did not make
+him altogether insensible to the secret ties of kinship, or the
+claims upon his protection of two highly gifted sisters. Consciously
+or unconsciously, he kept watch upon the two; and when he saw that
+an extraneous influence was undermining their mutual confidence, he
+rebelled in his heart, whatever restraint he may have put upon his
+tongue and actions. Then came an evening, when, with heart already
+rasped by a personal humiliation, he saw a letter passed. You have
+heard the letter and listened to its answer; but he knew nothing beyond
+the fact—a fact which soon received a terrible significance from the
+events which so speedily followed.”</p>
+
+<p>Here Mr. Moffat recapitulated those events, but always from the
+standpoint of the defendant—a standpoint which necessarily brought
+before the jury the many excellent reasons which his client had for
+supposing this crime to have resulted solely from the conflicting
+interests represented by that furtively passed note, and the visit
+of two girls instead of one to The Whispering Pines. It was very
+convincing, especially his picture of Arthur’s impulsive flight from
+the club-house at the first sound of his sisters’ voices.</p>
+
+<p>“The learned counsel for the people may call this unnatural,” he
+cried. “He may say that no brother would leave the place under such
+circumstances, whether sober or not sober, alive to duty or dead to
+it—that curiosity would hold him there, if nothing else. But he
+forgets, if thus he thinks and thus would have you think, that the
+man who now confronts you from the bar is separated by an immense
+experience from the boy he was at that hour of surprise and selfish
+preoccupation.</p>
+
+<p>“You who have heard the defendant tell how he could not remember if
+he carried up one or two bottles from the kitchen, can imagine the
+blank condition of this untutored mind at the moment when those voices
+fell upon his ear, calling him to responsibilities he had never before
+shouldered, and which he saw no way of shouldering now. In that first
+instant of inconsiderate escape, he was alarmed for himself,—afraid of
+the discovery of the sneaking act of which he had just been guilty—not
+fearful for his sisters. <i>You</i> would have done differently; but you are
+all men disciplined to forget yourselves and think first of others,
+taught, in the school of life to face responsibility rather than shirk
+it. But discipline had not yet reached this unhappy boy—the slave, so
+far, of his unfortunate habits. It began its work later; yet not much
+later. Before he had half crossed the golf-links, the sense of what he
+had done stopped him in middle course, and, reckless of the oncoming
+storm, he turned his back upon the place he was making for, only to
+switch around again, as craving got the better of his curiosity, or of
+that deeper feeling to which my experienced opponent will, no doubt,
+touchingly allude when he comes to survey this situation with you.</p>
+
+<p>“The storm, continuing, obliterated his steps as fast as the ever
+whitening spaces beneath received them; but if it had stopped then
+and there, leaving those wandering imprints to tell their story,
+what a tale we might have read of the first secret conflict in this
+awakening soul! I leave you to imagine this history, and pass to the
+bitter hour when, racked by a night of dissipation, he was aroused,
+indeed, to the magnitude of his fault and the awful consequences of his
+self-indulgence, by the news of his elder sister’s violent death and
+the hardly less pitiful condition of the younger.</p>
+
+<p>“The younger!” The pause he here made was more eloquent than any words.
+“Is it for me to laud her virtues, or to seek to impress upon you in
+this connection, the overwhelming nature of the events which in reality
+had laid her mind and body low? You have seen her; you have heard her;
+and the memory of the tale she has here told will never leave you, or
+lose its hold upon your sympathies or your admiration. If everything
+else connected with this case is forgotten, the recollection of that
+will remain. You, and I, and all who wait upon your verdict, will in
+due time pass from among the living, and leave small print behind us
+on the sands of time. But her act will not die, and to it I now offer
+the homage of silence, since that would best please her heroic soul,
+which broke the bonds of womanly reserve only to save from an unmerited
+charge a falsely arraigned brother.”</p>
+
+<p>The restraint and yet the fire with which Mr. Moffat uttered these
+simple words, lifted all hearts and surcharged the atmosphere with
+an emotion rarely awakened in a court of law. Not in my pulses
+alone was started the electric current of renewed life. The jury,
+to a man, glowed with enthusiasm, and from the audience rose one
+long and suppressed sigh of answering feeling, which was all the
+tribute he needed for his eloquence—or Carmel for her uncalculating,
+self-sacrificing deed. I could have called upon the mountains to cover
+<i>me</i>; but—God be praised—no one thought of me in that hour. Every
+throb, every thought was for her.</p>
+
+<p>At the proper moment of subsiding feeling, Mr. Moffat again raised his
+voice:</p>
+
+<p>“Gentlemen of the jury, you have seen point after point of the
+prosecution’s case demolished before your eyes by testimony which
+no one has had the temerity to attempt to controvert. What is left?
+Mr. Fox will tell you—three strong and unassailable facts. The ring
+found in the murdered woman’s casket, the remnants of the tell-tale
+bottle discovered in the Cumberland stable, and the opportunity for
+crime given by the acknowledged presence of the defendant on or near
+the scene of death. He will harp on these facts; he will make much of
+them; and he will be justified in doing so, for they are the only links
+remaining of the strong chain forged so carefully against my client.</p>
+
+<p>“But are these points so vital as they seem? Let us consider them, and
+see. My client has denied that he dropped anything into his sister’s
+casket, much less the ring missing from that sister’s finger. Dare you,
+then, convict on this point when, according to count, ten other persons
+were seen to drop flowers into this very place—any one of which might
+have carried this object with it?</p>
+
+<p>“And the bit of broken bottle found in or near the defendant’s own
+stable! Is he to be convicted on the similarity it offers to the one
+known to have come from the club-house wine-vault, while a reasonable
+doubt remains of his having been the hand which carried it there? No!
+Where there is a reasonable doubt, no high-minded jury will convict;
+and I claim that my client has made it plain that there is such a
+reasonable doubt.”</p>
+
+<p>All this and more did Mr. Moffat dilate upon. But I could no longer fix
+my mind on details, and much of this portion of his address escaped me.</p>
+
+<p>But I do remember the startling picture with which he closed. His
+argument so far, had been based on the assumption of Arthur’s ignorance
+of Carmers purpose in visiting the club-house, or of Adelaide’s attempt
+at suicide. His client had left the building when he said he did,
+and knew no more of what happened there afterward than circumstances
+showed, or his own imagination conceived. But now the advocate took
+a sudden turn, and calmly asked the jury to consider with him the
+alternative outlined by the prosecution in the evidence set before them.</p>
+
+<p>“My distinguished opponent,” said he, “would have you believe that the
+defendant did not fly at the moment declared, but that he waited to
+fulfil the foul deed which is the only serious matter in dispute in
+his so nearly destroyed case. I hear as though he were now speaking,
+the attack which he will make upon my client when he comes to review
+this matter with you. Let me see if I cannot make you hear those words,
+too.” And with a daring smile at his discomforted adversary, Alonzo
+Moffat launched forth into the following sarcasm:</p>
+
+<p>“Arthur Cumberland, coming up the kitchen stairs, hears voices
+where he had expected total silence—sees light where he had left
+total darkness. He has two bottles in his hands, or in his large
+coat-pockets. If they are in his hands, he sets them down and steals
+forward to listen. He has recognised the voices. They are those of
+his two sisters, one of whom had ordered him to hitch up the cutter
+for her to escape, as he had every reason to believe, the other.
+Curiosity—or is it some nobler feeling—causes him to draw nearer
+and nearer to the room in which they have taken up their stand. He
+can hear their words now and what are the words he hears? Words that
+would thrill the most impervious heart, call for the interference of
+the most indifferent. But <i>he</i> is made of ice, welded together with
+steel. He sees—for no place save one from which he can watch and see,
+<i>viz</i>.: the dark dancing hall, would satisfy any man of such gigantic
+curiosity—Adelaide fall at Carmel’s feet, in recognition of the great
+sacrifice she has made for her. But he does not move; he falls at no
+one’s feet; he recognises no nobility, responds to no higher appeal.
+Stony and unmoved, he crouches there, and watches and watches—still
+curious, or still feeding his hate on the sufferings of the elder, the
+forbearance of the younger.</p>
+
+<p>“And on what does he look? You have already heard, but consider it.
+Adelaide, despairing of happiness, decides on death for herself or
+sister. Both loving one man, one of the two must give way to the other.
+Carmel has done her part; she must now do hers. She has brought poison;
+she has brought glasses—three glasses, for three persons, but only two
+are on the scene, and so she fills but two. One has only cordial in
+it, but the other is, as she believes, deadly. Carmel is to have her
+choice; but who believes that Adelaide would ever have let her drink
+the poisoned glass?</p>
+
+<p>“And this man looks on, as the two faces confront each other—one white
+with the overthrow of every earthly hope, the other under the stress
+of suffering and a fascination of horror sufficient to have laid her
+dead, without poison, at the other one’s feet. This is what he sees—<i>a
+brother!</i>—and he makes no move, then or afterwards, when, the die
+cast, Adelaide succumbs to her fear and falls into a seemingly dying
+state on the couch.</p>
+
+<p>“Does he go now? Is his hate or his cupidity satisfied? No! He remains
+and listens to the tender interchange of final words, and all the
+late precautions of the elder to guard the younger woman’s good name.
+Still he is not softened; and when, the critical moment passed, Carmel
+rises and totters about the room in her endeavour to fulfil the tasks
+enjoined upon her by her sister, he gloats over a death which will give
+him independence and gluts himself with every evil thought which could
+blind him to the pitiful aspects of a tragedy such as few men in this
+world could see unmoved. <i>A brother</i>!</p>
+
+<p>“But this is not the worst. The awful cup of human greed and hatred
+is but filled to the brim; it has not yet overflowed. Carmel leaves
+the room; she has a telephonic message to deliver. She may be gone a
+minute; she may be gone many. Little does he care which; he must see
+the dead, look down on the woman who has been like a mother to him, and
+see if her influence is forever removed, if his wealth is his, and his
+independence forever assured.</p>
+
+<p>“Safe in the darkness of the gloomy recesses of the dancing hall, he
+steals slowly forward. Drawn as by a magnet, he enters the room of
+seeming death, draws up to the pillow-laden couch, pulls off first one
+cushion, and then another, till face and hands are bare and—</p>
+
+<p>“Ah!—there is a movement! death has not, then, done its work. She
+lives—the hated one—<i>lives</i>! And he is no longer rich, no longer
+independent. With a clutch, he seizes her at the feeble seat of life;
+and as the breath ceases and her whole body becomes again inert, he
+stoops to pull off the ring, which can have no especial value or
+meaning for him—and then, repiling the cushions over her, creeps forth
+again, takes up the bottles, and disappears from the house.</p>
+
+<p>“Gentlemen of the jury, this is what my opponent would have you
+believe. This will be his explanation of this extraordinary murder. But
+when his eloquence meets your ears—when you hear this arraignment, and
+the emphasis he will place upon the few points remaining to his broken
+case, then ask yourself if you see such a monster in the prisoner now
+confronting you from the bar. I do not believe it. I do not believe
+that such a monster lives.</p>
+
+<p>“But you say, <i>some one</i> entered that room—<i>some one</i> stilled the
+fluttering life still remaining in that feeble breast. Some one may
+have, but that some one was not my client, and it is his guilt or
+innocence we are considering now, and it is his life and freedom for
+which you are responsible. No brother did that deed; no witness of the
+scene which hallowed this tragedy ever lifted hand against the fainting
+Adelaide, or choked back a life which kindly fate had spared.</p>
+
+<p>“Go further for the guilty perpetrator of this most inhuman act; he
+stands not in the dock. Guilt shows no such relief as you see in him
+to-day. Guilt would remember that his sister’s testimony, under the
+cross-examination of the people’s prosecutor, left the charge of murder
+still hanging over the defendant’s head. But the brother has forgotten
+this. His restored confidence in one who now represents to him father,
+mother, and sister has thrown his own fate into the background. Will
+you dim that joy—sustain this charge of murder?</p>
+
+<p>“If in your sense of justice you do so, you forever place this
+degenerate son of a noble father, on the list of the most unimaginative
+and hate-driven criminals of all time. Is he such a demon? Is he such a
+madman? Look in his face to-day, and decide. I am willing to leave his
+cause in your hands. It could be placed in no better.</p>
+
+<p>“May it please your Honour, and gentlemen of the jury, I am done.”</p>
+
+<p>If any one at that moment felt the arrow of death descending into his
+heart, it was not Arthur Cumberland.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXXIV">XXXIV<br><span class="small">“STEADY!”</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">I am a tainted wether of the flock,<br>
+Meetest for death; the weakest kind of fruit<br>
+Drops earliest to the ground, and so let me.<br>
+You cannot better be employ’d, Bassanio,<br>
+Than to live still, and write my epitaph.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Merchant of Venice</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>Why linger over the result. Arthur Cumberland’s case was won before
+Mr. Fox arose to his feet. The usual routine was gone through. The
+district attorney made the most of the three facts which he declared
+inconsistent with the prisoner’s innocence, just as Mr. Moffat said
+he would; but the life was gone from his work, and the result was
+necessarily unsatisfactory.</p>
+
+<p>The judge’s charge was short, but studiously impartial. When the jury
+filed out, I said to myself, “They will return in fifteen minutes.”
+They returned in ten, with a verdict of acquittal.</p>
+
+<p>The demonstrations of joy which followed filled my ears, and doubtless
+left their impression upon my other senses; but my mind took in
+nothing but the apparition of my own form taking his place at the bar,
+under circumstances less favourable to acquittal than those which
+had exonerated him. It was a picture which set my brain whirling. A
+phantom judge, a phantom jury, a phantom circle of faces, lacking
+the consideration and confidence of those I saw before me; but not a
+phantom prisoner, or any mere dream of outrageous shame and suffering.</p>
+
+<p>That shame and that suffering had already seized hold of me. With the
+relief of young Arthur’s acquittal my faculties had cleared to the
+desperate position in which this very acquittal had placed me.</p>
+
+<p>I saw, as never before, how the testimony which had reinstated Carmel
+in my heart and won for her and through her the sympathies of the
+whole people, had overthrown every specious reason which I and those
+interested in me had been able to advance in contradiction of the
+natural conclusion to be drawn from the damning fact of my having been
+seen with my fingers on Adelaide’s throat.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat’s words rang in my ears: “Some one entered that room; some
+one stilled the fluttering life still remaining in that feeble breast;
+but that some one was not her brother. You must look further for the
+guilty perpetrator of this most inhuman act; some one who had not been
+a witness to the scene preceding this tragedy, some one—” he had not
+said this but every mind had supplied the omission,—“some one who had
+come in later, who came in after Carmel had gone, some one who knew
+nothing of the telephone message which was even then hastening the
+police to the spot; some one who had every reason for lifting those
+cushions and, on meeting <i>life</i>—”</p>
+
+<p>The horror stifled me; I was reeling in my place on the edge of the
+crowd, when I heard a quiet voice in my ear:</p>
+
+<p>“Steady! Their eyes will soon be off of Arthur, and then they will look
+at you.”</p>
+
+<p>It was Clifton, and his word came none too soon. I stiffened under its
+quiet force, and, taking his arm, let him lead me out of a side door,
+where the crowd was smaller and its attention even more absorbed.</p>
+
+<p>I soon saw its cause—Carmel was entering the doorway from the street.
+She had come to greet her brother; and her face, quite unveiled, was
+beaming with beauty and joy. In an instant I forgot myself, forgot
+everything but her and the effect she produced upon those about her. No
+noisy demonstration here; admiration and love were shown in looks and
+the low-breathed prayer for her welfare which escaped from more than
+one pair of lips. She smiled and their hearts were hers; she essayed to
+move forward and the people crowded back as if at a queen’s passage;
+but there was no noise.</p>
+
+<p>When she reappeared, it was on Arthur’s arm. I had not been able to
+move from the place in which we were hemmed; nor had I wished to. I
+was hungry for a glance of her eye. Would it turn my way, and, if it
+did, would it leave a curse or a blessing behind it? In anxiety for the
+blessing, I was willing to risk the curse; and I followed her every
+step with hungry glances, until she reached the doorway and turned to
+give another shake of the hand to Mr. Moffat, who had followed them.
+But she did not see me.</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot miss it! I must catch her eye!” I whispered to Clifton. “Get
+me out of this; it will be several minutes before they can reach the
+sleigh. Let me see her, for one instant, face to face.”</p>
+
+<p>Clifton disapproved, and made me aware of it; but he did my bidding,
+nevertheless. In a few moments we were on the sidewalk, and quite by
+ourselves; so that, if she turned again she could not fail to observe
+me. I had small hope, however, that she would so turn. She and Arthur
+were within a few feet of the curb and their own sleigh.</p>
+
+<p>I had just time to see this sleigh, and note the rejoicing face of
+Zadok leaning sideways from the box, when I beheld her pause and slowly
+turn her head around and peer eagerly—and with what divine anxiety in
+her eyes—back over the heads of those thronging about her, until her
+gaze rested fully and sweetly on mine. My heart leaped, then sank down,
+down into unutterable depths; for in that instant her face changed,
+horror seized upon her beauty, and shook her frantic hold on Arthur’s
+arm.</p>
+
+<p>I heard words uttered very near me, but I did not catch them. I did
+feel, however, the hand which was laid strongly and with authority
+upon my shoulder; and, tearing my eyes from her face only long enough
+to perceive that it was Sweetwater who had thus arrested me, I looked
+back at her, in time to see the questions leap from her lips to Arthur,
+whose answers I could well understand from the pitying movement in
+the crowd and the low hum of restrained voices which ran between her
+sinking figure and the spot where I stood apart, with the detective’s
+hand on my shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>She had never been told of the incriminating position in which I had
+been seen in the club-house. It had been carefully kept from her, and
+she had supposed that my acquittal in the public mind was as certain as
+Arthur’s. Now she saw herself undeceived, and the reaction into doubt
+and misery was too much for her, and I saw her sinking under my eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“Let me go to her!” I shrieked, utterly unconcerned with anything in
+the world but this tottering, fainting girl.</p>
+
+<p>But Sweetwater’s hand only tightened on my shoulder, while Arthur, with
+an awful look at me, caught his sister in his arms, just as she fell to
+the ground before the swaying multitude.</p>
+
+<p>But he was not the only one to kneel there. With a sound of love and
+misery impossible to describe, Zadok had leaped from the box and had
+grovelled at those dear feet, kissing the insensible hands and praying
+for those shut eyes to open. Even after Arthur had lifted her into
+the sleigh, the man remained crouching where she had fallen, with his
+eyes roaming back and forth in a sightless stare from her to myself,
+muttering and groaning, and totally unheedful of Arthur’s commands to
+mount the box and drive home. Finally some one else stepped from the
+crowd and mercifully took the reins. I caught one more glimpse of her
+face, with Arthur’s bent tenderly over it; then the sleigh slipped away.</p>
+
+<p>An officer shook Zadok by the arm and he got up and began to move
+aside. Then I had mind to face my own fate, and, looking up, I met
+Sweetwater’s eye.</p>
+
+<p>It was quietly apologetic.</p>
+
+<p>“I only wished to congratulate you,” said he, “on the conclusion of a
+case in which I know you are highly interested.” Lifting his hat, he
+nodded affably and was gone before I could recover from my stupor.</p>
+
+<p>It was for Clifton to show his indignation. I was past all feeling.
+Farce as an after-piece never appealed to me.</p>
+
+<p>Would I have considered it farce if I could have heard the words
+which this detective was at that moment whispering into the district
+attorney’s ears:</p>
+
+<p>“Do you want to know who throttled Adelaide Cumberland? It was not her
+brother; it was not her lover; it was her old and trusted coachman.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXXV">XXXV<br><span class="small">“AS IF IT WERE A MECCA”</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">—I have within my mind<br>
+A thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks<br>
+Which I will practise.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Merchant of Venice</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>“Give me your reasons. They must be excellent ones, Sweetwater, or you
+would not risk making a second mistake in a case of this magnitude and
+publicity.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Fox, they are excellent. But you shall judge of them. From the
+moment Miss Carmel Cumberland overthrew the very foundations of our
+case by her remarkable testimony, I have felt that my work was only
+half done. It was a strain on credulity to believe Arthur guilty of
+a crime so prefaced, and the alternative which Mr. Moffat believed
+in, which you were beginning to believe in, and perhaps are allowing
+yourself to believe in even now, never appealed to me.</p>
+
+<p>“I allude to the very natural suspicion that the act beheld by your
+man Clarke was a criminal act, and that Ranelagh is the man really
+responsible for Miss Cumberland’s death. Some instinct held me back
+from this conclusion, as well as the incontrovertible fact that he
+could have had no hand in carrying that piece of broken bottle into the
+Cumberland stable, or of dropping his engagement ring in the suggestive
+place where it was found. Where, then, should I look for the unknown,
+the unsuspected third party? Among the ten other persons who dropped
+something into that casket.</p>
+
+<p>“Most of these were children, but I made the acquaintance of every one.
+I spent most of my Sunday that way; then, finding no clouded eye among
+them, I began a study of the Cumberland servants, naturally starting
+with Zadok. For two hours I sat at his stable fire, talking and turning
+him inside out, as only we detectives know how. I found him actually
+overwhelmed with grief; not the grief of a sane man, but of one in whom
+the very springs of life are poisoned by some dreadful remorse.</p>
+
+<p>“He did not know he revealed this; he expressed himself as full of hope
+that his young master would be acquitted the next day; but I could see
+that this prospect could never still the worm working at his heart, and
+resolved to understand why. I left him ostensibly alone, but in reality
+shadowed him. The consequence was that, in the evening dusk, he led me
+to the cemetery, where he took up his watch at Miss Cumberland’s grave,
+as if it were a Mecca and he a passionate devotee. I could hear his
+groans as he hung to the fence and spoke softly to the dead; and though
+I was too far away to catch a single word, I felt confident that I had
+at last struck the right track, and should soon see my way more clearly
+than at any time since this baffling case opened.</p>
+
+<p>“But before I allowed my fancy to run away with me, I put in an evening
+of inquiry. If this man had an absolute alibi, what was the use of
+wasting effort upon him. But I could not find that he had, Mr. Fox. He
+went with the rest of the servants to the ball—which, you know, was
+held in Tibbitt’s Hall, on Ford Street and he was seen there later,
+dancing and making merry in a way not usual to him. But there was a
+space of time dangerously tallying with that of the tragic scene at the
+club-house, when he was not seen by any one there, so far as I can make
+out; and this fact gave me courage to consider a certain point which
+had struck me, and of which I thought something might be made.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Fox, after the fiasco I have made of this affair, it costs me
+something to go into petty details which must suggest my former
+failures and may not strike you with the force they did me. That broken
+bottle— or rather, that piece of broken bottle! Where was the rest of
+it? Sought for almost immediately after the tragedy, it had not been
+found at the Cumberland place or on the golf-links. It had been looked
+for carefully when the first thaw came; but, though glass was picked
+up, it was not the same glass. The task had become hopeless and ere
+long was abandoned.</p>
+
+<p>“But with this idea of Zadok being the means of its transfer from The
+Whispering Pines to the house on the Hill, I felt the desire to look
+once more, and while court was in session this morning, I started
+a fresh search—this time not on the golf-links. Tibbitt’s Hall
+communicates more quickly with The Whispering Pines by the club-house
+road than by the market one. So I directed my attention to the ground
+in front, and on the further side of the driveways. <i>And I found the
+neck of that bottle</i>!</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir, I will show it to you later. I picked it up at some distance
+from the northern driveway, under a small tree, against the trunk of
+which it had evidently been struck off. This meant that the lower part
+had been carried away, broken.</p>
+
+<p>“Now, who would do this but Zadok, who saw in it, he has said, a
+receptacle for some varnish which he had; and if Zadok, how had he
+carried it, if not in some pocket of his greatcoat. But glass edges
+make quick work with pockets; and if this piece of bottle had gone from
+The Whispering Pines to Tibbitt’s Hall, and from there to the Hill,
+there should be some token of its work in Zadok’s overcoat pocket.</p>
+
+<p>“This led me to look for those tokens; and as I had by this time
+insinuated my way into his confidence by a free and cheerful manner
+which gave him a rest from his gloomy thoughts, I soon had a chance
+to see for myself the condition of those pockets. The result was
+quite satisfactory. In one of them I found a frayed lining, easily
+explainable on the theory I had advanced. That pocket can be seen by
+you.</p>
+
+<p>“But Mr. Fox, I wanted some real proof. I wasn’t willing to embarrass
+another man, or to risk my own reputation on a hazard so blind as this,
+without something really definite. A confession was what I wanted, or
+such a breakdown of the man as would warrant police action. How could I
+get this?</p>
+
+<p>“I am a pupil of Mr. Gryce, and I remembered some of his methods.</p>
+
+<p>“This man, guilty though he might be, loved this family, and was
+broken-hearted over the trouble in which he saw it plunged. Excused
+to-day from attendance at court, he was in constant telephonic
+communication with some friend of his, who kept him posted as to the
+conduct of the trial and the probabilities of a favourable verdict.</p>
+
+<p>“If the case had gone against Arthur, we should have heard from his
+coachman—that I verily believe, but when we all saw that he was likely
+to be acquitted, I realised that some other course must be taken to
+shake Zadok from his new won complacency, and I chose the most obvious
+one.</p>
+
+<p>“Just when everything looked most favourable to their restored peace
+and happiness, I shocked Miss Carmel and, through her, this Zadok,
+into the belief that the whole agony was to be gone over again, in the
+rearrest and consequent trial of the man she still loves, in spite of
+all that has happened to separate them.</p>
+
+<p>“He was not proof against this new responsibility. As she fainted, he
+leaped from the box; and, could I have heard the words he muttered in
+her ear, I am sure that I should have that to give you which would
+settle this matter for all time. As it is, I can only say that my own
+convictions are absolute; the rest remains with you.”</p>
+
+<p>“We will go see the man,” said District Attorney Fox.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXXVI">XXXVI<br><span class="small">THE SURCHARGED MOMENT</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">For Justice, when triumphant, will weep down<br>
+Pity, not punishment, on her own wrongs,<br>
+Too much avenged by those who err. I wait,<br>
+Enduring thus, the retributive hour<br>
+Which since we spake is even nearer now.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Prometheus Unbound</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>The moment I felt Sweetwater’s hand lifted from my shoulder I sprang
+into the first hack I could find, and bade the driver follow the
+Cumberland sleigh post-haste. I was determined to see Carmel and have
+Carmel see me. Whatever cold judgment might say against the meeting,
+I could not live in my present anxiety. If the thunderbolt which had
+struck her had spared her life and reason she must know from my own
+lips that I was not only a free man, but as innocent of the awful
+charge conveyed in Sweetwater’s action as was the brother, who had just
+been acquitted of it by the verdict of his peers.</p>
+
+<p>I must declare this, and she must believe me. Nothing else
+mattered—nothing else in all the world. That Arthur might stop me,
+that anything could stop me, did not disturb my mind for a minute. All
+that I dreaded was that I might find myself too late; that this second
+blow might have proved to be too much for her, and that I should find
+my darling dead or passed from me into that living death which were the
+harder punishment of the two. But I was spared this killing grief. When
+our two conveyances stopped, it was in the driveway of her old home;
+and as I bounded upon the walk, it was to see her again in Arthur’s
+arms, but this time with open eyes and horror-drawn features.</p>
+
+<p>“Carmel!” rushed in a cry from my lips. “Don’t believe what they say. I
+cannot bear it—I cannot bear it!”</p>
+
+<p>She roused; she looked my way, and struggling to her feet, held back
+Arthur with one hand while she searched my face—and possibly searched
+her own soul—for answer to my plea. Never was moment more surcharged.
+Further word I could not speak; I could only meet her eyes with the
+steady, demanding look of a despairing heart, while Arthur moved in
+every fibre of his awakened manhood, waited—thinking, perhaps, how
+few minutes had passed since he hung upon the words of a fellow being
+for his condemnation to death, or release to the freedom which he now
+enjoyed.</p>
+
+<p>A moment! But what an eternity before I saw the rigid lines of her
+white, set face relax—before I marked the play of human, if not
+womanly, emotion break up the misery of her look and soften her
+youthful lips into some semblance of their old expression. Love
+might be dead—friendship, even, be a thing of the far past—but
+consideration was still alive and in another instant it spoke in these
+trembling sentences, uttered across a threshold made sacred by a
+tragedy involving our three lives:</p>
+
+<p>“Come in and explain yourself. No man should go unheard. I know you
+will not come where Adelaide’s spirit yet lingers, if you cannot bring
+hands clean from all actual violence.”</p>
+
+<p>I motioned my driver away, and as Carmel drew back out of sight, I
+caught at Arthur’s arm and faced him with the query:</p>
+
+<p>“Are you willing that I should enter? I only wish to declare to her,
+and to you, an innocence I have no means of proving, but which you
+cannot disbelieve if I swear it, here and now, by your sister Carmel’s
+sacred disfigurement. Such depravity could not exist, as such a vow
+from the lips guilty of the crime you charge me with. Look at me,
+Arthur. I considered you—now consider me.”</p>
+
+<p>Quickly he stepped back. “Enter,” said he.</p>
+
+<p>It was some minutes later—I cannot say how many—that one of the
+servants disturbed us by asking if we knew anything about Zadok.</p>
+
+<p>“He has not come home,” said he, “and here is a man who wants him.”</p>
+
+<p>“What man?” asked Arthur.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, that detective chap. He never will leave us alone.”</p>
+
+<p>I arose. In an instant enlightenment had come to me. “It’s nothing,”
+said I with my eyes on Carmel; but the gesture I furtively made Arthur,
+said otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later we were both in the driveway. “We are on the brink
+of a surprise,” I whispered. “I think I understand this Sweetwater now.”</p>
+
+<p>Arthur looked bewildered, but he took the lead in the interview which
+followed with the man who had made him so much trouble and was now
+doing his best to make us all amends.</p>
+
+<p>Zadok could not be found; he was wanted by the district attorney, who
+wished to put some questions to him. Were there any objections to his
+searching the stable-loft for indications of his whereabouts?</p>
+
+<p>Arthur made none; and the detective, after sending the Cumberlands’
+second man before him to light up the stable, disappeared beneath the
+great door, whither we more slowly followed him.</p>
+
+<p>“Not here!” came in a shout from above, as we stepped in from the night
+air; and in a few minutes the detective came running down the stairs,
+baffled and very ill at ease. Suddenly he encountered my eye. “Oh—I
+know!” he cried, and started for the gate.</p>
+
+<p>“I am going to follow him,” I confided to Arthur. “Look for me again
+to-night; or, at least, expect a message. If fortune favours us, as
+I now expect, we two shall sleep to-night as we have not slept for
+months.” And waiting for no answer, not even to see if he comprehended
+my meaning, I made a run for the gate, and soon came up with Sweetwater.</p>
+
+<p>“To the cemetery?” I asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, to the cemetery.”</p>
+
+<p>And there we found him, in the same place where we had seen him before,
+but not in the same position. He was sunken now to the ground; but his
+face was pressed against the rails, and in his stiff, cold hand was
+clutched a letter which afterwards we read.</p>
+
+<p>Let it be read by you here. It will explain the mystery which came near
+destroying the lives of more than Adelaide.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>No more unhappy wretch than I goes to his account. I killed her who had
+shown me only goodness, and will be the death of others if I do not
+confess my dreadful, my unsuspected secret. This is how it happened. I
+cannot give reasons; I cannot even ask for pardon.</p>
+
+<p>That night, just as I was preparing to leave the stable to join the
+other servants on their ride to Tibbitt’s Hall, the telephone rang and
+I heard Miss Cumberland’s voice. “Zadok,” she said—and at first I
+could hardly understand her,—“I am in trouble; I want help, and you
+are the only one who can aid me. Answer; do you hear me and are you
+quite alone in the stable?” I told her yes, and that I was listening to
+all she said. I suspected her trouble, and was ready to stand by her,
+if a man like me could do anything.</p>
+
+<p>I had been with her many years, and I loved her as well as I could love
+anybody; though you won’t think it when I tell you my whole story. What
+she wanted was this: I was to go to the ball just as if nothing had
+happened, but I was not to stay there. As soon as I could, I was to
+slip out, get a carriage from some near-by stable, and hurry back up
+the road to meet her and take her where she would tell me; or, if I did
+not meet her, to wait two houses below hers, till she came along. She
+would not want me long, and very soon I could go back and have as good
+a time as I pleased. But she would like me to be secret, for her errand
+was not one for gossip, even among her own servants.</p>
+
+<p>It was the first time she had ever asked me to do anything for her
+which any one else might not have done, and I was proud of her
+confidence, and happy to do just what she asked. I even tried to do
+better, and be even more secret about it than she expected. Instead of
+going to a stable, I took one of the rigs which I found fastened up
+in the big shed alongside the hall; and being so fortunate as not to
+attract anybody’s attention by this business, I was out on the road and
+half way to The Whispering Pines, before Helen and Maggie could wonder
+why I had not asked them to dance.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later I was on the Hill, for the horse I had chosen was a
+fast one; and I was just turning into our street when I was passed by
+Mr. Arthur’s grey mare and cutter. This made me pull up for a minute,
+for I hadn’t expected this; but on looking ahead and seeing Miss
+Cumberland peering from our own gateway, I drove quickly on and took
+her up.</p>
+
+<p>I was not so much astonished as you would think, to be ordered to
+follow fast after the mare and cutter, and to stop where it stopped.
+That was all she wanted—to follow that cutter, and to stop where it
+stopped. Well, it stopped at the club-house; and when she saw it turn
+in there, I heard her give a little gasp.</p>
+
+<p>“Wait,” she whispered. “Wait till she has had time to get out and go
+in; then drive in, too, and help me to find my way into the building
+after her.”</p>
+
+<p>And then I knew it was Miss Carmel we had been following. Before, I
+thought it was Mr. Arthur.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, she pulled me by the sleeve. “I heard the door shut,” said
+she—and I was a little frightened at her voice, but I was full of my
+importance, and went on doing just as she bade me. Driving in after the
+cutter, I drew up into the shadows where the grey mare was hid, and
+then, reaching out my hand to Miss Cumberland, I helped her out, and
+went with her as far as the door. “You may go back now,” said she. “If
+I survive the night, I shall never forget this service, my good Zadok.”
+And I saw her lift her hand to the door, then fall back white and
+trembling in the moonlight. “I can’t,” she whispered, over and over; “I
+can’t—I can’t.”</p>
+
+<p>“Shall I knock?” I asked.</p>
+
+<p>“No, no,” she whispered back. “I want to go in quietly; let’s see if
+there’s no other way. Run about the house, Zadok; I will submit to
+any humiliation; only find me some entrance other than this.” She was
+shaking so and her face looked so ghastly in the moonlight that I was
+afraid to leave her; but she made me a gesture of such command that I
+ran quickly down the steps, and so round the house till I came to a
+shed over the top of which I saw a window partly open.</p>
+
+<p>Could I get her up on to the shed? I thought I could, and went hurrying
+back to the big entrance where I had left her. She was still there,
+shivering with the cold, but just as determined as ever. “Come,” I
+whispered; “I have found a way.”</p>
+
+<p>She gave me her hand and I led her around to the shed. She was like
+a snow woman and her touch was ice itself. “Wait till I get a box or
+board or something,” I said. Hunting about, I found a box leaning
+against the kitchen side, and, bringing it, I helped her up and soon
+had her on a level with the window.</p>
+
+<p>As she made her way in, she turned and whispered to me: “Go back now.
+Carmel has a horse, and will see me home. You have served me well,
+Zadok.”</p>
+
+<p>I nodded, and she vanished into the darkness. Then I should have gone;
+but my curiosity was too great. I wanted to know just a little more.
+Two women in this desolate and bitterly cold club-house! What did it
+mean?</p>
+
+<p>I could not restrain myself from following her in and listening, for a
+few minutes, to what they had to say. But I did not catch much of it;
+and when I heard other sounds from some place below, and recognised
+these sounds as a man’s heavy footsteps coming up the rear stairs, I
+got a fright at being where I should not be, and slipped into the first
+door I found, expecting this man to come out and join the ladies.</p>
+
+<p>But he did not; he just lingered for a moment in the hall I had left,
+then I heard him clamber out of the window and go. I now know that this
+was Mr. Arthur. But I did not know it then, and I was frightened for
+the horse I had run off with, and so got out of the building as quickly
+as I could.</p>
+
+<p>And all might yet have been well if I had not found, lying on the snow
+at the foot of the shed, a bottle of whiskey such as I had never drunk
+and did not know how to resist. Catching it up, I ran about the house
+to where I had left my rig. It was safe, and in my relief at finding
+it, I knocked off the head of the bottle and took a long drink.</p>
+
+<p>Then I drank again; then I sat down in the snow and drank again. In
+short, I nearly finished it; then I became confused; I looked at the
+piece of broken bottle in my hand, took a fancy to its shape, and
+breaking off a bit more, thrust it into one of my big pockets. Then I
+staggered up to the horse; but I did not untie him.</p>
+
+<p>Curiosity seized me again, and I thought I would take another look at
+the ladies—perhaps they might want me—perhaps—I was pretty well
+confused, but I went back and crawled once more into the window.</p>
+
+<p>This time the place was silent—not a sound, not a breath,—but I could
+see a faint glimmer of light. I followed this glimmer. Still there was
+no sound.</p>
+
+<p>I came to an open door. A couch was before me, heaped with cushions. A
+long ray of moonlight had shot in through a communicating door, and I
+could see everything by it. This was where the ladies had been when I
+listened before, but they were not here now.</p>
+
+<p>Weren’t they? Why did I tremble so, then, and stare and stare at those
+cushions? Why did I feel I must pull them away, as I presently did? I
+was mad with liquor and might easily have imagined what I there saw;
+but I did not think of this then. I believed what I saw instantly. Miss
+Cumberland was dead, and I had discovered the crime. She had killed
+herself—no, she had been killed!</p>
+
+<p>Should I yell out murder? No, no; I could be sorry without that. I
+would not yell—mistresses were plenty. I had liked her, but I need not
+yell. There was something else I could do.</p>
+
+<p>She had a ring on her finger—a ring that for months I had gloated
+over and watched, as I had never watched and gloated over any other
+beautiful thing in my life. I wanted it—I had always wanted it. It was
+before me, for the taking now—I should be a fool to leave it there for
+some other wretch to pilfer. I had loved her—I would love the ring.</p>
+
+<p>Reaching down, I took it. I drew it from her finger; I put it in my
+pocket; I—God in heaven! The eyes I had seen glassed in death were
+looking at me.</p>
+
+<p>She was not dead—she had been witness of the theft. Without a
+thought of what I was doing, my hands closed round her throat. It was
+drink—fright—terror at the look she gave me—which made me kill her;
+not my real self. My real self could have shrieked when, in another
+instant, I saw my work.</p>
+
+<p>But shrieking would not bring her back and it would quite ruin me. Miss
+Carmel was somewhere near. I heard her now at the telephone; in another
+minute she would come out and meet me. I dared not linger.</p>
+
+<p>Tossing back the pillows, I stumbled from the place. Why I was not
+heard by my young mistress, I do not know; her ears were deaf, just as
+my eyes were half-blind. In a half hour I was dancing with the maids,
+telling them of the pretty stranger with whom I had been sitting out an
+hour of fun in a quiet corner. They believed me, and not a particle of
+suspicion has any man ever had of me since.</p>
+
+<p>But others have had to suffer, and that has made hell of my nights.
+I restored the ring to my poor mistress; but even that brought harm
+to one I had no quarrel with. But he has escaped conviction; and if I
+thought Mr. Ranelagh would also escape, I might have courage to live
+out my miserable life, and seek to make amends in the way she would
+have me.</p>
+
+<p>But I fear for him; I fear for Miss Carmel. Never could I testify in
+another trial which threatened her peace of mind. I see that, instead
+of being the selfish stealer of her sister’s happiness, as I had
+thought, she is an angel from whom all future suffering should be kept.</p>
+
+<p>This is my way of sparing her. Perhaps it will help her sister to
+forgive me when we meet in the world to which I am now going.</p>
+
+
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10083 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #10083 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10083)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The House of the Whispering Pines, by
+Anna Katharine Green
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+
+Title: The House of the Whispering Pines
+
+Author: Anna Katharine Green
+
+Release Date: November 14, 2003  [eBook #10083]
+Last Updated: November 7, 2022
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE OF THE WHISPERING
+PINES ***
+
+
+
+
+THE HOUSE OF THE WHISPERING PINES
+
+By ANNA KATHARINE GREEN
+
+1910
+
+Author of
+
+“The Leavenworth Case,” “That Affair Next Door,” “One of My Sons,” etc.
+
+
+
+
+“Mazes intricate,
+Eccentric, interwov’d, yet regular
+Then most, when most irregular they seem”.
+
+_Milton_
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+SMOKE
+
+     I.--THE HESITATING STEP
+
+    II.--IT WAS SHE--SHE INDEED!
+
+   III.--“OPEN!”
+
+    IV.--THE ODD CANDLESTICK
+
+     V.--A SCRAP OF PAPER
+
+    VI.--COMMENTS AND REFLECTIONS
+
+   VII.--CLIFTON ACCEPTS MY CASE
+
+  VIII.--A CHANCE! I TAKE IT
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+SWEETWATER TO THE FRONT
+
+    IX.--“WE KNOW OF No SUCH LETTER”
+
+     X.--“I CAN HELP YOU”
+
+    XI.--IN THE COACH HOUSE
+
+   XII.--“LILA--LILA!”
+
+  XIII.--“WHAT WE WANT IS HERE”
+
+   XIV.--THE MOTIONLESS FIGURE
+
+    XV.--HELEN SURPRISES SWEETWATER
+
+   XVI.--62 CUTHBERT ROAD
+
+  XVII.--“MUST I TELL THESE THINGS?”
+
+ XVIII.--ON IT WAS WRITTEN--
+
+   XIX.--“IT’S NOT WHAT YOU WILL FIND”
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+HIDDEN SURPRISES
+
+    XX.---“HE OR YOU! THERE IS NO THIRD”
+
+   XXI.--CARMEL AWAKES
+
+  XXII.---“BREAK IN THE GLASS!”
+
+ XXIII.--AT TEN INSTEAD OF TWELVE
+
+  XXIV.--ALL THIS STOOD
+
+   XXV.--“I AM INNOCENT”
+
+  XXVI.--THE SYLLABLE OF DOOM
+
+ XXVII.--EXPECTANCY
+
+XXVIII.--“WHERE Is MY BROTHER?”
+
+
+BOOK IV
+
+WHAT THE PINES WHISPERED
+
+  XXIX.--“I REMEMBERED THE ROOM”
+
+   XXX.--“CHOOSE”
+
+  XXXI.--“WERE HER HANDS CROSSED THEN?”
+
+ XXXII.--AND I HAD SAID NOTHING!
+
+XXXIII.--THE ARROW OF DEATH
+
+ XXXIV.--“STEADY!”
+
+  XXXV.--“As IF IT WERE A MECCA”
+
+ XXXVI.--THE SURCHARGED MOMENT
+
+
+
+
+BOOK ONE
+
+SMOKE
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE HESITATING STEP
+
+To have reared a towering scheme
+Of happiness, and to behold it razed,
+Were nothing: all men hope, and see their hopes
+Frustrate, and grieve awhile, and hope anew;
+But--
+
+_A Blot in the ’Scutcheon._
+
+
+The moon rode high; but ominous clouds were rushing towards it--clouds
+heavy with snow. I watched these clouds as I drove recklessly,
+desperately, over the winter roads. I had just missed the desire
+of my life, the one precious treasure which I coveted with my
+whole undisciplined heart, and not being what you call a man of
+self-restraint, I was chafed by my defeat far beyond the bounds I have
+usually set for myself.
+
+The moon--with the wild skurry of clouds hastening to blot it out of
+sight--seemed to mirror the chaos threatening my better impulses; and,
+idly keeping it in view, I rode on, hardly conscious of my course till
+the rapid recurrence of several well-known landmarks warned me that I
+had taken the longest route home, and that in another moment I should
+be skirting the grounds of The Whispering Pines, our country clubhouse.
+_I_ had taken? Let me rather say, my horse; for he and I had traversed
+this road many times together, and he had no means of knowing that the
+season was over and the club-house closed. I did not think of it myself
+at the moment, and was recklessly questioning whether I should not
+drive in and end my disappointment in a wild carouse, when, the great
+stack of chimneys coming suddenly into view against the broad disk of
+the still unclouded moon, I perceived a thin trail of smoke soaring up
+from their midst and realised, with a shock, that there should be no
+such sign of life in a house I myself had closed, locked, and barred
+that very day.
+
+I was the president of the club and felt responsible. Pausing only long
+enough to make sure that I had yielded to no delusion, and that fire of
+some kind was burning on one of the club-house’s deserted hearths, I
+turned in at the lower gateway. For reasons which I need not now state,
+there were no bells attached to my cutter and consequently my approach
+was noiseless. I was careful that it should be so, also careful to stop
+short of the front door and leave my horse and sleigh in the black
+depths of the pine-grove pressing up to the walls on either side. I was
+sure that all was not as it should be inside these walls, but, as God
+lives, I had no idea what was amiss or how deeply my own destiny was
+involved in the step I was about to take.
+
+Our club-house stands, as it may be necessary to remind you, on a
+knoll thickly wooded with the ancient trees I have mentioned. These
+trees--all pines and of a growth unusual and of an aspect well-nigh
+hoary--extend only to the rear end of the house, where a wide stretch
+of gently undulating ground opens at once upon the eye, suggesting to
+all lovers of golf the admirable use to which it is put from early
+spring to latest fall. Now, links, as well as parterres and driveways,
+are lying under an even blanket of winter snow, and even the building,
+with its picturesque gables and rows of be-diamonded windows, is
+well-nigh indistinguishable in the shadows cast by the heavy pines,
+which soar above it and twist their limbs over its roof and about its
+forsaken corners, with a moan and a whisper always desolate to the
+sensitive ear, but from this night on, simply appalling.
+
+No other building stood within a half-mile in any direction. It was
+veritably a country club, gay and full of life in the season, but
+isolated and lonesome beyond description after winter had set in and
+buried flower and leaf under a wide waste of untrodden snow.
+
+I felt this isolation as I stepped from the edge of the trees and
+prepared to cross the few feet of open space leading to the main door.
+The sudden darkness instantly enveloping me, as the clouds, whose
+advancing mass I had been watching, made their final rush upon the
+moon, added its physical shock to this inner sense of desolation,
+and, in some moods, I should have paused and thought twice before
+attempting the door, behind which lurked the unknown with its naturally
+accompanying suggestion of peril. But rage and disappointment, working
+hotly within me, had left no space for fear. Rather rejoicing in the
+doubtfulness of the adventure, I pushed my way over the snow until my
+feet struck the steps. Here, instinct caused me to stop and glance
+quickly up and down the building either way. Not a gleam of light met
+my eye from the smallest scintillating pane. Was the house as soundless
+as it was dark?
+
+I listened but heard nothing. I listened again and still heard nothing.
+Then I proceeded boldly up the steps and laid my hand on the door.
+
+It was unlatched and yielded to my touch. Light or no light, sound
+or no sound there was some one within. The fire which had sent its
+attenuated streak of smoke up into the moonlit air, was burning yet on
+one of the many hearths within, and before it I should presently see--
+
+Whom?
+
+What?
+
+The question scarcely interested me.
+
+Nevertheless I proceeded to enter and close the door carefully behind
+me. As I did so, I cast an involuntary glance without. The sky was inky
+and a few wandering flakes of the now rapidly advancing storm came
+whirling in, biting my cheeks and stinging my forehead.
+
+Once inside, I stopped short, possibly to listen again, possibly to
+assure myself as to what I had best do next. The silence was profound.
+Not a sound disturbed the great, empty building. My own footfall, as
+I stirred, seemed to wake extraordinary echoes. I had moved but a few
+steps, yet to my heightened senses, the noise seemed loud enough to
+wake the dead. Instinctively I stopped and stood stock-still. There was
+no answering cessation of movement. Darkness, silence everywhere. Yet
+not quite absolute darkness. As my eyes grew accustomed to the place,
+I found it possible to discern the outlines of the windows and locate
+the stairs and the arches where the side halls opened. I was even able
+to pick out the exact spot where the great antlers spread themselves
+above the hatrack, and presently the rack itself came into view, with
+its row of empty pegs, yesterday so full, to-day quite empty. That rack
+interested me,--I hardly knew why,--and regardless of the noise I made,
+I crossed over to it and ran my hand along the wall underneath. The
+result was startling. A man’s coat and hat hung from one of the pegs.
+
+I knew my business as president of this club. I also knew that no one
+should be in the house at this time--that no one could be in it on any
+honest errand. Some secret and sinister business must be at the bottom
+of this mysterious intrusion immediately after the place had been
+shut for the winter. Would this hat and coat identify the intruder?
+I would strike a light and see. But this involved difficulties. The
+gas had been turned off that very morning and I had no matches in my
+pocket. But I remembered where they could be found. I had seen them
+when I passed through the kitchen earlier in the day. They were very
+accessible from the end of the hall where I stood. I had but to feel my
+way through a passage or two and I should come to the kitchen door.
+
+I began to move that way, and presently came creeping back, with a
+match-box half full of matches in my hand. But I did not strike one
+then. I had just made a move to do so, when the unmistakable sound of a
+door opening somewhere in the house made me draw back into as quiet and
+dark a place as I could find. This lay in the rear and at the right of
+the staircase, and as the sound had appeared to come from above, it was
+the most natural retreat that offered. And a good one I found it.
+
+I had hardly taken up my stand when the darkness above gave way to a
+faint glimmer, and a step became audible coming from some one of the
+many small rooms in the second story, but so slowly and with such
+evident hesitation that my imagination had ample time to work and fill
+my mind with varying anticipations, each more disconcerting than the
+last. Now I seemed to be listening to the movements of an intoxicated
+man seeking an issue out of strange quarters, then to the wary approach
+of one who had his own reasons for dread and was as conscious of my
+presence as I was of his.
+
+But the light, steadily increasing with each lagging but surely
+advancing step, soon gave the lie to this latter supposition, since no
+sane man, afraid of an ambush, would be likely to offer such odds to
+the one lying in wait for him, as his own face illumined by a flaming
+candle, and I was yielding to the bewilderment of the moment when the
+uncertain step paused and a sob came faintly to my ears, wrung from
+lips so stiff with human anguish that my fears took on new shape and
+the event a significance which in my present mood of personal suffering
+and preoccupation was anything but welcome. Indeed, I was coward
+enough to contemplate flight and might in another moment have yielded
+to the unworthy impulse if the sound of a second sigh had not struck
+shudderingly on my ear, followed by the renewal of the step and the
+almost immediate appearance on the stairs of a young girl holding a
+candle in one hand and shielding her left cheek with the other.
+
+Life offers few such shocks to any man, whatever his story or whatever
+his temperament. I had been prepared by the sob I had heard to see
+a woman, but not this woman. Nothing could have prepared me for an
+encounter with this woman anywhere that night, after what had passed
+between us and the wreck she had made of my life. But here! in a place
+so remote and desolate I had hesitated to enter it myself! What was I
+to think? How was I to reconcile so inconceivable a fact with what I
+knew of her in the past, with what I hoped from her in the future.
+
+To steady my thoughts and bring my whirling brain again under
+control, I fixed my eyes on her well-known form and features as upon
+a stranger’s whom I would understand and judge. I have called her a
+woman and certainly I had loved her as such, but as, in this moment
+of strange detachment, I watched her descend, swaying foot following
+swaying foot falteringly down the stairs, I was able to see that only
+the emotions which denaturalised her expression were a woman’s; that
+her features, her pose, and the peculiar childlike contour of the
+one cheek open to view were those of one whose yesterday was in the
+playroom.
+
+But beautiful! You do not often see such beauty. Under all the
+disfigurement of an agitation so great as to daunt me and make me
+question if I were its sole cause, her face shone with an individual
+charm which marked her out as one of the few who are the making or
+marring of men, sometimes of nations. This is the heritage she was
+born to, this her lot, not to be shirked, not to be evaded even now
+at her early age of seventeen. So much any one could see even in a
+momentary scrutiny of her face and figure. But what was not so clear,
+not even to myself with the consciousness of what had passed between
+us during the last few hours, was why her heart should have so outrun
+her years, and the emotion I beheld betray such shuddering depths. Some
+grisly fear, some staring horror had met her in this strange retreat.
+Simple grief speaks with a different language from that which I read in
+her distorted features and tottering, slowly creeping form. What had
+happened above? She had escaped me to run upon what? My lips refused
+to ask, my limbs refused to move, and if I breathed at all, I did so
+with such fierceness of restraint that her eyes never turned my way,
+not even when she had reached the lowest step and paused for a moment
+there, oscillating in pain or uncertainty. Her face was turned more
+fully towards me now, and I had just begun to discern something in it
+besides its tragic beauty, when she made a quick move and blew out
+the candle she held. One moment that magical picture of superhuman
+loveliness, then darkness, I might say silence, for I do not think
+either of us so much as stirred for several instants. Then there came
+a crash, followed by the sound of flying feet. She had flung the
+candlestick out of her hand and was hurriedly crossing the hall. I
+thought she was coming my way, and instinctively drew back against the
+wall. But she stopped far short of me, and I heard her groping about,
+then give a sudden spring towards the front door. It opened and the
+wind soughed in. I felt the chill of snow upon my face, and realised
+the tempest. Then all was quiet and dark again. She had slid quickly
+out and the door had swung to behind her. Another instant and I heard
+the click of the key as it turned in the lock, heard it and made no
+outcry, such the spell, such the bewilderment of my faculties! But
+once the act was accomplished and egress made difficult, nay, for the
+moment, impossible, I felt all lesser emotions give way to an anxiety
+which demanded immediate action, for the girl had gone out without
+wraps or covering for her head, and my experience of the evening had
+told me how cold it was. I must follow and find her and rescue her if
+possible from the snow. The distance was long to town, the cold would
+seize and perhaps prostrate her, after which, the wind and snow would
+do the rest.
+
+Throwing myself against the door, I shook it violently. It was
+immovable. Then I flew to the windows. Their fastenings yielded readily
+enough, but not the windows themselves; one had a broken cord, another
+seemed glued to its frame, and I was still struggling with the latter
+when I heard a sound which lifted the hair on my head and turned my
+whole attention back to what lay behind and above me. There was still
+some one in the house. I had forgotten everything in this apparition
+of the woman I have described in a place so disassociated with any
+conception I could possibly have of her whereabouts on this especial
+evening. But this noise, short, sharp, but too distant to be altogether
+recognisable, roused doubts which once awakened changed the whole tenor
+of my thoughts and would not let me rest till I had probed the house
+from top to bottom. To find Carmel Cumberland alone in this desolation
+was a mystifying discovery to which I had found it hard enough to
+reconcile myself. But Carmel here in company with another at the very
+moment when I had expected the fruition of my own joy,--ah, that was to
+open hell’s door in my breast; a possibility too intolerable to remain
+unsettled for an instant. Though she had passed out before my eyes
+in a drooping, almost agonised condition, not she, dear as she was,
+and great as were my fears in her regard, was to be sought out first,
+but the man! The man who was back of all this, possibly back of my
+disappointment; the man whose work I may have witnessed, but at whose
+identity I could not even guess.
+
+Leaving the window, I groped my way along the wall until I reached the
+rack where the man’s coat and hat hung. Whether it was my intention to
+carry them away and hide them, in my anxiety to secure this intruder
+and hold him to a bitter account for the misery he was causing me, or
+whether I only meant to satisfy myself that they were the habiliments
+of a stranger and not those of some sneaking member of the club, is of
+little importance in the light of the fact which presently burst upon
+me. The hat and coat were gone. Nothing hung from the rack. The wall
+was free from end to end. She had taken these articles of male apparel
+with her; she had not gone forth into the driving snow, unprotected,
+but--
+
+I did not know what to think. No acquaintanceship with her girlish
+impulses, nothing that had occurred between us before or during this
+night, had prepared me for a freak of this nature. I felt backward
+along the wall; I felt forward; I even handled the pegs and counted
+them as I passed to and fro, touching every one; but I could not alter
+the fact. The groping she had done had been in this direction. She was
+searching for this hat and coat (a man’s hat,--a derby, as I had been
+careful to assure myself at the first handling) and, in them, she had
+gone home as she had probably come, and there was no man in the case,
+or if there were--
+
+The doubt drove me to the staircase. Making no further effort to
+unravel the puzzle which only beclouded my faculties, I began my wary
+ascent. I had not the slightest fear, I was too full of cold rage for
+that.
+
+The arrangement of rooms on the second floor was well known to me. I
+understood every nook and corner and could find my way about the whole
+place without a light. I took but one precaution--that of slipping off
+my shoes at the foot of the stairs. I wished to surprise the intruder.
+I was willing to resort to any expedient to accomplish this. The
+matches I carried in my pocket would make this possible if once I heard
+him breathing. I held my own breath as I stole softly up, and waited
+for an instant at the top of the stairs to listen. There was an awesome
+silence everywhere, and I was hesitating whether to attack the front
+rooms first or to follow up a certain narrow hall leading to a rear
+staircase, when I remembered the thin line of smoke which, rising from
+one of the chimneys, had first attracted my attention to the house. In
+that was my clue. There was but one room on this floor where a fire
+could be lit. It lay a few feet beyond me down the narrow hall I have
+just mentioned. Why had I trusted everything to my ears when my nose
+would have been a better guide? As I took the few steps necessary, a
+slight smell of smoke became very perceptible, and no longer in doubt
+of my course, I pushed boldly on and entering the half-open door,
+struck a match and peered anxiously about.
+
+Emptiness here just as everywhere else. A few chairs, a dresser,--it
+was a ladies’ dressing-room,--some smouldering ashes on the hearth, a
+lounge piled up with cushions. But no person. The sound I had heard
+had not issued from this room, yet something withheld me from seeking
+further. Chilled to the bone, with teeth chattering in spite of myself,
+I paused just inside the door, and when the match went out in my hand
+remained shivering there in the darkness, a prey to sensations more
+nearly approaching those of fear than any I had ever before experienced
+in my whole life.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+IT WAS SHE--SHE INDEED!
+
+Look on death itself!--up, up, and see
+The great doom’s visage!
+
+_Macbeth_.
+
+
+Why, I did not know. There seemed to be no reason for this excess of
+feeling. I had no dread of attack; my apprehension was of another sort.
+Besides, any attack here must come from the rear--from the open doorway
+in which I stood--and my dread lay before me, in the room itself,
+which, as I have already said, appeared to be totally empty. What
+could occasion my doubts, and why did I not fly the place? There were
+passage-ways yet to search, why linger here like a gaby in the dark
+when perhaps the man I believed to be in hiding somewhere within these
+walls, was improving the opportunity to escape?
+
+If I asked myself this question, I did not answer it, but I doubt if
+I asked it then. I had forgotten the intruder; the interest which had
+carried me thus far had become lost in a fresher one of which the
+beginning and ending lay hidden within the four walls I now stared
+upon, unseeing. Not to see and yet to feel--did that make the horror?
+If so, another lighted match must help me out. I struck one while the
+thought was hot within me, and again took a look at the room.
+
+I noted but one thing new, but that made me reel back till I was half
+way into the hall. Then a certain dogged persistency I possess came to
+my rescue, and I re-entered the room at a leap and stood before the
+lounge and its pile of cushions. They were numerous,--all that the room
+contained, and more! Chairs had been stripped, window-seats denuded,
+and the whole collection disposed here in a set way which struck me as
+unnatural. Was this the janitor’s idea? I hardly thought so, and was
+about to pluck one of these cushions off, when that most unreasonable
+horror seized me again and I found myself looking back over my shoulder
+at the fireplace from which rose a fading streak of smoke which some
+passing gust, perhaps, had blown out into the room.
+
+I felt sick. Was it the smell? It was not that of burning wood, hardly
+of burning paper, I--but here my second match went out.
+
+Thoroughly roused now (you will say, by what?) I felt my way out of
+the room and to the head of the staircase. I remembered the candle
+and candlestick I had heard thrown down on the lower floor by Carmel
+Cumberland. I would secure them and come back and settle these uncanny
+doubts. It might be the veriest fool business, but my mind was
+disturbed and must be set at ease. Nothing else seemed so important,
+yet I was not without anxiety for the lovely and delicate woman
+wandering the snow-covered roads in the teeth of a furious gale, any
+more than I was dead to the fact that I should never forgive myself if
+I allowed the man to escape whom I believed to be hiding somewhere in
+the rear of this house.
+
+I had a hunt for the candlestick and a still longer one for the candle,
+but finally I recovered both, and, lighting the latter, felt myself,
+for the first time, more or less master of the situation.
+
+Rapidly regaining the room in which my interest was now centred, I set
+the candlestick down on the dresser, and approached the lounge. Hardly
+knowing what I feared, or what I expected to find, I tore off one of
+the cushions and flung it behind me. More cushions were revealed--but
+that was not all.
+
+Escaping from the edge of one of them I saw a shiny tress of woman’s
+hair. I gave a gasp and pulled off more cushions, then I fell on my
+knees, struck down by the greatest horror which a man can feel. Death
+lay before me--violent, uncalled-for death--and the victim was a woman.
+But it was not that. Though the head was not yet revealed, I thought I
+knew the woman and that she--Did seconds pass or many minutes before
+I lifted that last cushion? I shall never know. It was an eternity
+to me and I am not of a sentimental cast, but I have some sort of a
+conscience and during that interval it awoke. It has never quite slept
+since.
+
+The cushion had not concealed the hands, but I did not look at them--I
+did not dare. I must first see the face. But I did not twitch this
+pillow off; I drew it aside slowly, as though held by the restraining
+clutch of some one behind me. And I was so held, but not by what was
+visible--rather by the terrors which gather in the soul at the summons
+of some dreadful doom. I could not meet the certainty without some
+preparation. I released another strand of hair; then the side of a
+cheek, half buried out of sight in the loosened locks and bulging
+pillows; then, with prayers to God for mercy, an icy brow; two staring
+eyes--which having seen I let the cushion drop, for mercy was not to be
+mine.
+
+It was _she_, she, indeed! and judgment was glassed in the look I
+met--judgment and nothing more kindly, however I might appeal to Heaven
+for mercy or whatever the need of my fiercely startled and repentant
+soul.
+
+Dead! Adelaide! the woman I had planned to wrong that very night, and
+who had thus wronged me! For a moment I could take in nothing but
+this one astounding fact, then the how and the why woke in maddening
+curiosity within me, and seizing the cushion, I dragged it aside and
+stared down into the pitiful and accusing features thus revealed, as
+though to tear from them the story of the crime which had released
+me as I would not have been released, no, not to have had my heart’s
+desire in all the fulness with which I had contemplated it a few short
+hours before.
+
+But beyond the ever accusing, protuberant stare, those features told
+nothing; and steeling myself to the situation, I made what observation
+I could of her condition and the surrounding circumstances. For this
+was my betrothed wife. Whatever my intentions, however far my love had
+strayed under the spell cast over me by her sister,--the young girl who
+had just passed out,--Adelaide and I had been engaged for many months;
+our wedding day was even set.
+
+But that was all over now--ended as her life was ended: suddenly,
+incomprehensibly, and by no stroke of God. Even the jewel on her finger
+was gone, the token of our betrothal. This was to be expected. She
+would be apt to take it off before committing herself to a fate that
+proclaimed me a traitor to this symbol. I should see that ring again. I
+should find it in a letter filled with bitter words. I would not think
+of it or of them now. I would try to learn how she had committed this
+act, whether by poison or--
+
+It must have been by poison; no other means would suggest themselves
+to one of her refined sense; but if so, why those marks on her neck,
+growing darker and darker as I stared at them!
+
+My senses reeled as I scrutinised those marks. Small, delicate but
+deadly, they stared upon me from either side of her white neck till
+nature could endure no more and I tottered back against the further
+wall, beholding no longer room, nor lounge, nor recumbent body, but a
+young girl’s exquisite face, set in lines which belied her seventeen
+years, and made futile any attempt on my part at self-deception when my
+reason inexorably demanded an explanation of this death. As suicide it
+was comprehensible, as murder, not, unless--
+
+And it had been murder!
+
+I sank to the floor as I fully realised this.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+“OPEN!”
+
+PRINCE.--Bring forth the parties of suspicion.
+
+FRIAR.--I am the greatest, as the time and place Doth make against me,
+of this direful murder; And here I stand, both to impeach and purge.
+Myself condemned and myself excused.
+
+_Romeo and Juliet_.
+
+
+I have mentioned poison as my first thought. It was a natural one, the
+result undoubtedly of having noticed two small cordial glasses standing
+on a little table over against the fireplace. When I was conscious
+again of my own fears, I crossed to the table and peered into these
+glasses. They were both empty. However, they had not been so long. In
+each I found traces of anisette cordial, and though no bottle stood
+near I was very confident that it could readily be found somewhere in
+the room. What had preceded and followed the drinking of this cordial?
+
+As I raised my head from bending over these glasses--not club glasses,
+by the way--I caught sight of my face in the mantel mirror. It gave me
+maddening thoughts. In this same mirror there had been reflected but a
+little while before, two other faces, for a sight of whose expression
+at that fatal moment I would gladly risk my soul.
+
+How had _she_ looked--how that other? Would not the story of those
+awful, those irrevocable moments be plain to my eye, if the quickly
+responsive glass could but retain the impressions it receives and give
+back at need what had once informed its surface with moving life!
+
+I stared at the senseless glass, appealed to it with unreasoning
+frenzy, as to something which could give up its secret if it
+would, but only to meet my own features in every guise of fury and
+despair--features I no longer knew--features which insensibly increased
+my horror till I tore myself wildly from the spot, and cast about for
+further clues to enlightenment, before yielding to the conviction which
+was making a turmoil in mind, heart, and conscience. Alas! there was
+but little more to see. A pair of curling-irons lay on the hearth,
+but I had no sooner lifted them than I dropped them with a shudder of
+unspeakable loathing, only to start at the noise they made in striking
+the tiles. For it was the self-same noise I had heard when listening
+from below. These tongs, set up against the side of the fireplace had
+been jarred down by the forcible shutting of the large front door, and
+no man other than myself was in the house, or had been in the house;
+only the two women. But the time when this discovery would have brought
+comfort was passed. Better a hundred times that a man--I had almost
+said any man--should have been with them here, than that they should
+be closeted together in a spot so secluded, with rancour and cause for
+complaint in one heart, and a biting, deadly flame in the other, which
+once reaching up must from its very nature leave behind it a corrosive
+impress. I saw,-I felt,--but I did not desist from my investigations. A
+stick or two still smouldered on the hearthstone. In the ashes lay some
+scattered fragments of paper which crumbled at my touch. On the floor
+in front I espied only a stray hair-pin; everything else was in place
+throughout the room except the cushions and that horror on the lounge,
+waiting the second look I had so far refrained from giving it.
+
+That look I could no longer withhold. I must know the depth of the
+gulf over which I hung. I must not wrong with a thought one who had
+smiled upon me like an angel of light--a young girl, too, with the dew
+of innocence on her beauty to every eye but mine and only not to mine
+within--shall I say ten awful minutes? It seemed ages,--all of my life
+and more. Yet that lovely breast had heaved not so many times since I
+looked upon her as a deified mortal, and now two small spots on another
+woman’s pulseless throat had drawn a veil of blood over that beauty,
+and given to a child the attributes of a Medusa. Yet hope was not quite
+stilled. I would look again and perhaps discover that my own eyes had
+been at fault, that there were no marks, or if marks, not just the ones
+my fancy had painted there.
+
+Turning, I let my glance fall first on the feet. I had not noted them
+before, and I was startled to see that the arctics in which they
+were clad were filled all around with snow. She had walked then, as
+the other was walking now; she, who detested every effort and was of
+such delicate make that exertion of unusual kind could not readily be
+associated with her. Had she come alone or in Carmel’s company, and if
+in Carmel’s company, on what ostensible errand if not that of death?
+Her dress, which was of dark wool, showed that she had changed her
+garments for this trip. I had seen her at dinner, and this was not the
+gown she had worn then--the gown in which she had confronted me during
+those few intolerable minutes when I could not meet her eyes. Fatal
+cowardice! A moment of realisation then and we might all have been
+saved this horror of sin and death and shameful retribution.
+
+And yet who knows? Not understanding what I saw, how could I measure
+the might-have-beens! I would proceed with my task--note if she wore
+the diamond brooch I had given her. No, she was without ornament; I had
+never seen her so plainly clad. Might I draw a hope from this? Even
+the pins which had fallen from her hair were such as she wore when
+least adorned. Nothing spoke of the dinner party or of her having been
+dragged here unaware; but all of previous intent and premeditation.
+Surely hope was getting uppermost. If I had dreamed the marks--
+
+But no! There they were, unmistakable and damning, just where the
+breath struggles up. I put my own thumbs on these two dark spots to
+see if--when what was it? A lightning stroke or a call of fate which
+one must answer while sense remains? I felt my head pulled around by
+some unseen force from behind, and met staring into mine through the
+glass of the window a pair of burning eyes. Or was it fantasy? For in
+another moment they were gone, nor was I in the condition just then to
+dissociate the real from the unreal. But the possibility of a person
+having seen me in this position before the dead was enough to startle
+me to my feet, and though in another instant I became convinced that
+I had been the victim of hallucination, I nevertheless made haste to
+cross to the window and take a look through its dismal panes. A gale of
+blinding snow was sweeping past, making all things indistinguishable,
+but the absence of balcony outside was reassuring and I stepped hastily
+back, asking myself for the first time what I should do and where I
+should now go to ensure myself from being called as a witness to the
+awful occurrence which had just taken place in this house. Should I go
+home and by some sort of subterfuge now unthought of, try to deceive
+my servants as to the time of my return, or attempt to create an alibi
+elsewhere? Something I must do to save myself the anguish and Carmel
+the danger of my testimony in this matter. She must never know, the
+world must never know that I had seen her here.
+
+I had lost at a blow everything that gives zest or meaning to life, but
+I might still be spared the bottommost depth of misery--be saved the
+utterance of the word which would sink that erring but delicate soul
+into the hell yawning beneath her. It was my one thought now--though
+I knew that the woman who had fallen victim to her childish hate had
+loved me deeply and was well worth my avenging.
+
+I could not be the death of two women; the loss of one weighed heavily
+enough upon my conscience. I would fly the place--I would leave this
+ghastly find to tell its own story. The night was stormy, the hour
+late, the spot a remote one, and the road to it but little used. I
+could easily escape and when the morrow came--but it was the present I
+must think of now, this hour, this moment. How came I to stay so long!
+In feverish haste, I began to throw the pillows back over the quiet
+limbs, the accusing face. Shudderingly I hid those eyes (I understood
+their strange protuberance now) and recklessly bent on flight, was half
+way across the floor when my feet were stayed--I wonder that my reason
+was not unseated--by a sudden and tremendous attack on the great door
+below, mingled with loud cries to open which ran thundering through the
+house, calling up innumerable echoes from its dead and hidden corners.
+
+It was the police. The wild night, the biting storm had been of no
+avail. An alarm had reached headquarters, and all hope of escape on
+my part was at an end. Yet because at such crises instinct rises
+superior to reason, I blew out the candle and softly made my way into
+the hall. I had remembered a window opening over a shed at the head of
+the kitchen staircase. I could reach it from this rear hall by just
+a turn or two, and once on that shed, a short leap would land me on
+the ground; after which I could easily trust to the storm to conceal
+my flight across the open golf-links. It was worth trying at least;
+anything was better than being found in the house with my murdered
+betrothed.
+
+I had no reason to think that I was being sought, or that my presence
+in this building was even suspected. It might well be that the police
+were even ignorant of the tragedy awaiting them across the threshold
+of the door they seemed intent on battering down. The gleam of a
+candle burning in this closed-up house, or even the tale told by the
+rising smoke, may have drawn them from the road to investigate. Such
+coincidences had been. Such untoward happenings had misled people into
+useless self-betrayal. My case was too desperate for such weakness.
+Flight at this moment might save all; I would at least attempt it. The
+door was shaking on its hinges; these intruders seemed determined to
+enter.
+
+With a spring I reached the window by which I hoped to escape, and
+quickly raised it. A torrent of snow swept in, covering my face and
+breast in a moment. It did something more: it cleared my brain, and I
+remembered my poor horse standing in this blinding gale under cover
+of the snow-packed pines. Every one knew my horse. I could commit no
+greater folly than to flee by the rear fields while such a witness to
+my presence remained in full view in front. With the sensation of a
+trapped animal, I reclosed the window and cast about for a safe corner
+where I could lie concealed until I learned what had brought these men
+here and how much I really had to fear from their presence.
+
+I had but little time in which to choose. The door below had just given
+way and a party of at least three men were already stamping their feet
+free from snow in the hall. I did not like the tone of their voices,
+it was too low and steady to suit me. I had rather have heard drunken
+cries or a burst of wild hilarity than these stern and purposeful
+whispers. Men of resolution could have but one errand here. My doom
+was closing round me. I could only put off the fatal moment. But it
+was better to do this than to plunge headlong into the unknown fate
+awaiting me.
+
+I knew of a possible place of concealment. It was in the ballroom
+not far from where I stood. I remembered the spot well. It was at
+the top of a little staircase leading to the musicians’ gallery. A
+balustrade guarded this gallery, supported by a boarding wide enough
+to hide a man lying behind it at his full length. If the search I was
+endeavouring to evade was not minute enough to lead them to look behind
+this boarding, it would offer me the double advantage of concealment
+and an unobstructed view of what went on in the hall, through the main
+doorway opening directly opposite. I could reach this ballroom and
+its terminal gallery without going around to this door. A smaller one
+communicated directly with the corridor in which I was then lurking,
+and towards this I now made my way with all the precaution suggested by
+my desperate situation. No man ever moved more lightly. The shoes which
+I had taken off in the lower hall were yet in my hand. I had caught
+them up after replacing the cushions on Adelaide’s body. Even to my own
+straining ears I made no perceptible sound. I reached the balcony and
+had stretched myself out at full length behind the boarding, before the
+men below had left the lower floor.
+
+An interval of heart-torture and wearing suspense now followed. They
+were ransacking the rooms below by the aid of their own lanterns, as I
+could tell from their assured manner. That they had not made at once
+for the scene of crime brought me some small sense of comfort, but not
+much. They were too resolute in their movements and much too thorough
+and methodical in their search, for me to dream of their confining
+their investigations to the first floor. Unless I very much mistook
+their purpose, I should soon hear them ascending the stairs, after
+which, instinct, if not the faint smell of smoke still lingering in the
+air, would lead them to the room where my poor Adelaide lay.
+
+And thus it proved. More quickly than I expected, the total darkness
+in which I lay, brightened under an advancing lantern, and I heard the
+steps of two men coming down the hall. It was a steady if not rapid
+approach, and I was quite prepared for their presence when they finally
+reached the doorway opposite and stopped to look in at what must have
+appeared to them a vast and empty space. They were officials, true
+enough--one hasty glance through the balustrade assured me of that. I
+even knew one of them by name--he was a sergeant of police and a highly
+trustworthy man. But how they had been drawn to this place at a moment
+so critical, I could not surmise. Do men of this stamp scent crime
+as a hound scents out prey? They had the look of hounds. Even in the
+momentary glimpse I got of them, I noted the tense and expectant look
+with which they endeavoured to pierce the dim spaces between us. The
+chase was on. It was something more than curiosity or a chance exercise
+of their duty which had brought them here. Their object was definite,
+and if the sight of the low gallery in which I lay, should suggest to
+them all its possibilities as a hiding-place, I should know in just one
+moment more what it is for the helpless quarry to feel the clutch of
+the captor.
+
+But the moment passed without any attempt at approach on their part,
+and when I lifted my head again it was to catch a glimpse of their side
+faces as they turned to look elsewhere for what they were plainly in
+search of. An oath, muffled but stern, which was the first word above
+a whisper that I had heard issue from their lips, told me that they
+had reached _the_ room and had come upon the horror which lay there.
+What would they say to it! Would they know who she was--her name,
+her quality, her story--and respect her dead as they certainly must
+have respected her living? I listened but caught only a low murmur
+as they conferred together. I imagined their movements; saw them in
+my mind’s eye leaning over that death-tenanted couch, pointing with
+accusing finger at those two dark marks, and consulting each other with
+side-long looks, as they passed from one detail of her appearance to
+another. I even imagined them crossing the floor and lifting the two
+cordial glasses just as I had done, and then slowly setting them down
+again, with perhaps a lift of the brows or a suggestive shake of the
+head; and maddened by my own intolerable position, drawn by a power I
+felt it impossible to resist, I crept to my feet and took my staggering
+way down the half-dozen steps of the gallery and thence along by the
+left-hand wall towards the further doorway, and through it to where
+these men stood weighing the chances in which my life and honour were
+involved, and those of one other of whom I dared not think and would
+not have these men think for all that was left me of hope and happiness.
+
+It was dark in the ballroom, and it was only a little less so in the
+corridor. All the light was in _that_ room; but I still slid along the
+wall like a thief, with eyes set and ears agape for any chance word
+which might reach me. Suddenly I heard one. It was this, uttered with a
+decision which had the strange effect of lifting my head and making a
+man of me again:
+
+“That settles it. He will find it hard to escape after this.”
+
+_He!_ I had been dreading to hear a _she_. Yet why? Who on God’s earth,
+save myself, could know that Carmel had been within these woeful walls
+to-night. _He!_ I never stopped to question who was meant by this
+definite pronoun. I was not even conscious of caring very much. I was
+in a coil of threatening troubles, but I was in it alone, and, greatly
+relieved by the discovery, I drew myself up and stepped quickly forward
+into the room where the two officials stood.
+
+Their faces, as they wheeled sharply about and took in my shoeless
+and more or less dishevelled figure, told me with an eloquence which
+made my heart sink, the unfortunate impression which my presence made
+upon them. It was but a fleeting look, for these men were both by
+nature and training easy masters of themselves; but its language was
+unmistakable and I knew that if I were to hold my own with them, I must
+get all the support I could from the truth, save where it would involve
+her--from the truth and my own consciousness of innocence, if I had any
+such consciousness. I was not sure that I had, for my falseness had
+precipitated this tragedy,--how I might never know, but a knowledge
+of the how was not necessary to my self-condemnation. Nevertheless my
+hands were clean of this murder, and allowing the surety of this fact
+to take a foremost place in my mind, I faced these men and with real
+feeling, but as little display of it as possible, I observed:
+
+“You have come to my aid in a critical moment. This is my betrothed
+wife--the woman I was to marry--and I find her lying here dead, in this
+closed and lonely house. What does it mean? I know no more than you do.”
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE ODD CANDLESTICK
+
+It is a damned and a bloody work;
+The graceless action of a heavy hand,
+If that it be the work of any hand.
+
+_King John_.
+
+
+The two men eyed me quietly, then Hexford pointed to my shoeless feet
+and sternly retorted:
+
+“Permit us to doubt your last assertion. You seem to be in better
+position than ourselves to explain the circumstances which puzzle you.”
+
+They were right. It was for me to talk, not for them. I conceded the
+point in these words:
+
+“Perhaps--but you cannot always trust appearances. I can explain my
+own presence here and the condition in which you find me, but I cannot
+explain this tragedy, near and dear as Miss Cumberland was to me. I
+did not know she was in the building, alive or dead. I came upon her
+here covered with the cushions just as you found her. I have felt the
+shock. I do not look like myself--I do not feel like myself; it was
+enough--” Here real emotion seized me and I almost broke down. I was in
+a position much more dreadful than any they could imagine or should be
+allowed to.
+
+Their silence led me to examine their faces. Hexford’s mouth had
+settled into a stiff, straight line and the other man’s wore a cynical
+smile I did not like. At this presage of the difficulties awaiting me,
+I felt one strand of the rope sustaining me above this yawning gulf
+of shame and ignominy crack and give way. Oh, for a better record in
+the past!--a staff on which to lean in such an hour as this! But while
+nothing serious clouded my name, I had more to blush for than to pride
+myself upon in my career as prince of good fellows,--and these men knew
+it, both of them, and let it weigh in the scale already tipped far off
+its balance by coincidences which a better man than myself would have
+found it embarrassing to explain. I recognised all this, I say, in the
+momentary glance I cast at their stern and unresponsive figures; but
+the courage which had served me in lesser extremities did not fail me
+now, and, kneeling down before my dead betrothed, I kissed her cold
+white hand with sincere compunction, before attempting the garbled and
+probably totally incoherent story with which I endeavoured to explain
+the inexplainable situation.
+
+They listened--I will do them that much justice; but it was with such
+an air of incredulity that my words fell with less and less continuity
+and finally lost themselves in a confused stammer as I reached the
+point where I pulled the cushions from the couch and made my ghastly
+discovery.
+
+“You see--see for yourselves--what confronted me. My betrothed--a
+dainty, delicate woman--dead--alone--in this solitary, far-away
+spot--the victim of what? I asked myself then--I ask myself now. I
+cannot understand it--or those glasses yonder--or _those marks!”_ They
+were black by this time--unmistakable--not to be ignored by them or by
+me.
+
+“We understand those marks, and you ought to,” came from the second
+man, the one I did not know.
+
+My head fell forward; my lips refused to speak the words. I saw as in
+a flash, a picture of the one woman bending over the other; terror,
+reproach, anguish in the eyes whose fixed stare would never more
+leave my consciousness, an access of rage or some such sadden passion
+animating the other whose every curve spoke tenderness, whose every
+look up to this awful day had been as an angel’s look to me. The vision
+was a maddening one. I shook myself free from it by starting to my
+feet. “It’s--it’s--” I gasped.
+
+“She has been strangled,” quoth Hexford, doggedly.
+
+“A dog’s death,” mumbled the other.
+
+My hands came together involuntarily. At that instant, with the memory
+before me of the vision I have just described, I almost wished that it
+had been _my_ hate, _my_ anger which had brought those tell-tale marks
+out upon that livid skin. I should have suffered less. I should only
+have had to pay the penalty of my crime and not be forced to think
+of Carmel with terrible revulsion, as I was now thinking, minute by
+minute, fight with it as I would.
+
+“You had better sit down,” Hexford suddenly suggested, pushing a chair
+my way. “Clarke, look up the telephone and ask for three more men. I am
+going into this matter thoroughly. Perhaps you will tell us where the
+telephone is,” he asked, turning my way.
+
+It was some little time before I took in these words. When I did,
+I became conscious of his keen look, also of a change in my own
+expression. I had forgotten the telephone. It had not yet been taken
+out. If only I had remembered this before these men came--I might have
+saved--No, nothing could have saved her or me, except the snow, except
+the snow. That may already have saved her. All this time I was trying
+to tell where the telephone was.
+
+That I succeeded at last I judged from the fact that the second man
+left the room. As he did so, Hexford lit the candle. Idly watching,
+for nothing now could make me look at the lounge again, I noticed the
+candlestick. It was of brass and rare in style and workmanship--a
+candlestick to be remembered; one of a pair perhaps. I felt my hair
+stir as I took in the details of its shape and ornamentation. If its
+mate were in her house--No, no, no! I would not have it so. I could
+not control my emotion if I let my imagination stray too far. The
+candlestick must be the property of the club. I had only forgotten. It
+was bought when? While thinking, planning, I was conscious of Hexford’s
+eyes fixed steadily upon me.
+
+“Did you go into the kitchen in your wanderings below?” he asked.
+
+“No,” I began, but seeing that I had made a mistake, I bungled and
+added weakly: “Yes; after matches.”
+
+“Only matches?”
+
+“That’s all.”
+
+“And did you get them?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“In the dark? You must have had trouble in finding them?”
+
+“Not at all. Only safety matches are allowed here, and they are put in
+a receptacle at the side of each door. I had but to open the kitchen
+door, feel along the jamb, find this receptacle, and pull the box out.
+I’m well used to all parts of the house.”
+
+“And you did this?”
+
+“I have said so.”
+
+“May I ask which door you allude to?”
+
+“The one communicating with the front hall.”
+
+“Where did you light your first match?”
+
+“Upstairs.”
+
+“Not in the kitchen?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“You are sure?”
+
+“Quite sure.”
+
+“That’s a pity. I thought you might be able to tell me how so many wine
+and whiskey bottles came to be standing on the kitchen table.”
+
+I stared at him, dazed. Then I remembered the two small glasses on
+the little table across the room, and instinctively glanced at them.
+But no whiskey had been drunk out of them--the odor of anisette is
+unmistakable.
+
+“You carry the key to the wine-cellar?” he asked.
+
+I considered a moment. I did not know what to make of bottles on the
+kitchen table. These women and _bottles_! They abhorred wine; they
+had reason to, God knows; T remembered the dinner and all that had
+signalised it, and felt my confusion grow. But a question had been
+asked, and I must answer it. It would not do for me to hesitate about a
+matter of this kind. Only what was the question. Something about a key.
+I had no key; the cellar had been ransacked without my help; should I
+acknowledge this?
+
+“The keys were given up by the janitor yesterday,” I managed to stammer
+at last. “But I did not bring them here to-night. They are in my rooms
+at home.”
+
+I finished with a gasp. I had suddenly remembered that these keys were
+not in my rooms. I had had them with me at Miss Cumberland’s and being
+given to fooling with something when embarrassed, I had fooled with
+them and dropped them while talking with Adelaide and watching Carmel.
+I had meant to pick them up but I forgot and--
+
+“You need say nothing more about it,” remarked Hexford. “I have no
+right to question you at all.” And stepping across the room, he took
+up the glasses one after the other and smelled of them. “Some sweet
+stuff,” he remarked. “Cordial, I should say anisette. There wasn’t
+anything like that on the kitchen table. Let us see what there is in
+here,” he added, stepping into the adjoining small room into which I
+had simply peered in my own investigation of the place.
+
+As he did so, a keen blast blew in; a window in the adjoining room was
+open. He cast me a hurried glance and with the door in his hand, made
+the following remark:
+
+“Your lady love--the victim here--could not have come through the snow
+with no more clothing on her than we see now. She must have worn a hat
+and coat or furs or something of that nature. Let us look for them.”
+
+I rose, stumbling. I saw that he did not mean to leave me alone for a
+moment. Indeed, I did not wish to be so left. Better any companionship
+than that of my own thoughts and of her white upturned face. As I
+followed him into this closet he pushed the door wide, pulling out an
+electric torch as he did so. By its light we saw almost at first glance
+the coat and hat he professed to seek, lying in a corner of the floor,
+beside an overturned chair.
+
+“Good!” left my companion’s lips. “That’s all straight. You recognise
+these garments?”
+
+I nodded, speechless. A thousand memories rushed upon me at the sight
+of the long plush coat which I had so often buttoned about her, with
+a troubled heart. How her eyes would seek mine as we stood thus close
+together, searching, searching for the old love or the fancied love of
+which the ashes only remained. Torment, all torment to remember now, as
+Hexford must have seen, if the keenness of his intelligence equalled
+that of his eye at this moment.
+
+The window which stood open was a small one,-a mere slit in the wall;
+but it let in a stream of zero air and I saw Hexford shiver as he
+stepped towards it and looked out. But I felt hot rather than cold, and
+when I instinctively put my hand to my forehead, it came away wet.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+A SCRAP OF PAPER
+
+Look to the lady:--
+And when we have our naked frailties hid,
+That suffer in exposure, let us meet,
+And question this most bloody piece of work,
+To know it further. Fears and scruples shake us;
+In the great hand of God I stand; and, thence,
+Against the undivulg’d pretence I fight
+Of treasonous malice.
+
+_Macbeth_.
+
+
+Shortly after this, a fresh relay of police arrived and I could hear
+the whole house being ransacked. I had found my shoes, and was sitting
+in my own private room before a fire which had been lighted for me on
+the hearth. I was in a state of stupor now, and if my body shook, as
+it did from time to time, it was not from cold, nor do I think from
+any special horror of mind or soul (I felt too dull for that), but in
+response to the shuddering pines which pressed up close to the house
+at this point and soughed and tapped at the walls and muttered among
+themselves with an insistence which I could not ignore, notwithstanding
+my many reasons for self-absorption.
+
+The storm, which had been exceedingly fierce while it lasted, had
+quieted down to a steady fall of snow. Had its mission been to serve as
+a blanket to this crime by wiping out from the old snow all tell-tale
+footsteps and such other records as simplify cases of this kind for the
+detectives, it could not have happened more _apropos_ to the event.
+From the complaints which had already reached my ears from the two
+policemen, I was quite aware that even as early as their first arrival,
+they had found a clean page where possibly a few minutes before the
+whole secret of this tragedy may have been written in unmistakable
+characters; and while this tilled me with relief in one way, it added
+to my care in another, for the storm which could accomplish so much in
+so short a time was a bitter one for a young girl to meet, and Carmel
+must have met it at its worst, in her lonesome struggle homeward.
+
+Where was she? Living or dead, where was she now and where was
+Adelaide--the two women who for the last six weeks had filled my life
+with so many unhallowed and conflicting emotions? The conjecture
+passed incessantly through my brain, but it passed idly also and was
+not answered even in thought. Indeed, I seemed incapable of sustaining
+any line of thought for more than an instant, and when after an
+indefinite length of time the door behind me opened, the look I turned
+upon the gentleman who entered must have been a strange and far from
+encouraging one.
+
+He brought a lantern with him. So far the room had had no other
+illumination than such as came from the fire, and when he had set this
+lantern down on the mantel and turned to face me, I perceived, with
+a sort of sluggish hope, that he was Dr. Perry, once a practising
+physician and my father’s intimate friend, now a county official of no
+ordinary intelligence and, what was better, of no ordinary feeling.
+
+His attachment to my father had not descended to me and, for the
+moment, he treated me like a stranger.
+
+“I am the coroner of this district,” said he. “I have left my bed
+to have a few words with you and learn if your detention here is
+warranted. You are the president of this club, and the lady whose
+violent death in this place I have been called upon to investigate, is
+Miss Cumberland, your affianced wife?”
+
+My assent, though hardly audible, was not to be misunderstood. Drawing
+up a chair, he sat down and something in his manner which was not
+wholly without sympathy, heartened me still more, dispelling some of
+the cloudiness which had hitherto befogged my faculties.
+
+“They have told me what you had to say in explanation of your presence
+here where a crime of some nature has taken place. But I should
+like to hear the story from your own lips. I feel that I owe you
+this consideration. At all events, I am disposed to show it. This
+is no common case of violence and the parties to it are not of the
+common order. Miss Cumberland’s virtue and social standing no one
+can question, while you are the son of a man who has deservedly been
+regarded as an honour to the town. You have been intending to marry
+Miss Cumberland?”
+
+“Yes.” I looked the man directly in the eye. “Our wedding-day was set.”
+
+“Did you love her? Pardon me; if I am to be of any benefit to you at
+this crisis I must strike at the root of things. If you do not wish to
+answer, say so, Mr. Ranelagh.”
+
+“I do wish.” This was a lie, but what was I to do, knowing how
+dangerous it would be for Carmel to have it publicly known where
+my affections were really centred and what a secret tragedy of
+heart-struggle and jealous passion underlay this open one of foul and
+murderous death. “I am in no position to conceal anything from you. I
+did love Miss Cumberland. We have been engaged for a year. She was a
+woman of fortune but I am not without means of my own and could have
+chosen a penniless girl and still been called prosperous.”
+
+“I see, and she returned your love?”
+
+“Sincerely.” Was the room light enough to reveal my guilty flush? She
+had loved me only too well, too jealously, too absorbingly for her
+happiness or mine.
+
+“And the sister?”
+
+It was gently but gravely put, and instantly I knew that our secret was
+out, however safe we had considered it. This man was cognisant of it,
+and if he, why not others! Why not the whole town! A danger which up to
+this moment I had heard whispered only by the pines, was opening in a
+gulf beneath our feet. Its imminence steadied me. I had kept my glance
+on Coroner Perry, and I do not think it changed. My tone, I am quite
+assured, was almost as quiet and grave as his as I made my reply in
+these words:
+
+“Her sister is her sister. I hardly think that either of us would be apt
+to forget that. Have you heard otherwise, sir?”
+
+He was prepared for equivocation, possibly for denial, but not for
+attack. His manner changed and showed distrust and I saw that I had lost
+rather than made by this venturous move.
+
+“Is this your writing?” he suddenly asked, showing me a morsel of paper
+which he had drawn from his vest pocket.
+
+I looked, and felt that I now understood what the pines had been trying
+to tell me for the last few hours. That compromising scrap of writing
+had not been destroyed. It existed for her and my undoing! Then doubt
+came. Fate could not juggle thus with human souls and purposes. I had
+simply imagined myself to have recognised the words lengthening and
+losing themselves in a blur before my eyes. Carmel was no fool even
+if she had wild and demoniacal moments. This could not be my note to
+her,--that fatal note which would make all denial of our mutual passion
+unavailing.
+
+“Is it your writing?” my watchful inquisitor repeated.
+
+I looked again. The scrap was smaller than my note had been when it
+left my hands. If it were the same, then some of the words were gone.
+Were they the first ones or the last? It would make a difference in the
+reading, or rather, in the conclusions to be drawn from what remained.
+If only the mist would clear from before my eyes, or he would hold the
+slip of paper nearer! The room was very dark. The--the--
+
+“Is it your writing?” Coroner Perry asked for the third time.
+
+There was no denying it. My writing was peculiar and quite
+unmistakable. I should gain nothing by saying no.
+
+“It looks like it,” I admitted reluctantly. “But I cannot be sure in
+this light. May I ask what this bit of paper is and where you found it?”
+
+“Its contents I think you know. As for the last question I think you
+can answer that also if you will.”
+
+Saying which, he quietly replaced the scrap of paper in his pocket-book.
+
+I followed the action with my eyes. I caught a fresh glimpse of a
+darkened edge, and realised the cause of the faint odour which I had
+hitherto experienced without being conscious of it. The scrap had been
+plucked out of the chimney. She had tried to burn it. I remembered the
+fire and the smouldering bits of paper which crumbled at my touch. And
+this one, this, the most important--the only important one of them all,
+had flown, half-scorched, up the chimney and clung there within easy
+reach.
+
+The whole incident was plain to me, and I could even fix upon the
+moment when Hexford or Clarke discovered this invaluable bit of
+evidence. It was just before I burst in upon them from the ballroom,
+and it was the undoubted occasion of the remark I then overheard:
+
+“_This settles it. He cannot escape us now_.”
+
+During the momentary silence which now ensued, I tried to remember the
+exact words which had composed this note. They were few---sparks from
+my very heart--I ought to be able to recollect them.
+
+“To-night--10:30 train--we will be married at P----. Come, come, my
+darling, my life. She will forgive when all is done. Hesitation will
+only undo us. To-night at 10 30. Do not fail me. I shall never marry
+any one but you.”
+
+Was that all? I had an indistinct remembrance of having added some
+wild and incoherent words of passionate affection affixed to her name.
+_Her name_! But it may be that in the hurry and flurry of the moment,
+these terms of endearment simply passed through my mind and found no
+expression on paper. I could not be sure, any more than I could be
+positive from the half glimpse I got of these lines, which portion had
+been burned off,--the top in which the word _train_ occurred, or the
+final words, emphasising a time of meeting and my determination to
+marry no one but the person addressed. The first gone, the latter might
+take on any sinister meaning. The latter gone, the first might prove a
+safeguard, corroborating my statement that an errand had taken me into
+town.
+
+I was oppressed by the uncertainty of my position. Even if I carried
+off this detail successfully, others of equal importance might be
+awaiting explanation. My poor, maddened, guilt-haunted girl had made
+the irreparable mistake of letting this note of mine fly unconsumed
+up the chimney, and she might have made others equally incriminating.
+It would be hard to find an alibi for her if suspicion once turned
+her way. She had not met me at the train. The unknown but doubtless
+easily-to-be-found man who had handed me her note could swear to that
+fact.
+
+Then the note itself! I had destroyed it, it is true, but its phrases
+were so present to my mind--had been so branded into it by the terrors
+of the tragedy which they appeared to foreshadow, that I had a dreadful
+feeling that this man’s eye could read them there. I remember that
+under the compelling power of this fancy, my hand rose to my brow
+outspread and concealing, as if to interpose a barrier between him
+and them. Is my folly past belief? Possibly. But then I have not told
+you the words of this fatal communication. They were these--innocent,
+if she were innocent, but how suggestive in the light of her probable
+guilt:
+
+“I cannot. Wait till to-morrow. Then you will see the depth of my love
+for you--what I owe you--what I owe Adelaide.”
+
+I should see!
+
+I was seeing.
+
+Suddenly I dropped my hand; a new thought had come to me. Had Carmel
+been discovered on the road leading from this place?
+
+You perceive that by this time I had become the prey of every
+threatening possibility; even of that which made the present a
+nightmare from which I should yet wake to old conditions and old
+struggles, bad enough, God knows, but not like this--not like this.
+
+Meantime I was conscious that not a look or movement of mine had escaped
+the considerate but watchful eye of the man before me.
+
+“You do not relish my questions,” he dryly observed. “Perhaps you would
+rather tell your story without interruption. If so, I beg you to be as
+explicit as possible. The circumstances are serious enough for perfect
+candour on your part.”
+
+He was wrong. They were too serious for that. Perfect candour would
+involve Carmel. Seeming candour was all I could indulge in. I took a
+quick resolve. I would appear to throw discretion to the winds; to
+confide to him what men usually hold sacred; to risk my reputation as a
+gentleman, rather than incur a suspicion which might involve others
+more than it did myself. Perhaps I should yet win through and save her
+from an ignominy she possibly deserved but which she must never receive
+at my hands.
+
+“I will give you an account of my evening,” said I. “It will not aid
+you much, but will prove my good faith. You asked me a short time ago
+if I loved the lady whom I was engaged to marry and whose dead body I
+most unexpectedly came upon in this house some time before midnight. I
+answered yes, and you showed that you doubted me. You were justified
+in your doubts. I did love her once, or thought so, but my feelings
+changed. A great temptation came into my life. Carmel returned from
+school and--you know her beauty, her fascination. A week in her
+presence, and marriage with Adelaide became impossible. But how evade
+it? I only knew the coward’s way; to lure this inexperienced young
+girl, fresh from school, into a runaway match. A change which now
+became perceptible in Miss Cumberland’s manner, only egged me on. It
+was not sufficiently marked in character to call for open explanation,
+yet it was unmistakable to one on the watch as I was, and betokened
+a day of speedy reckoning for which I was little prepared. I know
+what the manly course would have been, but I preferred to skulk. I
+acknowledge it now; it is the only retribution I have to offer for a
+past I am ashamed of. Without losing one particle of my intention,
+I governed more carefully my looks and actions, and thought I had
+succeeded in blinding Adelaide to my real feelings and purpose. Whether
+I did or not, I cannot say. I have no means of knowing now. She has
+not been her natural self for these last few days, but she had other
+causes for worry, and I have been willing enough to think that these
+were the occasion of her restless ways and short, sharp speech and the
+blankness with which she met all my attempts to soothe and encourage
+her. This evening”--I choked at the word. The day had been one string
+of extraordinary experiences, accumulating in intensity to the one
+ghastly discovery which had overtopped and overwhelmed all the rest.
+“This evening,” I falteringly continued, “I had set as the limit to my
+endurance of the intolerable situation. During a minute of solitude
+preceding the dinner at Miss Cumberland’s house on the Hill, I wrote a
+few lines to her sister, urging her to trust me with her fate and meet
+me at the station in time for the ten-thirty train. I meant to carry
+her at once to P----, where I had a friend in the ministry who would at
+once unite us in marriage. I was very peremptory, for my nerves were
+giving way under the secret strain to which they had been subjected
+for so long, and she herself was looking worn with her own silent and
+uncommunicated conflict.
+
+“To write this note was easy, but to deliver it involved difficulties.
+Miss Cumberland’s eyes seemed to be more upon me than usual. Mine were
+obliged to respond and Carmel seeing this, kept hers on her plate
+or on the one other person seated at the table, her brother Arthur.
+But the opportunity came as we all rose and passed together into the
+drawing-room. Carmel fell into place at my side and I slipped the note
+into her hand. She had not expected it and I fear that the action was
+observed, for when I took my leave of Miss Cumberland shortly after,
+I was struck by her expression. I had never seen such a look on her
+face before, nor can I conceive of one presenting a more extraordinary
+contrast to the few and commonplace words with which she bade me
+good evening. I could not forget that look. I continued to see those
+pinched features and burning eyes all the way home where I went to get
+my grip-sack, and I saw them all the way to the station, though my
+thoughts were with her sister and the joys I had planned for myself.
+Man’s egotism, Dr. Perry. I neither knew Adelaide nor did I know the
+girl whose love I had so over-estimated. She failed me, Dr. Perry. I
+was met at the station not by herself, but by a letter--a few hurried
+lines given me by an unknown man--in which she stated that I had asked
+too much of her, that she could not so wrong her sister who had brought
+her up and done everything for her since her mother died. I have not
+that letter now, or I would show it to you. In my raging disappointment
+I tore it up on the place where I received it, and threw the pieces
+away. I had staked my whole future on one desperate throw and I had
+lost. If I had had a pistol--” I stopped, warned by an uneasy movement
+on the part of the man I addressed, that I had better not dilate too
+much upon my feelings. Indeed, I had forgotten to whom I was talking. I
+realised nothing, thought of nothing but the misery I was describing.
+His action recalled me to the infinitely deeper misery of my present
+situation, and conscious of the conclusions which might be drawn from
+such impulsive utterances, I pulled myself together and proceeded to
+finish my story with greater directness.
+
+“I did not leave the station till the ten-thirty train had gone. I had
+hopes, still, of seeing her, or possibly I dreaded the long ride back
+to my apartments. It was from sheer preoccupation of mind that I drove
+this way instead of straight out by Marshall Avenue. I had no intention
+of stopping here; the club-house was formally closed yesterday, as you
+may know, and I did not even have the keys with me. But, as I reached
+the bend in the road where you get your first sight of the buildings, I
+saw a thin streak of smoke rising from one of its chimneys, and anxious
+as to its meaning, I drove in--”
+
+“Wait, Mr. Ranelagh, I am sorry to interrupt you, but by which gate did
+you enter?”
+
+“By the lower one.”
+
+“Was it snowing at this time?”
+
+“Not yet. It was just before the clouds rushed upon the moon. I could
+see everything quite plainly.”
+
+My companion nodded and I went breathlessly on. Any question of his
+staggered me. I was so ignorant of the facts at his command, of the facts
+at any one’s command outside my own experience and observation, that the
+simplest admission I made might lead directly to some clew of whose very
+existence I was unaware. I was not even able to conjecture by what chance
+or at whose suggestion the police had raided the place and discovered
+the tragedy which had given point to that raid. No one had told me, and I
+had met with no encouragement to ask. I felt myself sliding amid
+pitfalls. My own act might precipitate the very doom I sought to avert.
+Yet I must preserve my self-possession and answer all questions as
+truthfully as possible lest I stumble into a web from which no skill of
+my own or of another could extricate me.
+
+“Fastening my horse to one of the pine trees in the thickest clump I
+saw--he is there now, I suppose--I crept up to the house, and tried the
+door. It was on the latch and I stole in. There was no light on the lower
+floor, and after listening for any signs of life, I began to feel my way
+about the house, searching for the intruder. As I did not wish to attract
+attention to myself, I took off my shoes. I went through the lower rooms,
+and then I came upstairs. It was some time before I reached the--the room
+where a fire had been lit; but when I did I knew--not,” I hastily
+corrected, as I caught his quick concentrated glance, “what had happened
+or whom I should find there, but that this was the spot where the
+intruder had been, possibly was now, and I determined to grapple with
+him. What--what have I said?” I asked in anguish, as I caught a look on
+the coroner’s face of irrepressible repulsion and disgust, slight and
+soon gone but unmistakable so long as it lasted.
+
+“Nothing,” he replied, “go on.”
+
+But his tone, considerate as it had been from the first, did not deceive
+me. I knew that I had been detected in some slip or prevarication. As I
+had omitted all mention of the most serious part of my adventure--had
+said nothing of my vision of Carmel or the terrible conclusions which her
+presence there had awakened--my conscience was in a state of perturbation
+which added greatly to my confusion. For a moment I did not know where I
+stood, and I am afraid I betrayed a sense of my position. He had to
+recall me to myself by an unimportant question or two before I could go
+on. When I did proceed, it was with less connection of ideas and a haste
+in speaking which was not due altogether to the harrowing nature of the
+tale itself.
+
+“I had matches in my pocket and I struck one,” I began. “Afterwards I lit
+the candle. The emptiness of the room did not alarm me. I experienced the
+sense of tragedy. Seeing the pillows heaped high and too regularly for
+chance along a lounge ordinarily holding only two, I tore them off. I saw
+a foot, a hand, a tress of bright hair. Even then I did not think of
+_her_. Why should I? Not till I uncovered the face did I know the terrors
+of my discovery, and then, the confusion of it all unmanned me and I fell
+on my knees--”
+
+“Go on! Go on!”
+
+The impetuosity, the suspense in the words astounded me. I stared at the
+coroner and lost the thread of my story--What had I to say more? How
+account for what must be ever unaccountable to him, to the world, to my
+own self, if in obedience to the demands of the situation I subdued my
+own memory and blotted out all I had seen but that which it was safe to
+confess to?
+
+“There is no more to say,” I murmured. “The horror of that moment made a
+chaos in my mind. I looked at the dead body of her who lay there as I
+have looked at everything since; as I looked at the police when they
+came--as I look at you now. But I know nothing. It is all a
+phantasmagoria to me--with no more meaning than a nightmare. She is
+dead--I know that--but beyond that, all is doubt--confusion--what the
+world and all its passing show is to a blind man. I can neither
+understand nor explain.”
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+COMMENTS AND REFLECTIONS
+
+There is no agony and no solace left;
+Earth can console, Heaven can torment, no more
+
+_Prometheus Unbound_
+
+
+The coroner’s intent look which had more or less sustained me through
+this ordeal, remained fixed upon my face as though he were still
+anxious to see me exonerate myself. How much did he know? That was the
+question. _How much did he know_?
+
+Having no means of telling, I was forced to keep silent. I had revealed
+all I dared to. As I came to this conclusion, his eyes fell and I knew
+that the favorable minute had passed.
+
+The question he now asked proved it.
+
+“You say that you were not blind to surrounding objects, even if they
+conveyed but little meaning to you. You must have seen, then, that the
+room where Miss Cumberland lay contained two small cordial glasses,
+both still moist with some liqueur.”
+
+“I noticed that, yes.”
+
+“Some one must have drunk with her?”
+
+“I cannot contradict you.”
+
+“Was Miss Cumberland fond of that sort of thing?”
+
+“She detested liquor of all kinds. She never drank I never saw a woman
+so averse to wine.” I spoke before I thought. I might better have been
+less emphatic, but the mystery of those glasses had affected me from
+the first. Neither she nor Carmel ever allowed themselves so much as a
+social glass, yet those glasses had been drained. “Perhaps the cold--”
+
+“There was a third glass. We found it in the adjoining closet. It had
+not been used. That third glass has a meaning if only we could find it
+out.”
+
+A possibility which had risen in my mind faded at these words.
+
+“Three glasses,” I dully repeated.
+
+“And a small flask of cordial. The latter seems pure enough.”
+
+“I cannot understand it.” The phrase had become stereotyped. No other
+suggested itself to me.
+
+“The problem would be simple enough if it were not for those-marks on
+her neck. You saw those, too, I take it?”
+
+“Yes. Who made them? What man--”
+
+The lie, or rather the suggestion of a lie, flushed my face. I was
+conscious of this, but it did not trouble me. I was panting for relief.
+I could not rest till I knew the nature of the doubt in this man’s
+mind. If these words, or any words I could use, would serve to surprise
+his secret, then welcome the lie or suggestion of a lie. “It was a
+brute’s act,” I went on, bungling with my sentences in anxiety to see
+if my conclusions fitted in with his own. “_Who was the brute_? Do you
+know, Dr. Perry?”
+
+“There were three glasses in those rooms. Only two were drank from,”
+he answered, steadily. “Tomorrow I may be in a position to answer your
+question. I am not to-night.”
+
+Why did I take heart? Not a change, not the flicker of one had passed
+over his countenance at my utterance of the word _man_. Either his
+official habit had stood him in wonderful stead, or the police had
+failed so far to see any connection between this murder and the young
+girl whose footprints, for all I knew, still lingered on the stairs.
+
+Would the morrow arm them with completer knowledge? As I turned from
+his retreating figure and flung myself down before the hearth, this was
+the question I continually propounded to myself, in vain repetition.
+Would the morrow reveal the fact that Adelaide’s young sister had been
+with her in the hour of death, or would the fates propitiously aid her
+in preserving this secret as they had already aided her in selecting
+for the one man who shared it, him who of all others was bound by
+honour and personal consideration for her not to divulge what he knew.
+
+Thus the hours between two and seven passed when I fell into a fitful
+sleep, from which I was rudely wakened by a loud rattle at my door,
+followed by the entrance of the officer who had walked up and down the
+corridor all night.
+
+“The waggon is here,” said he. “Breakfast will be given you at the
+station.”
+
+To which Hexford, looking over his shoulder, added: “I’m sorry to say
+that we have here the warrant for your arrest. Can I do anything for
+you?”
+
+“Warrant!” I burst out, “what do you want of a warrant? It is as a
+witness you seek to detain me, I presume?”
+
+“No,” was his brusque reply. “The charge upon which you are arrested is
+one of murder. You will have to appear before a magistrate. I’m sorry
+to be the one to tell you this, but the evidence against you is very
+strong, and the police must do their duty.”
+
+“But I am innocent, absolutely innocent,” I protested, the perspiration
+starting from every pore as the full meaning of the charge burst upon
+me. “What I have told you was correct. I, myself, found her dead--”
+
+Hexford gave me a look.
+
+“Don’t talk,” he kindly suggested. “Leave that to the lawyers.” Then,
+as the other man turned aside for a moment, he whispered in my ear,
+“It’s no go; one of our men saw you with your fingers on her throat. He
+had clambered into a pine tree and the shade of the window was up. You
+had better come quietly. Not a soul believes you innocent.”
+
+This, then, was what had doomed me from the start; this, and that
+partly burned letter. I understood now why the kind-hearted coroner,
+who loved my father, had urged me to tell my tale, hoping that I would
+explain this act and give him some opportunity to indulge in a doubt.
+And I had failed to respond to the hint he had given me. The act
+itself must appear so sinister and the impulse which drove me to it
+so incomprehensible, without the heart-rending explanation I dare not
+subjoin, that I never questioned the wisdom of silence in its regard.
+
+Yet this silence had undone me. I had been seen fingering my dead
+betrothed’s throat, and nothing I could now say or do would ever
+convince people that she was dead before my hands touched her,
+strangled by another’s clutch. One person only in the whole world would
+know and feel how false this accusation was. And yesterday that one’s
+trust in my guiltlessness would have thrown a ray of light upon the
+deepest infamy which could befall me. But to-day there had settled over
+that once innocent spirit, a cloud of too impenetrable a nature for any
+light to struggle to and fro between us.
+
+I could not contemplate that cloud. I could not dwell upon her misery,
+or upon the revulsion of feeling which follows such impetuous acts. And
+it had been an impetuous act--the result of one of her rages. I had
+been told of these rages. I had even seen her in one. When they passed
+she was her lovable self once more and very penitent and very downcast.
+If all I feared were true, she was suffering acutely now. But I gave no
+thought to this. I could dream of but one thing--how to save her from
+the penalty of crime, a penalty I might be forced to suffer myself and
+would prefer to suffer rather than see it fall upon one so young and so
+angelically beautiful.
+
+Turning to the officer next me, I put the question which had been
+burning in my mind for hours:
+
+“Tell me, how you came to know there was trouble here? What brought you
+to this house? There can be nothing wrong in telling me that.”
+
+“Well, if you don’t know--” he began.
+
+“I do not,” I broke in.
+
+“I guess you’d better wait till the chief has had a word with you.”
+
+I suppressed all tokens of my disappointment, and by a not unnatural
+reaction, perhaps, began to take in, and busy myself with, the very
+considerations I had hitherto shunned. Where was Carmel, and how was
+she enduring these awful hours? Had repentance come, and with it a
+desire to own her guilt? Did she think of me and the effect this
+unlooked-for death would have upon my feelings? That I should suffer
+arrest for her crime could not have entered her mind. I had seen her,
+but she had not seen me, in the dark hall which I must now traverse as
+a prisoner and a suspect. No intimation of my dubious position or its
+inevitable consequences had reached her yet. When it did, what would
+she do? I did not know her well enough to tell. The attraction she
+had felt for me had not been strong enough to lead her to accommodate
+herself to my wishes and marry me off-hand, but it had been strong
+enough to nerve her arm in whatever altercation she may have had with
+her jealous-minded sister. It was the temper and not the strength
+of the love which would tell in a strait like this. Would it prove
+of a generous kind? Should I have to combat her desire to take upon
+herself the full blame of her deed, with all its shames and penalties?
+Or should I have the still deeper misery of finding her callous to
+my position and welcoming any chance which diverted suspicion from
+herself? Either supposition might be possible, according to my judgment
+in this evil hour. All communication between us, in spite of our
+ardent and ungovernable passion, had been so casual and so slight.
+Looks, a whispered word or so, one furtive clasp in which our hands
+seemed to grow together, were all I had to go upon as tests of her
+feeling towards me. Her character I had judged from her face, which
+was lovely. But faces deceive, and the loveliness of youth is not like
+the loveliness of age--an absolute mirror of the soul within. Was not
+Medusa captivating, for all her snaky locks? Hide those locks and one
+might have thought her a Daphne.
+
+What would relieve my doubts? As Hexford drew near me again on our way
+to the head of the staircase, I summoned up courage to ask:
+
+“Have you heard anything from the Hill? Has the news of this tragedy
+been communicated to Miss Cumberland’s family, and if so, how are they
+bearing this affliction?”
+
+His lip curled, and for a minute he hesitated; then something in my
+aspect or the straight-forward look I gave him, softened him and he
+answered frankly, if coldly:
+
+“Word has gone there, of course, but only the servants are affected by
+it so far. Miss Cumberland, the younger, is very ill, and the boy--I
+don’t know his name--has not shown up since last evening. He’s very
+dissipated, they say, and may be in any one of the joints in the lower
+part of the town.”
+
+I stopped in dismay, clutching wildly at the railing of the stairs we
+were descending. I had hardly heard the latter words, all my mind was
+on what he had said first.
+
+“Miss Carmel Cumberland ill?” I stammered, “too ill to be told?”
+
+I was sufficiently master of myself to put it this way.
+
+“Yes,” he rejoined, kindly, as he urged me down the very stairs I had
+seen her descend in such a state of mind a few hours before. “A servant
+who had been out late, heard the fall of some heavy body as she was
+passing Miss Cumberland’s rooms, and rushing in found Miss Carmel, as
+she called her, lying on the floor near the open fire. Her face had
+struck the bars of the grate in falling, and she was badly burned. But
+that was not all; she was delirious with fever, brought on, they think,
+by anxiety about her sister, whose name she was constantly repeating.
+They had a doctor for her and the whole house was up before ever the
+word came of what had happened here.”
+
+I thanked him with a look. I had no opportunity for more. Half a dozen
+officers were standing about the front door, and in another moment I
+was bustled into the conveyance provided and was being driven away from
+the death-haunted spot.
+
+I had heard the last whisper of those pines for many, many days. But
+not in my dreams; it ever came back at night, sinister, awesome,
+haunted with dead hopes and breathing of an ever doubtful future.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+CLIFTON ACCEPTS MY CASE
+
+This hand of mine
+Is yet a maiden and an innocent hand,
+Not painted with the crimson spots of blood.
+Within this bosom never enter’d yet
+The dreadful motion of a murd’rous thought.
+
+_King John_.
+
+
+My first thought (when I could think at all) was this:
+
+“She has some feeling, then! Her terror and remorse have maddened
+her. I can dwell upon her image with pity.” The next, “Will they find
+her wet clothes and discover that she was out last night?” The latter
+possibility troubled me. My mind was the seat of strange contradictions.
+
+As the day advanced and I began to realise that I, Elwood Ranelagh,
+easy-going man of the world, but with traditions of respectable living
+on both sides of my house and a list of friends of which any man might
+be proud, was in a place of detention on the awful charge of murder, I
+found that my keenest torment arose from the fact that I was shut off
+from the instant knowledge of what was going on in the house where all
+my thoughts, my fears, and shall I say it, latent hopes were centred.
+To know Carmel ill and not to know how ill! To feel the threatening
+arm of the law hovering constantly over her head and neither to know
+the instant of its fall nor be given the least opportunity to divert
+it. To realise that some small inadvertance on her part, some trivial
+but incriminating object left about, some heedless murmur or burst of
+unconscious frenzy might precipitate her doom, and I remain powerless,
+bearing my share of suspicion and ignominy, it is true, but not the
+chief share if matters befell as I have suggested, which they were
+liable to do at any hour, nay, at any minute.
+
+My examination before the magistrate held one element of comfort.
+Nothing in its whole tenor went to show that, as yet, she was in the
+least suspected of any participation in my so-called crime. But the
+knowledge which came later, of how the police first learned of trouble
+at the club-house did not add to this sense of relief, whatever
+satisfaction it gave my curiosity. A cry of distress had come to them
+over the telephone; a wild cry, in a woman’s choked and tremulous
+voice: “Help at The Whispering Pines! Help!” That was all, or all they
+revealed to me. In their endeavour to find out whether or not I was
+present when this call was made, I learned the nature of their own
+suspicions. They believed that Adelaide in some moment of prevision
+had managed to reach the telephone and send out this message. But what
+did I believe? What could I believe? All the incidents of the deadly
+struggle which must have preceded the fatal culminating act, were
+mysteries which my mind refused to penetrate. After hours of torturing
+uncertainty, and an evening which was the miserable precursor of a
+still more miserable night, I decided to drop conjecture and await the
+enlightenment which must come with the morrow.
+
+It was, therefore, in a condition of mingled dread and expectation that
+I opened the paper which was brought me the next morning. Of the shock
+which it gave me to see my own name blotting the page with suggestions
+of hideous crime, I will not speak, but pass at once to the few gleams
+of added knowledge I was able to gather from those abominable columns.
+Arthur, the good-for-nothing brother, had returned from his wild
+carouse and had taken affairs in charge with something like spirit
+and a decent show of repentance for his own shortcomings and the mad
+taste for liquor which had led him away from home that night. Carmel
+was still ill, and likely to be so for many days to come. Her case was
+diagnosed as one of brain fever and of a most dangerous type. Doctors
+and nurses were busy at her bedside and little hope was held out of
+her being able to tell soon, if ever, what she knew of her sister’s
+departure from the house on that fatal evening. That her testimony
+on this point would be invaluable was self-evident, for proofs were
+plenty of her having haunted her sister’s rooms all the evening in a
+condition of more or less delirium. She was alone in the house and this
+may have added to her anxieties, all of the servants having gone to the
+policemen’s ball. It was on their return in the early morning hours
+that she had been discovered, lying ill and injured before her sister’s
+fireplace.
+
+One fact was mentioned which set me thinking. The keys of the
+club-house had been found lying on a table in the side hall of the
+Cumberland mansion--the keys which I have already mentioned as missing
+from my pocket. An alarming discovery which might have acted as a
+clew to the suspicious I feared, if their presence there had not been
+explained by the waitress who had cleared the table after dinner.
+Coming upon these keys lying on the floor beside one of the chairs,
+she had carried them out into the hall and laid them where they would
+be more readily seen. She had not recognised the keys, but had taken
+it for granted that they belonged to Mr. Ranelagh who had dined at the
+house that night.
+
+They were my keys, and I have already related how I came to drop them
+on the floor. Had they but stayed there! Adelaide, or was it Carmel,
+might not have seen them and been led by some strange, if not tragic,
+purpose, incomprehensible to us now and possibly never to find full
+explanation, to enter the secret and forsaken spot where I later found
+them, the one dead, the other fleeing in frenzy, but not in such a
+thoughtless frenzy as to forget these keys or to fail to lock the
+club-house door behind her. That she, on her return home, should have
+had sufficient presence of mind to toss these keys down in the same
+place from which she or her sister had taken them, argued well for
+her clear-headedness up to that moment. The fever must have come on
+later--a fever which with my knowledge of what had occurred at The
+Whispering Pines, seemed the only natural outcome of the situation.
+
+The next paragraph detailed a fact startling enough to rouse my deepest
+interest. Zadok Brown, the Cumberlands’ coachman, declared that
+Arthur’s cutter and what he called the grey mare had been out that
+night. They were both in place when he returned to the stable towards
+early morning, but the signs were unmistakable that both had been out
+in the snow since he left the stable at about nine. He had locked the
+stable-door at that time, but the key always hung in the kitchen where
+any one could get it. This was on account of Arthur, who, if he wanted
+to go out late, sometimes harnessed a horse himself. Zadok judged that
+he had done so this night, though how the horse happened to be back and
+in her stall and no Mr. Arthur in the house, it would take wiser heads
+than his to explain. But he was sure the mare had been out.
+
+There was some comment made on this, because Arthur had denied using
+his cutter that night. He declared instead that he had gone out on foot
+and designated the coachman’s tale as all bosh. “I was not the only one
+who had a drop too much down-town,” was the dogged assertion with which
+he met all questions on this subject. “I wouldn’t give a snap of my
+finger for Zadok’s opinion on any subject, after five hours of dancing
+and the necessary drinks. There were no signs of the mare having been
+out when I got home.” As this was about noon the next day, his opinion
+on this point could not be said to count for much.
+
+As for myself, I felt inclined to believe that the mare had been out,
+that one or both of the women had harnessed him and that it was by
+these means they had reached The Whispering Pines. The night was too
+cold, a storm too imminent, for them to have contemplated so long a
+walk on a road so remote as that leading to the club-house. Arthur
+was athletic but Adelaide was far from strong and never addicted to
+walking under the most favourable conditions. Of all the mysteries
+surrounding her dead presence in the club-house, the one which from
+the first had struck me as the most inexplicable was the manner of her
+reaching there. Now I could understand both that fact and how Carmel
+had succeeded in returning in safety to her home. She had ridden both
+ways--a theory which likewise explained how she came to wear a man’s
+derby and possibly a man’s overcoat. With her skirts covered by a
+bear-skin she would present a very fair figure of a man to any one who
+chanced to pass her. This was desirable in her case. A man and woman
+driving at a late hour through the city streets would attract little,
+if any, attention, while two women might. Having no wish to attract
+attention, they had resorted to subterfuge--or Carmel had; it was not
+like Adelaide to do so. She was always perfectly open, both in manner
+and speech.
+
+These were my deductions drawn from my own knowledge. Would others who
+had not my knowledge be in any wise influenced to draw the same? Would
+the fact that the mare had been out during those mysterious hours when
+everybody had appeared to be absent from the house, saving the one
+young girl whom they afterwards found stark, staring mad with delirium,
+serve to awaken suspicion of her close and personal connection with
+this crime? There was nothing in this reporter’s article to show that
+such an idea had dawned upon his mind, but the police are not readily
+hoodwinked and I dreaded the result of their inquiries, if they chose
+to follow this undoubted clew.
+
+Yet, if they let this point slip, where should I be? Human nature is
+human all the way through, and I could not help having moments when I
+asked myself if this young girl were worth the sacrifice I contemplated
+making for her? She was lovely to look at, amiable and of womanly
+promise save at those rare and poignant moments when passion would
+seize her in a gust which drove everything before it. But were any
+of these considerations sufficient to justify me in letting my whole
+manhood slip for the sake of one who, whatever the provocation, had
+used the strength of her hands against the sister who had been as a
+mother to her for so many years. That she had had provocation I did
+not doubt. Adelaide, for all her virtues, was not an easy person to
+deal with. Upright and perfectly sincere herself, she had no sympathy
+with or commiseration for any lack of principle or any display of
+selfishness in others. A little cold, a little reserved, a little
+lacking in spontaneity, though always correct and always generous
+in her gifts and often in her acts, her whole nature would rise at
+any evidence of meanness or ingratitude, and though she said little,
+you would feel her disapprobation through and through. She would
+even change physically. Naturally pallid and of small inconspicuous
+features, her eyes on these occasions would so flame and her whole
+figure so dilate that she looked like another woman. I have seen her
+brother, six feet in height and weighty for his years, cringe under her
+few quiet words at these times till she absolutely seemed the taller
+of the two. It was only in these moments she was handsome, and had I
+loved her, I should probably have admired this passionate purity, this
+intolerance of all that was small or selfish or unworthy a good woman’s
+esteem. But not loving her, I had merely cherished a wholesome fear
+of her displeasure, and could quite comprehend what a full display
+of anger on her part might call up in her sensitive, already deeply
+suffering sister. The scathing arraignment, the unbearable taunt--Well,
+well, it was all dream-work, but I had time to dream and opportunity
+for little else, and pictures, which till now I had sedulously kept in
+the background of my imagination, would come to the front as I harped
+on this topic and weighed in my disturbed mind the following question:
+Should I continue the course which I had instinctively taken out of a
+natural sense of chivalry, or face my calumniators with the truth and
+leave my cause and hers to the justice of men, rather than to the slow
+but righteous workings of Providence?
+
+I struggled with the dilemma for hours, the more so, that I did not
+stand alone in the world. I had relatives and I had friends, some of
+whom had come to see me and gone away deeply grieved at my reticence.
+I was swayed, too, by another consideration. I had deeply loved my
+mother. She was dead, but I had her honour to think of. Should it
+be said she had a murderer for her son? In the height of my inner
+conflict, I had almost cried aloud the fierce denial which would arise
+at this thought. But ere the word could leave my lips, such a vision
+rose before me of a bewildering young face with wonderful eyes and
+a smile too innocent for guile and too loving for hypocrisy, that I
+forgot my late antagonistic feelings, forgot the claims of my dear,
+dead mother, and even those of my own future. Such passion and such
+devotion merited consideration from the man who had called them forth.
+I would not slight the claims of my dead mother but I would give this
+young girl a chance for her life. Let others ferret out the fact that
+she had visited the club-house with her sister; I would not proclaim
+it. It was enough for me to proclaim my innocence, and that I would do
+to the last.
+
+I was in this frame of mind when Charles Clifton called and was allowed
+to see me. I had sent for him in one of my discouraged moods. He was
+my friend, but he was also my legal adviser, and it was as such I
+had summoned him, and it was as such he had now come. Cordial as our
+relations had been--though he was hardly one of my ilk--I noted no
+instinctive outstretching of his hand, and so did not reach out mine.
+Appearances had been too strong against me for any such spontaneous
+outburst from even my best friends. I realised that to expect otherwise
+from him or from any other man would be to play the fool; and this was
+no time for folly. The day for that was passed.
+
+I was the first to speak.
+
+“You see me where you have never thought to see a friend of yours. But
+we won’t go into that. The police have good reasons for what they have
+done and I presume feel justified in my commitment. Notwithstanding, I
+am an innocent man so far as the attack made upon Miss Cumberland goes.
+I had no hand in her murder, if murder it is found out to be. My story
+which you have read in the papers and which I felt forced to give out,
+possibly to my own shame and that of another whom I would fain have
+saved, is an absolutely true one. I did not arrive at The Whispering
+Pines until after Miss Cumberland was dead. To this I am ready to
+swear and it is upon this fact you must rely, in any defence you may
+hereafter be called upon to make in my regard.”
+
+He listened as a lawyer would be apt to listen to such statements from
+the man who had summoned him to his aid. But I saw that I had made no
+impression on his convictions. He regarded me as a guilty man, and what
+was more to the point no doubt, as one for whom no plea could be made
+or any rational defence undertaken.
+
+“You don’t believe me,” I went on, still without any great bitterness.
+“I am not surprised at it, after what the man Clarke has said of seeing
+me with my hands on her throat. Any man, friend or not, would take me
+for a villain after that. But, Charles, to you I will confess what
+cowardice kept me from owning to Dr. Perry at the proper, possibly at
+the only proper moment, that I did this out of a wild desire to see
+if those marks were really the marks of strangling fingers. I could
+not believe that she had been so killed and, led away by my doubts, I
+leaned over her and--You shall believe me, you must,” I insisted, as
+I perceived his hard gaze remain unsoftened. “I don’t ask it of the
+rest of the world. I hardly expect any one to give me credit for good
+impulses or even for speaking the plain truth after the discovery which
+has been made of my treacherous attitude towards these two virtuous and
+devoted women. But you--if you are to act as my counsel--must take this
+denial from me as gospel truth. I may disappoint you in other ways.
+I may try you and often make you regret that you undertook my case,
+but on this fact you may safely pin your faith. She was dead before I
+touched her. Had the police spy whose testimony is likely to hang me,
+climbed the tree a moment sooner than he did, he would have seen that.
+Are you ready to take my case?”
+
+Clifton is a fair fellow and I knew if he once accepted the fact I thus
+urged upon him, he would work for me with all the skill and ability
+my desperate situation demanded. I, therefore, watched him with great
+anxiety for the least change in the constrained attitude and fixed,
+unpromising gaze with which he had listened to me, and was conscious of
+a great leap of heart as the set expression of his features relaxed,
+and he responded almost warmly:
+
+“I will take your case, Ranelagh. God help me to make it good against
+all odds.”
+
+I was conscious of few hopes, but some of the oppression under which I
+laboured lifted at those words. I had assured one man of my innocence!
+It was like a great rock in the weary desert. My sigh of relief bespoke
+my feelings and I longed to take his hand, but the moment had not yet
+come. Something was wanting to a perfect confidence between us, and I
+was in too sensitive a frame of mind to risk the slightest rebuff.
+
+He was ready to speak before I was. “Then, you had not been long on the
+scene of crime when the police arrived?”
+
+“I had been in the room but a few minutes. I do not know how long I was
+searching the house.”
+
+“The police say that fully twenty minutes elapsed between the time they
+received Miss Cumberland’s appeal for help and their arrival at the
+club-house. If you were there that long--”
+
+“I cannot say. Moments are hours at such a crisis--I--”
+
+My emotions were too much for me, and I confusedly stopped. He was
+surveying me with the old distrust. In a moment I saw why.
+
+“You are not open with me,” he protested. “Why should moments be hours
+to you previous to the instant when you stripped those pillows from the
+couch? You are not a fanciful man, nor have you any cowardly instincts.
+Why were you in such a turmoil going through a house where you could
+have expected to find nothing worse than some miserable sneak thief?”
+
+This was a poser. I had laid myself open to suspicion by one
+thoughtless admission, and what was worse, it was but the beginning
+in all probability of many other possible mistakes. I had never taken
+the trouble to measure my words and the whole truth being impossible,
+I necessarily must make a slip now and then. He had better be warned
+of this. I did not wish him to undertake my cause blindfolded. He must
+understand its difficulties while believing in my innocence. Then,
+if he chose to draw back, well and good. I should have to face the
+situation alone.
+
+“Charles,” said I, as soon as I could perfectly control my speech, “you
+are quite just in your remark. I am not and can not be perfectly open
+with you. I shall tell you no lies, but beyond that I cannot promise. I
+am caught in a net not altogether of my own weaving. So far I will be
+frank with you. A common question may trip me up, others find me free
+and ready with my defence. You have chanced upon one of the former. I
+was in a turmoil of mind from the moment of my entrance into that fatal
+house, but I can give no reason for it unless I am, as you hinted, a
+coward.”
+
+He settled that supposition with a gesture I had rather not have seen.
+It would be better for him to consider me a poltroon than to suspect my
+real reasons for the agitation which I had acknowledged.
+
+“You say you cannot be open with me. That means you have certain
+memories connected with that night which you cannot divulge.”
+
+“Right, Charles; but not memories of guilt--of active guilt, I mean.
+This I have previously insisted on, and this is what you must believe.
+I am not even an accessory before the fact. I am perfectly innocent so
+far as Adelaide’s death is concerned. You may proceed on that basis
+without fear. That is, if you continue to take an interest in my case.
+If not, I shall be the last to blame you. Little honour is likely to
+accrue to you from defending me.”
+
+“I have accepted the case and I shall continue to interest myself in
+it,” he assured me, with a dogged rather than genial persistence. “But
+I should like to know what I am to work upon, if it cannot be shown
+that her call for help came before you entered the building.”
+
+“That would be the best defence possible, of course,” I replied; “but
+neither from your standpoint nor mine is it a feasible one. I have no
+proof of my assertion, I never looked at my watch from the time I left
+the station till I found it run down this very morning. The club-house
+clock has been out of order for some time and was not running. All I
+know and can swear to about the length of time I was in that building
+prior to the arrival of the police, is that it could not have been very
+long, since she was not only dead and buried under those accumulated
+cushions, but in a room some little distance from the telephone.”
+
+“That will do for me,” said he, “but scarcely for those who are
+prejudiced against you. Everything points so indisputably to your
+guilt. The note which you say you wrote to Carmel to meet you at the
+station looks very much more like one to Miss Cumberland to meet you at
+the club-house.”
+
+It was thus I first learned which part of this letter had been burned
+off.[1]
+
+  [1] It was the top portion, leaving the rest to read:
+
+  _“Come, come my darling, my life. She will forgive when all is done.
+  Hesitation will only undo us. To-night at 10:30. I shall never marry
+  any one but you.”_
+
+  It was also evident that I had failed to add those expressions of
+  affection linked to Carmel’s name which had been in my mind and
+  awakened my keenest apprehension.
+
+“Otherwise,” he pursued, “what could have taken her there? Everybody
+who knew her will ask that. Such a night! so soon after seeing you!
+It is a mystery any way, but one entirely inconceivable without some
+such excuse for her. These lines said ‘Come!’ and she went, for reasons
+which may be clear to you who were acquainted with her weak as well as
+strong points. Went how? No one knows. By chance or by intention on
+her part or yours, every servant was out of the house by nine o’clock,
+and her brother, too. Only the sister remained, the sister whom you
+profess to have urged to leave the town with you that very evening;
+and she can tell us nothing,--may die without ever being able to do
+so. Some shock to her feelings--you may know its character and you
+may not--drove her from a state of apparent health into the wildest
+delirium in a few hours. It was not your letter--if your story is true
+about that letter--or she would have shown its effect immediately upon
+receiving it; that is, in the early evening. And she did not. Helen,
+one of the maids, declares that she saw her some time after you left
+the house, and that she wore anything but a troubled look; that, in
+fact, her countenance was beaming and so beautiful that, accustomed
+as the girl was to her young mistress’s good looks, she was more than
+struck by her appearance and spoke of it afterwards at the ball. A
+telling circumstance against you, Ranelagh, not only contradicting your
+own story but showing that her after condition sprang from some sudden
+and extreme apprehension in connection with her sister. Did you speak?”
+
+No, I had not spoken. I had nothing to say. I was too deeply shaken
+by what he had just told me, to experience anything but the utmost
+confusion of ideas. Carmel beaming and beautiful at an hour I had
+supposed her suffering and full of struggle! I could not reconcile it
+with the letter she had written me, or with that understanding with her
+sister which ended so hideously in The Whispering Pines.
+
+The lawyer, seeing my helpless state, proceeded with his presentation
+of my case as it looked to unprejudiced eyes.
+
+“Miss Cumberland comes to the club-house; so do you. You have not the
+keys and so go searching about the building till you find an unlocked
+window by which you both enter. There are those who say you purposely
+left this window unfastened when you went about the house the day
+before; that you dropped the keys in her house where they would be
+sure to be found, and drove down to the station and stood about there
+for a good half hour, in order to divert suspicion from yourself
+afterwards and create an alibi in case it should be wanted. I do not
+believe any of this myself, not since accepting your assurance of
+innocence, but there are those who do believe it firmly and discern
+in the whole affair a cool and premeditated murder. Your passion for
+Carmel, while not generally known, has not passed unsuspected by your
+or her intimates; and this in itself is enough to give colour to these
+suspicions, even if you had not gone so far as to admit its power over
+you and the extremes to which you were willing to go to secure the wife
+you wished. So much for the situation as it appears to outsiders. Of
+the circumstantial evidence which links you personally to this crime,
+we have already spoken. It is very strong and apparently unassailable.
+But truth is truth, and if you only felt free to bare your whole soul
+to me as you now decline to do, I should not despair of finding some
+weak link in the chain which seems so satisfactory to the police and, I
+am forced to add, to the general public.”
+
+“Charles--”
+
+I was very near unbosoming myself to him at that moment. But I caught
+myself back in time. While Carmel lay ill and unconscious, I would not
+clear my name at her expense by so much as a suggestion.
+
+“Charles,” I repeated, but in a different tone and with a different
+purpose, “how do they account for the cordial that was drunk--the two
+emptied glasses and the flask which were found in the adjacent closet?”
+
+“It’s one of the affair’s conceded incongruities. Miss Cumberland is a
+well-known temperance woman. Had the flask and glasses not come from
+her house, you would get no one to believe that she had had anything to
+do with them. Have you any hint to give on this point? It would be a
+welcome addition to our case.”
+
+Alas! I was as much puzzled by those emptied cordial glasses as he
+was, and told him so; also by the presence of the third unused one.
+As I dwelt in thought on the latter circumstance, I remembered the
+observation which Coroner Perry had made concerning it.
+
+“Coroner Perry speaks of a third and unused glass which was found
+with the flask,” I ventured, tentatively. “He seemed to consider it
+an important item, hiding some truth that would materially help this
+case. What do you think, or rather, what is the general opinion on this
+point?”
+
+“I have not heard. I have seen the fact mentioned, but without comment.
+It is a curious circumstance. I will make a note of it. You have no
+suggestions to offer on the subject?”
+
+“None.”
+
+“The clew is a small one,” he smiled.
+
+“So is the one offered by the array of bottles found on the kitchen
+table; yet the latter may lead directly to the truth. Adelaide never
+dug those out of the cellar where they were locked up, and I’m sure I
+did not. Yet I suppose I’m given credit for doing so.”
+
+“Naturally. The key to the wine-vault was the only key which was
+lacking from the bunch left at Miss Cumberland’s. That it was used to
+open the wine-vault door is evident from the fact that it was found in
+the lock.”
+
+This was discouraging. Everything was against me. If the whole affair
+had been planned with an intent to inculpate me and me only, it
+could not have been done with more attention to detail, nor could I
+have found myself more completely enmeshed. Yet I knew, both from
+circumstances and my own instinct that no such planning had occurred.
+I was a victim, not of malice but of blind chance, or shall I say of
+Providence? As to this one key having been slipped from the rest and
+used to open the wine-vault for wine which nobody wanted and nobody
+drank--this must be classed with the other incongruities which might
+yet lead to my enlargement.
+
+“You may add this coincidence to the other,” I conceded, after I had
+gone thus far in my own mind. “I swear that I had nothing to do with
+that key.”
+
+Neither could I believe that it had been used or even carried there by
+Adelaide or Carmel, though I knew that the full ring of keys had been
+in their hands and that they had entered the building by means of one
+of them. So assured was I of their innocence in this regard that the
+idea which afterwards assumed such proportions in all our minds had, at
+this moment, its first dawning in mine, as well as its first outward
+expression.
+
+“Some other man than myself was thirsty that night,” I firmly declared.
+“We are getting on, Charles.”
+
+Evidently he did not consider the pace a very fast one, but being a
+cheerful fellow by nature, he simply expressed his dissatisfaction by
+an imperceptible shrug.
+
+“Do you know exactly what the club-house’s wine-vault contained?” he
+asked.
+
+“An inventory was given me by the steward the morning we closed. It
+must be in my rooms.”
+
+“Your rooms have been examined. You expected that, didn’t you? Probably
+this inventory has been found. I don’t suppose it will help any.”
+
+“How should it?”
+
+“Very true; how should it! No thoroughfare there, of course.”
+
+“No thoroughfare anywhere to-day,” I exclaimed. “To-morrow some
+loop-hole of escape may suggest itself to me. I should like to sleep on
+the matter. I--I should like to sleep on it.”
+
+He saw that I had something in mind of which I had thus far given him
+no intimation, and he waited anxiously for me to reconsider my last
+words before he earnestly remarked:
+
+“A day lost at a time like this is often a day never retrieved. Think
+well before you bid me leave you, unenlightened as to the direction in
+which you wish me to work.”
+
+But I was not ready, not by any means ready, and he detected this when
+I next spoke.
+
+“I will see you to-morrow; any time to-morrow; meantime I will give you
+a commission which you are at liberty to perform yourself or to entrust
+to some capable detective. The letter, of which a portion remains,
+_was_ written to Carmel, and she sent me a reply which was handed me
+on the station platform by a man who was a perfect stranger to me. I
+have hardly any memory of how the man looked, but it should be an easy
+task to find him and if you cannot do that, the smallest scrap of the
+note he gave me, and which unfortunately I tore up and scattered to the
+winds, would prove my veracity in this one particular and so make it
+easier for them to believe the rest.”
+
+His eye lightened. I presume the prospect of making any practical
+attempt in my behalf was welcome.
+
+“One thing more,” I now added. “My ring was missing from Miss
+Cumberland’s hand when I took away those pillows. I have reason to
+think--or it is natural for me to think--that she planned to return
+it to me by some messenger or in some letter. Do you know if such
+messenger or such letter has been received at my apartments? Have you
+heard anything about this ring? It was a notable one and not to be
+confounded with any other. Any one who knew us or who had ever remarked
+it on her hand would be able to identify it.”
+
+“I have heard the ring mentioned,” he replied, “I have even heard that
+the police are interested in finding it; but I have not heard that they
+have been successful. You encourage me much by assuring me that it was
+missing from her hand when you first saw her. That ring may prove our
+most valuable clew.”
+
+“Yes, but you must also remember that she may have taken it off before
+she started for the club-house.”
+
+“That is very true.”
+
+“You do not know whether they have looked for it at her home?”
+
+“I do not.”
+
+“Will you find out, and will you see that I get all my letters?”
+
+“I certainly will, but you must not expect to receive the latter
+unopened.”
+
+“I suppose not.”
+
+I said this with more cheerfulness than he evidently expected. My heart
+had been lightened of one load. The ring had not been discovered on
+Carmel as I had secretly feared.
+
+“I will take good care of your interests from now on,” he remarked, in
+a tone much more natural than any he had before used. “Be hopeful and
+show a brave front to the district attorney when he comes to interview
+you. I hear that he is expected home to-morrow. If you are innocent,
+you can face him and his whole office with calm assurance.” Which
+showed how little he understood my real position.
+
+There was comfort in this very thought, however, and I quietly remarked
+that I did not despair.
+
+“And I _will_ not,” he emphasised, rising with an assumption of ease
+which left him as he remained hesitating before me.
+
+It was my moment of advantage, and I improved it by proffering a
+request which had been more or less in my mind during the whole of this
+prolonged colloquy.
+
+First thanking him for his disinterestedness, I remarked that he had
+shown me so much consideration as a lawyer, that I now felt emboldened
+to ask something from him as my friend.
+
+“You are free,” said I; “I am not. Miss Cumberland will be buried
+before I leave these four walls. I hate to think of her going to
+her grave without one token from the man to whom she has been only
+too good and who, whatever outrage he may have planned to her
+feelings, is not without reverence for her character and a heartfelt
+repentance for whatever he may have done to grieve her. Charles, a
+few flowers,--white--no wreath, just a few which can be placed on her
+breast or in her hand. You need not say whom they are from. It would
+seem a mockery to any one but her. Lilies, Charles. I shall feel
+happier to know that they are there. Will you do this for me?”
+
+“I will.”
+
+“That is all.”
+
+Instinctively he held out his hand. I dropped mine in it; there was a
+slight pressure, some few more murmured words and he was gone.
+
+I slept that night.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+A CHANCE! I TAKE IT
+
+I entreat you then
+From one that so imperfectly conjects,
+You’d take no notice; nor build yourself a trouble
+Out of his scattering and unsure observance:
+It were not for your quiet, nor your good,
+Nor for my manhood, honesty or wisdom,
+To let you know my thoughts.
+
+_Othello_
+
+
+I slept, though a question of no small importance was agitating my
+mind, demanding instant consideration and a definite answer before I
+again saw this friend and adviser. I woke to ask if the suggestion
+which had come to me in our brief conversation about the bottles taken
+from the wine-vault, was the promising one it had then appeared, or
+only a fool’s trick bound to end in disaster. I weighed the matter in
+every conceivable way, and ended by trusting to the instinct which
+impelled me to have resource to the one and only means by which the
+scent might be diverted from its original course, confusion be sown in
+the minds of the police, and Carmel, as well as myself, be saved from
+the pit gaping to receive us.
+
+This was my plan. I would acknowledge to having seen a horse and cutter
+leave the club-house by the upper gateway, simultaneously with my
+entrance through the lower one. I would even describe the appearance
+of the person driving this cutter. No one by the greatest stretch of
+imagination would be apt to associate this description with Carmel;
+but it might set the authorities thinking, and if by any good chance
+a cutter containing a person wearing a derby hat and a coat with an
+extra high collar should have been seen on this portion of the road, or
+if, as I earnestly hoped, the snow had left any signs of another horse
+having been tethered in the clump of trees opposite the one where I
+had concealed my own, enough of the truth might be furnished to divide
+public opinion and start fresh inquiry.
+
+That a woman’s form had sought concealment under these masculine
+habiliments would not, could not, strike anybody’s mind. Nothing in
+the crime had suggested a woman’s presence, much less a woman’s active
+agency.
+
+On the contrary, all the appearances, save such as I believed known to
+myself alone, spoke so openly of a man’s strength, a man’s methods,
+a man’s appetite, and a man’s brutal daring that the suspicion which
+had naturally fallen on myself as the one and only person implicated,
+would in shifting pass straight to another man, and, if he could not
+be found, return to me, or be lost in a maze of speculation. This
+seemed so evident after a long and close study of the situation that
+I was ready with my confession when Mr. Clifton next came. I had even
+forestalled it in a short interview forced upon me by the assistant
+district attorney and Chief Hudson. That it had made an altogether
+greater impression upon the latter than I had expected, gave me
+additional courage when I came to discuss this new line of defence with
+the young lawyer. I was even able to tell him that, to all appearance,
+my long silence on a point so favourable to my own interests had not
+militated against me to the extent one would expect from men so alive
+to the subterfuges and plausible inventions of suspected criminals.
+
+“Chief Hudson believes me, late as my statement is. I saw it in his
+eye.” Thus I went on. “And the assistant district attorney, too. At
+least, the latter is willing to give me the benefit of the doubt, which
+was more than I expected. What do you suppose has happened? Some new
+discovery on their part? If so, I ought to know what it is. Believe me,
+Charles, I ought to know what it is.”
+
+“I have heard of no new discovery,” he coldly replied, not quite
+pleased, as I could see, either with my words or my manner. “An old one
+may have served your purpose. If another cutter besides yours passed
+through the club-house grounds at the time you mention, it left tracks
+which all the fury of the storm would not have entirely obliterated
+in the fifteen minutes elapsing between that time and the arrival of
+the police. Perhaps they remember these tracks, and if you had been
+entirely frank that night--”
+
+“I know, I know,” I put in, “but I wasn’t. Lay it to my confusion
+of mind--to the great shock I had received, to anything but my own
+blood-guiltiness, and take up the matter as it now stands. Can’t
+you follow up my suggestion? A witness can certainly be found who
+encountered that cutter and its occupant somewhere on the long stretch
+of open road between The Whispering Pines and the resident district.”
+
+“Possibly. It would help. You have not asked for news from the Hill.”
+
+The trembling which seized and shook me at these words testified to the
+shock they gave me. “Carmel!” I cried. “She is worse--dead!”
+
+“No. She’s not worse and she’s not dead. But the doctors say it will
+be weeks before they can allow a question of any importance to be put
+to her. You can see what that will do for us. Her testimony is too
+important to the case to be ignored. A delay will follow which may or
+may not be favourable to you. I am inclined to think now that it will
+redound to your interests. You are ready to swear to the sleigh you
+speak of; that you saw it leave the club-house grounds and turn north?”
+
+“Quite ready; but you must not ask me to describe or in any way to
+identify its occupant. I saw nothing but the hat and coat I have told
+you about. It was just before the moon went under a cloud, or I could
+not have seen that much.”
+
+Is it so hard to preserve a natural aspect in telling or suggesting a
+lie that Charles’s look should change as I uttered the last sentence? I
+do not easily flush, and since my self-control had been called upon by
+the dreadful experiences of the last few days, I had learned to conceal
+all other manifestations of feeling except under some exceptional
+shock. But a lie embodied in so many words, never came easy to my
+lips, and I suppose my voice fell, for his glance became suddenly
+penetrating, and his voice slightly sarcastic as he remarked:
+
+“Those clouds obscured more than the moon, I fancy. I only wish that
+they had not risen between you and me. This is the blindest case that
+has ever been put in my hands. All the more credit to me if I see you
+through it, I suppose; but--”
+
+“Tell me,” I broke in, with equal desire to cut these recriminations
+short and to learn what was going on at the Cumberland house, “have
+you been to the Hill or seen anybody who has? Can’t you give me some
+details of--of Carmel’s condition; of the sort of nurse who cares for
+her, and how Arthur conducts himself under this double affliction?”
+
+“I was there last night. Miss Clifford was in the house and received
+me. She told me that Arthur’s state of mind was pitiful. He was never
+a very affectionate brother, you know, but now they cannot get him
+away from Carmel’s door. He sits or stands all day just outside the
+threshold and casts jealous and beseeching looks at those who are
+allowed to enter. They say you wouldn’t know him. I tried to get him to
+come down and see me, but he wouldn’t leave his post.”
+
+“Doesn’t he grieve for Adelaide? I always thought that of the two she
+had the greater influence over him.”
+
+“Yes, but they cannot get him to enter the place where she lies. His
+duty is to the living, he says; at least, his anxiety is there. He
+starts at every cry Carmel utters.”
+
+“She--cries out--then?”
+
+“Very often. I could hear her from where I sat downstairs.”
+
+“And what does she say?”
+
+“The one thing constantly. ‘Lila! Lila!’ Nothing more.”
+
+I kept my face in shadow. If he saw it at all, it must have looked as
+cold and hard as stone. After a moment, I went on with my queries:
+
+“Does he--Arthur--mention me at all?”
+
+“I did not discuss you greatly with Miss Clifford. I saw that she was
+prejudiced, and I preferred not to risk an argument; but she let fall
+this much: that Arthur felt very hard towards you and loudly insisted
+upon your guilt. She seemed to think him justified in this. You don’t
+mind my telling you? It is better for you to know what is being said
+about you in town.”
+
+I understood his motive. He was trying to drive me into giving him my
+full confidence. But I would not be driven. I simply retorted quietly
+but in a way to stop all such future attempts:
+
+“Miss Clifford is a very good girl and a true friend of the whole
+Cumberland family; but she is not the most discriminating person in the
+world, and even if she were, her opinion would not turn me from the
+course I have laid out for myself. Does the doctor--Dr. Carpenter, I
+presume,--venture to say how long Carmel’s present delirium will hold?”
+
+“He cannot, not knowing its real cause. Carmel fell ill before the
+news of her sister’s death arrived at the house, you remember. Some
+frightful scene must have occurred between the two, previous to
+Adelaide’s departure for The Whispering Pines. What that scene was can
+only be told by Carmel and for her account we must wait. Happily you
+have an alibi which will serve you in this instance. You were at the
+station during the time we are speaking of.”
+
+“Has that been proved?”
+
+“Yes; several men saw you there.”
+
+“And the gentleman who brought me the--her letter?” It was more than
+difficult for me to speak Carmel’s name. “He has not come forward?”
+
+“Not yet; not to my knowledge, at least.”
+
+“And the ring?”
+
+“No news.”
+
+“The nurse--you have told me nothing about her,” I now urged, reverting
+to the topic of gravest interest to me. “Is she any one we know or an
+importation of the doctor’s?”
+
+“I did not busy myself with that. She’s a competent woman, of course. I
+suppose that is what you mean?”
+
+Could I tell him that this was not what I meant at all--that it was
+her qualities as woman rather than her qualifications as nurse which
+were important in this case? If she were of a suspicious, prying
+disposition, given to weighing every word and marking every gesture of
+a delirious patient, what might we not fear from her circumspection
+when Carmel’s memory asserted itself and she grew more precise in the
+frenzy which now exhausted itself in unintelligible cries, or the
+ceaseless repetition of her sister’s name. The question seemed of such
+importance to me that I was tempted to give expression to my secret
+apprehension on this score, but I bethought myself in time and passed
+the matter over with the final remark:
+
+“Watch her, watch them all, and bring me each and every detail of the
+poor girl’s sickness. You will never regret humouring me in this. You
+ordered the flowers for--Adelaide?”
+
+“Yes; lilies, as you requested.”
+
+A short silence, then I observed:
+
+“There will be no autopsy the papers say. The evidences of death by
+strangulation are too well defined.”
+
+“Very true. Yet I wonder at their laxity in this. There were signs of
+some other agency having been at work also. Those two empty glasses
+smelling of cordial--innocent perhaps--yet--”
+
+“Don’t! I can bear no more to-day. I shall be stronger to-morrow.”
+
+Another feeler turned aside. His cheek showed his displeasure, but the
+words were kind enough with which he speedily took his leave and left
+me to solitude and a long night of maddening thought.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK TWO
+
+SWEETWATER TO THE FRONT
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+“WE KNOW OF NO SUCH LETTER”
+
+O, he sits high in all the people’s hearts;
+And that, which would appear offence in us,
+His countenance like richest alchemy
+Will change to virtue, and to worthiness.
+
+_Julius Caesar_.
+
+
+“And you still hold him?”
+
+“Yes, but with growing uncertainty. He’s one of those fellows who
+affect your judgment in spite of yourself. Handsome beyond the
+ordinary, a finished gentleman and all that, he has, in addition to
+these advantages, a way with him that goes straight to the heart in
+spite of prejudice and the claims of conscience. That’s a dangerous
+factor in a case like this. It hampers a man in the exercise of his
+duties. You may escape the fascination, probably will; but at least you
+will understand my present position and why I telephoned to New York
+for an expert detective to help us on this job. I wish to give the son
+of my old friend a chance.”
+
+The man whom Coroner Perry thus addressed, leaned back in his chair and
+quietly replied:
+
+“You’re right; not because he’s the son of your old friend, a handsome
+fellow and all that, but for the reason that every man should have his
+full chance, whatever the appearances against him. Personally, I have
+no fear of my judgment being affected by his attractions. I’ve had to
+do with too many handsome scamps for that. But I shall be as just to
+him as you will, simply because it seems an incredibly brutal crime for
+a gentleman to commit, and also because I lay greater stress than you
+do on the two or three minor points which seem to favour his latest
+declaration, that a man had preceded him in his visit to this lonely
+club-house,--a man whom he had himself seen leaving the grounds in a
+cutter just as he entered by the opposite driveway.”
+
+“Ah!” came in quick ejaculation from the coroner’s lips, “I like to
+hear you say that. I was purposely careful not to lay emphasis on the
+facts you allude to. I wished you to draw your own inferences, without
+any aid from me. The police did find traces of a second horse and
+cutter having passed through the club-house grounds. It was snowing
+hard, and these traces were speedily obliterated, but Hexford and
+Clarke saw them in time to satisfy themselves that they extended from
+the northern clump of trees to the upper gateway where they took the
+direction of the Hill.”
+
+“That is not all. A grip-sack, packed for travelling, was in Mr.
+Ranelagh’s cutter, showing that his story of an intended journey was
+not without some foundation.”
+
+“Yes. We have retained that grip-sack. It is not the only proof we
+have of his intention to leave the city for a while. He had made other
+arrangements, business arrangements--But that’s neither here nor there.
+No one doubts that he planned an elopement with the beautiful Carmel;
+the question is, was his disappointment followed by the murder of the
+woman who stood in his way?”
+
+District Attorney Fox (you will have guessed his identity before now)
+took his time, deliberating carefully with himself before venturing
+to reply. Then when the coroner’s concealed impatience was about to
+disclose itself, he quietly remarked:
+
+“I suppose that no conclusion can be drawn from the condition of the
+body when our men reached it. I judge that it was still warm.”
+
+“Yes, but so it would have been if she had met her fate several minutes
+earlier than was supposed. Clarke and Hexford differ about the length
+of time which intervened between the moment when the former looked into
+the room from the outside and that of their final entrance. But whether
+it was five minutes or ten, the period was long enough to render their
+testimony uncertain as to the exact length of time she had lain there
+dead. Had I been there--But it’s useless to go into that. Let us take
+up something more tangible.”
+
+“Very good. Here it is. Of the six bottles of spirits which were
+surreptitiously taken from the club-house’s wine-vault, four were found
+standing unopened on the kitchen table. Where are the other two?”
+
+“That’s it! That’s the question I have put myself ever since I
+interrogated the steward and found him ready to swear to the
+correctness of his report and the disappearance of these two bottles.
+Ranelagh did not empty them, or the bottles themselves would have been
+found somewhere about the place. Now, who did?”
+
+“No one within the club-house precincts. They were opened and emptied
+elsewhere. There’s our clew and if the man you’ve got up from New York
+is worth his salt, he has his task ready to hand.”
+
+“A hard task for a stranger--and such a stranger! Not very
+prepossessing, to say the least. But he has a good eye, and will get
+along with the boys all right. Nothing assertive about him; not enough
+go, perhaps. Would you like to see him?”
+
+“In a moment. I want to clear my mind in reference to these bottles.
+Only some one addicted to drink would drag those six bottles out of
+that cold, unlighted cellar.”
+
+“Yes, and a connoisseur at that. The two missing bottles held the
+choicest brand in the whole stock. They were kept far back too--hidden,
+as it were, behind the other bottles. Yet they were hauled to the front
+and carried off, as you say, and by some one who knows a good thing in
+spirits.”
+
+“What was in the four bottles found on the kitchen table?”
+
+“Sherry, whiskey, and rum. Two bottles of rum and one each of sherry
+and whiskey.”
+
+“The thief meant to carry them all off, but had not time.”
+
+“The _gentleman_ thief! No common man such as we are looking for,
+would make choice of just those bottles. So there we are again!
+Contradictions in every direction.”
+
+“Don’t let us bother with the contradictions, but just follow the clew.
+Those bottles, full or empty, must be found. You know the labels?”
+
+“Yes, and the shape and colour of the bottles, both of which are
+peculiar.”
+
+“Good! Now let us see your detective.”
+
+But Sweetwater was not called in yet. Just as Coroner Perry offered to
+touch his bell, the door opened and Mr. Clifton was ushered in. Well
+and favourably known to both men, he had no difficulty in stating his
+business and preferring his request.
+
+“I am here in the interests of Elwood Ranelagh,” said he. “He is
+willing to concede, and so am I, that under the circumstances his
+arrest was justifiable, but not his prolonged detention. He has
+little excuse to offer for the mistakes he has made, or the various
+offences of which he has been guilty. His best friends must condemn his
+hypocrisy and fast-and-loose treatment of Miss Cumberland; but he vows
+that he had no hand in her violent death, and in this regard I feel not
+only bound but forced to believe him. At all events, I am going to act
+on that conviction, and have come here to entreat your aid in clearing
+up one or two points which may affect your own opinion of his guilt.
+
+“As his counsel I have been able to extract from him a fact or two
+which he has hitherto withheld from the police. Reticent as he has
+shown himself from the start,--and considering the character of the two
+women involved in this tragedy, this cannot be looked upon as entirely
+to his discredit,--he has confided to me a circumstance, which in
+the excitement attendant on Miss Carmel Cumberland’s sudden illness,
+may have escaped the notice of the family and very naturally, of the
+police. It is this:
+
+“The ring which Miss Cumberland wore as the sign and seal of her
+engagement to him was not on her hand when he came upon her, as he
+declares he did, dead. It was there at dinner-time--a curious ring
+which I have often noted myself and could accurately describe if
+required. If she took it off before starting for The Whispering Pines,
+it should be easily found. But if she did not, what a clew it offers to
+her unknown assailant! Up till now, Mr. Ranelagh has been anticipating
+receiving this ring back in a letter, written before she left her home.
+But he has heard of no such letter, and doubts now if you have. May I
+ask if he is correct in this surmise?”
+
+“We know of no such letter. None has come to his rooms,” replied the
+coroner.
+
+“I thought not. The whereabouts of this ring, then, is still to be
+determined. You will pardon my having called your attention to it.
+As Mr. Ranelagh’s legal adviser, I am very anxious to have that ring
+found.”
+
+“We are glad to receive your suggestion,” replied the district
+attorney. “But you must remember that some of its force is lost by its
+having originated with the accused.”
+
+“Very true; but Mr. Ranelagh was only induced to speak of this matter
+after I had worked with him for an hour. There is a mystery in his
+attitude which I, for one, have not yet fathomed. You must have noticed
+this also, Coroner Perry? Your inquest, when you hold it, will reveal
+some curious facts; but I doubt if it will reveal the secret underlying
+this man’s reticence. That we shall have to discover for ourselves.”
+
+“He has another secret, then, than the one involving his arrest as a
+suspected murderer?” was the subtle conclusion of the district attorney.
+
+“Yes, or why does he balk so at the simplest inquiries? I have my
+notion as to its nature; but I’m not here to express notions unless you
+call my almost unfounded belief in him a notion. What I want to present
+to you is fact, and fact which can be utilised.”
+
+“In the cause of your client!”
+
+“Which is equally the cause of justice.”
+
+“Possibly. We’ll search for the ring, Mr. Clifton.”
+
+“Meanwhile, will you cast your eye over these fragments of a note which
+Mr. Ranelagh says he received from Miss Carmel Cumberland while waiting
+on the station platform for her coming.”
+
+Taking an envelope from his pocket, Mr. Clifton drew forth two small
+scraps of soiled and crumpled paper, one of which was the half of
+another envelope presenting very nearly the following appearance:
+
+As he pointed this out, he remarked:
+
+“Elwood is not so common a baptismal name, that there can be any doubt
+as to the person addressed.”
+
+The other scraps, also written in pencil and by the same hand,
+contained but two or three disconnected words; but one of those words
+was _Adelaide_.
+
+“I spent an hour and a half in the yards adjoining the station before
+I found those two bits,” explained the young lawyer with a simple
+earnestness not displeasing to the two seasoned men he addressed.
+“One was in hiding under a stacked-up pile of outgoing freight, and
+the other I picked out of a cart of stuff which had been swept up in
+the early morning. I offer them in corroboration of Mr. Ranelagh’s
+statement that the ‘_Come!_’ used in the partially consumed letter
+found in the clubhouse chimney was addressed to Miss Carmel Cumberland
+and not to Adelaide, and that the place of meeting suggested by this
+word was the station platform, and not the spot since made terrible by
+death.”
+
+“You are acquainted with Miss Carmel Cumberland’s handwriting?”
+
+“If I am not, the town is full of people who are. I believe these words
+to have been written by Carmel Cumberland.”
+
+Mr. Fox placed the pieces back in their envelope and laid the whole
+carefully away.
+
+“For a second time we are obliged to you,” said he.
+
+“You can cancel the obligation,” was the quick retort, “by discovering
+the identity of the man who in derby hat and a coat with a very high
+collar, left the grounds of The Whispering Pines just as Mr. Ranelagh
+drove into them. I have no facilities for the job, and no desire to
+undertake it.”
+
+He had endeavoured to speak naturally, if not with an off-hand air; but
+he failed somehow--else why the quick glance of startled inquiry which
+Dr. Perry sent him from under his rather shaggy eyebrows.
+
+“Well, we’ll undertake that, too,” promised the district attorney.
+
+“I can ask no more,” returned Charles Clifton, arising to depart. “The
+confronting of that man with Ranelagh will cause the latter to unseal
+his lips. Before you have finished with my client, you will esteem him
+much more highly than you do now.”
+
+The district attorney smiled at what seemed the callow enthusiasm of
+a youthful lawyer; but the coroner who knew his district well, looked
+very thoughtfully down at the table before which he sat, and failed
+to raise his head until the young man had vanished from the room and
+his place had been taken by another of very different appearance and
+deportment. Then he roused himself and introduced the newcomer to
+the prosecuting attorney as Caleb Sweetwater, of the New York police
+department.
+
+Caleb Sweetwater was no beauty. He was plain-featured to the point
+of ugliness; so plain-featured that not even his quick, whimsical
+smile could make his face agreeable to one who did not know his many
+valuable qualities. His receding chin and far too projecting nose
+were not likely to create a favourable impression on one ignorant of
+his cheerful, modest, winsome disposition; and the district attorney,
+after eyeing him for a moment with ill-concealed disfavour, abruptly
+suggested:
+
+“You have brought some credentials with you, I hope.”
+
+“Here is a letter from one of the department. Mr. Gryce wrote it,” he
+added, with just a touch of pride.
+
+“The letter is all right,” hastily remarked Dr. Perry on looking it
+over. “Mr. Sweetwater is commended to us as a man of sagacity and
+becoming reserve.”
+
+“Very good. To business, then. The sooner we get to work on this new
+theory, the better. Mr. Sweetwater, we have some doubts if the man we
+have in hand is the man we really want. But first, how much do you know
+about this case?”
+
+“All that’s in the papers.”
+
+“Nothing more?”
+
+“Very little. I’ve not been in town above an hour.”
+
+“Are you known here?”
+
+“I don’t think so; it’s my first visit this way.”
+
+“Then you are as ignorant of the people as they are of you. Well, that
+has its disadvantages.”
+
+“And its advantages, if you will permit me to say so, sir. I have no
+prejudices, no preconceived notions to struggle against. I can take
+persons as I find them; and if there is any deep family secret to
+unearth, it’s mighty fortunate for a man to have nothing stand in the
+way of his own instincts. No likings, I mean--no leanings this way or
+that, for humane or other purely unprofessional reasons.”
+
+The eye of District Attorney Fox stole towards that of his brother
+official, but did not meet it. The coroner had turned his attention
+to the table again, and, while betraying no embarrassment, was not
+quite his usual self. The district attorney’s hand stole to his chin,
+which he softly rubbed with his lean forefinger as he again addressed
+Sweetwater.
+
+“This tragedy--the most lamentable which has ever occurred in this
+town--is really, and without exaggeration, a tragedy in high life. The
+lady who was strangled by a brute’s clutch, was a woman of the highest
+culture and most estimable character. Her sister, who is supposed
+to have been the unconscious cause of the crime, is a young girl of
+blameless record. Of the man who was seen bending over the victim with
+his hands on her throat, we cannot speak so well. He has the faults
+and has lived the life of a social favourite. Gifted in many ways, and
+popular with both men and women, he has swung on his course with an
+easy disregard of the claims of others, which, while leaving its traces
+no doubt in many a humble and uncomplaining heart, did not attract
+notice to his inherent lack of principle, until the horrors of this
+tragedy lifted him into public view stripped of all his charms. He’s
+an egotist, of the first water; there is no getting over that. But did
+he strangle the woman? He says not; that he was only following some
+extraordinary impulse of the moment in laying his thumbs on the marks
+he saw on Miss Cumberland’s neck. A fantastic story--told too late,
+besides, for perfect credence, and not worthy of the least attention
+if--”
+
+The reasons which followed are too well known to us for repetition.
+Sweetwater listened with snapping eyes to all that was said; and
+when he had been given the various clews indicating the presence of
+a third--and as yet unknown--party on the scene of crime, he rose
+excitedly to his feet and, declaring that it was a most promising case,
+begged permission to make his own investigations at The Whispering
+Pines, after which he would be quite ready to begin his search for the
+man in the derby hat and high coat-collar, whose love for wine was so
+great that he chose and carried off the two choicest bottles that the
+club-house contained.
+
+“A hardy act for any man, gentleman or otherwise, who had just
+strangled the life out of a fine woman like that. If he exists and the
+whole story is not a pure fabrication of the entrapped Ranelagh, he
+shouldn’t be hard to find. What do you say, gentlemen? He shouldn’t be
+hard to find.”
+
+“_We_ have not found him,” emphasised the district attorney, with the
+shortest possible glance at the coroner’s face.
+
+“Then the field is all before me,” smiled Sweetwater. “Wish me luck,
+gentlemen. It’s a blind job, but that’s just in my line. A map of the
+town, a few general instructions, and I’m off.”
+
+Mr. Fox turned towards the coroner, and opened his lips; but closed
+them again without speaking. Did Sweetwater notice this act of
+self-restraint? If he did, he failed to show it.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+“I CAN HELP YOU”
+
+A subtle knave; a finder out of occasions;
+That has an eye can stamp and counterfeit
+Advantages though true advantage never presents
+Itself; A devilish knave!
+
+_Othello_.
+
+
+A half hour spent with Hexford in and about the club-house, and
+Sweetwater was ready for the road. As he made his way through the
+northern gate, he cast a quick look back at the long, low building he
+had just left, with its tall chimneys and rows of sightless windows,
+half hidden, half revealed by the encroaching pines. The mystery of
+the place fascinated him. To his awakened imagination, there was a
+breathless suggestion in it--a suggestion which it was his foremost
+wish, just now, to understand.
+
+And those pines--gaunt, restless, communicative! ready with their
+secret, if one could only interpret their language. How their heads
+came together as their garrulous tongues repeated the tale, which would
+never grow old to them until age nipped their hoary heads and laid them
+low in the dust, with their horror half expressed, their gruesome tale
+unfinished.
+
+“Witnesses of it all,” commented the young detective as he watched
+the swaying boughs rising and dipping before a certain window. “They
+were peering into that room long before Clarke stole the glimpse which
+has undone the unfortunate Ranelagh. If I had their knowledge, I’d do
+something more than whisper.”
+
+Thus musing, thus muttering, he plodded up the road, his insignificant
+figure an unpromising break in the monotonous white of the wintry
+landscape. But could the prisoner who had indirectly speeded this young
+detective on his present course, have read his thoughts and rightly
+estimated the force of his purpose, would he have viewed with so much
+confidence the entrance of this unprepossessing stranger upon the
+no-thoroughfare into which his own carefully studied admissions had
+blindly sent him?
+
+As has been said before, this road was an outlying one and but little
+travelled save in the height of summer. Under ordinary circumstances
+Sweetwater would have met not more than a half-dozen carts or sledges
+between the club-house gates and the city streets. But to-day, the road
+was full of teams carrying all sorts of incongruous people, eager for
+a sight of the spot made forever notorious by a mysterious crime. He
+noted them all; the faces of the men, the gestures of the women; but he
+did not show any special interest till he came to that portion of the
+road where the long line of half-buried fences began to give way to a
+few scattered houses. Then his spirit woke, and he became quick, alert,
+and persuasive. He entered houses; he talked with the people. Though
+evidently not a dissipated man, he stopped at several saloons, taking
+his time with his glass and encouraging the chatter of all who chose to
+meet his advances. He was a natural talker and welcomed every topic,
+but his eye only sparkled at one. This he never introduced himself;
+he did not need to. Some one was always ready with the great theme;
+and once it was started, he did not let the conversation languish till
+every one present had given his or her quota of hearsay or opinion to
+the general fund.
+
+It seemed a great waste of time, for nobody had anything to say worth
+the breath expended on it. But Sweetwater showed no impatience, and
+proceeded to engage the attention of the next man, woman, or child he
+encountered with undiminished zest and hopefulness.
+
+He had left the country road behind, and had entered upon the jumble
+of sheds, shops, and streets which marked the beginnings of the town
+in this direction, when his quick and experienced eye fell on a woman
+standing with uncovered head in an open doorway, peering up the street
+in anxious expectation of some one not yet in sight. He liked the air
+and well-kept appearance of the woman; he appreciated the neatness of
+the house at her back and gauged at its proper value the interest she
+displayed in the expected arrival of one whom he hoped would delay
+that arrival long enough for him to get in the word which by this time
+dropped almost unconsciously from his lips.
+
+But a second survey of the woman’s face convinced him that his ordinary
+loquaciousness would not serve him here. There was a refinement in
+her aspect quite out of keeping with the locality in which she lived,
+and he was hesitating how to proceed, when fortune favoured him by
+driving against his knees a small lad on an ill-directed sled, bringing
+him almost to the ground and upsetting the child who began to scream
+vociferously.
+
+It was the woman’s child, for she made instantly for the gate which,
+for some reason, she found difficulty in opening. Sweetwater, seeing
+this, blessed his lucky stars. He was at his best with children, and
+catching the little fellow up, he soothed and fondled him and finally
+brought him with such a merry air of triumph straight to his mother’s
+arms, that confidence between them was immediately established and
+conversation started.
+
+He had in his pocket an ingenious little invention which he had
+exhibited all along the road as an indispensable article in every
+well-kept house. He wanted to show it to her, but it was too cold a day
+for her to stop outside. Wouldn’t she allow him to step in and explain
+how her work could be materially lessened and her labour turned to play
+by a contrivance so simple that a child could run it?
+
+It was all so ridiculous in face of this woman’s quiet intelligence,
+that he laughed at his own words, and this laughter, echoed by the
+child and in another instant by the mother, made everything so pleasant
+for the moment that she insensibly drew back while he pulled open the
+gate, only remarking, as she led the way in:
+
+“I was looking for my husband. He may come any minute and I’m afraid he
+won’t care much about contrivances to save me work--that is, if they
+cost very much.”
+
+Sweetwater, whose hand was in his pocket, drew it hastily out.
+
+“You were watching for your husband? Do you often stand in the open
+doorway, looking for him?”
+
+Her surprised eyes met his with a stare that would have embarrassed the
+most venturesome book agent, but this man was of another ilk.
+
+“If you do,” he went on imperturbably, but with a good-humoured smile
+which deepened her favourable impression of him, “how much I would give
+if you had been standing there last Tuesday night when a certain cutter
+and horse went by on its way up the hill.”
+
+She was a self-contained woman, this wife of a master mechanic in one
+of the great shops hard by; but her jaw fell at this, and she forgot to
+chide or resist her child when he began to pull her towards the open
+kitchen door.
+
+Sweetwater, sensitive to the least change in the human face, prayed
+that the husband might be detained, if only for five minutes longer,
+while he, Sweetwater, worked this promising mine.
+
+“You _were_ looking out,” he ventured. “And you _did_ see that horse
+and cutter. What luck! It may save a man’s life.”
+
+“Save!” she repeated, staggering back a few steps and dragging the
+child with her. “Save a man’s life! What do you mean by that?”
+
+“Not much if it was any cutter and any horse, and at any hour. But if
+it was the horse and cutter which left The Whispering Pines at ten or
+half past ten that night, then it may mean life and death to the man
+now in jail under the dreadful charge of murder.”
+
+Catching up her child, she slid into the kitchen and sat down with it,
+in the first chair she came to. Sweetwater following her, took up his
+stand in the doorway, unobtrusive, but patiently waiting for her to
+speak. The steaming kettles and the table set for dinner gave warning
+of the expected presence for which she had been watching, but she
+seemed to have forgotten her husband; forgotten everything but her own
+emotions.
+
+“Who are you?” she asked at length. “You have not told me your real
+business.”
+
+“No, madam, and I ask your pardon. I feared that my real business, if
+suddenly made known to you, might startle, perhaps frighten you. I
+am a detective on the look-out for evidence in the case I have just
+mentioned. I have a theory that a most important witness in the same,
+drove by here at the hour and on the night I have named. I want to
+substantiate that theory. Can you help me?”
+
+A sensitiveness to, and quick appreciation of, the character of those
+he addressed was one of Sweetwater’s most valuable attributes. No
+glossing of the truth, however skillfully applied, would have served
+him with this woman so well as this simple statement, followed by its
+equally simple and direct inquiry. Scrutinising him over the child’s
+head, she gave but a casual glance at the badge he took pains to show
+her, then in as quiet and simple tones as he had himself used, she made
+this reply:
+
+“I can help you some. You make it my duty, and I have never shrunk
+from duty. A horse and cutter did go by here on its way uphill, last
+Tuesday night at about eleven o’clock. I remember the hour because I
+was expecting my husband every minute, just as I am now. He had some
+extra work on hand that night which he expected to detain him till
+eleven or a quarter after. Supper was to be ready at a quarter after.
+To surprise him I had beaten up some biscuits, and I had just put them
+in the pan when I heard the clock strike the hour. Afraid that he would
+come before they were baked, I thrust the pan into the oven and ran
+to the front door to look out. It was snowing very hard, and the road
+looked white and empty, but as I stood there a horse and cutter came in
+sight, which, as it reached the gate, drew up in a great hurry, as if
+something was the matter. Frightened, because I’m always thinking of
+harm to my husband whose work is very dangerous, I ran out bare-headed
+to the gate, when I saw why the man in the sleigh was making me such
+wild gestures. His hat had blown off, and was lying close up against
+the fence in front of me. Anxious always to oblige, I made haste to
+snatch at it and carry it out to its owner. I received a sort of thank
+you, and would never have remembered the occurrence if it had not
+been for that murder and if--” She paused doubtfully, ran her fingers
+nervously over her child’s head, looked again at Sweetwater waiting
+expectantly for her next word, and faltered painfully--“if I had not
+recognised the horse.”
+
+Sweetwater drew a deep breath; it was such a happy climax. Then, as she
+showed no signs of saying more, asked as quietly as his rapidly beating
+heart permitted:
+
+“Didn’t you recognise the man?”
+
+Her answer was short but as candid as her expression.
+
+“No. The snow was blinding; besides he wore a high collar, in which his
+head was sunk down almost out of sight.”
+
+“But the horse--”
+
+“Was one which is often driven by here. I had rather not tell you whose
+it is. I have not told any one, not even my husband, about seeing it on
+the road that night. I couldn’t somehow. But if it will save a man’s
+life and make clear who killed that good woman, ask any one on the
+Hill, in what stable you can find a grey horse with a large black spot
+on his left shoulder, and you will know as much about it as I do. Isn’t
+that enough, sir? Now, I must dish up my dinner.”
+
+“Yes, yes; it’s almost enough. Just one question, madam. Was the hat
+what folks call a derby? Like this one, madam,” he explained, drawing
+his own from behind his back.
+
+“Yes, I think so. As well as I can remember, it was like that. I’m
+afraid I didn’t do it any good by my handling. I had to clutch it
+quick and I’m sure I bent the brim, to say nothing of smearing it with
+flour-marks.”
+
+“How?” Sweetwater had started for the door, but stopped, all eagerness
+at this last remark.
+
+“I had been cutting out biscuits, and my hands were white with flour,”
+she explained, simply. “But that brushes off easily; I don’t suppose it
+mattered.”
+
+“No, no,” he hastily assented. Then while he smiled and waved his hand
+to the little urchin who had been his means of introduction to this
+possibly invaluable witness, he made one final plea and that was for
+her name.
+
+“Eliza Simmons,” was the straightforward reply; and this ended the
+interview.
+
+The husband, whose anticipated approach had occasioned all this
+abruptness, was coming down the hill when Sweetwater left the gate. As
+this detective of ours was as careful in his finish as in all the rest
+of his work, he called out as he went by:
+
+“I’ve just been trying to sell a wonderful contrivance of mine to the
+missus. But it was no go.”
+
+The man looked, smiled, and went in at his own gate with the air of one
+happy in wife, child, and home.
+
+Sweetwater went on up the hill. Towards the top, he came upon a
+livery-stable. Stopping in his good-humoured way, he entered into talk
+with a man loitering inside the great door. Before he left him, he had
+asked him these questions:
+
+“Any grey horse in town?”
+
+“Yes, _one_.”
+
+“I think I’ve seen it--has a patch of black on its left shoulder.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Whose is it? I’ve a mighty curiosity about the horse. Looks like a
+trick horse.”
+
+“I don’t know what you mean by that. It belongs to a respectable
+family. A family you must have heard about if you ever heard anything.
+There’s a funeral there to-day--”
+
+“Not Miss Cumberland’s?” exclaimed Sweetwater, all agog in a moment.
+
+“Yes, Miss Cumberland’s. I thought you might have heard the name.”
+
+“Yes, I’ve heard it.”
+
+The tone was dry, the words abrupt, but the detective’s heart was
+dancing like a feather. The next turn he took was toward the handsome
+residence district crowning the hill.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+IN THE COACH HOUSE
+
+All things that we ordained festival
+Turn from their office to black funeral;
+Our instruments to melancholy bells;
+Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast;
+And all things change them to the contrary.
+
+_Romeo and Juliet_.
+
+
+Fifteen minutes later, he stood in a finely wooded street before an
+open gateway guarded by a policeman. Showing his badge, he passed in,
+and entered a long and slightly curved driveway. As he did so, he took
+a glance at the house. It was not as pretentious as he expected, but
+infinitely more inviting. Low and rambling, covered with vines, and
+nestling amid shrubbery which even in winter gave it a habitable air,
+it looked as much the abode of comfort as of luxury, and gave--in
+outward appearance at least--no hint of the dark shadow which had so
+lately fallen across it.
+
+The ceremonies had been set for three o’clock, and it was now half past
+two. As Sweetwater reached the head of the driveway, he saw the first
+of a long file of carriages approaching up the street.
+
+“Lucky that my business takes me to the stable,” thought he. “What is
+the coachman’s name? I ought to remember it. Ah--Zadok! Zadok Brown.
+There’s a combination for you!”
+
+He had reached this point in his soliloquy (a bad habit of his, for
+it sometimes took audible expression) when he ran against another
+policeman set to guard the side door. A moment’s parley, and he left
+this man behind; but not before he had noted this door and the wide and
+hospitable verandah which separated it from the driveway.
+
+“I am willing to go all odds that I shall find that verandah the most
+interesting part of the house,” he remarked, in quiet conviction, to
+himself, as he noted its nearness to the stable and the ease with which
+one could step from it into a vehicle passing down the driveway.
+
+It had another point of interest, or, rather the wing had to which
+it was attached. As his eye travelled back across this wing, in his
+lively walk towards the stable, he caught a passing glimpse of a
+nurse’s face and figure in one of its upper windows. This located the
+sick chamber, and unconsciously he hushed his step and moved with the
+greatest caution, though he knew that this sickness was not one of the
+nerves, and that the loudest sound would fail to reach ears lapsed in a
+blessed, if alarming, unconsciousness.
+
+Once around the corner, he resumed a more natural pace, and perceiving
+that the stable-door was closed but that a window well up the garden
+side was open, he cast a look towards the kitchen windows at his back,
+and, encountering no watchful eye, stepped up to the former one and
+peered in.
+
+A man sat with his back to him, polishing a bit of harness. This was
+probably Zadok, the coachman. As his interest was less with him than
+with the stalls beyond, he let his eye travel on in their direction,
+when he suddenly experienced a momentary confusion by observing the
+head and shoulders of Hexford leaning towards him from an opposite
+window--in much the same fashion, and certainly with exactly the same
+intent, as himself. As their glances crossed, both flushed and drew
+back, only to return again, each to his several peep-hole. Neither
+meant to lose the advantage of the moment. Both had heard of the grey
+horse and wished to identify it; Hexford for his own satisfaction,
+Sweetwater as the first link of the chain leading him into the
+mysterious course mapped out for him by fate. That each was more or
+less under the surveillance of the other did not trouble either.
+
+There were three stalls, and in each stall a horse stamped and
+fidgeted. Only one held their attention. This was a mare on the
+extreme left, a large grey animal with a curious black patch on its
+near shoulder. The faces of both men changed as they recognised this
+distinguishing mark, and instinctively their eyes met across the width
+of the open space separating them. Hexford’s finger rose to his mouth,
+but Sweetwater needed no such hint. He stood, silent as his own shadow,
+while the coachman rubbed away with less and less purpose, until his
+hands stood quite still and his whole figure drooped in irresistible
+despondency. As he raised his face, moved perhaps by that sense of a
+watchful presence to which all of us are more or less susceptible, they
+were both surprised to see tears on it. The next instant he had started
+to his feet and the bit of harness had rattled from his hands to the
+floor.
+
+“Who are you?” he asked, with a touch of anger, quite natural under the
+circumstances. “Can’t you come in by the door, and not creep sneaking
+up to take a man at disadvantage?”
+
+As he spoke, he dashed away the tears with which his cheeks were still
+wet.
+
+“I thought a heap of my young mistress,” he added, in evident apology
+for this display of what such men call weakness. “I didn’t know that it
+was in me to cry for anything, but I find that I can cry for her.”
+
+Hexford left his window, and Sweetwater slid from his; next minute they
+met at the stable door.
+
+“Had luck?” whispered the local officer.
+
+“Enough to bring me here,” acknowledged the other.
+
+“Do you mean to this house or to this stable?”
+
+“To this stable.”
+
+“Have you heard that the horse was out that night?”
+
+“Yes, she was out.”
+
+“Who driving?”
+
+“Ah, that’s the question!”
+
+“This man can’t tell you.”
+
+A jerk of Hexford’s thumb in Zadok’s direction emphasised this
+statement.
+
+“But I’m going to talk to him, for all that.”
+
+“He wasn’t here that night; he was at a dance. He only knows that the
+mare was out.”
+
+“But I’m going to talk to him.”
+
+“May I come in, too? I’ll not interrupt. I’ve just fifteen minutes to
+spare.”
+
+“You can do as you please. I’ve nothing to hide--from you, at any rate.”
+
+Which wasn’t quite true; but Sweetwater wasn’t a stickler for truth,
+except in the statements he gave his superiors.
+
+Hexford threw open the stable-door, and they both walked in. The
+coachman was not visible, but they could hear him moving about above,
+grumbling to himself in none too encouraging a way.
+
+Evidently he was in no mood for visitors.
+
+“I’ll be down in a minute,” he called out, as their steps sounded on
+the hardwood floor.
+
+Hexford sauntered over to the stalls. Sweetwater stopped near the
+doorway and glanced very carefully about him. Nothing seemed to escape
+his eye. He even took the trouble to peer into a waste-bin, and was
+just on the point of lifting down a bit of broken bottle from an open
+cupboard when Brown appeared on the staircase, dressed in his Sunday
+coat and carrying a bunch of fresh, hot-house roses.
+
+He stopped midway as Sweetwater turned towards him from the cupboard,
+but immediately resumed his descent and was ready with his reply when
+Hexford accosted him from the other end of the stable:
+
+“An odd beast, this. They don’t drive her for her beauty, that’s
+evident.”
+
+“She’s fast and she’s knowing,” grumbled the coachman. “Reason enough
+for overlooking her spots. Who’s that man?” he grunted, with a drop of
+his lantern jaws, and a slight gesture towards the unknown interloper.
+
+“Another of us,” replied Hexford, with a shrug. “We’re both rather
+interested in this horse.”
+
+“Wouldn’t another time do?” pleaded the coachman, looking gravely down
+at the flowers he held. “It’s most time for the funeral and I don’t
+feel like talking, indeed I don’t, gentlemen.”
+
+“We won’t keep you.” It was Sweetwater who spoke. “The mare’s company
+enough for us. She knows a lot, this mare. I can see it in her eye. I
+understand horses; we’ll have a little chat, she and I, when you are
+gone.”
+
+Brown cast an uneasy glance at Hexford.
+
+“He’d better not touch her,” he cautioned. “He don’t know the beast
+well enough for that.”
+
+“He won’t touch her,” Hexford assured him. “She does look knowing,
+don’t she? Would like to tell us something, perhaps. Was out _that_
+night, I’ve heard you say. Curious! How did you know it?”
+
+“I’ve said and said till I’m tired,” Brown answered, with sudden heat.
+“This is pestering a man at a very unfortunate time. Look! the people
+are coming. I must go. My poor mistress! and poor Miss Carmel! I liked
+’em, do ye understand? Liked ’em--and I do feel the trouble at the
+house, I do.”
+
+His distress was so genuine that Hexford was inclined to let him go;
+but Sweetwater with a cock of his keen eye put in his word and held the
+coachman where he was.
+
+“The old gal is telling me all about it,” muttered this sly, adaptable
+fellow. He had sidled up to the mare and their heads were certainly
+very close together. “Not touch her? See here!” Sweetwater had his
+arm round the filly’s neck and was looking straight into her fiery
+and intelligent eye. “Shall I pass her story on?” he asked, with a
+magnetic smile at the astonished coachman, which not only softened him
+but seemed to give the watchful Hexford quite a new idea of this gawky
+interloper.
+
+“You’ll oblige _me_ if you can put her knowledge into words,” the man
+Zadok declared, with one fascinated eye on the horse and the other on
+the house where he evidently felt that his presence was wanted. “She
+was out that night, and I know it, as any coachman would know, who
+doesn’t come home stone drunk. But where she was and who took her, get
+her to tell if you can, for I don’t know no more ’n the dead.”
+
+“The dead!” flashed out Sweetwater, wheeling suddenly about and
+pointing straight through the open stable-door towards the house where
+the young mistress the old servant mourned, lay in her funeral casket.
+“Do you mean her--the lady who is about to be buried? Could _she_ tell
+if her lips were not sealed by a murderer’s hand?”
+
+“She!” The word came low and awesomely. Rude and uncultured as the man
+was, he seemed to be strangely affected by this unexpected suggestion.
+“I haven’t the wit to answer that,” said he. “How can we tell what
+she knew. The man who killed her is in jail. _He_ might talk to some
+purpose. Why don’t you question him?”
+
+“For a very good reason,” replied Sweetwater, with an easy good-nature
+that was very reassuring. “He was arrested on the spot; so that it
+wasn’t he who drove this mare home, unharnessed her, put her back in
+her stall, locked the stable-door and hung up the key in its place in
+the kitchen. Somebody else did _that_.”
+
+“That’s true enough, and what does it show? That the mare was out on
+some other errand than the one which ended in blood and murder,” was
+the coachman’s unexpected retort.
+
+“Is that so?” whispered Sweetwater into the mare’s cocked ear.
+“She’s not quite ready to commit herself,” he drawled, with another
+enigmatical smile at the lingering Zadok. “She’s keeping something
+back. Are you?” he pointedly inquired, leaving the stalls and walking
+briskly up to Zadok.
+
+The coachman frowned and hastily retreated a step; but in another
+moment he leaped in a rage upon Sweetwater, when the sight of the
+flowers he held recalled him to himself and he let his hand fall again
+with the quiet remark:
+
+“You’re overstepping your dooty. I don’t know who you are or what you
+want with me, but you’re overstepping your dooty.”
+
+“He’s right,” muttered Hexford. “Better let the fellow go. See! one of
+the maids is beckoning to him.”
+
+“He shall go, and welcome, if he will tell me where he gets his taste
+for this especial brand of whiskey.” Sweetwater had crossed to the
+cupboard and taken down the lower half of the broken bottle which had
+attracted his notice on his first entrance, and was now holding it out,
+with a quizzical look at the departing coachman.
+
+Hexford was at his shoulder with a spring, and together they inspected
+the label still sticking to it--which was that of the very rare and
+expensive spirit found missing from the club-house vault.
+
+“This is a find,” muttered Hexford into his fellow detective’s ear.
+Then, with a quick move towards Zadok, he shouted out:
+
+“You’d better answer that question. Where did this bit of broken bottle
+come from? They don’t give you whiskey like this to drink.”
+
+“That they don’t,” muttered the coachman, not so much abashed as they
+had expected. “And I wouldn’t care for it if they did. I found that bit
+of bottle in the ash-barrel outside, and fished it out to put varnish
+in. I liked the shape.”
+
+“Broken this way?”
+
+“Yes; it’s just as good.”
+
+“Is it? Well, never mind, run along. We’ll close the stable-door for
+you.”
+
+“I’d rather do it myself and carry in the key.”
+
+“Here then; we’re going to the funeral, too. You’d like to?” This
+latter in a whisper to Sweetwater.
+
+The answer was a fervent one. Nothing in all the world would please
+this protean-natured man quite so well.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+“LILA--LILA!”
+
+O, treble woe Fall ten times treble on that cursed head, Whose wicked
+deed thy most ingenious sense Depriv’d thee of!--Hold off the earth
+awhile, Till I have caught her once more in my arms.
+
+_Hamlet_.
+
+
+“Let us enter by the side door,” suggested Sweetwater, as the two moved
+towards the house. “And be sure you place me where I can see without
+being seen. I have no wish to attract attention to myself, or to be
+identified with the police until the necessity is forced upon me.”
+
+“Then we won’t go in together,” decided Hexford. “Find your own
+place; you won’t have any difficulty. A crowd isn’t expected. Miss
+Cumberland’s condition forbids it.”
+
+Sweetwater nodded and slid in at the side door.
+
+He found himself at once in a narrow hall, from the end of which opened
+a large room. A few people were to be seen in this latter place, and
+his first instinct was to join them; but finding that a few minutes yet
+remained before the hour set for the services, he decided to improve
+them by a rapid glance about this hall, which, for certain reasons
+hardly as yet formulated in his own mind, had a peculiar interest for
+him.
+
+The most important object within view, according to his present
+judgment, was the staircase which connected it with the floor above;
+but if you had asked his reason for this conclusion, he would not have
+told you, as Ranelagh might have done, that it was because it was the
+most direct and convenient approach to Carmel Cumberland’s room. His
+thoughts were far from this young girl, intimately connected as she
+was with this crime; which shows through what a blind maze he was
+insensibly working. With his finger on the thread which had been put
+in his hand, he was feeling his way along inch by inch. It had brought
+him to this staircase, and it led him next to a rack upon which hung
+several coats and a gentleman’s hat.
+
+He inspected the former and noted that one was finished with a high
+collar; but he passed the latter by--it was not a derby. The table
+stood next the rack, and on its top lay nothing more interesting than a
+clothes-brush and one or two other insignificant objects; but, with his
+memory for details, he had recalled the keys which one of the maids had
+picked up somewhere about this house, and laid on a hall table. If this
+were the hall and this the table, then was every inch of the latter’s
+simple cloth-covered top of the greatest importance in his eyes.
+
+He had no further time for even these cursory investigations; Hexford’s
+step could be heard on the verandah, and Sweetwater was anxious to
+locate himself before the officer came in. Entering the room before
+him, he crossed to the small group clustered in its further doorway.
+There were several empty chairs in sight; but he passed around them
+all to a dark and inconspicuous corner, from which, without effort, he
+could take in every room on that floor--from the large parlour in which
+the casket stood, to the remotest region of the servants’ hall.
+
+The clergyman had not yet descended, and Sweetwater had time to
+observe the row of little girls sitting in front of the bearers, each
+with a small cluster of white flowers in her hand. Miss Cumberland’s
+Sunday-school class, he conjectured, and conjectured rightly. He also
+perceived that some of these children loved her.
+
+Near them sat a few relatives and friends. Among these was a very, very
+old man, whom he afterwards heard was a great-uncle and a centenarian.
+Between him and one of the little girls, there apparently existed a
+strong sympathy; for his hand reached out and drew her to him when
+the tears began to steal down her cheeks, and the looks which passed
+between the two had all the appeal and all the protection of a great
+love.
+
+Sweetwater, who had many a soft spot in his breast, felt his heart
+warm at this one innocent display of natural feeling in an assemblage
+otherwise frozen by the horror of the occasion. His eyes dwelt
+lingeringly on the child, and still more lingeringly on the old, old
+man, before passing to that heaped-up mound of flowers, under which lay
+a murdered body and a bruised heart. He could not see the face, but the
+spectacle was sufficiently awe-compelling without that.
+
+Would it have seemed yet more so, had he known at whose request the
+huge bunch of lilies had been placed over that silent heart?
+
+The sister sick, the brother invisible, there was little more to hold
+his attention in this quarter; so he let it roam across the heads
+of the people about him, to the distant hall communicating with the
+kitchen.
+
+Several persons were approaching from this direction, among them Zadok.
+The servants of the house, no doubt, for they came in all together
+and sat down, side by side, in the chairs Sweetwater had so carefully
+passed by. There were five persons in all: two men and three women.
+Only two interested him--Zadok, with whom he had already made a
+superficial acquaintance and had had one bout; and a smart, bright-eyed
+girl with a resolute mouth softened by an insistent dimple, who struck
+him as possessing excellent sense and some natural cleverness. A girl
+to know and a girl to talk to, was his instantaneous judgment. Then he
+forgot everything but the solemnity of the occasion, for the clergyman
+had entered and taken his place, and a great hush had fallen upon the
+rooms and upon every heart there present.
+
+
+“_I am the resurrection and the life_.”
+
+Never had these consoling words sounded more solemn than when they
+rang above the remains of Adelaide Cumberland, in this home where she
+had reigned as mistress ever since her seventeenth year. The nature of
+the tragedy which had robbed the town of one of its most useful young
+women; the awful fate impending over its supposed author,--a man who
+had come and gone in these rooms with a spell of fascination to which
+many of those present had themselves succumbed--the brooding sense
+of illness, if not of impending death, in the room above; gave to
+these services a peculiar poignancy which in some breasts of greater
+susceptibility than the rest, took the form of a vague expectancy
+bordering on terror.
+
+Sweetwater felt the poignancy, but did not suffer from the terror. His
+attention had been attracted in a new direction, and he found himself
+watching, with anxious curiosity, the attitude and absorbed expression
+of a good-looking young man whom he was far from suspecting to be the
+secret representative of the present suspect, whom nobody could forget,
+yet whom nobody wished to remember at this hallowed hour.
+
+Had this attitude and this absorption been directed towards the casket
+over which the clergyman’s words rose and fell with ever increasing
+impressiveness, he might have noted the man but would scarcely
+have been held by him. But this interest, sincere and strong as it
+undoubtedly was, centred not so much in the services, careful as he
+was to maintain a decorous attitude towards the same, but in the faint
+murmurs which now and then came down from above where unconsciousness
+reigned and the stricken brother watched over the delirious sister,
+with a concentration and abandonment to fear which made him oblivious
+of all other duties, and almost as unconscious of the rites then being
+held below over one who had been as a mother to him, as the sick girl
+herself with her ceaseless and importunate “Lila! Lila!” The detective,
+watching this preoccupied stranger, shared in some measure his secret
+emotions, and thus was prepared for the unexpected occurrence of a few
+minutes later.
+
+No one else had the least forewarning of any break in the services.
+There had been nothing in the subdued but impressive rendering of the
+prayers to foreshadow a dramatic episode; yet it came, and in this
+manner:
+
+The final words had been said, and the friends present invited to look
+their last on the calm face which, to many there, had never worn so
+sweet a smile in life. Some had hesitated; but most had obeyed the
+summons, among them Sweetwater. But he had not much time in which to
+fix those features in his mind; for the little girls, who had been
+waiting patiently for this moment, now came forward; and he stepped
+aside to watch them as they filed by, dropping as they did so, a
+tribute of fragrant flowers upon the quiet breast. They were followed
+by the servants, among whom Zadok had divided his roses. As the last
+cluster fell from the coachman’s trembling hand, the undertaker
+advanced with the lid, and, pausing a moment to be sure that all were
+satisfied, began to screw it on.
+
+Suddenly there was a cry, and the crowd about the door leading into
+the main hall started back, as wild steps were heard on the stairs and
+a young man rushed into the room where the casket stood, and advanced
+upon the officiating clergyman and the astonished undertaker with a
+fierceness which was not without its suggestion of authority.
+
+“Take it off!” he cried, pointing at the lid which had just been
+fastened down. “I have not seen her--I must see her. Take it off!”
+
+It was the brother, awake at last to the significance of the hour!
+
+The clergyman, aghast at the sacrilegious look and tone of the
+intruder, stepped back, raising one arm in remonstrance, and
+instinctively shielding the casket with the other. But the undertaker
+saw in the frenzied eye fixed upon his own, that which warned him
+to comply with the request thus harshly and peremptorily uttered.
+Unscrewing the lid, he made way for the intruder, who, drawing near,
+pushed aside the roses which had fallen on the upturned face, and,
+laying his hand on the brow, muttered a few low words to himself. Then
+he withdrew his hand, and without glancing to right or left, staggered
+back to the door amid a hush as unbroken as that which reigned behind
+him in that open casket. Another moment and his white, haggard face and
+disordered figure would be blotted from sight by the door-jamb.
+
+The minister recovered his poise and the bearers their breath; the men
+stirred in their seats and the women began to cast frightened looks
+at each other, and then at the children, some of whom had begun to
+whimper, when in an instant all were struck again into stone. The young
+man had turned and was facing them all, with his hands held out in a
+clench which in itself was horrible.
+
+“If they let the man go,” he called out in loud and threatening tones,
+“I will strangle him with these two hands.”
+
+The word, and not the shriek which burst irrepressibly from more
+than one woman before him, brought him to himself. With a ghastly
+look on his bloated features, he scanned for one moment the row of
+deeply shocked faces before him, then tottered back out of sight, and
+fled towards the staircase. All thought that an end had come to the
+harrowing scene, and minister and people faced each other once more;
+when, loud and sharp from above, there rang down the shrill cry of
+delirium, this time in articulate words which even the children could
+understand:
+
+“Break it open, I say! break it open, and see if her heart is there!”
+
+It was too awful. Men and women and children leaped to their feet
+and dashed away into the streets, uttering smothered cries and wild
+ejaculations. In vain the clergyman raised his voice and bade them
+respect the dead; the rooms were well-nigh empty before he had finished
+his appeal. Only the very old uncle and the least of the children
+remained of all who had come there in memory of their departed
+kinswoman and friend.
+
+The little one had fled to the old man’s arms before he could rise, and
+was now held close to his aged and shaking knees, while he strove to
+comfort her and explain.
+
+Soon these, too, were gone, and the casket was refastened and carried
+out by the shrinking bearers, leaving in those darkened rooms a trail
+of desolation which was only broken from time to time by the now faint
+and barely heard reiteration of the name of her who had just been borne
+away!
+
+“Lila! Lila!”
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+“WHAT WE WANT IS HERE”
+
+I’ll tell you, by the way,
+The greatest comfort in the world.
+You said
+There was a clew to all.
+Remember, Sweet,
+He said there was a clew!
+I hold it.
+Come!
+
+_A Blot in the ’Scutcheon._
+
+
+Sweetwater, however affected by this scene, had not lost control
+of himself or forgotten the claims of duty. He noted at a glance
+that, while the candid looking stranger, whose lead he had been
+following, was as much surprised as the rest at the nature of the
+interruption--which he had possibly anticipated and for which he was
+in some measure prepared--he was, of all present, the most deeply
+and peculiarly impressed by it. No element of fear had entered into
+his emotion; nor had it been heightened by any superstitious sense.
+Something deeper and more important by far had darkened his thoughtful
+eye and caused that ebb and flow of colour in a cheek unused, if
+Sweetwater read the man aright, to such quick and forcible changes.
+
+Sweetwater took occasion, likewise, while the excitement was at its
+height, to mark what effect had been made on the servants by the action
+and conduct of young Cumberland. “They know him better than we do,” was
+his inner comment; “what do they think of his words, and what do they
+think of him?”
+
+It was not so easy to determine as the anxious detective might wish.
+Only one of them showed a simple emotion, and that one was, without
+any possibility of doubt, the cook. She was a Roman Catholic, and was
+simply horrified by the sacrilege of which she had been witness. There
+was no mistaking her feelings. But those of the other two women were
+more complex.
+
+So were those of the men. Zadok specially watched each movement of
+his young master with open mistrust; and very nearly started upright,
+in his repugnance and dismay, when that intruding hand fell on the
+peaceful brow of her over whose fate, to his own surprise, he had been
+able to shed tears. Some personal prejudice lay back of this or some
+secret knowledge of the man from whose touch even the dead appeared to
+shrink.
+
+And the women! Might not the same explanation account for that curious
+droop of the eye with which the two younger clutched at each other’s
+hands, to keep from screaming, and interchanged whispered words which
+Sweetwater would have given considerable out of his carefully cherished
+hoard to have heard.
+
+It was impossible to tell, at present; but he was confident that it
+would not be long before he understood these latter, at least. He had
+great confidence in his success with women, homely as he was. He was
+not so sure of himself with men; and he felt that some difficulties
+and not a few pitfalls lay between him and, for instance, the
+uncommunicative Zadok. “But I’ve the whole long evening before me,” he
+added in quiet consolation to himself. “It will be a pity if I can’t
+work some of them in that time.”
+
+The last thing he had remarked, before Carmel’s unearthly cry had sent
+the horrified guests in disorder from the house, was the presence of
+Dr. Perry in a small room which Sweetwater had supposed empty, until
+the astonishing events I have endeavoured to describe brought its
+occupant to the door. What the detective then read in the countenance
+of the family’s best friend, he kept to himself; but his own lost a
+trace of its former anxiety, as the official slipped back out of sight
+and remained so, even after the funeral cortege had started on its
+course.
+
+Plans had been made for carrying the servants to the cemetery, and,
+despite the universal disturbance consequent upon these events, these
+plans were adhered to. Sweetwater watched them all ride away in the
+last two carriages.
+
+This gave him the opportunity he wanted. Leaving his corner, he looked
+up Hexford, and asked who was left in the house.
+
+“Dr. Perry, Mr. Clifton, the lawyer, Mr. Cumberland, his sick sister,
+and the nurse.”
+
+“Mr. Cumberland! Didn’t he go to the grave?”
+
+“Did you expect him to, after _that_?”
+
+Sweetwater’s shoulders rose, and his voice took on a tone of
+indifference.
+
+“There’s no telling. Where is he now, do you think? Upstairs?”
+
+“Yes. It seems he spends all his time in a little alcove opposite
+his sister’s door. They won’t let him inside, for fear of disturbing
+the patient; so he just sits where I’ve told you, doing nothing but
+listening to every sound that comes through the door.”
+
+“Is he there now?”
+
+“Yes, and shaking just like a leaf. I walked by him a moment ago and
+noticed particularly.”
+
+“Where’s his room? In sight of the alcove you mention?”
+
+“No; there’s a partition or two between. If you go up by the side
+staircase, you can slip into it without any one seeing you. Coroner
+Perry and Mr. Clifton are in front.”
+
+“Is the side door locked?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Lock it. The back door, of course, is.”
+
+“Yes, the cook attended to that.”
+
+“I want a few minutes all by myself. Help me, Hexford. If Dr. Perry has
+given you no orders, take your stand upstairs where you can give me
+warning if Mr. Cumberland makes a move to leave his post, or the nurse
+her patient.”
+
+“I’m ready; but I’ve been in that room and I’ve found nothing.”
+
+“I don’t know that I shall. You say that it is near the head of the
+stairs running up from the side door?”
+
+“Just a few feet away.”
+
+“I would have sworn to that fact, even if you hadn’t told me,” muttered
+Sweetwater.
+
+Five minutes later, he had slipped from sight; and for some time not
+even Hexford knew where he was.
+
+“Dr. Perry, may I have a few words with you?”
+
+The coroner turned quickly. Sweetwater was before him; but not the same
+Sweetwater he had interviewed some few hours before in his office. This
+was quite a different looking personage. Though nothing could change
+his features, the moment had come when their inharmonious lines no
+longer obtruded themselves upon the eye; and the anxious, nay, deeply
+troubled official whom he addressed, saw nothing but the ardour and
+quiet self-confidence they expressed.
+
+“It’ll not take long,” he added, with a short significant glance in the
+direction of Mr. Clifton.
+
+Dr. Perry nodded, excused himself to the lawyer and followed the
+detective into the small writing-room which he had occupied during
+the funeral. In the decision with which Sweetwater closed the door
+behind them there was something which caused the blood to mount to the
+coroner’s brow.
+
+“You have made some discovery?” said he.
+
+“A very important one,” was the quick, emphatic reply. And in a few
+brief words the detective related his interview with the master
+mechanic’s wife on the highroad. Then with an eager, “Now let me show
+you something,” he led the coroner through the dining-room into the
+side hall, where he paused before the staircase.
+
+“Up?” queried the coroner, with an obvious shrinking from what he might
+encounter above.
+
+“No,” was the whispered reply. “What we want is _here_.” And, pushing
+open a small door let into the under part of the stairway (if Ranelagh
+in his prison cell could have seen and understood this movement!), he
+disclosed a closet and in that closet a coat or two, and one derby hat.
+He took down the latter and, holding it out to the light, pointed to a
+spot on the under side of its brim.
+
+The coroner staggered as he saw it, and glanced helplessly about him.
+He had known this family all their lives and the father had been his
+dearest friend. But he could say nothing in face of this evidence. The
+spot was a flour-mark, in which could almost be discerned the outline
+of a woman’s thumb.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+THE MOTIONLESS FIGURE
+
+’S blood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy
+could find it out.
+
+_Hamlet_.
+
+
+“The coat is here, too,” whispered Sweetwater, after a moment of
+considerate silence. “I had searched the hall-rack for them; I had
+searched his closets; and was about owning myself to be on a false
+trail, when I spied this little door. We had better lock it, now, had
+we not, till you make up your mind what to do with this conclusive bit
+of evidence.”
+
+“Yes, lock it. I’m not quite myself, Sweetwater. I’m no stranger to
+this house, or to the unfortunate young people in it. I wish I had not
+been re-elected last year. I shall never survive the strain if--” He
+turned away.
+
+Sweetwater carefully returned the hat to its peg, turned the key in the
+door, and softly followed his superior back into the dining-room, and
+thence to their former retreat.
+
+“I can see that it’s likely to be a dreadful business,” he ventured
+to remark, as the two stood face to face again. “But we’ve no choice.
+Facts are facts, and we’ve got to make the best of them. You mean me to
+go on?”
+
+“Go on?”
+
+“Following up the clews which you have yourself given me? I’ve only
+finished with one; there’s another--”
+
+“The bottles?”
+
+“Yes, the bottles. I believe that I shall not fail there if you’ll give
+me a little time. I’m a stranger in town, you remember, and cannot be
+expected to move as fast as a local detective.”
+
+“Sweetwater, you have but one duty--to follow both clews as far as they
+will take you. As for my duty, that is equally plain, to uphold you in
+all reasonable efforts and to shrink at nothing which will save the
+innocent and bring penalty to the guilty. Only be careful. Remember
+the evidence against Ranelagh. You will have to forge an exceedingly
+strong chain to hold your own against the facts which have brought this
+recreant lover to book. You see--O, I wish that poor girl could get
+ease!” he impetuously cried, as “Lila! Lila!” rang again through the
+house.
+
+“There can never be any ease for her,” murmured Sweetwater. “Whatever
+the truth, she’s bound to suffer if ever she awakens to reality again.
+Do you agree with the reporters that she knew why and for what her
+unhappy sister left this house that night?”
+
+“If not, why this fever?”
+
+“That’s sound.”
+
+“_She_--” the coroner was emphatic, “_she_ is the only one who is
+wholly innocent in this whole business. Consider her at every point.
+Her life is invaluable to every one concerned. But she must not be
+roused to the fact; not yet. Nor must he be startled either; you know
+whom I mean. Quiet does it, Sweetwater. Quiet and a seeming deference
+to his wishes as the present head of the house.”
+
+“Is the place his? Has Miss Cumberland made a will?”
+
+“Her will will be read to-morrow. For to-night, Arthur Cumberland’s
+position here is the position of a master.”
+
+“I will respect it, sir, up to all reasonable bounds. I don’t think
+he meditates giving any trouble. He’s not at all impressed by our
+presence. All he seems to care about is what his sister may be led to
+say in her delirium.”
+
+“That’s how you look at it?” The coroner’s tone was one of gloom. Then,
+after a moment of silence: “You may call my carriage, Sweetwater. I can
+do nothing further here to-day. The atmosphere of this house stifles
+me. Dead flowers, dead hopes, and something worse than death lowering
+in the prospect. I remember my old friend--this was his desk. Let us
+go, I say.”
+
+Sweetwater threw open the door, but his wistful look did not escape the
+older man’s eye.
+
+“You’re not ready to go? Wish to search the house, perhaps.”
+
+“Naturally.”
+
+“It has already been done in a general way.”
+
+“I wish to do it thoroughly.”
+
+The coroner sighed.
+
+“I should be wrong to stand in your way. Get your warrant and the house
+is yours. But remember the sick girl.”
+
+“That’s why I wish to do the job my self.”
+
+“You’re a good fellow, Sweetwater.” Then as he was passing out, “I’m
+going to rely on you to see this thing through, quietly if you can,
+openly and in the public eye if you must. The keys tell the tale--the
+keys and the hat. If the former had been left in the club-house and
+the latter found without the mark set on it by the mechanic’s wife,
+Ranelagh’s chances would look as slim to-day as they did immediately
+after the event. But with things as they are, he may well rest easily
+to-night; the clouds are lifting for him.”
+
+Which shows how little we poor mortals realise what makes for the peace
+even of those who are the nearest to us and whose lives and hearts we
+think we can read like an open book.
+
+The coroner gone, Sweetwater made his way to the room where he had last
+seen Mr. Clifton. He found it empty and was soon told by Hexford that
+the lawyer had left. This was welcome news to him; he felt that he had
+a fair field before him now; and learning that it would be some fifteen
+minutes yet before he could hope to see the carriages back, he followed
+Hexford upstairs.
+
+“I wish I had your advantages,” he remarked as they reached the upper
+floor.
+
+“What would you do?”
+
+“I’d wander down that hall and take a long look at things.”
+
+“You would?”
+
+“I’d like to see the girl and I’d like to see the brother when he
+thought no one was watching him.”
+
+“Why see the girl?”
+
+“I don’t know. I’m afraid that’s just curiosity. I’ve heard she was a
+wonder for beauty.”
+
+“She was, once.”
+
+“And not now?”
+
+“You cannot tell; they have bound up her cheeks with cloths. She fell
+on the grate and got burned.”
+
+“But I say that’s dreadful, if she was so beautiful.”
+
+“Yes, it’s bad, but there are worse things than that. I wonder what she
+meant by that wild cry of ‘Tear it open! See if her heart is there?’
+Tear what open? the coffin?”
+
+“Of course. What else could she have meant?”
+
+“Well! delirium is a queer thing; makes a fellow feel creepy all over.
+I don’t reckon on my nights here.”
+
+“Hexford, help me to a peep. I’ve got a difficult job before me and I
+need all the aid I can get.”
+
+“Oh, there’s no trouble about that! Walk boldly along; he won’t
+notice--”
+
+“_He won’t notice_?”
+
+“No, he notices nothing but what comes from the sick room.”
+
+“I see.” Sweetwater’s jaw had fallen, but it righted itself at this
+last word.
+
+“Listening, eh?”
+
+“Yes--as a fellow never listened before.”
+
+“Expectant like?”
+
+“Yes, I should call it expectant.”
+
+“Does the nurse know this?”
+
+“The nurse is a puzzler.”
+
+“How so?”
+
+“Half nurse and half--but go see for yourself. Here’s a package to take
+in,--medicine from the drug store. Tell her there was no one else to
+bring it up. She’ll show no surprise.”
+
+Muttering his thanks, Sweetwater seized the proffered package, and
+hastened with it down the hall. He had been as far as the turn before,
+but now he passed the turn to find, just as he expected, a closed door
+on the left and an open alcove on the right. The door led into Miss
+Cumberland’s room; the alcove, circular in shape and lighted by several
+windows, projected from the rear of the extension, and had for its
+outlook the stable and the huge sycamore tree growing beside it.
+
+Sweetwater’s fingers passed thoughtfully across his chin as he remarked
+this and took in the expressive outline of its one occupant. He could
+not see his face; that was turned towards the table before which he
+sat. But his drooping head, rigid with desperate thinking; his relaxed
+hand closed around the neck of a decanter which, nevertheless, he did
+not lift, made upon Sweetwater an impression which nothing he saw
+afterwards ever quite effaced.
+
+“When I come back, that whiskey will be half gone,” thought he, and
+lingered to see the tumbler filled and the first draught taken.
+
+But no. The hand slowly unclasped and fell away from the decanter; his
+head sank forward until his chin rested on his breast; and a sigh,
+startling to Sweetwater, fell from his lips. Hexford was right; only
+one thing could arouse him.
+
+Sweetwater now tried that thing. He knocked softly on the sick-room
+door.
+
+This reached the ear oblivious to all else. Young Cumberland started
+to his feet; and for a moment Sweetwater saw again the heavy features
+which, an hour before, had produced such a repulsive effect upon him in
+the rooms below. Then the nerveless figure sank again into place, with
+the same constraint in its lines, and the same dejection.
+
+Sweetwater’s hand, lifted in repetition of his knock, hung suspended.
+He had not expected quite such indifference as this. It upset his
+calculations just a trifle. As his hand fell, he reminded himself of
+the coroner’s advice to go easy. “Easy it is,” was his internal reply.
+“I’ll walk as lightly as if eggshells were under my feet.”
+
+The door was opened to him, this time. As it swung back, he saw, first,
+a burst of rosy color as a room panelled in exquisite pink burst upon
+his sight; then the great picture of his life--the bloodless features
+of Carmel, calmed for the moment into sleep.
+
+Perfect beauty is so rare, its effect so magical! Not even the
+bandage which swathed one cheek could hide the exquisite symmetry
+of the features, or take from the whole face its sweet and natural
+distinction. Frenzy, which had distorted the muscles and lit the eyes
+with a baleful glare, was lacking at this moment. Repose had quieted
+the soul and left the body free to express its natural harmonies.
+
+Sweetwater gazed at the winsome, brown head over the nurse’s shoulder,
+and felt that for him a new and important factor had entered into this
+case, with his recognition of this woman’s great beauty. How deep
+a factor, he was far from suspecting, or he would not have met the
+nurse’s eye with quite so cheery and self-confident a smile.
+
+“Excuse the intrusion,” he said. “We thought you might need these
+things. Hexford signed for them.”
+
+“I’m obliged to you. Are you--one of them?” she sharply asked.
+
+“Would it disturb you if I were? I hope not. I’ve no wish to seem
+intrusive.”
+
+“What do you want? Something, I know. Give it a name before there’s a
+change there.”
+
+She nodded towards the bed, and Sweetwater took advantage of the
+moment to scrutinise more closely the nurse herself. She was a robust,
+fine-looking woman, producing an impression of capability united to
+kindness. Strength of mind and rigid attendance to duty dominated the
+kindness, however. If crossed in what she considered best for her
+patient, possibly for herself, she could be severe, if not biting, in
+her speech and manner. So much Sweetwater read in the cold, clear eye
+and firm, self-satisfied mouth of the woman awaiting his response to
+the curt demand she had made.
+
+“I want another good look at your patient, and I want your confidence
+since you and I may have to see much of each other before this matter
+is ended. You asked me to speak plainly and I have done so.”
+
+“You are from headquarters?”
+
+“Coroner Perry sent me.” Throwing back his coat, he showed his badge.
+“The coroner has returned to his office. He was quite upset by the
+outcry which came from this room at an unhappy moment during the
+funeral.”
+
+“I know. It was my fault; I opened the door just for an instant, and in
+that instant my patient broke through her torpor and spoke.”
+
+She had drawn him in, by this time, and, after another glance at her
+patient, softly closed the door behind him.
+
+“I have nothing to report,” said she, “but the one sentence everybody
+heard.”
+
+Sweetwater took in the little memorandum book and pencil which hung at
+her side, and understood her position and extraordinary amenability to
+his wishes. Unconsciously, a low exclamation escaped him. He was young
+and had not yet sunk the man entirely in the detective.
+
+“A cruel necessity to watch so interesting a patient, for anything but
+her own good,” he remarked. Yet, because he was a detective as well
+as a man, his eye went wandering all over the room as he spoke until
+it fell upon a peculiar-looking cabinet or closet, let into the wall
+directly opposite the bed. “What’s that?” he asked.
+
+“I don’t know; I can’t make it out, and I don’t like to ask.”
+
+Sweetwater examined it for a moment from where he stood; then crossed
+over, and scrutinised it more particularly. It was a unique specimen.
+What it lacked in height--it could not have measured more than a foot
+from the bottom to the top--it made up in length, which must have
+exceeded five feet. The doors, of which it had two, were both tightly
+locked; but as they were made of transparent glass, the objects
+behind them were quite visible. It was the nature of these objects
+which made the mystery. The longer Sweetwater examined them, the less
+he understood the reason for their collection, much less for their
+preservation in a room which in all other respects, expressed the
+quintessence of taste.
+
+At one end he saw a stuffed canary, not perched on a twig, but lying
+prone on its side. Near it was a doll, with scorched face and limbs
+half-consumed. Next this, the broken pieces of a china bowl and what
+looked like the torn remnants of some very fine lace. Further along,
+his eye lighted on a young girl’s bonnet, exquisite in colour and
+nicety of material, but crushed out of all shape and only betraying its
+identity by its dangling strings. The next article, in this long array
+of totally unhomogeneous objects, was a metronome, with its pendulum
+wrenched half off and one of its sides lacking. He could not determine
+the character of what came next, and only gave a casual examination to
+the rest. The whole affair was a puzzle to him, and he had no time for
+puzzles disconnected with the very serious affair he was engaged in
+investigating.
+
+“Some childish nonsense,” he remarked, and moved towards the door.
+“The servants will be coming back, and I had rather not be found here.
+You’ll see me again--I cannot tell just when. Perhaps you may want to
+send for me. If so, my name is Sweetwater.”
+
+His hand was on the knob, and he was almost out of the room when he
+started and looked back. A violent change in the patient had occurred.
+Disturbed by his voice or by some inner pulsation of the fever which
+devoured her, Carmel had risen from the pillow and now sat, staring
+straight before her with every feature working and lips opened as if to
+speak. Sweetwater held his breath, and the nurse leaped towards her and
+gently encircled her with protecting arms.
+
+“Lie down,” she prayed; “lie down. Everything is all right: I am
+looking after things. Lie down, little one, and rest.”
+
+The young girl drooped, and, yielding to the nurse’s touch, sank slowly
+back on the pillow; but in an instant she was up again, and flinging
+out her hand, she cried out loudly just as she had cried an hour before:
+
+“Break it open! Break the glass and look in. Her heart should be
+there--her heart--her heart!”
+
+“Go, or I cannot quiet her!” ordered the nurse, and Sweetwater turned
+to obey.
+
+But a new obstacle offered. The brother had heard this cry, and now
+stood in the doorway.
+
+“Who are you?” he impatiently demanded, surveying Sweetwater in sudden
+anger.
+
+“I brought up the drugs,” was the quiet explanation of the ever-ready
+detective. “I didn’t mean to alarm the young lady, and I don’t think I
+did. It’s the fever, sir, which makes her talk so wildly.”
+
+“We want no strangers here,” was young Cumberland’s response.
+“Remember, nurse, no strangers.” His tone was actually peremptory.
+
+Sweetwater observed him in real astonishment as he slid by and made his
+quiet escape. He was still more astonished when, on glancing towards
+the alcove, he perceived that, contrary to his own prognostication, the
+whiskey stood as high in the decanter as before.
+
+“I’ve got a puzzler this time,” was his comment, as he made his way
+downstairs. “Even Mr. Gryce would say that. I wonder how I’ll come out.
+Uppermost!” he finished in secret emphasis to himself. “_Uppermost_! It
+would never do for me to fail in the first big affair I’ve undertaken
+on my own account.”
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+HELEN SURPRISES SWEETWATER
+
+Lurk, lurk.
+
+_King Lear_.
+
+
+The returning servants drove up just as Sweetwater reached the lower
+floor. He was at the side door when they came in, and a single glance
+convinced him that all had gone off decorously at the grave, and that
+nothing further had occurred during their absence to disturb them.
+
+He followed them as they filed away into the kitchen, and, waiting till
+the men had gone about their work, turned his attention to the girls
+who stood about very much as if they did not know just what to do with
+themselves.
+
+“Sit, ladies,” said he, drawing up chairs quite as if he were doing the
+honours of the house. Then with a sly, compassionate look into each
+woe-begone face, he artfully remarked: “You’re all upset, you are, by
+what Mr. Cumberland said in such an unbecoming way at the funeral. He’d
+like to strangle Mr. Ranelagh! Why couldn’t he wait for the sheriff. It
+looks as if that gentleman would have the job, all right.”
+
+“Oh! don’t!” wailed out one of the girls, the impressionable,
+warm-hearted Maggie. “The horrors of this house’ll kill me. I can’t
+stand it a minute longer. I’ll go--I’ll go to-morrow.”
+
+“You won’t; you’re too kind-hearted to leave Mr. Cumberland and his
+sister in their desperate trouble,” Sweetwater put in, with a decision
+as suggestive of admiration as he dared to assume.
+
+Her eyes filled, and she said no more. Sweetwater shifted his attention
+to Helen. Working around by her side, he managed to drop these words
+into her ear:
+
+“She talks most, but she doesn’t feel her responsibilities any more
+than you do. I’ve had my experience with women, and you’re of the sort
+that stays.”
+
+She rolled her eyes towards him, in a slow, surprised way, that would
+have abashed most men.
+
+“I don’t know your name, or your business here,” said she; “but I do
+know that you take a good deal upon yourself when you say what I shall
+do or shan’t do. I don’t even know, myself.”
+
+“That’s because your eye is not so keen to your own virtues as--well, I
+won’t say as mine, but as those of any appreciative stranger. I can’t
+help seeing what you are, you know.”
+
+She turned her shoulder but not before he caught a slight disdainful
+twitch of her rosy, non-communicative mouth.
+
+“Ah, ah, my lady, not quick enough!” thought he; and, with the most
+innocent air in the world, he launched forth in a tirade against the
+man then in custody, as though his guilt were an accepted fact and
+nothing but the formalities of the law stood between him and his final
+doom. “It must make you all feel queer,” he wound up, “to think you
+have waited on him and seen him tramping about these rooms for months,
+just as if he had no wicked feelings in his heart and meant to marry
+Miss Cumberland, not to kill her.”
+
+“Oh, oh,” Maggie sobbed out. “And a perfect gentleman he was, too. I
+can’t believe no bad of him. He wasn’t like--” Her breath caught, and
+so suddenly that Sweetwater was always convinced that the more cautious
+Helen had twitched her by her skirt. “Like--like other gentlemen who
+came here. It was a kind word he had or a smile. I--I--” She made no
+attempt to finish but bounded to her feet, pulling up the more sedate
+Helen with her. “Let’s go,” she whispered, “I’m afeared of the man.”
+
+The other yielded and began to cross the floor behind the impetuous
+Maggie.
+
+Sweetwater summoned up his courage.
+
+“One moment,” he prayed. “Will you not tell me, before you go, whether
+the candlestick I have noticed on the dining-room mantel is not one of
+a pair?”
+
+“Yes, there were two--_once_,” said Helen, resisting Maggie’s effort to
+drag her out through the open door.
+
+“_Once_,” smiled Sweetwater; “by which you mean, three days ago.”
+
+A lowering of her head and a sudden make for the door.
+
+Sweetwater changed his tone to one of simple inquiry.
+
+“And was that where they always stood, the pair of them, one on each
+end of the dining-room mantel?”
+
+She nodded; involuntarily, perhaps, but decisively.
+
+Sweetwater hid his disappointment. The room mentioned was a
+thoroughfare for the whole family. Any member of it could have taken
+the candlestick.
+
+“I’m obliged to you,” said he; and might have ventured further had she
+given him the opportunity. But she was too near the door to resist the
+temptation of flight. In another moment she was gone, and Sweetwater
+found himself alone with his reflections.
+
+They were not altogether unpleasing. He was sure that he read the
+evidences of struggle in her slowly working lips and changing impulses.
+
+“So, so!” thought he. “The good seed has found its little corner of
+soil. I’ll leave it to take root and sprout. Perhaps the coroner will
+profit by it. If not, I’ve a way of coaxing tender plants which should
+bring this one to fruit. We’ll see.”
+
+The moon shone that night, much to Sweetwater’s discomforture. As he
+moved about the stable-yard, he momentarily expected to see the window
+of the alcove thrown up and to hear Mr. Cumberland’s voice raised in
+loud command for him to quit the premises. But no such interruption
+came. The lonely watcher, whose solitary figure he could just discern
+above the unshaded sill, remained immovable, with his head buried in
+his arms, but whether in sleep or in brooding misery, there was naught
+to tell.
+
+The rest of the house presented an equally dolorous and forsaken
+appearance. There were lights in the kitchen and lights in the
+servants’ rooms at the top of the house, but no sounds either of
+talking or laughing. All voices had sunk to a whisper, and if by chance
+a figure passed one of the windows, it was in a hurried, frightened
+way, which Sweetwater felt very ready to appreciate.
+
+In the stable it was no better. Zadok had bought an evening paper,
+and was seeking solace from its columns. Sweetwater had attempted the
+sociable but had been met by a decided rebuff. The coachman could
+not forget his attitude before the funeral and nothing, not even the
+pitcher of beer the detective proposed to bring in, softened the
+forbidding air with which this old servant met the other’s advances.
+
+Soon Sweetwater realised that his work was over for the night and
+planned to leave. But there was one point to be settled first. Was
+there any other means of exit from these grounds save that offered by
+the ordinary driveway?
+
+He had an impression that in one of his strolls about, he had detected
+the outlines of a door in what looked like a high brick wall in the
+extreme rear. If so, it were well worth his while to know where that
+door led. Working his way along in the shadow cast by the house and
+afterward by the stable itself, he came upon what was certainly a
+wall and a wall with a door in it. He could see the latter plainly
+from where he halted in the thick of the shadows. The moonlight shone
+broadly on it, and he could detect the very shape and size of its
+lock. It might be as well to try that lock, but he would have to cross
+a very wide strip of moonlight in order to do so, and he feared to
+attract attention to his extreme inquisitiveness. Yet who was there to
+notice him at this hour? Mr. Cumberland had not moved, the girls were
+upstairs, Zadok was busy with his paper, and the footman dozing over
+his pipe in his room over the stable. Sweetwater had just come from
+that room, and he knew.
+
+A quiet stable-yard and a closed door only ten feet away! He glanced
+again at the latter, and made up his mind. Advancing in a quiet,
+sidelong way he had, he laid his hand on the small knob above the
+lock and quickly turned it. The door was unlocked and swung under his
+gentle push. An alley-way opened before him, leading to what appeared
+to be another residence street. He was about to test the truth of this
+surmise when he heard a step behind him, and turning, encountered the
+heavy figure of the coachman advancing towards him, with a key in his
+hand.
+
+Zadok was of an easy turn, but he had been sorely tried that day, and
+his limit had been reached.
+
+“You snooper!” he bawled. “What do you want here? Won’t the run of the
+house content ye? Come! I want to lock that door. It’s my last duty
+before going to bed.”
+
+Sweetwater assumed the innocent.
+
+“And I was just going this way. It looks like a short road into town.
+It is, isn’t it?”
+
+“No! Yes,” growled the other. “Whichever it is, it isn’t your road
+to-night. That’s private property, sir. The alley you see, belongs to
+our neighbours. No one passes through there but myself and--”
+
+He caught himself in time, with a sullen grunt which may have been the
+result of fatigue or of that latent instinct of loyalty which is often
+the most difficult obstacle a detective has to encounter.
+
+“And Mr. Ranelagh, I suppose you would say?” was Sweetwater’s easy
+finish.
+
+No answer; the coachman simply locked the door and put the key in his
+pocket.
+
+Sweetwater made no effort to deter him. More than that he desisted from
+further questions though he was dying to ask where this key was kept at
+night, and whether it had been in its usual place on the evening of the
+murder. He had gone far enough, he thought. Another step and he might
+rouse this man’s suspicion, if not his enmity. But he did not leave
+the shadows into which he again receded until he had satisfied himself
+that the key went into the stable with the coachman, where it probably
+remained for this night, at least.
+
+It was after ten when Sweetwater re-entered the house to say good night
+to Hexford. He found him on watch in the upper hall, and the man,
+Clarke, below. He had a word with the former:
+
+“What is the purpose of the little door in the wall back of the stable?”
+
+“It connects these grounds with those of the Fultons. The Fultons live
+on Huested Street.”
+
+“Are the two families intimate?”
+
+“Very. Mr. Cumberland is sweet on the young lady there. She was at the
+funeral to-day. She fainted when--you know when.”
+
+“I can guess. God! What complications arise! You don’t say that any
+woman can care for _him_?”
+
+Hexford gave a shrug. He had seen a good deal of life.
+
+“He uses that door, then?” Sweetwater pursued, after a minute.
+
+“Probably.”
+
+“Did he use it that night?”
+
+“He didn’t visit _her_”
+
+“Where did he go?”
+
+“We can’t find out. He was first seen on Garden Street, coming home
+after a night of debauch. He had drunk hard. Asked where he got the
+liquor, he maundered out something about a saloon; but none of the
+places which he usually frequents had seen him that night. I have tried
+them all and some that weren’t in his books. It was no good.”
+
+“That door is supposed to be locked at night. Zadok says that’s his
+duty. Was it locked that night?”
+
+“Can’t say. Perhaps the coroner can. You see the inquiry ran in such a
+different direction, at first, that a small matter like that may have
+been overlooked.”
+
+Sweetwater subdued the natural retort, and, reverting to the subject of
+the saloons, got some specific information in regard to them. Then he
+passed thoughtfully down-stairs, only to come upon Helen who was just
+extinguishing the front-hall light.
+
+“Good night!” he said, in passing.
+
+“Good night, Mr. Sweetwater.”
+
+There was something in her tone which made him stop and look back. She
+had stepped into the library and was blowing out the lamp there. He
+paused a moment and sighed softly. Then he started towards the door,
+only to stop again and cast another look back. She was standing in one
+of the doorways, anxiously watching him and twisting her fingers in and
+out in an irresolute way truly significant in one of her disposition.
+
+He felt his heart leap.
+
+Returning softly, he took up his stand before her, looking her straight
+in the eye.
+
+“Good night,” he repeated, with an odd emphasis.
+
+“Good night,” she answered, with equal force and meaning.
+
+But the next moment she was speaking rapidly, earnestly.
+
+“I can’t sleep,” said she. “I never can when I’m not certain of my
+duty. Mr. Ranelagh is an injured man. Ask what was said and done at
+their last dinner here. I can’t tell you. I didn’t listen and I didn’t
+see what happened, but it was something out of the ordinary. Three
+broken wineglasses lay on the tablecloth when I went in to clear away.
+I heard the clatter when they fell and smashed, but I said nothing. I
+have said nothing since; but I know there was a quarrel, and that Mr.
+Ranelagh was not in it, for his glass was the only one which remained
+unbroken. Am I wrong in telling you? I wouldn’t if--if it were not
+for Mr. Ranelagh. He didn’t do right by Miss Cumberland, but he don’t
+deserve to be in prison; and so would Miss Carmel tell you if she knew
+what was going on and could speak. _She_ loved him and--I’ve said
+enough; I’ve said enough,” the agitated girl protested, as he leaned
+eagerly towards her. “I couldn’t tell the priest any more. Good night.”
+
+And she was gone.
+
+He hesitated a moment, then pursued his way to the side door, and so
+out of the house into the street. As he passed along the front of the
+now darkened building, he scanned it with a new interest and a new
+doubt. Soon he returned to his old habit of muttering to himself. “We
+don’t know the half of what has taken place within those walls during
+the last four weeks,” said he. “But one thing I will solve, and that is
+where this miserable fellow spent the hours between this dinner they
+speak of and the time of his return next day. Hexford has failed at it.
+Now we’ll see what a blooming stranger can do.”
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+62 CUTHBERT ROAD
+
+Tush! I will stir about,
+And all things will be well, I warrant thee.
+
+_Romeo and Juliet_.
+
+
+He was walking south and on the best lighted and most beautiful street
+in town, but his eyes were forever seeking a break in the long line of
+fence which marked off the grounds of a seemingly interminable stretch
+of neighbouring mansions, and when a corner was at last reached, he
+dashed around it and took a straight course for Huested Street, down
+which he passed with quickened steps and an air of growing assurance.
+
+He was soon at the bottom of the hill where the street, taking a turn,
+plunged him at once into a thickly populated district. As this was
+still the residence quarter, he passed on until he gained the heart
+of the town and the region of the saloons. Here he slackened pace and
+consulted a memorandum he had made while talking to Hexford. “A big
+job,” was his comment, sorry to find the hour quite so late. “But I’m
+not bound to finish it to-night. A start is all I can hope for, so here
+goes.”
+
+It was not his intention to revisit the places so thoroughly overhauled
+by the police. He carried another list, that of certain small groceries
+and quiet unobtrusive hotels where a man could find a private room
+in which to drink alone; it being Sweetwater’s conviction that in
+such a place, and in such a place only, would be found the tokens of
+those solitary hours spent by Arthur Cumberland between the time of
+his sister’s murder and his reappearance the next day. “Had they been
+spent in his old haunts or in any of the well-known drinking saloons
+of the city, some one would have peached on him before this,” he went
+on, in silent argument with himself. “He’s too well known, too much of
+a swell for all his lowering aspect and hang-dog look, to stroll along
+unnoticed through any of the principal streets, so soon after the news
+of his sister’s murder had set the whole town agog. Yet he was not seen
+till he struck Garden Street, a good quarter of a mile from his usual
+resorts.”
+
+Here, Sweetwater glanced up at the corner gas-lamp beneath which
+he stood, and seeing that he was in Garden Street, tried to locate
+himself in the exact spot where this young man had first been seen on
+the notable morning in question. Then he looked carefully about him.
+Nothing in the street or its immediate neighbourhood suggested the low
+and secret den he was in search of.
+
+“I shall have to make use of the list,” he decided, and asked the first
+passer-by the way to Hubbell’s Alley.
+
+It was a mile off. “That settles it,” muttered Sweetwater. “Besides, I
+doubt if he would go into an _alley_. The man has sunk low, but hardly
+so low as that. What’s the next address I have? Cuthbert Road. Where’s
+that?”
+
+Espying a policeman eyeing him with more or less curiosity from the
+other side of the street, he crossed over and requested to be directed
+to Cuthbert Road.
+
+“Cuthbert Road! That’s where the markets are. They’re closed at this
+time of night,” was the somewhat suspicious reply.
+
+Evidently the location was not a savoury one.
+
+“Are there nothing but markets there?” inquired Sweetwater, innocently.
+It was his present desire not to be recognised as a detective even by
+the men on beat. “I’m looking up a friend. He keeps a grocery or some
+kind of small hotel. I have his number, but I don’t know how to get to
+Cuthbert Road.”
+
+“Then turn straight about and go down the first street, and you’ll
+reach it before the trolley-car you see up there can strike this
+corner. But first, sew up your pockets. There’s a bad block between you
+and the markets.”
+
+Sweetwater slapped his trousers and laughed.
+
+“I wasn’t born yesterday,” he cried; and following the officer’s
+directions, made straight for the Road. “Worse than the alley,” he
+muttered; “but too near to be slighted. I wonder if I shouldn’t have
+borrowed somebody’s old coat.”
+
+It had been wiser, certainly. In Garden Street all the houses had been
+closed and dark, but here they were open and often brightly lighted and
+noisy from cellar to roof. Men, women, and frequently children, jostled
+him on the pavement, and he felt his pockets touched more than once.
+But he wasn’t Caleb Sweetwater of the New York department of police
+for nothing. He laughed, bantered, fought his way through and finally
+reached the quieter region and, at this hour, the almost deserted
+one, of the markets. Sixty-two was not far off, and, pausing a moment
+to consider his course, he mechanically took in the surroundings. He
+was surprised to find himself almost in the open country. The houses
+extending on his left were fronted by the booths and stalls of the
+market but beyond these were the fields. Interested in this discovery,
+and anxious to locate himself exactly, he took his stand under a
+favouring gas-lamp, and took out his map.
+
+What he saw, sent him forward in haste. Shops had now taken the place
+of tenements, and as these were mostly closed, there were very few
+persons on the block, and those were quiet and unobtrusive. He reached
+a corner before coming to 62 and was still more interested to perceive
+that the street which branched off thus immediately from the markets
+was a wide and busy one, offering both a safe and easy approach to
+dealer and customer. “I’m on the track,” he whispered almost aloud in
+his secret self-congratulation. “Sixty-two will prove a decent quiet
+resort which I may not be above patronising myself.”
+
+But he hesitated when he reached it. Some houses invite and some repel.
+This house repelled. Yet there was nothing shabby or mysterious about
+it. There was the decent entrance, lighted, but not too brilliantly; a
+row of dark windows over it; and, above it all, a sloping roof in which
+another sparkle of light drew his attention to an upper row of windows,
+this time, of the old dormer shape. An alley ran down one side of the
+house to the stables, now locked but later to be thrown open for the
+use of the farmers who begin to gather here as early as four o’clock.
+Nothing wrong in its appearance, everything ship-shape and yet--“I
+shall find some strange characters here,” was the Sweetwater comment
+with which our detective opened the door and walked into the house.
+
+It was an unusual hour for guests, and the woman whom he saw bending
+over a sort of desk in one corner of the room he strode into, looked up
+hastily, almost suspiciously.
+
+“Well, and what is your business?” she asked, with her eye on his
+clothes, which while not fashionable, were evidently of the sort not
+often seen in that place.
+
+“I want a room,” he tipsily confided to her, “in which I can drink and
+drink till I cannot see. I’m in trouble I am; but I don’t want to do
+any mischief; I only want to forget. I’ve money, and--” as he saw her
+mouth open, “and I’ve the stuff. Whiskey, just whiskey. Give me a room.
+I’ll be quiet.”
+
+“I’ll give you nothing.” She was hot, angry, and full of distrust.
+“This house is not for such as you. It’s a farmer’s lodging; honest
+men, who’d stare and go mad to see a feller like you about. Go along, I
+tell you, or I’ll call Jim. He’ll know what to do with you.”
+
+“Then, he’ll know mor’n I do myself,” mumbled the detective, with a
+crushed and discouraged air. “Money and not a place to spend it in! Why
+can’t I go in there?” he peevishly inquired with a tremulous gesture
+towards a half-open door through which a glimpse could be got of a neat
+little snuggery. “Nobody’ll see me. Give me a glass and leave me till I
+rap for you in the morning. That’s worth a fiver. Don’t you think so,
+missus?--And we’ll begin by passing over the fiver.”
+
+“No.”
+
+She was mighty peremptory and what was more, she was in a great hurry
+to get rid of him. This haste and the anxious ear she turned towards
+the hall enlightened him as to the situation. There was some one within
+hearing or liable to come within hearing, who possibly was not so stiff
+under temptation. Could it be her husband? If so, it might be worth his
+own while to await the good man’s coming, if only he could manage to
+hold his own for the next few minutes.
+
+Changing his tactics, he turned his back on the snuggery and surveyed
+the offended woman, with just a touch of maudlin sentiment.
+
+“I say,” he cried, just loud enough to attract the attention of any one
+within ear-shot. “You’re a mighty fine woman and the boss of this here
+establishment; that’s evident. I’d like to see the man who could say
+no to you. He’s never sat in that ’ere cashier’s seat where you be; of
+that I’m dead sure. He wouldn’t care for fivers if you didn’t, nor for
+tens either.”
+
+She was really a fine woman for her station, and a buxom, powerful one,
+too. But her glance wavered under these words and she showed a desire,
+with difficulty suppressed, to use the strength of her white but brawny
+arms, in shoving him out of the house. To aid her self-control, he, on
+his part, began to edge towards the door, always eyeing her and always
+speaking loudly in admirably acted tipsy unconsciousness of the fact.
+
+“I’m a man who likes my own way as well as anybody,” were the words
+with which he sought to save the situation, and further his own
+purposes. “But I never quarrel with a woman. Her whims are sacred to
+me. I may not believe in them; they may cost me money and comfort; but
+I yield, I do, when they are as strong in their wishes as you be. I’m
+going, missus --I’m going--Oh!”
+
+The exclamation burst from him. He could not help it. The door behind
+him had opened, and a man stepped in, causing him so much astonishment
+that he forgot himself. The woman was big, bigger than most women who
+rule the roost and do the work in haunts where work calls for muscle
+and a good head behind it. She was also rosy and of a make to draw the
+eye, if not the heart. But the man who now entered was small almost to
+the point of being a manikin, and more than that, he was weazen of face
+and ill-balanced on his two tiny, ridiculous legs. Yet she trembled
+at his presence, and turned a shade paler as she uttered the feeble
+protest:
+
+“Jim!”
+
+“Is she making a fool of herself?” asked the little man in a voice as
+shrill as it was weak. “Do your business with me. Women are no good.”
+And he stalked into the room as only little men can.
+
+Sweetwater took out his ten; pointed to the snuggery, and tapped his
+breast-pocket. “Whiskey here,” he confided. “Bring me a glass. I don’t
+mind your farmers. They won’t bother me. What I want is a locked door
+and a still mouth in your head.”
+
+The last he whispered in the husband’s ear as the wife crossed
+reluctantly back to her books.
+
+The man turned the bill he had received, over and over in his hand;
+then scrutinised Sweetwater, with his first show of hesitation.
+
+“You don’t want to kill yourself?” he asked.
+
+Sweetwater laughed with a show of good humour that appeared to relieve
+the woman, if it did not the man.
+
+“Oh, that’s it,” he cried. “That’s what the missus was afraid of, was
+it? Well, I vow! And ten thousand dollars to my credit in the bank!
+No, I don’t want to kill myself. I just want to booze to my heart’s
+content, with nobody by to count the glasses. You’ve known such fellers
+before, and that cosey, little room over there has known them, too.
+Just add me to the list; it won’t harm you.”
+
+The man’s hand closed on the bill. Sweetwater noted the action out of
+the corner of his eye, but his direct glance was on the woman. Her back
+was to him, but she had started as he mentioned the snuggery and made
+as if to turn; but thought better of it, and bent lower over her books.
+
+“I’ve struck the spot,” he murmured, exultantly to himself. “This is
+the place I want and here I’ll spend the night; but not to booze my
+wits away, oh, no.”
+
+Nevertheless it was a night virtually wasted. He learned nothing more
+than what was revealed by that one slight movement on the part of the
+woman.
+
+Though the man came in and sat with him for an hour, and they drank
+together out of the flask Sweetwater had brought with him, he was as
+impervious to all Sweetwater’s wiles and as blind to every bait he
+threw out, as any man the young detective had ever had to do with.
+When the door closed on him, and Sweetwater was left to sit out the
+tedious night alone, it was with small satisfaction to himself, and
+some regret for his sacrificed bill. The driving in of the farmers and
+the awakening of life in the market, and all the stir it occasioned
+inside the house and out, prevented sleep even if he had been inclined
+that way. He had to swallow his pill, and he did it with the best
+grace possible. Sooner than was expected of him, sooner than was wise,
+perhaps, he was on his feet and peering out of the one small window
+this most dismal day room contained. He had not mistaken the outlook.
+It gave on to the alley, and all that was visible from behind the
+curtains where he stood, was the high brick wall of the neighbouring
+house. This wall had not even a window in it; which in itself was a
+disappointment to one of his resources. He turned back into the room,
+disgusted; then crept to the window again, and, softly raising the
+sash, cast one of his lightning glances up and down the alley. Then he
+softly let the sash fall again and retreated to the centre of the room,
+where he stood for a moment with a growing smile of intelligence and
+hope on his face. He had detected close against the side of the wall,
+a box or hand-cart full of empty bottles. It gave him an idea. With an
+impetuosity he would have criticised in another man, he flung himself
+out of the room in which he had been for so many hours confined, and
+coming face to face with the landlady standing in unexpected watch
+before the door, found it a strain on his nerves to instantly assume
+the sullen, vaguely abused air with which he had decided to leave the
+house. Nevertheless, he made the attempt, and if he did not succeed to
+his own satisfaction, he evidently did to hers, for she made no effort
+to stop him as he stumbled out, and in her final look, which he managed
+with some address to intercept, he perceived nothing but relief. What
+had been in her mind? Fear for him or fear for themselves? He could
+not decide until he had rummaged that cart of bottles. But how was he
+to do this without attracting attention to himself in a way he still
+felt, to be undesirable. In his indecision, he paused on the sidewalk
+and let his glances wander vaguely over the busy scene before him.
+Before be knew it, his eye had left the market and travelled across
+the snow-covered fields to a building standing by itself in the far
+distance. Its appearance was not unfamiliar. Seizing hold of the first
+man who passed him, he pointed it out, crying:
+
+“What building is that?”
+
+“That? That’s The Whispering Pines, the country club-house, where--”
+
+He didn’t wait for the end of the sentence, but plunged into the
+thickest group of people he could find, with a determination greater
+than ever to turn those bottles over before he ate.
+
+His manner of going about this was characteristic. Lounging about
+the stalls until he found just the sort of old codger he wanted, he
+scraped up an acquaintance with him on the spot, and succeeded in
+making himself so agreeable that when the old fellow sauntered back to
+the stables to take a look at his horse, Sweetwater accompanied him.
+Hanging round the stable-door, he kept up his chatter, while sizing up
+the bottles heaped in the cart at his side. He even allowed himself to
+touch one or two in an absent way, and was meditating an accidental
+upset of the whole collection when a woman he had not seen before,
+thrust her head out of a rear window, shouting sharply:
+
+“Leave those bottles alone. They’re waiting for the old clothes man. He
+pays us money for them.”
+
+Sweetwater gaped and strolled away. He had used his eyes to purpose,
+and was quite assured that the bottle he wanted was not there. But
+the woman’s words had given him his cue, and when later in the day a
+certain old Jew peddler went his rounds through this portion of the
+city, a disreputable-looking fellow accompanied him, whom even the
+sharp landlady in Cuthbert Road would have failed to recognise as the
+same man who had occupied the snuggery the night before. He was many
+hours on the route and had many new experiences with human nature. But
+he gained little else, and was considering with what words he should
+acknowledge his defeat at police headquarters, when he found himself
+again at the markets and a minute later in the alley where the cart
+stood, with the contents of which he had busied himself earlier in the
+day.
+
+He had followed the peddler here because he had followed him to every
+other back door and alley. But he was tired and had small interest
+in the cart which looked quite undisturbed and in exactly the same
+condition as when he turned his back upon it in the morning. But when
+he drew nearer and began to lend a hand in removing the bottles to the
+waggon, he discovered that a bottle had been added to the pile, and
+that this bottle bore the label which marked it as being one of the two
+which had been taken from the club-house on the night of the murder.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+“MUST I TELL THESE THINGS?”
+
+Had I but died an hour before this chance,
+I had liv’d a blessed time; for from this instant,
+There’s nothing serious in mortality:
+All is but toys; renown, and grace is dead;
+The wine of life is drawn, and the lees
+Is left this vault to brag of.
+
+_Macbeth_.
+
+
+The lamp in the coroner’s room shone dully on the perturbed faces of
+three anxious men. They had been talking earnestly and long, but were
+now impatiently awaiting the appearance of a fourth party, as was shown
+by the glances which each threw from time to time towards the door
+leading into the main corridor.
+
+The district attorney courted the light, and sat where he would be the
+first seen by any one entering. He had nothing to hide, being entirely
+engrossed in his duty.
+
+Further back and rather behind the lamp than in front of it stood
+or sat, as his restlessness prompted, Coroner Perry, the old friend
+of Amasa Cumberland, with whose son he had now to do. Behind him,
+and still further in the shadow, could be seen the quiet figure of
+Sweetwater. All counted the minutes and all showed relief--the coroner
+by a loud sigh--when the door finally opened and an officer appeared,
+followed by the lounging form of Adelaide’s brother.
+
+Arthur Cumberland had come unwillingly, and his dissatisfaction did
+not improve his naturally heavy countenance. However, he brightened a
+little at sight of the two men sitting at the table, and, advancing,
+broke into speech before either of the two officials had planned their
+questions.
+
+“I call this hard,” he burst forth. “My place is at home and at the
+bedside of my suffering sister, and you drag me down here at nine
+o’clock at night to answer questions about things of which I am
+completely ignorant. I’ve said all I have to say about the trouble
+which has come into my family; but if another repetition of the same
+things will help to convict that scoundrel who has broken up my home
+and made me the wretchedest dog alive, then I’m ready to talk. So, fire
+ahead, Dr. Perry, and let’s be done with it.”
+
+“Sit down,” replied the district attorney, gravely, with a gesture
+of dismissal to the officer. “Mr. Cumberland, we have spared you up
+to this time, for two very good reasons. You were in great trouble,
+and you appeared to be in the possession of no testimony which
+would materially help us. But matters have changed since you held
+conversation with Dr. Perry on the day following your sister’s decease.
+You have laid that sister away; the will which makes you an independent
+man for life has been read in your hearing; you are in as much ease of
+mind as you can be while your remaining sister’s life hangs trembling
+in the balance; and, more important still, discoveries not made before
+the funeral, have been made since, rendering it very desirable for
+you to enter into particulars at this present moment, which were not
+thought necessary then.”
+
+“Particulars? What particulars? Don’t you know enough, as it is, to
+hang the fellow? Wasn’t he seen with his fingers on Adelaide’s throat?
+What can I tell you that is any more damaging than that? Particulars!”
+The word seemed to irritate him beyond endurance. Never had he looked
+more unprepossessing or a less likely subject for sympathy, than when
+he stumbled into the chair set for him by the district attorney.
+
+“Arthur!”
+
+The word had a subtle ring. The coroner, who uttered it, waited to
+watch its effect. Seemingly it had none, after the first sullen glance
+thrown him by the young man; and the coroner sighed again, but this
+time softly, and as a prelude to the following speech:
+
+“We can understand,” said he, “why you should feel so strongly against
+one who has divided the hearts of your sisters, and played with one,
+if not with both. Few men could feel differently. You have reason for
+your enmity and we excuse it; but you must not carry it to the point
+of open denunciation before the full evidence is in and the fact of
+murder settled beyond all dispute. Whatever you may think, whatever we
+may think, it has not been so settled. There are missing links still to
+be supplied, and this is why we have summoned you here and ask you to
+be patient and give the district attorney a little clearer account of
+what went on in your own house, before you broke up that evening and
+you went to your debauch, and your sister Adelaide to her death at The
+Whispering Pines.”
+
+“I don’t know what you mean.” He brought his fist down on the table
+with each word. “Nothing went on. That is,--”
+
+“Something went on at dinner-time. It was not a usual meal,” put in the
+district attorney. “You and your sisters--”
+
+“Stop!” He was at that point of passion which dulls the most
+self-controlled to all sense of propriety.
+
+“Don’t talk to me about that dinner. I want to forget that dinner. I
+want to forget everything but the two things I live for--to see that
+fellow hanged, and to--” The words choked him, and he let his head
+fall, but presently threw it up again. “That dastard, whom may God
+confound, passed a letter across Adelaide into Carmel’s hand,” he
+panted out. “I saw him, but I didn’t take it in; I wasn’t thinking. I
+was--”
+
+“Who broke the glasses?” urged his relentless inquisitor. “One at your
+plate, one at Carmel’s, and one at the head of the board where sat your
+sister Adelaide?”
+
+“God! Must I tell these things?” He had started to his feet and his
+hand, violent in all it did, struck his forehead impulsively, as he
+uttered this exclamation. “Have it, then! Heaven knows I think of it
+enough not to be afraid to speak it out in words. Adelaide”--the name
+came with passion, but once uttered, produced its own calming effect,
+so that he went on with more restraint--“Adelaide never had much
+patience with me. She was a girl who only saw one way. ‘The right! the
+right!’ was what she dinned into my ears from the time I was a small
+boy and didn’t know but that all youngsters were brought up by sisters.
+I grew to hate what she called ‘the right,’ I wanted pleasure, a free
+time, and a good drink whenever the fancy took me. You know what I
+am, Dr. Perry, and everybody in town knows; but the impulse which has
+always ruled me was not a downright evil one; or if it was, I called
+it natural independence, and let it go at that. But Adelaide suffered.
+I didn’t understand it and I didn’t care a fig for it, but she _did_
+suffer. God forgive me!”
+
+He stopped and mopped his forehead. Sweetwater moved a trifle on his
+seat, but the others--men who had passed the meridian of life, who
+had known temptations, possibly had succumbed to them, from time to
+time--sat like two statues, one in full light and the other in as dark
+a shadow as he could find.
+
+“That afternoon,” young Cumberland presently resumed, “she was keyed up
+more than usual. She loved Ranelagh,--damn him!--and he had played or
+was playing her false. She watched him with eyes that madden me, now,
+when I think of them. She saw him look at Carmel, and she saw Carmel
+look at him. Then her eyes fell on me. I was angry; angry at them all,
+and I wanted a drink. It was not her habit to have wine on the table;
+but sometimes, when Ranelagh was there, she did. She was a slave to
+Ranelagh, and he could make her do whatever he wished, just as he can
+make you and everybody else.”
+
+Here he shot insolent glances at his two interlocutors, one of whom
+changed colour--which, happily, he did not see. “‘Ring the bell,’ I
+ordered, ‘and have in the champagne. I want to drink to your marriage
+and the happy days in prospect for us all,’ It was brutal and I
+knew it; but I was reckless and wild for the wine. So, I guess, was
+Ranelagh, for he smiled at her, and she rang for the champagne. When
+the glasses had been set beside each plate, she turned towards Carmel.
+‘We will all drink,’ she said, ‘to my coming marriage,’ This made
+Carmel turn pale; for Adelaide had never been known to drink a drop
+of liquor in her life. I felt a little queer, myself; and not one
+of us spoke till the glasses were filled and the maid had left the
+dining-room and shut the door.
+
+“Then Adelaide rose. ‘We will drink standing,’ said she, and never
+had I seen her look as she did then. I thought of my evil life
+when I should have been watching Ranelagh; and when she lifted the
+glass to her lips and looked at me, almost as earnestly as she did
+at Ranelagh,--but it was a different kind of earnestness,--I felt
+like--like--well, like the wretch I was and always had been; possibly,
+always will be. She drank;--we wouldn’t call it drinking, for she just
+touched the wine with her lips; but to her it was debauch. Then she
+stood waiting, with the strangest gleam in her eyes, while Ranelagh
+drained his glass and I drained mine. Ranelagh thought she wanted some
+sentiment, and started to say something appropriate; but his eye fell
+on Carmel, who had tried to drink and couldn’t, and he bungled over his
+words and at last came to a pause under the steady stare of Adelaide’s
+eyes.
+
+“‘Never mind, Elwood,’ she said; ‘I know what you would like to
+say. But that’s not what I am thinking of now. I am thinking of my
+brother, the boy who will soon be left to find his way through life
+without even the unwelcome restraint of my presence. I want him to
+remember this day. I want him to remember me as I stand here before
+him with this glass in my hand. You see wine in it, Arthur; but I see
+poison--poison--nothing else, for one like you who cannot refuse a
+friend, cannot refuse your own longing. Never from this day on shall
+another bottle be opened under my roof. Carmel, you have grieved as
+well as I over what has passed for pleasure in this house. Do as I do,
+and may Arthur see and remember.’
+
+“Her fingers opened; the glass fell from her hand, and lay in broken
+fragments beside her plate. Carmel followed suit, and, before I knew
+it, my own fingers had opened, and my own glass lay in pieces on the
+table-cloth beneath me. Only Ranelagh’s hand remained steady. He did
+not choose to please her, or he was planning his perfidy and had
+not caught her words or understood her action. She held her breath,
+watching that hand; and I can hear the gasp yet with which she saw him
+set his glass down quietly on the board. That’s the story of those
+three broken glasses. If she had not died that night, I should be
+laughing at them now; but she did die and I don’t laugh! I curse--curse
+her recreant lover, and sometimes myself! Do you want anything more of
+me? I’m eager to be gone, if you don’t.”
+
+The district attorney sought out and lifted a paper from the others
+lying on the desk before him. It was the first movement he had made
+since Cumberland began his tale.
+
+“I’m sorry,” said he, with a rapid examination of the paper in his
+hand, “but I shall have to detain you a few minutes longer. What
+happened after the dinner? Where did you go from the table?”
+
+“I went to my room to smoke. I was upset and thirsty as a fish.”
+
+“Have you liquor in your room?”
+
+“Sometimes.”
+
+“Did you have any that night?”
+
+“Not a drop. I didn’t dare. I wanted that champagne bottle, but
+Adelaide had been too quick for me. It was thrown out--wasted--I do
+believe, wasted.”
+
+“So you did not drink? You only smoked in your room?”
+
+“Smoked one cigar. That was all. Then I went down town.”
+
+His tone had grown sulky, the emotion which had buoyed him up till now,
+seemed suddenly to have left him. With it went the fire from his eye,
+the quiver from his lip, and it is necessary to add, everything else
+calculated to awaken sympathy. He was simply sullen now.
+
+“May I ask by which door you left the house?”
+
+“The side door--the one I always take.”
+
+“What overcoat did you wear?”
+
+“I don’t remember. The first one I came to, I suppose.”
+
+“But you can surely tell what hat?”
+
+They expected a violent reply, and they got it.
+
+“No, I can’t. What has my hat got to do with the guilt of Elwood
+Ranelagh?”
+
+“Nothing, we hope,” was the imperturbable answer. “But we find it
+necessary to establish absolutely just what overcoat and what hat you
+wore down street that night.”
+
+“I’ve told you that I don’t remember.” The young man’s colour was
+rising.
+
+“Are not these the ones?” queried the district attorney, making a sign
+to Sweetwater, who immediately stepped forward, with a shabby old
+ulster over his arm, and a battered derby in his hand.
+
+The young man started, rose, then sat again, shouting out with angry
+emphasis:
+
+“_No!_”
+
+“Yet you recognise these?”
+
+“Why shouldn’t I? They’re mine. Only I don’t wear them any more.
+They’re done for. You must have rooted them out from some closet.”
+
+“We did; perhaps you can tell us what closet.”
+
+“I? No. What do I know about my old clothes? I leave that to the women.”
+
+The slight faltering observable in the latter word conveyed nothing to
+these men.
+
+“Mr. Cumberland,”--the district attorney was very serious,--“this hat
+and this coat, old as they are, were worn into town from your house
+that night. This we know, absolutely. We can even trace them to the
+club-house.”
+
+Mechanically, not spontaneously this time, the young man rose to his
+feet, staring first at the man who had uttered these words, then at the
+garments which Sweetwater still held in view. No anger now; he was too
+deeply shaken for that, too shaken to answer at once--too shaken to be
+quite the master of his own faculties. But he rallied after an interval
+during which these three men devoured his face, each under his own
+special anxiety, and read there possibly what each least wanted to see.
+
+“I don’t know anything about it,” were the words with which Arthur
+Cumberland sought to escape from the net which had been thus deftly
+cast about him. “I didn’t wear the things. Anybody can tell you what
+clothes I came home in. Ranelagh may have borrowed--”
+
+“Ranelagh wore his own coat and hat. We will let the subject of apparel
+drop, and come to a topic on which you may be better qualified to
+speak. Mr. Cumberland, you have told us that you didn’t know at the
+time, and can’t remember now, where you spent that night and most of
+the next morning. All you can remember is that it was in some place
+where they let you drink all you wished and leave when the fancy
+took you, and not before. It was none of your usual haunts. This
+seemed strange to your friends, at the time; but it is easier for us
+to understand, now that you have told us what had occurred at your
+home-table. You dreaded to have your sister know how soon you could
+escape the influence of that moment. You wished to drink your fill and
+leave your family none the wiser. Am I not right?”
+
+“Yes; it’s plain enough, isn’t it? Why harp on that string? Don’t you
+see that it maddens me? Do you want to drive me to drink again?”
+
+The coroner interposed. He had been very willing to leave the burden of
+this painful inquiry to the man who had no personal feelings to contend
+with; but at this indignant cry he started forward, and, with an air of
+fatherly persuasion, remarked kindly:
+
+“You mustn’t mind the official tone, or the official persistence. There
+is reason for all that Mr. Fox says. Answer him frankly, and this
+inquiry will terminate speedily. We have no wish to harry you--only to
+get at the truth.”
+
+“The truth? I thought you had that pat enough. The truth? The truth
+about what? Ranelagh or me? I should think it was about me, from the
+kind of questions you ask.”
+
+“It is, just now,” resumed the district attorney, as his colleague drew
+back out of sight once more. “You cannot remember the saloon in which
+you drank. That’s possible enough; but perhaps you can remember what
+they gave you. Was it whiskey, rum, absinthe, or what?”
+
+The question took his irritable listener by surprise. Arthur gasped,
+and tried to steal some comfort from Coroner Perry’s eye. But that old
+friend’s face was too much in shadow, and the young man was forced to
+meet the district attorney’s eye, instead, and answer the district
+attorney’s question.
+
+“I drank--absinthe,” he cried, at last.
+
+“From this bottle?” queried the other, motioning again to Sweetwater,
+who now brought forward the bottle he had picked up in Cuthbert Road.
+
+Arthur Cumberland glanced at the bottle the detective held up, saw the
+label, saw the shape, and sank limply in his chair, his eyes starting,
+his jaw falling.
+
+“Where did you get that?” he asked, pulling himself together with a
+sudden desperate self-possession that caused Sweetwater to cast a
+quick significant glance at the coroner, as he withdrew to his corner,
+leaving the bottle on the table.
+
+“That,” answered the district attorney, “was picked up at a small hotel
+on Cuthbert Road, just back of the markets.”
+
+“I don’t know the place.”
+
+“It’s not far from The Whispering Pines. In fact, you can see the
+club-house from the front door of this hotel.”
+
+“I don’t know the place, I tell you.”
+
+“It’s not a high-class resort; not select enough by a long shot, to
+have this brand of liquor in its cellar. They tell me that this is of
+very choice quality. That very few private families, even, indulge in
+it. That there were only two bottles of it left in the club-house when
+the inventory was last taken, that those two bottles are now gone, and
+that--”
+
+“This is one of them? Is that what you want to say? Well, it may be for
+all I know. I didn’t carry it there. I didn’t have the drinking of it.”
+
+“We have seen the man and woman who keep that hotel. They will talk, if
+they have to.”
+
+“They will?” His dogged self-possession rather astonished them. “Well,
+that ought to please you. I’ve nothing to do with the matter.”
+
+A change had taken place in him. The irritability approaching to
+violence, which had attended every speech and infused itself into every
+movement since he came into the room, had left him. He spoke quietly,
+and with a touch of irony in his tone. He seemed more the man, but not
+a whit more prepossessing, and, if anything, less calculated to inspire
+confidence. The district attorney showed that he was baffled, and Dr.
+Perry moved uneasily in his seat, until Sweetwater, coming forward,
+took up the cue and spoke for the first time since young Cumberland
+entered the room.
+
+“Then I have no doubt but you will do us this favour,” he volunteered,
+in his pleasantest manner. “It’s not a long walk from here. Will you go
+there in my company, with your coat-collar pulled up and your hat well
+down over your eyes, and ask for a seat in the snuggery and show them
+this bottle? They won’t know that it’s empty. The man is sharp and the
+woman intelligent. They will see that you are a stranger, and admit you
+readily. They are only shy of one man--the man who drank there on the
+night of your sister’s murder.”
+
+“You ’re a--” he began, with a touch of his old violence; but
+realising, perhaps, that his fingers were in a trap, he modified his
+manner again, and continued more quietly. “This is an odd request
+to make. I begin to feel as if my word were doubted here; as if my
+failings and reckless confession of the beastly way in which I spent
+that night, were making you feel that I have no good in me and am at
+once a liar and a sneak. I’m not. I won’t go with you to that low
+drinking hell, unless you make me, but I’ll swear--”
+
+“Don’t swear.” It is unnecessary to say who spoke. “We wouldn’t believe
+you, and it would be only adding perjury to the rest.”
+
+“You wouldn’t believe me?”
+
+“No; we have reasons, my boy. There were two bottles.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“The other has been found nearer your home.”
+
+“That’s a trick. You’re all up to tricks--”
+
+“Not in this case, Arthur. Let me entreat you in memory of your father
+to be candid with us. We have arrested a man. He denies his guilt,
+but can produce no witnesses in support of his assertions. Yet such
+witnesses may exist. Indeed, we think that one such does exist. The man
+who took the bottles from the club-house’s wine-vault did so within a
+few minutes of the time when this crime was perpetrated on your sister.
+He should be able to give valuable testimony for or against Elwood
+Ranelagh. Now, you can see why we are in search of this witness and
+why we think you can serve us in this secret and extraordinary matter.
+If you can’t, say so; and we will desist from all further questions.
+But this will not help you. It will only show that, in our opinion,
+you have gained the rights of a man suspected of something more than
+shirking his duty as an unknown and hitherto unsuspected witness.”
+
+“This is awful!” Young Cumberland had risen to his feet and was swaying
+to and fro before them like a man struck between the eyes by some
+maddening blow.
+
+“God! if I had only died that night!” he muttered, with his eyes upon
+the floor and every muscle tense with the shock of this last calamity.
+“Dr. Perry,” he moaned suddenly, stretching out one hand in entreaty,
+and clutching at the table for support with the other, “let me go
+for to-night. Let me think. My brain is all in a whirl. I’ll try to
+answer to-morrow.” But even as he spoke he realised the futility of his
+request. His eye had fallen again on the bottle, and, in its shape and
+tell-tale label, he beheld a witness bound to testify against him if he
+kept silent himself.
+
+“Don’t answer,” he went on, holding fast to the table, but letting his
+other hand fall. “I was always a fool. I’m nothing but a fool now. I
+may as well own the truth, and be done with it. I was in the clubhouse.
+I did rob the wine-vault; I did carry off the bottles to have a quiet
+spree, and it was to some place on Cuthbert Road I went. But, when
+I’ve admitted so much, I’ve admitted all. I saw nothing of my sister’s
+murder; saw nothing of what went on in the rooms upstairs. I crept in
+by the open window at the top of the kitchen stairs, and I came out by
+the same. I only wanted the liquor, and when I got it, I slid out as
+quickly as I could, and made my way over the golf-links to the Road.”
+
+Wiping the sweat from his brow, he stood trembling. There was something
+in the silence surrounding him which seemed to go to his heart; for
+his free right hand rose unconsciously to his breast, and clung there.
+Sweetwater began to wish himself a million of miles away from this
+scene. This was not the enjoyable part of his work. This was the part
+from which he always shrunk with overpowering distaste.
+
+The district attorney’s voice sounded thin, almost piercing, as he made
+this remark:
+
+“You entered by an open window. Why didn’t you go in by the door?”
+
+“I hadn’t the key. I had only abstracted the one which opens the
+wine-vault. The rest I left on the ring. It was the sight of this key,
+lying on our hall-table, which first gave me the idea. I feel like a
+cad when I think of it, but that’s of no account now. All I really care
+about is for you to believe what I tell you. I wasn’t mixed up in that
+matter of my sister’s death. I didn’t know about it--I wish I had.
+Adelaide might have been saved; we might all have been saved; _but it
+was not to be._”
+
+Flushed, he slowly sank back into his seat. No complaint, now, of being
+in a hurry, or of his anxiety to regain his sick sister’s bedside.
+He seemed to have forgotten those fears in the perturbations of the
+moment. His mind and interest were here; everything else had grown dim
+with distance.
+
+“Did you try the front door?”
+
+“What was the use? I knew it to be locked.”
+
+“What was the use of trying the window? Wasn’t it also, presumably,
+locked?”
+
+The red mounted hot and feverish to his cheek.
+
+“You’ll think me no better than a street urchin or something worse,” he
+exclaimed. “I knew that window; I had been through it before. You can
+move that lock with your knife-blade. I had calculated on entering that
+way.”
+
+“Mr. Ranelagh’s story receives confirmation,” commented the district
+attorney, wheeling suddenly towards the coroner. “He says that he found
+this window unlocked, when he approached it with the idea of escaping
+that way.”
+
+Arthur Cumberland remained unmoved.
+
+The district attorney wheeled back.
+
+“There were a number of bottles taken from the wine-vault; some half
+dozen were left on the kitchen table. Why did you trouble yourself to
+carry up so many?”
+
+“Because my greed outran my convenience. I thought I could lug away an
+armful, but there are limits to one’s ability. I realised this when I
+remembered how far I had to go, and so left the greater part of them
+behind.”
+
+“Why, when you had a team ready to carry you?”
+
+“A--I had no team.” But the denial cost him something. His cheek lost
+its ruddiness, and took on a sickly white which did not leave it again
+as long as the interview lasted.
+
+“You had no team? How then did you manage to reach home in time to make
+your way back to Cuthbert Road by half-past eleven?”
+
+“I didn’t go home. I went straight across the golf-links. If fresh snow
+hadn’t fallen, you would have seen my tracks all the way to Cuthbert
+Road.”
+
+“If fresh snow had not fallen, we should have known the whole story of
+that night before an hour had passed. How did you carry those bottles?”
+
+“In my overcoat pockets. These pockets,” he blurted out, clapping his
+hands on either side of him.
+
+“Had it begun to snow when you left the clubhouse?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Was it dark?”
+
+“I guess not; the links were bright as day, or I shouldn’t have got
+over them as quickly as I did.”
+
+“Quickly? How quickly?” The district attorney stole a glance at the
+coroner, which made Sweetwater advance a step from his corner.
+
+“I don’t know. I don’t understand these questions,” was the sullen
+reply.
+
+“You walked quickly. Does that mean you didn’t look back?”
+
+“How, look back?”
+
+“Your sister lit a candle in the small room where her coat was found.
+This light should have been visible from the golf-links.”
+
+“I didn’t see any light.”
+
+He was almost rough in these answers. He was showing himself now at his
+very worst.
+
+A few more questions followed, but they were of minor import, and
+aroused less violent feeling. The serious portion of the examination,
+if thus it might be called, was over, and all parties showed the
+reaction which follows all unnatural restraint or subdued excitement.
+
+The coroner glanced meaningly at the district attorney, who, tapping
+with his fingers on the table, hesitated for a moment before he finally
+turned again upon Arthur Cumberland.
+
+“You wish to return to your sister? You are at liberty to do so; I will
+trouble you no more to-night. Your sleigh is at the door, I presume.”
+
+The young man nodded, then rising slowly, looked first at the district
+attorney, then at the coroner, with a glance of searching inquiry which
+did not escape the watchful eye of Sweetwater, lurking in the rear.
+There was no display of anger, scarcely of impatience, in him now. If
+he spoke, they did not hear him; and when he moved, it was heavily and
+with a drooping head. They watched him go, each as silent as he. The
+coroner tried to speak, but succeeded no better than the boy himself.
+When the door opened under his hand, they all showed relief, but were
+startled back into their former attention by his turning suddenly in
+the doorway with this final remark:
+
+“What did you say about a bottle with a special label on it being found
+at our house? It never was, or, if it was, some fellow has been playing
+you a trick. I carried off those two bottles myself. One you see there;
+the other is--I can’t tell where; but I didn’t take it home. That you
+can bet on.”
+
+One more look, followed by a heavy frown and a low growling sound in
+his throat--which may have been his way of saying good-bye--and he was
+gone.
+
+Sweetwater came forward and shut the door; then the three men drew more
+closely together, and the district attorney remarked:
+
+“He is better at the house. I hadn’t the heart on your account, Dr.
+Perry, to hurry matters faster than necessity compels. What a lout he
+is! Pardon me, but what a lout he is to have had two such uncommon and
+attractive sisters.”
+
+“And such a father,” interposed the coroner.
+
+“Just so--and such a father. Sweetwater? Hey! what’s the matter? You
+don’t look satisfied. Didn’t I cover the ground?”
+
+“Fully, sir, so far as I see now, but--”
+
+“Well, well--out with it.”
+
+“I don’t know what to out with. It’s all right but--I guess I’m a
+fool, or tired, or something. Can I do anything more for you? If not,
+I should like to hunt up a bunk. A night’s sleep will make a man of me
+again.”
+
+“Go then; that is, if Dr. Perry has no orders for you.”
+
+“None. I want my sleep, too.” But Dr. Perry had not the aspect of one
+who expects to get it.
+
+Sweetwater brightened. A few more words, some understanding as to the
+morrow, and he was gone. The district attorney and the coroner still
+sat, but very little passed between them. The clock overhead struck
+the hour; both looked up but neither moved. Another fifteen minutes,
+then the telephone rang. The coroner rose and lifted the receiver. The
+message could be heard by both gentlemen, in the extreme quiet of this
+midnight hour.
+
+“Dr. Perry?”
+
+“Yes, I’m listening.”
+
+“He came in at a quarter to twelve, greatly agitated and very white.
+I ran upon him in the lower hall, and he looked angry enough to knock
+me down; but he simply let out a curse and passed straight up to his
+sister’s room. I waited till he came out; then I managed to get hold of
+the nurse and she told me this queer tale:
+
+“He was all in a tremble when he came in, but she declares he had not
+been drinking. He went immediately to the bedside; but his sister was
+asleep, and he didn’t stay there, but went over where the nurse was,
+and began to hang about her till suddenly she felt a twitch at her side
+and, looking quickly, saw the little book she carries there, falling
+back into place. He had lifted it, and probably read what she had
+written in it during his absence.
+
+“She was displeased, but he laughed when he saw that he had been caught
+and said boldly: ‘You are keeping a record of my sister’s ravings.
+Well, I think I’m as interested in them as you are, and have as much
+right to read as you to write. Thank God! they are innocent enough.
+Even you must acknowledge that,’ She made no answer, for they were
+innocent enough; but she’ll keep the book away from him after this--of
+that you may be sure.”
+
+“And what is he doing now? Is he going into his own room to-night?”
+
+“No. He went there but only to bring out his pillows. He will sleep in
+the alcove.”
+
+“Drink?”
+
+“No, not a drop. He has ordered the whiskey locked up. I hear him
+moaning sometimes to himself as if he missed it awfully, but not a
+thimbleful has left the decanter.”
+
+“Goodnight, Hexford.”
+
+“Good night.”
+
+“You heard?” This to the district attorney.
+
+“Every word.”
+
+Both went for their overcoats. Only on leaving did they speak again,
+and then it was to say:
+
+“At ten o’clock to-morrow morning.”
+
+“At ten o’clock.”
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+ON IT WAS WRITTEN--
+
+Can this avail thee? Look to it!
+
+_Prometheus Bound_.
+
+
+The district attorney was right; Sweetwater was not happy. His night’s
+rest had not benefited him. He had seemed natural enough when he first
+appeared at the coroner’s office in the early morning, and equally
+natural all through the lengthy conference which followed; but a half
+hour later, any one who knew him well,--any of his fellow detectives in
+New York; especially Mr. Gryce, who had almost fathered him since he
+came among them, a raw and inexperienced recruit--would have seen at
+first glance that his spirits were no longer at par, and that the cheer
+he displayed in manner and look was entirely assumed, and likely to
+disappear as soon as he found himself alone.
+
+And it did so disappear. When, at two o’clock, he entered the
+club-house grounds, it was without buoyancy or any of the natural
+animation with which he usually went about his work. Each step seemed
+weighted with thought, or, at least, heavy with inner dissatisfaction.
+But his eye was as keen as ever, and he began to use that eye from the
+moment he passed the gates. What was in his mind? Was he hunting for
+new clews, or was he merely seeking to establish the old?
+
+The officers on guard knew him, by this time, and let him pass hither,
+thither, and where he would, unmolested. He walked up and down the
+driveways, peering continuously at the well-trodden snow. He studied
+the spaces between. He sauntered to the rear, and looked out over the
+golf-links. Then he began to study the ground in this direction, as he
+had already studied it in front. The few mutterings which left his lips
+continued to speak of discontent. “If I had only had Clarke’s chance,
+or even Hexford’s,” was among his complaints. “But what can I hope now?
+The snow has been trampled till it is one solid cake of ice, to the
+very edge of the golf-links. Beyond that, the distance is too great
+for minute inspection. Yet it will have to be gone over, inch by inch,
+before I shall feel satisfied. I must know how much of his story is to
+be believed, and how much of it we can safely set aside.”
+
+He ended by wandering down on the golf-links. Taking out his watch, he
+satisfied himself that he had time for an experiment, and immediately
+started for Cuthbert Road. An hour later, he came wandering back, on a
+different line. He looked soured, disappointed. When near the building
+again, he cast his eye over its rear, and gazed long and earnestly at
+the window which had been pointed out to him as the one from which
+a possible light had shone forth that night. There were no trees on
+this side of the house--only vines. But the vines were bare of leaves
+and offered no obstruction to his view. “If there had been a light
+in that window, any one leaving this house by the rear would have
+seen it, unless he had been drunk or a fool,” muttered Sweetwater, in
+contemptuous comment to himself. “Arthur Cumberland’s story is one lie.
+I’ll take the district attorney’s suggestion and return to New York
+to-night. My work’s done here.”
+
+Yet he hung about the links for a long time, and finally ended by
+entering the house, and taking up his stand beneath the long, narrow
+window of the closet overlooking the golf-links. With chin resting on
+his arms, he stared out over the sill and sought from the space before
+him, and from the intricacies of his own mind, the hint he lacked
+to make this present solution of the case satisfactory to all his
+instincts.
+
+“Something is lacking.” Thus he blurted out after a look behind him
+into the adjoining room of death. “I can’t say what; nor can I explain
+my own unrest, or my disinclination to leave this spot. The district
+attorney is satisfied, and so, I’m afraid is the coroner; but I’m not,
+and I feel as guilty--”
+
+Here he threw open the window for air, and, thrusting his head out,
+glanced over the links, then aside at the pines, showing beyond the
+line of the house on the southern end, and then out of mere idleness,
+down at the ground beneath him. “As guilty,” he went on, “as Ranelagh
+appears to be, and some one really is. I--”
+
+Starting, he leaned farther out. What was that he saw in the vines--not
+on the snow of the ground, but half way up in the tangle of small
+branches clinging close to the stone of the lower story, just beneath
+this window? He would see. Something that glistened, something that
+could only have got there by falling from this window. Could he reach
+it? No; he would have to climb up from below to do that. Well, that
+was easy enough. With the thought, he rushed from the room. In another
+minute he was beneath that window; had climbed, pulled, pushed his way
+up; had found the little pocket of netted vines observable from above;
+had thrust in his fingers and worked a small object out; had looked
+at it, uttered an exclamation curious in its mixture of suppressed
+emotions, and let himself down again into the midst of the two or three
+men who had scented the adventure and hastened to be witnesses of its
+outcome.
+
+“A phial!” he exclaimed, “An empty phial, but--” Holding the little
+bottle up between his thumb and forefinger, he turned it slowly about
+until the label faced them.
+
+On it was written one word, but it was a word which invariably carries
+alarm with it.
+
+That word was: _Poison_.
+
+Sweetwater did not return to New York that night.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+“IT’S NOT WHAT YOU WILL FIND”
+
+I am not mad;--I would to heaven I were!
+For then, ’tis like I should forget myself:
+O, if I could, what grief should I forget!--
+Preach some philosophy to make me mad,
+For being not mad, but sensible of grief,
+My reasonable part produces reason
+How I may be delivered of these woes.
+
+_King John_.
+
+
+“I regret to disturb you, Arthur; but my business is of great
+importance, and should be made known to you at once. This I say as a
+friend. I might have waited for the report to have reached you from
+hearsay, or through the evening papers; but I preferred to be the one
+to tell you. You can understand why.”
+
+Sullen and unmollified, the young man thus addressed eyed,
+apprehensively, his father’s old friend, placed so unfortunately in his
+regard, and morosely exclaimed:
+
+“Out with it! I’m a poor hand at guessing. What has happened now?”
+
+“A discovery. A somewhat serious one I fear; at least, it will force
+the police to new action. Your sister may not have died entirely from
+strangulation; other causes may have been at work!”
+
+“Now, what do you mean by that?” Arthur Cumberland was under his own
+roof and in presence of one who should have inspired his respect; but
+he made no effort to hide the fury which these words called up. “I
+should like to know what deviltry is in your minds now. Am I never to
+have peace?”
+
+“Peace and tragedy do not often run together,” came in the mild tones
+of his would-be friend. “A great crime has taken place. All the members
+of this family are involved--to say nothing of the man who lies, now,
+under the odium of suspicion, in our common county jail. Peace can only
+come with the complete clearing up of this crime, and the punishment
+of the guilty. But the clearing up must antedate the punishment.
+Mr. Ranelagh’s assertion that he found Miss Cumberland dead when he
+approached her, may not be, as so many now believe, the reckless denial
+of a criminal, disturbed in his act. It may have had a basis in fact.”
+
+“I don’t believe it. Nothing will make me believe it,” stormed the
+other, jumping up, and wildly pacing the drawing-room floor. “It is all
+a scheme for saving the most popular man in society. Society! That for
+society!” he shouted out, snapping his fingers. “He is president of the
+club; the pet of women; the admired of all the dolts and gawks who are
+taken with his style, his easy laughter, and his knack at getting at
+men’s hearts. He won’t laugh so easily when he’s up before a jury for
+murder; and he’ll never again fool women or bulldoze men, even if they
+are weak enough to acquit him of this crime. Enough of the smirch will
+stick to prevent that. If it doesn’t, I’ll--”
+
+Again his hands went out in the horribly suggestive way they had done
+at his sister’s funeral. The coroner sat appalled,--confused, almost
+distracted between his doubts, his convictions, his sympathy for the
+man and his recoil from the passions he would be only too ready to
+pardon if he could feel quite sure of their real root and motive.
+Cumberland may have felt the other’s silence, or he may have realised
+the imprudence of his own fury; for he dropped his hands with an
+impatient sigh, and blurted out:
+
+“But you haven’t told me your discovery. It seems to me it is a little
+late to make discoveries now.”
+
+“This was brought about by the persistence of Sweetwater. He seems
+to have an instinct for things. He was leaning out of the window at
+the rear of the clubhouse--the window of that small room where your
+sister’s coat was found--and he saw, caught in the vines beneath, a--”
+
+“Why don’t you speak out? I cannot tell what he found unless you name
+it.”
+
+“A little bottle--an apothecary’s phial. It was labelled ‘Poison,’ and
+it came from this house.”
+
+Arthur Cumberland reeled; then he caught himself up and stood, staring,
+with a very obvious intent of getting a grip on himself before he spoke.
+
+The coroner waited, a slight flush deepening on his cheek.
+
+“How do you know that phial came from this house?”
+
+Dr. Perry looked up, astonished. He was prepared for the most frantic
+ebullitions of wrath, for violence even; or for dull, stupid, blank
+silence. But this calm, quiet questioning of fact took him by surprise.
+He dropped his anxious look, and replied:
+
+“It has been seen on the shelves by more than one of your servants.
+Your sister kept it with her medicines, and the druggist with whom you
+deal remembers selling it some time ago to a member of your family.”
+
+“Which member? I don’t believe this story; I don’t believe any of
+your--” He was fast verging on violence now.
+
+“You will have to, Arthur. Facts are facts, and we cannot go against
+them. The person who bought it was yourself. Perhaps you can recall the
+circumstance now.”
+
+“I cannot.” He did not seem to be quite master of himself. “I don’t
+know half the things I do; at least, I didn’t use to. But what are
+you coming to? What’s in your mind, and what are your intentions?
+Something to shame us further, I’ve no doubt. You’re soft on Ranelagh
+and don’t care how I feel, or how Carmel will feel when she comes to
+herself--poor girl. Are you going to call it suicide? You can’t, with
+those marks on her throat.”
+
+“We’re going to carry out our investigations to the full. We’re going
+to hold the autopsy, which we didn’t think necessary before. That’s
+why I am here, Arthur. I thought it your due to know our intentions
+in regard to this matter. If you wish to be present, you have only to
+say so; if you do not, you may trust me to remember that she was your
+father’s daughter, as well as my own highly esteemed friend.”
+
+Shaken to the core, the young man sat down amid innumerable tokens of
+the two near, if not dear, ones just mentioned; and for a moment had
+nothing to say. Gone was his violence, gone his self-assertion, and
+his insolent, captious attitude towards his visitor. The net had been
+drawn too tightly, or the blow fallen too heavily. He was no longer a
+man struggling with his misery, but a boy on whom had fallen a man’s
+responsibilities, sufferings, and cares.
+
+“My duty is here,” he said at last. “I cannot leave Carmel.”
+
+“The autopsy will take place to-morrow. How is Carmel to-day?”
+
+“No better.” The words came with a shudder. “Doctor, I’ve been a brute
+to you. I am a brute! I have misused my life and have no strength with
+which to meet trouble. What you propose to do with--with Adelaide is
+horrible to me. I didn’t love her much while she was living; I broke
+her heart and shamed her, from morning till night, every day of her
+life; but good-for-nothing as I am and good-for-nothing as I’ve always
+been, if I could save her body this last humiliation, I would willingly
+die right here and now, and be done with it. Must this autopsy take
+place?”
+
+“It must.”
+
+“Then--” He raised his arm; the blood swept up, dyeing his cheeks, his
+brow, his very neck a vivid scarlet. “Tell them to lock up every bottle
+the house holds, or I cannot answer for myself. I should like to drink
+and drink till I knew nothing, cared for nothing, was a madman or a
+beast.”
+
+“You will not drink.” The coroner’s voice rang deep; he was greatly
+moved. “You will not drink, and you will come to the office at five
+o’clock to-morrow. We may have only good news to impart. We may find
+nothing to complicate the situation.”
+
+Arthur Cumberland shook his head. “It’s not what you will find--” said
+he, and stopped, biting his lips and looking down.
+
+The coroner uttered a few words of consolation forced from him by the
+painfulness of the situation. The young man did not seem to hear them.
+The only sign of life he gave was to rush away the moment the coroner
+had taken his leave, and regain his seat within sight and hearing of
+his still unconscious sister. As he did so, these words came to his
+ears through the door which separated them:
+
+“Flowers--I smell flowers! Lila, you always loved flowers; but I never
+saw your hands so full of them.”
+
+Arthur uttered a sharp cry; then, bowing his face upon his aims, he
+broke into sobs which shook the table where he sat.
+
+Twenty-four hours later, in the coroner’s office, sat an anxious group
+discussing the great case and the possible revelations awaiting them.
+The district attorney, Mr. Clifton, the chief of police, and one or two
+others--among them Sweetwater--made up the group, and carried on the
+conversation. Dr. Perry only was absent. He had undertaken to make the
+autopsy and had been absent, for this purpose, several hours.
+
+Five o’clock had struck, and they were momentarily looking for his
+reappearance; but, when the door opened, as it did at this time, it was
+to admit young Cumberland, whose white face and shaking limbs betrayed
+his suspense and nervous anxiety.
+
+He was welcomed coldly, but not impolitely, and sat down in very much
+the same place he had occupied during his last visit, but in a very
+different, and much more quiet state of mind. To Sweetwater, his aspect
+was one of despair, but he made no remark upon it; only kept all his
+senses alert for the coming moment, of so much importance to them all.
+But even he failed to guess how important, until the door opened again,
+and the coroner appeared, looking not so much depressed as stunned.
+Picking out Arthur from the group, he advanced towards him with some
+commonplace remark; but desisted suddenly and turned upon the others
+instead.
+
+“I have finished the autopsy,” said he. “I knew just what poison the
+phial had held, and lost no time in my tests. A minute portion of
+this drug, which is dangerous only in large quantities, was found
+in the stomach of the deceased; but not enough to cause serious
+trouble, and she died, as we had already decided, from the effect of
+the murderous clutch upon her throat. But,” he went on sternly, as
+young Cumberland moved, and showed signs of breaking in with one of
+his violent invectives against the supposed assassin, “I made another
+discovery of still greater purport. When we lifted the body out of its
+resting-place, something beside withered flowers slid from her breast
+and fell at our feet. The ring, gentlemen--the ring which Ranelagh says
+was missing from her hand when he came upon her, and which certainly
+was not on her finger when she was laid in the casket,--rolled to the
+floor when we moved her. Here it is; there is one person here, at
+least, who can identify it. But I do not ask that person to speak. That
+we may well spare him.”
+
+He laid the ring on the table, not too near Arthur, not within reach
+of his hand, but close enough for him to see it. Then he sat down, and
+hid his face in his hands. The last few days had told on him. He looked
+older, by ten years, than he had at the beginning of the month.
+
+The silence which followed these words and this action, was memorable
+to everybody there concerned. Some had seen, and all had heard of young
+Cumberland’s desperate interruption of the funeral, and the way his
+hand had invaded the flowers which the children had cast in upon her
+breast. As the picture, real or fancied, rose before their eyes, one
+man rose and left his place at the table; then another, and presently
+another. Even Charles Clifton drew back. The district attorney remained
+where he was, and so did young Cumberland. The latter had reached out
+his hand, but he had not touched the ring, and he sat thus, frozen.
+What went on in his heart, no man there could guess, and he did not
+enlighten them. When at last he looked up, it was with a dazed air and
+an almost humble mien:
+
+“Providence has me this time,” he muttered. “I don’t understand these
+mysteries. You will have to deal with them as you think best.” His
+eyes, still glued to the jewel, dilated and filled with fierce light
+as he said this. “Damn the ring, and damn the man who gave it to her!
+However it came into her casket, he’s at the bottom of the business,
+just as he was at the bottom of her death. If you think anything else,
+you will think a lie.”
+
+Turning away, he made for the door. There was in his manner,
+desperation approaching to bravado, but no man made the least effort to
+detain him. Not till he was well out of the room did any one move, then
+the district attorney raised his finger, and Arthur Cumberland did not
+ride back to his home alone.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THREE
+
+HIDDEN SURPRISES
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+“HE OR YOU! THERE IS NO THIRD”
+
+A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,
+And yet I would not sleep Merciful powers!
+Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature
+Gives way to in repose.
+
+_Macbeth_.
+
+
+For several days I had been ill. They were merciful days to me since
+I was far too weak for thought. Then there came a period of conscious
+rest, then renewed interest in life and my own fate and reputation.
+What had happened during this interval?
+
+I had a confused memory of having seen Clifton’s face at my bedside,
+but I was sure that no words had passed between us. When would he come
+again? When should I hear about Carmel, and whether she were yet alive,
+or mercifully dead, like her sister? I might read the papers, but they
+had been carefully kept from me. Not one was in sight. The nurse would
+undoubtedly give me the information I desired, but, kind as she had
+been, I dreaded to consult a stranger about matters which involved my
+very existence and every remaining hope. Yet I must know; for I could
+not help thinking, now, and I dreaded to think amiss and pile up misery
+for myself when I needed support and consolation.
+
+I would risk one question, but no more. I would ask about the inquest.
+Had it been held? If she said yes--ah, if she said yes!--I should know
+that Carmel was dead; and the news, coming thus, would kill me. So I
+asked nothing, and was lying in a sufficiently feverish condition when
+the doctor came in, saw my state, and thinking to cheer me up, remarked
+blandly:
+
+“You are well enough this morning to hear good news. Do you recognise
+the room you are in?”
+
+“I’m in the hospital, am I not?”
+
+“Hardly. You are in one of Mr. O’Hagen’s own rooms.” (Mr. O’Hagen was
+the head keeper.) “You are detained, now, simply as a witness.”
+
+I was struck to the heart; terrified in an instant.
+
+“What? Why? What has happened?” I questioned, rapidly, half starting
+up, then falling back on my pillow under his astonished eye.
+
+“Nothing,” he parried, seeing his mistake, and resorting to the
+soothing process. “They simply have had time to think. You’re not the
+sort of man from which criminals are made.”
+
+“That’s nonsense,” I retorted, reckless of his opinion, and mad to know
+the truth, yet shrinking horribly from it. “Criminals are made from all
+kinds of men; neither are the police so philosophical. Something has
+occurred. But don’t tell me--” I protested inconsistently, as he opened
+his lips. “Send for Mr. Clifton. He’s my friend; I can better bear--”
+
+“Here he is,” said the doctor, as the door softly opened under the
+nurse’s careful hand.
+
+I looked up, saw Charles’s faithful face, and stretched out my hand
+without speaking. Never had I needed a friend more, and never had I
+been more constrained in my greeting. I feared to show my real heart,
+my real fears, my real reason for not hailing my release, as every one
+evidently expected me to!
+
+With a gesture to the nurse, the doctor tiptoed out, muttering to
+Clifton, as he passed, some word of warning or casual instruction. The
+nurse followed, and Clifton, coming forward, took a seat at my side.
+He was cheerful but not too cheerful; and the air of slight constraint
+which tinged his manner, as much as it did mine, did not escape me.
+
+“Well, old fellow,” he began--
+
+My hand went up in entreaty.
+
+“Tell me why they have withdrawn their suspicions. I’ve heard
+nothing--read nothing--for days. I don’t understand this move.”
+
+For reply, he laid his hand on mine.
+
+“You’re stanch,” he began. “You have my regard, Elwood. Not many men
+would have stood the racket and sacrificed themselves as you have done.
+The fact is recognised, now, and your motive--”
+
+I must have turned very white; for he stopped and sprang to his feet,
+searching for some restorative.
+
+I felt the need of blinding him to my condition. With an effort, which
+shook me from head to foot, I lifted myself from the depths into which
+his words had plunged me, and fighting for self-control, faltered
+forth, feebly enough:
+
+“Don’t be frightened. I’m all right again; I guess I’m not very strong
+yet. Sit down; I don’t need anything.”
+
+He turned and surveyed me carefully, and finding my colour restored,
+reseated himself, and proceeded, more circumspectly:
+
+“Perhaps I had better wait till to-morrow before I satisfy your
+curiosity,” said he.
+
+“And leave me to imagine all sorts of horrors? No! Tell me at once.
+Is--is--has anything happened at the Cumberlands’?”
+
+“Yes. What you feared has happened--No, no; Carmel is not dead. Did
+you think I meant that? Forgive me. I should have remembered that you
+had other causes for anxiety than the one weighing on our minds. She
+is holding her own--just holding it--but that is something, in one so
+young and naturally healthy.”
+
+I could see that I baffled him. It could not be helped. I did not dare
+to utter the question with which my whole soul was full. I could only
+look my entreaty. He misunderstood it, as was natural enough.
+
+“She does not know yet what is in store for her,” were his words;
+and I could only lie still, and look at him helplessly, and try
+not to show the despair that was sinking me deeper and deeper into
+semi-unconsciousness. “When she comes to herself, she will have to
+be told; but you will be on your feet, then, and will be allowed, no
+doubt, to soften the blow for her by your comfort and counsel. The fact
+that it must have been you, if not he--”
+
+
+“_He!_” Did I shout it, or was the shout simply in my own mind? I
+trembled as I rose on my elbow. I searched his face in terror of my
+self-betrayal; but his showed only compassion and an eager desire to
+clear the air between us by telling me the exact facts.
+
+“Yes--Arthur. His guilt has not been proven; he has not even been
+remanded; the sister’s case is too pitiful and Coroner Perry too
+soft-hearted, where any of that family is involved. But no one doubts
+his guilt, and he does not deny it himself. You know--probably no
+one better--that he cannot very consistently do this, in face of
+the evidence accumulated against him, evidence stronger in many
+regards, than that accumulated against yourself. The ungrateful boy!
+The--the--Pardon me, I don’t often indulge in invectives against
+unhappy men who have their punishment before them, but I was thinking
+of you and what you have suffered in this jail, where you have not
+belonged--no, not for a day.”
+
+“Don’t think of me.” The words came with a gasp. I was never so hard
+put to it--not when I first realised that I had been seen with my
+fingers on Adelaide’s throat. Arthur! A booby and a boor, but certainly
+not the slayer of his sister, unless I had been woefully mistaken in
+all that had taken place in that club-house previous to my entrance
+into it on that fatal night. As I caught Clifton’s eye fixed upon me,
+I repeated--though with more self-control, I hope: “Don’t think of me.
+I’m not thinking of myself. You speak of evidence. What evidence? Give
+me details. Don’t you see that I am burning with curiosity? I shan’t be
+myself till I hear.”
+
+This alarmed him.
+
+“It’s a risk,” said he. “The doctor told me to be careful not to excite
+you too much. But suspense is always more intolerable than certainty,
+and you have heard too much to be left in ignorance of the rest.”
+
+“Yes, yes,” I agreed feverishly, pressing his hand.
+
+“It all came about through you,” he blundered on. “You told me of the
+fellow you saw riding away from The Whispering Pines at the time you
+entered the grounds. I passed the story on to the coroner, and he to
+a New York detective they have put on this case. He and Arthur’s own
+surly nature did the rest.”
+
+I cringed where I lay. This was my work. The person who drove out
+of the club-house grounds while I stood in the club-house hall was
+Carmel--and the clew I had given, instead of baffling and confusing
+them, had led directly to Arthur!
+
+Seeing nothing peculiar--or at all events, giving no evidence of having
+noted anything peculiar in my movement--Clifton went evenly on, pouring
+into my astonished ears the whole long story of this detective’s
+investigations.
+
+I heard of his visit at the mechanic’s cottage and of the
+identification of the hat marked by Eliza Simmons’s floury thumb,
+with an old one of Arthur’s, fished out from one of the Cumberland
+closets; then, as I lay dumb, in my secret dismay and perturbation, of
+Arthur’s acknowledged visit to the club-house, and his abstraction of
+the bottles, which to all minds save my own, perhaps, connected him
+directly and well-nigh unmistakably, with the crime.
+
+“The finger of God! Nothing else. Such coincidences cannot be natural,”
+was my thought. And I braced myself to meet the further disclosures I
+saw awaiting me.
+
+But when these disclosures were made, and Arthur’s conduct at the
+funeral was given its natural explanation by the finding of the
+tell-tale ring in Adelaide’s casket, I was so affected, both by the
+extraordinary nature of the facts and the doubtful position in which
+they seemed to place one whom, even now, I found it difficult to
+believe guilty of Adelaide’s death, that Clifton, aroused, in spite of
+his own excitement, to a sudden realisation of my condition, bounded to
+his feet and impetuously cried out:
+
+“I had to tell you. It was your due and you would not have been
+satisfied if I had not. But I fear that I rushed my narrative too
+suddenly upon you; that you needed more preparation, and that the
+greatest kindness I can show you now, is to leave before I do further
+mischief.”
+
+I believe I answered. I know that his idea of leaving was insupportable
+to me. That I wanted him to stay until I had had time to think and
+adjust myself to these new conditions. Instinctively, I did not
+feel as certain of Arthur’s guilt as he did. My own case had taught
+me the insufficiency of circumstantial evidence to settle a mooted
+fact. Besides, I knew Arthur even better than I did his sisters. He
+was as full of faults, and as lacking in amiable and reliable traits
+as any fellow of my acquaintance. But he had not the inherent snap
+which makes for crime. He lacked the vigour which,--God forgive me
+the thought!--lay back of Carmers softer characteristics. I could not
+imagine him guilty; I could, for all my love, imagine his sister so,
+and did. The conviction would not leave my mind.
+
+“Charles,” said I, at last, struggling for calmness, and succeeding
+better in my task than either he or I expected; “what motive do
+they assign for this deed? Why should Arthur follow Adelaide to the
+club-house and kill her? Now, if he had followed me--”
+
+“You were at dinner with them that night, and know what she did and
+what she vowed about the wine. He was very angry. Though he dropped
+his glass, and let it shiver on the board, he himself says that he was
+desperately put out with her, and could only drown his mad emotions in
+drink. He knew that she would hear of it if he went to any saloon in
+town; so he stole the key from your bunch, and went to help himself
+out of the club-house wine-vault. That’s how he came to be there. What
+followed, who knows? He won’t tell, and we can only conjecture. The
+ring, which she certainly wore that night, might give the secret away;
+but it is not gifted with speech, though as a silent witness it is
+exceedingly eloquent.”
+
+The episode of the ring confused me. I could make nothing out of
+it, could not connect it with what I myself knew of the confused
+experiences of that night. But I could recall the dinner and the sullen
+aspect, not unmixed with awe, with which this boy contemplated his
+sister when his own glass fell from his nerveless fingers. My own heart
+was not in the business; it was on the elopement I had planned; but I
+could not help seeing what I have just mentioned, and it recurred to me
+now with fatal distinctness. The awe was as great as the sullenness.
+Did that offer a good foundation for crime? I disliked Arthur. I had
+no use for the boy, and I wished with all my heart to detect guilt in
+his actions, rather than in those of the woman I loved; but I could not
+forget that tinge of awe on features too heavy to mirror very readily
+the nicer feelings of the human soul. It would come up, and, under the
+influence of this impression I said:
+
+“Are you sure that he made no denial of this crime? That does not seem
+like Arthur, guilty or innocent.”
+
+“He made none in my presence and I was in the coroner’s office when
+the ring was produced from its secret hiding-place and set down before
+him. There was no open accusation made, but he must have understood the
+silence of all present. He acknowledged some days ago, when confronted
+with the bottle found in Cuthbert Road, that he had taken both it and
+another from the club-house just before the storm began to rage that
+night.”
+
+“The hour, the very hour!” I muttered.
+
+“He entered and left by that upper hall window, or so he says; but he
+is not to be believed in all his statements. Some of his declarations
+we know to be false.”
+
+“Which ones? Give me a specimen, Charlie. Mention something he has said
+that you know to be false.”
+
+“Well, it is hard to accuse a man of a direct lie. But he cannot be
+telling the truth when he says that he crossed the links immediately to
+Cuthbert Road, thus cutting out the ride home, of which we have such
+extraordinary proof.”
+
+Under the fear of betraying my thoughts, I hurriedly closed my eyes.
+I was in an extraordinary position, myself. What seemed falsehood to
+them, struck me as the absolute truth. Carmel had been the one to go
+home; he, without doubt, had crossed the links, as he said. As this
+conviction penetrated deeply and yet more deeply into my mind, I
+shrank inexpressibly from the renewed mental struggle into which it
+plunged me. To have suffered, myself,--to have fallen under the ban of
+suspicion and the disgrace of arrest--had certainly been hard; but it
+was nothing to beholding another in the same plight through my own rash
+and ill-advised attempt to better my position and Carmel’s by what I
+had considered a totally harmless subterfuge.
+
+I shuddered as I anticipated the sleepless hours of silent debate which
+lay before me. The voice which whispered that Arthur Cumberland was
+not over-gifted with sensitiveness and would not feel the shame of his
+position like another, did not carry with it an indisputable message,
+and could not impose on my conscience for more than a passing moment.
+The lout was human; and I could not stifle my convictions in his favour.
+
+But Carmel!
+
+I clenched my hands under the clothes. I wished it were not high
+noon, but dark night; that Clifton would only arise or turn his eyes
+away; that something or anything might happen to give me an instant
+of solitary contemplation, without the threatening possibility of
+beholding my thoughts and feelings reflected in another’s mind.
+
+Was this review instantaneous, or the work of many minutes? Forced by
+the doubt to open my eyes, I met Clifton’s full look turned watchfully
+on me. The result was calming; even to my apprehensive gaze it betrayed
+no new enlightenment. My struggle had been all within; no token of it
+had reached him.
+
+This he showed still more plainly when he spoke.
+
+“There will be a close sifting of evidence at the inquest. You will
+not enjoy this; but the situation, hard as it may prove, has certainly
+improved so far as you are concerned. That should hasten your
+convalescence.”
+
+“Poor Arthur!” burst from my lips, and the cry was echoed in my heart.
+Then, because I could no longer endure the pusillanimity which kept me
+silent, I rose impulsively into a sitting posture, and, summoning all
+my faculties into full play, endeavoured to put my finger on the one
+weak point in the evidence thus raised against Carmel’s brother.
+
+“What sort of a man would you make Arthur out to be, when you accuse
+him of robbing the wine-vault on top of a murderous assault on his
+sister?”
+
+“I know. It argues a brute, but he--”
+
+“Arthur Cumberland is selfish, unresponsive, and hard, but he is not a
+brute. I’m disposed to give him the benefit of my good opinion to this
+extent, Charlie; I cannot believe he first poisoned and then choked
+that noble woman.”
+
+Clifton drew himself up in his turn, astonishment battling with renewed
+distrust.
+
+“Either he or you, Ranelagh!” he exclaimed, firmly. “There is no third
+person. This you must realise.”
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+CARMEL AWAKES
+
+One woe doth tread upon another’s heel,
+So fast they follow.
+
+_Hamlet_.
+
+
+Later, I asked myself many questions, and wandered into mazes of
+speculation which only puzzled me and led nowhere. I remembered the
+bottles; I remembered the ring. I went back, in fancy, to the hour of
+my own entrance into the club-house, and, recalling each circumstance,
+endeavoured to fit the facts of Arthur’s story with those of my own
+experience.
+
+Was he in the building when I first stepped into it? It was just
+possible. I had been led to prevaricate as to the moment I entered the
+lower gateway, and he may have done the same as to the hour he left by
+the upper hall window. Whatever his denials on this or any subject, I
+was convinced that he knew, as well as I, that Carmel had been in the
+building with her sister, and was involved more or less personally in
+the crime committed there. Might it not be simply as his accessory
+after the fact? If only I could believe this! If my knowledge of him
+and of her would allow me to hug this forlorn hope, and behold, in
+this shock to her brain, and in her look and attitude on leaving the
+club-house, only a sister’s horror at a wilful brother’s crime!
+
+But one fact stood in the way of this--a fact which nothing but some
+predetermined, underhanded purpose on her part could explain. She had
+gone in disguise to The Whispering Pines, and she had returned home
+in the same suspicious fashion. The wearing of her brother’s hat and
+coat over her own womanly garments was no freak. There had been purpose
+in it--a purpose which demanded secrecy. That Adelaide should have
+accompanied her under these circumstances was a mystery. But then the
+whole affair was a mystery, totally out of keeping, in all its details,
+with the characters of these women, save--and what a fearful exception
+I here make--the awful end, which, alas! bespoke the fiery rush and
+impulse to destroy which marked Carmel’s unbridled rages.
+
+Of a less emotional attack she would be as incapable as any other
+good woman. Poison she would never use. Its presence there was due to
+another’s forethought, another’s determination. But the poison had
+not killed. Both glasses had been emptied, but--Ah! those glasses.
+What explanation had the police, now, for those two emptied glasses?
+They had hitherto supposed me to be the second person who had joined
+Adelaide in this totally uncharacteristic drinking.
+
+To whom did they now attribute this act? To Arthur, the brother whose
+love for liquor in every form she had always decried, and had publicly
+rebuked only a few hours before? Knowing nothing of Carmel having
+been on the scene, they must ascribe this act either to him or to me;
+and when they came to dwell upon this point more particularly--when
+they came to study the exact character of the relations which had
+always subsisted between Adelaide and her brother--they must see the
+improbability of her drinking with him under any circumstances. Then
+their thoughts would recur to me, and I should find myself again a
+suspect. The monstrous suggestion that Arthur had brought the liquor
+there himself, had poured it out and forced her to drink it, poison and
+all, out of revenge for her action at the dinner-table a short time
+before, did not occur to me then, but if it had, there were the three
+glasses--he would not bring _three_; nor would Adelaide; nor, as I saw
+it, would Carmel.
+
+Chaos! However one looked at it, chaos! Only one fact was clear--that
+Carmel knew the whole story and might communicate the same, if ever her
+brain cleared and she could be brought to reveal the mysteries of that
+hour. Did I desire such a consummation? Only God, who penetrates more
+deeply than ourselves into the hidden regions of the human heart, could
+tell. I only know that the fear and expectation of such an outcome made
+my anguish for the next two weeks.
+
+Would she live? Would she die? The question was on every tongue. The
+crisis of her disease was approaching, and the next twenty-four hours
+would decide her fate, and in consequence, my own, if not her brother
+Arthur’s. As I contemplated the suspense of these twenty-four hours,
+I revolted madly for the first time against the restrictions of my
+prison. I wanted air, movement, the rush into danger, which my horse
+or my automobile might afford. Anything which would drag my thoughts
+from that sick room, and the anticipated stir of that lovely form
+into conscious life and suffering. Her eyes--I could see her eyes
+wakening upon the world again, after her long wandering in the unknown
+and unimaginable intricacies of ungoverned thought and delirious
+suggestion. Eyes of violet colour and infinite expression; eyes which
+would make a man’s joy if they smiled on him in innocence; but which,
+as I well knew, had burned more than once, in her short but strenuous
+life, with fiery passions; and might, at the instant of waking, betray
+this same unholy gleam under the curious gaze of the unsympathetic ones
+set in watch over her.
+
+What would her first word be? Whither would her first thought fly? To
+Adelaide or to me; to Arthur or to her own frightened and appalled
+self? I maddened as I dwelt upon the possibilities of this moment. I
+envied Arthur; I envied the attendants; I envied even the servants in
+the house. They would all know sooner than I. Carmel! Carmel!
+
+Sending for Clifton, I begged him to keep himself in communication with
+the house, or with the authorities. He promised to do what he could;
+then, perceiving the state I was in, he related all he knew of present
+conditions. No one was allowed in the sick room but the nurse and the
+doctor. Even Arthur was denied admission, and was wearing himself
+out in his own room as I was wearing myself out here, in restless
+inactivity. He expected her to sink and never to recover consciousness,
+and was loud in his expressions of rebellion against the men who
+dared to keep him from her bedside when her life was trembling in the
+balance. But the nurse had hopes and so had the doctor. As for Carmel’s
+looks, they were greatly changed, but beautiful still in spite of the
+cruel scar left by her fall against the burning bars of her sister’s
+grate. No delirium disturbed the rigid immobility in which she now lay.
+I could await her awakening with quiet confidence in the justice of God.
+
+Thus Clifton, in his ignorance.
+
+The day was a bleak one, dispiriting in itself even to those who could
+go about the streets and lose themselves in their tasks and round of
+duties. To me it was a dead blank, marked by such interruptions as
+necessarily took place under the prison routine. The evening hours
+which followed them were no better. The hands on my watch crawled. When
+the door finally opened, it came as a shock. I seemed to be prepared
+for anything but the termination of my suspense. I knew that it was
+Clifton who entered, but I could not meet his eye. I dug my nails
+into my palms, and waited for his first word. When it came, I felt my
+spirits go down, down--I had thought them at their lowest ebb before.
+He hesitated, and I started up:
+
+“Tell me,” I cried. “Carmel is dead!”
+
+“Not dead,” said he, “but silly. Her testimony is no more to be relied
+upon than that of any other wandering mind.”
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+“BREAK IN THE GLASS!”
+
+This inundation of mistempered humour
+Rests by you only to be qualified.
+
+_King John_.
+
+
+It was some time before I learned the particulars of this awakening.
+
+It had occurred at sunset. A level beam of light had shot across the
+bed, and the nurse had moved to close the blind, when a low exclamation
+from the doctor drew her back, to mark the first faint fluttering of
+the snowy lids over the long-closed eyes. Afterwards she remembered
+what a picture her youthful patient made, with the hue of renewed life
+creeping into her cheeks, in faint reflection of the nest of roseate
+colour in which she lay.
+
+Carmel’s hair was dark; so were her exquisitely pencilled eye-brows,
+and the long lashes which curled upward from her cheek. In her
+surroundings of pink--warm pink, such as lives in the heart of the
+sea-shell--their duskiness took on an added beauty; and nothing, not
+even the long, dark scar running from eye to chin could rob the face
+of its individuality and suggestion of charm. She was lovely; but it
+was the loveliness of line and tint, just as a child is lovely. Soul
+and mind were still asleep, but momentarily rousing, as all thought,
+to conscious being--and, if to conscious being, then to conscious
+suffering as well.
+
+It was a solemn moment. If the man who loved her had been present--or
+even her brother, who, sullen as he was, must have felt the tie of
+close relationship rise superior even to his fears at an instant so
+critical,--it would have been more solemn yet. But with the exception
+of the doctor and possibly the nurse, only those interested in her as a
+witness in the most perplexing case on the police annals, were grouped
+in silent watchfulness about the room, waiting for the word or look
+which might cut the Gordian knot which none of them, as yet, had been
+able to untangle.
+
+It came suddenly, as all great changes come. One moment her lids were
+down, her face calm, her whole figure quiet in its statue-like repose;
+the next, her big violet eyes had flashed open upon the world, and
+lips and limbs were moving feebly, but certainly, in their suddenly
+recovered freedom. It was then--and not at a later moment when
+consciousness had fully regained its seat--that her face, to those who
+stood nearest wore the aspect of an angel’s. What she saw, or what
+vision remained to her from the mysterious world of which she had so
+long been a part, none ever knew--nor could she, perhaps, have told.
+But the rapture which informed her features and elevated her whole
+expression but poorly prepared them for the change which followed her
+first glance around on nurse and doctor. The beam which lay across
+the bed had been no brighter than her eye during that first tremulous
+instant of renewed life. But the clouds fell speedily and very
+human feelings peered from between those lids as she murmured, half
+petulantly:
+
+“Why do you look at me so? Oh, I remember, I remember!”
+
+And a flush, of which they little thought her weakened heart capable,
+spread over her features, hiding the scar and shaming her white lips.
+“What’s the matter?” she complained again, as she tried to raise her
+hands, possibly to hide her face. “I cannot move as I used to do, and I
+feel--I feel--”
+
+“You have been ill,” came soothingly from the doctor. “You have been
+in bed many days; now you are better and will soon be well. This is
+your nurse.” He said nothing of the others, who were so placed behind
+screens as to be invisible to her.
+
+She continued to gaze, first at one, then at the other; confidently at
+the doctor, doubtfully at the nurse. As she did so, the flush faded and
+gave way to an anxious, troubled expression. Not just the expression
+anticipated by those who believed that, with returning consciousness,
+would come returning memory of the mysterious scene which had taken
+place between herself and sister, or between her sister and her
+brother, prior to Adelaide’s departure for The Whispering Pines. Had
+they shared my knowledge--had they even so much as dreamed that their
+patient had been the companion of one or both of the others in this
+tragic escapade--how much greater would have been their wonder at the
+character of this awakening.
+
+“You have the same kind look for me as always,” were her next words,
+as her glance finally settled on the doctor. “But hers--Bring me the
+mirror,” she cried. “Let me see with my own eyes what I have now to
+expect from every one who looks at me. I want to know before Lila comes
+in. Why isn’t she here? Is she with--with--” She was breaking down, but
+caught herself back with surprising courage, and almost smiled, I was
+told. Then in the shrill tones which will not be denied, she demanded
+again, “The mirror!”
+
+Nurse Unwin brought it. Her patient evidently remembered the fall she
+had had in her sister’s room, and possibly the smart to her cheek when
+it touched the hot iron.
+
+“I see only my forehead,” she complained, as the nurse held the mirror
+before her. “Move it a little. Lower--lower,” she commanded. Then
+suddenly “Oh!”
+
+She was still for a long time, during which the nurse carried off the
+glass.
+
+“I--I don’t like it,” she acknowledged quaintly to the doctor, as
+he leaned over her with compassionate words. “I shall have to get
+acquainted with myself all over again. And so I have been ill! I
+shouldn’t have thought a little burn like that would make me ill. How
+Adelaide must have worried.”
+
+“Adelaide is--is not well herself. It distressed her to have been out
+when you fell. Don’t you remember that she went out that night?”
+
+“Did she? She was right. Adelaide must have every pleasure. She
+had earned her good times. I must be the one to stay home now, and
+look after things, and learn to be useful. I don’t expect anything
+different. Call Adelaide, and let me tell her how--how satisfied I am.”
+
+“But she’s ill. She cannot come. Wait till tomorrow, dear child. Rest
+is what you need now. Take these few drops and go to sleep again, and
+you’ll not know yourself to-morrow.”
+
+“I don’t know myself now,” she repeated, glancing with slowly dilating
+eyes at the medicine glass he proffered. “I can’t take it,” she
+protested. “I forget now why, but I can’t take anything more from a
+glass. I’ve promised not to, I think. Take it away; it makes me feel
+queer. Where is Adelaide?”
+
+Her memory was defective. She could not seem to take in what the doctor
+told her. But he tried her again. Once more he spoke of illness as the
+cause of Adelaide’s absence. Her attention wandered while he spoke of
+it.
+
+“How it did hurt!” she cried. “But I didn’t think much about it. I
+thought only of--” Next moment her voice rose in a shriek, thin but
+impetuous, and imbued with a note of excited feeling which made every
+person there start. “There should be _two_,” she cried. “_Two_! Why is
+there only one?”
+
+This sounded like raving. The doctor’s face took on a look of concern,
+and the nurse stirred uneasily.
+
+“One is not enough! That is why Adelaide is not satisfied; why she does
+not come and love and comfort me, as I expected her to. Tell her it is
+not too late yet, not too late yet, not too late--”
+
+The doctor’s hand was on her forehead. This “not too late,” whatever
+she meant by it, was indescribably painful to the listeners, oppressed
+as they were by the knowledge that Adelaide lay in her grave, and that
+all fancies, all hopes, all meditated actions between these two were
+now, so far as this world goes, forever at an end.
+
+“Rest,” came in Dr. Carpenter’s most soothing tones. “Rest, my
+little Carmel; forget everything and rest.” He thought he knew the
+significance of her revolt from the glass he had offered her. She
+remembered the scene at the Cumberland dinner-table on that fatal
+night and shrank from anything that reminded her of it. Ordering the
+medicine put in a cup, he offered it to her again, and she drank it
+without question. As she quieted under its influence, the disappointed
+listeners, now tip-toeing carefully from the room, heard her murmur in
+final appeal:
+
+“Cannot Adelaide spare one minute from--from her company downstairs, to
+wish me health and kiss me good night?”
+
+Was it weakness, or a settled inability to remember anything but that
+which filled her own mind?
+
+It proved to be a settled inability to take in any new ideas or even
+to remember much beyond the completion of that dinner. As the days
+passed and news of her condition came to me from time to time, I found
+that she had not only forgotten what had passed between herself and
+the rest of the family previous to their departure for the club-house,
+but all that had afterwards occurred at The Whispering Pines, even to
+her own presence there and the ride home. She could not even retain
+in her mind for any appreciable length of time the idea of Adelaide’s
+death. Even after Dr. Carpenter, with infinite precautions, revealed to
+her the truth--not that Adelaide had been murdered, but that Adelaide
+had passed away during the period of her own illness, Carmel gave but
+one cry of grief, then immediately burst forth in her old complaint
+that Adelaide neglected her. She had lost her happiness and hope, and
+Adelaide would not spare her an hour.
+
+This expression, when I heard of it, convinced me, as I believe it did
+some others, that her act of self-denial in not humouring my whim and
+flying from home and duty that night, had made a stronger impression on
+her mind than all that came after.
+
+She never asked for Arthur. This may have grieved him; but, according
+to my faithful friend and attorney, it appeared to have the contrary
+effect, and to bring him positive relief. When it was borne in on
+him, as it was soon to be borne in on all, that her mind was not what
+it was, and that the beautiful Carmel had lost something besides her
+physical perfection in the awful calamity which had made shipwreck of
+the whole family, he grew noticeably more cheerful and less suspicious
+in his manner. Was it because the impending inquiry must go on without
+her, and proceedings, which had halted till now, be pushed with all
+possible speed to a finish? So those who watched him interpreted his
+changed mood, with a result not favourable to him.
+
+With this new shock of Carmel’s inability to explain her own part in
+this tragedy and thus release my testimony and make me a man again
+in my own eyes, I lost the sustaining power which had previously
+held me up. I became apathetic; no longer counting the hours, and
+thankful when they passed. Arthur had not been arrested; but he
+understood--or allowed others to see that he understood, the reason
+for the surveillance under which he was now strictly kept; and, though
+he showed less patience than myself under the shameful suspicion which
+this betokened, he did not break out into open conflict with the
+authorities, nor did he protest his innocence, or take any other stand
+than the one he had assumed from the first.
+
+All this gave me much food for thought, but I declined to think. I
+had made up my mind from the moment I realised Carmel’s condition,
+that there was nothing for me to do till after the inquest. The
+public investigation which this would involve, would show the trend
+of popular opinion, and thus enlighten me as to my duty. Meanwhile, I
+would keep to the old lines and do the best I could for myself without
+revealing the fact of Carmel’s near interest in a matter she was in
+no better condition to discuss now than when in a state of complete
+unconsciousness.
+
+Of that inquest, which was held in due course, I shall not say much.
+Only one new fact was elicited by its means, and that of interest
+solely as making clear how there came to be evidences of poison in
+Adelaide’s stomach, without the quantity being great enough for more
+than a temporary disturbance.
+
+Maggie, the second girl, had something to say about this when the
+phial which had held the poison was handed about for inspection. She
+had handled that phial many times on the shelf where it was kept. Once
+she had dropped it, and the cork coming out, some of the contents had
+escaped. Frightened at the mishap, she had filled the phial up with
+water, and put it, thus diluted, back on the shelf. No one had noticed
+the difference, and she had forgotten all about the matter until now.
+From her description, there must have been very little of the dangerous
+drug left in the phial; and the conclusions of Dr. Perry’s autopsy
+received a confirmation which ended, after a mass of testimony tending
+rather to confuse than enlighten, the jury, in the non-committal
+verdict:
+
+Death by strangulation at the hands of some person unknown.
+
+I had expected this. The evidence, pointing as it did in two opposing
+directions, presented a problem which a coroner’s jury could hardly be
+expected to solve. What followed, showed that not only they but the
+police authorities as well, acknowledged the dilemma. I was allowed one
+sweet half hour of freedom, then I was detained to await the action of
+the grand jury, and so was Arthur.
+
+When I was informed of this latter fact, I made a solemn vow to myself.
+It was this: If it falls to my lot to be indicted for this murderous
+offence, I will continue to keep my own counsel, as I have already
+done, in face of lesser provocation and at less dangerous risk. But,
+if I escape and a true bill should be found against Arthur, then
+will I follow my better instinct, and reveal what I have hitherto
+kept concealed, even if the torment of the betrayal drive me to
+self-destruction afterwards. For I no longer cherished the smallest
+doubt, that to Carmel’s sudden rage and to that alone, the death of
+Adelaide was due.
+
+My reason for this change from troubled to absolute conviction can be
+easily explained. It dated from the inquest, and will best appear in
+the relation of an interview I held with my attorney, Charles Clifton,
+very soon after my second incarceration.
+
+We had discussed the situation till there seemed to be nothing left to
+discuss. I understood him, and he thought he understood me. He believed
+Arthur guilty, and credited me with the same convictions. Thus only
+could he explain my inconceivable reticence on certain points he was
+very well assured I could make clear if I would. That he was not the
+only man who had drawn these same conclusions from my attitude both
+before and during the inquest, troubled me greatly and deeply disturbed
+my conscience, but I could indulge in no protests--or, rather would
+indulge in no protests--as yet. There was an unsolved doubt connected
+with some facts which had come out at the inquest--or perhaps, I should
+call it a circumstance not as yet fully explained--which disturbed me
+more than did my conscience, and upon this circumstance I must have
+light before I let my counsel leave me.
+
+I introduced the topic thus:
+
+“You remember the detached sentences taken down by the nurse during the
+period of Carmel’s unconsciousness. They were regarded as senseless
+ravings, and such they doubtless were; but there was one of them which
+attracted my attention, and of which I should like an explanation. I
+wish I had that woman’s little book here; I should like to read for
+myself those wandering utterances.”
+
+“You can,” was the unexpected and welcome reply. “I took them all down
+in shorthand as they fell from Dr. Perry’s lips. I have not had time
+since to transcribe them, but I can read some of them to you, if you
+will give me an idea as to which ones you want.”
+
+“Read the first--what she said on the day of the funeral. I do not
+think the rest matter very much.”
+
+Clifton took a paper from his pocket, and, after only a short delay,
+read out these words:
+
+“_December the fifth_: Her sister’s name, uttered many times and with
+greatly varied expression--now in reproach, now in terror, now in what
+seemed to me in tones of wild pleading and even despair. This continued
+at intervals all through the day.
+
+“At three P.M., just as people were gathering for the funeral, the
+quick, glad cry: ‘I smell flowers, sweet, sweet flowers!’”
+
+Alas! she did.
+
+“At three-forty P.M., as the services neared their close, a violent
+change took place in her appearance, and she uttered in shrill tones
+those astonishing words which horrified all below and made us feel that
+she had a clairvoyant knowledge of the closing of the casket, then
+taking place:
+
+“‘Break it open! Break it open! and see if her heart is there!’”
+
+“Pause there,” I said; “that is what I mean. It was not the only time
+she uttered that cry. If you will glance further down, you will come
+across a second exclamation of the like character.”
+
+“Yes; here it is. It was while the ubiquitous Sweetwater was mousing
+about the room.”
+
+“Read the very words he heard. I have a reason, Clifton. Humour me for
+this once.”
+
+“Certainly--no trouble. She cried, this time: ‘Break it open! Break the
+glass and look in. Her heart should be there--her heart--her heart!
+Horrible! but you insisted, Ranelagh.”
+
+“I thought I heard that word glass,” I muttered, more to myself than to
+him. Then, with a choking fear of giving away my thought, but unable to
+resist the opportunity of settling my own fears, I asked: “Was there
+glass in the casket lid?”
+
+“No; there never is.”
+
+“But she may have thought there was,” I suggested hastily. “I’m
+much obliged to you, Clifton. I had to hear those sentences again.
+Morbidness, no doubt; the experience of the last three weeks would
+affect a stronger-minded man than myself.” Then before he could reply:
+“What do you think the nurse meant by a violent change in her patient?”
+
+“Why, she roused up, I suppose--moved, or made some wild or feverish
+gesture.”
+
+“That is what I should like to know. I may seem foolish and
+unnecessarily exacting about trifles; but I would give a great deal to
+learn precisely where she looked, and what she did at the moment she
+uttered those wild words. Is the detective Sweetwater still in town?”
+
+“I believe so. Came up for the inquest but goes back to-night.”
+
+“See him, Clifton. Ask him to relate this scene. He was present, you
+know. Get him to talk about it. You can, and without rousing his
+suspicion, keen as they all say he is. And when he talks, listen
+and remember what he says. But don’t ask questions. Do this for me,
+Clifton. Some day I may be able to explain my request, but not now.”
+
+“I’m at your service,” he replied; but he looked hurt at being thus set
+to work in the dark, and I dared say nothing to ease the situation. I
+did not dare even to prolong the conversation on this subject, or on
+any other subject. In consequence, he departed speedily, and I spent
+the afternoon wondering whether he would return before the day ended,
+or leave me to the endurance of a night of suspense. I was spared this
+final distress. He came in again towards evening, and this was what he
+told me:
+
+“I have seen Sweetwater, and was more fortunate in my interview than
+I expected. He talked freely, and in the course of the conversation,
+described the very occurrence in which you are so interested. Carmel
+had been lying quietly previous to this outbreak, but suddenly started
+into feverish life and, raising herself up in her bed, pointed straight
+before her and uttered the words we have so often repeated. That’s all
+there was to it, and I don’t see for my part, what you have gained by a
+repetition of the same, or why you lay so much stress upon her gesture.
+What she said was the thing, though even that is immaterial from a
+legal point of view--which is the only view of any importance to you or
+to me, at this juncture.”
+
+“You’re a true friend to me,” I answered, “and never more so than in
+this instance. Forgive me that I cannot show my appreciation of your
+goodness, or thank you properly for your performance of an uncongenial
+task. I am sunk deep in trouble. I’m not myself and cannot be till I
+know what action will be taken by the grand jury.”
+
+If he replied, I have no remembrance of it; neither do I recall his
+leave-taking. But I was presently aware that I was alone and could
+think out my hideous thought, undisturbed.
+
+Carmel had pointed straight before her, shouting out: “Break in the
+glass!”
+
+I knew her room; I had been taken in there once by Adelaide, as a
+sequence to a long conversation about Carmel, shortly after her first
+return from school. Adelaide wished to show me the cabinet in the wall,
+the cabinet at which Carmel undoubtedly pointed, if her bed stood as it
+had stood then. It was not quite full, at that time. It did not contain
+Adelaide’s heart among the other broken toys which Carmel had destroyed
+with her own hand or foot, in her moments of frenzied passion--the
+canary, that would not pick from her hand, the hat she hated, the bowl
+which held only bread and milk when she wanted meat or cake. Adelaide
+had kept them all, locked behind glass and in full view of the child’s
+eyes night and day, that the shame of those past destructive moments
+might guard her from their repetition and help her to understand her
+temper and herself. I had always thought it cruel of Adelaide, one of
+the evidences of the flint-like streak which ran through her otherwise
+generous and upright nature. But its awful prophecy was what affected
+me most now; for destruction had fallen on something more tender than
+aught that cabinet held.
+
+Adelaide’s heart! And Carmel acknowledged it--acknowledged that it
+should be there, with what else she had trampled upon and crushed
+in her white heat of rage. I could not doubt her guilt, after this.
+Whatever peace her forgetfulness had brought--whatever innocent longing
+after Adelaide--the wild cry of those first few hours, ere yet the
+impressions of her awful experience had succumbed to disease, revealed
+her secret and showed the workings of her conscience. It had not been
+understood; it had passed as an awesome episode. But for me, since
+hearing of it, she stood evermore convicted out of her own mouth--that
+lovely mouth which angels might kiss in her hours of joyous serenity;
+but from whose caress friends would fly, when the passion reigned in
+her heart and she must break, crush, kill, or go mad.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+AT TEN INSTEAD OF TWELVE
+
+Forget the world around you. Meantime friendship
+Shall keep strict vigils for you, anxious, active,
+Only be manageable when that friendship
+Points you the road to full accomplishment.
+
+_Coleridge_.
+
+
+“I don’t care a rush what you do to me. If you are so besotted by your
+prejudices that you refuse to see the nose before your face; if you
+don’t believe your own officer who swore he saw Ranelagh’s hands upon
+my sister’s throat, then this world is all a jumble and it makes very
+little difference to me whether I’m alive or dead.”
+
+When these words of Arthur Cumberland were repeated to me, I echoed
+them in my inmost soul. I, too, cared very little whether I lived or
+died.
+
+The grand jury reeled off its cases and finally took up ours. To the
+last I hoped--sincerely I think--that I should be the man to suffer
+indictment. But I hoped in vain. A true bill was brought against
+Arthur, and his trial was set for the eighteenth of January.
+
+The first use I made of my liberty was to visit Adelaide’s grave. In
+that sacred place I could best review my past and gather strength for
+the future. The future! Was it under my control? Did Arthur’s fate hang
+upon my word? I believed so. But had I strength to speak that word? I
+had expected to; I had seen my duty clearly enough before the sitting
+of the grand jury. But now that Arthur was indicted--now that it was an
+accepted fact that he would have to stand trial instead of myself, I
+was conscious of such a recoil from my contemplated action that I lost
+all confidence in myself and my stoical adherence to what I considered
+the claims of justice.
+
+Standing in the cemetery grounds with my eyes upon the snow-covered
+mound beneath which lay the doubly injured Adelaide, I had it out with
+myself, for good and all.
+
+I trusted Arthur; I distrusted Carmel. But she had claims to
+consideration, which he lacked. She was a woman. Her fall would mean
+infinitely more to her than any disgrace to him. Even he had seemed to
+recognise this. Miserable and half-hearted as his life had been, he had
+shown himself man enough not to implicate his young sister in the crime
+laid to his charge. What then was I that I should presume to disregard
+his lead in the difficult maze in which we were both lost. Yet, because
+of the self-restraint he manifested, he had my sympathy and when I left
+the cemetery and took my mournful way back into town, it was with the
+secret resolution to stand his friend if I saw the case really going
+against him. Till then, I would consider the helpless girl, tongue-tied
+by her condition, and injured enough already by my misplaced love and
+its direful consequences.
+
+The only change I now allowed myself was an occasional midnight stroll
+up Huested Street. This was as near as I dared approach Carmel’s
+windows. I feared some watchful police spy. Perhaps I feared my own
+hardly-to-be-restrained longings.
+
+Mr. Fulton’s house and extensive grounds lay between this street and
+the dismal walls beyond the huge sycamore which lifted itself like a
+beacon above the Cumberland estate. But I allowed myself the doubtful
+pleasure of traversing this course, and this course only, and if I
+obtained one glimpse through bush and tree of the spot whither all my
+thoughts ran continuously, I went home satisfied.
+
+This was before Carmel left with her nurse for Lakewood. After that
+event, I turned my head no more, in taking my midnight stroll. I was
+not told the day or hour of her departure. Happily, perhaps, for us
+both, for I could never have kept away from the station. I should have
+risked everything for one glimpse of her face, if only to satisfy
+my own judgment as to whether she would ever recognise me again, or
+remember what had occurred on that doleful night when the light of her
+intellect set in the darkness of sin and trouble.
+
+The police had the same idea, I think, for I heard later that she was
+deliberately driven past The Whispering Pines, though the other road
+was more direct and less free, if anything, from possible spectators.
+They thought, no doubt, that a sight of the place might reawaken
+whatever memories remained of the last desperate scene preceding her
+brother and sister’s departure for this out-of-the-way spot. They
+little knew how cruel was the test, or what a storm of realisation
+might have overwhelmed her mind as her eye fell on those accursed
+walls, peering from their bower of snow-laden, pines. But I did, and I
+never rested till I learned how she had borne herself in her slow drive
+by the two guarded gateways: merrily, it seems, and with no sign of the
+remembrances I feared. The test, if it were meant for such, availed
+them nothing; no more, indeed, than an encounter with her on the road,
+or at the station would have availed me. For the veil she begged for
+had shrouded her features completely, and it was only from her manner
+that those who accompanied her, perceived her light-heartedness and
+delight in this change.
+
+One sentence, and one only, reached my ears of all she said before she
+disappeared from town.
+
+“If Adelaide were only going, too! But I suppose I shall meet her and
+Mr. Ranelagh somewhere before my return. She must be very happy. But
+not so peaceful as I am. She will see that when we meet. I can hardly
+wait for the day.”
+
+Words which set me thinking; but which I was bound to acknowledge
+could be only the idle maunderings of a diseased mind from which all
+impressions had fled, save those of innocence and futile hope.
+
+One incident more before I enter upon the serious business of the
+trial. I had no purpose in what I did. I merely followed the impulse
+of the moment, as I had so often done before in my selfish and
+thoughtless life, when I started one night for my walk at ten o’clock
+instead of twelve. I went the old way; and the old longing recurring
+at the one charmed spot on the road, I cast a quick look at the
+towering sycamore and the desolated house beneath, which, short as it
+was, roused feelings which kept my head lowered for the remainder of
+my walk north and to the very moment, when, on my return, the same
+chimneys and overhanging roofs came again into view through the wintry
+branches. Then habit lifted my head, and I paused to look again, when
+the low sound of a human voice, suppressed into a moan or sob, caused
+me to glance about for the woman or child who had uttered this note
+of sorrow. No one was in sight; but as I started to move on, I heard
+my name uttered in choked tones from behind the hedge separating the
+Fulton grounds from the city sidewalk.
+
+I halted instantly. A lamp from the opposite side of the street threw
+a broad illumination across the walk where I stood, but the gate-posts
+behind threw a shadow. Had the voice issued from this isolated point of
+darkness? I went back to see. A pitiful figure was crouching there, a
+frail, agitated little being, whom I had no sooner recognised than my
+manner instantly assumed an air of friendly interest, called out by her
+timid and appealing attitude.
+
+“Ella Fulton!” I exclaimed. “You wish to speak to me?”
+
+“Hush!” she prayed, with a frightened gesture towards the house. “No
+one knows I am here. Mamma thinks me in bed, and papa, who is out, may
+come home any minute. Oh, Mr. Ranelagh, I’m in such misery and no one
+but you can give me any help. I have watched you go by night after
+night, and I have wanted to call out and beg you to come in and see me,
+or let me go and meet you somewhere, and I have not dared, it was so
+late. To-night you have come earlier, and I have slipped out and--O,
+Elwood, you won’t think badly of me? It’s all about Arthur, and I shall
+die if some one does not help me and tell me how I can reach him with a
+message.”
+
+As she spoke the last words, she caught at the gatepost which was too
+broad and ponderous to offer her any hold. Gravely I held out my arm,
+which she took; we were old friends and felt no necessity of standing
+on any sort of ceremony.
+
+“You don’t wish to bother,” was her sensitive cry. “You had rather not
+stop; rather not listen to my troubles.”
+
+Had I shown my feelings so plainly as that? I felt mortified. She was a
+girl of puny physique and nervous manner--the last sort of person you
+would expect Arthur Cumberland to admire or even to have patience with,
+and the very last sort who could be expected to endure his rough ways,
+or find anything congenial to herself in his dissipated and purposeless
+life. But the freaks of youthful passion are endless, and it was
+evident that they loved each other sincerely.
+
+Her tremulous condition and meek complaint went to my heart,
+notwithstanding my growing dread of any conversation between us on this
+all-absorbing but equally peace-destroying topic. Reassuringly pressing
+her hand, I was startled to find a small piece of paper clutched
+convulsively within it.
+
+“For Arthur,” she explained under her breath. “I thought you might find
+some way of getting it to him. Father and mother are so prejudiced.
+They have never liked him, and now they believe the very worst. They
+would lock me up if they knew I was speaking to you about him. Mother
+is very stern and says that all this nonsense between Arthur and
+myself must stop. That we must never--no matter whether he is cleared
+or--or--” Silence, then a little gasp, after which she added with an
+emphasis which bespoke the death of every hope: “She is very decided
+about it, Elwood.”
+
+I hardly blamed the mother.
+
+“I--I love Arthur. I don’t think him guilty and I would gladly stand by
+him if they would let me. I want him to know this. I want him to get
+such comfort as he can out of my belief and my desire to serve him.
+I want to sacrifice myself. But I can’t, I can’t,” she moaned. “You
+don’t know how mother frightens me. When she looks at me, the words
+falter on my tongue and I feel as if it would be easier to die than to
+acknowledge what is in my heart.”
+
+I could believe her. Mrs. Fulton was a notable woman, whom many men
+shrank from encountering needlessly. It was not her tongue, though
+that could be bitter enough, but a certain way she had of infusing her
+displeasure into attitude, tone, and manner, which insensibly sapped
+your self-confidence and forced you to accept her bad opinion of you as
+your rightful due. This, whether your judgment coincided with hers or
+not.
+
+“Yet your mother is your very best friend,” I ventured gently, with
+a realisation of my responsibility which did not add much to my
+self-possession.
+
+She seemed startled.
+
+“Not in this, not in this,” she objected, with a renewal of her anxious
+glances, this time up and down the street. “I must get a word to
+Arthur. I _must_.”
+
+I saw that she had some deeper reason than appeared, for desiring
+communication with him. I was debating how best to meet the situation
+and set her right as to my ability to serve her, without breaking down
+her spirit too seriously, when I felt her feverish hand pressing her
+little note into my unwilling palm.
+
+“Don’t read it,” she whispered, innocent of all offence and only
+anxious to secure my good offices. “It’s for Arthur. I’ve used the
+thinnest paper, so that you can secrete it in something he will be sure
+to get. Don’t disappoint me. I was sorry for you, too, and glad when
+they let you out. Both of you are old playmates of mine, but Arthur--”
+
+I had to tell her; I had to dash her small hopes to the ground.
+
+“Forgive me, Ella,” I said, “but I cannot carry him this message or
+even get it to him secretly. I am watched myself; I know it, though I
+have never really detected the man doing it.”
+
+“Oh!” she ejaculated, terror-stricken at once. “Is there any one here,
+behind these trees or in the street on the other side of the hedge-row?”
+
+I hastened to reassure her.
+
+“No, no. If I’ve been followed, it was not so near as that. I cannot do
+what you ask for several reasons. Arthur will credit you with the best
+of impulses without your incurring any such risk.”
+
+“Yes, yes, but that’s not enough. What shall I do? What shall I do?”
+
+I strove to help her.
+
+“There is a man,” said I, “who sees him constantly and may be induced
+to assure Arthur of your belief and continued interest in him. That man
+is his lawyer, Mr. Moffat. Any one will tell you how to reach him.”
+
+“No, no,” she disclaimed, hurriedly, breathlessly. “My last hope was in
+you. You wouldn’t think the worse of me for--for what I’ve done; or let
+mother know. I couldn’t tell a stranger even if he went right to Arthur
+with it. I’m not made that way. I couldn’t stand the shame.” Drawing
+back a step she wrung her small hands together, exclaiming, “What an
+unhappy girl I am!” Then stepping up to my side, she whispered in my
+ear: “There is something I could say which might--”
+
+I stopped her. Right or wrong, I stopped her. I hadn’t the courage just
+then to face the possibilities of what lay at the end of this simple
+sentence. She possessed evidence, or thought she did, which might help
+to clear Arthur. Evidence of what? Evidence which would implicate
+Carmel? The very thought unnerved me.
+
+“I had rather not be the recipient of this confidence if it is at
+all important or at all in the line of testimony. Remember the man I
+mentioned. He will be glad to hear of anything helpful to his client.”
+
+Her distress mounted to passion.
+
+“It’s--it’s something that will destroy my mother’s confidence in me.
+I disobeyed her. I did what she would never have let me do if she had
+known. I--I used to meet Arthur in the driveway back by the barns. I
+had a key made to the little side door so that I could do it. I used
+to meet him late. I would get up out of bed when mother was asleep,
+and dress myself and sit at the window until I heard him come up
+the street. Then I would steal down and catch him on his way to the
+stables. I--I had a good reason for this, Elwood. He knew I would be
+there, and it brought him home earlier and not quite so--so full of
+liquor. If he was very bad, he would come up the other way and I would
+sit waiting and crying till three o’clock struck, then creep into my
+bed and try to sleep. Nights and nights I have done this. Nothing else
+in life seemed so important, for it did hold him back a little. But not
+so much as if he had loved me more. He loved me some, but he couldn’t
+have loved me very much, or he would have sent me some word, or seen
+me, if but for a minute, since Adelaide’s death. And he hasn’t, he
+hasn’t! and that makes it harder for me to acknowledge the watch I kept
+on him, and how I know he never went through our grounds for the second
+time that night. He went once, about nine, but not later. I am certain
+of this, for I was looking out for him till three in the morning. If he
+came back and then returned afterwards to town, it was through his own
+street, and that takes so long, he would never have been able to get
+to the place they said he did at the time they have agreed upon. Oh! I
+have studied every word of the case, to see if what I had to tell would
+help him any. Father cannot bear to see me with a newspaper in my hand,
+and mother comes and takes them out of my room; but I have managed to
+read every word since they accused him of being at the club-house that
+night, and I know that he needs some one to come out boldly in his
+cause, and I want to be that some one, and I will be, too, whatever
+happens to me, if--if I must,” she faintly added.
+
+I was dumb, but not from lack of interest, God knows, or from
+unsympathetic feeling for this brave-hearted girl. The significance
+of the situation was what held me speechless. Here was help for
+Arthur without my braving all the horrors of Carmel’s downfall by any
+impulsive act of my own. For a moment, hope in one burning and renewing
+flame soared high in my breast. I was willing to accept my release
+in this way. I was willing to shift the load from my own back to the
+delicate shoulders of this shrinking but ardent girl. Then reason
+returned, if consideration halted, and I asked myself: “But is the
+help she offers of any practical worth? Would her timid declarations,
+trembling as she was between her awe of her parents and her desire to
+serve the man she loved, weigh in the balance against the evidence
+accumulated by the district attorney?”
+
+It seemed doubtful. She would not be believed, and I should have to
+back up her statement with my own hitherto suppressed testimony. It
+was a hard case, any way I looked at it. A woman to be sacrificed
+whichever course I took. Contemplating the tremulous, half-fainting
+figure drooping in the shadows before me, such native chivalry as
+remained to me, urged me to spare this little friend of mine, so
+ungifted by nature, so innocent in intention, so sensitive and so
+shrinking in temperament and habit. Then Carmel’s image rose before
+me, glorious, impassioned, driven by the fierce onrush of some mighty
+inherent force into violent deeds undreamed of by most women; but when
+thus undriven, gentle in manner, elevated in thought, refined as only
+a few rare characters are refined; and my heart stood still again
+with doubt, and I could not say: “It is your duty to save him at all
+hazards. Brave your father, brave your mother, brave public opinion and
+possibly the wrecking of your whole future, but tell the truth, and rid
+your days of doubt, your nights of remorse.” I could not say this. So
+many things might happen to save Arthur, to save Carmel, to save the
+little woman before me. I would trust that future, temporise a bit and
+give such advice as would relieve us both from immediate fear without
+compromising Arthur’s undoubted rights to justice.
+
+Meanwhile, Ella Fulton had become distracted by new fears. The sound
+of sleigh-bells could be heard on the hill. It might be her father.
+Should she try to reach the house, or hide her small body, like a
+trapped animal’s, on the dark side of the hedge? I was conscious of her
+thoughts, shared her uncertainties, notwithstanding the struggle then
+going on in my own mind. But I remained quiet and so did she, and the
+sleigh ultimately flew past us up the road. The sigh which broke from
+her lips as this terror subsided, brought my disordered thoughts to a
+focus. I must not keep her longer. Something must be said at once. As
+soon as she looked my way again, I spoke:
+
+“Ella, this is no easy problem you have offered me. You are right in
+thinking that this testimony of yours might be of benefit to Arthur,
+and that you ought to give it in case of extremity. But I cannot advise
+you to obtrude it yet. I understand what it would cost you, and the
+sacrifice you would make is too great for the doubtful good which might
+follow. Neither must you trust me to act for you in this matter. My
+own position is too unstable for me to be of assistance to any one.
+I can sympathise with you, possibly as no one else can; but I cannot
+reach Arthur, either by word or by message. Your father is the man to
+appeal to in case interference becomes necessary and you must speak.
+You have not quite the same fear of him that you have of your mother.
+Take him into your confidence--not now but later when things press and
+you must have a friend. He’s a just man. You may shock his fatherly
+susceptibilities, you may even lose some of his regard, but he will do
+the right thing by you and Arthur. Have confidence that this is so, and
+rest, little friend, in the hope and help it gives you. Will you?”
+
+“I will try. I could only tell father on my knees, but I will do it
+if--if I must,” she faltered out, unconsciously repeating her former
+phrase. “Now, I must go. You have been good; only I asked too much.”
+And with no other farewell she left me and disappeared up the walk.
+
+I lingered till I heard the faint click of her key in the door she had
+secretly made her own; then I moved on. As I did so, I heard a rustle
+somewhere about me on street or lawn. I never knew whence it came,
+but I felt assured that neither her fears nor mine had been quite
+unfounded; that a listener had been posted somewhere near us and that
+a part, if not all, we had said had been overheard. I was furious for
+an instant, then the soothing thought came that possibly Providence had
+ordained that the Gordian knot should be cut in just this way.
+
+But the event bore no ostensible fruit. The week ended, and the case of
+the People _against_ Arthur Cumberland was moved for trial.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+ALL THIS STOOD
+
+It’s fit this royal session do proceed;
+And that, without delay, their arguments
+Be now produc’d and heard
+
+_King Henry VIII_.
+
+
+There was difficulty, as you will conceive, in selecting an
+unprejudiced jury. But this once having been accomplished, the case
+went quickly and smoothly on under the able guidance of the prosecuting
+attorney.
+
+I shall spare you the opening details, also much of the preliminary
+testimony. Enough that at the close of the sixth day, the outlook was
+a serious one for Arthur Cumberland. The prosecution appeared to be
+making good its claims. The quiet and unexpectedly dignified way in
+which, at the beginning, the defendant had faced the whole antagonistic
+court-room, with the simple plea of “Not Guilty,” was being slowly but
+surely forgotten in the accumulated proofs of his discontented life
+under his sister’s dominating influence, his desire for independence
+and a free use of the money held in trust for him by this sister
+under their father’s will, the quarrels which such a situation would
+naturally evoke between characters cast in such different moulds
+and actuated by such opposing tastes and principles, and the final
+culmination of the same at the dinner-table when Adelaide forced him,
+as it were, to subscribe to her prohibition of all further use of
+liquor in their house. Following this evidence of motive, came the
+still more damaging one of opportunity. He was shown to have been in
+the club-house at or near the time of Adelaide’s death. The matter of
+the bottles was gone into and the event in Cuthbert Road. Then I was
+called to the stand, and my testimony asked for.
+
+I had prepared myself for the ordeal and faced it unflinchingly. That
+I might keep intact the one point necessary to Carmel’s safety, I met
+my inquisitors, now as before, with the utmost candour in all other
+respects. Indeed, in one particular I was even more exact in my details
+than at any previous examination. Anxious to explain my agitated and
+hesitating advance through the club-house, prior to my discovery of
+the crime which had been committed there, I acknowledged what I had
+hitherto concealed, that in my first entrance into the building, I had
+come upon a man’s derby hat and coat hanging in the lower hall, and
+when questioned more minutely on the subject, allowed it to appear that
+it was owing to the disappearance of these articles during my stay
+upstairs, that I had been led into saying that some one had driven away
+from The Whispering Pines before the coming of the police.
+
+This, as you will see, was in open contradiction of my former
+statements that I had _seen_ an unknown party, thus attired, driving
+away through the upper gateway just as I entered by the lower. But it
+was a contradiction which while noted by Mr. Moffat, failed to injure
+me with the jury, and much less with the spectators. The impression
+had become so firmly fixed in the public mind and in that of certain
+officials as well, that my early hesitations and misstatements were
+owing to a brotherly anxiety to distract attention from Arthur whose
+clothing they believed me to have recognised in these articles I
+have mentioned--that I rather gained than lost by what, under other
+circumstances would have seriously damaged my testimony. That I should
+prevaricate even to my own detriment, at a preliminary examination,
+only to tell the truth openly and like a man when in court and under
+the sanctity of an oath was, in the popular estimation, something to my
+credit; and Mr. Moffat, whose chief recommendation as counsel lay in
+his quick appreciation of the exigencies of the moment, did not press
+me too sharply on this point when he came to his cross-examination.
+
+But in other respects he drove me hard. An effort was made by him,
+first of all, to discredit me as a witness. My lack of appreciation for
+Adelaide and my secret but absorbing love for Carmel were inexorably
+brought out: also the easy, happy-go-lucky tenor of my life, and
+my dogged persistence in any course I thought consistent with my
+happiness. My character was well known in this town of my birth, and
+it would have been folly for me to attempt to gloss it over. I had not
+even the desire to do so. If my sins exacted penance, I would pay it
+here and now and to the full. Only Carmel should not suffer. I refused
+to admit that she had given any evidences of returning my reckless
+passion. My tongue would not speak the necessary words, and it was
+not made to. It was not her character but mine which Mr. Moffat was
+endeavouring to assail.
+
+But though I was thus shown up for what I was, in a manner most public
+and undesirable, neither the rulings of the court, nor the attitude of
+the jury betrayed any loss of confidence in me as a credible witness,
+and seeing this, the wily lawyer shifted his ground and confined
+himself to an endeavour to shake me on certain definite and important
+points. How were the pillows heaped upon the couch? What ones at top,
+what ones at bottom? Which did I remove first, and why did I remove any
+of them? What had I expected to find? These questions answered, the
+still more-to-be-dreaded ones followed of just how my betrothed looked
+at the moment I uncovered her face. Were the marks very plain upon her
+throat? How plain; and what did I mean by saying that I felt forced to
+lay my thumbs upon them? Was that a natural thing to do? Where was the
+candle at that moment? How many feet away? A candle does not give much
+light at that distance, was I sure that I saw those marks immediately;
+that they were dark enough and visible enough to draw my eyes from her
+face which would naturally attract my gaze first? It was horrible,
+devilish, but I won through, only to meet the still more disturbing
+question as to whether I saw any other evidences of strangulation
+besides the marks. I could only mention the appearance of the eyes;
+and when Mr. Moffat found that he could not shake me on this point,
+he branched off into a less harrowing topic and cross-examined me in
+regard to the ring. I had said that it was on her hand when I bade
+good-bye to her in her own house, and that it was not there when I came
+upon her dead. Had the fact made me curious to examine her hand? No.
+Then I could not tell whether the finger on which she wore it gave any
+evidence of this ring having been pulled off with violence? No. I could
+not swear that in my opinion it was? I could not.
+
+The small flask of cordial and the three glasses, one clean and the
+others showing signs of having been used, were next taken up, but
+with no result for the defence. I had told all I knew about these in
+my direct examination; also about such matters as the bottles found
+on the kitchen table, the leaving of my keys at the Cumberland house,
+and the fact, well known, that the two bottles of wine left in the
+wine-vault and tabulated by the steward as so left in the list found
+in my apartments, were of an exclusive brand unlikely to be found
+anywhere else in town. I could add nothing more, and, having spoken the
+exact truth concerning them, from the very first, I ran no chance of
+contradicting myself even under the close fire of the opposing counsel.
+
+But there was a matter I dreaded to see him approach, and, which, I was
+equally sure, with an insight unshared I believe by any one else in the
+whole courtroom, was equally dreaded by the prisoner.
+
+This was the presence in the club-house chimney of the half-burned
+letter I had long ago been compelled, in my own defence, to acknowledge
+having written to the victim’s young sister, Carmel Cumberland. As I
+saw District Attorney Fox about to enter upon this topic, I gathered
+myself together to meet the onslaught, for in this matter I could not
+be strictly truthful, since the least slip on my part might awaken the
+whole world to the fact that it could only have come there through the
+agency of Carmel herself.
+
+What Mr. Moffat thought of it--what he hoped to prove in the prisoner’s
+behalf by raking this subject over--it was left for me to discover
+later. The prisoner was an innocent man, in his eyes. I was not; and,
+while the time had not come for him to make this openly apparent, he
+was not above showing even now that the case contained a factor which
+weakened the prosecution--a factor totally dissociated with the openly
+accepted theory that the crime was simply the result of personal
+cupidity and drunken spite.
+
+And in this he was right. It did weaken it--weakened it to the point
+of collapse, if the counsel for the defence had fully acted up to his
+opportunity. But something withheld him. Just at the moment when I
+feared the truth must come out, he hesitated and veered gradually away
+from this subject. In his nervous pacings to and fro before the witness
+stand, his eye had rested for a moment on Arthur’s, and with this
+result. The situation was saved, but at a great loss to the defendant.
+
+I began to cherish softened feelings towards Arthur Cumberland, from
+this moment. Was it then, or later, that he began in his turn to
+cherish new and less hostile feelings towards myself? He had hated me
+and vowed my death if I escaped the fate he could now dimly see opening
+out before himself; yet I could see that he was glad to see me slip
+from my tormentor’s hands with my story unimpeached, and that he drew
+his breath more deeply and with much more evidence of freedom, now that
+my testimony had been thoroughly sifted and nothing had come to light
+implicating Carmel. I even thought I caught a kindly gleam in his eye
+as it met mine at this critical juncture, and by its light I understood
+my man and what he hoped from me. He wished me at any risk to himself,
+to unite with him in saving Carmel’s good name. That I should accede
+to this; that I should respect his generous wishes and let him go to
+unmerited destruction for even so imperative an obligation as we both
+lay under, was a question for the morrow. I could not decide upon it
+to-day--not while the smallest hope remained that he would yet escape
+conviction by other means than the one which would wreck the life we
+were both intent on saving.
+
+Several short examinations followed mine, all telling in their nature,
+all calculated to fix in the minds of the jury the following facts:
+
+(Pray pardon the repetition. It is necessary to present the case to you
+just as it stood at this period of my greatest struggle.)
+
+1.--That Arthur, swayed by cupidity and moved to rage by the scene at
+the dinner-table, had, by some unknown means of a more or less violent
+character, prevailed upon Adelaide to accompany him to The Whispering
+Pines, in the small cutter, to which, in the absence of every servant
+about the place, he himself had harnessed the grey mare.
+
+2.--That in preparation for this visit to a spot remote from
+observation and closed against all visitors, they, still for some
+unknown reason, had carried between them a candlestick and candle, a
+flask of cordial, three glasses, and a small bottle marked “Poison”;
+also some papers, letters, or scraps of correspondence, among them the
+compromising line I had written to Carmel.
+
+3.--That, while in this building, at an hour not yet settled, a second
+altercation had arisen between them, or some attempt been made by
+the brother which had alarmed Adelaide and sent her flying to the
+telephone, in great agitation, with an appeal to the police for help.
+This telephone was in a front room and the jury was led to judge
+that she had gained access to it while her companion ransacked the
+wine-vault and brought the six bottles of spirit up from the cellar.
+
+4.--That her outcry had alarmed the prisoner in his turn, causing him
+to leave most of the bottles below, and hasten up to the room, where he
+completed the deed with which he had previously threatened her.
+
+5.--That poison having failed, he resorted to strangulation; after
+which--or before--came the robbery of her ring, the piling up of the
+cushions over the body in a vain endeavour to hide the deed, or to
+prolong the search for the victim. Then the departure--the locking of
+the front door behind the perpetrator; the flight of the grey horse and
+cutter through the blinding storm; the blowing off of the driver’s hat;
+the identification of the same by means of the flour-mark left on its
+brim by the mechanic’s wife; the presence of a portion of one of the
+two abstracted bottles in the stable where the horse was put up; and
+the appearance of Arthur with the other bottle at the door of the inn
+in Cuthbert Road, just as the clock was striking half-past eleven.
+
+This latter fact might have been regarded as proving an alibi, owing
+to the length of road between the Cumberland house and the place just
+mentioned, if there had not been a short cut to town open to him by
+means of a door in the wall separating the Cumberland and Fulton
+grounds--a door which was found unlocked, and with the key in it, by
+Zadok Brown, the coachman, when he came home about three next morning.
+
+All this stood; not an item of this testimony could be shaken. Most of
+it was true; some of it false; but what was false, so unassailable by
+any ordinary means, that, as I have already said, the clouds seemed
+settling heavily over Arthur Cumberland when, at the end of the sixth
+day, the proceedings closed.
+
+The night that followed was a heavy one for me. Then came the fateful
+morrow, and, after that, the day of days destined to make a life-long
+impression on all who attended this trial.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+“I AM INNOCENT”
+
+All is oblique,
+There’s nothing level in our cursed natures,
+But direct villainy. Therefore, be abhorred
+All feasts, societies, and throngs of men!
+His semblable, yea, himself, Timon disdains.
+
+_Timon of Athens_.
+
+
+I was early in my seat. Feeling the momentousness of the occasion--for
+this day must decide my action for or against the prisoner--I searched
+the faces of the jury, of the several counsel, and of the judge. I was
+anxious to know what I had to expect from them, in case my conscience
+got the better of my devotion to Carmel’s interests and led me into
+that declaration of the real facts which was forever faltering on my
+tongue, without having, as yet, received the final impetus which could
+only end in speech.
+
+To give him his rightful precedence, the judge showed an impenetrable
+countenance but little changed from that with which he had faced
+us all from the start. He, like most of the men involved in these
+proceedings, had been a close friend of the prisoner’s father, and, in
+his capacity of judge in this momentous trial, had had to contend with
+his personal predilections, possibly with concealed sympathies, if not
+with equally well-concealed prejudices. This had lent to his aspect a
+sternness never observable in it before; but no man, even the captious
+Mr. Moffat, had seriously questioned his rulings; and, whatever the
+cost to himself, he had, up to this time, held the scales of justice so
+evenly that it would have taken an audacious mind to have ventured on
+an interpretation of his real attitude or mental leaning in this case.
+
+From this imposing presence, nobly sustained by a well-proportioned
+figure and a head and face indicative of intellect and every kindly
+attribute, I turned to gaze upon Mr. Fox and his colleagues. One spirit
+seemed to animate them--confidence in their case, and unqualified
+satisfaction at its present status.
+
+I was conscious of a certain ironic impulse to smile, as I noted the
+eager whisper and the bustle of preparation with which they settled
+upon their next witness and prepared to open their batteries upon him.
+How easily I could call down that high look, and into what a turmoil I
+could throw them all by an ingenuous demand to be recalled to the stand!
+
+But the psychological moment had not yet come, and I subdued the
+momentary impulse and proceeded with my scrutiny of the people about
+me. The jury looked tired, with the exception of one especially alert
+little man who drank in even the most uninteresting details with
+avidity. But they all had good faces, and none could doubt their
+interest, or that they were fully alive to the significance of the
+occasion.
+
+Mr. Moffat, leading counsel for the defendant, was a spare man of
+unusual height, modified a little, and only a little, by the forward
+droop of his shoulders. Nervous in manner, quick, short, sometimes
+rasping in speech, he had the changeful eye and mobile expression of
+a very sensitive nature; and from him, if from any one, I might hope
+to learn how much or how little Arthur had to fear from the day’s
+proceedings. But Mr. Moffat’s countenance was not as readable as usual.
+He looked preoccupied--a strange thing for him; and, instead of keeping
+his eye on the witness, as was his habitual practice, he allowed it
+to wander over the sea of heads before him, with a curious expectant
+interest which aroused my own curiosity, and led me to hunt about for
+its cause.
+
+My first glance was unproductive. I saw only the usual public, such as
+had confronted us the whole week, with curious and increasing interest.
+But as I searched further, I discerned in an inconspicuous corner, the
+bowed head, veiled almost beyond recognition, of Ella Fulton. It was
+her first appearance in court. Each day I had anticipated her presence,
+and each day I had failed to see my anticipations realised. But she
+was here now, and so were her father and her cold and dominating
+mother; and, beholding her thus accompanied, I fancied I understood Mr.
+Moffat’s poorly concealed excitement. But another glance at Mrs. Fulton
+assured me that I was mistaken in this hasty surmise. No such serious
+purpose, as I feared, lay back of their presence here to-day. Curiosity
+alone explained it; and as I realised what this meant, and how little
+understanding it betokened of the fierce struggle then going on in the
+timid breast of their distracted child, a sickening sense of my own
+responsibility drove Carmel’s beauty, and Carmel’s claims temporarily
+from my mind, and following the direction of Ella’s thoughts, if not
+her glances, I sought in the face of the prisoner a recognition of her
+presence, if not of the promise this presence brought him.
+
+His eye had just fallen on her. I was assured of this by the sudden
+softening of his expression--the first real softening I had ever seen
+in it. It was but a momentary flash, but it was unmistakable in its
+character, as was his speedy return to his former stolidity. Whatever
+his thoughts were at sight of his little sweetheart, he meant to hide
+them even from his counsel--most of all from his counsel, I decided
+after further contemplation of them both. If Mr. Moffat still showed
+nervousness, it was for some other reason than anxiety about this
+little body hiding from sight behind the proudly held figures of father
+and mother.
+
+The opening testimony of the day, while not vital, was favourable to
+the prosecution in that it showed Arthur’s conduct since the murder
+to have been inconsistent with perfect innocence. His belated return
+at noon the next day, raging against the man who had been found in
+an incriminating position on the scene of crime, while at the same
+time failing to betray his own presence there till driven to it by
+accumulating circumstances and the persistent inquiries of the police;
+the care he took to avoid drink, though constant tippling was habitual
+to him and formed the great cause of quarrel between himself and the
+murdered Adelaide; his haunting of Carmel’s door and anxious listening
+for any words she might let fall in her delirium; the suspicion which
+he constantly betrayed of the nurse when for any reason he was led to
+conclude that she had heard something which he had not; his behaviour
+at the funeral and finally his action in demanding to have the
+casket-lid removed that he might look again at the face he had made no
+effort to gaze upon when opportunity offered and time and place were
+seemly: these facts and many more were brought forward in grim array
+against the prisoner, with but little opposition from his counsel and
+small betrayal of feeling on the part of Arthur himself. His stolid
+face had remained stolid even when the ring which had fallen out of his
+sister’s casket was shown to the jury and the connection made between
+its presence there and the intrusion of his hand into the same, on
+the occasion above mentioned. This once thoughtless, pleasure-loving,
+and hopelessly dissipated boy had not miscalculated his nerve. It
+was sufficient for an ordeal which might have tried the courage and
+self-possession of the most hardened criminal.
+
+Then came the great event of the day, in anticipation of which the
+court-room had been packed, and every heart within it awakened by slow
+degrees to a state of great nervous expectancy. The prosecution rested
+and the junior counsel for the defence opened his case to the jury.
+
+If I had hoped for any startling disclosure, calculated to establish
+his client’s alleged alibi, or otherwise to free the same from the
+definite charge of murder, I had reason to be greatly disappointed by
+this maiden effort of a young and inexperienced lawyer. If not exactly
+weak, there was an unexpected vagueness in its statements which seemed
+quite out of keeping with the emphatic declaration which he made of the
+prisoner’s innocence.
+
+Even Arthur was sensible of the bad effect made by this preliminary
+address. More than once during its delivery and notably at its
+conclusion, he turned to Mr. Moffat, with a bitter remark, which was
+not without effect on that gentleman’s cheek, and at once called forth
+a retort stinging enough to cause Arthur to sink back into his place,
+with the first sign of restlessness I had observed in him.
+
+“Moffat is sly. Moffat has something up his sleeve. I will wait till
+he sees fit to show it,” was my thought; then, as I caught a wild and
+pleading look from Ella, I added in positive assertion to myself, “And
+so must she.”
+
+Answering her unspoken appeal with an admonitory shake of the head,
+I carelessly let my fingers rest upon my mouth until I saw that she
+understood me and was prepared to follow my lead for a little while
+longer.
+
+My satisfaction at this was curtailed by the calling of Arthur
+Cumberland to the stand to witness in his own defence.
+
+I had dreaded this contingency. I saw that for some reason, both his
+counsel and associate counsel, were not without their own misgivings as
+to the result of their somewhat doubtful experiment.
+
+A change was observable in this degenerate son of the Cumberlands since
+many there had confronted him face to face. Physically he was improved.
+Enough time had elapsed since his sudden dropping of old habits, for
+him to have risen above its first effects and to have acquired that
+tone of personal dignity which follows a successful issue to any moral
+conflict. But otherwise the difference was such as to arouse doubt as
+to the real man lurking behind his dogged, uncommunicative manner.
+
+Even with the knowledge of his motives which I believed myself to
+possess, I was at a loss to understand his indifference to self and the
+immobility of manner he maintained under all circumstances and during
+every fluctuation which took place in the presentation of his case, or
+in the temper of the people surrounding him. I felt that beyond the
+one fact that he could be relied upon to protect Carmel’s name and
+Carmel’s character, even to the jeopardising of his case, he was not
+to be counted on, and might yet startle many of us, and most notably
+of all, the little woman waiting to hear what he had to say in his own
+defence before she threw herself into the breach and made that devoted
+attempt to save him, in his own despite, which had been my terror from
+the first and was my terror now.
+
+Perjury! but not in his own defence--rather in opposition to it--that
+is what his counsel had to fear; and I wondered if they knew it.
+My attention became absorbed in the puzzle. Carmel’s fate, if not
+Ella’s--and certainly my own--hung upon the issue. This I knew, and
+this I faced, calmly, but very surely, as, the preliminary questions
+having been answered, Mr. Moffat proceeded.
+
+The witness’s name having been demanded and given and some other
+preliminary formalities gone through, he was asked:
+
+“Mr. Cumberland, did you have any quarrel with your sister during the
+afternoon or evening of December the second?”
+
+“I did.” Then, as if not satisfied with this simple statement, he
+blurted forth: “And it wasn’t the first. I hated the discipline she
+imposed upon me, and the disapproval she showed of my ways and the
+manner in which I chose to spend my money.”
+
+A straightforward expression of feeling, but hardly a judicious one.
+
+Judge Edwards glanced, in some surprise, from Mr. Moffat to the daring
+man who could choose thus to usher in his defence; and then, forgetting
+his own emotions, in his instinctive desire for order, rapped sharply
+with his gavel in correction of the audible expression of a like
+feeling on the part of the expectant audience.
+
+Mr. Moffat, apparently unaffected by this result of his daring move,
+pursued his course, with the quiet determination of one who sees his
+goal and is working deliberately towards it.
+
+“Do you mind particularising? Of what did she especially disapprove in
+your conduct or way of spending money?”
+
+“She disapproved of my fondness for drink. She didn’t like my late
+hours, or the condition in which I frequently came home. I did not like
+her expressions of displeasure, or the way she frequently cut me short
+when I wanted to have a good time with my friends. We never agreed. I
+made her suffer often and unnecessarily. I regret it now; she was a
+better sister to me than I could then understand.”
+
+This was uttered slowly and with a quiet emphasis which reawakened that
+excited hum the judge had been at such pains to quell a moment before.
+But he did not quell it now; he seemed to have forgotten his duty in
+the strong interest called up by these admissions from the tongue of
+the most imperturbable prisoner he had had before him in years.
+
+Mr. Moffat, with an eye on District Attorney Fox, who had shown his
+surprise at the trend the examination was taking by a slight indication
+of uneasiness, grateful enough, no doubt, to the daring counsellor,
+went on with his examination:
+
+“Mr. Cumberland, will you tell us when you first felt this change of
+opinion in regard to your sister?”
+
+Mr. Fox leaped to his feet. Then he slowly reseated himself. Evidently
+he thought it best to let the prisoner have his full say. Possibly he
+may have regretted his leniency the next moment when, with a solemn
+lowering of his head, Arthur answered:
+
+“When I saw my home desolated in one dreadful night. With one sister
+dead in the house, the victim of violence, and another delirious from
+fright or some other analogous cause, I had ample time to think--and I
+used that time. That’s all.”
+
+Simple words, read or repeated; but in that crowded court-room, with
+every ear strained to catch the lie which seemed the only refuge for
+the man so hemmed in by circumstance, these words, uttered without the
+least attempt at effect, fell with a force which gave new life to such
+as wished to see this man acquitted.
+
+His counsel, as if anxious to take advantage of this very expectation
+to heighten the effect of what followed, proceeded immediately to
+inquire:
+
+“When did you see your sister Adelaide for the last time alive?”
+
+A searching question. What would be his reply?
+
+A very quiet one.
+
+“That night at the dinner-table. When I left the room, I turned to
+look at her. She was not looking at me; so I slammed the door and went
+upstairs. In an hour or so, I had left the house to get a drink. I got
+the drink, but I never saw Adelaide again till I saw her in her coffin.”
+
+This blunt denial of the crime for which he stood there arraigned, fell
+on my heart with a weight which showed me how inextinguishable is the
+hope we cherish deep down under all surface convictions. I had been
+unconscious of this hope, but it was there. It seemed to die a double
+death at these words. For I believed him! Courage is needed for a lie.
+There were no signs visible in him, as yet, of his having drawn upon
+this last resource of the despairing. I should know it when he did; he
+could not hide the subtle change from me.
+
+To others, this declaration came with greater or less force, according
+as it was viewed in the light of a dramatic trick of Mr. Moffat’s, or
+as the natural outburst of a man fighting for his life in his own way
+and with his own weapons. I could not catch the eye of Ella cowering
+low in her seat, so could not judge what tender chords had been struck
+in her sensitive breast by these two assertions so dramatically offset
+against each other--the one, his antagonism to the dead; the other, his
+freedom from the crime in which that antagonism was supposed to have
+culminated.
+
+Mr. Moffat, satisfied so far, put his next question with equal
+directness:
+
+“Mr. Cumberland, you have mentioned seeing your sister in her coffin.
+When was this?”
+
+“At the close of her funeral, just before she was carried out.”
+
+“Was that the first and only time you had seen her so placed?”
+
+“It was.”
+
+“Had you seen the casket itself prior to this moment of which you
+speak?”
+
+“I had not.”
+
+“Had you been near it? Had you handled it in any way?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Mr. Cumberland, you have heard mention made of a ring worn by your
+sister in life, but missing from her finger after death?”
+
+“I have.”
+
+“You remember this ring?”
+
+“I do.”
+
+“Is this it?”
+
+“It is, so far as I can judge at this distance.”
+
+“Hand the ring to the witness,” ordered the judge.
+
+The ring was so handed.
+
+He glanced at it, and said bitterly: “I recognise it. It was her
+engagement ring.”
+
+“Was this ring on her finger that night at the dinner-table?”
+
+“I cannot say, positively, but I believe so. I should have noticed its
+absence.”
+
+“Why, may I ask?”
+
+For the first time the prisoner flushed and the look he darted at his
+counsel had the sting of a reproach in it. Yet he answered: “It was
+the token of an engagement I didn’t believe in or like. I should have
+hailed any proof that this engagement was off.”
+
+Mr. Moffat smiled enigmatically.
+
+“Mr. Cumberland, if you are not sure of having seen this ring then,
+when did you see it and where?”
+
+A rustle from end to end of that crowded court-room. This was an
+audacious move. What was coming? What would be the answer of the man
+who was believed not only to have made himself the possessor of this
+ring, but to have taken a most strange and uncanny method of disposing
+of it afterward? In the breathless hush which followed this first
+involuntary expression of feeling, Arthur’s voice rose, harsh but
+steady in this reply:
+
+“I saw it when the police showed it to me, and asked me if I could
+identify it.”
+
+“Was that the only time you have seen it up to the present moment?”
+
+Instinctively, the witness’s right hand rose; it was as if he were
+mentally repeating his oath before he uttered coldly and with emphasis,
+though without any show of emotion:
+
+“It is.”
+
+The universal silence gave way to a universal sigh of excitement and
+relief. District Attorney Fox’s lips curled with an imperceptible
+smile of disdain, which might have impressed the jury if they had been
+looking his way; but they were all looking with eager and interested
+eyes at the prisoner, who had just uttered this second distinct and
+unequivocal denial.
+
+Mr. Moffat noted this, and his own lip curled, but with a very
+different show of feeling from that which had animated his
+distinguished opponent. Without waiting for the present sentiment to
+cool, he proceeded immediately with his examination:
+
+“You swear that you have seen this ring but once since the night
+of your sister’s death, and that was when it was shown you in the
+coroner’s office?”
+
+“I do.”
+
+“Does this mean that it was not in your possession at any time during
+that interim?”
+
+“It certainly does.”
+
+“Mr. Cumberland, more than one witness has testified to the fact of
+your having been seen to place your hand in the casket of your sister,
+before the eyes of the minister and of others attending her funeral. Is
+this true?”
+
+“It is.”
+
+“Was not this a most unusual thing to do?”
+
+“Perhaps. I was not thinking about that. I had a duty to perform, and I
+performed it.”
+
+“A duty? Will you explain to the jury what duty?”
+
+The witness’s head rose, then sank. He, as well as every one else,
+seemed to be impressed by the solemnity of the moment. Though the
+intensity of my own interest would not allow my eyes to wander from his
+face, I could imagine the strained look in Ella’s, as she awaited his
+words.
+
+They came in another instant, but with less steadiness than he had
+shown before. I even thought I could detect a tremor in his muscles, as
+well as in his voice:
+
+“I had rebelled against my sister’s wishes; I had grieved and deceived
+her up to the very night of her foul and unnatural death--and all
+through _drink_.”
+
+Here his eye flashed, and for that fleeting moment he looked a man.
+“I wished to take an oath--an oath I would remember. It was for this
+purpose I ordered the casket opened, and thrust my fingers through
+the flowers I found there. When my fingers touched my sister’s brow,
+I inwardly swore never to taste liquor again. I have kept that oath.
+Difficult as it was, in my state of mind, and with all my troubles, I
+have kept it--and been misunderstood in doing so,” he added, in lower
+tones, and with just a touch of bitterness.
+
+It was such an unexpected explanation, and so calculated to cause a
+decided and favourable reaction in the minds of those who had looked
+upon this especial act of his as an irrefutable proof of guilt, that
+it was but natural that some show of public feeling should follow. But
+this was checked almost immediately, and Mr. Moffat’s voice was heard
+rising again in his strange but telling examination:
+
+“When you thrust your hand in to take this oath, did you drop anything
+into your sister’s casket?”
+
+“I did not. My hand was empty. I held no ring, and dropped none in. I
+simply touched her forehead.”
+
+This added to the feeling; and, in another instant, the excitement
+might have risen into hubbub, had not the emotions of one little woman
+found vent in a low and sobbing cry which relieved the tension and gave
+just the relief needed to hold in check the overstrained feelings of
+the crowd. I knew the voice and cast one quick glance that way, in time
+to see Ella sinking affrightedly out of sight under the dismayed looks
+of father and mother; then, anxious to note whether the prisoner had
+recognised her, too, looked hastily back to find him standing quietly
+and unmoved, with his eyes on his counsel and his lips set in the stern
+line which was slowly changing his expression.
+
+That counsel, strangely alive to the temper and feelings of his
+audience, waited just long enough for the few simple and solemn words
+uttered by the accused man to produce their full effect, then with a
+side glance at Mr. Fox, whose equanimity he had at last succeeded in
+disturbing, and whose cross-examination of the prisoner he had still
+to fear, continued his own examination by demanding why, when the ring
+was discovered in Adelaide’s casket and he saw what inferences would be
+drawn from the fact, he had not made an immediate public explanation of
+his conduct and the reasons he had had for putting his hand there.
+
+“I’m not a muff,” shot from the prisoner’s lips, in his old manner. “A
+man who would take such an oath, in such a way, and at such a time, is
+not the man to talk about it until he is forced to. I would not talk
+about it now--”
+
+He was checked at this point; but the glimpse we thus obtained of
+the natural man, in this indignant and sullen outburst, following so
+quickly upon the solemn declarations of the moment before, did more for
+him in the minds of those present than the suavest and most discreet
+answer given under the instigation of his counsel. Every face showed
+pleasure, and for a short space, if for no longer, all who listened
+were disposed to accept his assertions and accord the benefit of doubt
+to this wayward son of an esteemed father.
+
+To me, who had hoped nothing from Moffat’s efforts, the substantial
+nature of the defence thus openly made manifest, brought reanimation
+and an unexpected confidence in the future.
+
+The question as to who had dropped the ring into the casket if Arthur
+had not--the innocent children, the grieving servants--was latent, of
+course, in every breast, but it had not yet reached the point demanding
+expression.
+
+Meanwhile, the examination proceeded.
+
+“Mr. Cumberland, you have stated that you did not personally drop this
+ring into the place where it was ultimately found. Can you tell us of
+your own knowledge who did?”
+
+“I cannot. I know nothing about the ring. I was much surprised,
+probably more surprised than any one else, to hear of its discovery in
+that place.”
+
+The slip--and it was a slip for him to introduce that _more_--was
+immediately taken advantage of by his counsel.
+
+“You say ‘more,’ Why should it be more of a surprise to you than to any
+one else to learn where this missing engagement ring of your sister’s
+had been found?”
+
+Again that look of displeasure directed towards his questioner, and a
+certain additional hardness in his reply, when he finally made it.
+
+“I was her brother. I had a brother’s antipathies and rightful
+suspicions. I could not see how that ring came to be where it was, when
+the only one interested in its restoration was in prison.”
+
+This was a direct blow at myself, and of course called Mr. Fox to his
+feet, with a motion to strike out this answer. An altercation followed
+between him and Mr. Moffat, which, deeply as it involved my life and
+reputation, failed to impress me, as it might otherwise have done, if
+my whole mind had not been engaged in reconciling the difficulty about
+this ring with what I knew of Carmel and the probability which existed
+of her having been responsible for its removal from her sister’s hand.
+But Carmel had been ill since, desperately ill and unconscious. She
+could have had nothing to do with its disposal afterwards among the
+flowers at her sister’s funeral. Nor had she been in a condition to
+delegate this act of concealment to another. Who, then, had been the
+intermediary in this business? The question was no longer a latent one
+in my mind; it was an insistent one, compelling me either to discredit
+Arthur’s explanation (in which case anything might be believed of him)
+or to accept for good and all this new theory that some person of
+unknown identity had played an accessory’s part in this crime, whose
+full burden I had hitherto laid upon the shoulders of the impetuous
+Carmel. Either hypothesis brought light. I began to breathe again the
+air of hope, and if observed at that moment, must have presented the
+odd spectacle of a man rejoicing in his own shame and accepting with
+positive uplift, the inevitable stigma cast upon his honour by the
+suggestive sentence just hurled at him by an indignant witness.
+
+The point raised by the district attorney having been ruled upon
+and sustained by the court, Mr. Moffat made no effort to carry his
+inquiries any further in the direction indicated; but I could see,
+with all my inexperience of the law and the ways of attorneys before a
+jury, that the episode had produced its inevitable result, and that my
+position, as a man released from suspicion, had received a shock, the
+results of which I might yet be made to feel.
+
+A moment’s pause followed, during which some of Mr. Moffat’s
+nervousness returned. He eyed the prisoner doubtfully, found him
+stoical and as self-contained as at the beginning of his examination,
+and plunged into a topic which most people had expected him to avoid.
+I certainly had, and felt all the uncertainty and secret alarm which
+an unexpected move occasions where the issue is momentous with life
+or death. I was filled with terror, not for the man on trial, but for
+my secret. Was it shared by the defence? Was Mr. Moffat armed with
+the knowledge I thought confined to myself and Arthur? Had the latter
+betrayed the cause I had been led to believe he was ready to risk
+his life to defend? Had I mistaken his gratitude to myself; or had I
+underrated Mr. Moffat’s insight or powers of persuasion? We had just
+been made witness to one triumph on the part of this able lawyer in a
+quarter deemed unassailable by the prosecution. Were we about to be
+made witnesses of another? I felt the sweat start on my forehead, and
+was only able to force myself into some show of self-possession by
+the evident lack of perfect assurance with which this same lawyer now
+addressed his client.
+
+The topic which had awakened in me these doubts and consequent
+agitation will appear from the opening question.
+
+“Mr. Cumberland, to return to the night of your sister’s death. Can you
+tell us what overcoat you put on when leaving your house?”
+
+Arthur was as astonished and certainly as disconcerted, if not as
+seriously alarmed, as I was, by this extraordinary move. Surprise,
+anger, then some deeper feeling rang in his voice as he replied:
+
+“I cannot. I took down the first I saw and _the first hat._”
+
+The emphasis placed on the last three words may have been meant as a
+warning to his audacious counsel, but if so, it was not heeded.
+
+“Took down? Took down from where?”
+
+“From the rack in the hall where I hang my things; the side hall
+leading to the door where we usually go out.”
+
+“Have you many coats--overcoats, I mean?”
+
+“More than one.”
+
+“And you do not know which one you put on that cold night?”
+
+“I do not.”
+
+“But you know what one you wore back?”
+
+“No.”
+
+Short, sharp, and threatening was this _no_. A war was on between this
+man and his counsel, and the wonder it occasioned was visible in every
+eye. Perhaps Mr. Moffat realised this; this was what he had dreaded,
+perhaps. At all events, he proceeded with his strange task, in apparent
+oblivion of everything but his own purpose.
+
+“You do not know what one you wore back?”
+
+“I do not.”
+
+“You have seen the hat and coat which have been shown here and sworn to
+as being the ones in which you appeared on your return to the house,
+the day following your sister’s murder?”
+
+“I have.”
+
+“Also the hat and coat found on a remote hook in the closet under the
+stairs, bearing the flour-mark on its under brim?”
+
+“Yes, that too.”
+
+“Yet cannot say which of these two overcoats you put on when you left
+your home, an hour or so after finishing your dinner?”
+
+Trapped by his own lawyer--visibly and remorselessly trapped! The
+blood, shooting suddenly into the astounded prisoner’s face, was
+reflected on the cheeks of the other lawyers present. Even Mr.
+Fox betrayed his surprise; but it was a surprise not untinged by
+apprehension. Mr. Moffat must feel very sure of himself to venture thus
+far. I, who feared to ask myself the cause of this assurance, could
+only wait and search the partially visible face of little Ella for an
+enlightenment, which was no more to be found there than in the swollen
+features of the outraged Arthur. The excitement which this event
+caused, afforded the latter some few moments in which to quell his own
+indignation; and when he spoke, it was passionately, yet not without
+some effort at restraint.
+
+“I cannot. I was in no condition to notice. I was bent on going into
+town, and immediately upon coming downstairs went straight to the rack
+and pulled on the first things that offered.”
+
+It appeared to be a perfect give-a-way. And it was, but it was a
+give-a-way which, I feared, threatened Carmel rather than her brother.
+
+Mr. Moffat, still nervous, still avoiding the prisoner’s eye,
+relentlessly pursued his course, unmindful--wilfully so, it
+appeared--of the harm he was doing himself, as well as the witness.
+
+“Mr. Cumberland, were a coat and hat all that you took from that hall?”
+
+“No, I took a key--a key from the bunch which I saw lying on the table.”
+
+“Did you recognise this key?”
+
+“I did.”
+
+“What key was it?”
+
+“It belonged to Mr. Ranelagh, and was the key to the club-house
+wine-vault.”
+
+“Where did you put it after taking it up?”
+
+“In my trousers’ pocket.”
+
+“What did you do then?”
+
+“Went out, of course.”
+
+“Without seeing anybody?”
+
+“Of course. Whom should I see?”
+
+It was angrily said, and the flush, which had begun to die away, slowly
+made its way back into his cheeks.
+
+“Are you willing to repeat that you saw no one?”
+
+“There was no one.”
+
+A lie! All knew it, all felt it. The man was perjuring himself, under
+his own counsel’s persistent questioning on a point which that counsel
+had evidently been warned by him to avoid. I was assured of this by the
+way Moffat failed to meet Arthur’s eye, as he pressed on hastily, and
+in a way to forestall all opposition.
+
+“There are two ways of leaving your house for the city. Which way did
+you take?”
+
+“The shortest. I went through my neighbour’s grounds to Huested Street.”
+
+“Immediately?”
+
+“As soon as I could. I don’t know what you mean by immediately.”
+
+“Didn’t you stop at the stable?”
+
+A pause, during which more than one person present sat breathless.
+These questions were what might be expected from Mr. Fox in
+cross-examination. They seemed totally unsuited to a direct examination
+at the hands of his own counsel. What did such an innovation mean?
+
+“Yes, I stopped at the stable.”
+
+“What to do?”
+
+“To look at the horses.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“One of them had gone lame. I wanted to see his condition.”
+
+“Was it the grey mare?”
+
+Had the defence changed places with the prosecution? It looked like
+it; and Arthur looked as if he considered Mr. Moffat guilty of the
+unheard of, inexplainable act, of cross-examining his own witness. The
+situation was too tempting for Mr. Fox to resist calling additional
+attention to it. With an assumption of extreme consideration, he leaned
+forward and muttered under his breath to his nearest colleague, but
+still loud enough for those about him to hear:
+
+“The prisoner must know that he is not bound to answer questions when
+such answers tend to criminate him.”.
+
+A lightning glance, shot in his direction, was the eloquent advocate’s
+sole reply.
+
+But Arthur, nettled into speaking, answered the question put him, in a
+loud, quick tone: “It was not the grey mare; but I went up to the grey
+mare before going out; I patted her and bade her be a good girl.”
+
+“Where was she then?”
+
+“Where she belonged--in her stall.”
+
+The tones had sunk; so had the previously lifted head; he no longer
+commanded universal sympathy or credence. The effect of his former
+avowals was almost gone.
+
+Yet Mr. Moffat could smile. As I noticed this, and recognised the
+satisfaction it evinced, my heart went down, in great trouble. This
+esteemed advocate, the hero of a hundred cases, was not afraid to have
+it known that Arthur had harnessed that mare; he even wanted it known.
+Why? There could be but one answer to that--or, so I thought, at the
+moment. The next, I did not know what to think; for he failed to pursue
+this subject, and simply asked Arthur if, upon leaving, he had locked
+the stable-door.
+
+“Yes--no,--I don’t remember,” was the bungling, and greatly confused
+reply.
+
+Mr. Moffat glanced at the jury, the smile still on his lips. Did he
+wish to impress that body with the embarrassment of his client?
+
+“Relate what followed. I am sure the jury will be glad to hear your
+story from your own lips.”
+
+“It’s a beastly one, but if I’ve got to tell it, here it is: I went
+straight down to Cuthbert Road and across the fields to the club-house.
+I had not taken the key to the front door, because I knew of a window
+I could shake loose. I did this and went immediately down to the
+wine-vault. I used an electric torch of my own for light. I pulled
+out several bottles, and carried them up into the kitchen, meaning to
+light the gas, kindle a fire, and have a good time generally. But I
+soon found that I must do without light if I stayed there. The meter
+had been taken out; and to drink by the flash of an electric torch was
+anything but a pleasing prospect. Besides--” here he flashed at his
+counsel a glance, which for a moment took that gentleman aback--“I
+had heard certain vague sounds in the house which alarmed me, as well
+as roused my curiosity. Choosing the bottle I liked best, I went to
+investigate these sounds.”
+
+Mr. Moffat started. His witness was having his revenge. Kept in
+ignorance of his counsel’s plan of defence, he was evidently advancing
+testimony new to that counsel. I had not thought the lad so subtle, and
+quaked in secret contemplation of the consequences. So did some others;
+but the interest was intense. He had heard sounds--he acknowledged it.
+But what sounds?
+
+Observing the excitement he had caused, and gratified, perhaps, that
+he had succeeded in driving that faint but unwelcome smile from Mr.
+Moffat’s lips, Arthur hastened to add:
+
+“But I did not complete my investigations. Arrived at the top of
+the stairs, I heard what drove me from the house at once. It was my
+sister’s voice--Adelaide’s. She was in the building, and I stood almost
+on a level with her, with a bottle in my pocket. It did not take me a
+minute to clamber through the window. I did not stop to wonder, or ask
+why she was there, or to whom she was speaking. I just fled and made
+my way as well as I could across the golf-links to a little hotel on
+Cuthbert Road, where I had been once before. There I emptied my bottle,
+and was so overcome by it that I did not return home till noon the
+next day. It was on the way to the Hill that I was told of the awful
+occurrence which had taken place in the club-house after I had left it.
+That sobered me. I have been sober ever since.”
+
+Mr. Moffat’s smile came back. One might have said that he had been
+rather pleased than otherwise by the introduction of this unexpected
+testimony.
+
+But I doubt if any one but myself witnessed this evidence of
+good-humour on his part. Arthur’s attitude and Arthur’s manner had
+drawn all eyes to himself. As the last words I have recorded left
+his lips, he had raised his head and confronted the jury with a
+straightforward gaze. The sturdiness and immobility of his aspect were
+impressive, in spite of his plain features and the still unmistakable
+signs of long cherished discontent and habitual dissipation. He had
+struck bottom with his feet, and there he would stand,--or so I thought
+as I levelled my own glances at him.
+
+But I had not fully sounded all of Alonzo Moffat’s resources. That
+inscrutable lawyer and not-easily-to-be-understood man seemed
+determined to mar every good impression his unfortunate client managed
+to make.
+
+Ignoring the new facts just given, undoubtedly thinking that they would
+be amply sifted in the coming cross-examination, he drew the attention
+of the prisoner to himself by the following question:
+
+“Will you tell us again how many bottles of wine you took from the
+club-house?”
+
+“One. No--I’m not sure about that--I’m not sure of anything. I had only
+one when at the inn in Cuthbert Road.”
+
+“You remember but one?”
+
+“I had but one. One was enough. I had trouble in carrying that.”
+
+“Was the ground slippery?”
+
+“It was snowy and it was uneven. I stumbled more than once in crossing
+the links.”
+
+“Mr. Cumberland, is there anything you would like to say in your own
+defence before I close this examination?”
+
+The prisoner thus appealed to, let his eye rest for a moment on the
+judge, then on the jury, and finally on one little white face lifted
+from the crowd before him as if to meet and absorb his look. Then he
+straightened himself, and in a quiet and perfectly natural voice,
+uttered these simple words:
+
+“Nothing but this: I am innocent.”
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+THE SYLLABLE OF DOOM
+
+I alit
+On a great ship lightning-split,
+And speeded hither on the sigh
+Of one who gave an enemy
+His plank, then plunged aside to die.
+
+_Prometheus Unbound_.
+
+
+Recess followed. Clifton and I had the opportunity of exchanging a few
+words. He was voluble; I was reticent. I felt obliged to hide from
+him the true cause of the deep agitation under which I was labouring.
+Attached as he was to me, keenly as he must have felt my anomalous
+position, he was too full of Moffat’s unwarrantable introduction of
+testimony damaging to his client, to think or talk of anything else.
+
+“He has laid him open to attack on every side. Fox has but to follow
+his lead, and the thing is done. Poor Arthur may be guilty, but he
+certainly should have every chance a careful lawyer could give him.
+You can see--he makes it very evident--that he has no further use for
+Moffat. I wonder under whose advice he chose him for his counsel. I
+have never thought much of Moffat, myself. He wins his cases but--”
+
+“He will win this,” I muttered.
+
+Clifton started; looked at me very closely for a minute, paled a
+little--I fear that I was very pale myself--but did not ask the
+question rising to his lips.
+
+“There is method in the madness of a man like that,” I pursued with a
+gloom I could not entirely conceal. “He has come upon some evidence
+which he has not even communicated to his client. At least, I fear so.
+We must be prepared for any untoward event.” Then, noticing Clifton’s
+alarm and wishing to confine it within safe bounds, I added: “I feel
+that I am almost as much on trial as Arthur himself. Naturally I am
+anxious at the appearance of anything I do not understand.”
+
+Clifton frowned. We were quite alone. Leaning forward, he touched my
+arm.
+
+“Elwood,” said he, “you’ve not been quite open with me.”
+
+I smiled. If half the bitterness and sorrow in my heart went into that
+smile, it must have been a sad and bitter one indeed.
+
+“You have a right to reproach me,” said I, “but not wholly. I did not
+deceive you in essentials. You may still believe me as guiltless of
+Adelaide’s violent death as a man can be who drove her and hers into
+misery which death alone could end.”
+
+“I will believe it,” he muttered, “I must.” And he dropped the subject,
+as he made me see, forever.
+
+I drew a deep breath of relief. I had come very near to revealing my
+secret.
+
+When we returned to the court-room, we found it already packed with a
+very subdued and breathless crowd. It differed somewhat from the one
+which had faced us in the morning; but Ella and her parents were there
+and many others of the acknowledged friends of the accused and of his
+family.
+
+He, himself, wore the heavy and dogged air which became him least.
+Physically refreshed, he carried himself boldly, but it was a boldness
+which convinced me that any talk he may have had with his lawyer, had
+been no more productive of comfort than the one I had held with mine.
+
+As he took the witness chair, and prepared to meet the
+cross-examination of the district attorney, a solemn hush settled
+upon the room. Would the coming ordeal rob his brow of its present
+effrontery, or would he continue to bear himself with the same surly
+dignity, which, misunderstood as it was, produced its own effect, and
+at certain moments seemed to shake even the confidence of Mr. Fox,
+settled as he seemed to be in his belief in the integrity of his cause
+and the rights of the prosecution.
+
+Shaken or not, his attack was stern, swift, and to the point.
+
+“Was the visit you made to the wine-vault on the evening of the second
+of December, the first one you had ever paid there?”
+
+“No; I had been there once before. But I always paid for my
+depredations,” he added, proudly.
+
+“The categorical answer, Mr. Cumberland. Anything else is superfluous.”
+
+Arthur’s lip curled, but only for an instant; and nothing could have
+exceeded the impassiveness of his manner as Mr. Fox went on.
+
+“Then you knew the way?”
+
+“Perfectly.”
+
+“And the lock?”
+
+“Sufficiently well to open it without difficulty.”
+
+“How long do you think you were in entering the house and procuring
+these bottles?”
+
+“I cannot say. I have no means of knowing; I never thought of looking
+at my watch.”
+
+“Not when you started? Not when you left Cuthbert Road?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“But you know when you left the club-house to go back?”
+
+“Only by this--it had not yet begun to snow. I’m told that the
+first flakes fell that night at ten minutes to eleven. I was on the
+golf-links when this happened. You can fix the time yourself. Pardon
+me,” he added, with decided ill-grace as he met Mr. Fox’s frown. “I
+forgot your injunction.”
+
+Mr. Fox smiled an acrid smile, as he asked: “Whereabouts on the
+golf-links? They extend for some distance, you remember.”
+
+“They are six hundred yards across from first tee to the third hole,
+which is the nearest one to Cuthbert Road,” Arthur particularised. “I
+was--no, I can’t tell you just where I was at that moment. It was a
+good ways from the house. The snow came on very fiercely. For a little
+while I could not see my way.”
+
+“How, not see your way?”
+
+“The snow flew into my eyes.”
+
+“Crossing the links?”
+
+“Yes, sir, crossing the links.”
+
+“But the storm came from the west. It should have beaten against your
+back.”
+
+“Back or front, it bothered me. I could not get on as fast as I wished.”
+
+Mr. Fox cast a look at the jury. Did they remember the testimony of the
+landlord that Mr. Cumberland’s coat was as thickly plastered with snow
+on the front as it had been on the back. He seemed to gather that they
+did, for he went on at once to say:
+
+“You are accustomed to the links? You have crossed them often?”
+
+“Yes, I play golf there all summer.”
+
+“I’m not alluding to the times when you play. I mean to ask whether or
+not you had ever before crossed them directly to Cuthbert Road?”
+
+“Yes, I had.”
+
+“In a storm?”
+
+“No, not in a storm.”
+
+“How long did it take you that time to reach Cuthbert Road from The
+Whispering Pines?”
+
+Mr. Moffat bounded to his feet, but the prisoner had answered before he
+could speak.
+
+“Just fifteen minutes.”
+
+“How came you to know the time so exactly?”
+
+“Because that day I did look at my watch. I had an engagement in the
+lower town, and had only twenty minutes in which to keep it. I was on
+time.”
+
+Honest at the core. This boy was growing rapidly in my favour. But this
+frank but unwise answer was not pleasing to his counsel, who would have
+advised, no doubt, a more general and less precise reply. However, it
+had been made and Moffat was not a man to cry over spilled milk. He
+did not even wince when the district attorney proceeded to elicit from
+the prisoner that he was a good walker, not afraid in the least of
+snow-storms and had often walked, in the teeth of the gale twice that
+distance in less than half an hour. Now, as the storm that night had
+been at his back, and he was in a hurry to reach his destination, it
+was evidently incumbent upon him to explain how he had managed to use
+up the intervening time of forty minutes before entering the hotel at
+half-past eleven.
+
+“Did you stop in the midst of the storm to take a drink?” asked the
+district attorney.
+
+As the testimony of the landlord in Cuthbert Road had been explicit
+as to the fact of his having himself uncorked the bottle which the
+prisoner had brought into the hotel, Arthur could not plead yes. He
+must say no, and he did.
+
+“I drank nothing; I was too busy thinking. I was so busy thinking I
+wandered all over those links.”
+
+“In the blinding snow?”
+
+“Yes, in the snow. What did I care for the snow? I did not understand
+my sister being in the club-house. I did not like it; I was tempted at
+times to go back.”
+
+“And why didn’t you?”
+
+“Because I was more of a brute than a brother--because Cuthbert Road
+drew me in spite of myself--because--” He stopped with the first hint
+of emotion we had seen in him since the morning. “I did not know what
+was going on there or I should have gone back,” he flashed out, with a
+defiant look at his counsel.
+
+Again sympathy was with him. Mr. Fox had won but little in this first
+attempt. He seemed to realise this, and shifted his attack to a point
+more vulnerable.
+
+“When you heard your sister’s voice in the club-house, how did you
+think she had got into the building?”
+
+“By means of the keys Ranelagh had left at the house.”
+
+“When, instead of taking the whole bunch, you took the one key you
+wanted from the ring, did you do so with any idea she might want to
+make use of the rest?”
+
+“No, I never thought of it. I never thought of her at all.”
+
+“You took your one key, and let the rest lie?”
+
+“You’ve said it.”
+
+“Was this before or after you put on your overcoat?”
+
+“I’m not sure; after, I think. Yes, it was after; for I remember that
+I had a deuce of a time unbuttoning my coat to get at my trousers’
+pocket.”
+
+“You dropped this key into your trousers’ pocket?”
+
+“I did.”
+
+“Mr. Cumberland, let me ask you to fix your memory on the moments you
+spent in the hall. Did you put on your hat before you pocketed the key,
+or afterwards?”
+
+“My hat? How can I tell? My mind wasn’t on my hat. I don’t know when I
+put it on.”
+
+“You absolutely do not remember?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Nor where you took it from?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Whether you saw the keys first, and then went for your hat; or having
+pocketed the key, waited--”
+
+“I did not wait.”
+
+“Did not stand by the table thinking?”
+
+“No, I was in too much of a hurry.”
+
+“So that you went straight out?”
+
+“Yes, as quickly as I could.”
+
+The district attorney paused, to be sure of the attention of the jury.
+When he saw that every eye of that now thoroughly aroused body was on
+him, he proceeded to ask: “Does that mean immediately, or as soon as
+you could after you had made certain preparations, or held certain talk
+with some one you called, or who called to you?”
+
+“I called to nobody. I--I went out immediately.”
+
+It was evident that he lied; evident, too, that he had little hope from
+his lie. Uneasiness was taking the place of confidence in his youthful,
+untried, undisciplined mind. Carmel had spoken to him in the hall--I
+guessed it then, I knew it afterward--and he thought to deceive this
+court and blindfold a jury, whose attention had been drawn to this
+point by his own counsel.
+
+District Attorney Fox smiled. “How then did you get into the stable?”
+
+“The stable! Oh, I had no trouble in getting into the stable.”
+
+“Was it unlocked?”
+
+A slow flush broke over the prisoner’s whole face. He saw where he
+had been landed and took a minute to pull himself together before he
+replied: “I had the key to that door, too. I got it out of the kitchen.”
+
+“You have not spoken of going into the kitchen.”
+
+“I have not spoken of coming downstairs.”
+
+“You went into the kitchen?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“When?”
+
+“When I first came down.”
+
+“That is not in accordance with your direct testimony. On the contrary,
+you said that on coming downstairs you went straight to the rack for
+your overcoat. Stenographer read what the prisoner said on this topic.”
+
+A rustling of leaves, distinctly to be heard in the deathlike silence
+of the room, was followed by the reading of this reply and answer:
+
+“_Yet you cannot say which of these two overcoats you put on when you
+left your home an hour or so after finishing your dinner?_”
+
+“_I cannot. I was in no condition to notice. I was bent on going into
+town and, on coming downstairs, I went straight to the rack and pulled
+on the first things that offered._”
+
+The prisoner stood immobile but with a deepening line gathering on his
+brow until the last word fell. Then he said: “I forgot. I went for the
+key before I put on my overcoat. I wanted to see how the sick horse
+looked.”
+
+“Did you drop this key into your pocket, too?”
+
+“No, I carried it into the hall.”
+
+“What did you do with it there?”
+
+“I don’t know. Put it on the table, I suppose.”
+
+“Don’t you remember? There were other keys lying on this table. Don’t
+you remember what you did with the one in your hand while you took the
+club-house key from the midst of Mr. Ranelagh’s bunch?”
+
+“I laid it on the table. I must have--there was no other place to put
+it.”
+
+“Laid it down by itself?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And took it up when you went out?”
+
+“Of course.”
+
+“Carrying it straight to the stable?”
+
+“Naturally.”
+
+“What did you do with it when you came out?”
+
+“I left it in the stable-door.”
+
+“You did? What excuse have you to give for that?”
+
+“None. I was reckless, and didn’t care for anything--that’s all.”
+
+“Yet you took several minutes, for all your hurry and your
+indifference, to get the stable key and look in at a horse that wasn’t
+sick enough to keep your coachman home from a dance.”
+
+The prisoner was silent.
+
+“You have no further explanation to give on this subject?”
+
+“No. All fellows who love horses will understand.”
+
+The district attorney shrugged this answer away before he went on to
+say: “You have listened to Zadok Brown’s testimony. When he returned at
+three, he found the stable-door locked, and the key hanging up on its
+usual nail in the kitchen. How do you account for this?”
+
+“There are two ways.”
+
+“Mention them, if you please.”
+
+“Zadok had been to a dance, and may not have been quite clear as to
+what he saw. Or, finding the stable door open, may have blamed himself
+for the fact and sought to cover up his fault with a lie.”
+
+“Have you ever caught him in a lie?”
+
+“No; but there’s always a first time.”
+
+“You would impeach his testimony then?”
+
+“No. You asked me how this discrepancy could be explained, and I have
+tried to show you.”
+
+“Mr. Cumberland, the grey mare was out that night; this has been amply
+proved.”
+
+“If you believe Zadok, yes.”
+
+“You have heard other testimony corroborative of this fact. She was
+seen on the club-house road that night, by a person amply qualified to
+identify her.”
+
+“So I’ve been told.”
+
+“The person driving this horse wore a hat, identified as an old one
+of yours, which hat was afterwards found at your house on a remote
+peg in a seldom-used closet. If you were not this person, how can you
+explain the use of your horse, the use of your clothes, the locking of
+the stable-door--which you declare yourself to have left open--and the
+hanging up of the key on its own nail?”
+
+It was a crucial question--how crucial no one knew but our two selves.
+If he answered at all, he must compromise Carmel. I had no fear of his
+doing this, but I had great fear of what Ella might do if he let this
+implication stand and made no effort to exonerate himself by denying
+his presence in the cutter, and consequent return to the Cumberland
+home. The quick side glances I here observed cast in her direction
+by both father and mother, showed that she had made some impulsive
+demonstration visible to them, if not to others and fearful of the
+consequences if I did not make some effort to hold her in check, I kept
+my eyes in her direction, and so lost Arthur’s look and the look of his
+counsel as he answered, with just the word I had expected--a short and
+dogged:
+
+“I cannot explain.”
+
+It was my death warrant. I realised this even while I held Ella’s eye
+with mine and smoothed my countenance to meet the anguish in hers, in
+the effort to hold her back for a few minutes longer till I could quite
+satisfy myself that Arthur’s case was really lost and that I must speak
+or feel myself his murderer.
+
+The gloom which followed this recognition of his inability, real or
+fancied, to explain away the most damning feature of the case against
+him, taken with his own contradictions and growing despondency, could
+not escape my eye, accustomed as I was to the habitual expression of
+most every person there. But it was not yet the impenetrable gloom
+presaging conviction; and directing Ella’s gaze towards Mr. Moffat,
+who seemed but little disturbed either by Mr. Fox’s satisfaction or
+the prisoner’s open despair, I took heart of grace and waited for the
+district attorney’s next move. It was a fatal one. I began to recognise
+this very soon, simple as was the subject he now introduced.
+
+“When you went into the kitchen, Mr. Cumberland, to get the stable-door
+key, was the gas lit, or did you have to light it?”
+
+“It--it was lit, I think.”
+
+“Don’t you know?”
+
+“It was lit, but turned low. I could see well enough.”
+
+“Why, then, didn’t you take both keys?”
+
+“Both keys?”
+
+“You have said you went down town by the short cut through your
+neighbour’s yard. That cut is guarded by a door, which was locked that
+night. You needed the key to that door more than the one to the stable.
+Why didn’t you take it?”
+
+“I--I did.”
+
+“You haven’t said so.”
+
+“I--I took it when I took the other.”
+
+“Are you sure?”
+
+“Yes; they both hung on one nail. I grabbed them both at the same time.”
+
+“It does not appear so in your testimony. You mentioned a key, not
+keys, in all your answers to my questions.”
+
+“There were two; I didn’t weigh my words. I needed both and I took
+both.”
+
+“Which of the two hung foremost?”
+
+“I didn’t notice.”
+
+“You took both?”
+
+“Yes, I took both.”
+
+“And went straight out with them?”
+
+“Yes, to the stable.”
+
+“And then where?”
+
+“Through the adjoining grounds downtown.”
+
+“You are sure you went through Mr. Fulton’s grounds at this early hour
+in the evening?”
+
+“I am positive.”
+
+“Was it not at a later hour, much later, a little before eleven instead
+of a little before nine?”
+
+“No, sir. I was on the golf-links then.”
+
+“But some one drove into the stable.”
+
+“So you say.”
+
+“Unharnessed the horse, drew up the cutter, locked the stable-door,
+and, entering the house, hung up the key where it belonged.”
+
+No answer this time.
+
+“Mr. Cumberland, you admitted in your direct examination that you took
+with you out of the clubhouse only one bottle of the especial brand you
+favoured, although you carried up two into the kitchen?”
+
+“No, I said that I only had one when I got to Cuthbert Road. I don’t
+remember anything about the other.”
+
+“But you know where the other--or rather remnants of the other, was
+found?”
+
+“In my own stable, taken there by my man Zadok Brown, who says he
+picked it out of one of our waste barrels.”
+
+“This is the part of bottle referred to. Do you recognise the label
+still adhering to it as similar to the one to be found on the bottle
+you emptied in Cuthbert Road?”
+
+“It is like that one.”
+
+“Had you carried that other bottle off, and had it been broken as
+this has been broken would it not have presented an exactly similar
+appearance to this?”
+
+“Possibly.”
+
+“Only possibly?”
+
+“It would have looked the same. I cannot deny it. What’s the use
+fooling?”
+
+“Mr. Cumberland, the only two bottles known to contain this especial
+brand of wine were in the clubhouse at ten o’clock that night. How came
+one of them to get into the barrel outside your stable before your
+return the next day?”
+
+“I cannot say.”
+
+“This barrel stood where?”
+
+“In the passage behind the stable.”
+
+“The passage you pass through on your way to the door leading into your
+neighbour’s grounds?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+The dreaded moment had come. This “Yes” had no sooner left Arthur’s
+lips than I saw Ella throw out her innocent arms, and leap impetuously
+to her feet, with a loud “No, no, I can tell--”
+
+She did not say what, for at the hubbub roused by this outbreak in
+open court, she fainted dead away and was carried out in her dismayed
+father’s arms.
+
+This necessarily caused a break in the proceedings. Mr. Fox suspended
+his cross-examination and in a few minutes more, the judge adjourned
+the court. As the prisoner rose and turned to pass out, I cast him
+a hurried glance to see what effect had been made upon him by this
+ingenuous outburst from one he had possibly just a little depreciated.
+A great one, evidently. His features were transformed, and he seemed
+almost as oblivious of the countless eyes upon him as she had been when
+she rose to testify for him in her self-forgetful enthusiasm. As I
+observed this and the satisfaction with which Mr. Moffat scented this
+new witness,--a satisfaction which promised little consideration for
+her if she ever came upon the stand--I surrendered to fate.
+
+Inwardly committing Carmel’s future to the God who made her and who
+knew better than we the story of her life and what her fiery temper
+had cost her, I drew a piece of paper from my pocket, and, while the
+courtroom was slowly emptying, hastily addressed the following lines to
+Mr. Moffat who had lingered to have a few words with his colleague:
+
+“There is a witness in this building who can testify more clearly and
+definitely than Miss Fulton, that Arthur Cumberland, for all we have
+heard in seeming contradiction to the same, might have been on the
+golf-links at the time he swears to. That witness is myself.
+
+“ELWOOD RANELAGH.”
+
+The time which elapsed between my passing over this note and his
+receiving and reading it, was to me like the last few moments of
+a condemned criminal. How gladly would I have changed places with
+Arthur, and with what sensations of despair I saw flitting before me
+in my mind’s eye, the various visions of Carmel’s loveliness which had
+charmed me out of myself. But the die had been cast, and I was ready
+to meet the surprised lawyer’s look when his eye rose from the words I
+had written and settled steadily on my face. Next minute he was writing
+busily and in a second later I was reading these words:
+
+“Do you absolutely wish to be recalled as a witness, and by the
+defence? M.”
+
+My answer was brief:
+
+“I do. Not to make a confession of crime. I have no such confession to
+make. But I know who drove that horse. R.”
+
+I had sacrificed Carmel to my sense of right. Never had I loved her as
+I did at that moment.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+EXPECTANCY
+
+I see your end,
+’T is my undoing.
+
+_King Henry VIII_.
+
+
+A turning-point had been reached in the defence. That every one knew
+after the first glance at Mr. Moffat, on the opening of the next
+morning’s session. As I noted the excitement which this occasioned
+even in quarters where self-control is usually most marked and such
+emotions suppressed, I marvelled at the subtle influence of one man’s
+expectancy, and the powerful effect which can be produced on a feverish
+crowd by a well-ordered silence suggestive of coming action.
+
+I, who knew the basis of this expectancy and the nature of the action
+with which Mr. Moffat anticipated startling the court, was the quietest
+person present. Since it was my hand and none other which must give
+this fresh turn to the wheel of justice, it were well for me to
+do it calmly and without any of the old maddening throb of heart.
+But the time seemed long before Arthur was released from further
+cross-examination, and the opportunity given Mr. Moffat to call his
+next witness.
+
+Something in the attitude he now took, something in the way he bent
+over his client and whispered a few admonitory words, and still more
+the emotion with which these words were received and answered by some
+extraordinary protest, aroused expectation to a still greater pitch,
+and made my course seem even more painful to myself than I had foreseen
+when dreaming over and weighing the possibilities of this hour. With
+something like terror, I awaited the calling of my name; and, when it
+was delayed, it was with emotions inexplicable to myself that I looked
+up and saw Mr. Moffat holding open a door at the left of the judge,
+with that attitude of respect, which a man only assumes in the presence
+and under the dominating influence of woman.
+
+“Ella!” thought I. “Instead of saving her by my contemplated sacrifice
+of Carmel, I have only added one sacrifice to another.”
+
+But when the timid faltering step we could faintly hear crossing the
+room beyond, had brought its possessor within sight, and I perceived
+the tall, black-robed, heavily veiled woman who reached for Mr.
+Moffat’s sustaining arm, I did not need the startling picture of the
+prisoner, standing upright, with outheld and repellant hands, to
+realise that the impossible had happened, and that all which he, as
+well as I, had done and left undone, suffered and suppressed, had been
+in vain.
+
+Mr. Moffat, with no eye for him or for me, conducted his witness to a
+chair; then, as she loosened her veil and let it drop in her lap, he
+cried in tones which rang from end to end of the court-room: “I summon
+Carmel Cumberland to the stand, to witness in her brother’s defence.”
+
+The surprise was complete. It was a great moment for Mr. Moffat; but
+for me all was confusion, dread, a veil of misty darkness, through
+which shone her face, marred by its ineffaceable scar, but calm as I
+had never expected to see it again in this life, and beautiful with a
+smile under which her deeply shaken and hardly conscious brother sank
+slowly back into his seat, amid a silence as profound as the hold she
+had immediately taken upon all hearts.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+“WHERE IS MY BROTHER?”
+
+Let me see the writing.
+My lord, ’tis nothing.
+No matter, then, who sees it;
+I will be satisfied, let me see the writing.
+
+_Richard II_.
+
+
+What is the explanation of Carmel’s reappearance in town and of this
+sensational introduction of her into the court-room, in a restored
+state of health of which no one, so far as known, had had any
+intimation save the man who was responsible for her appearance? The
+particulars are due you.
+
+She had passed some weeks at Lakewood, under the eye of the nurse who
+was detailed to watch, as well as tend her. During these weeks she gave
+no sign of improvement mentally, though she constantly gained strength
+otherwise, and impressed everybody with the clear light in her eye and
+the absence of everything suggestive of gloom in her expression and
+language. There was the same complete loss of memory up to the time of
+the tragic occurrence which had desolated her home; the same harping
+at odd moments on Adelaide’s happiness and her own prospect of seeing
+this dear sister very soon which had marked the opening days of her
+convalescence. But beyond and back of all this was some secret joy,
+unintelligible to the nurse, which helped rather than retarded the sick
+girl’s recovery, and made Carmel appear at times as if she walked on
+air and breathed the very breath of Paradise--an anomaly which not only
+roused Miss Unwin’s curiosity, but led her to regard with something
+like apprehension, any change in her patient’s state of mind which
+would rob her of the strange and unseen delights which fed her secret
+soul and made her oblivious of the awful facts awaiting a restored
+memory.
+
+Meanwhile Carmel was allowed such liberty as her condition required;
+but was never left alone for a moment after a certain day when her
+eye suddenly took on a strange look of confused inquiry, totally
+dissociated with anything she saw or heard. A stir had taken place
+in her brain, and her nurse wanted to take her back home. But this
+awakening--if such it could be called, was so short in its duration and
+was followed so immediately by a string of innocent questions about
+Adelaide, that Nurse Unwin concluded to remain a few days longer before
+risking this delicately balanced mind amid old scenes and the curious
+glances of her townspeople.
+
+Alas! the awakening was to take place in Lakewood and under
+circumstances of the most ordinary nature. Carmel had been out and was
+just crossing the hall of her hotel to the elevator, when she stopped
+with a violent start and clutching the air, was caught by her nurse
+who had hurried up at the first intimation of anything unusual in the
+condition of her patient.
+
+The cause of this agitation was immediately apparent. Near them sat two
+ladies, each with a small wine-glass in her hand. One was drinking,
+the other waiting and watching, but with every apparent intention of
+drinking when the other had ceased. A common sight enough, but it
+worked a revolution in Carmel’s darkened mind. The light of youthful
+joyousness fled from her face; and the cheek, just pulsing softly with
+new life, blanched to the death-like hue of mortal suffering. Dropping
+her eyes from the women, who saw nothing and continued to sip their
+wine in happy ignorance of the soul-tragedy going on within ten feet of
+them, she looked down at her dress, then up at the walls about her; and
+then slowly, anxiously, and with unmistakable terror, at the woman in
+whose arms she felt herself supported.
+
+“Explain,” she murmured. “Where am I?”
+
+“At Lakewood, in a hotel. You have been ill, and are only just
+recovering.”
+
+Her hand went up to her cheek, the one that had been burned, and still
+showed the deep traces of that accident.
+
+“I remember,” said she. Then with another glance at her dress, which
+had studiously been kept cheerful, she remarked, with deep reproach:
+“My sister is dead; why am I not in black?”
+
+The nurse, realising her responsibility (she said afterwards that it
+was the most serious moment of her life), subdued her own astonishment
+at this proof of her young patient’s knowledge of a crime of which she
+was universally supposed to be entirely ignorant, and, bestowing a
+reassuring smile on the agitated girl, observed softly:
+
+“You wore too ill to be burdened with black. You are better now and may
+assume it if you will. I will help you buy your mourning.”
+
+“Yes, you look like a kind woman. What is your name, please, and are we
+here alone in this great hotel?”
+
+Now, as a matter of expediency--to save Carmel from the unendurable
+curiosity of the crowd, and herself from the importunities of the New
+York reporters, Miss Unwin had registered herself and her charge under
+assumed names. She was, therefore, forced to reply:
+
+“My name is Huckins, and we are here alone. But that need not worry
+you. I have watched over you night and day for many weeks.”
+
+“You have? Because of this slight burn?” Again Carmel’s hand went to
+her cheek.
+
+“Not on account of that only. You have had a serious illness quite
+apart from that injury. But you are better; you are almost well--well
+enough to go home, if you will.”
+
+“I cannot go home--not just yet. I’m--I’m not strong enough. But
+we shouldn’t be here alone without some man to look after us. Miss
+Huckins, _where is my brother_?”
+
+At this question, uttered with emphasis, with anxiety--with indignation
+even--Miss Unwin felt the emotion she had so successfully subdued up to
+this moment, betray itself in her voice as she answered, with a quiet
+motion towards the elevator: “Let us go up to our room. There I will
+answer all your questions.”
+
+But Carmel, with the waywardness of her years--or perhaps, with deeper
+reasoning powers than the other would be apt to attribute to her--broke
+softly away from Miss Unwin’s detaining hand, and walking directly
+into the office, looked about for the newspaper stand. Miss Unwin,
+over-anxious not to make a scene, followed, but did not seek to deter
+her, until they were once again by themselves in the centre of the
+room. Then she ventured to speak again:
+
+“We have all the papers in our room. Come up, and let me read them to
+you.”
+
+But Fate was making ready its great stroke. Just as Carmel seemed about
+to yield to this persuasion, some lingering doubt drew her eyes again
+to the stand, just at the very moment a boy stepped into view with the
+evening bulletin, on which had just been written these words:
+
+The Last Juror Obtained in the Trial of Arthur Cumberland for the
+Murder of His Sister, Adelaide.
+
+Carmel saw, and stood--a breathless image of horror. A couple of
+gentlemen came running; but the nurse waved them back, and herself
+caught Carmel and upheld her, in momentary dread of another mental, if
+not physical, collapse.
+
+But Carmel had come back into the world of consciousness to stay.
+Accepting her nurse’s support, but giving no sign of waning faculties
+or imperfect understanding of what she had seen, she spoke quite
+clearly and with her eyes fixed upon Miss Unwin:
+
+“So that is why I am here, away from all my friends. Was I too ill
+to be told? Couldn’t you make me know what was happening? You or the
+doctors or--or anybody?”
+
+“You were much too ill,” protested the nurse, leading her towards the
+elevator and so by degrees to her room. “I tried to arouse you after
+the crisis of your illness had passed; but you seemed to have forgotten
+everything which took place that night and the doctors warned me not to
+press you.”
+
+“And Arthur--poor Arthur, has been the sufferer! Tell me the whole
+story. I can bear it,” she pleaded. “I can bear anything but not
+knowing. Why should he have fallen under suspicion? He was not even
+there. I must go to him! Pack up our clothing, Miss Huckins. I must go
+to him at once.”
+
+They were in their own room now, and Carmel was standing quite by
+herself in the full light of the setting sun. With the utterance of
+this determination, she had turned upon her companion; and that astute
+and experienced woman had every opportunity for observing her face.
+There was a woman’s resolution in it. With the sudden rending of the
+clouds which had obscured her intellect, strange powers had awakened in
+this young girl, giving her a force of expression which, in connection
+with her inextinguishable beauty, formed a spectacle before which this
+older woman, in spite of her long experience, hesitated in doubt.
+
+“You shall go--” began the nurse, and stopped.
+
+Carmel was not listening. Another change of thought had come, and her
+features, as keenly alive now to every passing emotion as they had
+formerly been set in a dull placidity, mirrored doubts of her own,
+which had a deeper source than any which had disturbed the nurse, even
+in these moments of serious perplexity.
+
+“How can I?” fell in unconscious betrayal from her lips. “How can I!”
+Then she stood silent, ghastly with lack of colour one minute, and
+rosy red with its excess the next, until it was hard to tell in which
+extreme her feeling spoke most truly.
+
+What was the feeling? Nurse Unwin felt it imperative to know. Relying
+on the confidence shown her by this unfortunate girl, in her lonely
+position and unbearable distress, she approached Carmel, with renewed
+offers of help and such expressions of sympathy as she thought might
+lure her into open speech.
+
+But discretion had come with fear, and Carmel, while not disdaining the
+other’s kindness, instantly made it apparent that, whatever her burden,
+and however unsuited it was to her present weak condition, it was not
+one she felt willing to share.
+
+“I must think,” she murmured, as she finally followed the nurse’s lead
+and seated herself on a lounge. “Arthur on trial for his life! _Arthur
+on trial for his life!_ And Adelaide was not even murdered!”
+
+“No?” gasped the nurse, intent on every word this long-silenced witness
+let fall.
+
+“Had he no friend? Was there not some one to understand? Adelaide--”
+here her head fell till her face was lost to sight--“had--a--lover--”
+
+“Yes. Mr. Elwood Ranelagh. He was the first to be arrested for the
+crime.”
+
+The soul in Carmel seemed to vanish at this word. The eyes, which had
+been so far-seeing the moment before, grew blank, and the lithe young
+body stiff with that death in life which is almost worse to look upon
+than death itself. She did not speak; but presently she arose, as
+an automaton might arise at the touch of some invisible spring, and
+so stood, staring, until the nurse, frightened at the result of her
+words and the complete overthrow which might follow them, sprang for a
+newspaper and thrust it into her patient’s unwilling hand.
+
+Was it too late? For a minute it seemed to be so; then the stony eyes
+softened and fell, the rigidity of her frame relaxed, and Carmel sank
+back again on the sofa and tried to read the headlines on the open
+sheet before her. But her eyes were unequal to the task. With a sob she
+dropped the paper and entreated the nurse to relate to her from her own
+knowledge, all that had passed, sparing her nothing that would make the
+situation perfectly clear to one who had been asleep during the worst
+crisis of her life.
+
+Miss Unwin complied, but with reservations. She told of Adelaide having
+been found dead at The Whispering Pines by the police, whom she had
+evidently summoned during a moment of struggle or fear; of Ranelagh’s
+presence there, and of the suspicions to which it gave rise; of his
+denial of the crime; of his strange reticence on certain points, which
+served to keep him incarcerated till a New York detective got to work
+and found so much evidence against her brother that Mr. Ranelagh was
+subsequently released and Arthur Cumberland indicted. But she said
+nothing about the marks on Adelaide’s throat, or of the special reason
+which the police had for arresting Mr. Ranelagh. She did not dare.
+Strangulation was a horrible death to contemplate; and if this factor
+in the crime--she was not deceived by Carmel’s exclamation that there
+had been no murder--was unknown as yet to her patient, as it must be
+from what she had said, and the absolute impossibility, as she thought,
+of her having known what went on in The Whispering Pines, then it had
+better remain unknown to her until circumstances forced it on her
+knowledge, or she had gotten sufficient strength to bear it.
+
+Carmel received the account well. She started when she heard of
+the discovery of Ranelagh in the club-house on the entrance of the
+police, and seemed disposed to ask some questions. But though the
+nurse gave her an opportunity to do so, she appeared to hunt in vain
+for the necessary words, and the narrative proceeded without further
+interruption. When all was done, she sat quite still; then carefully,
+and with a show of more judgment than might be expected from one of
+her years, she propounded certain inquiries which brought out the main
+causes for her brother’s arraignment. When she had these fully in mind,
+she looked up into the nurse’s face again and repeated, quite calmly,
+but with immovable decision, the order of an hour before:
+
+“We must return at once. You will pack up immediately.”
+
+Miss Unwin nodded, and began to open the trunks.
+
+This, however, was a ruse. She did not intend to take her patient
+back that night. She was afraid to risk it. The next day would be
+soon enough. But she would calm her by making ready, and when the
+proper moment came, would find some complication of trains which would
+interfere with their immediate departure.
+
+Meanwhile, she would communicate at the earliest moment with Mr. Fox.
+She had been in the habit of sending him frequent telegrams as to her
+patient’s condition. They had been invariable so far: “No difference;
+mind still a blank,” or some code word significant of the same. But
+a new word was necessary now. She must look it up, and formulate her
+telegram before she did anything else.
+
+The code-book was in her top tray. She hunted and hunted for it,
+without being able to lay her hands on it. She grew very nervous. She
+was only human; she was in a very trying position, and she realised it.
+Where could that book be? Suddenly she espied it and, falling on her
+knees before the trunk, with her back still to Carmel, studied out the
+words she wanted. She was leaning over the tray to write these words
+in her note-book, when--no one ever knew how it happened--the lid of
+the heavy trunk fell forward and its iron edge struck her on the nape
+of the neck, with a keen blow which laid her senseless. When Carmel
+reached her side, she found herself the strong one and her stalwart
+nurse the patient.
+
+When help had been summoned, the accident explained, and everything
+done for the unconscious woman which medical skill could suggest,
+Carmel, finding a moment to herself, stole to the trunk, and, lifting
+up the lid, looked in. She had been watchful of her nurse from the
+first, and was suspicious of the actions which had led to this untoward
+accident. Seeing the two little books, she took them out. The note-book
+lay open and on the page thus disclosed, she beheld written:
+
+Ap Lox Fidestum Truhum
+
+Ridiculous nonsense--until she consulted the code. Then these detached
+and meaningless words took on a significance which she could not afford
+to ignore:
+
+Ap         A change.
+Lox        Makes remarkable statements.
+Fidestum   Shall we return?
+Trubum     Not tractable.
+
+Carmel endeavoured to find out for whom this telegram was intended.
+There was nothing to inform her. A moment of indecision was followed by
+quick action. She had noticed that she had been invariably addressed as
+Miss Campbell by every one who had come into the room. Whether this was
+a proof of the care with which she had been guarded from the curiosity
+of strangers, or whether it was part of a system of deception springing
+from quite different causes, she felt that in the present emergency it
+was a fact to be thankful for and to be utilised.
+
+Regaining her own room, which was on the other side of their common
+sitting-room, she collected a few necessary articles, and placed them
+in a bag which she thrust under her bed. Hunting for money, she found
+quite an adequate amount in her own purse, which was attached to her
+person. Satisfied thus far, she chose her most inconspicuous hat and
+coat, and putting them on, went out by her own door into the corridor.
+
+The time--it was the dinner-hour--favoured her attempt. She found her
+way to the office unobserved, and, going frankly up to the clerk,
+informed him that she had some telegrams to send and that she would
+be out for some little time. Would he see that Miss Huckins was not
+neglected in her absence?
+
+The clerk, startled at these evidences of sense and self-reliance in
+one he had been accustomed to see under the special protection of the
+very woman she was now confiding to his care, surveyed her eloquent
+features beaming with quiet resolve, and for a moment seemed at a loss
+how to take this change and control the strange situation. Perhaps she
+understood him, perhaps she only followed the impulses natural to her
+sex. She never knew; she only remembers that she smiled, and that his
+hesitation vanished at that smile.
+
+“I will see to it,” said he. Then, as she turned to go, he ventured
+to add, “It is quite dark now. If you would like one of the boys to
+go with you--”. But he received no encouragement, and allowed his
+suggestion to remain unfinished.
+
+She looked grateful for this, and was pulling down her veil when she
+perceived two or three men on the other side of the room, watching her
+in evident wonder. Stepping back to the desk, she addressed the clerk
+again, this time with a marked distinctness:
+
+“I have been very ill, I know, and not always quite myself. But the
+shock of this accident to my nurse has cleared my brain and made me
+capable again of attending to my own affairs. You can trust me; I can
+do my errands all right; but perhaps I had better have one of the boys
+go with me.”
+
+The clerk, greatly relieved, rang his bell, and the gentlemen at the
+other end of the room sauntered elsewhere to exchange their impressions
+of an incident which was remarkable enough in itself, without the
+accentuation put upon it by the extreme beauty of the girl and the
+one conspicuous blemish to that beauty--her unfortunate scar. With
+what additional wonder would they have regarded the occurrence, had
+they known that the object of their interest was not an unknown Miss
+Campbell, but the much pitied, much talked-of Carmel Cumberland, sister
+of the man then on trial for his life in a New York town.
+
+With her first step into the street, Carmel’s freshly freed mind began
+its work. She knew she was in a place called Lakewood, but she knew
+little of its location, save that it was somewhere in New Jersey.
+Another strange thing! she did not recognise the streets. They were new
+to her. She did not remember ever having been in them before.
+
+“Where is the railroad station?” she inquired of the boy who was
+trotting along at her side.
+
+“Over there,” he answered, vaguely.
+
+“Take me to it.”
+
+He obeyed, and they threaded several streets whose lighted shops
+pleased her, notwithstanding her cares; such a joy it was to be
+alive to things once more, and capable of remembrance, even though
+remembrance brought visions at which she shuddered, and turned away,
+appalled.
+
+The sight of the station, from which a train was just leaving,
+frightened her for a moment with its bustle and many lights; but she
+rallied under the stress of her purpose, and, entering, found the
+telegraph office, from which she sent this message, directed to her
+physician, at home, Dr. Carpenter:
+
+“Look for me on early train. All is clear to me now, and I must return.
+Preserve silence till we meet.”
+
+This she signed with a pet name, known only to themselves, and dating
+back to her childish days.
+
+Then she bought a ticket, and studied the time-table. When quite
+satisfied, she returned to the hotel. She was met in the doorway by the
+physician who was attending the so-called Miss Huckins. He paused when
+he saw her, and asked a few questions which she was penetrating enough
+to perceive were more for the purpose of testing her own condition
+than to express interest in his patient. She answered quietly, and
+was met by a surprise and curiosity which evinced that he was greatly
+drawn towards her case. This alarmed her. She did not wish to be the
+object of any one’s notice. On the contrary, she desired to obliterate
+herself; to be counted out so far as all these people were concerned.
+But above all, she was anxious not to rouse suspicion. So she stopped
+and talked as naturally as she could about Miss Huckins’s accident
+and what the prospects were for the night. These were favourable, or
+so the doctor declared, but the injured woman’s condition called for
+great care and he would send over a capable nurse at once. Meanwhile,
+the maid who was with her would do very well. She, herself, need have
+no worry. He would advise against worry, and suggested that she should
+have a good and nourishing dinner sent to her room, after which she
+should immediately retire and get what sleep she could by means of an
+anodyne he would send her.
+
+Carmel exerted herself.
+
+“You are very good,” said she, “I need no anodyne. I _am_ tired and
+when I once get to bed shall certainly sleep. I shall give orders not
+to be disturbed. Isn’t that right?”
+
+“Quite right. I will myself tell the nurse.”
+
+He was going, but turned to look at her again.
+
+“Shall I accompany you to the door of your room?” he asked.
+
+She shook her head, with a smile. This delay was a torment to her, but
+it must be endured.
+
+“I am quite capable of finding my room. I hope Miss Huckins will be
+as well in a week from now as I am at this moment. But, doctor--” she
+had been struck by a strange possibility--“I should like to settle one
+little matter before we part. The money I have may not be quite safe in
+my hands. My memory might leave me again, and then Miss Huckins might
+suffer. If you will take charge of some of it on her account, I shall
+feel relieved.”
+
+“It would be a wise precaution,” he admitted. “But you could just as
+well leave it at the desk.”
+
+“So I can,” she smiled. Then, as his eye remained fixed on her: “You
+are wondering if I have friends. We both have and I have just come
+from telegraphing to one of them. You can leave us, with an easy mind.
+All that I dread is that Miss Huckins will worry about me if her
+consciousness should return during the night.”
+
+“It will not return so soon. Next week we may look for it. Then you can
+be by to reassure her if she asks for you.”
+
+Carmers eyes fell.
+
+“I would not be a cause of distress to her for the world. She has been
+very good to me.” Bowing, she turned in the direction of the office.
+
+The doctor, lifting his hat, took his departure. The interview might
+have lasted five minutes. She felt as though it had lasted an hour.
+
+She followed the doctor’s advice and left half the money she had, in
+charge of the clerk. Then she went upstairs. She was not seen to come
+down again; but when the eight-forty-five train started out of the
+station that night, it had for a passenger, a young, heavily veiled
+girl, who went straight to her section. A balcony running by her window
+had favoured her escape. It led to a hall window at the head of a side
+staircase. She met no one on the staircase, and, once out of the door
+at its foot, her difficulties were over, and her escape effected.
+
+She was missed the next morning, and an account of her erratic flight
+reached the papers, and was published far and wide. But the name of
+Miss Caroline Campbell conveyed nothing to the public, and the great
+trial went on without a soul suspecting the significance of this
+midnight flitting of an unknown and partially demented girl.
+
+At the house of Dr. Carpenter she met Mr. Moffat. What she told him
+heartened him greatly for the struggle he saw before him. Indeed, it
+altered the whole tone of the defence. Perceiving from her story,
+and from what the doctor could tell him of their meeting at the
+station that her return to town was as yet a secret to every one but
+themselves, he begged that the secret should continue to be kept, in
+order that the _coup d’etat_ which he meditated might lose none of
+its force by anticipation. Carmel, whose mind was full of her coming
+ordeal, was willing enough to hide her head until it came; while Dr.
+Carpenter, alarmed at all this excitement, would have insisted on it in
+any event.
+
+Carmel wished her brother informed of her return, but the wily lawyer
+persuaded her to excuse him from taking Arthur into his confidence
+until the last moment. He knew that he would receive only opposition
+from his young and stubborn client; that Carmel’s presence and
+Carmel’s determination would have to be sprung upon Arthur even
+more than upon the prosecution; that the prisoner at the bar would
+struggle to the very last against Carmel’s appearance in court, and
+make an infinite lot of trouble, if he did not actually endanger his
+own cause. One of the stipulations which he had made in securing
+Mr. Moffat for his counsel was that Carmel’s name was to be kept as
+much as possible out of the proceedings; and to this Mr. Moffat had
+subscribed, notwithstanding his conviction that the crime laid to the
+defendant’s charge was a result of Ranelagh’s passion for Carmel, and,
+consequently, distinctly the work of Ranelagh’s own hand.
+
+He had thought that he could win his case by the powers of oratory and
+a somewhat free use of innuendo; but his view changed under the fresh
+enlightenment which he received in his conversation with Carmel. He
+saw unfolding before him a defence of unparalleled interest. True, it
+involved this interesting witness in a way that would be unpleasant
+to the brother; but he was not the man to sacrifice a client to any
+sentimental scruple--certainly not this client, whose worth he was just
+beginning to realise. Professional pride, as well as an inherent love
+of justice, led him to this conclusion. Nothing in God’s world appealed
+to him, or ever had appealed to him, like a prisoner in the dock facing
+a fate from which only legal address, added to an orator’s eloquence,
+could save him. His sympathies went out to a man so placed, even when
+he was a brute and his guilt far from doubtful. How much more, then,
+must he feel the claims of this surly but chivalrous-hearted boy,
+son of a good father and pious mother, who had been made the butt of
+circumstances, and of whose innocence he was hourly becoming more and
+more convinced.
+
+Could he have probed the whole matter, examined and re-examined this
+new witness until every detail was his and the whole story of that
+night stood bare before him, he might have hesitated a little longer
+and asked himself some very serious questions. But Carmel was not
+strong enough for much talk. Dr. Carpenter would not allow it, and the
+continued clearness of her mind was too invaluable to his case for this
+far-seeing advocate to take any risk. She had told him enough to assure
+him that circumstances and not guilt had put Arthur where he was,
+and had added to the assurance, details of an unexpected nature--so
+unexpected, indeed, that the lawyer was led away by the prospect they
+offered of confounding the prosecution by a line of defence to which no
+clew had been given by anything that had appeared.
+
+He planned then and there a dramatic climax which should take the
+breath away from his opponent, and change the whole feeling of the
+court towards the prisoner. It was a glorious prospect, and if the girl
+remained well--the bare possibility of her not doing so, drove him
+prematurely from her presence; and so it happened that, for the second
+time, the subject of Adelaide’s death was discussed in her hearing
+without any mention being made of strangulation as its immediate cause.
+Would her action have been different had she known that this was a
+conceded fact?
+
+Mr. Moffat did not repeat this visit. He was not willing to risk his
+secret by being seen too often at the doctor’s house; but telephonic
+communication was kept up between him and her present guardian, and
+he was able to bear himself quietly and with confidence until the
+time drew near for the introduction of her testimony. Then he grew
+nervous, fearing that Nurse Unwin would come to herself and telegraph
+Carmel’s escape, and so prepare the prosecution for his great stroke.
+But nothing of the kind happened; and, when the great day came, he had
+only to consider how he should prepare Arthur for the surprise awaiting
+him, and finally decided not to prepare him at all, but simply to state
+at the proper moment, and in the face of the whole court-room, that
+his sister had recovered and would soon take her place upon the stand.
+The restraint of the place would thus act as a guard between them,
+and Carmel’s immediate entrance put an end to the reproaches of whose
+bitterness he could well judge from his former experience of them.
+
+With all these anxieties and his deeply planned _coup d’etat_ awaiting
+the moment of action, Ella’s simple outburst and even Ranelagh’s
+unexpected and somewhat startling suggestion lost much of their
+significance. All his mind and heart were on his next move. It was to
+be made with the queen, and must threaten checkmate. Yet he did not
+forget the two pawns, silent in their places--but guarding certain
+squares which the queen, for all her royal prerogatives, might not be
+able to reach.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FOUR
+
+WHAT THE PINES WHISPERED
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+“I REMEMBERED THE ROOM”
+
+MERCURY.--If thou mightst dwell among the Gods the while
+          Lapped in voluptuous joy?
+
+PROMETHEUS.--I would not quit
+             This bleak ravine, these unrepentant pains.
+
+_Prometheus Unbound_.
+
+
+Great moments, whether of pain, surprise, or terror, awaken in the
+startled breast very different emotions from those we are led to
+anticipate from the agitation caused by lesser experiences. As Carmel
+disclosed her features to the court, my one absorbing thought was:
+Would she look at me? Could I hope for a glance of her eye? Did I wish
+it? My question was answered before Mr. Moffat had regained his place
+and turned to address the court.
+
+As her gaze passed from her brother’s face, it travelled slowly and
+with growing hesitation over the countenances of those near her, on and
+on past the judge, past the jury, until they reached the spot where I
+sat. There they seemed to falter, and the beating of my heart became so
+loud that I instinctively shrank away from my neighbour. By so doing,
+I drew her eye, which fell full upon mine for one overwhelming minute;
+then she shrank and looked away, but not before the colour had risen in
+a flood to her cheek.
+
+The hope which had sprung to life under her first beautiful aspect,
+vanished in despair at sight of this flush. For it was not one of
+joy, or surprise, or even of unconscious sympathy. It was the banner
+of a deep, unendurable shame. Versed in her every expression, I could
+not mistake the language of her dismayed soul, at this, the most
+critical instant of her life. She had hoped to find me absent; she was
+overwhelmed to find me there. Could she, with a look, have transported
+me a thousand miles from this scene of personal humiliation and
+unknown, unimaginable outcome, she would have bestowed that look and
+ignored the consequences.
+
+Nor was I behind her in the reckless passion of the moment. Could I, by
+means of a wish, have been transported those thousand miles, I should
+even now have been far from a spot where, in the face of a curious
+crowd, busy in associating us together, I must submit to the terror of
+hearing her speak and betray herself to these watchful lawyers, and to
+the just and impartial mind of the presiding judge.
+
+But the days of magic had passed. I could not escape the spot; I could
+not escape her eye. The ordeal to which she was thus committed, I must
+share. As she advanced step by step upon her uncertain road, it would
+be my unhappy fate to advance with her, in terror of the same pitfalls,
+with our faces set towards the same precipice--slipping, fainting,
+experiencing agonies together. She knew my secret, and I, alas! knew
+hers. So I interpreted this intolerable, overwhelming blush.
+
+Recoiling from the prospect, I buried my face in my hands, and so
+missed the surprising sight of this young girl, still in her teens,
+conquering a dismay which might well unnerve one of established years
+and untold experiences. In a few minutes, as I was afterward told by my
+friends, her features had settled into a strange placidity, undisturbed
+by the levelled gaze of a hundred eyes. Her whole attention was
+concentrated on her brother, and wavered only, when the duties of the
+occasion demanded a recognition of the various gentlemen concerned in
+the trial.
+
+Mr. Moffat prefaced his examination by the following words:
+
+“May it please your Honour, I wish to ask the indulgence of the court
+in my examination of this witness. She is just recovering from a long
+and dangerous illness; and while I shall endeavour to keep within the
+rules of examination, I shall be grateful for any consideration which
+may be shown her by your Honour and by the counsel on the other side.”
+
+Mr. Fox at once rose. He had by this time recovered from his
+astonishment at seeing before him, and in a fair state of health,
+the young girl whom he had every reason to believe to be still in a
+condition of partial forgetfulness at Lakewood, and under the care
+of a woman entirely in his confidence and under his express orders.
+He had also mastered his chagrin at the triumph which her presence
+here, and under these dramatic circumstances, had given his adversary.
+Moved, perhaps, by Miss Cumberland’s beauty, which he saw for the first
+time--or, perhaps, by the spectacle of this beauty devoting its first
+hours of health to an attempt to save a brother, of whose precarious
+position before the law she had been ignorant up to this time--or more
+possibly yet, by a fear that it might be bad tactics to show harshness
+to so interesting a personality before she had uttered a word of
+testimony, he expressed in warmer tones than usual, his deep desire to
+extend every possible indulgence.
+
+Mr. Moffat bowed his acknowledgments, and waited for his witness
+to take the oath, which she did with a simple grace which touched
+all hearts, even that of her constrained and unreconciled brother.
+Compelled by the silence and my own bounding pulses to look at her in
+my own despite, I caught the sweet and elevated look with which she
+laid her hand on the Book, and asked myself if her presence here was
+not a self-accusation, which would bring satisfaction to nobody--which
+would sink her and hers into an ignominy worse than the conviction of
+the brother whom she was supposedly there to save.
+
+Tortured by this fear, I awaited events in indescribable agitation.
+
+The cool voice of Mr. Moffat broke in upon my gloom. Carmel had
+reseated herself, after taking the oath, and the customary question
+could be heard:
+
+“Your name, if you please.”
+
+“Carmel Cumberland.”
+
+“Do you recognise the prisoner, Miss Cumberland?”
+
+“Yes; he is my brother.”
+
+A thrill ran through the room. The lingering tone, the tender accent,
+told. Some of the feeling she thus expressed seemed to pass into every
+heart which contemplated the two. From this moment on, he was looked
+upon with less harshness; people showed a disposition to discern
+innocence, where, perhaps, they had secretly desired, until now, to
+discover guilt.
+
+“Miss Cumberland, will you be good enough to tell us where you were, at
+or near the hour of ten, on the evening of your sister’s death?”
+
+“I was in the club-house--in the house you call The Whispering Pines.”
+
+At this astounding reply, unexpected by every one present save myself
+and the unhappy prisoner, incredulity, seasoned with amazement, marked
+every countenance. Carmel Cumberland in the club-house that night--she
+who had been found at a late hour, in her own home, injured and
+unconscious! It was not to be believed--or it would not have been, if
+Arthur with less self-control than he had hitherto maintained, had not
+shown by his morose air and the silent drooping of his head that he
+accepted this statement, wild and improbable as it seemed. Mr. Fox,
+whose mind without doubt had been engaged in a debate from the first,
+as to the desirability of challenging the testimony of this young girl,
+whose faculties had so lately recovered from a condition of great
+shock and avowed forgetfulness that no word as yet had come to him of
+her restored health, started to arise at her words; but noting the
+prisoner’s attitude, he hastily reseated himself, realising, perhaps,
+that evidence of which he had never dreamed lay at the bottom of the
+client’s manner and the counsel’s complacency. If so, then his own air
+of mingled disbelief and compassionate forbearance might strike the
+jury unfavourably; while, on the contrary, if his doubts were sound,
+and the witness were confounding the fancies of her late delirium with
+the actual incidents of this fatal night, then would he gain rather
+than lose by allowing her to proceed until her testimony fell of its
+own weight, or succumbed before the fire of his cross-examination.
+
+Modifying his manner, he steadied himself for either exigency, and, in
+steadying himself, steadied his colleagues also.
+
+Mr. Moffat, who saw everything, smiled slightly as he spoke
+encouragingly to his witness, and propounded his next question:
+
+“Miss Cumberland, was your sister with you when you went to the
+club-house?”
+
+“No; we went separately”
+
+“How? Will you explain?”
+
+“I drove there. I don’t know how Adelaide went.”
+
+“You drove there?”
+
+“Yes. I had Arthur harness up his horse for me and I drove there.”
+
+A moment of silence; then a slow awakening--on the part of judge, jury,
+and prosecution--to the fact that the case was taking a turn for which
+they were ill-prepared. To Mr. Moffat, it was a moment of intense
+self-congratulation, and something of the gratification he felt crept
+into his voice as he said:
+
+“Miss Cumberland, will you describe this horse?”
+
+“It was a grey horse. It has a large black spot on its left shoulder.”
+
+“To what vehicle was it attached?”
+
+“To a cutter--my brother’s cutter.”
+
+“Was that brother with you? Did he accompany you in your ride to The
+Whispering Pines?”
+
+“No, I went quite alone.”
+
+Entrancement had now seized upon every mind. Even if her testimony were
+not true, but merely the wanderings of a mind not fully restored, the
+interest of it was intense. Mr. Fox, glancing at the jury, saw there
+would be small use in questioning at this time the mental capacity of
+the witness. This was a story which all wished to hear. Perhaps he
+wished to hear it, too.
+
+Mr. Moffat rose to more than his accustomed height. The light which
+sometimes visited his face when feeling, or a sense of power, was
+strongest in him, shone from his eye and irradiated his whole aspect as
+he inquired tellingly:
+
+“And how did you return? With whom, and by what means, did you regain
+your own house?”
+
+The answer came, with simple directness:
+
+“In the same way I went. I drove back in my brother’s cutter and being
+all alone just as before, I put the horse away myself, and went into my
+empty home and up to Adelaide’s room, where I lost consciousness.”
+
+The excitement, which had been seething, broke out as she ceased; but
+the judge did not need to use his gavel, or the officers of the court
+exert their authority. At Mr. Moffat’s lifted hand, the turmoil ceased
+as if by magic.
+
+“Miss Cumberland, do you often ride out alone on nights like that?”
+
+“I never did before. I would not have dared to do it then, if I had not
+taken a certain precaution.”
+
+“And what was this precaution?”
+
+“I wore an old coat of my brother’s over my dress, and one of his hats
+on my head.”
+
+It was out--the fact for the suppression of which I had suffered arrest
+without a word; because of which Arthur had gone even further, and
+submitted to trial with the same constancy. Instinctively, his eyes
+and mine met, and, at that moment, there was established between us an
+understanding that was in strong contrast to the surrounding turmoil,
+which now exceeded all limits, as the highly wrought up spectators
+realised that these statements, if corroborated, destroyed one of the
+strongest points which had been made by the prosecution. This caused
+a stay in the proceedings until order was partially restored, and the
+judge’s voice could be heard in a warning that the court-room would be
+cleared of all spectators if this break of decorum was repeated.
+
+Meanwhile, my own mind had been busy. I had watched Arthur; I had
+watched Mr. Moffat. The discouragement of the former, the ill-concealed
+elation of the latter, proved the folly of any hope, on my part, that
+Carmel would be spared a full explanation of what I would have given
+worlds to leave in the darkness and ignorance of the present moment. To
+save Arthur, unwilling as he was, she was to be allowed to consummate
+the sacrifice which the real generosity of her heart drove her into
+making. Before these doors opened again and sent forth the crowd
+now pulsating under a preamble of whose terrible sequel none as yet
+dreamed, I should have to hear those sweet lips give utterance to the
+revelation which would consign her to opprobrium, and break, not only
+my heart, but her brother’s.
+
+Was there no way to stop it? The district attorney gave no evidence
+of suspecting any issue of this sort, nor did the friendly and humane
+judge. Only the scheming Moffat knew to what all this was tending,
+and Moffat could not be trusted. The case was his and he would gain
+it if he could. Tender and obliging as he was in his treatment of the
+witness, there was iron under the velvet of his glove. This was his
+reputation; and this I must now see exemplified before me, without
+the power to stop it. The consideration with which he approached his
+subject did not deceive me.
+
+“Miss Cumberland, will you now give the jury the full particulars
+of that evening’s occurrences, as witnessed by yourself. Begin your
+relation, if you please, with an account of the last meal you had
+together.”
+
+Carmel hesitated. Her youth--her conscience, perhaps--shrank in
+manifest distress from this inquisition.
+
+“Ask me a question,” she prayed. “I do not know how to begin.”
+
+“Very well. Who were seated at the dinner-table that night?”
+
+“My sister, my brother, Mr. Ranelagh, and myself.”
+
+“Did anything uncommon happen during the meal?”
+
+“Yes, my sister ordered wine, and had our glasses all filled. She
+never drank wine herself, but she had her glass filled also. Then she
+dismissed Helen, the waitress; and when the girl was gone, she rose and
+held up her glass, and invited us to do the same. ‘We will drink to my
+coming marriage,’ said she; but when we had done this, she turned upon
+Arthur, with bitter words about his habits, and, declaring that another
+bottle of wine should never be opened again in the house, unclosed her
+fingers and let her glass drop on the table where it broke. Arthur then
+let his fall, and I mine. We all three let our glasses fall and break.”
+
+“And Mr. Ranelagh?”
+
+“He did not let his fall. He set it down on the cloth. He had not drank
+from it.”
+
+Clear, perfectly clear--tallying with what we had heard from other
+sources. As this fact forced itself in upon the minds of the jury, new
+light shone in every eye and each and all waited eagerly for the next
+question.
+
+It came with a quiet, if not insinuating, intonation.
+
+“Miss Cumberland, where were you looking when you let your glass fall?”
+
+My heart gave a bound. I remembered that moment well. So did she, as
+could be seen from the tremulous flush and the determination with which
+she forced herself to speak.
+
+“At Mr. Ranelagh,” she answered, finally.
+
+“Not at your brother?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“And at whom was Mr. Ranelagh looking?”
+
+“At--at me.”
+
+“Not at your sister?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Was anything said?”
+
+“Not then. With the dropping of the glasses, we all drew back from the
+table, and walked towards a little room where we sometimes sat before
+going into the library. Arthur went first, and Mr. Ranelagh and I
+followed, Adelaide coming last. We--we went this way into the little
+room and--what other question do you wish to ask?” she finished, with a
+burning blush.
+
+Mr. Moffat was equal to the appeal.
+
+“Did anything happen? Did Mr. Ranelagh speak to you or you to him, or
+did your sister Adelaide speak?”
+
+“No one spoke; but Mr. Ranelagh put a little slip of paper into my
+hand--a--a note. As he did this, my brother looked round. I don’t know
+whether he saw the note or not; but his eye caught mine, and I may
+have blushed. Next moment he was looking past me; and presently he had
+flung himself out of the room, and I heard him going upstairs. Adelaide
+had joined me by this time, and Mr. Ranelagh turned to speak to her,
+and--and I went over to the book-shelves to read my note.”
+
+“And did you read it then?”
+
+“No, I was afraid. I waited till Mr. Ranelagh was gone; then I went up
+to my room and read it. It was not a--a note to be glad of. I mean,
+proud of. I’m afraid I was a little glad of it at first. I was a wicked
+girl.”
+
+Mr. Moffat glanced at Mr. Fox; but that gentleman, passing over this
+artless expression of feeling, as unworthy an objection, he went
+steadily on:
+
+“Miss Cumberland, before you tell us about this note, will you be good
+enough to inform us whether any words passed between you and your
+sister before you went upstairs?”
+
+“Oh, yes; we talked. We all three talked, but it was about indifferent
+matters. The servants were going to a ball, and we spoke of that. Mr.
+Ranelagh did not stay long. Very soon he remarked that he had a busy
+evening before him, and took his leave. I was not in the room with them
+when he did this. I was in the adjoining one, but I heard his remark
+and saw him go. I did not wait to talk to Adelaide.”
+
+“Now, about the note?”
+
+“I read it as soon as I reached my room. Then I sat still for a long
+time.”
+
+“Miss Cumberland, pardon my request, but will you tell us what was in
+that note?”
+
+She lifted her patient eyes, and looked straight at her brother. He
+did not meet her gaze; but the dull flush which lit up the dead-white
+of his cheek showed how he suffered under this ordeal. At me she never
+glanced; this was the only mercy shown me that dreadful morning. I grew
+to be thankful for it as she went on.
+
+“I do not remember the words,” she said, finally, as her eyes fell
+again to her lap. “But I remember its meaning. It was an invitation
+for me to leave town with him that very evening and be married at
+some place he mentioned. He said it would be the best way to--to
+end--matters.”
+
+This brought Mr. Fox to his feet. For all his self-command, he had been
+perceptibly growing more and more nervous as the examination proceeded;
+and he found himself still in the dark as to his opponent’s purpose and
+the character of the revelations he had to fear. Turning to the judge,
+he cried:
+
+“This testimony is irrelevant and incompetent, and I ask to have it
+stricken out.”
+
+Mr. Moffat’s voice, as he arose to answer this, was like honey poured
+upon gall.
+
+“It is neither irrelevant nor incompetent, and, if it were, the
+objection comes too late. My friend should have objected to the
+question.”
+
+“The whole course of counsel has been very unusual,” began Mr. Fox.
+
+“Yes, but so is the case. I beg your Honour to believe that, in some
+of its features, this case is not only unusual, but almost without a
+precedent. That it may be lightly understood, and justice shown my
+client, a full knowledge of the whole family’s experiences during
+those fatal hours is not only desirable, but absolutely essential. I
+beg, therefore, that my witness may be allowed to proceed and tell her
+story in all its details. Nothing will be introduced which will not
+ultimately be seen to have a direct bearing upon the attitude of my
+client towards the crime for which he stands here arraigned.”
+
+“The motion is denied,” declared the judge.
+
+Mr. Fox sat down, to the universal relief of all but the two persons
+most interested--Arthur and myself.
+
+Mr. Moffat, generous enough or discreet enough to take no note of his
+opponent’s discomfiture, lifted a paper from the table and held it
+towards the witness.
+
+“Do you recognise these lines?” he asked, placing the remnants of my
+half-burned communication in her hands.
+
+She started at sight of them. Evidently she had never expected to see
+them again.
+
+“Yes,” she answered, after a moment. “This is a portion of the note I
+have mentioned.”
+
+“You recognise it as such?”
+
+“I do.”
+
+Her eyes lingered on the scrap, and followed it as it was passed back
+and marked as an exhibit.
+
+Mr. Moffat recalled her to the matter in hand.
+
+“What did you do next, Miss Cumberland?”
+
+“I answered the note.”
+
+“May I ask to what effect?”
+
+“I refused Mr. Ranelagh’s request. I said that I could not do what he
+asked, and told him to wait till the next day, and he would see how I
+felt towards him and towards Adelaide. That was all. I could not write
+much. I was suffering greatly.”
+
+“Suffering in mind, or suffering in body?”
+
+“Suffering in my mind. I was terrified, but that feeling did not last
+very long. Soon I grew happy, happier than I had been in weeks, happier
+than I had ever been in all my life before. I found that I loved
+Adelaide better than I did myself. This made everything easy, even the
+sending of the answer I have told you about to Mr. Ranelagh.”
+
+“Miss Cumberland, how did you get this answer to Mr. Ranelagh?”
+
+“By means of a gentleman who was going away on the very train I had
+been asked to leave on. He was a guest next door, and I carried the
+note in to him.”
+
+“Did you do this openly?”
+
+“No. I’m afraid not; I slipped out by the side door, in as careful a
+way as I could.”
+
+“Did this attempt at secrecy succeed? Were you able to go and come
+without meeting any one?”
+
+“No. Adelaide was at the head of the stairs when I came back, standing
+there, very stiff and quiet.”
+
+“Did she speak to you?”
+
+“No. She just looked at me; but it wasn’t a common look. I shall never
+forget it.”
+
+“And what did you do then?”
+
+“I went to my room.”
+
+“Miss Cumberland, did you sec anybody else when you came in at this
+time?”
+
+“Yes, our maid Helen. She was just laying down a bunch of keys on
+the table in the lower hall. I stopped and looked at the keys. I had
+recognised them as the ones I had seen in Mr. Ranelagh’s hands many
+times. He had gone, yet there were his keys. One of them unlocked the
+club-house. I noticed it among the others, but I didn’t touch it then.
+Helen was still in the hall, and I ran straight upstairs, where I met
+my sister, as I have just told you.”
+
+“Miss Cumberland, continue the story. What did you do after re-entering
+your room?”
+
+“I don’t know what I did first. I was very excited--elated one minute,
+deeply wretched and very frightened the next. I must have sat down; for
+I was shaking very much, and felt a little sick. The sight of that key
+had brought up pictures of the club-house; and I thought and thought
+how quiet it was, and how far away and--how cold it was too, and how
+secret. I would go there for what I had to do; _there_! And then I saw
+in my fancy one of its rooms, with the moon in it, and--but I soon shut
+my eyes to that. I heard Arthur moving about his room, and this made me
+start up and go out into the hall again.”
+
+During all this Mr. Fox had sat by, understanding his right to object
+to the witness’s mixed statements of fact and of feelings, and quite
+confident that his objections would be sustained. But he had determined
+long since that he would not interrupt the witness in her relation.
+The air of patience he assumed was sufficiently indicative of his
+displeasure, and he confined himself to this. Mr. Moffat understood,
+and testified his appreciation by a slight bow.
+
+Carmel, who saw nothing, resumed her story.
+
+“Arthur’s room is near, and Adelaide’s far off; but I went to
+Adelaide’s first. Her door was shut and when I went to open it I found
+it locked. Calling her name, I said that I was tired and would be glad
+to say good night. She did not answer at once. When she did, her voice
+was strange, though what she said was very simple. I was to please
+myself; she was going to retire, too. And then she tried to say good
+night, but she only half said it, like one who is choked with tears
+or some other dreadful emotion. I cannot tell you how this made me
+feel--but you don’t care for that. You want to know what I did--what
+Adelaide did. I will tell you, but I cannot hurry. Every act of the
+evening was so crowded with purpose; all meant so much. I can see the
+end, but the steps leading to it are not so clear.”
+
+“Take your time, Miss Cumberland; we have no wish to hurry you.”
+
+“I can go on now. The next thing I did was to knock at Arthur’s door. I
+heard him getting ready to go out, and I wanted to speak to him before
+he went. When he heard me, he opened the door and let me in. He began
+at once on his grievances, but I could not listen to them. I wanted him
+to harness the grey mare for me and leave it standing in the stable.
+I explained the request by saying that it was necessary for me to see
+a certain friend of mine immediately, and that no one would notice me
+in the cutter under the bear-skins. He didn’t approve, but I persuaded
+him. I even persuaded him to wait till Zadok was gone, so that Adelaide
+would know nothing about it. He looked glum, but he promised.
+
+“He was going away when I heard Adelaide’s steps in the adjoining room.
+This frightened me. The partition is very thin between these two rooms,
+and I was afraid she had heard me ask Arthur for the grey mare and
+cutter. I could hear her rattling the bottles in the medicine cabinet
+hanging on this very wall. Looking back at Arthur, I asked him how
+long Adelaide had been there. He said, ‘For some time.’ This sent me
+flying from the room. I would join her, and find out if she had heard.
+But I was too late. As I stepped into the hall I saw her disappearing
+round the corner leading to her own room. This convinced me that she
+had heard nothing, and, light of heart once more, I went back to my
+own room, where I collected such little articles as I needed for the
+expedition before me.
+
+“I had hardly done this when I heard the servants on the walk outside,
+then Arthur going down. The impulse to see and speak to him again
+was irresistible. I flew after him and caught him in the lower hall.
+‘Arthur,’ I cried, ‘look at me, look at me well, and then--kiss me!’
+And he did kiss me--I’m glad when I think of it, though he did say,
+next minute: ‘What is the matter with you? What are you going to do? To
+meet that villain?’
+
+“I looked straight into his face. I waited till I saw I had his whole
+attention; then I said, as slowly and emphatically as I could: ‘If you
+mean Elwood--no! I shall never meet him again, except in Adelaide’s
+presence. He will not want to meet me. You may be at ease about that.
+To-morrow all will be well, and Adelaide very happy,’
+
+“He shrugged his shoulders, and reached for his coat and hat. As he
+was putting them on, I said, ‘Don’t forget to harness up Jenny.’ Jenny
+is the grey mare. ‘And leave off the bells,’ I urged. ‘I don’t want
+Adelaide to hear me go out.’
+
+“He swung about at this. ‘You and Adelaide are not very good friends
+it seems.’ ‘As good as you and she are,’ I answered. Then I flung my
+arms about him. ‘Don’t go down street to-night,’ I prayed. ‘Stay home
+for this one night. Stay in the house with Adelaide; stay till I come
+home.’ He stared, and I saw his colour change. Then he flung me off,
+but not rudely. ‘Why don’t _you_ stay?’ he asked. Then he laughed, and
+added, ‘I’ll go harness the mare.’
+
+“‘The key’s in the kitchen,’ I said. ‘I’ll go get it for you. I heard
+Zadok bring it in.’ He did not answer, and I went for the key. I found
+two on the nail, and I brought them both; but I only handed him one,
+the key to the stable-door. ‘Which way are you going?’ I asked, as he
+looked at the key, then back towards the kitchen. ‘The short way, of
+course,’ ‘Then here’s the key to the Fulton grounds,’
+
+“As he took the key, I prayed again, ‘Don’t do what’s in your mind,
+Arthur. Don’t drink to-night. He only laughed, and I said my last word:
+‘If you do, it will be for the last time. You’ll never drink again
+after to-morrow.’
+
+“He made no answer to this, and I went slowly upstairs. Everything was
+quiet--quiet as death--in the whole house. If Adelaide had heard us,
+she made no sign. Going to my own room, I waited until I heard Arthur
+come out of the stable and go away by the door in the rear wall. Then I
+stole out again. I carried a small bag with me, but no coat or hat.
+
+“Pausing and listening again and again, I crept downstairs and halted
+at the table under the rack. The keys were still there. Putting them
+in my bag, I searched the rack for one of my brother’s warm coats.
+But I took none I saw. I remembered an old one which Adelaide had put
+away in the closet under the stairs. Getting this, I put it on, and,
+finding a hat there too, I took that also; and when I had pulled it
+over my forehead and drawn up the collar of the coat, I was quite
+unrecognisable. I was going out, when I remembered there would be
+no light in the club-house. I had put a box of matches in my bag
+while I was upstairs, but I needed a candle. Slipping back, I took
+a candlestick and candle from the dining-room mantel, and finding
+that the bag would not hold them, thrust them into the pocket of the
+coat I wore, and quickly left the house. Jenny was in the stable, all
+harnessed; and hesitating no longer, I got in among the bear-skins and
+drove swiftly away.”
+
+There was a moment’s silence. Carmel had paused, and was sitting with
+her hand on her heart, looking past judge, past jury, upon the lonely
+and desolate scene in which she at this moment moved and suffered. An
+inexpressible fatality had entered into her tones, always rich and
+resonant with feeling. No one who listened could fail to share the
+dread by which she was moved.
+
+District Attorney Fox fumbled with his papers, and endeavoured to
+maintain his equanimity and show an indifference which his stern but
+fascinated glances at the youthful witness amply belied. He was biding
+his time, but biding it in decided perturbation of mind. Neither he
+nor any one else, unless it were Moffat, could tell whither this tale
+tended. While she held the straight course which had probably been
+laid out for her, he failed to object; but he could not prevent the
+subtle influence of her voice, her manner, and her supreme beauty on
+the entranced jury. Nevertheless, his pencil was busy; he was still
+sufficiently master of himself for that.
+
+Mr. Moffat, quite aware of the effect which was being produced on every
+side, but equally careful to make no show of it, put in a commonplace
+question at this point, possibly to rouse the witness from her own
+abstraction, possibly to restore the judicial tone of the inquiry.
+
+“How did you leave the stable-door?”
+
+“Open.”
+
+“Can you tell us what time it was when you started?”
+
+“No. I did not look. Time meant nothing to me. I drove as fast as I
+could, straight down the hill, and out towards The Whispering Pines. I
+had seen Adelaide in her window as I went flying by the house, but not
+a soul on the road, nor a sign of life, near or far. The whistle of a
+train blew as I stopped in the thicket near the club-house door. If it
+was the express train, you can tell--”
+
+“Never mind the _if_” said Mr. Moffat. “It is enough that you heard the
+whistle. Go on with what you did.”
+
+“I tied up my horse; then I went into the house. I had used Mr.
+Ranelagh’s key to open the door and for some reason I took it out of
+the lock when I got in, and put the whole bunch back into my satchel.
+But I did not lock the door. Then I lit my candle and then--I went
+upstairs.”
+
+Fainter and fainter the words fell, and slower and slower heaved the
+youthful breast under her heavily pressing palm. Mr. Moffat made a
+sign across the court-room, and I saw Dr. Carpenter get up and move
+nearer to the witness stand. But she stood in no need of his help. In
+an instant her cheek flushed; the eye I watched with such intensity of
+wonder that apprehension unconsciously left me, rose, glowed, and fixed
+itself at last--not on the judge, not on the prisoner, not even on that
+prisoner’s counsel--but on _me_; and as the soft light filled my soul
+and awoke awe, where it had hitherto awakened passion, she quietly said:
+
+“There is a room upstairs, in the club-house, where I have often been
+with Adelaide. It has a fireplace in it, and I had seen a box there,
+half filled with wood the day before. This is the room I went to, and
+here I built a fire. When it was quite bright, I took out something I
+had brought in my satchel, and thrust it into the flame. Then I got up
+and walked away. I--I did not feel very strong, and sank on my knees
+when I got to the couch, and buried my face in my arms. But I felt
+better when I came back to the fire again, and very brave till I caught
+a glimpse of my face in the mirror over the mantelpiece. That--that
+unnerved me, and I think I screamed. Some one screamed, and I think it
+was I. I know my hands went out--I saw them in the glass; then they
+fell straight down at my side, and I looked and looked at myself till I
+saw all the terror go out of my face, and when it was quite calm again,
+I stooped down and pulled out the little tongs I had been heating
+in the fire, and laid them quick--quick, before I could be sorry
+again--right across my cheek, and then--”
+
+Uproar in the court. If she had screamed when she said she did, so
+some one cried out loudly now. I think that pitiful person was myself.
+They say I had been standing straight up in my place for the last two
+minutes.
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+“CHOOSE”
+
+Let me have
+A dram of poison; such soon speeding geer
+As will disperse itself through all the veins,
+That the life-weary taker may fall dead.
+
+Come, bitter conduct, come unsavoury guide!
+Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
+The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark.
+
+_Romeo and Juliet_
+
+
+“I have not finished,” were the first words we heard, when order was
+restored, and we were all in a condition to listen again.
+
+“I had to relate what you have just heard, that you might understand
+what happened next. I was not used to pain, and I could never have
+kept on pressing those irons to my cheek if I had not had the strength
+given me by my own reflection in the glass. When I thought the burn was
+quite deep enough, I tore the tongs away, and was lifting them to the
+other cheek when I saw the door behind me open, inch by inch, as though
+pushed by hesitating touches.
+
+“Instantly, I forgot my pain, almost my purpose, watching that door. I
+saw it slowly swing to its full width, and disclose my sister standing
+in the gap, with a look and in an attitude which terrified me more than
+the fire had done. Dropping the tongs, I turned and faced her, covering
+my cheek instinctively with my hand.
+
+“I saw her eyes run over my elaborate dinner dress--my little hand-bag,
+and the candle burning in a room made warm with a fire on the hearth.
+This, before she spoke a single word. Then, with a deep labouring
+breath, she looked me in the eye again, with the simple question:
+
+“‘And where is he?’”
+
+Carmel’s head had drooped at this, but she raised it almost instantly.
+Mine did not rise so readily.
+
+“‘Do you mean Elwood?’ I asked. ‘You know!’ said she. ‘The veil is down
+between us, Carmel; we will speak plainly now. I saw him give you the
+letter. I heard you ask Arthur to harness up the horse. I have demeaned
+myself to follow you, and we will have no subterfuges now. You expect
+him here?’
+
+“‘No,’ I cried. ‘I am not so bad as that, Adelaide--nor is he. Here
+is the note. You will see by it what he expects, and at what place I
+should have joined him, if I had been the selfish creature you think,’
+I had the note hidden in my breast. I took it out, and held it towards
+her. I did not feel the burn at all, but I kept it covered. She glanced
+down at the words; and I felt like falling at her feet, she looked so
+miserable. I am told that I must keep to fact, and must not express my
+feelings, or those of others. I will try to remember this; but it is
+hard for a sister, relating such a frightful scene.
+
+“She glanced down at the paper and let it drop, almost immediately,
+from her hand, ‘I cannot read his words!’ she cried; ‘I do not need to;
+we both know which of us he loves best. You cannot say that it is I,
+his engaged wife.’ I was silent, and her face took on an awful pallor.
+‘Carmel,’ said she, ‘do you know what this man’s love has been to me?
+You are a child, a warm-hearted and passionate child; but you do not
+know a woman’s heart. Certainly, you do not know mine. I doubt if any
+one does--even he. Cares have warped my life. I do not quarrel with
+these cares; I only say that they have robbed me of what makes girlhood
+lovely. Duty is a stern task-master; and sternness, coming early into
+one’s life, hardens its edges, but does not sap passion from the soul
+or devotion from the heart. I was ready for joy when it came, but I
+was no longer capable of bestowing it. I thought I was, but I soon saw
+my mistake. You showed it to me--you with your beauty, your freshness,
+your warm and untried heart. I have no charms to rival these; I have
+only love, such love as you cannot dream of at your age. And _this_ is
+no longer desirable to him!’
+
+“You see that I remember every word she spoke. They burned more
+fiercely than the iron. That did not burn at all, just then. I was cold
+instead--bitterly, awfully cold. My very heart seemed frozen, and the
+silence was dreadful. But I could not speak, I could not answer her.
+
+“‘You have everything,’ she now went on. ‘Why did you rob me of my one
+happiness? And you have robbed me. I have seen your smile when his head
+turned your way. It was the smile which runs before a promise. I know
+it; I have had that smile in my heart a long, long time--but it never
+reached my lips. Carmel, do you know why I am here?’ I shook my head.
+Was it her teeth that were chattering or mine? ‘I am here to end it
+all,’ said she. ‘With my hope gone, my heart laid waste, life has no
+prospect for me. I believe in God, and I know that my act is sinful;
+but I can no more live than can a tree stricken at the root. To-morrow
+he will not need to write notes; he can come and comfort you in our
+home. But never let him look at me. As we are sisters, and I almost a
+mother to you, shut my face away from his eyes--or I shall rise in my
+casket and the tangle of our lives will be renewed.’
+
+“I tell you this--I bare my sister’s broken heart to you, giving you
+her very words, sacred as they are to me and--and to others, who are
+present, and must listen to all I say--because it is right that you
+should understand her frenzy, and know all that passed between us in
+that awful hour.”
+
+This was irregular, highly irregular--but District Attorney Fox sat
+on, unmoved. Possibly he feared to prejudice the jury; possibly
+he recognised the danger of an interruption now, not only to the
+continuity of her testimony, but to the witness herself; or--what
+is just as likely--possibly he cherished a hope that, in giving her
+a free rein and allowing her to tell her story thus artlessly, she
+would herself supply the clew he needed to reconstruct his case on the
+new lines upon which it was being slowly forced by these unexpected
+revelations. Whatever the cause, he let these expressions of feeling
+pass.
+
+At a gesture from Mr. Moffat, Carmel proceeded:
+
+“I tottered at this threat; and she, a mother to me from my cradle,
+started instinctively to catch me; but the feeling left her before
+she had taken two steps, and she stopped still. ‘Drop your hand,’
+she cried. ‘I want to see your whole face while I ask you one last
+question. I could not read the note. Why did you come _here?_ I dropped
+my hand, and she stood staring; then she uttered a cry and ran quickly
+towards me. ‘What is it?’ she cried. ‘What has happened to you? Is it
+the shadow or--’
+
+“I caught her by the hand. I could speak now. ‘Adelaide,’ said I,
+‘you are not the only one to love to the point of hurt. I love _you_.
+Let this little scar be witness,’ Then, as her eyes opened and she
+staggered, I caught her to my breast and hid my face on her shoulder.
+‘You say that to-morrow I shall be free to receive notes. He will
+not wish to write them, tomorrow. The beauty he liked is gone. If it
+weighed overmuch with him, then you and I are on a plane again--or I am
+on an inferior one. Your joy will be sweeter for this break!’
+
+“She started, raised my head from her shoulder, looked at me and
+shuddered--but no longer with hate. ‘Carmel!’ she whispered, ‘the
+story--the story I read you of Francis the First and--’
+
+“‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘that made me think,’ Her knees bent under her; she
+sank at my feet, but her eyes never left my face. ‘And--and Elwood?’
+‘He knows nothing. I did not make up my mind till to-night. Adelaide,
+it had to be. I hadn’t the strength to--to leave you all, or--or to say
+no, if he ever asked me to my face what he asked me in that note,’
+
+“And then I tried to lift her; but she was kissing my feet, kissing my
+dress, sobbing out her life on my hands. Oh, I was happy! My future
+looked very simple to me. But my cheek began to burn, and instinctively
+I put up my hand. This brought her to her feet. ‘You are suffering,’
+she cried. ‘You must go home, at once, at once, while I telephone to
+Dr. Carpenter,’ ‘We will go together,’ I said. ‘We can telephone from
+there.’ But at this, the awful look came back into her face, and seeing
+her forget my hurt, I forgot it, too, in dread of what she would say
+when she found strength to speak.
+
+“It was worse than anything I had imagined; she refused absolutely to
+go back home. ‘Carmel,’ said she, ‘I have done injustice to your youth.
+You love him, too--not like a child but a woman. The tangle is worse
+than I thought; your heart is caught in it, as well as mine, and you
+shall have your chance. My death will give it to you.’ I shook my head,
+pointing to my cheek. She shook hers, and quietly, calmly said, ‘You
+have never looked so beautiful. Should we go back together and take
+up the old life, the struggle which has undermined my conscience and
+my whole existence would only begin again. I cannot face that ordeal,
+Carmel. The morning light would bring me daily torture, the evening
+dusk a night of blasting dreams. We three cannot live in this world
+together. I am the least loved and so I should be the one to die. I am
+determined, Carmel. Life, with me, has come to this.’
+
+“I tried to dissuade her. I urged every plea, even that of my own
+sacrifice. But she was no more her natural self. She had taken up the
+note and read it during my entreaties, and my words fell on deaf ears.
+‘Why, these words have killed me,’ she cried crumpling the note in her
+hand. ‘What will a little poison do? It can only finish what he has
+begun.’
+
+“Poison! I remembered how I had heard her pushing about bottles in
+the medicine cabinet, and felt my legs grow weak and my head swim.
+‘You will not!’ I cried, watching her hand, in terror of seeing it
+rise to her breast. ‘You are crazed to-night; to-morrow you will feel
+differently.’
+
+“But the fixed set look of her bleak face gave me no hope. ‘I shall
+never feel differently. If I do not end it to-night, I shall do so
+soon. When a heart like mine goes down, it goes down forever,’ I could
+only shudder. I did not know what to do, or which way to turn. She
+stood between me and the door, and her presence was terrible. ‘When I
+came here,’ she said, ‘I brought a bottle of cordial with me and three
+glasses. I brought a little phial of poison too, once ordered for
+sickness. I expected to find Elwood here. If I had, I meant to drop
+the poison into one glass, and then fill them all up with the cordial.
+We should have drunk, each one of us his glass, and one of us would
+have fallen. I did not care which, you or Elwood or myself. But he is
+not here, and the cast of the die is between us two, unless you wish
+a certainty, Carmel,--in which case I will pour out but one glass and
+drink that myself.’
+
+“She was in a fever, now, and desperate. Death was in the room; I felt
+it in my lifted hair, and in her strangely drawn face. If I screamed,
+who would hear me? I never thought of the telephone, and I doubt if she
+would have let me use it then. The power she had always exerted over me
+was very strong in her at this moment; and not till afterwards did it
+cross my mind that I had never asked her how she got to the house, or
+whether we were as much alone in the building as I believed.
+
+“‘Shall I drink alone?’ she repeated, and I cried out ‘No’; at which
+her hand went to her breast, as I had so long expected, and I saw the
+glitter of a little phial as she drew it forth.
+
+“‘Oh, Adelaide!’ I began; but she heeded me no more than the dead.
+
+“On leaving home, she had put on a long coat with pockets and this coat
+was still on her, and the pockets gaping. Thrusting her other hand into
+one of these, she drew out a little flask covered with wicker, and set
+it on a stand beside her. Then she pulled out two small glasses, and
+set them down also, and then she turned her back. I could hear the
+drop, drop of the liquor; and, dark as the room was, it seemed to turn
+darker, till I put out my hands like one groping in a sudden night. But
+everything cleared before me when she turned around again. Features set
+like hers force themselves to be seen.
+
+“She advanced, a glass in either hand. As she came, the floor swayed,
+and the walls seemed to bow together; but they did not sway her. Step
+by step, she drew near, and when she reached my side she smiled in
+my face once. Then she said: ‘Choose aright, dear heart. Leave the
+poisoned one for me.’
+
+“Fascinated, I stared at one glass, then at the other. Had either of
+her hands trembled, I should have grasped at the glass it held; but not
+a tremor shook those icy fingers, nor did her eyes wander to the right
+hand or to the left. ‘Adelaide!’ I shrieked out. ‘Toss them behind you.
+Let us live--live!’ But she only reiterated that awful word: ‘Choose!’
+and I dare not hesitate longer, lest I lose my chance to save her.
+Groping, I touched a glass--I never knew which one--and drawing it from
+her fingers, I lifted it to my mouth. Instantly her other hand rose. ‘I
+don’t know which is which, myself,’ she said, and drank. That made me
+drink, also.
+
+“The two glasses sent out a clicking sound as we set them back on the
+stand. Then we waited, looking at each other. ‘Which?’ her lips seemed
+to say. ‘Which?’ In another moment we knew. ‘Your choice was the right
+one,’ said she, and she sank back into a chair. ‘Don’t leave me!’ she
+called out, for I was about to run shrieking out into the night. ‘I--I
+am happy now that it is all settled; but I do not want to die alone.
+Oh, how hot I am!’ And leaping up, she flung off her coat, and went
+gasping about the room for air. When she sank down again, it was on
+the lounge; and again I tried to fly for help, and again she would not
+let me. Suddenly she started up, and I saw a great change in her. The
+heavy, leaden look was gone; tenderness had come back to her eyes,
+and a human anxious expression to her whole face. ‘I have been mad!’
+she cried. ‘Carmel, Carmel, what have I done to you, my more than
+sister--my child, my child!’
+
+“I tried to soothe her--to keep down my awful fear and soothe her. But
+the nearness of death had calmed her poor heart into its old love and
+habitual thoughtfulness. She was terrified at my position. She recalled
+our mother, and the oath she had taken at that mother’s death-bed to
+protect me and care for me and my brother. ‘And I have failed to do
+either,’ she cried. ‘Arthur, I have alienated, and you I am leaving to
+unknown trouble and danger,’
+
+“She was not to be comforted. I saw her life ebbing and could do
+nothing. She clung to me while she called up all her powers, and made
+plans for me and showed me a way of escape. I was to burn the note,
+fling two of the glasses from the window and leave the other and the
+deadly phial near her hand. This, before I left the room. Then I was to
+call up the police and say there was something wrong at the club-house,
+but I was not to give my name or ever acknowledge I was there. ‘Nothing
+can save trouble,’ she said, ‘but that trouble must not come near you.
+Swear that you will heed my words--swear that you will do what I say,’
+
+“I swore. All that she asked I promised. I was almost dying, too;
+and had the light gone out and the rafters of the house fallen in
+and buried us both, it would have been better. But the light burned
+on, and the life in her eyes faded out, and the hands grasping mine
+relaxed. I heard one little gasp; then a low prayer: ‘Tell Arthur
+never--never--again to--’ Then--silence!”
+
+Sobs--cries--veiled faces--then silence in the courtroom, too. It was
+broken but by one sound, a heartrending sigh from the prisoner. But
+nobody looked at him, and thank God!--nobody looked at me. Every eye
+was on the face of this young girl, whose story bore such an impress
+of truth, and yet was so contradictory of all former evidence. What
+revelations were yet to follow. It would seem that she was speaking of
+her sister’s death.
+
+But her sister had not died that way; her sister had been strangled.
+Could this dainty creature, with beauty scarred and yet powerfully
+triumphant, be the victim of an hallucination as to the cause of that
+scar and the awesome circumstances which attended its infliction?
+Or, harder still to believe, were these soul-compelling tones, these
+evidences of grief, this pathetic yielding to the rights of the law
+in face of the heart’s natural shrinking from disclosures sacred as
+they were tragic--were these the medium by which she sought to mislead
+justice and to conceal truth?
+
+Even I, with my memory of her looks as she faltered down the staircase
+on that memorable night--pale, staring, her left hand to her cheek and
+rocking from side to side in pain or terror--could not but ask if this
+heart-rending story did not involve a still more terrible sequel. I
+searched her face, and racked my very soul, in my effort to discern
+what lay beneath this angelic surface--beneath this recital which if it
+were true and the whole truth, would call not only for the devotion of
+a lifetime, but a respect transcending love and elevating it to worship.
+
+But, in her cold and quiet features, I could detect nothing beyond the
+melancholy of grief; and the suspense from which all suffered, kept me
+also on the rack, until at a question from Mr. Moffat she spoke again,
+and we heard her say:
+
+“Yes, she died that way, with her hands in mine. There was no one else
+by; we were quite alone.”
+
+That settled it, and for a moment the revulsion of feeling threatened
+to throw the court into tumult. But one thing restrained them. Not the
+look of astonishment on her face, not the startled uplift of Arthur’s
+head, not the quiet complacency which in an instant replaced the
+defeated aspect of the district attorney; but the gesture and attitude
+of Mr. Moffat, the man who had put her on the stand, and who now from
+the very force of his personality, kept the storm in abeyance, and by
+his own composure, forced back attention to his witness and to his own
+confidence in his case. This result reached, he turned again towards
+Carmel, with renewed respect in his manner and a marked softening in
+his aspect and voice.
+
+“Can you fix the hour of this occurrence?” he asked. “In any way can
+you locate the time?”
+
+“No; for I did not move at once. I felt tied to that couch; I am very
+young, and I had never seen death before. When I did get up, I hobbled
+like an old woman and almost went distracted; but came to myself as I
+saw the note on the floor--the note I was told to burn. Lifting it, I
+moved towards the fireplace, but got a fright on the way, and stopped
+in the middle of the floor and looked back. I thought I had heard my
+sister speak!
+
+“But the fancy passed as I saw how still she lay, and I went on, after
+a while, and threw the note into the one small flame which was all that
+was left of the fire. I saw it caught by a draught from the door behind
+me, and go flaming up the chimney.
+
+“Some of my trouble seemed to go with it, but a great one yet remained.
+I didn’t know how I could ever turn around again and see my sister
+lying there behind me, with her face fixed in death, for which I was,
+in a way, responsible. I was abjectly frightened, and knelt there a
+long time, praying and shuddering, before I could rise again to my
+feet and move about as I had to, since God had not stricken me and I
+must live my life and do what my sister had bidden me. Courage--such
+courage as I had had--was all gone from me now; and while I knew there
+was something else for me to do before I left the room, I could not
+remember what it was, and stood hesitating, dreading to lift my eyes
+and yet feeling that I ought to, if only to aid my memory by a look at
+my sister’s face.
+
+“Suddenly I did look up, but it did not aid my memory; and, realising
+that I could never think with that lifeless figure before me, I lifted
+a pillow from the window-seat near by and covered her face. I must
+have done more; I must have covered the whole lounge with pillows and
+cushions; for, presently my mind cleared again, and I recollected
+that it was something about the poison. I was to put the phial in her
+hand--or was I to throw it from the window? Something was to be thrown
+from the window--it must be the phial. But I couldn’t lift the window,
+so having found the phial standing on the table beside the little
+flask, I carried it into the closet where there was a window opening
+inward, and I dropped it out of that, and thought I had done all. But
+when I came back and saw Adelaide’s coat lying in a heap where she had
+thrown it, I recalled that she had said something about this but what,
+I didn’t know. So I lifted it and put it in the closet--why, I cannot
+say. Then I set my mind on going home.
+
+“But there was something to do first--something not in that room. It
+was a long time before it came to me; then the sight of the empty
+hall recalled it. The door by which Adelaide had come in had never
+been closed, and as I went towards it I remembered the telephone, and
+that I was to call up the police. Lifting the candle, I went creeping
+towards the front hall. Adelaide had commanded me, or I could never
+have accomplished this task. I had to open a door; and when it swung to
+behind me and latched, I turned around and looked at it, as if I never
+expected it to open again. I almost think I fainted, if one can faint
+standing, for when I knew anything, after the appalling latching of
+that door, I was in quite another part of the room and the candle which
+I still held, looked to my dazed eyes shorter than when I started with
+it from the place where my sister lay.
+
+“I was wasting time. The thought drove me to the table. I caught up
+the receiver and when central answered, I said something about The
+Whispering Pines and wanting help. This is all I remember about that.
+
+“Some time afterward--I don’t know when--I was stumbling down the
+stairs on my way out. I had gone to--to the room again for my little
+bag; for the keys were in it, and I dared not leave them. But I didn’t
+stay a minute, and I cast but one glance at the lounge. What happened
+afterward is like a dream to me. I found the horse; the horse found the
+road; and some time later I reached home. As I came within sight of the
+house I grew suddenly strong again. The open stable door reminded me of
+my duty, and driving in, I quickly unharnessed Jenny and put her away.
+Then I dragged the cutter into place, and hung up the harness. Lastly,
+I locked the door and carried the key with me into the house and hung
+it up on its usual nail in the kitchen. I had obeyed Adelaide, and now
+I would go to my room. That is what she would wish; but I don’t know
+whether I did this or not. My mind was full of Adelaide till confusion
+came--then darkness--and then a perfect blank.”
+
+She had finished; she had done as she had been asked; she had told the
+story of that evening as she knew it, from the family dinner till her
+return home after midnight--and the mystery of Adelaide’s death was
+as great as ever. Did she realise this? Had I wronged this lovely,
+tempestuous nature by suspicions which this story put to blush? I
+was happy to think so--madly, unreasonably happy. Whatever happened,
+whatever the future threatening Arthur or myself, it was rapture to be
+restored to right thinking as regards this captivating and youthful
+spirit, who had suffered and must suffer always--and all through me,
+who thought it a pleasant pastime to play with hearts, and awoke to
+find I was playing with souls, and those of the two noblest women I had
+ever known!
+
+The cutting in of some half dozen questions from Mr. Moffat, which I
+scarcely heard and which did not at all affect the status of the case
+as it now stood, served to cool down the emotional element, which had
+almost superseded the judicial, in more minds than those of the jury;
+and having thus prepared his witness for an examination at other and
+less careful hands, he testified his satisfaction at her replies, and
+turned her over to the prosecution, with the time-worn phrase:
+
+“Mr. District Attorney, the witness is yours.”
+
+Mr. Fox at once arose; the moment was ripe for conquest. He put his
+most vital question first:
+
+“In all this interview with your sister, did you remark any
+discoloration on her throat?”
+
+The witness’s lips opened; surprise spoke from her every feature.
+“Discoloration?” she repeated. “I do not know what you mean.”
+
+“Any marks darker than the rest of her skin on her throat or neck?”
+
+“No. Adelaide had a spotless skin. It looked like marble as she lay
+there. No, I saw no marks.”
+
+“Miss Cumberland, have you heard or read a full account of this trial?”
+
+She was trembling, now. Was it from fear of the truth, or under that
+terror of the unknown embodied in this question.
+
+“I do not know,” said she. “What I heard was from my nurse and Mr.
+Moffat. I read very little, and that was only about the first days of
+the trial and the swearing in of jurors. This is the first time I have
+heard any mention made of marks, and I do not understand yet what you
+allude to.”
+
+District Attorney Fox cast at Mr. Moffat an eloquent glance, which that
+gentleman bore unmoved; then turning back to the witness, he addressed
+her in milder and more considerate tones than were usually heard from
+him in cross-examination, and asked: “Did you hold your sister’s hands
+all the time she lay dying, as you thought, on the lounge?”
+
+“Yes, yes.”
+
+“And did not see her raise them once?”
+
+“No, no.”
+
+“How was it when you let go of them? Where did they fall then?”
+
+“On her breast. I laid them down softly and crossed them. I did not
+leave her till I had done this and closed her eyes.”
+
+“And what did you do then?”
+
+“I went for the note, to burn it.”
+
+“Miss Cumberland, in your direct examination, you said that you stopped
+still as you crossed the floor at the time, thinking that your sister
+called, and that you looked back at her to see.”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Were her hands crossed then?”
+
+“Yes, sir, just the same.”
+
+“And afterward, when you came from the fire after waiting some little
+time for courage?”
+
+“Yes, yes. There were no signs of movement. Oh, she was dead--quite
+dead.”
+
+“No statements, Miss Cumberland. She looked the same, and you saw no
+change in the position of her hands?”
+
+“None; they were just as I left them.”
+
+“Miss Cumberland, you have told us how, immediately after taking the
+poison, she staggered about the room, and sank first on a chair and
+then on the lounge. Were you watching her then?”
+
+“Oh, yes--every moment.”
+
+“Her hands as well as her face?”
+
+“I don’t know about her hands. I should have observed it if she had
+done anything strange with them.”
+
+“Can you say she did not clutch or grip her throat during any of this
+time?”
+
+“Yes, yes. I couldn’t have forgotten it, if she had done that. I
+remember every move she made so well. She didn’t do that.”
+
+Mr. Fox’s eye stole towards the jury. To a man, they were alert,
+anxious for the next question, and serious, as the arbitrators of a
+man’s life ought to be.
+
+Satisfied, he put the question: “When, after telephoning, you returned
+to the room where your sister lay, you glanced at the lounge?”
+
+“Yes, I could not help it.”
+
+“Was it in the same condition as when you left--the pillows, I mean?”
+
+“I--I think so. I cannot say; I only half looked; I was terrified by
+it.”
+
+“Can you say they had not been disturbed?”
+
+“No. I can say nothing. But what does--”
+
+“Only the answer, Miss Cumberland. Can you tell us how those pillows
+were arranged?”
+
+“I’m afraid not. I threw them down quickly, madly, just as I collected
+them. I only know that I put the window cushion down first. The rest
+fell anyhow; but they quite covered her--quite.”
+
+“Hands and face?”
+
+“Her whole body.”
+
+“And did they cover her quite when you came back?”
+
+“They must have--Wait--wait! I know I have no right to say that, but I
+cannot swear that I saw any change.”
+
+“Can you swear that there was no change--that the pillows and the
+window cushion lay just as they did when you left the room?”
+
+She did not answer. Horror seemed to have seized hold of her. Her
+eyes, fixed on the attorney’s face, wavered and, had they followed
+their natural impulse, would have turned towards her brother, but her
+fear--possibly her love--was her counsellor and she brought them back
+to Mr. Fox. Resolutely, but with a shuddering insight of the importance
+of her reply, she answered with that one weighty monosyllable which can
+crush so many hopes, and even wreck a life:
+
+“No.”
+
+At the next moment she was in Dr. Carpenter’s arms. Her strength had
+given way for the time, and the court was hastily adjourned, to give
+her opportunity for rest and recuperation.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+“WERE HER HANDS CROSSED THEN?”
+
+Threescore and ten I can remember well:
+Within the volume of which time, I have seen
+Hours dreadful, and things strange; but this sore night
+Hath trifled former knowledge.
+
+_Macbeth_.
+
+
+I shall say nothing about myself at this juncture. That will come
+later. I have something of quite different purport to relate.
+
+When I left the court-room with the other witnesses, I noticed a man
+standing near the district attorney. He was a very plain man--with no
+especial claims to attention, that I could see, yet I looked at him
+longer than I did at any one else, and turned and looked at him again
+as I passed through the doorway.
+
+Afterward I heard that he was Sweetwater, the detective from New
+York who had had so much to do in unearthing the testimony against
+Arthur,--testimony which in the light of this morning’s revelations,
+had taken on quite a new aspect, as he was doubtless the first to
+acknowledge. It was the curious blending of professional disappointment
+and a personal and characteristic appreciation of the surprising
+situation, which made me observe him, I suppose. Certainly my heart
+and mind were full enough not to waste looks on a commonplace stranger
+unless there had been some such overpowering reason.
+
+I left him still talking to Mr. Fox, and later received this account of
+the interview which followed between them and Dr. Perry.
+
+“Is this girl telling the truth?” asked District Attorney Fox, as soon
+as the three were closeted and each could speak his own mind. “Doctor,
+what do you think?”
+
+“I do not question her veracity in the least. A woman who for purely
+moral reasons could defy pain and risk the loss of a beauty universally
+acknowledged as transcendent, would never stoop to falsehood even in
+her desire to save a brother’s life. I have every confidence in her.
+Fox, and I think you may safely have the same.”
+
+“You believe that she burnt herself--intentionally?”
+
+“I wouldn’t disbelieve it--you may think me sentimental; I knew and
+loved her father--for any fortune you might name.”
+
+“Say that you never knew her father; say that you had no more interest
+in the girl or the case, than the jurors have? What then---?
+
+“I should believe her for humanity’s sake; for the sake of the
+happiness it gives one to find something true and strong in this sordid
+work-a-day world--a jewel in a dust-heap. Oh, I’m a sentimentalist, I
+acknowledge.”
+
+Mr. Fox turned to Sweetwater. “And you?”
+
+“Mr. Fox, have you those tongs?”
+
+“Yes, I forgot; they were brought to my office, with the other
+exhibits. I attached no importance to them, and you will probably find
+them just where I thrust them into the box marked ‘Cumb.’”
+
+They were in the district attorney’s office, and Sweetwater at once
+rose and brought forward the tongs.
+
+“There is my answer,” he said pointing significantly at one of the legs.
+
+The district attorney turned pale, and motioned Sweetwater to carry
+them back. He sat silent for a moment, and then showed that he was a
+man.
+
+“Miss Cumberland has my respect,” said he.
+
+Sweetwater came back to his place.
+
+Dr. Perry waited.
+
+Finally Mr. Fox turned to him and put the anticipated question:
+
+“You are satisfied with your autopsy? Miss Cumberland’s death was due
+to strangulation and not to the poison she took?”
+
+“That was what I swore to, and what I should have to swear to again
+if you placed me back on the stand. The poison, taken with her great
+excitement, robbed her of consciousness, but there was too little of
+it, or it was too old and weakened to cause death. She would probably
+have revived, in time; possibly did revive. But the clutch of those
+fingers was fatal; she could not survive it. It costs me more than
+you can ever understand to say this, but questions like yours must be
+answered. I should not be an honest man otherwise.”
+
+Sweetwater made a movement. Mr. Fox turned and looked at him critically.
+
+“Speak out,” said he.
+
+But Sweetwater had nothing to say.
+
+Neither had Dr. Perry. The oppression of an unsolved problem, involving
+lives of whose value each formed a different estimate, was upon them
+all; possibly heaviest upon the district attorney, the most serious
+portion of whose work lay still before him.
+
+To the relief of all, Carmel was physically stronger than we expected
+when she came to retake the stand in the afternoon. But she had lost
+a little of her courage. Her expectation of clearing her brother at
+a word had left her, and with it the excitation of hope. Yet she
+made a noble picture as she sat there, meeting, without a blush, but
+with an air of sweet humility impossible to describe, the curious,
+all-devouring glances of the multitude, some of them anxious to repeat
+the experience of the morning; some of them new to the court, to her,
+and the cause for which she stood.
+
+Mr. Fox kept nobody waiting. With a gentleness such as he seldom showed
+to any witness for the defence, he resumed his cross-examination by
+propounding the following question:
+
+“Miss Cumberland, in your account of the final interview you had with
+your sister, you alluded to a story you had once read together. Will
+you tell us the name of this story?”
+
+“It was called ‘A Legend of Francis the First.’ It was not a novel, but
+a little tale she found in some old magazine. It had a great effect
+upon us; I have never forgotten it.”
+
+“Can you relate this tale to us in a few words?”
+
+“I will try. It was very simple; it merely told how a young girl marred
+her beauty to escape the attentions of the great king, and what respect
+he always showed her after that, even calling her sister.”
+
+Was the thrill in her voice or in my own heart, or in the
+story--emphasised as it was by her undeniable attempt upon her own
+beauty? As that last word fell so softly, yet with such tender
+suggestion, a sensation of sympathy passed between us for the first
+time; and I knew, from the purity of her look and the fearlessness of
+this covert appeal to one she could not address openly, that the doubts
+I had cherished of her up to this very moment were an outrage and that
+were it possible or seemly, I should be bowed down in the dust at her
+feet--in reality, as I was in spirit.
+
+Others may have shared my feeling; for the glances which flew from her
+face to mine were laden with an appreciation of the situation, which
+for the moment drove the prisoner from the minds of all, and centred
+attention on this tragedy of souls, bared in so cruel a way to the
+curiosity of the crowd. I could not bear it. The triumph of my heart
+battled with the shame of my fault, and I might have been tempted into
+some act of manifest imprudence, if Mr. Fox had not cut my misery short
+by recalling attention to the witness, with a question of the most
+vital importance.
+
+“While you were holding your sister’s hands in what you supposed to be
+her final moments, did you observe whether or not she still wore on her
+finger the curious ring given her by Mr. Ranelagh, and known as her
+engagement ring?”
+
+“Yes--I not only saw it, but felt it. It was the only one she wore on
+her left hand.”
+
+The district attorney paused. This was an admission unexpected,
+perhaps, by himself, which it was desirable to have sink into the minds
+of the jury. The ring had not been removed by Adelaide herself; it
+was still on her finger as the last hour drew nigh. An awful fact, if
+established--telling seriously against Arthur. Involuntarily I glanced
+his way. He was looking at me. The mutual glance struck fire. What I
+thought, he thought--but possibly with a difference. The moment was
+surcharged with emotion for all but the witness herself. She was calm;
+perhaps she did not understand the significance of the occasion.
+
+Mr. Fox pressed his advantage.
+
+“And when you rose from the lounge and crossed your sister’s hands?”
+
+“It was still there; I put that hand uppermost.”
+
+“And left the ring on?”
+
+“Oh, yes--oh, yes.” Her whole attitude and face were full of protest.
+
+“So that, to the best of your belief, it was still on your sister’s
+finger when you left the room?”
+
+“Certainly, sir, certainly.”
+
+There was alarm in her tone now, she was beginning to see that her
+testimony was not as entirely helpful to Arthur as she had been led
+to expect. In her helplessness, she cast a glance of entreaty at her
+brother’s counsel. But he was busily occupied with pencil and paper,
+and she received no encouragement unless it was from his studiously
+composed manner and general air of unconcern. She did not know--nor did
+I know then--what uneasiness such an air may cover.
+
+Mr. Fox had followed her glances, and perhaps understood his adversary
+better than she did; for he drew himself up with an appearance of
+satisfaction as he asked very quietly:
+
+“What material did you use in lighting the fire on the club-house
+hearth?”
+
+“Wood from the box, and a little kindling I found there.”
+
+“How large was this kindling?”
+
+“Not very large; some few stray pieces of finer wood I picked out from
+she rest.”
+
+“And how did you light these?”
+
+“With some scraps of paper I brought in my bag?”
+
+“Oh--you brought scraps?”
+
+“Yes. I had seen the box, seen the wood, but knew the wood would not
+kindle without paper. So I brought some.”
+
+“Did the fire light quickly?”
+
+“Not very quickly.”
+
+“You had trouble with it?”
+
+“Yes, sir. But I made it burn at last.”
+
+“Are you in the habit of kindling fires in your own home?”
+
+“Yes, on the hearth.”
+
+“You understand them?”
+
+“I have always found it a very simple matter, if you have paper and
+enough kindling.”
+
+“And the draught is good.”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Wasn’t the draught good at the club-house?”
+
+“Not at first.”
+
+“Oh--not at first. When did you see a change?”
+
+“When the note I was trying to burn flew up the chimney.”
+
+“I see. Was that after or before the door opened?”
+
+“After.”
+
+“Did the opening of this door alter the temperature of the room?”
+
+“I cannot say; I felt neither heat nor cold at any time.”
+
+“Didn’t you feel the icy cold when you opened the dressing-closet
+window to throw out the phial?”
+
+“I don’t remember.”
+
+“Wouldn’t you remember if you had?”
+
+“I cannot say.”
+
+“Can you say whether you noticed any especial chill in the hall when
+you went out to telephone?”
+
+“My teeth were chattering but--”
+
+“Had they chattered before?”
+
+“They may have. I only noticed it then; but--”
+
+“The facts, Miss Cumberland. Your teeth chattered while you were
+passing through the hall. Did this keep up after you entered the room
+where you found the telephone?”
+
+“I don’t remember; I was almost insensible.”
+
+“You don’t remember that they did?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“But you do remember having shut the door behind you?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+An open window in the hall! That was what he was trying to prove--open
+at this time. From the expression of such faces of the jury as I could
+see, I think he had proved it. The next point he made was in the same
+line. Had she, in all the time she was in the building, heard any
+noises she could not account for?
+
+“Yes, many times.”
+
+“Can you describe these noises?”
+
+“No; they were of all kinds. The pines sighed continually; I knew it
+was the pines, but I had to listen. Once I heard a rushing sound--it
+was when the pines stopped swaying for an instant--but I don’t know
+what it was. It was all very dreadful.”
+
+“Was this rushing sound such as a window might make on being opened?”
+
+“Possibly. I didn’t think of it at the time, but it might have been.”
+
+“From what direction did it come?”
+
+“Back of me, for I turned my head about.”
+
+“Where were you at the time?”
+
+“At the hearth. It was before Adelaide came in.”
+
+“A near sound, or a far?”
+
+“Far, but I cannot locate it--indeed, I cannot. I forgot it in a
+moment.”
+
+“But you remember it now?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And cannot you remember _now_ any other noises than those you speak
+of? That time you stepped into the hall--when your teeth chattered, you
+know--did you hear nothing then but the sighing of the pines?”
+
+She looked startled. Her hands went up and one of them clutched at her
+throat, then they fell, and slowly--carefully--like one feeling his
+way--she answered:
+
+“I had forgotten. I did hear something--a sound in one of the doorways.
+It was very faint--a sigh--a--a--I don’t know what. It conveyed nothing
+to me then, and not much now. But you asked, and I have answered.”
+
+“You have done right, Miss Cumberland. The jury ought to know these
+facts. Was it a human sigh?”
+
+“It wasn’t the sigh of the pines.”
+
+“And you heard it in one of the doorways? Which doorway?”
+
+“The one opposite the room in which I left my sister.”
+
+“The doorway to the large hall?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+Oh, the sinister memories! The moments which I myself had spent
+there--after this time of her passing through the hall, thank God!--but
+not long after. And some one had been there before me! Was it Arthur? I
+hardly had the courage to interrogate his face, but when I did, I, like
+every one else who looked that way, met nothing but the quietude of a
+fully composed man. There was nothing to be learned from him now; the
+hour for self-betrayal was past. I began to have a hideous doubt.
+
+Carmel being innocent, who could be guilty but he. I knew of no one.
+The misery under which I had suffered was only lightened, not removed.
+We were still to see evil days. The prosecution would prove its case,
+and--But there was Mr. Moffat. I must not reckon without Moffat. He had
+sprung one surprise. Was he not capable of springing another? Relieved,
+I fixed my mind again upon the proceedings. What was Mr. Fox asking her
+now?
+
+“Miss Cumberland, are you ready to swear that you did not hear a step
+at that time?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Or see a face?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“That you only heard a sigh?”
+
+“A sigh, or something like one.”
+
+“Which made you stop--”
+
+“No, I did not stop.”
+
+“You went right on?”
+
+“Immediately.”
+
+“Entering the telephone room?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“The door of which you shut?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Intentionally?”
+
+“No, not intentionally.”
+
+“Did you shut that door yourself?”
+
+“I do not know. I must have but I--”
+
+“Never mind explanations. You do not know whether you shut it, or
+whether some one else shut it?”
+
+“I do not.”
+
+The words fell weightily. They seemed to strike every heart.
+
+“Miss Cumberland, you have said that you telephoned for the police.”
+
+“I telephoned to central.”
+
+“For help?”
+
+“Yes, for help.”
+
+“You were some minutes doing this, you say?”
+
+“I have reason to think so, but I don’t know definitely. The candle
+seemed shorter when I went out than when I came in.”
+
+“Are you sure you telephoned for help?”
+
+“Help was what I wanted--help for my sister. I do not remember my
+words.”
+
+“And then you left the building?”
+
+“After going for my little bag.”
+
+“Did you see any one then?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Hear any one?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Did you see your sister again?”
+
+“I have said that I just glanced at the couch.”
+
+“Were the pillows there?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Just as you had left them?”
+
+“I have said that I could not tell.”
+
+“Wouldn’t you know if they had been disturbed?”
+
+“No, sir--not from the look I gave them.”
+
+“Then they might have been disturbed--might even have been
+rearranged---without your knowing it?”
+
+“They might.”
+
+“Miss Cumberland, when you left the building, did you leave it alone?”
+
+“I did.”
+
+“Was the moon shining?”
+
+“No, it was snowing.”
+
+“Did the moon shine when you went to throw the phial out of the window?”
+
+“Yes, very brightly.”
+
+“Bright enough for you to see the links?”
+
+“I didn’t look at the links.”
+
+“Where were you looking?”
+
+“Behind me.”
+
+“When you threw the phial out?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“What was there behind you?”
+
+“A dead sister.” Oh, the indescribable tone!
+
+“Nothing else?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Forgive me, Miss Cumberland, I do not want to trouble you, but was
+there not something or some one in the adjoining room besides your dead
+sister, to make you look back?”
+
+“I saw no one. But I looked back--I do not know why.”
+
+“And didn’t you turn at all?”
+
+“I do not think so.”
+
+“You threw the phial out without looking?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“How do you know you threw it out?”
+
+“I felt it slip from my hand.”
+
+“Where?”
+
+“Over the window ledge. I had pulled the window open before I turned
+my head. I had only to feel for the sill. When I touched its edge, I
+opened my fingers.”
+
+Triumph for the defence. Cross-examination on this point had only
+served to elucidate a mysterious fact. The position of the phial,
+caught in the vines, was accounted for in a very natural manner.
+
+Mr. Fox shifted his inquiries.
+
+“You have said that you wore a hat and coat of your brother’s in coming
+to the club-house? Did you keep these articles on?”
+
+“No; I left them in the lower hall.”
+
+“Where in the lower hall?”
+
+“On the rack there.”
+
+“Was your candle lit?”
+
+“Not then, sir.”
+
+“Yet you found the rack?”
+
+“I felt for it. I knew where it was.”
+
+“When did you light the candle?”
+
+“After I hung up the coat.”
+
+“And when you came down? Did you have the candle then?”
+
+“Yes, for a while. But I didn’t have any light when I went for the coat
+and hat. I remember feeling all along the wall. I don’t know what I did
+with the candlestick or the candle. I had them on the stairs; I didn’t
+have them when I put on the coat and hat.”
+
+I knew what she did with them. She flung them out of her hand upon the
+marble floor. Should I ever forget the darkness swallowing up that face
+of mental horror and physical suffering.
+
+“Miss Cumberland, you are sure about having telephoned for help, and
+that you mentioned The Whispering Pines in doing so?”
+
+“Quite sure.” Oh, what weariness was creeping into her voice!
+
+“Then, of course, you left the door unlocked when you went out of the
+building?”
+
+“No--no, I didn’t. I had the key and I locked it. But I didn’t realise
+this till I went to untie my horse; then I found the keys in my hand.
+But I didn’t go back.”
+
+“Do you mean that you didn’t know you locked the door?”
+
+“I don’t remember whether I knew or not at the time. I do remember
+being surprised and a little frightened when I saw the keys. But I
+didn’t go back.”
+
+“Yet you had telephoned for the police?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And then locked them out?”
+
+“I didn’t care--I didn’t care.”
+
+An infinite number of questions followed. The poor child was near
+fainting, but bore up wonderfully notwithstanding, contradicting
+herself but seldom; and then only from lack of understanding the
+question, or from sheer fatigue. Mr. Fox was considerate, and Mr.
+Moffat interrupted but seldom. All could see that this noble-hearted
+girl, this heroine of all hearts was trying to tell the truth, and
+sympathy was with her, even that of the prosecution. But certain facts
+had to be brought out, among them the blowing off of her hat on that
+hurried drive home through the ever thickening snow-storm--a fact
+easily accounted for, when one considered the thick coils of hair over
+which it had been drawn.
+
+The circumstances connected with her arrival at the house were all
+carefully sifted, but nothing new came up, nor was her credibility as
+a witness shaken. The prosecution had lost much by this witness, but
+it had also gained. No doubt now remained that the ring was still on
+the victim’s hand when she succumbed to the effects of the poison; and
+the possibility of another presence in the house during the fateful
+interview just recorded, had been strengthened, rather than lessened,
+by Carmel’ s hesitating admissions. And so the question hung poised,
+and I was expecting to see her dismissed from the stand, when the
+district attorney settled himself again into his accustomed attitude of
+inquiry, and launched this new question:
+
+“When you went into the stable to unharness your horse, what did you do
+with the little bag you carried?”
+
+“I took it out of the cutter.”
+
+“What, then?”
+
+“Set it down somewhere.”
+
+“Was there anything in the bag?”
+
+“Not now. I had left the tongs at the club-house, and the paper I had
+burned. I took nothing else.”
+
+“How about the candlestick?”
+
+“That I carried in one of the pockets of my coat. That I left, too.”
+
+“Was that all you carried in your pockets?”
+
+“Yes--the candlestick and the candle. The candlestick on one side and
+the candle on the other.”
+
+“And these you did not have on your return?”
+
+“No, I left both.”
+
+“So that your pockets were empty--entirely empty--when you drove into
+your own gate?”
+
+“Yes, sir, so far as I know. I never looked into them.”
+
+“And felt nothing there?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Took nothing out?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Then or when you unharnessed your horse, or afterward, as you passed
+back to the house?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“What path did you take in returning to the house?”
+
+“There is only one.”
+
+“Did you walk straight through it?”
+
+“As straight as I could. It was snowing heavily, and I was dizzy and
+felt strange, I may have zigzagged a little.”
+
+“Did you zigzag enough to go back of the stable?”
+
+“Oh, no.”
+
+“You are sure that you did not wander in back of the stable?”
+
+“As sure as I can be of anything.”
+
+“Miss Cumberland, I have but a few more questions to ask. Will you look
+at this portion of a broken bottle?”
+
+“I see it, sir.”
+
+“Will you take it in your hand and examine it carefully?”
+
+She reached out her hand; it was trembling visibly and her face
+expressed a deep distress, but she took the piece of broken bottle and
+looked at it before passing it back.
+
+“Miss Cumberland, did you ever see that bit of broken glass before?”
+
+She shook her head. Then she cast a quick look at her brother, and
+seemed to gain an instantaneous courage.
+
+“No,” said she. “I may have seen a whole bottle like that, at some time
+in the club-house, but I have no memory of this broken end--none at
+all.”
+
+“I am obliged to you, Miss Cumberland. I will trouble you no more
+to-day.”
+
+Then he threw up his head and smiled a slow, sarcastic smile at Mr.
+Moffat.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+AND I HAD SAID NOTHING!
+
+O my soul’s joy!
+If after every tempest come such calms
+May the winds blow till they have wakened death!
+
+_Othello_.
+
+
+I had always loved her; that I knew even in the hour of my darkest
+suspicion--but now I felt free to worship her. As the thought
+penetrated my whole being, it made the night gladsome. Whatever awaited
+her, whatever awaited Arthur, whatever awaited me, she had regenerated
+me. A change took place that night in my whole nature, in my aspect of
+life and my view of women. One fact rode triumphant above all other
+considerations and possible distresses. Fate--I was more inclined now
+to call it Providence--had shown me the heart of a great and true
+woman; and I was free to expend all my best impulses in honouring her
+and loving her, whether she ever looked my way again, received or even
+acknowledged a homage growing out of such wrong as I had done her
+and her unfortunate sister. It set a star in my firmament. It turned
+down all the ill-written and besmirched leaves in my book of life and
+opened up a new page on which her name, written in letters of gold,
+demanded clean work in the future and a record which should not shame
+the aura surrounding that pure name. Sorrow for the past, dread of the
+future--both were lost in the glad rebound of my distracted soul. The
+night was dedicated to joy, and to joy alone.
+
+The next day being Sunday, I had ample time for the reaction bound to
+follow hours of such exaltation. I had no wish for company. I even
+denied myself to Clifton. The sight of a human face was more than I
+could bear unless it were the one face; and that I could not hope
+for. But the desire to see her, to hear from her--if only to learn
+how she had endured the bitter ordeal of the day before--soon became
+unbearable. I must know this much at any cost to her feelings or to
+mine.
+
+After many a struggle with myself, I called up Dr. Carpenter on the
+telephone. From him I learned that she was physically prostrated, but
+still clear in mind and satisfied of her brother’s innocence. This
+latter statement might mean anything; but imparted by him to me, it
+seemed to be capable of but one interpretation. I must be prepared for
+whatever distrust of myself this confidence carried with it.
+
+This was intolerable. I had to speak; I had to inquire if she had yet
+heard the real reason why I was the first to be arrested.
+
+A decided “No,” cut short that agony. I could breathe again and proffer
+a humble request.
+
+“Doctor, I cannot approach her; I cannot even write,--it would seem too
+presumptuous. But tell her, as you find the opportunity, how I honour
+her. Do not let her remain under the impression that I am not capable
+of truly feeling what she has borne and must still bear.”
+
+“I will do what I can,” was his reply, and he mercifully cut short the
+conversation.
+
+This was the event of the morning.
+
+In the afternoon I sat in my window thinking. My powers of reasoning
+had returned, and the insoluble problem of Adelaide’s murder occupied
+my whole mind. With Carmel innocent, who was there left to suspect?
+Not Arthur. His fingers were as guiltless as my own of those marks on
+her throat. Of this I was convinced, difficult as it made my future.
+My mind refused to see guilt in a man who could meet my eye with just
+the look he gave me on leaving the courtroom, at the conclusion of his
+sister’s triumphant examination. It was a momentary glance, but I read
+it, I am sure, quite truthfully.
+
+“You are the man,” it said; but not in the old, bitter, and revengeful
+way voiced by his tongue before we came together in the one effort to
+save Carmel from what, in our short-sightedness and misunderstanding
+of her character, we had looked upon as the worst of humiliations and
+the most desperate of perils. There was sadness in his conviction and
+an honest man’s regret--which, if noted by those about us--was far more
+dangerous to my good name than the loudest of denunciations or the most
+acrimonious of assaults. It put me in the worst of positions. But one
+chance remained for me now.
+
+The secret man of guilt might yet come to light; but how or through
+whose agency, I found myself unable to conceive. I had neither the wit
+nor the experience to untangle this confused web. Should I find the law
+in shape to deal with it? A few days would show. With the termination
+of Arthur’s trial, the story of my future would begin. Meanwhile, I
+must have patience and such strength as could be got from the present.
+
+And so the afternoon passed.
+
+With the coming on of night, my mood changed. I wanted air, movement.
+The closeness of my rooms had become unbearable. As soon as the lamps
+were lit in the street, I started out and I went--toward the cemetery.
+
+I had no motive in choosing this direction for my walk. The road was an
+open one, and I should neither avoid people nor escape the chilly blast
+blowing directly in my face from the northeast. Whim, or shall I not
+say, true feeling, carried me there though I was quite conscious, all
+the time, of a strong desire to see Ella Fulton and learn from her the
+condition of affairs--whether she was at peace, or in utter disgrace,
+with her parents.
+
+It was a cold night, as I have said, and there were but few people in
+the streets. On the boulevard I met nobody. As I neared the cemetery,
+I passed one man; otherwise I was, to all appearance, alone on this
+remote avenue. The effect was sinister, or my mood made it so; yet
+I did not hasten my steps; the hours till midnight had to be lived
+through in some way, and why not in this? No companion would have been
+welcome, and had the solitude been less perfect, I should have murmured
+at the prospect of intrusion.
+
+The cemetery gates were shut. This I had expected, but I did not
+need to enter the grounds to have a view of Adelaide’s grave. The
+Cumberland lot occupied a knoll in close proximity to the fence, and
+my only intention had been to pass this spot and cast one look within,
+in memory of Adelaide. To reach the place, however, I had to turn
+a corner, and on doing so I saw good reason, as I thought, for not
+carrying out my intention at this especial time.
+
+Some man--I could not recognise him from where I stood--had forestalled
+me. Though the night was a dark one, sufficient light shone from the
+scattered lamps on the opposite side of the way for me to discern his
+intent figure, crouching against the iron bars and gazing, with an
+intentness which made him entirely oblivious of my presence, at the
+very plot--and on the very grave--which had been the end of my own
+pilgrimage. So motionless he stood, and so motionless I myself became
+at this unexpected and significant sight, that I presently imagined I
+could hear his sighs in the dread quiet into which the whole scene had
+sunk.
+
+Grief, deeper than mine, spoke in those labouring breaths. Adelaide was
+mourned by some one as I, for all my remorse, could never mourn her.
+
+_And I did not know the man_.
+
+Was not this strange enough to rouse my wonder?
+
+I thought so, and was on the point of satisfying this wonder by a quick
+advance upon this stranger, when there happened an uncanny thing,
+which held me in check from sheer astonishment. I was so placed, in
+reference to one of the street lamps I have already mentioned, that my
+shadow fell before me plainly along the snow. This had not attracted my
+attention until, at the point of moving, I cast my eyes down and saw
+two shadows where only one should be.
+
+As I had heard no one behind me, and had supposed myself entirely
+alone with the man absorbed in contemplation of Adelaide’s grave, I
+experienced a curious sensation which, without being fear, held me
+still for a moment, with my eyes on this second shadow. It did not
+move, any more than mine did. This was significant, and I turned.
+
+A man stood at my back--not looking at me but at the fellow in front
+of us. A quiet “hush!” sounded in my ear, and again I stood still. But
+only for an instant.
+
+The man at the fence--aroused by my movement, perhaps--had turned,
+and, seeing our two figures, started to fly in the opposite direction.
+Instinctively I darted forward in pursuit, but was soon passed by the
+man behind me. This caused me to slacken; for I had recognised this
+latter, as he flew by, as Sweetwater, the detective, and knew that he
+would do this work better than myself.
+
+But I reckoned without my host. He went only as far as the spot where
+the man had been standing. When, in my astonishment, I advanced upon
+him there, he wheeled about quite naturally in my direction and,
+accosting me by name, remarked, in his genial off-hand manner:
+
+“There is no need for us to tire our legs in a chase after that man. I
+know him well enough.”
+
+“And who--” I began.
+
+A quizzical smile answered me. The light was now in our faces, and I
+had a perfect view of his. Its expression quite disarmed me; but I
+knew, as well as if he had spoken, that I should receive no other reply
+to my half-formed question.
+
+“Are you going back into town?” he asked, as I paused and looked down
+at the umbrella swinging in his hand. I was sure that he had not held
+this umbrella when he started by me on the run. “If so, will you allow
+me to walk beside you for a little way?”
+
+I could not refuse him; besides, I was not sure that I wanted to.
+Homely as any man I had ever seen, there was a magnetic quality in his
+voice and manner that affected even one so fastidious as myself. I felt
+that I had rather talk to him, at that moment, than to any other person
+I knew. Of course, curiosity had something to do with it, and that
+community of interest which is the strongest bond that can link two
+people together.
+
+“You are quite welcome,” said I; and again cast my eye at the umbrella.
+
+“You are wondering where I got this,” he remarked, looking down at it
+in his turn. “I found it leaning against the fence. It gives me all the
+clue I need to our fleet-footed friend. Mr. Ranelagh, will you credit
+me with good intentions if I ask a question or two which you may or may
+not be willing to answer?”
+
+“You may ask what you will,” said I. “I have nothing to conceal, since
+hearing Miss Cumberland’s explanation of her presence at The Whispering
+Pines.”
+
+“Ah!”
+
+The ejaculation was eloquent. So was the silence which followed it.
+Without good reason, perhaps, I felt the strain upon my heart loosen a
+little. Was it possible that I should find a friend in this man?
+
+“The question I am going to ask,” he continued presently, “is one which
+you may consider unpardonable. Let me first express an opinion. You
+have not told all that you know of that evening’s doings.”
+
+This called for no reply and I made none.
+
+“I can understand your reticence, if your knowledge included the fact
+of Miss Cumberland’s heroic act and her sister’s manner of death at the
+club-house.”
+
+“But it did not,” I asserted, with deliberate emphasis. “I knew nothing
+of either. My arrival happened later. Miss Cumberland’s testimony gave
+me my first enlightenment on these points. But I did know that the two
+sisters were there together, for I had a glimpse of the younger as she
+was leaving the house.”
+
+“You had. And are willing to state it now?”
+
+“Assuredly. But any testimony of that kind is for the defence, and
+your interests are all with the prosecution. Mr. Moffat is the man who
+should talk to me.”
+
+“Does he know it?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Who told him?”
+
+“I did.”
+
+“You?”
+
+“Yes, it was my duty.”
+
+“You are interested then in seeing young Cumberland freed?”
+
+“I must be; he is innocent.”
+
+The man at my side turned, shot at me one glance which I met quite
+calmly, then, regulating his step by mine, moved on silently for a
+moment--thinking, as it appeared to me, some very serious thoughts.
+It was not until we had traversed a whole block in this way that he
+finally put his question. Whether it was the one he had first had in
+mind, I cannot say.
+
+“Mr. Ranelagh, will you tell me why, when you found yourself in such
+a dire extremity as to be arrested for this crime, on evidence as
+startling as to call for all and every possible testimony to your
+innocence, you preserved silence in regard to a fact which you must
+have then felt would have secured you a most invaluable witness? I can
+understand why Mr. Cumberland has been loth to speak of his younger
+sister’s presence in the club-house on that night; but his reason was
+not your reason. Yet you have been as hard to move on this point as he.”
+
+Then it was I regretted my thoughtless promise to be candid with this
+man. To answer were impossible, yet silence has its confidences, too.
+In my dilemma, I turned towards him and just then we stepped within the
+glare of an electric light pouring from some open doorway. I caught his
+eye, and was astonished at the change which took place in him.
+
+“Don’t answer,” he muttered, volubly. “It isn’t necessary. I understand
+the situation, now, and you shall never regret that you met Caleb
+Sweetwater on your walk this evening. Will you trust me, sir? A
+detective who loves his profession is no gabbler. Your secret is as
+safe with me as if you had buried it in the grave.”
+
+And I had said nothing!
+
+He started to go, then he stopped suddenly and observed, with one of
+his wise smiles:
+
+“I once spent several minutes in Miss Carmel Cumberland’s room, and I
+saw a cabinet there which I found it very hard to understand. But its
+meaning came to me later. I could not rest till it did.”
+
+At the next moment he was half way around a corner, and in another, out
+of sight.
+
+This was the evening’s event.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+THE ARROW OF DEATH
+
+O if you rear this house against this house,
+It will the wofulest division prove
+That ever fell upon this cursed earth.
+
+_Prometheus Unbound_.
+
+
+In my first glance around the court-room the next morning, I sought
+first for Carmel and then for the detective Sweetwater. Neither was
+visible. But this was not true of Ella. She had come in on her father’s
+arm, closely followed by the erect figure of her domineering mother.
+As I scrutinised the latter’s bearing, I seemed to penetrate the
+mystery of her nature. Whatever humiliation she may have felt at the
+public revelation of her daughter’s weakness, it had been absorbed by
+her love for that daughter, or had been forced, through the agency
+of her indomitable will, to become a ministrant to her pride which
+was unassailable. She had accepted the position exacted from her by
+the situation, and she looked for no loss of prestige, either on her
+daughter’s or her own account. Such was the language of her eyes; and
+it was a language which should have assured Ella that she had a better
+friend in her mother than she had ever dreamed of. The entrance of the
+defendant cut short my contemplation of any mere spectator. The change
+in him was so marked that I was conscious of it before I really saw
+him. Every eye had reflected it, and it was no surprise to me when I
+noted the relieved, almost cheerful aspect of his countenance as he
+took his place and met his counsel’s greeting with a smile--the first,
+I believe, which had been seen on his face since his sister’s death.
+That counsel I had already noted. He was cheerful also, but with a
+restrained cheerfulness. His task was not yet over, and the grimness of
+Mr. Fox, and the non-committal aspect of the jurymen, proved that it
+was not to be made too easy for him.
+
+The crier announced the opening of the court, and the defence proceeded
+by the calling of Ella Fulton to the witness stand.
+
+I need not linger over her testimony. It was very short and contained
+but one surprise. She had stated under direct examination that she
+had waited and watched for Arthur’s return that whole night, and was
+positive that he had not passed through their grounds again after that
+first time in the early evening. This was just what I had expected
+from her. But the prosecution remembered the snowfall, and in her
+cross-examination on this point, she acknowledged that it was very
+thick, much too thick for her to see her own gate distinctly; but
+added, that this only made her surer of the fact she had stated; for
+finding that she could not see, she had dressed herself for the storm
+and gone out into the driveway to watch there, and had so watched until
+the town clock struck three.
+
+This did not help the prosecution. Sympathy could not fail to be
+with this young and tremulous girl, heroic in her love, if weak in
+other respects, and when on her departure from the stand, she cast
+one deprecatory glance at the man for whom she had thus sacrificed
+her pride, and, meeting his eye fixed upon her with anything but
+ingratitude, flushed and faltered till she with difficulty found
+her way, the sentiments of the onlookers became so apparent that
+the judge’s gavel was called into requisition before order could be
+restored and the next witness summoned to testify.
+
+This witness was no less a person than Arthur himself. Recalled by his
+counsel, he was reminded of his former statement that he had left the
+club-house in a hurry because he heard his sister Adelaide’s voice, and
+was now asked if hers was the only voice he had heard.
+
+His answer revealed much of his mind.
+
+“No, I heard Carmel’s answering her.”
+
+This satisfying Mr. Moffat, he was passed over to Mr. Fox, and a short
+cross-examination ensued on this point.
+
+“You heard both your sisters speaking?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Any of their words, or only their voices?”
+
+“I heard one word.”
+
+“What word?”
+
+“The word, ‘Elwood.’”
+
+“In which voice?”
+
+“In that of my sister Adelaide.”
+
+“And you fled?”
+
+“Immediately.”
+
+“Leaving your two sisters alone in this cold and out-of-the-way house?”
+
+“I did not think they were alone.”
+
+“Who did you think was with them?”
+
+“I have already mentioned the name.”
+
+“Yet you left them?”
+
+“Yes, I’ve already explained that. I was engaged in a mean act. I was
+ashamed to be caught at it by Adelaide. I preferred flight. I had no
+premonition of tragedy--any such tragedy as afterwards occurred. I
+understood neither of my sisters and my thoughts were only for myself.”
+
+“Didn’t you so much as try to account for their both being there?”
+
+“Not then.”
+
+“Had you expected Adelaide to accompany your younger sister when you
+harnessed the horse for her?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Had not this younger sister even enjoined secrecy upon you in asking
+you to harness the horse?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Yet you heard the two together in this remote building without
+surprise?”
+
+“No, I must have felt surprise, but I didn’t stop to analyse my
+feelings. Afterward, I turned it over in my mind and tried to make
+something out of the whole thing. But that was when I was far out on
+the links.”
+
+A losing game thus far. This the district attorney seemed to feel;
+but he was not an ungenerous man though cursed (perhaps, I should say
+blessed, considering the position he held) by a tenacity which never
+let him lose his hold until the jury gave their verdict.
+
+“You have a right to explain yourself fully,” said he, after a
+momentary struggle in which his generosity triumphed over his pride.
+“When you did think of your sisters, what explanation did you give
+yourself of the facts we have just been considering?”
+
+“I could not imagine the truth, so I just satisfied myself that
+Adelaide had discovered Carmel’s intentions to ride into town and had
+insisted on accompanying her. They were having it out, I thought, in
+the presence of the man who had made all this trouble between them.”
+
+“And you left them to the task?”
+
+“Yes, sir, but not without a struggle. I was minded several times to
+return. This I have testified to before.”
+
+“Did this struggle consume forty minutes?”
+
+“It must have and more, if I entered the hold in Cuthbert Road at the
+hour they state.”
+
+Mr. Fox gave up the game, and I looked to be the next person called.
+But it was not a part of Mr. Moffat’s plan to weaken the effect
+of Carmel’s testimony by offering any weak corroboration of facts
+which nobody showed the least inclination to dispute. Satisfied with
+having given the jury an opportunity to contrast his client’s present
+cheerfulness and manly aspect with the sullenness he had maintained
+while in doubt of Carmel’s real connection with this crime, Mr. Moffat
+rested his case.
+
+There was no testimony offered in rebuttal and the court took a recess.
+
+When it reassembled I cast another anxious glance around. Still no
+Carmel, nor any signs of Sweetwater. I could understand her absence,
+but not his, and it was in a confusion of feeling which was fast
+getting the upper hand of me, that I turned my attention to Mr. Moffat
+and the plea he was about to make for his youthful client.
+
+I do not wish to obtrude myself too much into this trial of another man
+for the murder of my betrothed. But when, after a wait during which
+the prisoner had a chance to show his mettle under the concentrated
+gaze of an expectant crowd, the senior counsel for the defence slowly
+rose, and, lifting his ungainly length till his shoulders lost their
+stoop and his whole presence acquired a dignity which had been entirely
+absent from it up to this decisive moment, I felt a sudden slow and
+creeping chill seize and shake me, as I have heard people say they
+experienced when uttering the common expression, “Some one is walking
+over my grave.”
+
+It was not that he glanced my way, for this he did not do; yet I
+received a subtle message from him, by some telepathic means I could
+neither understand nor respond to--a message of warning, or, possibly
+of simple preparation for what his coming speech might convey.
+
+It laid my spirits low for a moment; then they rose as those of a
+better man might rise at the scent of danger. If he could warn, he
+could also withhold. I would trust him, or I would, at least, trust
+my fate. And so, good-bye to self. Arthur’s life and Carmel’s future
+peace were trembling in the balance. Surely these were worth the full
+attention of the man who loved the woman, who pitied the man.
+
+At the next moment I heard these words, delivered in the slow and
+but slightly raised tones with which Mr. Moffat invariably began his
+address:
+
+“May it please the court and gentlemen of the jury, my learned friend
+of the prosecution has shown great discretion in that, so far as
+appears from the trend of his examinations, he is planning no attempt
+to explain the many silences and the often forbidding attitude of my
+young client by any theory save the obvious one--the natural desire of
+a brother to hide his only remaining sister’s connection with a tragedy
+of whose details he was ignorant, and concerning which he had formed a
+theory derogatory to her position as a young and well-bred woman.
+
+“I am, therefore, spared the task of pressing upon your consideration
+these very natural and, I may add, laudable grounds for my client’s
+many hesitations and suppressions--which, under other circumstances,
+would militate so deeply against him in the eyes of an upright and
+impartial jury. Any man with a heart in his breast, and a sense of
+honour in his soul, can understand why this man--whatever his record,
+and however impervious he may have seemed in the days of his prosperity
+and the wilfulness of his youth--should recoil from revelations which
+would attack the honour, if not the life, of a young and beautiful
+sister, sole remnant of a family eminent in station, and in all those
+moral and civic attributes which make for the honour of a town and lend
+distinction to its history.
+
+“Fear for a loved one, even in one whom you will probably hear
+described as a dissipated man, of selfish tendencies and hitherto
+unbrotherly qualities, is a great miracle-worker. No sacrifice
+seems impossible which serves as a guard for one so situated and so
+threatened.
+
+“Let us review his history. Let us disentangle, if we can, our
+knowledge of what occurred in the clubhouse, from his knowledge of
+it at the time he showed these unexpected traits of self-control and
+brotherly anxiety, which you will yet hear so severely scored by my
+able opponent. His was a nature in which honourable instincts had
+forever battled with the secret predilections of youth for independence
+and free living. He rebelled at all monition; but this did not make
+him altogether insensible to the secret ties of kinship, or the
+claims upon his protection of two highly gifted sisters. Consciously
+or unconsciously, he kept watch upon the two; and when he saw that
+an extraneous influence was undermining their mutual confidence, he
+rebelled in his heart, whatever restraint he may have put upon his
+tongue and actions. Then came an evening, when, with heart already
+rasped by a personal humiliation, he saw a letter passed. You have
+heard the letter and listened to its answer; but he knew nothing beyond
+the fact--a fact which soon received a terrible significance from the
+events which so speedily followed.”
+
+Here Mr. Moffat recapitulated those events, but always from the
+standpoint of the defendant--a standpoint which necessarily brought
+before the jury the many excellent reasons which his client had for
+supposing this crime to have resulted solely from the conflicting
+interests represented by that furtively passed note, and the visit
+of two girls instead of one to The Whispering Pines. It was very
+convincing, especially his picture of Arthur’s impulsive flight from
+the club-house at the first sound of his sisters’ voices.
+
+“The learned counsel for the people may call this unnatural,” he
+cried. “He may say that no brother would leave the place under such
+circumstances, whether sober or not sober, alive to duty or dead to
+it--that curiosity would hold him there, if nothing else. But he
+forgets, if thus he thinks and thus would have you think, that the
+man who now confronts you from the bar is separated by an immense
+experience from the boy he was at that hour of surprise and selfish
+preoccupation.
+
+“You who have heard the defendant tell how he could not remember if
+he carried up one or two bottles from the kitchen, can imagine the
+blank condition of this untutored mind at the moment when those voices
+fell upon his ear, calling him to responsibilities he had never before
+shouldered, and which he saw no way of shouldering now. In that first
+instant of inconsiderate escape, he was alarmed for himself,--afraid of
+the discovery of the sneaking act of which he had just been guilty--not
+fearful for his sisters. _You_ would have done differently; but you are
+all men disciplined to forget yourselves and think first of others,
+taught, in the school of life to face responsibility rather than shirk
+it. But discipline had not yet reached this unhappy boy--the slave, so
+far, of his unfortunate habits. It began its work later; yet not much
+later. Before he had half crossed the golf-links, the sense of what he
+had done stopped him in middle course, and, reckless of the oncoming
+storm, he turned his back upon the place he was making for, only to
+switch around again, as craving got the better of his curiosity, or of
+that deeper feeling to which my experienced opponent will, no doubt,
+touchingly allude when he comes to survey this situation with you.
+
+“The storm, continuing, obliterated his steps as fast as the ever
+whitening spaces beneath received them; but if it had stopped then
+and there, leaving those wandering imprints to tell their story,
+what a tale we might have read of the first secret conflict in this
+awakening soul! I leave you to imagine this history, and pass to the
+bitter hour when, racked by a night of dissipation, he was aroused,
+indeed, to the magnitude of his fault and the awful consequences of his
+self-indulgence, by the news of his elder sister’s violent death and
+the hardly less pitiful condition of the younger.
+
+“The younger!” The pause he here made was more eloquent than any words.
+“Is it for me to laud her virtues, or to seek to impress upon you in
+this connection, the overwhelming nature of the events which in reality
+had laid her mind and body low? You have seen her; you have heard her;
+and the memory of the tale she has here told will never leave you, or
+lose its hold upon your sympathies or your admiration. If everything
+else connected with this case is forgotten, the recollection of that
+will remain. You, and I, and all who wait upon your verdict, will in
+due time pass from among the living, and leave small print behind us
+on the sands of time. But her act will not die, and to it I now offer
+the homage of silence, since that would best please her heroic soul,
+which broke the bonds of womanly reserve only to save from an unmerited
+charge a falsely arraigned brother.”
+
+The restraint and yet the fire with which Mr. Moffat uttered these
+simple words, lifted all hearts and surcharged the atmosphere with
+an emotion rarely awakened in a court of law. Not in my pulses
+alone was started the electric current of renewed life. The jury,
+to a man, glowed with enthusiasm, and from the audience rose one
+long and suppressed sigh of answering feeling, which was all the
+tribute he needed for his eloquence--or Carmel for her uncalculating,
+self-sacrificing deed. I could have called upon the mountains to cover
+_me_; but--God be praised--no one thought of me in that hour. Every
+throb, every thought was for her.
+
+At the proper moment of subsiding feeling, Mr. Moffat again raised his
+voice:
+
+“Gentlemen of the jury, you have seen point after point of the
+prosecution’s case demolished before your eyes by testimony which
+no one has had the temerity to attempt to controvert. What is left?
+Mr. Fox will tell you--three strong and unassailable facts. The ring
+found in the murdered woman’s casket, the remnants of the tell-tale
+bottle discovered in the Cumberland stable, and the opportunity for
+crime given by the acknowledged presence of the defendant on or near
+the scene of death. He will harp on these facts; he will make much of
+them; and he will be justified in doing so, for they are the only links
+remaining of the strong chain forged so carefully against my client.
+
+“But are these points so vital as they seem? Let us consider them, and
+see. My client has denied that he dropped anything into his sister’s
+casket, much less the ring missing from that sister’s finger. Dare you,
+then, convict on this point when, according to count, ten other persons
+were seen to drop flowers into this very place--any one of which might
+have carried this object with it?
+
+“And the bit of broken bottle found in or near the defendant’s own
+stable! Is he to be convicted on the similarity it offers to the one
+known to have come from the club-house wine-vault, while a reasonable
+doubt remains of his having been the hand which carried it there? No!
+Where there is a reasonable doubt, no high-minded jury will convict;
+and I claim that my client has made it plain that there is such a
+reasonable doubt.”
+
+All this and more did Mr. Moffat dilate upon. But I could no longer fix
+my mind on details, and much of this portion of his address escaped me.
+
+But I do remember the startling picture with which he closed. His
+argument so far, had been based on the assumption of Arthur’s ignorance
+of Carmers purpose in visiting the club-house, or of Adelaide’s attempt
+at suicide. His client had left the building when he said he did,
+and knew no more of what happened there afterward than circumstances
+showed, or his own imagination conceived. But now the advocate took
+a sudden turn, and calmly asked the jury to consider with him the
+alternative outlined by the prosecution in the evidence set before them.
+
+“My distinguished opponent,” said he, “would have you believe that the
+defendant did not fly at the moment declared, but that he waited to
+fulfil the foul deed which is the only serious matter in dispute in
+his so nearly destroyed case. I hear as though he were now speaking,
+the attack which he will make upon my client when he comes to review
+this matter with you. Let me see if I cannot make you hear those words,
+too.” And with a daring smile at his discomforted adversary, Alonzo
+Moffat launched forth into the following sarcasm:
+
+“Arthur Cumberland, coming up the kitchen stairs, hears voices
+where he had expected total silence--sees light where he had left
+total darkness. He has two bottles in his hands, or in his large
+coat-pockets. If they are in his hands, he sets them down and steals
+forward to listen. He has recognised the voices. They are those of
+his two sisters, one of whom had ordered him to hitch up the cutter
+for her to escape, as he had every reason to believe, the other.
+Curiosity--or is it some nobler feeling--causes him to draw nearer
+and nearer to the room in which they have taken up their stand. He
+can hear their words now and what are the words he hears? Words that
+would thrill the most impervious heart, call for the interference of
+the most indifferent. But _he_ is made of ice, welded together with
+steel. He sees--for no place save one from which he can watch and see,
+_viz_.: the dark dancing hall, would satisfy any man of such gigantic
+curiosity--Adelaide fall at Carmel’s feet, in recognition of the great
+sacrifice she has made for her. But he does not move; he falls at no
+one’s feet; he recognises no nobility, responds to no higher appeal.
+Stony and unmoved, he crouches there, and watches and watches--still
+curious, or still feeding his hate on the sufferings of the elder, the
+forbearance of the younger.
+
+“And on what does he look? You have already heard, but consider it.
+Adelaide, despairing of happiness, decides on death for herself or
+sister. Both loving one man, one of the two must give way to the other.
+Carmel has done her part; she must now do hers. She has brought poison;
+she has brought glasses--three glasses, for three persons, but only two
+are on the scene, and so she fills but two. One has only cordial in
+it, but the other is, as she believes, deadly. Carmel is to have her
+choice; but who believes that Adelaide would ever have let her drink
+the poisoned glass?
+
+“And this man looks on, as the two faces confront each other--one white
+with the overthrow of every earthly hope, the other under the stress
+of suffering and a fascination of horror sufficient to have laid her
+dead, without poison, at the other one’s feet. This is what he sees--_a
+brother!_--and he makes no move, then or afterwards, when, the die
+cast, Adelaide succumbs to her fear and falls into a seemingly dying
+state on the couch.
+
+“Does he go now? Is his hate or his cupidity satisfied? No! He remains
+and listens to the tender interchange of final words, and all the
+late precautions of the elder to guard the younger woman’s good name.
+Still he is not softened; and when, the critical moment passed, Carmel
+rises and totters about the room in her endeavour to fulfil the tasks
+enjoined upon her by her sister, he gloats over a death which will give
+him independence and gluts himself with every evil thought which could
+blind him to the pitiful aspects of a tragedy such as few men in this
+world could see unmoved. _A brother_!
+
+“But this is not the worst. The awful cup of human greed and hatred
+is but filled to the brim; it has not yet overflowed. Carmel leaves
+the room; she has a telephonic message to deliver. She may be gone a
+minute; she may be gone many. Little does he care which; he must see
+the dead, look down on the woman who has been like a mother to him, and
+see if her influence is forever removed, if his wealth is his, and his
+independence forever assured.
+
+“Safe in the darkness of the gloomy recesses of the dancing hall, he
+steals slowly forward. Drawn as by a magnet, he enters the room of
+seeming death, draws up to the pillow-laden couch, pulls off first one
+cushion, and then another, till face and hands are bare and--
+
+“Ah!--there is a movement! death has not, then, done its work. She
+lives--the hated one--_lives_! And he is no longer rich, no longer
+independent. With a clutch, he seizes her at the feeble seat of life;
+and as the breath ceases and her whole body becomes again inert, he
+stoops to pull off the ring, which can have no especial value or
+meaning for him--and then, repiling the cushions over her, creeps forth
+again, takes up the bottles, and disappears from the house.
+
+“Gentlemen of the jury, this is what my opponent would have you
+believe. This will be his explanation of this extraordinary murder. But
+when his eloquence meets your ears--when you hear this arraignment, and
+the emphasis he will place upon the few points remaining to his broken
+case, then ask yourself if you see such a monster in the prisoner now
+confronting you from the bar. I do not believe it. I do not believe
+that such a monster lives.
+
+“But you say, _some one_ entered that room--_some one_ stilled the
+fluttering life still remaining in that feeble breast. Some one may
+have, but that some one was not my client, and it is his guilt or
+innocence we are considering now, and it is his life and freedom for
+which you are responsible. No brother did that deed; no witness of the
+scene which hallowed this tragedy ever lifted hand against the fainting
+Adelaide, or choked back a life which kindly fate had spared.
+
+“Go further for the guilty perpetrator of this most inhuman act; he
+stands not in the dock. Guilt shows no such relief as you see in him
+to-day. Guilt would remember that his sister’s testimony, under the
+cross-examination of the people’s prosecutor, left the charge of murder
+still hanging over the defendant’s head. But the brother has forgotten
+this. His restored confidence in one who now represents to him father,
+mother, and sister has thrown his own fate into the background. Will
+you dim that joy--sustain this charge of murder?
+
+“If in your sense of justice you do so, you forever place this
+degenerate son of a noble father, on the list of the most unimaginative
+and hate-driven criminals of all time. Is he such a demon? Is he such a
+madman? Look in his face to-day, and decide. I am willing to leave his
+cause in your hands. It could be placed in no better.
+
+“May it please your Honour, and gentlemen of the jury, I am done.”
+
+If any one at that moment felt the arrow of death descending into his
+heart, it was not Arthur Cumberland.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+“STEADY!”
+
+I am a tainted wether of the flock,
+Meetest for death; the weakest kind of fruit
+Drops earliest to the ground, and so let me.
+You cannot better be employ’d, Bassanio,
+Than to live still, and write my epitaph.
+
+_Merchant of Venice_.
+
+
+Why linger over the result. Arthur Cumberland’s case was won before
+Mr. Fox arose to his feet. The usual routine was gone through. The
+district attorney made the most of the three facts which he declared
+inconsistent with the prisoner’s innocence, just as Mr. Moffat said
+he would; but the life was gone from his work, and the result was
+necessarily unsatisfactory.
+
+The judge’s charge was short, but studiously impartial. When the jury
+filed out, I said to myself, “They will return in fifteen minutes.”
+They returned in ten, with a verdict of acquittal.
+
+The demonstrations of joy which followed filled my ears, and doubtless
+left their impression upon my other senses; but my mind took in
+nothing but the apparition of my own form taking his place at the bar,
+under circumstances less favourable to acquittal than those which
+had exonerated him. It was a picture which set my brain whirling. A
+phantom judge, a phantom jury, a phantom circle of faces, lacking
+the consideration and confidence of those I saw before me; but not a
+phantom prisoner, or any mere dream of outrageous shame and suffering.
+
+That shame and that suffering had already seized hold of me. With the
+relief of young Arthur’s acquittal my faculties had cleared to the
+desperate position in which this very acquittal had placed me.
+
+I saw, as never before, how the testimony which had reinstated Carmel
+in my heart and won for her and through her the sympathies of the
+whole people, had overthrown every specious reason which I and those
+interested in me had been able to advance in contradiction of the
+natural conclusion to be drawn from the damning fact of my having been
+seen with my fingers on Adelaide’s throat.
+
+Mr. Moffat’s words rang in my ears: “Some one entered that room; some
+one stilled the fluttering life still remaining in that feeble breast;
+but that some one was not her brother. You must look further for the
+guilty perpetrator of this most inhuman act; some one who had not been
+a witness to the scene preceding this tragedy, some one--” he had not
+said this but every mind had supplied the omission,--“some one who had
+come in later, who came in after Carmel had gone, some one who knew
+nothing of the telephone message which was even then hastening the
+police to the spot; some one who had every reason for lifting those
+cushions and, on meeting _life_--”
+
+The horror stifled me; I was reeling in my place on the edge of the
+crowd, when I heard a quiet voice in my ear:
+
+“Steady! Their eyes will soon be off of Arthur, and then they will look
+at you.”
+
+It was Clifton, and his word came none too soon. I stiffened under its
+quiet force, and, taking his arm, let him lead me out of a side door,
+where the crowd was smaller and its attention even more absorbed.
+
+I soon saw its cause--Carmel was entering the doorway from the street.
+She had come to greet her brother; and her face, quite unveiled, was
+beaming with beauty and joy. In an instant I forgot myself, forgot
+everything but her and the effect she produced upon those about her. No
+noisy demonstration here; admiration and love were shown in looks and
+the low-breathed prayer for her welfare which escaped from more than
+one pair of lips. She smiled and their hearts were hers; she essayed to
+move forward and the people crowded back as if at a queen’s passage;
+but there was no noise.
+
+When she reappeared, it was on Arthur’s arm. I had not been able to
+move from the place in which we were hemmed; nor had I wished to. I
+was hungry for a glance of her eye. Would it turn my way, and, if it
+did, would it leave a curse or a blessing behind it? In anxiety for the
+blessing, I was willing to risk the curse; and I followed her every
+step with hungry glances, until she reached the doorway and turned to
+give another shake of the hand to Mr. Moffat, who had followed them.
+But she did not see me.
+
+“I cannot miss it! I must catch her eye!” I whispered to Clifton. “Get
+me out of this; it will be several minutes before they can reach the
+sleigh. Let me see her, for one instant, face to face.”
+
+Clifton disapproved, and made me aware of it; but he did my bidding,
+nevertheless. In a few moments we were on the sidewalk, and quite by
+ourselves; so that, if she turned again she could not fail to observe
+me. I had small hope, however, that she would so turn. She and Arthur
+were within a few feet of the curb and their own sleigh.
+
+I had just time to see this sleigh, and note the rejoicing face of
+Zadok leaning sideways from the box, when I beheld her pause and slowly
+turn her head around and peer eagerly--and with what divine anxiety in
+her eyes--back over the heads of those thronging about her, until her
+gaze rested fully and sweetly on mine. My heart leaped, then sank down,
+down into unutterable depths; for in that instant her face changed,
+horror seized upon her beauty, and shook her frantic hold on Arthur’s
+arm.
+
+I heard words uttered very near me, but I did not catch them. I did
+feel, however, the hand which was laid strongly and with authority
+upon my shoulder; and, tearing my eyes from her face only long enough
+to perceive that it was Sweetwater who had thus arrested me, I looked
+back at her, in time to see the questions leap from her lips to Arthur,
+whose answers I could well understand from the pitying movement in
+the crowd and the low hum of restrained voices which ran between her
+sinking figure and the spot where I stood apart, with the detective’s
+hand on my shoulder.
+
+She had never been told of the incriminating position in which I had
+been seen in the club-house. It had been carefully kept from her, and
+she had supposed that my acquittal in the public mind was as certain as
+Arthur’s. Now she saw herself undeceived, and the reaction into doubt
+and misery was too much for her, and I saw her sinking under my eyes.
+
+“Let me go to her!” I shrieked, utterly unconcerned with anything in
+the world but this tottering, fainting girl.
+
+But Sweetwater’s hand only tightened on my shoulder, while Arthur, with
+an awful look at me, caught his sister in his arms, just as she fell to
+the ground before the swaying multitude.
+
+But he was not the only one to kneel there. With a sound of love and
+misery impossible to describe, Zadok had leaped from the box and had
+grovelled at those dear feet, kissing the insensible hands and praying
+for those shut eyes to open. Even after Arthur had lifted her into
+the sleigh, the man remained crouching where she had fallen, with his
+eyes roaming back and forth in a sightless stare from her to myself,
+muttering and groaning, and totally unheedful of Arthur’s commands to
+mount the box and drive home. Finally some one else stepped from the
+crowd and mercifully took the reins. I caught one more glimpse of her
+face, with Arthur’s bent tenderly over it; then the sleigh slipped away.
+
+An officer shook Zadok by the arm and he got up and began to move
+aside. Then I had mind to face my own fate, and, looking up, I met
+Sweetwater’s eye.
+
+It was quietly apologetic.
+
+“I only wished to congratulate you,” said he, “on the conclusion of a
+case in which I know you are highly interested.” Lifting his hat, he
+nodded affably and was gone before I could recover from my stupor.
+
+It was for Clifton to show his indignation. I was past all feeling.
+Farce as an after-piece never appealed to me.
+
+Would I have considered it farce if I could have heard the words
+which this detective was at that moment whispering into the district
+attorney’s ears:
+
+“Do you want to know who throttled Adelaide Cumberland? It was not her
+brother; it was not her lover; it was her old and trusted coachman.”
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+“AS IF IT WERE A MECCA”
+
+--I have within my mind
+A thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks
+Which I will practise.
+
+_Merchant of Venice_.
+
+
+“Give me your reasons. They must be excellent ones, Sweetwater, or you
+would not risk making a second mistake in a case of this magnitude and
+publicity.”
+
+“Mr. Fox, they are excellent. But you shall judge of them. From the
+moment Miss Carmel Cumberland overthrew the very foundations of our
+case by her remarkable testimony, I have felt that my work was only
+half done. It was a strain on credulity to believe Arthur guilty of
+a crime so prefaced, and the alternative which Mr. Moffat believed
+in, which you were beginning to believe in, and perhaps are allowing
+yourself to believe in even now, never appealed to me.
+
+“I allude to the very natural suspicion that the act beheld by your
+man Clarke was a criminal act, and that Ranelagh is the man really
+responsible for Miss Cumberland’s death. Some instinct held me back
+from this conclusion, as well as the incontrovertible fact that he
+could have had no hand in carrying that piece of broken bottle into the
+Cumberland stable, or of dropping his engagement ring in the suggestive
+place where it was found. Where, then, should I look for the unknown,
+the unsuspected third party? Among the ten other persons who dropped
+something into that casket.
+
+“Most of these were children, but I made the acquaintance of every one.
+I spent most of my Sunday that way; then, finding no clouded eye among
+them, I began a study of the Cumberland servants, naturally starting
+with Zadok. For two hours I sat at his stable fire, talking and turning
+him inside out, as only we detectives know how. I found him actually
+overwhelmed with grief; not the grief of a sane man, but of one in whom
+the very springs of life are poisoned by some dreadful remorse.
+
+“He did not know he revealed this; he expressed himself as full of hope
+that his young master would be acquitted the next day; but I could see
+that this prospect could never still the worm working at his heart, and
+resolved to understand why. I left him ostensibly alone, but in reality
+shadowed him. The consequence was that, in the evening dusk, he led me
+to the cemetery, where he took up his watch at Miss Cumberland’s grave,
+as if it were a Mecca and he a passionate devotee. I could hear his
+groans as he hung to the fence and spoke softly to the dead; and though
+I was too far away to catch a single word, I felt confident that I had
+at last struck the right track, and should soon see my way more clearly
+than at any time since this baffling case opened.
+
+“But before I allowed my fancy to run away with me, I put in an evening
+of inquiry. If this man had an absolute alibi, what was the use of
+wasting effort upon him. But I could not find that he had, Mr. Fox. He
+went with the rest of the servants to the ball--which, you know, was
+held in Tibbitt’s Hall, on Ford Street and he was seen there later,
+dancing and making merry in a way not usual to him. But there was a
+space of time dangerously tallying with that of the tragic scene at the
+club-house, when he was not seen by any one there, so far as I can make
+out; and this fact gave me courage to consider a certain point which
+had struck me, and of which I thought something might be made.
+
+“Mr. Fox, after the fiasco I have made of this affair, it costs me
+something to go into petty details which must suggest my former
+failures and may not strike you with the force they did me. That broken
+bottle-- or rather, that piece of broken bottle! Where was the rest of
+it? Sought for almost immediately after the tragedy, it had not been
+found at the Cumberland place or on the golf-links. It had been looked
+for carefully when the first thaw came; but, though glass was picked
+up, it was not the same glass. The task had become hopeless and ere
+long was abandoned.
+
+“But with this idea of Zadok being the means of its transfer from The
+Whispering Pines to the house on the Hill, I felt the desire to look
+once more, and while court was in session this morning, I started
+a fresh search--this time not on the golf-links. Tibbitt’s Hall
+communicates more quickly with The Whispering Pines by the club-house
+road than by the market one. So I directed my attention to the ground
+in front, and on the further side of the driveways. _And I found the
+neck of that bottle_!
+
+“Yes, sir, I will show it to you later. I picked it up at some distance
+from the northern driveway, under a small tree, against the trunk of
+which it had evidently been struck off. This meant that the lower part
+had been carried away, broken.
+
+“Now, who would do this but Zadok, who saw in it, he has said, a
+receptacle for some varnish which he had; and if Zadok, how had he
+carried it, if not in some pocket of his greatcoat. But glass edges
+make quick work with pockets; and if this piece of bottle had gone from
+The Whispering Pines to Tibbitt’s Hall, and from there to the Hill,
+there should be some token of its work in Zadok’s overcoat pocket.
+
+“This led me to look for those tokens; and as I had by this time
+insinuated my way into his confidence by a free and cheerful manner
+which gave him a rest from his gloomy thoughts, I soon had a chance
+to see for myself the condition of those pockets. The result was
+quite satisfactory. In one of them I found a frayed lining, easily
+explainable on the theory I had advanced. That pocket can be seen by
+you.
+
+“But Mr. Fox, I wanted some real proof. I wasn’t willing to embarrass
+another man, or to risk my own reputation on a hazard so blind as this,
+without something really definite. A confession was what I wanted, or
+such a breakdown of the man as would warrant police action. How could I
+get this?
+
+“I am a pupil of Mr. Gryce, and I remembered some of his methods.
+
+“This man, guilty though he might be, loved this family, and was
+broken-hearted over the trouble in which he saw it plunged. Excused
+to-day from attendance at court, he was in constant telephonic
+communication with some friend of his, who kept him posted as to the
+conduct of the trial and the probabilities of a favourable verdict.
+
+“If the case had gone against Arthur, we should have heard from his
+coachman--that I verily believe, but when we all saw that he was likely
+to be acquitted, I realised that some other course must be taken to
+shake Zadok from his new won complacency, and I chose the most obvious
+one.
+
+“Just when everything looked most favourable to their restored peace
+and happiness, I shocked Miss Carmel and, through her, this Zadok,
+into the belief that the whole agony was to be gone over again, in the
+rearrest and consequent trial of the man she still loves, in spite of
+all that has happened to separate them.
+
+“He was not proof against this new responsibility. As she fainted, he
+leaped from the box; and, could I have heard the words he muttered in
+her ear, I am sure that I should have that to give you which would
+settle this matter for all time. As it is, I can only say that my own
+convictions are absolute; the rest remains with you.”
+
+“We will go see the man,” said District Attorney Fox.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI
+
+THE SURCHARGED MOMENT
+
+For Justice, when triumphant, will weep down
+Pity, not punishment, on her own wrongs,
+Too much avenged by those who err. I wait,
+Enduring thus, the retributive hour
+Which since we spake is even nearer now.
+
+_Prometheus Unbound_.
+
+
+The moment I felt Sweetwater’s hand lifted from my shoulder I sprang
+into the first hack I could find, and bade the driver follow the
+Cumberland sleigh post-haste. I was determined to see Carmel and have
+Carmel see me. Whatever cold judgment might say against the meeting,
+I could not live in my present anxiety. If the thunderbolt which had
+struck her had spared her life and reason she must know from my own
+lips that I was not only a free man, but as innocent of the awful
+charge conveyed in Sweetwater’s action as was the brother, who had just
+been acquitted of it by the verdict of his peers.
+
+I must declare this, and she must believe me. Nothing else
+mattered--nothing else in all the world. That Arthur might stop me,
+that anything could stop me, did not disturb my mind for a minute. All
+that I dreaded was that I might find myself too late; that this second
+blow might have proved to be too much for her, and that I should find
+my darling dead or passed from me into that living death which were the
+harder punishment of the two. But I was spared this killing grief. When
+our two conveyances stopped, it was in the driveway of her old home;
+and as I bounded upon the walk, it was to see her again in Arthur’s
+arms, but this time with open eyes and horror-drawn features.
+
+“Carmel!” rushed in a cry from my lips. “Don’t believe what they say. I
+cannot bear it--I cannot bear it!”
+
+She roused; she looked my way, and struggling to her feet, held back
+Arthur with one hand while she searched my face--and possibly searched
+her own soul--for answer to my plea. Never was moment more surcharged.
+Further word I could not speak; I could only meet her eyes with the
+steady, demanding look of a despairing heart, while Arthur moved in
+every fibre of his awakened manhood, waited--thinking, perhaps, how
+few minutes had passed since he hung upon the words of a fellow being
+for his condemnation to death, or release to the freedom which he now
+enjoyed.
+
+A moment! But what an eternity before I saw the rigid lines of her
+white, set face relax--before I marked the play of human, if not
+womanly, emotion break up the misery of her look and soften her
+youthful lips into some semblance of their old expression. Love
+might be dead--friendship, even, be a thing of the far past--but
+consideration was still alive and in another instant it spoke in these
+trembling sentences, uttered across a threshold made sacred by a
+tragedy involving our three lives:
+
+“Come in and explain yourself. No man should go unheard. I know you
+will not come where Adelaide’s spirit yet lingers, if you cannot bring
+hands clean from all actual violence.”
+
+I motioned my driver away, and as Carmel drew back out of sight, I
+caught at Arthur’s arm and faced him with the query:
+
+“Are you willing that I should enter? I only wish to declare to her,
+and to you, an innocence I have no means of proving, but which you
+cannot disbelieve if I swear it, here and now, by your sister Carmel’s
+sacred disfigurement. Such depravity could not exist, as such a vow
+from the lips guilty of the crime you charge me with. Look at me,
+Arthur. I considered you--now consider me.”
+
+Quickly he stepped back. “Enter,” said he.
+
+It was some minutes later--I cannot say how many--that one of the
+servants disturbed us by asking if we knew anything about Zadok.
+
+“He has not come home,” said he, “and here is a man who wants him.”
+
+“What man?” asked Arthur.
+
+“Oh, that detective chap. He never will leave us alone.”
+
+I arose. In an instant enlightenment had come to me. “It’s nothing,”
+said I with my eyes on Carmel; but the gesture I furtively made Arthur,
+said otherwise.
+
+A few minutes later we were both in the driveway. “We are on the brink
+of a surprise,” I whispered. “I think I understand this Sweetwater now.”
+
+Arthur looked bewildered, but he took the lead in the interview which
+followed with the man who had made him so much trouble and was now
+doing his best to make us all amends.
+
+Zadok could not be found; he was wanted by the district attorney, who
+wished to put some questions to him. Were there any objections to his
+searching the stable-loft for indications of his whereabouts?
+
+Arthur made none; and the detective, after sending the Cumberlands’
+second man before him to light up the stable, disappeared beneath the
+great door, whither we more slowly followed him.
+
+“Not here!” came in a shout from above, as we stepped in from the night
+air; and in a few minutes the detective came running down the stairs,
+baffled and very ill at ease. Suddenly he encountered my eye. “Oh--I
+know!” he cried, and started for the gate.
+
+“I am going to follow him,” I confided to Arthur. “Look for me again
+to-night; or, at least, expect a message. If fortune favours us, as
+I now expect, we two shall sleep to-night as we have not slept for
+months.” And waiting for no answer, not even to see if he comprehended
+my meaning, I made a run for the gate, and soon came up with Sweetwater.
+
+“To the cemetery?” I asked.
+
+“Yes, to the cemetery.”
+
+And there we found him, in the same place where we had seen him before,
+but not in the same position. He was sunken now to the ground; but his
+face was pressed against the rails, and in his stiff, cold hand was
+clutched a letter which afterwards we read.
+
+Let it be read by you here. It will explain the mystery which came near
+destroying the lives of more than Adelaide.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+No more unhappy wretch than I goes to his account. I killed her who had
+shown me only goodness, and will be the death of others if I do not
+confess my dreadful, my unsuspected secret. This is how it happened. I
+cannot give reasons; I cannot even ask for pardon.
+
+That night, just as I was preparing to leave the stable to join the
+other servants on their ride to Tibbitt’s Hall, the telephone rang and
+I heard Miss Cumberland’s voice. “Zadok,” she said--and at first I
+could hardly understand her,--“I am in trouble; I want help, and you
+are the only one who can aid me. Answer; do you hear me and are you
+quite alone in the stable?” I told her yes, and that I was listening to
+all she said. I suspected her trouble, and was ready to stand by her,
+if a man like me could do anything.
+
+I had been with her many years, and I loved her as well as I could love
+anybody; though you won’t think it when I tell you my whole story. What
+she wanted was this: I was to go to the ball just as if nothing had
+happened, but I was not to stay there. As soon as I could, I was to
+slip out, get a carriage from some near-by stable, and hurry back up
+the road to meet her and take her where she would tell me; or, if I did
+not meet her, to wait two houses below hers, till she came along. She
+would not want me long, and very soon I could go back and have as good
+a time as I pleased. But she would like me to be secret, for her errand
+was not one for gossip, even among her own servants.
+
+It was the first time she had ever asked me to do anything for her
+which any one else might not have done, and I was proud of her
+confidence, and happy to do just what she asked. I even tried to do
+better, and be even more secret about it than she expected. Instead of
+going to a stable, I took one of the rigs which I found fastened up
+in the big shed alongside the hall; and being so fortunate as not to
+attract anybody’s attention by this business, I was out on the road and
+half way to The Whispering Pines, before Helen and Maggie could wonder
+why I had not asked them to dance.
+
+A few minutes later I was on the Hill, for the horse I had chosen was a
+fast one; and I was just turning into our street when I was passed by
+Mr. Arthur’s grey mare and cutter. This made me pull up for a minute,
+for I hadn’t expected this; but on looking ahead and seeing Miss
+Cumberland peering from our own gateway, I drove quickly on and took
+her up.
+
+I was not so much astonished as you would think, to be ordered to
+follow fast after the mare and cutter, and to stop where it stopped.
+That was all she wanted--to follow that cutter, and to stop where it
+stopped. Well, it stopped at the club-house; and when she saw it turn
+in there, I heard her give a little gasp.
+
+“Wait,” she whispered. “Wait till she has had time to get out and go
+in; then drive in, too, and help me to find my way into the building
+after her.”
+
+And then I knew it was Miss Carmel we had been following. Before, I
+thought it was Mr. Arthur.
+
+Presently, she pulled me by the sleeve. “I heard the door shut,” said
+she--and I was a little frightened at her voice, but I was full of my
+importance, and went on doing just as she bade me. Driving in after the
+cutter, I drew up into the shadows where the grey mare was hid, and
+then, reaching out my hand to Miss Cumberland, I helped her out, and
+went with her as far as the door. “You may go back now,” said she. “If
+I survive the night, I shall never forget this service, my good Zadok.”
+And I saw her lift her hand to the door, then fall back white and
+trembling in the moonlight. “I can’t,” she whispered, over and over; “I
+can’t--I can’t.”
+
+“Shall I knock?” I asked.
+
+“No, no,” she whispered back. “I want to go in quietly; let’s see if
+there’s no other way. Run about the house, Zadok; I will submit to
+any humiliation; only find me some entrance other than this.” She was
+shaking so and her face looked so ghastly in the moonlight that I was
+afraid to leave her; but she made me a gesture of such command that I
+ran quickly down the steps, and so round the house till I came to a
+shed over the top of which I saw a window partly open.
+
+Could I get her up on to the shed? I thought I could, and went hurrying
+back to the big entrance where I had left her. She was still there,
+shivering with the cold, but just as determined as ever. “Come,” I
+whispered; “I have found a way.”
+
+She gave me her hand and I led her around to the shed. She was like
+a snow woman and her touch was ice itself. “Wait till I get a box or
+board or something,” I said. Hunting about, I found a box leaning
+against the kitchen side, and, bringing it, I helped her up and soon
+had her on a level with the window.
+
+As she made her way in, she turned and whispered to me: “Go back now.
+Carmel has a horse, and will see me home. You have served me well,
+Zadok.”
+
+I nodded, and she vanished into the darkness. Then I should have gone;
+but my curiosity was too great. I wanted to know just a little more.
+Two women in this desolate and bitterly cold club-house! What did it
+mean?
+
+I could not restrain myself from following her in and listening, for a
+few minutes, to what they had to say. But I did not catch much of it;
+and when I heard other sounds from some place below, and recognised
+these sounds as a man’s heavy footsteps coming up the rear stairs, I
+got a fright at being where I should not be, and slipped into the first
+door I found, expecting this man to come out and join the ladies.
+
+But he did not; he just lingered for a moment in the hall I had left,
+then I heard him clamber out of the window and go. I now know that this
+was Mr. Arthur. But I did not know it then, and I was frightened for
+the horse I had run off with, and so got out of the building as quickly
+as I could.
+
+And all might yet have been well if I had not found, lying on the snow
+at the foot of the shed, a bottle of whiskey such as I had never drunk
+and did not know how to resist. Catching it up, I ran about the house
+to where I had left my rig. It was safe, and in my relief at finding
+it, I knocked off the head of the bottle and took a long drink.
+
+Then I drank again; then I sat down in the snow and drank again. In
+short, I nearly finished it; then I became confused; I looked at the
+piece of broken bottle in my hand, took a fancy to its shape, and
+breaking off a bit more, thrust it into one of my big pockets. Then I
+staggered up to the horse; but I did not untie him.
+
+Curiosity seized me again, and I thought I would take another look at
+the ladies--perhaps they might want me--perhaps--I was pretty well
+confused, but I went back and crawled once more into the window.
+
+This time the place was silent--not a sound, not a breath,--but I could
+see a faint glimmer of light. I followed this glimmer. Still there was
+no sound.
+
+I came to an open door. A couch was before me, heaped with cushions. A
+long ray of moonlight had shot in through a communicating door, and I
+could see everything by it. This was where the ladies had been when I
+listened before, but they were not here now.
+
+Weren’t they? Why did I tremble so, then, and stare and stare at those
+cushions? Why did I feel I must pull them away, as I presently did? I
+was mad with liquor and might easily have imagined what I there saw;
+but I did not think of this then. I believed what I saw instantly. Miss
+Cumberland was dead, and I had discovered the crime. She had killed
+herself--no, she had been killed!
+
+Should I yell out murder? No, no; I could be sorry without that. I
+would not yell--mistresses were plenty. I had liked her, but I need not
+yell. There was something else I could do.
+
+She had a ring on her finger--a ring that for months I had gloated
+over and watched, as I had never watched and gloated over any other
+beautiful thing in my life. I wanted it--I had always wanted it. It was
+before me, for the taking now--I should be a fool to leave it there for
+some other wretch to pilfer. I had loved her--I would love the ring.
+
+Reaching down, I took it. I drew it from her finger; I put it in my
+pocket; I--God in heaven! The eyes I had seen glassed in death were
+looking at me.
+
+She was not dead--she had been witness of the theft. Without a
+thought of what I was doing, my hands closed round her throat. It was
+drink--fright--terror at the look she gave me--which made me kill her;
+not my real self. My real self could have shrieked when, in another
+instant, I saw my work.
+
+But shrieking would not bring her back and it would quite ruin me. Miss
+Carmel was somewhere near. I heard her now at the telephone; in another
+minute she would come out and meet me. I dared not linger.
+
+Tossing back the pillows, I stumbled from the place. Why I was not
+heard by my young mistress, I do not know; her ears were deaf, just as
+my eyes were half-blind. In a half hour I was dancing with the maids,
+telling them of the pretty stranger with whom I had been sitting out an
+hour of fun in a quiet corner. They believed me, and not a particle of
+suspicion has any man ever had of me since.
+
+But others have had to suffer, and that has made hell of my nights.
+I restored the ring to my poor mistress; but even that brought harm
+to one I had no quarrel with. But he has escaped conviction; and if I
+thought Mr. Ranelagh would also escape, I might have courage to live
+out my miserable life, and seek to make amends in the way she would
+have me.
+
+But I fear for him; I fear for Miss Carmel. Never could I testify in
+another trial which threatened her peace of mind. I see that, instead
+of being the selfish stealer of her sister’s happiness, as I had
+thought, she is an angel from whom all future suffering should be kept.
+
+This is my way of sparing her. Perhaps it will help her sister to
+forgive me when we meet in the world to which I am now going.
+
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE OF THE WHISPERING
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+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The House of the Whispering Pines, by Anna Katharine Green</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
+at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
+are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
+country where you are located before using this eBook.
+</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The House of the Whispering Pines</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Anna Katharine Green</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: November 14, 2003  [eBook #10083]<br>
+Last Updated: November 7, 2022</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team</div>
+<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE OF THE WHISPERING PINES ***</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h1 class="nobreak" id="THE_HOUSE_OF_THE_WHISPERING_PINES">THE HOUSE OF THE WHISPERING PINES</h1>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center p2">By ANNA KATHARINE GREEN</p>
+
+<p class="center">1910</p>
+
+<p class="center">Author of</p>
+
+<p class="center">“The Leavenworth Case,” “That Affair Next Door,” “One of My Sons,” etc.</p>
+
+
+<p class="poetry p2">
+“Mazes intricate,<br>
+Eccentric, interwov’d, yet regular<br>
+Then most, when most irregular they seem”.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Milton</i></p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<table class="autotable">
+<tr><td class="tdc"><a href="#BOOK_I">BOOK I</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdc">SMOKE</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#I">I.—THE HESITATING STEP</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#II">II.—IT WAS SHE—SHE INDEED!</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#III">III.—“OPEN!”</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#IV">IV.—THE ODD CANDLESTICK</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#V">V.—A SCRAP OF PAPER</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#VI">VI.—COMMENTS AND REFLECTIONS</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#VII">VII.—CLIFTON ACCEPTS MY CASE</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#VIII">VIII.—A CHANCE! I TAKE IT</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+<table class="autotable">
+<tr><td class="tdc"><a href="#BOOK_II">BOOK II</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdc">SWEETWATER TO THE FRONT</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#IX">IX.—“WE KNOW OF No SUCH LETTER”</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#X">X.—“I CAN HELP YOU”</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XI">XI.—IN THE COACH HOUSE</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XII">XII.—“LILA—LILA!”</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XIII">XIII.—“WHAT WE WANT IS HERE”</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XIV">XIV.—THE MOTIONLESS FIGURE</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XV">XV.—HELEN SURPRISES SWEETWATER</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XVI">XVI.—62 CUTHBERT ROAD</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XVII">XVII.—“MUST I TELL THESE THINGS?”</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XVIII">XVIII.—ON IT WAS WRITTEN—</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XIX">XIX.—“IT’S NOT WHAT YOU WILL FIND”</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+<table class="autotable">
+<tr><td class="tdc"><a href="#BOOK_III">BOOK III</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdc">HIDDEN SURPRISES</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XX">XX.—-“HE OR YOU! THERE IS NO THIRD”</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXI">XXI.—CARMEL AWAKES</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXII">XXII.—-“BREAK IN THE GLASS!”</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXIII">XXIII.—AT TEN INSTEAD OF TWELVE</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXIV">XXIV.—ALL THIS STOOD</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXV">XXV.—“I AM INNOCENT”</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXVI">XXVI.—THE SYLLABLE OF DOOM</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXVII">XXVII.—EXPECTANCY</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXVIII">XXVIII.—“WHERE Is MY BROTHER?”</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+<table class="autotable">
+<tr><td class="tdc"><a href="#BOOK_IV">BOOK IV</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdc">WHAT THE PINES WHISPERED</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXIX">XXIX.—“I REMEMBERED THE ROOM”</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXX">XXX.—“CHOOSE”</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXXI">XXXI.—“WERE HER HANDS CROSSED THEN?”</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXXII">XXXII.—AND I HAD SAID NOTHING!</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXXIII">XXXIII.—THE ARROW OF DEATH</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXXIV">XXXIV.—“STEADY!”</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXXV">XXXV.—“As IF IT WERE A MECCA”</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">
+<a href="#XXXVI">XXXVI.—THE SURCHARGED MOMENT</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_I">BOOK ONE<br><span class="small">SMOKE</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="I">I<br><span class="small">THE HESITATING STEP</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">To have reared a towering scheme<br>
+Of happiness, and to behold it razed,<br>
+Were nothing: all men hope, and see their hopes<br>
+Frustrate, and grieve awhile, and hope anew;<br>
+But—</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>A Blot in the ’Scutcheon.</i></p>
+
+
+<p>The moon rode high; but ominous clouds were rushing towards it—clouds
+heavy with snow. I watched these clouds as I drove recklessly,
+desperately, over the winter roads. I had just missed the desire
+of my life, the one precious treasure which I coveted with my
+whole undisciplined heart, and not being what you call a man of
+self-restraint, I was chafed by my defeat far beyond the bounds I have
+usually set for myself.</p>
+
+<p>The moon—with the wild skurry of clouds hastening to blot it out of
+sight—seemed to mirror the chaos threatening my better impulses; and,
+idly keeping it in view, I rode on, hardly conscious of my course till
+the rapid recurrence of several well-known landmarks warned me that I
+had taken the longest route home, and that in another moment I should
+be skirting the grounds of The Whispering Pines, our country clubhouse.
+<i>I</i> had taken? Let me rather say, my horse; for he and I had traversed
+this road many times together, and he had no means of knowing that the
+season was over and the club-house closed. I did not think of it myself
+at the moment, and was recklessly questioning whether I should not
+drive in and end my disappointment in a wild carouse, when, the great
+stack of chimneys coming suddenly into view against the broad disk of
+the still unclouded moon, I perceived a thin trail of smoke soaring up
+from their midst and realised, with a shock, that there should be no
+such sign of life in a house I myself had closed, locked, and barred
+that very day.</p>
+
+<p>I was the president of the club and felt responsible. Pausing only long
+enough to make sure that I had yielded to no delusion, and that fire of
+some kind was burning on one of the club-house’s deserted hearths, I
+turned in at the lower gateway. For reasons which I need not now state,
+there were no bells attached to my cutter and consequently my approach
+was noiseless. I was careful that it should be so, also careful to stop
+short of the front door and leave my horse and sleigh in the black
+depths of the pine-grove pressing up to the walls on either side. I was
+sure that all was not as it should be inside these walls, but, as God
+lives, I had no idea what was amiss or how deeply my own destiny was
+involved in the step I was about to take.</p>
+
+<p>Our club-house stands, as it may be necessary to remind you, on a
+knoll thickly wooded with the ancient trees I have mentioned. These
+trees—all pines and of a growth unusual and of an aspect well-nigh
+hoary—extend only to the rear end of the house, where a wide stretch
+of gently undulating ground opens at once upon the eye, suggesting to
+all lovers of golf the admirable use to which it is put from early
+spring to latest fall. Now, links, as well as parterres and driveways,
+are lying under an even blanket of winter snow, and even the building,
+with its picturesque gables and rows of be-diamonded windows, is
+well-nigh indistinguishable in the shadows cast by the heavy pines,
+which soar above it and twist their limbs over its roof and about its
+forsaken corners, with a moan and a whisper always desolate to the
+sensitive ear, but from this night on, simply appalling.</p>
+
+<p>No other building stood within a half-mile in any direction. It was
+veritably a country club, gay and full of life in the season, but
+isolated and lonesome beyond description after winter had set in and
+buried flower and leaf under a wide waste of untrodden snow.</p>
+
+<p>I felt this isolation as I stepped from the edge of the trees and
+prepared to cross the few feet of open space leading to the main door.
+The sudden darkness instantly enveloping me, as the clouds, whose
+advancing mass I had been watching, made their final rush upon the
+moon, added its physical shock to this inner sense of desolation,
+and, in some moods, I should have paused and thought twice before
+attempting the door, behind which lurked the unknown with its naturally
+accompanying suggestion of peril. But rage and disappointment, working
+hotly within me, had left no space for fear. Rather rejoicing in the
+doubtfulness of the adventure, I pushed my way over the snow until my
+feet struck the steps. Here, instinct caused me to stop and glance
+quickly up and down the building either way. Not a gleam of light met
+my eye from the smallest scintillating pane. Was the house as soundless
+as it was dark?</p>
+
+<p>I listened but heard nothing. I listened again and still heard nothing.
+Then I proceeded boldly up the steps and laid my hand on the door.</p>
+
+<p>It was unlatched and yielded to my touch. Light or no light, sound
+or no sound there was some one within. The fire which had sent its
+attenuated streak of smoke up into the moonlit air, was burning yet on
+one of the many hearths within, and before it I should presently see—</p>
+
+<p>Whom?</p>
+
+<p>What?</p>
+
+<p>The question scarcely interested me.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless I proceeded to enter and close the door carefully behind
+me. As I did so, I cast an involuntary glance without. The sky was inky
+and a few wandering flakes of the now rapidly advancing storm came
+whirling in, biting my cheeks and stinging my forehead.</p>
+
+<p>Once inside, I stopped short, possibly to listen again, possibly to
+assure myself as to what I had best do next. The silence was profound.
+Not a sound disturbed the great, empty building. My own footfall, as
+I stirred, seemed to wake extraordinary echoes. I had moved but a few
+steps, yet to my heightened senses, the noise seemed loud enough to
+wake the dead. Instinctively I stopped and stood stock-still. There was
+no answering cessation of movement. Darkness, silence everywhere. Yet
+not quite absolute darkness. As my eyes grew accustomed to the place,
+I found it possible to discern the outlines of the windows and locate
+the stairs and the arches where the side halls opened. I was even able
+to pick out the exact spot where the great antlers spread themselves
+above the hatrack, and presently the rack itself came into view, with
+its row of empty pegs, yesterday so full, to-day quite empty. That rack
+interested me,—I hardly knew why,—and regardless of the noise I made,
+I crossed over to it and ran my hand along the wall underneath. The
+result was startling. A man’s coat and hat hung from one of the pegs.</p>
+
+<p>I knew my business as president of this club. I also knew that no one
+should be in the house at this time—that no one could be in it on any
+honest errand. Some secret and sinister business must be at the bottom
+of this mysterious intrusion immediately after the place had been
+shut for the winter. Would this hat and coat identify the intruder?
+I would strike a light and see. But this involved difficulties. The
+gas had been turned off that very morning and I had no matches in my
+pocket. But I remembered where they could be found. I had seen them
+when I passed through the kitchen earlier in the day. They were very
+accessible from the end of the hall where I stood. I had but to feel my
+way through a passage or two and I should come to the kitchen door.</p>
+
+<p>I began to move that way, and presently came creeping back, with a
+match-box half full of matches in my hand. But I did not strike one
+then. I had just made a move to do so, when the unmistakable sound of a
+door opening somewhere in the house made me draw back into as quiet and
+dark a place as I could find. This lay in the rear and at the right of
+the staircase, and as the sound had appeared to come from above, it was
+the most natural retreat that offered. And a good one I found it.</p>
+
+<p>I had hardly taken up my stand when the darkness above gave way to a
+faint glimmer, and a step became audible coming from some one of the
+many small rooms in the second story, but so slowly and with such
+evident hesitation that my imagination had ample time to work and fill
+my mind with varying anticipations, each more disconcerting than the
+last. Now I seemed to be listening to the movements of an intoxicated
+man seeking an issue out of strange quarters, then to the wary approach
+of one who had his own reasons for dread and was as conscious of my
+presence as I was of his.</p>
+
+<p>But the light, steadily increasing with each lagging but surely
+advancing step, soon gave the lie to this latter supposition, since no
+sane man, afraid of an ambush, would be likely to offer such odds to
+the one lying in wait for him, as his own face illumined by a flaming
+candle, and I was yielding to the bewilderment of the moment when the
+uncertain step paused and a sob came faintly to my ears, wrung from
+lips so stiff with human anguish that my fears took on new shape and
+the event a significance which in my present mood of personal suffering
+and preoccupation was anything but welcome. Indeed, I was coward
+enough to contemplate flight and might in another moment have yielded
+to the unworthy impulse if the sound of a second sigh had not struck
+shudderingly on my ear, followed by the renewal of the step and the
+almost immediate appearance on the stairs of a young girl holding a
+candle in one hand and shielding her left cheek with the other.</p>
+
+<p>Life offers few such shocks to any man, whatever his story or whatever
+his temperament. I had been prepared by the sob I had heard to see
+a woman, but not this woman. Nothing could have prepared me for an
+encounter with this woman anywhere that night, after what had passed
+between us and the wreck she had made of my life. But here! in a place
+so remote and desolate I had hesitated to enter it myself! What was I
+to think? How was I to reconcile so inconceivable a fact with what I
+knew of her in the past, with what I hoped from her in the future.</p>
+
+<p>To steady my thoughts and bring my whirling brain again under
+control, I fixed my eyes on her well-known form and features as upon
+a stranger’s whom I would understand and judge. I have called her a
+woman and certainly I had loved her as such, but as, in this moment
+of strange detachment, I watched her descend, swaying foot following
+swaying foot falteringly down the stairs, I was able to see that only
+the emotions which denaturalised her expression were a woman’s; that
+her features, her pose, and the peculiar childlike contour of the
+one cheek open to view were those of one whose yesterday was in the
+playroom.</p>
+
+<p>But beautiful! You do not often see such beauty. Under all the
+disfigurement of an agitation so great as to daunt me and make me
+question if I were its sole cause, her face shone with an individual
+charm which marked her out as one of the few who are the making or
+marring of men, sometimes of nations. This is the heritage she was
+born to, this her lot, not to be shirked, not to be evaded even now
+at her early age of seventeen. So much any one could see even in a
+momentary scrutiny of her face and figure. But what was not so clear,
+not even to myself with the consciousness of what had passed between
+us during the last few hours, was why her heart should have so outrun
+her years, and the emotion I beheld betray such shuddering depths. Some
+grisly fear, some staring horror had met her in this strange retreat.
+Simple grief speaks with a different language from that which I read in
+her distorted features and tottering, slowly creeping form. What had
+happened above? She had escaped me to run upon what? My lips refused
+to ask, my limbs refused to move, and if I breathed at all, I did so
+with such fierceness of restraint that her eyes never turned my way,
+not even when she had reached the lowest step and paused for a moment
+there, oscillating in pain or uncertainty. Her face was turned more
+fully towards me now, and I had just begun to discern something in it
+besides its tragic beauty, when she made a quick move and blew out
+the candle she held. One moment that magical picture of superhuman
+loveliness, then darkness, I might say silence, for I do not think
+either of us so much as stirred for several instants. Then there came
+a crash, followed by the sound of flying feet. She had flung the
+candlestick out of her hand and was hurriedly crossing the hall. I
+thought she was coming my way, and instinctively drew back against the
+wall. But she stopped far short of me, and I heard her groping about,
+then give a sudden spring towards the front door. It opened and the
+wind soughed in. I felt the chill of snow upon my face, and realised
+the tempest. Then all was quiet and dark again. She had slid quickly
+out and the door had swung to behind her. Another instant and I heard
+the click of the key as it turned in the lock, heard it and made no
+outcry, such the spell, such the bewilderment of my faculties! But
+once the act was accomplished and egress made difficult, nay, for the
+moment, impossible, I felt all lesser emotions give way to an anxiety
+which demanded immediate action, for the girl had gone out without
+wraps or covering for her head, and my experience of the evening had
+told me how cold it was. I must follow and find her and rescue her if
+possible from the snow. The distance was long to town, the cold would
+seize and perhaps prostrate her, after which, the wind and snow would
+do the rest.</p>
+
+<p>Throwing myself against the door, I shook it violently. It was
+immovable. Then I flew to the windows. Their fastenings yielded readily
+enough, but not the windows themselves; one had a broken cord, another
+seemed glued to its frame, and I was still struggling with the latter
+when I heard a sound which lifted the hair on my head and turned my
+whole attention back to what lay behind and above me. There was still
+some one in the house. I had forgotten everything in this apparition
+of the woman I have described in a place so disassociated with any
+conception I could possibly have of her whereabouts on this especial
+evening. But this noise, short, sharp, but too distant to be altogether
+recognisable, roused doubts which once awakened changed the whole tenor
+of my thoughts and would not let me rest till I had probed the house
+from top to bottom. To find Carmel Cumberland alone in this desolation
+was a mystifying discovery to which I had found it hard enough to
+reconcile myself. But Carmel here in company with another at the very
+moment when I had expected the fruition of my own joy,—ah, that was to
+open hell’s door in my breast; a possibility too intolerable to remain
+unsettled for an instant. Though she had passed out before my eyes
+in a drooping, almost agonised condition, not she, dear as she was,
+and great as were my fears in her regard, was to be sought out first,
+but the man! The man who was back of all this, possibly back of my
+disappointment; the man whose work I may have witnessed, but at whose
+identity I could not even guess.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the window, I groped my way along the wall until I reached the
+rack where the man’s coat and hat hung. Whether it was my intention to
+carry them away and hide them, in my anxiety to secure this intruder
+and hold him to a bitter account for the misery he was causing me, or
+whether I only meant to satisfy myself that they were the habiliments
+of a stranger and not those of some sneaking member of the club, is of
+little importance in the light of the fact which presently burst upon
+me. The hat and coat were gone. Nothing hung from the rack. The wall
+was free from end to end. She had taken these articles of male apparel
+with her; she had not gone forth into the driving snow, unprotected,
+but—</p>
+
+<p>I did not know what to think. No acquaintanceship with her girlish
+impulses, nothing that had occurred between us before or during this
+night, had prepared me for a freak of this nature. I felt backward
+along the wall; I felt forward; I even handled the pegs and counted
+them as I passed to and fro, touching every one; but I could not alter
+the fact. The groping she had done had been in this direction. She was
+searching for this hat and coat (a man’s hat,—a derby, as I had been
+careful to assure myself at the first handling) and, in them, she had
+gone home as she had probably come, and there was no man in the case,
+or if there were—</p>
+
+<p>The doubt drove me to the staircase. Making no further effort to
+unravel the puzzle which only beclouded my faculties, I began my wary
+ascent. I had not the slightest fear, I was too full of cold rage for
+that.</p>
+
+<p>The arrangement of rooms on the second floor was well known to me. I
+understood every nook and corner and could find my way about the whole
+place without a light. I took but one precaution—that of slipping off
+my shoes at the foot of the stairs. I wished to surprise the intruder.
+I was willing to resort to any expedient to accomplish this. The
+matches I carried in my pocket would make this possible if once I heard
+him breathing. I held my own breath as I stole softly up, and waited
+for an instant at the top of the stairs to listen. There was an awesome
+silence everywhere, and I was hesitating whether to attack the front
+rooms first or to follow up a certain narrow hall leading to a rear
+staircase, when I remembered the thin line of smoke which, rising from
+one of the chimneys, had first attracted my attention to the house. In
+that was my clue. There was but one room on this floor where a fire
+could be lit. It lay a few feet beyond me down the narrow hall I have
+just mentioned. Why had I trusted everything to my ears when my nose
+would have been a better guide? As I took the few steps necessary, a
+slight smell of smoke became very perceptible, and no longer in doubt
+of my course, I pushed boldly on and entering the half-open door,
+struck a match and peered anxiously about.</p>
+
+<p>Emptiness here just as everywhere else. A few chairs, a dresser,—it
+was a ladies’ dressing-room,—some smouldering ashes on the hearth, a
+lounge piled up with cushions. But no person. The sound I had heard
+had not issued from this room, yet something withheld me from seeking
+further. Chilled to the bone, with teeth chattering in spite of myself,
+I paused just inside the door, and when the match went out in my hand
+remained shivering there in the darkness, a prey to sensations more
+nearly approaching those of fear than any I had ever before experienced
+in my whole life.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="II">II<br><span class="small">IT WAS SHE—SHE INDEED!</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">Look on death itself!—up, up, and see<br>
+The great doom’s visage!</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Macbeth</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>Why, I did not know. There seemed to be no reason for this excess of
+feeling. I had no dread of attack; my apprehension was of another sort.
+Besides, any attack here must come from the rear—from the open doorway
+in which I stood—and my dread lay before me, in the room itself,
+which, as I have already said, appeared to be totally empty. What
+could occasion my doubts, and why did I not fly the place? There were
+passage-ways yet to search, why linger here like a gaby in the dark
+when perhaps the man I believed to be in hiding somewhere within these
+walls, was improving the opportunity to escape?</p>
+
+<p>If I asked myself this question, I did not answer it, but I doubt if
+I asked it then. I had forgotten the intruder; the interest which had
+carried me thus far had become lost in a fresher one of which the
+beginning and ending lay hidden within the four walls I now stared
+upon, unseeing. Not to see and yet to feel—did that make the horror?
+If so, another lighted match must help me out. I struck one while the
+thought was hot within me, and again took a look at the room.</p>
+
+<p>I noted but one thing new, but that made me reel back till I was half
+way into the hall. Then a certain dogged persistency I possess came to
+my rescue, and I re-entered the room at a leap and stood before the
+lounge and its pile of cushions. They were numerous,—all that the room
+contained, and more! Chairs had been stripped, window-seats denuded,
+and the whole collection disposed here in a set way which struck me as
+unnatural. Was this the janitor’s idea? I hardly thought so, and was
+about to pluck one of these cushions off, when that most unreasonable
+horror seized me again and I found myself looking back over my shoulder
+at the fireplace from which rose a fading streak of smoke which some
+passing gust, perhaps, had blown out into the room.</p>
+
+<p>I felt sick. Was it the smell? It was not that of burning wood, hardly
+of burning paper, I—but here my second match went out.</p>
+
+<p>Thoroughly roused now (you will say, by what?) I felt my way out of
+the room and to the head of the staircase. I remembered the candle
+and candlestick I had heard thrown down on the lower floor by Carmel
+Cumberland. I would secure them and come back and settle these uncanny
+doubts. It might be the veriest fool business, but my mind was
+disturbed and must be set at ease. Nothing else seemed so important,
+yet I was not without anxiety for the lovely and delicate woman
+wandering the snow-covered roads in the teeth of a furious gale, any
+more than I was dead to the fact that I should never forgive myself if
+I allowed the man to escape whom I believed to be hiding somewhere in
+the rear of this house.</p>
+
+<p>I had a hunt for the candlestick and a still longer one for the candle,
+but finally I recovered both, and, lighting the latter, felt myself,
+for the first time, more or less master of the situation.</p>
+
+<p>Rapidly regaining the room in which my interest was now centred, I set
+the candlestick down on the dresser, and approached the lounge. Hardly
+knowing what I feared, or what I expected to find, I tore off one of
+the cushions and flung it behind me. More cushions were revealed—but
+that was not all.</p>
+
+<p>Escaping from the edge of one of them I saw a shiny tress of woman’s
+hair. I gave a gasp and pulled off more cushions, then I fell on my
+knees, struck down by the greatest horror which a man can feel. Death
+lay before me—violent, uncalled-for death—and the victim was a woman.
+But it was not that. Though the head was not yet revealed, I thought I
+knew the woman and that she—Did seconds pass or many minutes before
+I lifted that last cushion? I shall never know. It was an eternity
+to me and I am not of a sentimental cast, but I have some sort of a
+conscience and during that interval it awoke. It has never quite slept
+since.</p>
+
+<p>The cushion had not concealed the hands, but I did not look at them—I
+did not dare. I must first see the face. But I did not twitch this
+pillow off; I drew it aside slowly, as though held by the restraining
+clutch of some one behind me. And I was so held, but not by what was
+visible—rather by the terrors which gather in the soul at the summons
+of some dreadful doom. I could not meet the certainty without some
+preparation. I released another strand of hair; then the side of a
+cheek, half buried out of sight in the loosened locks and bulging
+pillows; then, with prayers to God for mercy, an icy brow; two staring
+eyes—which having seen I let the cushion drop, for mercy was not to be
+mine.</p>
+
+<p>It was <i>she</i>, she, indeed! and judgment was glassed in the look I
+met—judgment and nothing more kindly, however I might appeal to Heaven
+for mercy or whatever the need of my fiercely startled and repentant
+soul.</p>
+
+<p>Dead! Adelaide! the woman I had planned to wrong that very night, and
+who had thus wronged me! For a moment I could take in nothing but
+this one astounding fact, then the how and the why woke in maddening
+curiosity within me, and seizing the cushion, I dragged it aside and
+stared down into the pitiful and accusing features thus revealed, as
+though to tear from them the story of the crime which had released
+me as I would not have been released, no, not to have had my heart’s
+desire in all the fulness with which I had contemplated it a few short
+hours before.</p>
+
+<p>But beyond the ever accusing, protuberant stare, those features told
+nothing; and steeling myself to the situation, I made what observation
+I could of her condition and the surrounding circumstances. For this
+was my betrothed wife. Whatever my intentions, however far my love had
+strayed under the spell cast over me by her sister,—the young girl who
+had just passed out,—Adelaide and I had been engaged for many months;
+our wedding day was even set.</p>
+
+<p>But that was all over now—ended as her life was ended: suddenly,
+incomprehensibly, and by no stroke of God. Even the jewel on her finger
+was gone, the token of our betrothal. This was to be expected. She
+would be apt to take it off before committing herself to a fate that
+proclaimed me a traitor to this symbol. I should see that ring again. I
+should find it in a letter filled with bitter words. I would not think
+of it or of them now. I would try to learn how she had committed this
+act, whether by poison or—</p>
+
+<p>It must have been by poison; no other means would suggest themselves
+to one of her refined sense; but if so, why those marks on her neck,
+growing darker and darker as I stared at them!</p>
+
+<p>My senses reeled as I scrutinised those marks. Small, delicate but
+deadly, they stared upon me from either side of her white neck till
+nature could endure no more and I tottered back against the further
+wall, beholding no longer room, nor lounge, nor recumbent body, but a
+young girl’s exquisite face, set in lines which belied her seventeen
+years, and made futile any attempt on my part at self-deception when my
+reason inexorably demanded an explanation of this death. As suicide it
+was comprehensible, as murder, not, unless—</p>
+
+<p>And it had been murder!</p>
+
+<p>I sank to the floor as I fully realised this.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="III">III<br><span class="small">“OPEN!”</span></h3></div>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>PRINCE.—Bring forth the parties of suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>FRIAR.—I am the greatest, as the time and place Doth make against me,
+of this direful murder; And here I stand, both to impeach and purge.
+Myself condemned and myself excused.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Romeo and Juliet</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>I have mentioned poison as my first thought. It was a natural one, the
+result undoubtedly of having noticed two small cordial glasses standing
+on a little table over against the fireplace. When I was conscious
+again of my own fears, I crossed to the table and peered into these
+glasses. They were both empty. However, they had not been so long. In
+each I found traces of anisette cordial, and though no bottle stood
+near I was very confident that it could readily be found somewhere in
+the room. What had preceded and followed the drinking of this cordial?</p>
+
+<p>As I raised my head from bending over these glasses—not club glasses,
+by the way—I caught sight of my face in the mantel mirror. It gave me
+maddening thoughts. In this same mirror there had been reflected but a
+little while before, two other faces, for a sight of whose expression
+at that fatal moment I would gladly risk my soul.</p>
+
+<p>How had <i>she</i> looked—how that other? Would not the story of those
+awful, those irrevocable moments be plain to my eye, if the quickly
+responsive glass could but retain the impressions it receives and give
+back at need what had once informed its surface with moving life!</p>
+
+<p>I stared at the senseless glass, appealed to it with unreasoning
+frenzy, as to something which could give up its secret if it
+would, but only to meet my own features in every guise of fury and
+despair—features I no longer knew—features which insensibly increased
+my horror till I tore myself wildly from the spot, and cast about for
+further clues to enlightenment, before yielding to the conviction which
+was making a turmoil in mind, heart, and conscience. Alas! there was
+but little more to see. A pair of curling-irons lay on the hearth,
+but I had no sooner lifted them than I dropped them with a shudder of
+unspeakable loathing, only to start at the noise they made in striking
+the tiles. For it was the self-same noise I had heard when listening
+from below. These tongs, set up against the side of the fireplace had
+been jarred down by the forcible shutting of the large front door, and
+no man other than myself was in the house, or had been in the house;
+only the two women. But the time when this discovery would have brought
+comfort was passed. Better a hundred times that a man—I had almost
+said any man—should have been with them here, than that they should
+be closeted together in a spot so secluded, with rancour and cause for
+complaint in one heart, and a biting, deadly flame in the other, which
+once reaching up must from its very nature leave behind it a corrosive
+impress. I saw,-I felt,—but I did not desist from my investigations. A
+stick or two still smouldered on the hearthstone. In the ashes lay some
+scattered fragments of paper which crumbled at my touch. On the floor
+in front I espied only a stray hair-pin; everything else was in place
+throughout the room except the cushions and that horror on the lounge,
+waiting the second look I had so far refrained from giving it.</p>
+
+<p>That look I could no longer withhold. I must know the depth of the
+gulf over which I hung. I must not wrong with a thought one who had
+smiled upon me like an angel of light—a young girl, too, with the dew
+of innocence on her beauty to every eye but mine and only not to mine
+within—shall I say ten awful minutes? It seemed ages,—all of my life
+and more. Yet that lovely breast had heaved not so many times since I
+looked upon her as a deified mortal, and now two small spots on another
+woman’s pulseless throat had drawn a veil of blood over that beauty,
+and given to a child the attributes of a Medusa. Yet hope was not quite
+stilled. I would look again and perhaps discover that my own eyes had
+been at fault, that there were no marks, or if marks, not just the ones
+my fancy had painted there.</p>
+
+<p>Turning, I let my glance fall first on the feet. I had not noted them
+before, and I was startled to see that the arctics in which they
+were clad were filled all around with snow. She had walked then, as
+the other was walking now; she, who detested every effort and was of
+such delicate make that exertion of unusual kind could not readily be
+associated with her. Had she come alone or in Carmel’s company, and if
+in Carmel’s company, on what ostensible errand if not that of death?
+Her dress, which was of dark wool, showed that she had changed her
+garments for this trip. I had seen her at dinner, and this was not the
+gown she had worn then—the gown in which she had confronted me during
+those few intolerable minutes when I could not meet her eyes. Fatal
+cowardice! A moment of realisation then and we might all have been
+saved this horror of sin and death and shameful retribution.</p>
+
+<p>And yet who knows? Not understanding what I saw, how could I measure
+the might-have-beens! I would proceed with my task—note if she wore
+the diamond brooch I had given her. No, she was without ornament; I had
+never seen her so plainly clad. Might I draw a hope from this? Even
+the pins which had fallen from her hair were such as she wore when
+least adorned. Nothing spoke of the dinner party or of her having been
+dragged here unaware; but all of previous intent and premeditation.
+Surely hope was getting uppermost. If I had dreamed the marks—</p>
+
+<p>But no! There they were, unmistakable and damning, just where the
+breath struggles up. I put my own thumbs on these two dark spots to
+see if—when what was it? A lightning stroke or a call of fate which
+one must answer while sense remains? I felt my head pulled around by
+some unseen force from behind, and met staring into mine through the
+glass of the window a pair of burning eyes. Or was it fantasy? For in
+another moment they were gone, nor was I in the condition just then to
+dissociate the real from the unreal. But the possibility of a person
+having seen me in this position before the dead was enough to startle
+me to my feet, and though in another instant I became convinced that
+I had been the victim of hallucination, I nevertheless made haste to
+cross to the window and take a look through its dismal panes. A gale of
+blinding snow was sweeping past, making all things indistinguishable,
+but the absence of balcony outside was reassuring and I stepped hastily
+back, asking myself for the first time what I should do and where I
+should now go to ensure myself from being called as a witness to the
+awful occurrence which had just taken place in this house. Should I go
+home and by some sort of subterfuge now unthought of, try to deceive
+my servants as to the time of my return, or attempt to create an alibi
+elsewhere? Something I must do to save myself the anguish and Carmel
+the danger of my testimony in this matter. She must never know, the
+world must never know that I had seen her here.</p>
+
+<p>I had lost at a blow everything that gives zest or meaning to life, but
+I might still be spared the bottommost depth of misery—be saved the
+utterance of the word which would sink that erring but delicate soul
+into the hell yawning beneath her. It was my one thought now—though
+I knew that the woman who had fallen victim to her childish hate had
+loved me deeply and was well worth my avenging.</p>
+
+<p>I could not be the death of two women; the loss of one weighed heavily
+enough upon my conscience. I would fly the place—I would leave this
+ghastly find to tell its own story. The night was stormy, the hour
+late, the spot a remote one, and the road to it but little used. I
+could easily escape and when the morrow came—but it was the present I
+must think of now, this hour, this moment. How came I to stay so long!
+In feverish haste, I began to throw the pillows back over the quiet
+limbs, the accusing face. Shudderingly I hid those eyes (I understood
+their strange protuberance now) and recklessly bent on flight, was half
+way across the floor when my feet were stayed—I wonder that my reason
+was not unseated—by a sudden and tremendous attack on the great door
+below, mingled with loud cries to open which ran thundering through the
+house, calling up innumerable echoes from its dead and hidden corners.</p>
+
+<p>It was the police. The wild night, the biting storm had been of no
+avail. An alarm had reached headquarters, and all hope of escape on
+my part was at an end. Yet because at such crises instinct rises
+superior to reason, I blew out the candle and softly made my way into
+the hall. I had remembered a window opening over a shed at the head of
+the kitchen staircase. I could reach it from this rear hall by just
+a turn or two, and once on that shed, a short leap would land me on
+the ground; after which I could easily trust to the storm to conceal
+my flight across the open golf-links. It was worth trying at least;
+anything was better than being found in the house with my murdered
+betrothed.</p>
+
+<p>I had no reason to think that I was being sought, or that my presence
+in this building was even suspected. It might well be that the police
+were even ignorant of the tragedy awaiting them across the threshold
+of the door they seemed intent on battering down. The gleam of a
+candle burning in this closed-up house, or even the tale told by the
+rising smoke, may have drawn them from the road to investigate. Such
+coincidences had been. Such untoward happenings had misled people into
+useless self-betrayal. My case was too desperate for such weakness.
+Flight at this moment might save all; I would at least attempt it. The
+door was shaking on its hinges; these intruders seemed determined to
+enter.</p>
+
+<p>With a spring I reached the window by which I hoped to escape, and
+quickly raised it. A torrent of snow swept in, covering my face and
+breast in a moment. It did something more: it cleared my brain, and I
+remembered my poor horse standing in this blinding gale under cover
+of the snow-packed pines. Every one knew my horse. I could commit no
+greater folly than to flee by the rear fields while such a witness to
+my presence remained in full view in front. With the sensation of a
+trapped animal, I reclosed the window and cast about for a safe corner
+where I could lie concealed until I learned what had brought these men
+here and how much I really had to fear from their presence.</p>
+
+<p>I had but little time in which to choose. The door below had just given
+way and a party of at least three men were already stamping their feet
+free from snow in the hall. I did not like the tone of their voices,
+it was too low and steady to suit me. I had rather have heard drunken
+cries or a burst of wild hilarity than these stern and purposeful
+whispers. Men of resolution could have but one errand here. My doom
+was closing round me. I could only put off the fatal moment. But it
+was better to do this than to plunge headlong into the unknown fate
+awaiting me.</p>
+
+<p>I knew of a possible place of concealment. It was in the ballroom
+not far from where I stood. I remembered the spot well. It was at
+the top of a little staircase leading to the musicians’ gallery. A
+balustrade guarded this gallery, supported by a boarding wide enough
+to hide a man lying behind it at his full length. If the search I was
+endeavouring to evade was not minute enough to lead them to look behind
+this boarding, it would offer me the double advantage of concealment
+and an unobstructed view of what went on in the hall, through the main
+doorway opening directly opposite. I could reach this ballroom and
+its terminal gallery without going around to this door. A smaller one
+communicated directly with the corridor in which I was then lurking,
+and towards this I now made my way with all the precaution suggested by
+my desperate situation. No man ever moved more lightly. The shoes which
+I had taken off in the lower hall were yet in my hand. I had caught
+them up after replacing the cushions on Adelaide’s body. Even to my own
+straining ears I made no perceptible sound. I reached the balcony and
+had stretched myself out at full length behind the boarding, before the
+men below had left the lower floor.</p>
+
+<p>An interval of heart-torture and wearing suspense now followed. They
+were ransacking the rooms below by the aid of their own lanterns, as I
+could tell from their assured manner. That they had not made at once
+for the scene of crime brought me some small sense of comfort, but not
+much. They were too resolute in their movements and much too thorough
+and methodical in their search, for me to dream of their confining
+their investigations to the first floor. Unless I very much mistook
+their purpose, I should soon hear them ascending the stairs, after
+which, instinct, if not the faint smell of smoke still lingering in the
+air, would lead them to the room where my poor Adelaide lay.</p>
+
+<p>And thus it proved. More quickly than I expected, the total darkness
+in which I lay, brightened under an advancing lantern, and I heard the
+steps of two men coming down the hall. It was a steady if not rapid
+approach, and I was quite prepared for their presence when they finally
+reached the doorway opposite and stopped to look in at what must have
+appeared to them a vast and empty space. They were officials, true
+enough—one hasty glance through the balustrade assured me of that. I
+even knew one of them by name—he was a sergeant of police and a highly
+trustworthy man. But how they had been drawn to this place at a moment
+so critical, I could not surmise. Do men of this stamp scent crime
+as a hound scents out prey? They had the look of hounds. Even in the
+momentary glimpse I got of them, I noted the tense and expectant look
+with which they endeavoured to pierce the dim spaces between us. The
+chase was on. It was something more than curiosity or a chance exercise
+of their duty which had brought them here. Their object was definite,
+and if the sight of the low gallery in which I lay, should suggest to
+them all its possibilities as a hiding-place, I should know in just one
+moment more what it is for the helpless quarry to feel the clutch of
+the captor.</p>
+
+<p>But the moment passed without any attempt at approach on their part,
+and when I lifted my head again it was to catch a glimpse of their side
+faces as they turned to look elsewhere for what they were plainly in
+search of. An oath, muffled but stern, which was the first word above
+a whisper that I had heard issue from their lips, told me that they
+had reached <i>the</i> room and had come upon the horror which lay there.
+What would they say to it! Would they know who she was—her name,
+her quality, her story—and respect her dead as they certainly must
+have respected her living? I listened but caught only a low murmur
+as they conferred together. I imagined their movements; saw them in
+my mind’s eye leaning over that death-tenanted couch, pointing with
+accusing finger at those two dark marks, and consulting each other with
+side-long looks, as they passed from one detail of her appearance to
+another. I even imagined them crossing the floor and lifting the two
+cordial glasses just as I had done, and then slowly setting them down
+again, with perhaps a lift of the brows or a suggestive shake of the
+head; and maddened by my own intolerable position, drawn by a power I
+felt it impossible to resist, I crept to my feet and took my staggering
+way down the half-dozen steps of the gallery and thence along by the
+left-hand wall towards the further doorway, and through it to where
+these men stood weighing the chances in which my life and honour were
+involved, and those of one other of whom I dared not think and would
+not have these men think for all that was left me of hope and happiness.</p>
+
+<p>It was dark in the ballroom, and it was only a little less so in the
+corridor. All the light was in <i>that</i> room; but I still slid along the
+wall like a thief, with eyes set and ears agape for any chance word
+which might reach me. Suddenly I heard one. It was this, uttered with a
+decision which had the strange effect of lifting my head and making a
+man of me again:</p>
+
+<p>“That settles it. He will find it hard to escape after this.”</p>
+
+<p><i>He!</i> I had been dreading to hear a <i>she</i>. Yet why? Who on God’s earth,
+save myself, could know that Carmel had been within these woeful walls
+to-night. <i>He!</i> I never stopped to question who was meant by this
+definite pronoun. I was not even conscious of caring very much. I was
+in a coil of threatening troubles, but I was in it alone, and, greatly
+relieved by the discovery, I drew myself up and stepped quickly forward
+into the room where the two officials stood.</p>
+
+<p>Their faces, as they wheeled sharply about and took in my shoeless
+and more or less dishevelled figure, told me with an eloquence which
+made my heart sink, the unfortunate impression which my presence made
+upon them. It was but a fleeting look, for these men were both by
+nature and training easy masters of themselves; but its language was
+unmistakable and I knew that if I were to hold my own with them, I must
+get all the support I could from the truth, save where it would involve
+her—from the truth and my own consciousness of innocence, if I had any
+such consciousness. I was not sure that I had, for my falseness had
+precipitated this tragedy,—how I might never know, but a knowledge
+of the how was not necessary to my self-condemnation. Nevertheless my
+hands were clean of this murder, and allowing the surety of this fact
+to take a foremost place in my mind, I faced these men and with real
+feeling, but as little display of it as possible, I observed:</p>
+
+<p>“You have come to my aid in a critical moment. This is my betrothed
+wife—the woman I was to marry—and I find her lying here dead, in this
+closed and lonely house. What does it mean? I know no more than you do.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="IV">IV<br><span class="small">THE ODD CANDLESTICK</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">It is a damned and a bloody work;<br>
+The graceless action of a heavy hand,<br>
+If that it be the work of any hand.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>King John</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>The two men eyed me quietly, then Hexford pointed to my shoeless feet
+and sternly retorted:</p>
+
+<p>“Permit us to doubt your last assertion. You seem to be in better
+position than ourselves to explain the circumstances which puzzle you.”</p>
+
+<p>They were right. It was for me to talk, not for them. I conceded the
+point in these words:</p>
+
+<p>“Perhaps—but you cannot always trust appearances. I can explain my
+own presence here and the condition in which you find me, but I cannot
+explain this tragedy, near and dear as Miss Cumberland was to me. I
+did not know she was in the building, alive or dead. I came upon her
+here covered with the cushions just as you found her. I have felt the
+shock. I do not look like myself—I do not feel like myself; it was
+enough—” Here real emotion seized me and I almost broke down. I was in
+a position much more dreadful than any they could imagine or should be
+allowed to.</p>
+
+<p>Their silence led me to examine their faces. Hexford’s mouth had
+settled into a stiff, straight line and the other man’s wore a cynical
+smile I did not like. At this presage of the difficulties awaiting me,
+I felt one strand of the rope sustaining me above this yawning gulf
+of shame and ignominy crack and give way. Oh, for a better record in
+the past!—a staff on which to lean in such an hour as this! But while
+nothing serious clouded my name, I had more to blush for than to pride
+myself upon in my career as prince of good fellows,—and these men knew
+it, both of them, and let it weigh in the scale already tipped far off
+its balance by coincidences which a better man than myself would have
+found it embarrassing to explain. I recognised all this, I say, in the
+momentary glance I cast at their stern and unresponsive figures; but
+the courage which had served me in lesser extremities did not fail me
+now, and, kneeling down before my dead betrothed, I kissed her cold
+white hand with sincere compunction, before attempting the garbled and
+probably totally incoherent story with which I endeavoured to explain
+the inexplainable situation.</p>
+
+<p>They listened—I will do them that much justice; but it was with such
+an air of incredulity that my words fell with less and less continuity
+and finally lost themselves in a confused stammer as I reached the
+point where I pulled the cushions from the couch and made my ghastly
+discovery.</p>
+
+<p>“You see—see for yourselves—what confronted me. My betrothed—a
+dainty, delicate woman—dead—alone—in this solitary, far-away
+spot—the victim of what? I asked myself then—I ask myself now. I
+cannot understand it—or those glasses yonder—or <i>those marks!”</i> They
+were black by this time—unmistakable—not to be ignored by them or by
+me.</p>
+
+<p>“We understand those marks, and you ought to,” came from the second
+man, the one I did not know.</p>
+
+<p>My head fell forward; my lips refused to speak the words. I saw as in
+a flash, a picture of the one woman bending over the other; terror,
+reproach, anguish in the eyes whose fixed stare would never more
+leave my consciousness, an access of rage or some such sadden passion
+animating the other whose every curve spoke tenderness, whose every
+look up to this awful day had been as an angel’s look to me. The vision
+was a maddening one. I shook myself free from it by starting to my
+feet. “It’s—it’s—” I gasped.</p>
+
+<p>“She has been strangled,” quoth Hexford, doggedly.</p>
+
+<p>“A dog’s death,” mumbled the other.</p>
+
+<p>My hands came together involuntarily. At that instant, with the memory
+before me of the vision I have just described, I almost wished that it
+had been <i>my</i> hate, <i>my</i> anger which had brought those tell-tale marks
+out upon that livid skin. I should have suffered less. I should only
+have had to pay the penalty of my crime and not be forced to think
+of Carmel with terrible revulsion, as I was now thinking, minute by
+minute, fight with it as I would.</p>
+
+<p>“You had better sit down,” Hexford suddenly suggested, pushing a chair
+my way. “Clarke, look up the telephone and ask for three more men. I am
+going into this matter thoroughly. Perhaps you will tell us where the
+telephone is,” he asked, turning my way.</p>
+
+<p>It was some little time before I took in these words. When I did,
+I became conscious of his keen look, also of a change in my own
+expression. I had forgotten the telephone. It had not yet been taken
+out. If only I had remembered this before these men came—I might have
+saved—No, nothing could have saved her or me, except the snow, except
+the snow. That may already have saved her. All this time I was trying
+to tell where the telephone was.</p>
+
+<p>That I succeeded at last I judged from the fact that the second man
+left the room. As he did so, Hexford lit the candle. Idly watching,
+for nothing now could make me look at the lounge again, I noticed the
+candlestick. It was of brass and rare in style and workmanship—a
+candlestick to be remembered; one of a pair perhaps. I felt my hair
+stir as I took in the details of its shape and ornamentation. If its
+mate were in her house—No, no, no! I would not have it so. I could
+not control my emotion if I let my imagination stray too far. The
+candlestick must be the property of the club. I had only forgotten. It
+was bought when? While thinking, planning, I was conscious of Hexford’s
+eyes fixed steadily upon me.</p>
+
+<p>“Did you go into the kitchen in your wanderings below?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>“No,” I began, but seeing that I had made a mistake, I bungled and
+added weakly: “Yes; after matches.”</p>
+
+<p>“Only matches?”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s all.”</p>
+
+<p>“And did you get them?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“In the dark? You must have had trouble in finding them?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not at all. Only safety matches are allowed here, and they are put in
+a receptacle at the side of each door. I had but to open the kitchen
+door, feel along the jamb, find this receptacle, and pull the box out.
+I’m well used to all parts of the house.”</p>
+
+<p>“And you did this?”</p>
+
+<p>“I have said so.”</p>
+
+<p>“May I ask which door you allude to?”</p>
+
+<p>“The one communicating with the front hall.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where did you light your first match?”</p>
+
+<p>“Upstairs.”</p>
+
+<p>“Not in the kitchen?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“You are sure?”</p>
+
+<p>“Quite sure.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s a pity. I thought you might be able to tell me how so many wine
+and whiskey bottles came to be standing on the kitchen table.”</p>
+
+<p>I stared at him, dazed. Then I remembered the two small glasses on
+the little table across the room, and instinctively glanced at them.
+But no whiskey had been drunk out of them—the odor of anisette is
+unmistakable.</p>
+
+<p>“You carry the key to the wine-cellar?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>I considered a moment. I did not know what to make of bottles on the
+kitchen table. These women and <i>bottles</i>! They abhorred wine; they
+had reason to, God knows; T remembered the dinner and all that had
+signalised it, and felt my confusion grow. But a question had been
+asked, and I must answer it. It would not do for me to hesitate about a
+matter of this kind. Only what was the question. Something about a key.
+I had no key; the cellar had been ransacked without my help; should I
+acknowledge this?</p>
+
+<p>“The keys were given up by the janitor yesterday,” I managed to stammer
+at last. “But I did not bring them here to-night. They are in my rooms
+at home.”</p>
+
+<p>I finished with a gasp. I had suddenly remembered that these keys were
+not in my rooms. I had had them with me at Miss Cumberland’s and being
+given to fooling with something when embarrassed, I had fooled with
+them and dropped them while talking with Adelaide and watching Carmel.
+I had meant to pick them up but I forgot and—</p>
+
+<p>“You need say nothing more about it,” remarked Hexford. “I have no
+right to question you at all.” And stepping across the room, he took
+up the glasses one after the other and smelled of them. “Some sweet
+stuff,” he remarked. “Cordial, I should say anisette. There wasn’t
+anything like that on the kitchen table. Let us see what there is in
+here,” he added, stepping into the adjoining small room into which I
+had simply peered in my own investigation of the place.</p>
+
+<p>As he did so, a keen blast blew in; a window in the adjoining room was
+open. He cast me a hurried glance and with the door in his hand, made
+the following remark:</p>
+
+<p>“Your lady love—the victim here—could not have come through the snow
+with no more clothing on her than we see now. She must have worn a hat
+and coat or furs or something of that nature. Let us look for them.”</p>
+
+<p>I rose, stumbling. I saw that he did not mean to leave me alone for a
+moment. Indeed, I did not wish to be so left. Better any companionship
+than that of my own thoughts and of her white upturned face. As I
+followed him into this closet he pushed the door wide, pulling out an
+electric torch as he did so. By its light we saw almost at first glance
+the coat and hat he professed to seek, lying in a corner of the floor,
+beside an overturned chair.</p>
+
+<p>“Good!” left my companion’s lips. “That’s all straight. You recognise
+these garments?”</p>
+
+<p>I nodded, speechless. A thousand memories rushed upon me at the sight
+of the long plush coat which I had so often buttoned about her, with
+a troubled heart. How her eyes would seek mine as we stood thus close
+together, searching, searching for the old love or the fancied love of
+which the ashes only remained. Torment, all torment to remember now, as
+Hexford must have seen, if the keenness of his intelligence equalled
+that of his eye at this moment.</p>
+
+<p>The window which stood open was a small one,-a mere slit in the wall;
+but it let in a stream of zero air and I saw Hexford shiver as he
+stepped towards it and looked out. But I felt hot rather than cold, and
+when I instinctively put my hand to my forehead, it came away wet.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="V">V<br><span class="small">A SCRAP OF PAPER</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">Look to the lady:—<br>
+And when we have our naked frailties hid,<br>
+That suffer in exposure, let us meet,<br>
+And question this most bloody piece of work,<br>
+To know it further. Fears and scruples shake us;<br>
+In the great hand of God I stand; and, thence,<br>
+Against the undivulg’d pretence I fight<br>
+Of treasonous malice.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Macbeth</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>Shortly after this, a fresh relay of police arrived and I could hear
+the whole house being ransacked. I had found my shoes, and was sitting
+in my own private room before a fire which had been lighted for me on
+the hearth. I was in a state of stupor now, and if my body shook, as
+it did from time to time, it was not from cold, nor do I think from
+any special horror of mind or soul (I felt too dull for that), but in
+response to the shuddering pines which pressed up close to the house
+at this point and soughed and tapped at the walls and muttered among
+themselves with an insistence which I could not ignore, notwithstanding
+my many reasons for self-absorption.</p>
+
+<p>The storm, which had been exceedingly fierce while it lasted, had
+quieted down to a steady fall of snow. Had its mission been to serve as
+a blanket to this crime by wiping out from the old snow all tell-tale
+footsteps and such other records as simplify cases of this kind for the
+detectives, it could not have happened more <i>apropos</i> to the event.
+From the complaints which had already reached my ears from the two
+policemen, I was quite aware that even as early as their first arrival,
+they had found a clean page where possibly a few minutes before the
+whole secret of this tragedy may have been written in unmistakable
+characters; and while this tilled me with relief in one way, it added
+to my care in another, for the storm which could accomplish so much in
+so short a time was a bitter one for a young girl to meet, and Carmel
+must have met it at its worst, in her lonesome struggle homeward.</p>
+
+<p>Where was she? Living or dead, where was she now and where was
+Adelaide—the two women who for the last six weeks had filled my life
+with so many unhallowed and conflicting emotions? The conjecture
+passed incessantly through my brain, but it passed idly also and was
+not answered even in thought. Indeed, I seemed incapable of sustaining
+any line of thought for more than an instant, and when after an
+indefinite length of time the door behind me opened, the look I turned
+upon the gentleman who entered must have been a strange and far from
+encouraging one.</p>
+
+<p>He brought a lantern with him. So far the room had had no other
+illumination than such as came from the fire, and when he had set this
+lantern down on the mantel and turned to face me, I perceived, with
+a sort of sluggish hope, that he was Dr. Perry, once a practising
+physician and my father’s intimate friend, now a county official of no
+ordinary intelligence and, what was better, of no ordinary feeling.</p>
+
+<p>His attachment to my father had not descended to me and, for the
+moment, he treated me like a stranger.</p>
+
+<p>“I am the coroner of this district,” said he. “I have left my bed
+to have a few words with you and learn if your detention here is
+warranted. You are the president of this club, and the lady whose
+violent death in this place I have been called upon to investigate, is
+Miss Cumberland, your affianced wife?”</p>
+
+<p>My assent, though hardly audible, was not to be misunderstood. Drawing
+up a chair, he sat down and something in his manner which was not
+wholly without sympathy, heartened me still more, dispelling some of
+the cloudiness which had hitherto befogged my faculties.</p>
+
+<p>“They have told me what you had to say in explanation of your presence
+here where a crime of some nature has taken place. But I should
+like to hear the story from your own lips. I feel that I owe you
+this consideration. At all events, I am disposed to show it. This
+is no common case of violence and the parties to it are not of the
+common order. Miss Cumberland’s virtue and social standing no one
+can question, while you are the son of a man who has deservedly been
+regarded as an honour to the town. You have been intending to marry
+Miss Cumberland?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.” I looked the man directly in the eye. “Our wedding-day was set.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you love her? Pardon me; if I am to be of any benefit to you at
+this crisis I must strike at the root of things. If you do not wish to
+answer, say so, Mr. Ranelagh.”</p>
+
+<p>“I do wish.” This was a lie, but what was I to do, knowing how
+dangerous it would be for Carmel to have it publicly known where
+my affections were really centred and what a secret tragedy of
+heart-struggle and jealous passion underlay this open one of foul and
+murderous death. “I am in no position to conceal anything from you. I
+did love Miss Cumberland. We have been engaged for a year. She was a
+woman of fortune but I am not without means of my own and could have
+chosen a penniless girl and still been called prosperous.”</p>
+
+<p>“I see, and she returned your love?”</p>
+
+<p>“Sincerely.” Was the room light enough to reveal my guilty flush? She
+had loved me only too well, too jealously, too absorbingly for her
+happiness or mine.</p>
+
+<p>“And the sister?”</p>
+
+<p>It was gently but gravely put, and instantly I knew that our secret was
+out, however safe we had considered it. This man was cognisant of it,
+and if he, why not others! Why not the whole town! A danger which up to
+this moment I had heard whispered only by the pines, was opening in a
+gulf beneath our feet. Its imminence steadied me. I had kept my glance
+on Coroner Perry, and I do not think it changed. My tone, I am quite
+assured, was almost as quiet and grave as his as I made my reply in
+these words:</p>
+
+<p>“Her sister is her sister. I hardly think that either of us would be apt
+to forget that. Have you heard otherwise, sir?”</p>
+
+<p>He was prepared for equivocation, possibly for denial, but not for
+attack. His manner changed and showed distrust and I saw that I had lost
+rather than made by this venturous move.</p>
+
+<p>“Is this your writing?” he suddenly asked, showing me a morsel of paper
+which he had drawn from his vest pocket.</p>
+
+<p>I looked, and felt that I now understood what the pines had been trying
+to tell me for the last few hours. That compromising scrap of writing
+had not been destroyed. It existed for her and my undoing! Then doubt
+came. Fate could not juggle thus with human souls and purposes. I had
+simply imagined myself to have recognised the words lengthening and
+losing themselves in a blur before my eyes. Carmel was no fool even
+if she had wild and demoniacal moments. This could not be my note to
+her,—that fatal note which would make all denial of our mutual passion
+unavailing.</p>
+
+<p>“Is it your writing?” my watchful inquisitor repeated.</p>
+
+<p>I looked again. The scrap was smaller than my note had been when it
+left my hands. If it were the same, then some of the words were gone.
+Were they the first ones or the last? It would make a difference in the
+reading, or rather, in the conclusions to be drawn from what remained.
+If only the mist would clear from before my eyes, or he would hold the
+slip of paper nearer! The room was very dark. The—the—</p>
+
+<p>“Is it your writing?” Coroner Perry asked for the third time.</p>
+
+<p>There was no denying it. My writing was peculiar and quite
+unmistakable. I should gain nothing by saying no.</p>
+
+<p>“It looks like it,” I admitted reluctantly. “But I cannot be sure in
+this light. May I ask what this bit of paper is and where you found it?”</p>
+
+<p>“Its contents I think you know. As for the last question I think you
+can answer that also if you will.”</p>
+
+<p>Saying which, he quietly replaced the scrap of paper in his pocket-book.</p>
+
+<p>I followed the action with my eyes. I caught a fresh glimpse of a
+darkened edge, and realised the cause of the faint odour which I had
+hitherto experienced without being conscious of it. The scrap had been
+plucked out of the chimney. She had tried to burn it. I remembered the
+fire and the smouldering bits of paper which crumbled at my touch. And
+this one, this, the most important—the only important one of them all,
+had flown, half-scorched, up the chimney and clung there within easy
+reach.</p>
+
+<p>The whole incident was plain to me, and I could even fix upon the
+moment when Hexford or Clarke discovered this invaluable bit of
+evidence. It was just before I burst in upon them from the ballroom,
+and it was the undoubted occasion of the remark I then overheard:</p>
+
+<p>“<i>This settles it. He cannot escape us now</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>During the momentary silence which now ensued, I tried to remember the
+exact words which had composed this note. They were few—-sparks from
+my very heart—I ought to be able to recollect them.</p>
+
+<p>“To-night—10:30 train—we will be married at P——. Come, come, my
+darling, my life. She will forgive when all is done. Hesitation will
+only undo us. To-night at 10 30. Do not fail me. I shall never marry
+any one but you.”</p>
+
+<p>Was that all? I had an indistinct remembrance of having added some
+wild and incoherent words of passionate affection affixed to her name.
+<i>Her name</i>! But it may be that in the hurry and flurry of the moment,
+these terms of endearment simply passed through my mind and found no
+expression on paper. I could not be sure, any more than I could be
+positive from the half glimpse I got of these lines, which portion had
+been burned off,—the top in which the word <i>train</i> occurred, or the
+final words, emphasising a time of meeting and my determination to
+marry no one but the person addressed. The first gone, the latter might
+take on any sinister meaning. The latter gone, the first might prove a
+safeguard, corroborating my statement that an errand had taken me into
+town.</p>
+
+<p>I was oppressed by the uncertainty of my position. Even if I carried
+off this detail successfully, others of equal importance might be
+awaiting explanation. My poor, maddened, guilt-haunted girl had made
+the irreparable mistake of letting this note of mine fly unconsumed
+up the chimney, and she might have made others equally incriminating.
+It would be hard to find an alibi for her if suspicion once turned
+her way. She had not met me at the train. The unknown but doubtless
+easily-to-be-found man who had handed me her note could swear to that
+fact.</p>
+
+<p>Then the note itself! I had destroyed it, it is true, but its phrases
+were so present to my mind—had been so branded into it by the terrors
+of the tragedy which they appeared to foreshadow, that I had a dreadful
+feeling that this man’s eye could read them there. I remember that
+under the compelling power of this fancy, my hand rose to my brow
+outspread and concealing, as if to interpose a barrier between him
+and them. Is my folly past belief? Possibly. But then I have not told
+you the words of this fatal communication. They were these—innocent,
+if she were innocent, but how suggestive in the light of her probable
+guilt:</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot. Wait till to-morrow. Then you will see the depth of my love
+for you—what I owe you—what I owe Adelaide.”</p>
+
+<p>I should see!</p>
+
+<p>I was seeing.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly I dropped my hand; a new thought had come to me. Had Carmel
+been discovered on the road leading from this place?</p>
+
+<p>You perceive that by this time I had become the prey of every
+threatening possibility; even of that which made the present a
+nightmare from which I should yet wake to old conditions and old
+struggles, bad enough, God knows, but not like this—not like this.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime I was conscious that not a look or movement of mine had escaped
+the considerate but watchful eye of the man before me.</p>
+
+<p>“You do not relish my questions,” he dryly observed. “Perhaps you would
+rather tell your story without interruption. If so, I beg you to be as
+explicit as possible. The circumstances are serious enough for perfect
+candour on your part.”</p>
+
+<p>He was wrong. They were too serious for that. Perfect candour would
+involve Carmel. Seeming candour was all I could indulge in. I took a
+quick resolve. I would appear to throw discretion to the winds; to
+confide to him what men usually hold sacred; to risk my reputation as a
+gentleman, rather than incur a suspicion which might involve others
+more than it did myself. Perhaps I should yet win through and save her
+from an ignominy she possibly deserved but which she must never receive
+at my hands.</p>
+
+<p>“I will give you an account of my evening,” said I. “It will not aid
+you much, but will prove my good faith. You asked me a short time ago
+if I loved the lady whom I was engaged to marry and whose dead body I
+most unexpectedly came upon in this house some time before midnight. I
+answered yes, and you showed that you doubted me. You were justified
+in your doubts. I did love her once, or thought so, but my feelings
+changed. A great temptation came into my life. Carmel returned from
+school and—you know her beauty, her fascination. A week in her
+presence, and marriage with Adelaide became impossible. But how evade
+it? I only knew the coward’s way; to lure this inexperienced young
+girl, fresh from school, into a runaway match. A change which now
+became perceptible in Miss Cumberland’s manner, only egged me on. It
+was not sufficiently marked in character to call for open explanation,
+yet it was unmistakable to one on the watch as I was, and betokened
+a day of speedy reckoning for which I was little prepared. I know
+what the manly course would have been, but I preferred to skulk. I
+acknowledge it now; it is the only retribution I have to offer for a
+past I am ashamed of. Without losing one particle of my intention,
+I governed more carefully my looks and actions, and thought I had
+succeeded in blinding Adelaide to my real feelings and purpose. Whether
+I did or not, I cannot say. I have no means of knowing now. She has
+not been her natural self for these last few days, but she had other
+causes for worry, and I have been willing enough to think that these
+were the occasion of her restless ways and short, sharp speech and the
+blankness with which she met all my attempts to soothe and encourage
+her. This evening”—I choked at the word. The day had been one string
+of extraordinary experiences, accumulating in intensity to the one
+ghastly discovery which had overtopped and overwhelmed all the rest.
+“This evening,” I falteringly continued, “I had set as the limit to my
+endurance of the intolerable situation. During a minute of solitude
+preceding the dinner at Miss Cumberland’s house on the Hill, I wrote a
+few lines to her sister, urging her to trust me with her fate and meet
+me at the station in time for the ten-thirty train. I meant to carry
+her at once to P——, where I had a friend in the ministry who would at
+once unite us in marriage. I was very peremptory, for my nerves were
+giving way under the secret strain to which they had been subjected
+for so long, and she herself was looking worn with her own silent and
+uncommunicated conflict.</p>
+
+<p>“To write this note was easy, but to deliver it involved difficulties.
+Miss Cumberland’s eyes seemed to be more upon me than usual. Mine were
+obliged to respond and Carmel seeing this, kept hers on her plate
+or on the one other person seated at the table, her brother Arthur.
+But the opportunity came as we all rose and passed together into the
+drawing-room. Carmel fell into place at my side and I slipped the note
+into her hand. She had not expected it and I fear that the action was
+observed, for when I took my leave of Miss Cumberland shortly after,
+I was struck by her expression. I had never seen such a look on her
+face before, nor can I conceive of one presenting a more extraordinary
+contrast to the few and commonplace words with which she bade me
+good evening. I could not forget that look. I continued to see those
+pinched features and burning eyes all the way home where I went to get
+my grip-sack, and I saw them all the way to the station, though my
+thoughts were with her sister and the joys I had planned for myself.
+Man’s egotism, Dr. Perry. I neither knew Adelaide nor did I know the
+girl whose love I had so over-estimated. She failed me, Dr. Perry. I
+was met at the station not by herself, but by a letter—a few hurried
+lines given me by an unknown man—in which she stated that I had asked
+too much of her, that she could not so wrong her sister who had brought
+her up and done everything for her since her mother died. I have not
+that letter now, or I would show it to you. In my raging disappointment
+I tore it up on the place where I received it, and threw the pieces
+away. I had staked my whole future on one desperate throw and I had
+lost. If I had had a pistol—” I stopped, warned by an uneasy movement
+on the part of the man I addressed, that I had better not dilate too
+much upon my feelings. Indeed, I had forgotten to whom I was talking. I
+realised nothing, thought of nothing but the misery I was describing.
+His action recalled me to the infinitely deeper misery of my present
+situation, and conscious of the conclusions which might be drawn from
+such impulsive utterances, I pulled myself together and proceeded to
+finish my story with greater directness.</p>
+
+<p>“I did not leave the station till the ten-thirty train had gone. I had
+hopes, still, of seeing her, or possibly I dreaded the long ride back
+to my apartments. It was from sheer preoccupation of mind that I drove
+this way instead of straight out by Marshall Avenue. I had no intention
+of stopping here; the club-house was formally closed yesterday, as you
+may know, and I did not even have the keys with me. But, as I reached
+the bend in the road where you get your first sight of the buildings, I
+saw a thin streak of smoke rising from one of its chimneys, and anxious
+as to its meaning, I drove in—”</p>
+
+<p>“Wait, Mr. Ranelagh, I am sorry to interrupt you, but by which gate did
+you enter?”</p>
+
+<p>“By the lower one.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was it snowing at this time?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not yet. It was just before the clouds rushed upon the moon. I could
+see everything quite plainly.”</p>
+
+<p>My companion nodded and I went breathlessly on. Any question of his
+staggered me. I was so ignorant of the facts at his command, of the facts
+at any one’s command outside my own experience and observation, that the
+simplest admission I made might lead directly to some clew of whose very
+existence I was unaware. I was not even able to conjecture by what chance
+or at whose suggestion the police had raided the place and discovered
+the tragedy which had given point to that raid. No one had told me, and I
+had met with no encouragement to ask. I felt myself sliding amid
+pitfalls. My own act might precipitate the very doom I sought to avert.
+Yet I must preserve my self-possession and answer all questions as
+truthfully as possible lest I stumble into a web from which no skill of
+my own or of another could extricate me.</p>
+
+<p>“Fastening my horse to one of the pine trees in the thickest clump I
+saw—he is there now, I suppose—I crept up to the house, and tried the
+door. It was on the latch and I stole in. There was no light on the lower
+floor, and after listening for any signs of life, I began to feel my way
+about the house, searching for the intruder. As I did not wish to attract
+attention to myself, I took off my shoes. I went through the lower rooms,
+and then I came upstairs. It was some time before I reached the—the room
+where a fire had been lit; but when I did I knew—not,” I hastily
+corrected, as I caught his quick concentrated glance, “what had happened
+or whom I should find there, but that this was the spot where the
+intruder had been, possibly was now, and I determined to grapple with
+him. What—what have I said?” I asked in anguish, as I caught a look on
+the coroner’s face of irrepressible repulsion and disgust, slight and
+soon gone but unmistakable so long as it lasted.</p>
+
+<p>“Nothing,” he replied, “go on.”</p>
+
+<p>But his tone, considerate as it had been from the first, did not deceive
+me. I knew that I had been detected in some slip or prevarication. As I
+had omitted all mention of the most serious part of my adventure—had
+said nothing of my vision of Carmel or the terrible conclusions which her
+presence there had awakened—my conscience was in a state of perturbation
+which added greatly to my confusion. For a moment I did not know where I
+stood, and I am afraid I betrayed a sense of my position. He had to
+recall me to myself by an unimportant question or two before I could go
+on. When I did proceed, it was with less connection of ideas and a haste
+in speaking which was not due altogether to the harrowing nature of the
+tale itself.</p>
+
+<p>“I had matches in my pocket and I struck one,” I began. “Afterwards I lit
+the candle. The emptiness of the room did not alarm me. I experienced the
+sense of tragedy. Seeing the pillows heaped high and too regularly for
+chance along a lounge ordinarily holding only two, I tore them off. I saw
+a foot, a hand, a tress of bright hair. Even then I did not think of
+<i>her</i>. Why should I? Not till I uncovered the face did I know the terrors
+of my discovery, and then, the confusion of it all unmanned me and I fell
+on my knees—”</p>
+
+<p>“Go on! Go on!”</p>
+
+<p>The impetuosity, the suspense in the words astounded me. I stared at the
+coroner and lost the thread of my story—What had I to say more? How
+account for what must be ever unaccountable to him, to the world, to my
+own self, if in obedience to the demands of the situation I subdued my
+own memory and blotted out all I had seen but that which it was safe to
+confess to?</p>
+
+<p>“There is no more to say,” I murmured. “The horror of that moment made a
+chaos in my mind. I looked at the dead body of her who lay there as I
+have looked at everything since; as I looked at the police when they
+came—as I look at you now. But I know nothing. It is all a
+phantasmagoria to me—with no more meaning than a nightmare. She is
+dead—I know that—but beyond that, all is doubt—confusion—what the
+world and all its passing show is to a blind man. I can neither
+understand nor explain.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="VI">VI<br><span class="small">COMMENTS AND REFLECTIONS</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">There is no agony and no solace left;<br>
+Earth can console, Heaven can torment, no more</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Prometheus Unbound</i></p>
+
+
+<p>The coroner’s intent look which had more or less sustained me through
+this ordeal, remained fixed upon my face as though he were still
+anxious to see me exonerate myself. How much did he know? That was the
+question. <i>How much did he know</i>?</p>
+
+<p>Having no means of telling, I was forced to keep silent. I had revealed
+all I dared to. As I came to this conclusion, his eyes fell and I knew
+that the favorable minute had passed.</p>
+
+<p>The question he now asked proved it.</p>
+
+<p>“You say that you were not blind to surrounding objects, even if they
+conveyed but little meaning to you. You must have seen, then, that the
+room where Miss Cumberland lay contained two small cordial glasses,
+both still moist with some liqueur.”</p>
+
+<p>“I noticed that, yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“Some one must have drunk with her?”</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot contradict you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was Miss Cumberland fond of that sort of thing?”</p>
+
+<p>“She detested liquor of all kinds. She never drank I never saw a woman
+so averse to wine.” I spoke before I thought. I might better have been
+less emphatic, but the mystery of those glasses had affected me from
+the first. Neither she nor Carmel ever allowed themselves so much as a
+social glass, yet those glasses had been drained. “Perhaps the cold—”</p>
+
+<p>“There was a third glass. We found it in the adjoining closet. It had
+not been used. That third glass has a meaning if only we could find it
+out.”</p>
+
+<p>A possibility which had risen in my mind faded at these words.</p>
+
+<p>“Three glasses,” I dully repeated.</p>
+
+<p>“And a small flask of cordial. The latter seems pure enough.”</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot understand it.” The phrase had become stereotyped. No other
+suggested itself to me.</p>
+
+<p>“The problem would be simple enough if it were not for those-marks on
+her neck. You saw those, too, I take it?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes. Who made them? What man—”</p>
+
+<p>The lie, or rather the suggestion of a lie, flushed my face. I was
+conscious of this, but it did not trouble me. I was panting for relief.
+I could not rest till I knew the nature of the doubt in this man’s
+mind. If these words, or any words I could use, would serve to surprise
+his secret, then welcome the lie or suggestion of a lie. “It was a
+brute’s act,” I went on, bungling with my sentences in anxiety to see
+if my conclusions fitted in with his own. “<i>Who was the brute</i>? Do you
+know, Dr. Perry?”</p>
+
+<p>“There were three glasses in those rooms. Only two were drank from,”
+he answered, steadily. “Tomorrow I may be in a position to answer your
+question. I am not to-night.”</p>
+
+<p>Why did I take heart? Not a change, not the flicker of one had passed
+over his countenance at my utterance of the word <i>man</i>. Either his
+official habit had stood him in wonderful stead, or the police had
+failed so far to see any connection between this murder and the young
+girl whose footprints, for all I knew, still lingered on the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>Would the morrow arm them with completer knowledge? As I turned from
+his retreating figure and flung myself down before the hearth, this was
+the question I continually propounded to myself, in vain repetition.
+Would the morrow reveal the fact that Adelaide’s young sister had been
+with her in the hour of death, or would the fates propitiously aid her
+in preserving this secret as they had already aided her in selecting
+for the one man who shared it, him who of all others was bound by
+honour and personal consideration for her not to divulge what he knew.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the hours between two and seven passed when I fell into a fitful
+sleep, from which I was rudely wakened by a loud rattle at my door,
+followed by the entrance of the officer who had walked up and down the
+corridor all night.</p>
+
+<p>“The waggon is here,” said he. “Breakfast will be given you at the
+station.”</p>
+
+<p>To which Hexford, looking over his shoulder, added: “I’m sorry to say
+that we have here the warrant for your arrest. Can I do anything for
+you?”</p>
+
+<p>“Warrant!” I burst out, “what do you want of a warrant? It is as a
+witness you seek to detain me, I presume?”</p>
+
+<p>“No,” was his brusque reply. “The charge upon which you are arrested is
+one of murder. You will have to appear before a magistrate. I’m sorry
+to be the one to tell you this, but the evidence against you is very
+strong, and the police must do their duty.”</p>
+
+<p>“But I am innocent, absolutely innocent,” I protested, the perspiration
+starting from every pore as the full meaning of the charge burst upon
+me. “What I have told you was correct. I, myself, found her dead—”</p>
+
+<p>Hexford gave me a look.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t talk,” he kindly suggested. “Leave that to the lawyers.” Then,
+as the other man turned aside for a moment, he whispered in my ear,
+“It’s no go; one of our men saw you with your fingers on her throat. He
+had clambered into a pine tree and the shade of the window was up. You
+had better come quietly. Not a soul believes you innocent.”</p>
+
+<p>This, then, was what had doomed me from the start; this, and that
+partly burned letter. I understood now why the kind-hearted coroner,
+who loved my father, had urged me to tell my tale, hoping that I would
+explain this act and give him some opportunity to indulge in a doubt.
+And I had failed to respond to the hint he had given me. The act
+itself must appear so sinister and the impulse which drove me to it
+so incomprehensible, without the heart-rending explanation I dare not
+subjoin, that I never questioned the wisdom of silence in its regard.</p>
+
+<p>Yet this silence had undone me. I had been seen fingering my dead
+betrothed’s throat, and nothing I could now say or do would ever
+convince people that she was dead before my hands touched her,
+strangled by another’s clutch. One person only in the whole world would
+know and feel how false this accusation was. And yesterday that one’s
+trust in my guiltlessness would have thrown a ray of light upon the
+deepest infamy which could befall me. But to-day there had settled over
+that once innocent spirit, a cloud of too impenetrable a nature for any
+light to struggle to and fro between us.</p>
+
+<p>I could not contemplate that cloud. I could not dwell upon her misery,
+or upon the revulsion of feeling which follows such impetuous acts. And
+it had been an impetuous act—the result of one of her rages. I had
+been told of these rages. I had even seen her in one. When they passed
+she was her lovable self once more and very penitent and very downcast.
+If all I feared were true, she was suffering acutely now. But I gave no
+thought to this. I could dream of but one thing—how to save her from
+the penalty of crime, a penalty I might be forced to suffer myself and
+would prefer to suffer rather than see it fall upon one so young and so
+angelically beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>Turning to the officer next me, I put the question which had been
+burning in my mind for hours:</p>
+
+<p>“Tell me, how you came to know there was trouble here? What brought you
+to this house? There can be nothing wrong in telling me that.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, if you don’t know—” he began.</p>
+
+<p>“I do not,” I broke in.</p>
+
+<p>“I guess you’d better wait till the chief has had a word with you.”</p>
+
+<p>I suppressed all tokens of my disappointment, and by a not unnatural
+reaction, perhaps, began to take in, and busy myself with, the very
+considerations I had hitherto shunned. Where was Carmel, and how was
+she enduring these awful hours? Had repentance come, and with it a
+desire to own her guilt? Did she think of me and the effect this
+unlooked-for death would have upon my feelings? That I should suffer
+arrest for her crime could not have entered her mind. I had seen her,
+but she had not seen me, in the dark hall which I must now traverse as
+a prisoner and a suspect. No intimation of my dubious position or its
+inevitable consequences had reached her yet. When it did, what would
+she do? I did not know her well enough to tell. The attraction she
+had felt for me had not been strong enough to lead her to accommodate
+herself to my wishes and marry me off-hand, but it had been strong
+enough to nerve her arm in whatever altercation she may have had with
+her jealous-minded sister. It was the temper and not the strength
+of the love which would tell in a strait like this. Would it prove
+of a generous kind? Should I have to combat her desire to take upon
+herself the full blame of her deed, with all its shames and penalties?
+Or should I have the still deeper misery of finding her callous to
+my position and welcoming any chance which diverted suspicion from
+herself? Either supposition might be possible, according to my judgment
+in this evil hour. All communication between us, in spite of our
+ardent and ungovernable passion, had been so casual and so slight.
+Looks, a whispered word or so, one furtive clasp in which our hands
+seemed to grow together, were all I had to go upon as tests of her
+feeling towards me. Her character I had judged from her face, which
+was lovely. But faces deceive, and the loveliness of youth is not like
+the loveliness of age—an absolute mirror of the soul within. Was not
+Medusa captivating, for all her snaky locks? Hide those locks and one
+might have thought her a Daphne.</p>
+
+<p>What would relieve my doubts? As Hexford drew near me again on our way
+to the head of the staircase, I summoned up courage to ask:</p>
+
+<p>“Have you heard anything from the Hill? Has the news of this tragedy
+been communicated to Miss Cumberland’s family, and if so, how are they
+bearing this affliction?”</p>
+
+<p>His lip curled, and for a minute he hesitated; then something in my
+aspect or the straight-forward look I gave him, softened him and he
+answered frankly, if coldly:</p>
+
+<p>“Word has gone there, of course, but only the servants are affected by
+it so far. Miss Cumberland, the younger, is very ill, and the boy—I
+don’t know his name—has not shown up since last evening. He’s very
+dissipated, they say, and may be in any one of the joints in the lower
+part of the town.”</p>
+
+<p>I stopped in dismay, clutching wildly at the railing of the stairs we
+were descending. I had hardly heard the latter words, all my mind was
+on what he had said first.</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Carmel Cumberland ill?” I stammered, “too ill to be told?”</p>
+
+<p>I was sufficiently master of myself to put it this way.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” he rejoined, kindly, as he urged me down the very stairs I had
+seen her descend in such a state of mind a few hours before. “A servant
+who had been out late, heard the fall of some heavy body as she was
+passing Miss Cumberland’s rooms, and rushing in found Miss Carmel, as
+she called her, lying on the floor near the open fire. Her face had
+struck the bars of the grate in falling, and she was badly burned. But
+that was not all; she was delirious with fever, brought on, they think,
+by anxiety about her sister, whose name she was constantly repeating.
+They had a doctor for her and the whole house was up before ever the
+word came of what had happened here.”</p>
+
+<p>I thanked him with a look. I had no opportunity for more. Half a dozen
+officers were standing about the front door, and in another moment I
+was bustled into the conveyance provided and was being driven away from
+the death-haunted spot.</p>
+
+<p>I had heard the last whisper of those pines for many, many days. But
+not in my dreams; it ever came back at night, sinister, awesome,
+haunted with dead hopes and breathing of an ever doubtful future.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="VII">VII<br><span class="small">CLIFTON ACCEPTS MY CASE</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">This hand of mine<br>
+Is yet a maiden and an innocent hand,<br>
+Not painted with the crimson spots of blood.<br>
+Within this bosom never enter’d yet<br>
+The dreadful motion of a murd’rous thought.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>King John</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>My first thought (when I could think at all) was this:</p>
+
+<p>“She has some feeling, then! Her terror and remorse have maddened
+her. I can dwell upon her image with pity.” The next, “Will they find
+her wet clothes and discover that she was out last night?” The latter
+possibility troubled me. My mind was the seat of strange contradictions.</p>
+
+<p>As the day advanced and I began to realise that I, Elwood Ranelagh,
+easy-going man of the world, but with traditions of respectable living
+on both sides of my house and a list of friends of which any man might
+be proud, was in a place of detention on the awful charge of murder, I
+found that my keenest torment arose from the fact that I was shut off
+from the instant knowledge of what was going on in the house where all
+my thoughts, my fears, and shall I say it, latent hopes were centred.
+To know Carmel ill and not to know how ill! To feel the threatening
+arm of the law hovering constantly over her head and neither to know
+the instant of its fall nor be given the least opportunity to divert
+it. To realise that some small inadvertance on her part, some trivial
+but incriminating object left about, some heedless murmur or burst of
+unconscious frenzy might precipitate her doom, and I remain powerless,
+bearing my share of suspicion and ignominy, it is true, but not the
+chief share if matters befell as I have suggested, which they were
+liable to do at any hour, nay, at any minute.</p>
+
+<p>My examination before the magistrate held one element of comfort.
+Nothing in its whole tenor went to show that, as yet, she was in the
+least suspected of any participation in my so-called crime. But the
+knowledge which came later, of how the police first learned of trouble
+at the club-house did not add to this sense of relief, whatever
+satisfaction it gave my curiosity. A cry of distress had come to them
+over the telephone; a wild cry, in a woman’s choked and tremulous
+voice: “Help at The Whispering Pines! Help!” That was all, or all they
+revealed to me. In their endeavour to find out whether or not I was
+present when this call was made, I learned the nature of their own
+suspicions. They believed that Adelaide in some moment of prevision
+had managed to reach the telephone and send out this message. But what
+did I believe? What could I believe? All the incidents of the deadly
+struggle which must have preceded the fatal culminating act, were
+mysteries which my mind refused to penetrate. After hours of torturing
+uncertainty, and an evening which was the miserable precursor of a
+still more miserable night, I decided to drop conjecture and await the
+enlightenment which must come with the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>It was, therefore, in a condition of mingled dread and expectation that
+I opened the paper which was brought me the next morning. Of the shock
+which it gave me to see my own name blotting the page with suggestions
+of hideous crime, I will not speak, but pass at once to the few gleams
+of added knowledge I was able to gather from those abominable columns.
+Arthur, the good-for-nothing brother, had returned from his wild
+carouse and had taken affairs in charge with something like spirit
+and a decent show of repentance for his own shortcomings and the mad
+taste for liquor which had led him away from home that night. Carmel
+was still ill, and likely to be so for many days to come. Her case was
+diagnosed as one of brain fever and of a most dangerous type. Doctors
+and nurses were busy at her bedside and little hope was held out of
+her being able to tell soon, if ever, what she knew of her sister’s
+departure from the house on that fatal evening. That her testimony
+on this point would be invaluable was self-evident, for proofs were
+plenty of her having haunted her sister’s rooms all the evening in a
+condition of more or less delirium. She was alone in the house and this
+may have added to her anxieties, all of the servants having gone to the
+policemen’s ball. It was on their return in the early morning hours
+that she had been discovered, lying ill and injured before her sister’s
+fireplace.</p>
+
+<p>One fact was mentioned which set me thinking. The keys of the
+club-house had been found lying on a table in the side hall of the
+Cumberland mansion—the keys which I have already mentioned as missing
+from my pocket. An alarming discovery which might have acted as a
+clew to the suspicious I feared, if their presence there had not been
+explained by the waitress who had cleared the table after dinner.
+Coming upon these keys lying on the floor beside one of the chairs,
+she had carried them out into the hall and laid them where they would
+be more readily seen. She had not recognised the keys, but had taken
+it for granted that they belonged to Mr. Ranelagh who had dined at the
+house that night.</p>
+
+<p>They were my keys, and I have already related how I came to drop them
+on the floor. Had they but stayed there! Adelaide, or was it Carmel,
+might not have seen them and been led by some strange, if not tragic,
+purpose, incomprehensible to us now and possibly never to find full
+explanation, to enter the secret and forsaken spot where I later found
+them, the one dead, the other fleeing in frenzy, but not in such a
+thoughtless frenzy as to forget these keys or to fail to lock the
+club-house door behind her. That she, on her return home, should have
+had sufficient presence of mind to toss these keys down in the same
+place from which she or her sister had taken them, argued well for
+her clear-headedness up to that moment. The fever must have come on
+later—a fever which with my knowledge of what had occurred at The
+Whispering Pines, seemed the only natural outcome of the situation.</p>
+
+<p>The next paragraph detailed a fact startling enough to rouse my deepest
+interest. Zadok Brown, the Cumberlands’ coachman, declared that
+Arthur’s cutter and what he called the grey mare had been out that
+night. They were both in place when he returned to the stable towards
+early morning, but the signs were unmistakable that both had been out
+in the snow since he left the stable at about nine. He had locked the
+stable-door at that time, but the key always hung in the kitchen where
+any one could get it. This was on account of Arthur, who, if he wanted
+to go out late, sometimes harnessed a horse himself. Zadok judged that
+he had done so this night, though how the horse happened to be back and
+in her stall and no Mr. Arthur in the house, it would take wiser heads
+than his to explain. But he was sure the mare had been out.</p>
+
+<p>There was some comment made on this, because Arthur had denied using
+his cutter that night. He declared instead that he had gone out on foot
+and designated the coachman’s tale as all bosh. “I was not the only one
+who had a drop too much down-town,” was the dogged assertion with which
+he met all questions on this subject. “I wouldn’t give a snap of my
+finger for Zadok’s opinion on any subject, after five hours of dancing
+and the necessary drinks. There were no signs of the mare having been
+out when I got home.” As this was about noon the next day, his opinion
+on this point could not be said to count for much.</p>
+
+<p>As for myself, I felt inclined to believe that the mare had been out,
+that one or both of the women had harnessed him and that it was by
+these means they had reached The Whispering Pines. The night was too
+cold, a storm too imminent, for them to have contemplated so long a
+walk on a road so remote as that leading to the club-house. Arthur
+was athletic but Adelaide was far from strong and never addicted to
+walking under the most favourable conditions. Of all the mysteries
+surrounding her dead presence in the club-house, the one which from
+the first had struck me as the most inexplicable was the manner of her
+reaching there. Now I could understand both that fact and how Carmel
+had succeeded in returning in safety to her home. She had ridden both
+ways—a theory which likewise explained how she came to wear a man’s
+derby and possibly a man’s overcoat. With her skirts covered by a
+bear-skin she would present a very fair figure of a man to any one who
+chanced to pass her. This was desirable in her case. A man and woman
+driving at a late hour through the city streets would attract little,
+if any, attention, while two women might. Having no wish to attract
+attention, they had resorted to subterfuge—or Carmel had; it was not
+like Adelaide to do so. She was always perfectly open, both in manner
+and speech.</p>
+
+<p>These were my deductions drawn from my own knowledge. Would others who
+had not my knowledge be in any wise influenced to draw the same? Would
+the fact that the mare had been out during those mysterious hours when
+everybody had appeared to be absent from the house, saving the one
+young girl whom they afterwards found stark, staring mad with delirium,
+serve to awaken suspicion of her close and personal connection with
+this crime? There was nothing in this reporter’s article to show that
+such an idea had dawned upon his mind, but the police are not readily
+hoodwinked and I dreaded the result of their inquiries, if they chose
+to follow this undoubted clew.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, if they let this point slip, where should I be? Human nature is
+human all the way through, and I could not help having moments when I
+asked myself if this young girl were worth the sacrifice I contemplated
+making for her? She was lovely to look at, amiable and of womanly
+promise save at those rare and poignant moments when passion would
+seize her in a gust which drove everything before it. But were any
+of these considerations sufficient to justify me in letting my whole
+manhood slip for the sake of one who, whatever the provocation, had
+used the strength of her hands against the sister who had been as a
+mother to her for so many years. That she had had provocation I did
+not doubt. Adelaide, for all her virtues, was not an easy person to
+deal with. Upright and perfectly sincere herself, she had no sympathy
+with or commiseration for any lack of principle or any display of
+selfishness in others. A little cold, a little reserved, a little
+lacking in spontaneity, though always correct and always generous
+in her gifts and often in her acts, her whole nature would rise at
+any evidence of meanness or ingratitude, and though she said little,
+you would feel her disapprobation through and through. She would
+even change physically. Naturally pallid and of small inconspicuous
+features, her eyes on these occasions would so flame and her whole
+figure so dilate that she looked like another woman. I have seen her
+brother, six feet in height and weighty for his years, cringe under her
+few quiet words at these times till she absolutely seemed the taller
+of the two. It was only in these moments she was handsome, and had I
+loved her, I should probably have admired this passionate purity, this
+intolerance of all that was small or selfish or unworthy a good woman’s
+esteem. But not loving her, I had merely cherished a wholesome fear
+of her displeasure, and could quite comprehend what a full display
+of anger on her part might call up in her sensitive, already deeply
+suffering sister. The scathing arraignment, the unbearable taunt—Well,
+well, it was all dream-work, but I had time to dream and opportunity
+for little else, and pictures, which till now I had sedulously kept in
+the background of my imagination, would come to the front as I harped
+on this topic and weighed in my disturbed mind the following question:
+Should I continue the course which I had instinctively taken out of a
+natural sense of chivalry, or face my calumniators with the truth and
+leave my cause and hers to the justice of men, rather than to the slow
+but righteous workings of Providence?</p>
+
+<p>I struggled with the dilemma for hours, the more so, that I did not
+stand alone in the world. I had relatives and I had friends, some of
+whom had come to see me and gone away deeply grieved at my reticence.
+I was swayed, too, by another consideration. I had deeply loved my
+mother. She was dead, but I had her honour to think of. Should it
+be said she had a murderer for her son? In the height of my inner
+conflict, I had almost cried aloud the fierce denial which would arise
+at this thought. But ere the word could leave my lips, such a vision
+rose before me of a bewildering young face with wonderful eyes and
+a smile too innocent for guile and too loving for hypocrisy, that I
+forgot my late antagonistic feelings, forgot the claims of my dear,
+dead mother, and even those of my own future. Such passion and such
+devotion merited consideration from the man who had called them forth.
+I would not slight the claims of my dead mother but I would give this
+young girl a chance for her life. Let others ferret out the fact that
+she had visited the club-house with her sister; I would not proclaim
+it. It was enough for me to proclaim my innocence, and that I would do
+to the last.</p>
+
+<p>I was in this frame of mind when Charles Clifton called and was allowed
+to see me. I had sent for him in one of my discouraged moods. He was
+my friend, but he was also my legal adviser, and it was as such I
+had summoned him, and it was as such he had now come. Cordial as our
+relations had been—though he was hardly one of my ilk—I noted no
+instinctive outstretching of his hand, and so did not reach out mine.
+Appearances had been too strong against me for any such spontaneous
+outburst from even my best friends. I realised that to expect otherwise
+from him or from any other man would be to play the fool; and this was
+no time for folly. The day for that was passed.</p>
+
+<p>I was the first to speak.</p>
+
+<p>“You see me where you have never thought to see a friend of yours. But
+we won’t go into that. The police have good reasons for what they have
+done and I presume feel justified in my commitment. Notwithstanding, I
+am an innocent man so far as the attack made upon Miss Cumberland goes.
+I had no hand in her murder, if murder it is found out to be. My story
+which you have read in the papers and which I felt forced to give out,
+possibly to my own shame and that of another whom I would fain have
+saved, is an absolutely true one. I did not arrive at The Whispering
+Pines until after Miss Cumberland was dead. To this I am ready to
+swear and it is upon this fact you must rely, in any defence you may
+hereafter be called upon to make in my regard.”</p>
+
+<p>He listened as a lawyer would be apt to listen to such statements from
+the man who had summoned him to his aid. But I saw that I had made no
+impression on his convictions. He regarded me as a guilty man, and what
+was more to the point no doubt, as one for whom no plea could be made
+or any rational defence undertaken.</p>
+
+<p>“You don’t believe me,” I went on, still without any great bitterness.
+“I am not surprised at it, after what the man Clarke has said of seeing
+me with my hands on her throat. Any man, friend or not, would take me
+for a villain after that. But, Charles, to you I will confess what
+cowardice kept me from owning to Dr. Perry at the proper, possibly at
+the only proper moment, that I did this out of a wild desire to see
+if those marks were really the marks of strangling fingers. I could
+not believe that she had been so killed and, led away by my doubts, I
+leaned over her and—You shall believe me, you must,” I insisted, as
+I perceived his hard gaze remain unsoftened. “I don’t ask it of the
+rest of the world. I hardly expect any one to give me credit for good
+impulses or even for speaking the plain truth after the discovery which
+has been made of my treacherous attitude towards these two virtuous and
+devoted women. But you—if you are to act as my counsel—must take this
+denial from me as gospel truth. I may disappoint you in other ways.
+I may try you and often make you regret that you undertook my case,
+but on this fact you may safely pin your faith. She was dead before I
+touched her. Had the police spy whose testimony is likely to hang me,
+climbed the tree a moment sooner than he did, he would have seen that.
+Are you ready to take my case?”</p>
+
+<p>Clifton is a fair fellow and I knew if he once accepted the fact I thus
+urged upon him, he would work for me with all the skill and ability
+my desperate situation demanded. I, therefore, watched him with great
+anxiety for the least change in the constrained attitude and fixed,
+unpromising gaze with which he had listened to me, and was conscious of
+a great leap of heart as the set expression of his features relaxed,
+and he responded almost warmly:</p>
+
+<p>“I will take your case, Ranelagh. God help me to make it good against
+all odds.”</p>
+
+<p>I was conscious of few hopes, but some of the oppression under which I
+laboured lifted at those words. I had assured one man of my innocence!
+It was like a great rock in the weary desert. My sigh of relief bespoke
+my feelings and I longed to take his hand, but the moment had not yet
+come. Something was wanting to a perfect confidence between us, and I
+was in too sensitive a frame of mind to risk the slightest rebuff.</p>
+
+<p>He was ready to speak before I was. “Then, you had not been long on the
+scene of crime when the police arrived?”</p>
+
+<p>“I had been in the room but a few minutes. I do not know how long I was
+searching the house.”</p>
+
+<p>“The police say that fully twenty minutes elapsed between the time they
+received Miss Cumberland’s appeal for help and their arrival at the
+club-house. If you were there that long—”</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot say. Moments are hours at such a crisis—I—”</p>
+
+<p>My emotions were too much for me, and I confusedly stopped. He was
+surveying me with the old distrust. In a moment I saw why.</p>
+
+<p>“You are not open with me,” he protested. “Why should moments be hours
+to you previous to the instant when you stripped those pillows from the
+couch? You are not a fanciful man, nor have you any cowardly instincts.
+Why were you in such a turmoil going through a house where you could
+have expected to find nothing worse than some miserable sneak thief?”</p>
+
+<p>This was a poser. I had laid myself open to suspicion by one
+thoughtless admission, and what was worse, it was but the beginning
+in all probability of many other possible mistakes. I had never taken
+the trouble to measure my words and the whole truth being impossible,
+I necessarily must make a slip now and then. He had better be warned
+of this. I did not wish him to undertake my cause blindfolded. He must
+understand its difficulties while believing in my innocence. Then,
+if he chose to draw back, well and good. I should have to face the
+situation alone.</p>
+
+<p>“Charles,” said I, as soon as I could perfectly control my speech, “you
+are quite just in your remark. I am not and can not be perfectly open
+with you. I shall tell you no lies, but beyond that I cannot promise. I
+am caught in a net not altogether of my own weaving. So far I will be
+frank with you. A common question may trip me up, others find me free
+and ready with my defence. You have chanced upon one of the former. I
+was in a turmoil of mind from the moment of my entrance into that fatal
+house, but I can give no reason for it unless I am, as you hinted, a
+coward.”</p>
+
+<p>He settled that supposition with a gesture I had rather not have seen.
+It would be better for him to consider me a poltroon than to suspect my
+real reasons for the agitation which I had acknowledged.</p>
+
+<p>“You say you cannot be open with me. That means you have certain
+memories connected with that night which you cannot divulge.”</p>
+
+<p>“Right, Charles; but not memories of guilt—of active guilt, I mean.
+This I have previously insisted on, and this is what you must believe.
+I am not even an accessory before the fact. I am perfectly innocent so
+far as Adelaide’s death is concerned. You may proceed on that basis
+without fear. That is, if you continue to take an interest in my case.
+If not, I shall be the last to blame you. Little honour is likely to
+accrue to you from defending me.”</p>
+
+<p>“I have accepted the case and I shall continue to interest myself in
+it,” he assured me, with a dogged rather than genial persistence. “But
+I should like to know what I am to work upon, if it cannot be shown
+that her call for help came before you entered the building.”</p>
+
+<p>“That would be the best defence possible, of course,” I replied; “but
+neither from your standpoint nor mine is it a feasible one. I have no
+proof of my assertion, I never looked at my watch from the time I left
+the station till I found it run down this very morning. The club-house
+clock has been out of order for some time and was not running. All I
+know and can swear to about the length of time I was in that building
+prior to the arrival of the police, is that it could not have been very
+long, since she was not only dead and buried under those accumulated
+cushions, but in a room some little distance from the telephone.”</p>
+
+<p>“That will do for me,” said he, “but scarcely for those who are
+prejudiced against you. Everything points so indisputably to your
+guilt. The note which you say you wrote to Carmel to meet you at the
+station looks very much more like one to Miss Cumberland to meet you at
+the club-house.”</p>
+
+<p>It was thus I first learned which part of this letter had been burned
+off.<span class="fnanchor" id="fna1"><a href="#fn1">[1]</a></span></p>
+<div class="footnotes">
+<p class="footnote" id="fn1"><a href="#fna1">[1]</a> It was the top portion, leaving the rest to read:</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><i>“Come, come my darling, my life. She will forgive when all is done.
+Hesitation will only undo us. To-night at 10:30. I shall never marry
+any one but you.”</i></p>
+<p class="footnote">It was also evident that I had failed to add those expressions of affection linked to Carmel’s name which had been in my mind and awakened my keenest apprehension.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>“Otherwise,” he pursued, “what could have taken her there? Everybody
+who knew her will ask that. Such a night! so soon after seeing you!
+It is a mystery any way, but one entirely inconceivable without some
+such excuse for her. These lines said ‘Come!’ and she went, for reasons
+which may be clear to you who were acquainted with her weak as well as
+strong points. Went how? No one knows. By chance or by intention on
+her part or yours, every servant was out of the house by nine o’clock,
+and her brother, too. Only the sister remained, the sister whom you
+profess to have urged to leave the town with you that very evening;
+and she can tell us nothing,—may die without ever being able to do
+so. Some shock to her feelings—you may know its character and you
+may not—drove her from a state of apparent health into the wildest
+delirium in a few hours. It was not your letter—if your story is true
+about that letter—or she would have shown its effect immediately upon
+receiving it; that is, in the early evening. And she did not. Helen,
+one of the maids, declares that she saw her some time after you left
+the house, and that she wore anything but a troubled look; that, in
+fact, her countenance was beaming and so beautiful that, accustomed
+as the girl was to her young mistress’s good looks, she was more than
+struck by her appearance and spoke of it afterwards at the ball. A
+telling circumstance against you, Ranelagh, not only contradicting your
+own story but showing that her after condition sprang from some sudden
+and extreme apprehension in connection with her sister. Did you speak?”</p>
+
+<p>No, I had not spoken. I had nothing to say. I was too deeply shaken
+by what he had just told me, to experience anything but the utmost
+confusion of ideas. Carmel beaming and beautiful at an hour I had
+supposed her suffering and full of struggle! I could not reconcile it
+with the letter she had written me, or with that understanding with her
+sister which ended so hideously in The Whispering Pines.</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer, seeing my helpless state, proceeded with his presentation
+of my case as it looked to unprejudiced eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland comes to the club-house; so do you. You have not the
+keys and so go searching about the building till you find an unlocked
+window by which you both enter. There are those who say you purposely
+left this window unfastened when you went about the house the day
+before; that you dropped the keys in her house where they would be
+sure to be found, and drove down to the station and stood about there
+for a good half hour, in order to divert suspicion from yourself
+afterwards and create an alibi in case it should be wanted. I do not
+believe any of this myself, not since accepting your assurance of
+innocence, but there are those who do believe it firmly and discern
+in the whole affair a cool and premeditated murder. Your passion for
+Carmel, while not generally known, has not passed unsuspected by your
+or her intimates; and this in itself is enough to give colour to these
+suspicions, even if you had not gone so far as to admit its power over
+you and the extremes to which you were willing to go to secure the wife
+you wished. So much for the situation as it appears to outsiders. Of
+the circumstantial evidence which links you personally to this crime,
+we have already spoken. It is very strong and apparently unassailable.
+But truth is truth, and if you only felt free to bare your whole soul
+to me as you now decline to do, I should not despair of finding some
+weak link in the chain which seems so satisfactory to the police and, I
+am forced to add, to the general public.”</p>
+
+<p>“Charles—”</p>
+
+<p>I was very near unbosoming myself to him at that moment. But I caught
+myself back in time. While Carmel lay ill and unconscious, I would not
+clear my name at her expense by so much as a suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>“Charles,” I repeated, but in a different tone and with a different
+purpose, “how do they account for the cordial that was drunk—the two
+emptied glasses and the flask which were found in the adjacent closet?”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s one of the affair’s conceded incongruities. Miss Cumberland is a
+well-known temperance woman. Had the flask and glasses not come from
+her house, you would get no one to believe that she had had anything to
+do with them. Have you any hint to give on this point? It would be a
+welcome addition to our case.”</p>
+
+<p>Alas! I was as much puzzled by those emptied cordial glasses as he
+was, and told him so; also by the presence of the third unused one.
+As I dwelt in thought on the latter circumstance, I remembered the
+observation which Coroner Perry had made concerning it.</p>
+
+<p>“Coroner Perry speaks of a third and unused glass which was found
+with the flask,” I ventured, tentatively. “He seemed to consider it
+an important item, hiding some truth that would materially help this
+case. What do you think, or rather, what is the general opinion on this
+point?”</p>
+
+<p>“I have not heard. I have seen the fact mentioned, but without comment.
+It is a curious circumstance. I will make a note of it. You have no
+suggestions to offer on the subject?”</p>
+
+<p>“None.”</p>
+
+<p>“The clew is a small one,” he smiled.</p>
+
+<p>“So is the one offered by the array of bottles found on the kitchen
+table; yet the latter may lead directly to the truth. Adelaide never
+dug those out of the cellar where they were locked up, and I’m sure I
+did not. Yet I suppose I’m given credit for doing so.”</p>
+
+<p>“Naturally. The key to the wine-vault was the only key which was
+lacking from the bunch left at Miss Cumberland’s. That it was used to
+open the wine-vault door is evident from the fact that it was found in
+the lock.”</p>
+
+<p>This was discouraging. Everything was against me. If the whole affair
+had been planned with an intent to inculpate me and me only, it
+could not have been done with more attention to detail, nor could I
+have found myself more completely enmeshed. Yet I knew, both from
+circumstances and my own instinct that no such planning had occurred.
+I was a victim, not of malice but of blind chance, or shall I say of
+Providence? As to this one key having been slipped from the rest and
+used to open the wine-vault for wine which nobody wanted and nobody
+drank—this must be classed with the other incongruities which might
+yet lead to my enlargement.</p>
+
+<p>“You may add this coincidence to the other,” I conceded, after I had
+gone thus far in my own mind. “I swear that I had nothing to do with
+that key.”</p>
+
+<p>Neither could I believe that it had been used or even carried there by
+Adelaide or Carmel, though I knew that the full ring of keys had been
+in their hands and that they had entered the building by means of one
+of them. So assured was I of their innocence in this regard that the
+idea which afterwards assumed such proportions in all our minds had, at
+this moment, its first dawning in mine, as well as its first outward
+expression.</p>
+
+<p>“Some other man than myself was thirsty that night,” I firmly declared.
+“We are getting on, Charles.”</p>
+
+<p>Evidently he did not consider the pace a very fast one, but being a
+cheerful fellow by nature, he simply expressed his dissatisfaction by
+an imperceptible shrug.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you know exactly what the club-house’s wine-vault contained?” he
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>“An inventory was given me by the steward the morning we closed. It
+must be in my rooms.”</p>
+
+<p>“Your rooms have been examined. You expected that, didn’t you? Probably
+this inventory has been found. I don’t suppose it will help any.”</p>
+
+<p>“How should it?”</p>
+
+<p>“Very true; how should it! No thoroughfare there, of course.”</p>
+
+<p>“No thoroughfare anywhere to-day,” I exclaimed. “To-morrow some
+loop-hole of escape may suggest itself to me. I should like to sleep on
+the matter. I—I should like to sleep on it.”</p>
+
+<p>He saw that I had something in mind of which I had thus far given him
+no intimation, and he waited anxiously for me to reconsider my last
+words before he earnestly remarked:</p>
+
+<p>“A day lost at a time like this is often a day never retrieved. Think
+well before you bid me leave you, unenlightened as to the direction in
+which you wish me to work.”</p>
+
+<p>But I was not ready, not by any means ready, and he detected this when
+I next spoke.</p>
+
+<p>“I will see you to-morrow; any time to-morrow; meantime I will give you
+a commission which you are at liberty to perform yourself or to entrust
+to some capable detective. The letter, of which a portion remains,
+<i>was</i> written to Carmel, and she sent me a reply which was handed me
+on the station platform by a man who was a perfect stranger to me. I
+have hardly any memory of how the man looked, but it should be an easy
+task to find him and if you cannot do that, the smallest scrap of the
+note he gave me, and which unfortunately I tore up and scattered to the
+winds, would prove my veracity in this one particular and so make it
+easier for them to believe the rest.”</p>
+
+<p>His eye lightened. I presume the prospect of making any practical
+attempt in my behalf was welcome.</p>
+
+<p>“One thing more,” I now added. “My ring was missing from Miss
+Cumberland’s hand when I took away those pillows. I have reason to
+think—or it is natural for me to think—that she planned to return
+it to me by some messenger or in some letter. Do you know if such
+messenger or such letter has been received at my apartments? Have you
+heard anything about this ring? It was a notable one and not to be
+confounded with any other. Any one who knew us or who had ever remarked
+it on her hand would be able to identify it.”</p>
+
+<p>“I have heard the ring mentioned,” he replied, “I have even heard that
+the police are interested in finding it; but I have not heard that they
+have been successful. You encourage me much by assuring me that it was
+missing from her hand when you first saw her. That ring may prove our
+most valuable clew.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, but you must also remember that she may have taken it off before
+she started for the club-house.”</p>
+
+<p>“That is very true.”</p>
+
+<p>“You do not know whether they have looked for it at her home?”</p>
+
+<p>“I do not.”</p>
+
+<p>“Will you find out, and will you see that I get all my letters?”</p>
+
+<p>“I certainly will, but you must not expect to receive the latter
+unopened.”</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose not.”</p>
+
+<p>I said this with more cheerfulness than he evidently expected. My heart
+had been lightened of one load. The ring had not been discovered on
+Carmel as I had secretly feared.</p>
+
+<p>“I will take good care of your interests from now on,” he remarked, in
+a tone much more natural than any he had before used. “Be hopeful and
+show a brave front to the district attorney when he comes to interview
+you. I hear that he is expected home to-morrow. If you are innocent,
+you can face him and his whole office with calm assurance.” Which
+showed how little he understood my real position.</p>
+
+<p>There was comfort in this very thought, however, and I quietly remarked
+that I did not despair.</p>
+
+<p>“And I <i>will</i> not,” he emphasised, rising with an assumption of ease
+which left him as he remained hesitating before me.</p>
+
+<p>It was my moment of advantage, and I improved it by proffering a
+request which had been more or less in my mind during the whole of this
+prolonged colloquy.</p>
+
+<p>First thanking him for his disinterestedness, I remarked that he had
+shown me so much consideration as a lawyer, that I now felt emboldened
+to ask something from him as my friend.</p>
+
+<p>“You are free,” said I; “I am not. Miss Cumberland will be buried
+before I leave these four walls. I hate to think of her going to
+her grave without one token from the man to whom she has been only
+too good and who, whatever outrage he may have planned to her
+feelings, is not without reverence for her character and a heartfelt
+repentance for whatever he may have done to grieve her. Charles, a
+few flowers,—white—no wreath, just a few which can be placed on her
+breast or in her hand. You need not say whom they are from. It would
+seem a mockery to any one but her. Lilies, Charles. I shall feel
+happier to know that they are there. Will you do this for me?”</p>
+
+<p>“I will.”</p>
+
+<p>“That is all.”</p>
+
+<p>Instinctively he held out his hand. I dropped mine in it; there was a
+slight pressure, some few more murmured words and he was gone.</p>
+
+<p>I slept that night.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="VIII">VIII<br><span class="small">A CHANCE! I TAKE IT</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">I entreat you then<br>
+From one that so imperfectly conjects,<br>
+You’d take no notice; nor build yourself a trouble<br>
+Out of his scattering and unsure observance:<br>
+It were not for your quiet, nor your good,<br>
+Nor for my manhood, honesty or wisdom,<br>
+To let you know my thoughts.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Othello</i></p>
+
+
+<p>I slept, though a question of no small importance was agitating my
+mind, demanding instant consideration and a definite answer before I
+again saw this friend and adviser. I woke to ask if the suggestion
+which had come to me in our brief conversation about the bottles taken
+from the wine-vault, was the promising one it had then appeared, or
+only a fool’s trick bound to end in disaster. I weighed the matter in
+every conceivable way, and ended by trusting to the instinct which
+impelled me to have resource to the one and only means by which the
+scent might be diverted from its original course, confusion be sown in
+the minds of the police, and Carmel, as well as myself, be saved from
+the pit gaping to receive us.</p>
+
+<p>This was my plan. I would acknowledge to having seen a horse and cutter
+leave the club-house by the upper gateway, simultaneously with my
+entrance through the lower one. I would even describe the appearance
+of the person driving this cutter. No one by the greatest stretch of
+imagination would be apt to associate this description with Carmel;
+but it might set the authorities thinking, and if by any good chance
+a cutter containing a person wearing a derby hat and a coat with an
+extra high collar should have been seen on this portion of the road, or
+if, as I earnestly hoped, the snow had left any signs of another horse
+having been tethered in the clump of trees opposite the one where I
+had concealed my own, enough of the truth might be furnished to divide
+public opinion and start fresh inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>That a woman’s form had sought concealment under these masculine
+habiliments would not, could not, strike anybody’s mind. Nothing in
+the crime had suggested a woman’s presence, much less a woman’s active
+agency.</p>
+
+<p>On the contrary, all the appearances, save such as I believed known to
+myself alone, spoke so openly of a man’s strength, a man’s methods,
+a man’s appetite, and a man’s brutal daring that the suspicion which
+had naturally fallen on myself as the one and only person implicated,
+would in shifting pass straight to another man, and, if he could not
+be found, return to me, or be lost in a maze of speculation. This
+seemed so evident after a long and close study of the situation that
+I was ready with my confession when Mr. Clifton next came. I had even
+forestalled it in a short interview forced upon me by the assistant
+district attorney and Chief Hudson. That it had made an altogether
+greater impression upon the latter than I had expected, gave me
+additional courage when I came to discuss this new line of defence with
+the young lawyer. I was even able to tell him that, to all appearance,
+my long silence on a point so favourable to my own interests had not
+militated against me to the extent one would expect from men so alive
+to the subterfuges and plausible inventions of suspected criminals.</p>
+
+<p>“Chief Hudson believes me, late as my statement is. I saw it in his
+eye.” Thus I went on. “And the assistant district attorney, too. At
+least, the latter is willing to give me the benefit of the doubt, which
+was more than I expected. What do you suppose has happened? Some new
+discovery on their part? If so, I ought to know what it is. Believe me,
+Charles, I ought to know what it is.”</p>
+
+<p>“I have heard of no new discovery,” he coldly replied, not quite
+pleased, as I could see, either with my words or my manner. “An old one
+may have served your purpose. If another cutter besides yours passed
+through the club-house grounds at the time you mention, it left tracks
+which all the fury of the storm would not have entirely obliterated
+in the fifteen minutes elapsing between that time and the arrival of
+the police. Perhaps they remember these tracks, and if you had been
+entirely frank that night—”</p>
+
+<p>“I know, I know,” I put in, “but I wasn’t. Lay it to my confusion
+of mind—to the great shock I had received, to anything but my own
+blood-guiltiness, and take up the matter as it now stands. Can’t
+you follow up my suggestion? A witness can certainly be found who
+encountered that cutter and its occupant somewhere on the long stretch
+of open road between The Whispering Pines and the resident district.”</p>
+
+<p>“Possibly. It would help. You have not asked for news from the Hill.”</p>
+
+<p>The trembling which seized and shook me at these words testified to the
+shock they gave me. “Carmel!” I cried. “She is worse—dead!”</p>
+
+<p>“No. She’s not worse and she’s not dead. But the doctors say it will
+be weeks before they can allow a question of any importance to be put
+to her. You can see what that will do for us. Her testimony is too
+important to the case to be ignored. A delay will follow which may or
+may not be favourable to you. I am inclined to think now that it will
+redound to your interests. You are ready to swear to the sleigh you
+speak of; that you saw it leave the club-house grounds and turn north?”</p>
+
+<p>“Quite ready; but you must not ask me to describe or in any way to
+identify its occupant. I saw nothing but the hat and coat I have told
+you about. It was just before the moon went under a cloud, or I could
+not have seen that much.”</p>
+
+<p>Is it so hard to preserve a natural aspect in telling or suggesting a
+lie that Charles’s look should change as I uttered the last sentence? I
+do not easily flush, and since my self-control had been called upon by
+the dreadful experiences of the last few days, I had learned to conceal
+all other manifestations of feeling except under some exceptional
+shock. But a lie embodied in so many words, never came easy to my
+lips, and I suppose my voice fell, for his glance became suddenly
+penetrating, and his voice slightly sarcastic as he remarked:</p>
+
+<p>“Those clouds obscured more than the moon, I fancy. I only wish that
+they had not risen between you and me. This is the blindest case that
+has ever been put in my hands. All the more credit to me if I see you
+through it, I suppose; but—”</p>
+
+<p>“Tell me,” I broke in, with equal desire to cut these recriminations
+short and to learn what was going on at the Cumberland house, “have
+you been to the Hill or seen anybody who has? Can’t you give me some
+details of—of Carmel’s condition; of the sort of nurse who cares for
+her, and how Arthur conducts himself under this double affliction?”</p>
+
+<p>“I was there last night. Miss Clifford was in the house and received
+me. She told me that Arthur’s state of mind was pitiful. He was never
+a very affectionate brother, you know, but now they cannot get him
+away from Carmel’s door. He sits or stands all day just outside the
+threshold and casts jealous and beseeching looks at those who are
+allowed to enter. They say you wouldn’t know him. I tried to get him to
+come down and see me, but he wouldn’t leave his post.”</p>
+
+<p>“Doesn’t he grieve for Adelaide? I always thought that of the two she
+had the greater influence over him.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, but they cannot get him to enter the place where she lies. His
+duty is to the living, he says; at least, his anxiety is there. He
+starts at every cry Carmel utters.”</p>
+
+<p>“She—cries out—then?”</p>
+
+<p>“Very often. I could hear her from where I sat downstairs.”</p>
+
+<p>“And what does she say?”</p>
+
+<p>“The one thing constantly. ‘Lila! Lila!’ Nothing more.”</p>
+
+<p>I kept my face in shadow. If he saw it at all, it must have looked as
+cold and hard as stone. After a moment, I went on with my queries:</p>
+
+<p>“Does he—Arthur—mention me at all?”</p>
+
+<p>“I did not discuss you greatly with Miss Clifford. I saw that she was
+prejudiced, and I preferred not to risk an argument; but she let fall
+this much: that Arthur felt very hard towards you and loudly insisted
+upon your guilt. She seemed to think him justified in this. You don’t
+mind my telling you? It is better for you to know what is being said
+about you in town.”</p>
+
+<p>I understood his motive. He was trying to drive me into giving him my
+full confidence. But I would not be driven. I simply retorted quietly
+but in a way to stop all such future attempts:</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Clifford is a very good girl and a true friend of the whole
+Cumberland family; but she is not the most discriminating person in the
+world, and even if she were, her opinion would not turn me from the
+course I have laid out for myself. Does the doctor—Dr. Carpenter, I
+presume,—venture to say how long Carmel’s present delirium will hold?”</p>
+
+<p>“He cannot, not knowing its real cause. Carmel fell ill before the
+news of her sister’s death arrived at the house, you remember. Some
+frightful scene must have occurred between the two, previous to
+Adelaide’s departure for The Whispering Pines. What that scene was can
+only be told by Carmel and for her account we must wait. Happily you
+have an alibi which will serve you in this instance. You were at the
+station during the time we are speaking of.”</p>
+
+<p>“Has that been proved?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; several men saw you there.”</p>
+
+<p>“And the gentleman who brought me the—her letter?” It was more than
+difficult for me to speak Carmel’s name. “He has not come forward?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not yet; not to my knowledge, at least.”</p>
+
+<p>“And the ring?”</p>
+
+<p>“No news.”</p>
+
+<p>“The nurse—you have told me nothing about her,” I now urged, reverting
+to the topic of gravest interest to me. “Is she any one we know or an
+importation of the doctor’s?”</p>
+
+<p>“I did not busy myself with that. She’s a competent woman, of course. I
+suppose that is what you mean?”</p>
+
+<p>Could I tell him that this was not what I meant at all—that it was
+her qualities as woman rather than her qualifications as nurse which
+were important in this case? If she were of a suspicious, prying
+disposition, given to weighing every word and marking every gesture of
+a delirious patient, what might we not fear from her circumspection
+when Carmel’s memory asserted itself and she grew more precise in the
+frenzy which now exhausted itself in unintelligible cries, or the
+ceaseless repetition of her sister’s name. The question seemed of such
+importance to me that I was tempted to give expression to my secret
+apprehension on this score, but I bethought myself in time and passed
+the matter over with the final remark:</p>
+
+<p>“Watch her, watch them all, and bring me each and every detail of the
+poor girl’s sickness. You will never regret humouring me in this. You
+ordered the flowers for—Adelaide?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; lilies, as you requested.”</p>
+
+<p>A short silence, then I observed:</p>
+
+<p>“There will be no autopsy the papers say. The evidences of death by
+strangulation are too well defined.”</p>
+
+<p>“Very true. Yet I wonder at their laxity in this. There were signs of
+some other agency having been at work also. Those two empty glasses
+smelling of cordial—innocent perhaps—yet—”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t! I can bear no more to-day. I shall be stronger to-morrow.”</p>
+
+<p>Another feeler turned aside. His cheek showed his displeasure, but the
+words were kind enough with which he speedily took his leave and left
+me to solitude and a long night of maddening thought.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_II">BOOK TWO<br><span class="small">SWEETWATER TO THE FRONT</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="IX">IX<br><span class="small">“WE KNOW OF NO SUCH LETTER”</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">O, he sits high in all the people’s hearts;<br>
+And that, which would appear offence in us,<br>
+His countenance like richest alchemy<br>
+Will change to virtue, and to worthiness.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Julius Caesar</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>“And you still hold him?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, but with growing uncertainty. He’s one of those fellows who
+affect your judgment in spite of yourself. Handsome beyond the
+ordinary, a finished gentleman and all that, he has, in addition to
+these advantages, a way with him that goes straight to the heart in
+spite of prejudice and the claims of conscience. That’s a dangerous
+factor in a case like this. It hampers a man in the exercise of his
+duties. You may escape the fascination, probably will; but at least you
+will understand my present position and why I telephoned to New York
+for an expert detective to help us on this job. I wish to give the son
+of my old friend a chance.”</p>
+
+<p>The man whom Coroner Perry thus addressed, leaned back in his chair and
+quietly replied:</p>
+
+<p>“You’re right; not because he’s the son of your old friend, a handsome
+fellow and all that, but for the reason that every man should have his
+full chance, whatever the appearances against him. Personally, I have
+no fear of my judgment being affected by his attractions. I’ve had to
+do with too many handsome scamps for that. But I shall be as just to
+him as you will, simply because it seems an incredibly brutal crime for
+a gentleman to commit, and also because I lay greater stress than you
+do on the two or three minor points which seem to favour his latest
+declaration, that a man had preceded him in his visit to this lonely
+club-house,—a man whom he had himself seen leaving the grounds in a
+cutter just as he entered by the opposite driveway.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah!” came in quick ejaculation from the coroner’s lips, “I like to
+hear you say that. I was purposely careful not to lay emphasis on the
+facts you allude to. I wished you to draw your own inferences, without
+any aid from me. The police did find traces of a second horse and
+cutter having passed through the club-house grounds. It was snowing
+hard, and these traces were speedily obliterated, but Hexford and
+Clarke saw them in time to satisfy themselves that they extended from
+the northern clump of trees to the upper gateway where they took the
+direction of the Hill.”</p>
+
+<p>“That is not all. A grip-sack, packed for travelling, was in Mr.
+Ranelagh’s cutter, showing that his story of an intended journey was
+not without some foundation.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes. We have retained that grip-sack. It is not the only proof we
+have of his intention to leave the city for a while. He had made other
+arrangements, business arrangements—But that’s neither here nor there.
+No one doubts that he planned an elopement with the beautiful Carmel;
+the question is, was his disappointment followed by the murder of the
+woman who stood in his way?”</p>
+
+<p>District Attorney Fox (you will have guessed his identity before now)
+took his time, deliberating carefully with himself before venturing
+to reply. Then when the coroner’s concealed impatience was about to
+disclose itself, he quietly remarked:</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose that no conclusion can be drawn from the condition of the
+body when our men reached it. I judge that it was still warm.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, but so it would have been if she had met her fate several minutes
+earlier than was supposed. Clarke and Hexford differ about the length
+of time which intervened between the moment when the former looked into
+the room from the outside and that of their final entrance. But whether
+it was five minutes or ten, the period was long enough to render their
+testimony uncertain as to the exact length of time she had lain there
+dead. Had I been there—But it’s useless to go into that. Let us take
+up something more tangible.”</p>
+
+<p>“Very good. Here it is. Of the six bottles of spirits which were
+surreptitiously taken from the club-house’s wine-vault, four were found
+standing unopened on the kitchen table. Where are the other two?”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s it! That’s the question I have put myself ever since I
+interrogated the steward and found him ready to swear to the
+correctness of his report and the disappearance of these two bottles.
+Ranelagh did not empty them, or the bottles themselves would have been
+found somewhere about the place. Now, who did?”</p>
+
+<p>“No one within the club-house precincts. They were opened and emptied
+elsewhere. There’s our clew and if the man you’ve got up from New York
+is worth his salt, he has his task ready to hand.”</p>
+
+<p>“A hard task for a stranger—and such a stranger! Not very
+prepossessing, to say the least. But he has a good eye, and will get
+along with the boys all right. Nothing assertive about him; not enough
+go, perhaps. Would you like to see him?”</p>
+
+<p>“In a moment. I want to clear my mind in reference to these bottles.
+Only some one addicted to drink would drag those six bottles out of
+that cold, unlighted cellar.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, and a connoisseur at that. The two missing bottles held the
+choicest brand in the whole stock. They were kept far back too—hidden,
+as it were, behind the other bottles. Yet they were hauled to the front
+and carried off, as you say, and by some one who knows a good thing in
+spirits.”</p>
+
+<p>“What was in the four bottles found on the kitchen table?”</p>
+
+<p>“Sherry, whiskey, and rum. Two bottles of rum and one each of sherry
+and whiskey.”</p>
+
+<p>“The thief meant to carry them all off, but had not time.”</p>
+
+<p>“The <i>gentleman</i> thief! No common man such as we are looking for,
+would make choice of just those bottles. So there we are again!
+Contradictions in every direction.”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t let us bother with the contradictions, but just follow the clew.
+Those bottles, full or empty, must be found. You know the labels?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, and the shape and colour of the bottles, both of which are
+peculiar.”</p>
+
+<p>“Good! Now let us see your detective.”</p>
+
+<p>But Sweetwater was not called in yet. Just as Coroner Perry offered to
+touch his bell, the door opened and Mr. Clifton was ushered in. Well
+and favourably known to both men, he had no difficulty in stating his
+business and preferring his request.</p>
+
+<p>“I am here in the interests of Elwood Ranelagh,” said he. “He is
+willing to concede, and so am I, that under the circumstances his
+arrest was justifiable, but not his prolonged detention. He has
+little excuse to offer for the mistakes he has made, or the various
+offences of which he has been guilty. His best friends must condemn his
+hypocrisy and fast-and-loose treatment of Miss Cumberland; but he vows
+that he had no hand in her violent death, and in this regard I feel not
+only bound but forced to believe him. At all events, I am going to act
+on that conviction, and have come here to entreat your aid in clearing
+up one or two points which may affect your own opinion of his guilt.</p>
+
+<p>“As his counsel I have been able to extract from him a fact or two
+which he has hitherto withheld from the police. Reticent as he has
+shown himself from the start,—and considering the character of the two
+women involved in this tragedy, this cannot be looked upon as entirely
+to his discredit,—he has confided to me a circumstance, which in
+the excitement attendant on Miss Carmel Cumberland’s sudden illness,
+may have escaped the notice of the family and very naturally, of the
+police. It is this:</p>
+
+<p>“The ring which Miss Cumberland wore as the sign and seal of her
+engagement to him was not on her hand when he came upon her, as he
+declares he did, dead. It was there at dinner-time—a curious ring
+which I have often noted myself and could accurately describe if
+required. If she took it off before starting for The Whispering Pines,
+it should be easily found. But if she did not, what a clew it offers to
+her unknown assailant! Up till now, Mr. Ranelagh has been anticipating
+receiving this ring back in a letter, written before she left her home.
+But he has heard of no such letter, and doubts now if you have. May I
+ask if he is correct in this surmise?”</p>
+
+<p>“We know of no such letter. None has come to his rooms,” replied the
+coroner.</p>
+
+<p>“I thought not. The whereabouts of this ring, then, is still to be
+determined. You will pardon my having called your attention to it.
+As Mr. Ranelagh’s legal adviser, I am very anxious to have that ring
+found.”</p>
+
+<p>“We are glad to receive your suggestion,” replied the district
+attorney. “But you must remember that some of its force is lost by its
+having originated with the accused.”</p>
+
+<p>“Very true; but Mr. Ranelagh was only induced to speak of this matter
+after I had worked with him for an hour. There is a mystery in his
+attitude which I, for one, have not yet fathomed. You must have noticed
+this also, Coroner Perry? Your inquest, when you hold it, will reveal
+some curious facts; but I doubt if it will reveal the secret underlying
+this man’s reticence. That we shall have to discover for ourselves.”</p>
+
+<p>“He has another secret, then, than the one involving his arrest as a
+suspected murderer?” was the subtle conclusion of the district attorney.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, or why does he balk so at the simplest inquiries? I have my
+notion as to its nature; but I’m not here to express notions unless you
+call my almost unfounded belief in him a notion. What I want to present
+to you is fact, and fact which can be utilised.”</p>
+
+<p>“In the cause of your client!”</p>
+
+<p>“Which is equally the cause of justice.”</p>
+
+<p>“Possibly. We’ll search for the ring, Mr. Clifton.”</p>
+
+<p>“Meanwhile, will you cast your eye over these fragments of a note which
+Mr. Ranelagh says he received from Miss Carmel Cumberland while waiting
+on the station platform for her coming.”</p>
+
+<p>Taking an envelope from his pocket, Mr. Clifton drew forth two small
+scraps of soiled and crumpled paper, one of which was the half of
+another envelope presenting very nearly the following appearance:</p>
+
+<p>As he pointed this out, he remarked:</p>
+
+<p>“Elwood is not so common a baptismal name, that there can be any doubt
+as to the person addressed.”</p>
+
+<p>The other scraps, also written in pencil and by the same hand,
+contained but two or three disconnected words; but one of those words
+was <i>Adelaide</i>.</p>
+
+<p>“I spent an hour and a half in the yards adjoining the station before
+I found those two bits,” explained the young lawyer with a simple
+earnestness not displeasing to the two seasoned men he addressed.
+“One was in hiding under a stacked-up pile of outgoing freight, and
+the other I picked out of a cart of stuff which had been swept up in
+the early morning. I offer them in corroboration of Mr. Ranelagh’s
+statement that the ‘<i>Come!</i>’ used in the partially consumed letter
+found in the clubhouse chimney was addressed to Miss Carmel Cumberland
+and not to Adelaide, and that the place of meeting suggested by this
+word was the station platform, and not the spot since made terrible by
+death.”</p>
+
+<p>“You are acquainted with Miss Carmel Cumberland’s handwriting?”</p>
+
+<p>“If I am not, the town is full of people who are. I believe these words
+to have been written by Carmel Cumberland.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fox placed the pieces back in their envelope and laid the whole
+carefully away.</p>
+
+<p>“For a second time we are obliged to you,” said he.</p>
+
+<p>“You can cancel the obligation,” was the quick retort, “by discovering
+the identity of the man who in derby hat and a coat with a very high
+collar, left the grounds of The Whispering Pines just as Mr. Ranelagh
+drove into them. I have no facilities for the job, and no desire to
+undertake it.”</p>
+
+<p>He had endeavoured to speak naturally, if not with an off-hand air; but
+he failed somehow—else why the quick glance of startled inquiry which
+Dr. Perry sent him from under his rather shaggy eyebrows.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, we’ll undertake that, too,” promised the district attorney.</p>
+
+<p>“I can ask no more,” returned Charles Clifton, arising to depart. “The
+confronting of that man with Ranelagh will cause the latter to unseal
+his lips. Before you have finished with my client, you will esteem him
+much more highly than you do now.”</p>
+
+<p>The district attorney smiled at what seemed the callow enthusiasm of
+a youthful lawyer; but the coroner who knew his district well, looked
+very thoughtfully down at the table before which he sat, and failed
+to raise his head until the young man had vanished from the room and
+his place had been taken by another of very different appearance and
+deportment. Then he roused himself and introduced the newcomer to
+the prosecuting attorney as Caleb Sweetwater, of the New York police
+department.</p>
+
+<p>Caleb Sweetwater was no beauty. He was plain-featured to the point
+of ugliness; so plain-featured that not even his quick, whimsical
+smile could make his face agreeable to one who did not know his many
+valuable qualities. His receding chin and far too projecting nose
+were not likely to create a favourable impression on one ignorant of
+his cheerful, modest, winsome disposition; and the district attorney,
+after eyeing him for a moment with ill-concealed disfavour, abruptly
+suggested:</p>
+
+<p>“You have brought some credentials with you, I hope.”</p>
+
+<p>“Here is a letter from one of the department. Mr. Gryce wrote it,” he
+added, with just a touch of pride.</p>
+
+<p>“The letter is all right,” hastily remarked Dr. Perry on looking it
+over. “Mr. Sweetwater is commended to us as a man of sagacity and
+becoming reserve.”</p>
+
+<p>“Very good. To business, then. The sooner we get to work on this new
+theory, the better. Mr. Sweetwater, we have some doubts if the man we
+have in hand is the man we really want. But first, how much do you know
+about this case?”</p>
+
+<p>“All that’s in the papers.”</p>
+
+<p>“Nothing more?”</p>
+
+<p>“Very little. I’ve not been in town above an hour.”</p>
+
+<p>“Are you known here?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t think so; it’s my first visit this way.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then you are as ignorant of the people as they are of you. Well, that
+has its disadvantages.”</p>
+
+<p>“And its advantages, if you will permit me to say so, sir. I have no
+prejudices, no preconceived notions to struggle against. I can take
+persons as I find them; and if there is any deep family secret to
+unearth, it’s mighty fortunate for a man to have nothing stand in the
+way of his own instincts. No likings, I mean—no leanings this way or
+that, for humane or other purely unprofessional reasons.”</p>
+
+<p>The eye of District Attorney Fox stole towards that of his brother
+official, but did not meet it. The coroner had turned his attention
+to the table again, and, while betraying no embarrassment, was not
+quite his usual self. The district attorney’s hand stole to his chin,
+which he softly rubbed with his lean forefinger as he again addressed
+Sweetwater.</p>
+
+<p>“This tragedy—the most lamentable which has ever occurred in this
+town—is really, and without exaggeration, a tragedy in high life. The
+lady who was strangled by a brute’s clutch, was a woman of the highest
+culture and most estimable character. Her sister, who is supposed
+to have been the unconscious cause of the crime, is a young girl of
+blameless record. Of the man who was seen bending over the victim with
+his hands on her throat, we cannot speak so well. He has the faults
+and has lived the life of a social favourite. Gifted in many ways, and
+popular with both men and women, he has swung on his course with an
+easy disregard of the claims of others, which, while leaving its traces
+no doubt in many a humble and uncomplaining heart, did not attract
+notice to his inherent lack of principle, until the horrors of this
+tragedy lifted him into public view stripped of all his charms. He’s
+an egotist, of the first water; there is no getting over that. But did
+he strangle the woman? He says not; that he was only following some
+extraordinary impulse of the moment in laying his thumbs on the marks
+he saw on Miss Cumberland’s neck. A fantastic story—told too late,
+besides, for perfect credence, and not worthy of the least attention
+if—”</p>
+
+<p>The reasons which followed are too well known to us for repetition.
+Sweetwater listened with snapping eyes to all that was said; and
+when he had been given the various clews indicating the presence of
+a third—and as yet unknown—party on the scene of crime, he rose
+excitedly to his feet and, declaring that it was a most promising case,
+begged permission to make his own investigations at The Whispering
+Pines, after which he would be quite ready to begin his search for the
+man in the derby hat and high coat-collar, whose love for wine was so
+great that he chose and carried off the two choicest bottles that the
+club-house contained.</p>
+
+<p>“A hardy act for any man, gentleman or otherwise, who had just
+strangled the life out of a fine woman like that. If he exists and the
+whole story is not a pure fabrication of the entrapped Ranelagh, he
+shouldn’t be hard to find. What do you say, gentlemen? He shouldn’t be
+hard to find.”</p>
+
+<p>“<i>We</i> have not found him,” emphasised the district attorney, with the
+shortest possible glance at the coroner’s face.</p>
+
+<p>“Then the field is all before me,” smiled Sweetwater. “Wish me luck,
+gentlemen. It’s a blind job, but that’s just in my line. A map of the
+town, a few general instructions, and I’m off.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fox turned towards the coroner, and opened his lips; but closed
+them again without speaking. Did Sweetwater notice this act of
+self-restraint? If he did, he failed to show it.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="X">X<br><span class="small">“I CAN HELP YOU”</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">A subtle knave; a finder out of occasions;<br>
+That has an eye can stamp and counterfeit<br>
+Advantages though true advantage never presents<br>
+Itself; A devilish knave!</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Othello</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>A half hour spent with Hexford in and about the club-house, and
+Sweetwater was ready for the road. As he made his way through the
+northern gate, he cast a quick look back at the long, low building he
+had just left, with its tall chimneys and rows of sightless windows,
+half hidden, half revealed by the encroaching pines. The mystery of
+the place fascinated him. To his awakened imagination, there was a
+breathless suggestion in it—a suggestion which it was his foremost
+wish, just now, to understand.</p>
+
+<p>And those pines—gaunt, restless, communicative! ready with their
+secret, if one could only interpret their language. How their heads
+came together as their garrulous tongues repeated the tale, which would
+never grow old to them until age nipped their hoary heads and laid them
+low in the dust, with their horror half expressed, their gruesome tale
+unfinished.</p>
+
+<p>“Witnesses of it all,” commented the young detective as he watched
+the swaying boughs rising and dipping before a certain window. “They
+were peering into that room long before Clarke stole the glimpse which
+has undone the unfortunate Ranelagh. If I had their knowledge, I’d do
+something more than whisper.”</p>
+
+<p>Thus musing, thus muttering, he plodded up the road, his insignificant
+figure an unpromising break in the monotonous white of the wintry
+landscape. But could the prisoner who had indirectly speeded this young
+detective on his present course, have read his thoughts and rightly
+estimated the force of his purpose, would he have viewed with so much
+confidence the entrance of this unprepossessing stranger upon the
+no-thoroughfare into which his own carefully studied admissions had
+blindly sent him?</p>
+
+<p>As has been said before, this road was an outlying one and but little
+travelled save in the height of summer. Under ordinary circumstances
+Sweetwater would have met not more than a half-dozen carts or sledges
+between the club-house gates and the city streets. But to-day, the road
+was full of teams carrying all sorts of incongruous people, eager for
+a sight of the spot made forever notorious by a mysterious crime. He
+noted them all; the faces of the men, the gestures of the women; but he
+did not show any special interest till he came to that portion of the
+road where the long line of half-buried fences began to give way to a
+few scattered houses. Then his spirit woke, and he became quick, alert,
+and persuasive. He entered houses; he talked with the people. Though
+evidently not a dissipated man, he stopped at several saloons, taking
+his time with his glass and encouraging the chatter of all who chose to
+meet his advances. He was a natural talker and welcomed every topic,
+but his eye only sparkled at one. This he never introduced himself;
+he did not need to. Some one was always ready with the great theme;
+and once it was started, he did not let the conversation languish till
+every one present had given his or her quota of hearsay or opinion to
+the general fund.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed a great waste of time, for nobody had anything to say worth
+the breath expended on it. But Sweetwater showed no impatience, and
+proceeded to engage the attention of the next man, woman, or child he
+encountered with undiminished zest and hopefulness.</p>
+
+<p>He had left the country road behind, and had entered upon the jumble
+of sheds, shops, and streets which marked the beginnings of the town
+in this direction, when his quick and experienced eye fell on a woman
+standing with uncovered head in an open doorway, peering up the street
+in anxious expectation of some one not yet in sight. He liked the air
+and well-kept appearance of the woman; he appreciated the neatness of
+the house at her back and gauged at its proper value the interest she
+displayed in the expected arrival of one whom he hoped would delay
+that arrival long enough for him to get in the word which by this time
+dropped almost unconsciously from his lips.</p>
+
+<p>But a second survey of the woman’s face convinced him that his ordinary
+loquaciousness would not serve him here. There was a refinement in
+her aspect quite out of keeping with the locality in which she lived,
+and he was hesitating how to proceed, when fortune favoured him by
+driving against his knees a small lad on an ill-directed sled, bringing
+him almost to the ground and upsetting the child who began to scream
+vociferously.</p>
+
+<p>It was the woman’s child, for she made instantly for the gate which,
+for some reason, she found difficulty in opening. Sweetwater, seeing
+this, blessed his lucky stars. He was at his best with children, and
+catching the little fellow up, he soothed and fondled him and finally
+brought him with such a merry air of triumph straight to his mother’s
+arms, that confidence between them was immediately established and
+conversation started.</p>
+
+<p>He had in his pocket an ingenious little invention which he had
+exhibited all along the road as an indispensable article in every
+well-kept house. He wanted to show it to her, but it was too cold a day
+for her to stop outside. Wouldn’t she allow him to step in and explain
+how her work could be materially lessened and her labour turned to play
+by a contrivance so simple that a child could run it?</p>
+
+<p>It was all so ridiculous in face of this woman’s quiet intelligence,
+that he laughed at his own words, and this laughter, echoed by the
+child and in another instant by the mother, made everything so pleasant
+for the moment that she insensibly drew back while he pulled open the
+gate, only remarking, as she led the way in:</p>
+
+<p>“I was looking for my husband. He may come any minute and I’m afraid he
+won’t care much about contrivances to save me work—that is, if they
+cost very much.”</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater, whose hand was in his pocket, drew it hastily out.</p>
+
+<p>“You were watching for your husband? Do you often stand in the open
+doorway, looking for him?”</p>
+
+<p>Her surprised eyes met his with a stare that would have embarrassed the
+most venturesome book agent, but this man was of another ilk.</p>
+
+<p>“If you do,” he went on imperturbably, but with a good-humoured smile
+which deepened her favourable impression of him, “how much I would give
+if you had been standing there last Tuesday night when a certain cutter
+and horse went by on its way up the hill.”</p>
+
+<p>She was a self-contained woman, this wife of a master mechanic in one
+of the great shops hard by; but her jaw fell at this, and she forgot to
+chide or resist her child when he began to pull her towards the open
+kitchen door.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater, sensitive to the least change in the human face, prayed
+that the husband might be detained, if only for five minutes longer,
+while he, Sweetwater, worked this promising mine.</p>
+
+<p>“You <i>were</i> looking out,” he ventured. “And you <i>did</i> see that horse
+and cutter. What luck! It may save a man’s life.”</p>
+
+<p>“Save!” she repeated, staggering back a few steps and dragging the
+child with her. “Save a man’s life! What do you mean by that?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not much if it was any cutter and any horse, and at any hour. But if
+it was the horse and cutter which left The Whispering Pines at ten or
+half past ten that night, then it may mean life and death to the man
+now in jail under the dreadful charge of murder.”</p>
+
+<p>Catching up her child, she slid into the kitchen and sat down with it,
+in the first chair she came to. Sweetwater following her, took up his
+stand in the doorway, unobtrusive, but patiently waiting for her to
+speak. The steaming kettles and the table set for dinner gave warning
+of the expected presence for which she had been watching, but she
+seemed to have forgotten her husband; forgotten everything but her own
+emotions.</p>
+
+<p>“Who are you?” she asked at length. “You have not told me your real
+business.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, madam, and I ask your pardon. I feared that my real business, if
+suddenly made known to you, might startle, perhaps frighten you. I
+am a detective on the look-out for evidence in the case I have just
+mentioned. I have a theory that a most important witness in the same,
+drove by here at the hour and on the night I have named. I want to
+substantiate that theory. Can you help me?”</p>
+
+<p>A sensitiveness to, and quick appreciation of, the character of those
+he addressed was one of Sweetwater’s most valuable attributes. No
+glossing of the truth, however skillfully applied, would have served
+him with this woman so well as this simple statement, followed by its
+equally simple and direct inquiry. Scrutinising him over the child’s
+head, she gave but a casual glance at the badge he took pains to show
+her, then in as quiet and simple tones as he had himself used, she made
+this reply:</p>
+
+<p>“I can help you some. You make it my duty, and I have never shrunk
+from duty. A horse and cutter did go by here on its way uphill, last
+Tuesday night at about eleven o’clock. I remember the hour because I
+was expecting my husband every minute, just as I am now. He had some
+extra work on hand that night which he expected to detain him till
+eleven or a quarter after. Supper was to be ready at a quarter after.
+To surprise him I had beaten up some biscuits, and I had just put them
+in the pan when I heard the clock strike the hour. Afraid that he would
+come before they were baked, I thrust the pan into the oven and ran
+to the front door to look out. It was snowing very hard, and the road
+looked white and empty, but as I stood there a horse and cutter came in
+sight, which, as it reached the gate, drew up in a great hurry, as if
+something was the matter. Frightened, because I’m always thinking of
+harm to my husband whose work is very dangerous, I ran out bare-headed
+to the gate, when I saw why the man in the sleigh was making me such
+wild gestures. His hat had blown off, and was lying close up against
+the fence in front of me. Anxious always to oblige, I made haste to
+snatch at it and carry it out to its owner. I received a sort of thank
+you, and would never have remembered the occurrence if it had not
+been for that murder and if—” She paused doubtfully, ran her fingers
+nervously over her child’s head, looked again at Sweetwater waiting
+expectantly for her next word, and faltered painfully—“if I had not
+recognised the horse.”</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater drew a deep breath; it was such a happy climax. Then, as she
+showed no signs of saying more, asked as quietly as his rapidly beating
+heart permitted:</p>
+
+<p>“Didn’t you recognise the man?”</p>
+
+<p>Her answer was short but as candid as her expression.</p>
+
+<p>“No. The snow was blinding; besides he wore a high collar, in which his
+head was sunk down almost out of sight.”</p>
+
+<p>“But the horse—”</p>
+
+<p>“Was one which is often driven by here. I had rather not tell you whose
+it is. I have not told any one, not even my husband, about seeing it on
+the road that night. I couldn’t somehow. But if it will save a man’s
+life and make clear who killed that good woman, ask any one on the
+Hill, in what stable you can find a grey horse with a large black spot
+on his left shoulder, and you will know as much about it as I do. Isn’t
+that enough, sir? Now, I must dish up my dinner.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, yes; it’s almost enough. Just one question, madam. Was the hat
+what folks call a derby? Like this one, madam,” he explained, drawing
+his own from behind his back.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I think so. As well as I can remember, it was like that. I’m
+afraid I didn’t do it any good by my handling. I had to clutch it
+quick and I’m sure I bent the brim, to say nothing of smearing it with
+flour-marks.”</p>
+
+<p>“How?” Sweetwater had started for the door, but stopped, all eagerness
+at this last remark.</p>
+
+<p>“I had been cutting out biscuits, and my hands were white with flour,”
+she explained, simply. “But that brushes off easily; I don’t suppose it
+mattered.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, no,” he hastily assented. Then while he smiled and waved his hand
+to the little urchin who had been his means of introduction to this
+possibly invaluable witness, he made one final plea and that was for
+her name.</p>
+
+<p>“Eliza Simmons,” was the straightforward reply; and this ended the
+interview.</p>
+
+<p>The husband, whose anticipated approach had occasioned all this
+abruptness, was coming down the hill when Sweetwater left the gate. As
+this detective of ours was as careful in his finish as in all the rest
+of his work, he called out as he went by:</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve just been trying to sell a wonderful contrivance of mine to the
+missus. But it was no go.”</p>
+
+<p>The man looked, smiled, and went in at his own gate with the air of one
+happy in wife, child, and home.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater went on up the hill. Towards the top, he came upon a
+livery-stable. Stopping in his good-humoured way, he entered into talk
+with a man loitering inside the great door. Before he left him, he had
+asked him these questions:</p>
+
+<p>“Any grey horse in town?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, <i>one</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>“I think I’ve seen it—has a patch of black on its left shoulder.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“Whose is it? I’ve a mighty curiosity about the horse. Looks like a
+trick horse.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know what you mean by that. It belongs to a respectable
+family. A family you must have heard about if you ever heard anything.
+There’s a funeral there to-day—”</p>
+
+<p>“Not Miss Cumberland’s?” exclaimed Sweetwater, all agog in a moment.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, Miss Cumberland’s. I thought you might have heard the name.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I’ve heard it.”</p>
+
+<p>The tone was dry, the words abrupt, but the detective’s heart was
+dancing like a feather. The next turn he took was toward the handsome
+residence district crowning the hill.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XI">XI<br><span class="small">IN THE COACH HOUSE</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">All things that we ordained festival<br>
+Turn from their office to black funeral;<br>
+Our instruments to melancholy bells;<br>
+Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast;<br>
+And all things change them to the contrary.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Romeo and Juliet</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>Fifteen minutes later, he stood in a finely wooded street before an
+open gateway guarded by a policeman. Showing his badge, he passed in,
+and entered a long and slightly curved driveway. As he did so, he took
+a glance at the house. It was not as pretentious as he expected, but
+infinitely more inviting. Low and rambling, covered with vines, and
+nestling amid shrubbery which even in winter gave it a habitable air,
+it looked as much the abode of comfort as of luxury, and gave—in
+outward appearance at least—no hint of the dark shadow which had so
+lately fallen across it.</p>
+
+<p>The ceremonies had been set for three o’clock, and it was now half past
+two. As Sweetwater reached the head of the driveway, he saw the first
+of a long file of carriages approaching up the street.</p>
+
+<p>“Lucky that my business takes me to the stable,” thought he. “What is
+the coachman’s name? I ought to remember it. Ah—Zadok! Zadok Brown.
+There’s a combination for you!”</p>
+
+<p>He had reached this point in his soliloquy (a bad habit of his, for
+it sometimes took audible expression) when he ran against another
+policeman set to guard the side door. A moment’s parley, and he left
+this man behind; but not before he had noted this door and the wide and
+hospitable verandah which separated it from the driveway.</p>
+
+<p>“I am willing to go all odds that I shall find that verandah the most
+interesting part of the house,” he remarked, in quiet conviction, to
+himself, as he noted its nearness to the stable and the ease with which
+one could step from it into a vehicle passing down the driveway.</p>
+
+<p>It had another point of interest, or, rather the wing had to which
+it was attached. As his eye travelled back across this wing, in his
+lively walk towards the stable, he caught a passing glimpse of a
+nurse’s face and figure in one of its upper windows. This located the
+sick chamber, and unconsciously he hushed his step and moved with the
+greatest caution, though he knew that this sickness was not one of the
+nerves, and that the loudest sound would fail to reach ears lapsed in a
+blessed, if alarming, unconsciousness.</p>
+
+<p>Once around the corner, he resumed a more natural pace, and perceiving
+that the stable-door was closed but that a window well up the garden
+side was open, he cast a look towards the kitchen windows at his back,
+and, encountering no watchful eye, stepped up to the former one and
+peered in.</p>
+
+<p>A man sat with his back to him, polishing a bit of harness. This was
+probably Zadok, the coachman. As his interest was less with him than
+with the stalls beyond, he let his eye travel on in their direction,
+when he suddenly experienced a momentary confusion by observing the
+head and shoulders of Hexford leaning towards him from an opposite
+window—in much the same fashion, and certainly with exactly the same
+intent, as himself. As their glances crossed, both flushed and drew
+back, only to return again, each to his several peep-hole. Neither
+meant to lose the advantage of the moment. Both had heard of the grey
+horse and wished to identify it; Hexford for his own satisfaction,
+Sweetwater as the first link of the chain leading him into the
+mysterious course mapped out for him by fate. That each was more or
+less under the surveillance of the other did not trouble either.</p>
+
+<p>There were three stalls, and in each stall a horse stamped and
+fidgeted. Only one held their attention. This was a mare on the
+extreme left, a large grey animal with a curious black patch on its
+near shoulder. The faces of both men changed as they recognised this
+distinguishing mark, and instinctively their eyes met across the width
+of the open space separating them. Hexford’s finger rose to his mouth,
+but Sweetwater needed no such hint. He stood, silent as his own shadow,
+while the coachman rubbed away with less and less purpose, until his
+hands stood quite still and his whole figure drooped in irresistible
+despondency. As he raised his face, moved perhaps by that sense of a
+watchful presence to which all of us are more or less susceptible, they
+were both surprised to see tears on it. The next instant he had started
+to his feet and the bit of harness had rattled from his hands to the
+floor.</p>
+
+<p>“Who are you?” he asked, with a touch of anger, quite natural under the
+circumstances. “Can’t you come in by the door, and not creep sneaking
+up to take a man at disadvantage?”</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke, he dashed away the tears with which his cheeks were still
+wet.</p>
+
+<p>“I thought a heap of my young mistress,” he added, in evident apology
+for this display of what such men call weakness. “I didn’t know that it
+was in me to cry for anything, but I find that I can cry for her.”</p>
+
+<p>Hexford left his window, and Sweetwater slid from his; next minute they
+met at the stable door.</p>
+
+<p>“Had luck?” whispered the local officer.</p>
+
+<p>“Enough to bring me here,” acknowledged the other.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you mean to this house or to this stable?”</p>
+
+<p>“To this stable.”</p>
+
+<p>“Have you heard that the horse was out that night?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, she was out.”</p>
+
+<p>“Who driving?”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah, that’s the question!”</p>
+
+<p>“This man can’t tell you.”</p>
+
+<p>A jerk of Hexford’s thumb in Zadok’s direction emphasised this
+statement.</p>
+
+<p>“But I’m going to talk to him, for all that.”</p>
+
+<p>“He wasn’t here that night; he was at a dance. He only knows that the
+mare was out.”</p>
+
+<p>“But I’m going to talk to him.”</p>
+
+<p>“May I come in, too? I’ll not interrupt. I’ve just fifteen minutes to
+spare.”</p>
+
+<p>“You can do as you please. I’ve nothing to hide—from you, at any rate.”</p>
+
+<p>Which wasn’t quite true; but Sweetwater wasn’t a stickler for truth,
+except in the statements he gave his superiors.</p>
+
+<p>Hexford threw open the stable-door, and they both walked in. The
+coachman was not visible, but they could hear him moving about above,
+grumbling to himself in none too encouraging a way.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently he was in no mood for visitors.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll be down in a minute,” he called out, as their steps sounded on
+the hardwood floor.</p>
+
+<p>Hexford sauntered over to the stalls. Sweetwater stopped near the
+doorway and glanced very carefully about him. Nothing seemed to escape
+his eye. He even took the trouble to peer into a waste-bin, and was
+just on the point of lifting down a bit of broken bottle from an open
+cupboard when Brown appeared on the staircase, dressed in his Sunday
+coat and carrying a bunch of fresh, hot-house roses.</p>
+
+<p>He stopped midway as Sweetwater turned towards him from the cupboard,
+but immediately resumed his descent and was ready with his reply when
+Hexford accosted him from the other end of the stable:</p>
+
+<p>“An odd beast, this. They don’t drive her for her beauty, that’s
+evident.”</p>
+
+<p>“She’s fast and she’s knowing,” grumbled the coachman. “Reason enough
+for overlooking her spots. Who’s that man?” he grunted, with a drop of
+his lantern jaws, and a slight gesture towards the unknown interloper.</p>
+
+<p>“Another of us,” replied Hexford, with a shrug. “We’re both rather
+interested in this horse.”</p>
+
+<p>“Wouldn’t another time do?” pleaded the coachman, looking gravely down
+at the flowers he held. “It’s most time for the funeral and I don’t
+feel like talking, indeed I don’t, gentlemen.”</p>
+
+<p>“We won’t keep you.” It was Sweetwater who spoke. “The mare’s company
+enough for us. She knows a lot, this mare. I can see it in her eye. I
+understand horses; we’ll have a little chat, she and I, when you are
+gone.”</p>
+
+<p>Brown cast an uneasy glance at Hexford.</p>
+
+<p>“He’d better not touch her,” he cautioned. “He don’t know the beast
+well enough for that.”</p>
+
+<p>“He won’t touch her,” Hexford assured him. “She does look knowing,
+don’t she? Would like to tell us something, perhaps. Was out <i>that</i>
+night, I’ve heard you say. Curious! How did you know it?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve said and said till I’m tired,” Brown answered, with sudden heat.
+“This is pestering a man at a very unfortunate time. Look! the people
+are coming. I must go. My poor mistress! and poor Miss Carmel! I liked
+’em, do ye understand? Liked ’em—and I do feel the trouble at the
+house, I do.”</p>
+
+<p>His distress was so genuine that Hexford was inclined to let him go;
+but Sweetwater with a cock of his keen eye put in his word and held the
+coachman where he was.</p>
+
+<p>“The old gal is telling me all about it,” muttered this sly, adaptable
+fellow. He had sidled up to the mare and their heads were certainly
+very close together. “Not touch her? See here!” Sweetwater had his
+arm round the filly’s neck and was looking straight into her fiery
+and intelligent eye. “Shall I pass her story on?” he asked, with a
+magnetic smile at the astonished coachman, which not only softened him
+but seemed to give the watchful Hexford quite a new idea of this gawky
+interloper.</p>
+
+<p>“You’ll oblige <i>me</i> if you can put her knowledge into words,” the man
+Zadok declared, with one fascinated eye on the horse and the other on
+the house where he evidently felt that his presence was wanted. “She
+was out that night, and I know it, as any coachman would know, who
+doesn’t come home stone drunk. But where she was and who took her, get
+her to tell if you can, for I don’t know no more ’n the dead.”</p>
+
+<p>“The dead!” flashed out Sweetwater, wheeling suddenly about and
+pointing straight through the open stable-door towards the house where
+the young mistress the old servant mourned, lay in her funeral casket.
+“Do you mean her—the lady who is about to be buried? Could <i>she</i> tell
+if her lips were not sealed by a murderer’s hand?”</p>
+
+<p>“She!” The word came low and awesomely. Rude and uncultured as the man
+was, he seemed to be strangely affected by this unexpected suggestion.
+“I haven’t the wit to answer that,” said he. “How can we tell what
+she knew. The man who killed her is in jail. <i>He</i> might talk to some
+purpose. Why don’t you question him?”</p>
+
+<p>“For a very good reason,” replied Sweetwater, with an easy good-nature
+that was very reassuring. “He was arrested on the spot; so that it
+wasn’t he who drove this mare home, unharnessed her, put her back in
+her stall, locked the stable-door and hung up the key in its place in
+the kitchen. Somebody else did <i>that</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s true enough, and what does it show? That the mare was out on
+some other errand than the one which ended in blood and murder,” was
+the coachman’s unexpected retort.</p>
+
+<p>“Is that so?” whispered Sweetwater into the mare’s cocked ear.
+“She’s not quite ready to commit herself,” he drawled, with another
+enigmatical smile at the lingering Zadok. “She’s keeping something
+back. Are you?” he pointedly inquired, leaving the stalls and walking
+briskly up to Zadok.</p>
+
+<p>The coachman frowned and hastily retreated a step; but in another
+moment he leaped in a rage upon Sweetwater, when the sight of the
+flowers he held recalled him to himself and he let his hand fall again
+with the quiet remark:</p>
+
+<p>“You’re overstepping your dooty. I don’t know who you are or what you
+want with me, but you’re overstepping your dooty.”</p>
+
+<p>“He’s right,” muttered Hexford. “Better let the fellow go. See! one of
+the maids is beckoning to him.”</p>
+
+<p>“He shall go, and welcome, if he will tell me where he gets his taste
+for this especial brand of whiskey.” Sweetwater had crossed to the
+cupboard and taken down the lower half of the broken bottle which had
+attracted his notice on his first entrance, and was now holding it out,
+with a quizzical look at the departing coachman.</p>
+
+<p>Hexford was at his shoulder with a spring, and together they inspected
+the label still sticking to it—which was that of the very rare and
+expensive spirit found missing from the club-house vault.</p>
+
+<p>“This is a find,” muttered Hexford into his fellow detective’s ear.
+Then, with a quick move towards Zadok, he shouted out:</p>
+
+<p>“You’d better answer that question. Where did this bit of broken bottle
+come from? They don’t give you whiskey like this to drink.”</p>
+
+<p>“That they don’t,” muttered the coachman, not so much abashed as they
+had expected. “And I wouldn’t care for it if they did. I found that bit
+of bottle in the ash-barrel outside, and fished it out to put varnish
+in. I liked the shape.”</p>
+
+<p>“Broken this way?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; it’s just as good.”</p>
+
+<p>“Is it? Well, never mind, run along. We’ll close the stable-door for
+you.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’d rather do it myself and carry in the key.”</p>
+
+<p>“Here then; we’re going to the funeral, too. You’d like to?” This
+latter in a whisper to Sweetwater.</p>
+
+<p>The answer was a fervent one. Nothing in all the world would please
+this protean-natured man quite so well.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XII">XII<br><span class="small">“LILA—LILA!”</span></h3></div>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>O, treble woe Fall ten times treble on that cursed head, Whose wicked
+deed thy most ingenious sense Depriv’d thee of!—Hold off the earth
+awhile, Till I have caught her once more in my arms.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Hamlet</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>“Let us enter by the side door,” suggested Sweetwater, as the two moved
+towards the house. “And be sure you place me where I can see without
+being seen. I have no wish to attract attention to myself, or to be
+identified with the police until the necessity is forced upon me.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then we won’t go in together,” decided Hexford. “Find your own
+place; you won’t have any difficulty. A crowd isn’t expected. Miss
+Cumberland’s condition forbids it.”</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater nodded and slid in at the side door.</p>
+
+<p>He found himself at once in a narrow hall, from the end of which opened
+a large room. A few people were to be seen in this latter place, and
+his first instinct was to join them; but finding that a few minutes yet
+remained before the hour set for the services, he decided to improve
+them by a rapid glance about this hall, which, for certain reasons
+hardly as yet formulated in his own mind, had a peculiar interest for
+him.</p>
+
+<p>The most important object within view, according to his present
+judgment, was the staircase which connected it with the floor above;
+but if you had asked his reason for this conclusion, he would not have
+told you, as Ranelagh might have done, that it was because it was the
+most direct and convenient approach to Carmel Cumberland’s room. His
+thoughts were far from this young girl, intimately connected as she
+was with this crime; which shows through what a blind maze he was
+insensibly working. With his finger on the thread which had been put
+in his hand, he was feeling his way along inch by inch. It had brought
+him to this staircase, and it led him next to a rack upon which hung
+several coats and a gentleman’s hat.</p>
+
+<p>He inspected the former and noted that one was finished with a high
+collar; but he passed the latter by—it was not a derby. The table
+stood next the rack, and on its top lay nothing more interesting than a
+clothes-brush and one or two other insignificant objects; but, with his
+memory for details, he had recalled the keys which one of the maids had
+picked up somewhere about this house, and laid on a hall table. If this
+were the hall and this the table, then was every inch of the latter’s
+simple cloth-covered top of the greatest importance in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>He had no further time for even these cursory investigations; Hexford’s
+step could be heard on the verandah, and Sweetwater was anxious to
+locate himself before the officer came in. Entering the room before
+him, he crossed to the small group clustered in its further doorway.
+There were several empty chairs in sight; but he passed around them
+all to a dark and inconspicuous corner, from which, without effort, he
+could take in every room on that floor—from the large parlour in which
+the casket stood, to the remotest region of the servants’ hall.</p>
+
+<p>The clergyman had not yet descended, and Sweetwater had time to
+observe the row of little girls sitting in front of the bearers, each
+with a small cluster of white flowers in her hand. Miss Cumberland’s
+Sunday-school class, he conjectured, and conjectured rightly. He also
+perceived that some of these children loved her.</p>
+
+<p>Near them sat a few relatives and friends. Among these was a very, very
+old man, whom he afterwards heard was a great-uncle and a centenarian.
+Between him and one of the little girls, there apparently existed a
+strong sympathy; for his hand reached out and drew her to him when
+the tears began to steal down her cheeks, and the looks which passed
+between the two had all the appeal and all the protection of a great
+love.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater, who had many a soft spot in his breast, felt his heart
+warm at this one innocent display of natural feeling in an assemblage
+otherwise frozen by the horror of the occasion. His eyes dwelt
+lingeringly on the child, and still more lingeringly on the old, old
+man, before passing to that heaped-up mound of flowers, under which lay
+a murdered body and a bruised heart. He could not see the face, but the
+spectacle was sufficiently awe-compelling without that.</p>
+
+<p>Would it have seemed yet more so, had he known at whose request the
+huge bunch of lilies had been placed over that silent heart?</p>
+
+<p>The sister sick, the brother invisible, there was little more to hold
+his attention in this quarter; so he let it roam across the heads
+of the people about him, to the distant hall communicating with the
+kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>Several persons were approaching from this direction, among them Zadok.
+The servants of the house, no doubt, for they came in all together
+and sat down, side by side, in the chairs Sweetwater had so carefully
+passed by. There were five persons in all: two men and three women.
+Only two interested him—Zadok, with whom he had already made a
+superficial acquaintance and had had one bout; and a smart, bright-eyed
+girl with a resolute mouth softened by an insistent dimple, who struck
+him as possessing excellent sense and some natural cleverness. A girl
+to know and a girl to talk to, was his instantaneous judgment. Then he
+forgot everything but the solemnity of the occasion, for the clergyman
+had entered and taken his place, and a great hush had fallen upon the
+rooms and upon every heart there present.</p>
+
+
+<p>“<i>I am the resurrection and the life</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>Never had these consoling words sounded more solemn than when they
+rang above the remains of Adelaide Cumberland, in this home where she
+had reigned as mistress ever since her seventeenth year. The nature of
+the tragedy which had robbed the town of one of its most useful young
+women; the awful fate impending over its supposed author,—a man who
+had come and gone in these rooms with a spell of fascination to which
+many of those present had themselves succumbed—the brooding sense
+of illness, if not of impending death, in the room above; gave to
+these services a peculiar poignancy which in some breasts of greater
+susceptibility than the rest, took the form of a vague expectancy
+bordering on terror.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater felt the poignancy, but did not suffer from the terror. His
+attention had been attracted in a new direction, and he found himself
+watching, with anxious curiosity, the attitude and absorbed expression
+of a good-looking young man whom he was far from suspecting to be the
+secret representative of the present suspect, whom nobody could forget,
+yet whom nobody wished to remember at this hallowed hour.</p>
+
+<p>Had this attitude and this absorption been directed towards the casket
+over which the clergyman’s words rose and fell with ever increasing
+impressiveness, he might have noted the man but would scarcely
+have been held by him. But this interest, sincere and strong as it
+undoubtedly was, centred not so much in the services, careful as he
+was to maintain a decorous attitude towards the same, but in the faint
+murmurs which now and then came down from above where unconsciousness
+reigned and the stricken brother watched over the delirious sister,
+with a concentration and abandonment to fear which made him oblivious
+of all other duties, and almost as unconscious of the rites then being
+held below over one who had been as a mother to him, as the sick girl
+herself with her ceaseless and importunate “Lila! Lila!” The detective,
+watching this preoccupied stranger, shared in some measure his secret
+emotions, and thus was prepared for the unexpected occurrence of a few
+minutes later.</p>
+
+<p>No one else had the least forewarning of any break in the services.
+There had been nothing in the subdued but impressive rendering of the
+prayers to foreshadow a dramatic episode; yet it came, and in this
+manner:</p>
+
+<p>The final words had been said, and the friends present invited to look
+their last on the calm face which, to many there, had never worn so
+sweet a smile in life. Some had hesitated; but most had obeyed the
+summons, among them Sweetwater. But he had not much time in which to
+fix those features in his mind; for the little girls, who had been
+waiting patiently for this moment, now came forward; and he stepped
+aside to watch them as they filed by, dropping as they did so, a
+tribute of fragrant flowers upon the quiet breast. They were followed
+by the servants, among whom Zadok had divided his roses. As the last
+cluster fell from the coachman’s trembling hand, the undertaker
+advanced with the lid, and, pausing a moment to be sure that all were
+satisfied, began to screw it on.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly there was a cry, and the crowd about the door leading into
+the main hall started back, as wild steps were heard on the stairs and
+a young man rushed into the room where the casket stood, and advanced
+upon the officiating clergyman and the astonished undertaker with a
+fierceness which was not without its suggestion of authority.</p>
+
+<p>“Take it off!” he cried, pointing at the lid which had just been
+fastened down. “I have not seen her—I must see her. Take it off!”</p>
+
+<p>It was the brother, awake at last to the significance of the hour!</p>
+
+<p>The clergyman, aghast at the sacrilegious look and tone of the
+intruder, stepped back, raising one arm in remonstrance, and
+instinctively shielding the casket with the other. But the undertaker
+saw in the frenzied eye fixed upon his own, that which warned him
+to comply with the request thus harshly and peremptorily uttered.
+Unscrewing the lid, he made way for the intruder, who, drawing near,
+pushed aside the roses which had fallen on the upturned face, and,
+laying his hand on the brow, muttered a few low words to himself. Then
+he withdrew his hand, and without glancing to right or left, staggered
+back to the door amid a hush as unbroken as that which reigned behind
+him in that open casket. Another moment and his white, haggard face and
+disordered figure would be blotted from sight by the door-jamb.</p>
+
+<p>The minister recovered his poise and the bearers their breath; the men
+stirred in their seats and the women began to cast frightened looks
+at each other, and then at the children, some of whom had begun to
+whimper, when in an instant all were struck again into stone. The young
+man had turned and was facing them all, with his hands held out in a
+clench which in itself was horrible.</p>
+
+<p>“If they let the man go,” he called out in loud and threatening tones,
+“I will strangle him with these two hands.”</p>
+
+<p>The word, and not the shriek which burst irrepressibly from more
+than one woman before him, brought him to himself. With a ghastly
+look on his bloated features, he scanned for one moment the row of
+deeply shocked faces before him, then tottered back out of sight, and
+fled towards the staircase. All thought that an end had come to the
+harrowing scene, and minister and people faced each other once more;
+when, loud and sharp from above, there rang down the shrill cry of
+delirium, this time in articulate words which even the children could
+understand:</p>
+
+<p>“Break it open, I say! break it open, and see if her heart is there!”</p>
+
+<p>It was too awful. Men and women and children leaped to their feet
+and dashed away into the streets, uttering smothered cries and wild
+ejaculations. In vain the clergyman raised his voice and bade them
+respect the dead; the rooms were well-nigh empty before he had finished
+his appeal. Only the very old uncle and the least of the children
+remained of all who had come there in memory of their departed
+kinswoman and friend.</p>
+
+<p>The little one had fled to the old man’s arms before he could rise, and
+was now held close to his aged and shaking knees, while he strove to
+comfort her and explain.</p>
+
+<p>Soon these, too, were gone, and the casket was refastened and carried
+out by the shrinking bearers, leaving in those darkened rooms a trail
+of desolation which was only broken from time to time by the now faint
+and barely heard reiteration of the name of her who had just been borne
+away!</p>
+
+<p>“Lila! Lila!”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XIII">XIII<br><span class="small">“WHAT WE WANT IS HERE”</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">I’ll tell you, by the way,<br>
+The greatest comfort in the world.<br>
+You said<br>
+There was a clew to all.<br>
+Remember, Sweet,<br>
+He said there was a clew!<br>
+I hold it.<br>
+Come!</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>A Blot in the ’Scutcheon.</i></p>
+
+
+<p>Sweetwater, however affected by this scene, had not lost control
+of himself or forgotten the claims of duty. He noted at a glance
+that, while the candid looking stranger, whose lead he had been
+following, was as much surprised as the rest at the nature of the
+interruption—which he had possibly anticipated and for which he was
+in some measure prepared—he was, of all present, the most deeply
+and peculiarly impressed by it. No element of fear had entered into
+his emotion; nor had it been heightened by any superstitious sense.
+Something deeper and more important by far had darkened his thoughtful
+eye and caused that ebb and flow of colour in a cheek unused, if
+Sweetwater read the man aright, to such quick and forcible changes.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater took occasion, likewise, while the excitement was at its
+height, to mark what effect had been made on the servants by the action
+and conduct of young Cumberland. “They know him better than we do,” was
+his inner comment; “what do they think of his words, and what do they
+think of him?”</p>
+
+<p>It was not so easy to determine as the anxious detective might wish.
+Only one of them showed a simple emotion, and that one was, without
+any possibility of doubt, the cook. She was a Roman Catholic, and was
+simply horrified by the sacrilege of which she had been witness. There
+was no mistaking her feelings. But those of the other two women were
+more complex.</p>
+
+<p>So were those of the men. Zadok specially watched each movement of
+his young master with open mistrust; and very nearly started upright,
+in his repugnance and dismay, when that intruding hand fell on the
+peaceful brow of her over whose fate, to his own surprise, he had been
+able to shed tears. Some personal prejudice lay back of this or some
+secret knowledge of the man from whose touch even the dead appeared to
+shrink.</p>
+
+<p>And the women! Might not the same explanation account for that curious
+droop of the eye with which the two younger clutched at each other’s
+hands, to keep from screaming, and interchanged whispered words which
+Sweetwater would have given considerable out of his carefully cherished
+hoard to have heard.</p>
+
+<p>It was impossible to tell, at present; but he was confident that it
+would not be long before he understood these latter, at least. He had
+great confidence in his success with women, homely as he was. He was
+not so sure of himself with men; and he felt that some difficulties
+and not a few pitfalls lay between him and, for instance, the
+uncommunicative Zadok. “But I’ve the whole long evening before me,” he
+added in quiet consolation to himself. “It will be a pity if I can’t
+work some of them in that time.”</p>
+
+<p>The last thing he had remarked, before Carmel’s unearthly cry had sent
+the horrified guests in disorder from the house, was the presence of
+Dr. Perry in a small room which Sweetwater had supposed empty, until
+the astonishing events I have endeavoured to describe brought its
+occupant to the door. What the detective then read in the countenance
+of the family’s best friend, he kept to himself; but his own lost a
+trace of its former anxiety, as the official slipped back out of sight
+and remained so, even after the funeral cortege had started on its
+course.</p>
+
+<p>Plans had been made for carrying the servants to the cemetery, and,
+despite the universal disturbance consequent upon these events, these
+plans were adhered to. Sweetwater watched them all ride away in the
+last two carriages.</p>
+
+<p>This gave him the opportunity he wanted. Leaving his corner, he looked
+up Hexford, and asked who was left in the house.</p>
+
+<p>“Dr. Perry, Mr. Clifton, the lawyer, Mr. Cumberland, his sick sister,
+and the nurse.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland! Didn’t he go to the grave?”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you expect him to, after <i>that</i>?”</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater’s shoulders rose, and his voice took on a tone of
+indifference.</p>
+
+<p>“There’s no telling. Where is he now, do you think? Upstairs?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes. It seems he spends all his time in a little alcove opposite
+his sister’s door. They won’t let him inside, for fear of disturbing
+the patient; so he just sits where I’ve told you, doing nothing but
+listening to every sound that comes through the door.”</p>
+
+<p>“Is he there now?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, and shaking just like a leaf. I walked by him a moment ago and
+noticed particularly.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where’s his room? In sight of the alcove you mention?”</p>
+
+<p>“No; there’s a partition or two between. If you go up by the side
+staircase, you can slip into it without any one seeing you. Coroner
+Perry and Mr. Clifton are in front.”</p>
+
+<p>“Is the side door locked?”</p>
+
+<p>“No.”</p>
+
+<p>“Lock it. The back door, of course, is.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, the cook attended to that.”</p>
+
+<p>“I want a few minutes all by myself. Help me, Hexford. If Dr. Perry has
+given you no orders, take your stand upstairs where you can give me
+warning if Mr. Cumberland makes a move to leave his post, or the nurse
+her patient.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m ready; but I’ve been in that room and I’ve found nothing.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know that I shall. You say that it is near the head of the
+stairs running up from the side door?”</p>
+
+<p>“Just a few feet away.”</p>
+
+<p>“I would have sworn to that fact, even if you hadn’t told me,” muttered
+Sweetwater.</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes later, he had slipped from sight; and for some time not
+even Hexford knew where he was.</p>
+
+<p>“Dr. Perry, may I have a few words with you?”</p>
+
+<p>The coroner turned quickly. Sweetwater was before him; but not the same
+Sweetwater he had interviewed some few hours before in his office. This
+was quite a different looking personage. Though nothing could change
+his features, the moment had come when their inharmonious lines no
+longer obtruded themselves upon the eye; and the anxious, nay, deeply
+troubled official whom he addressed, saw nothing but the ardour and
+quiet self-confidence they expressed.</p>
+
+<p>“It’ll not take long,” he added, with a short significant glance in the
+direction of Mr. Clifton.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Perry nodded, excused himself to the lawyer and followed the
+detective into the small writing-room which he had occupied during
+the funeral. In the decision with which Sweetwater closed the door
+behind them there was something which caused the blood to mount to the
+coroner’s brow.</p>
+
+<p>“You have made some discovery?” said he.</p>
+
+<p>“A very important one,” was the quick, emphatic reply. And in a few
+brief words the detective related his interview with the master
+mechanic’s wife on the highroad. Then with an eager, “Now let me show
+you something,” he led the coroner through the dining-room into the
+side hall, where he paused before the staircase.</p>
+
+<p>“Up?” queried the coroner, with an obvious shrinking from what he might
+encounter above.</p>
+
+<p>“No,” was the whispered reply. “What we want is <i>here</i>.” And, pushing
+open a small door let into the under part of the stairway (if Ranelagh
+in his prison cell could have seen and understood this movement!), he
+disclosed a closet and in that closet a coat or two, and one derby hat.
+He took down the latter and, holding it out to the light, pointed to a
+spot on the under side of its brim.</p>
+
+<p>The coroner staggered as he saw it, and glanced helplessly about him.
+He had known this family all their lives and the father had been his
+dearest friend. But he could say nothing in face of this evidence. The
+spot was a flour-mark, in which could almost be discerned the outline
+of a woman’s thumb.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XIV">XIV<br><span class="small">THE MOTIONLESS FIGURE</span></h3></div>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>’S blood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy
+could find it out.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Hamlet</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>“The coat is here, too,” whispered Sweetwater, after a moment of
+considerate silence. “I had searched the hall-rack for them; I had
+searched his closets; and was about owning myself to be on a false
+trail, when I spied this little door. We had better lock it, now, had
+we not, till you make up your mind what to do with this conclusive bit
+of evidence.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, lock it. I’m not quite myself, Sweetwater. I’m no stranger to
+this house, or to the unfortunate young people in it. I wish I had not
+been re-elected last year. I shall never survive the strain if—” He
+turned away.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater carefully returned the hat to its peg, turned the key in the
+door, and softly followed his superior back into the dining-room, and
+thence to their former retreat.</p>
+
+<p>“I can see that it’s likely to be a dreadful business,” he ventured
+to remark, as the two stood face to face again. “But we’ve no choice.
+Facts are facts, and we’ve got to make the best of them. You mean me to
+go on?”</p>
+
+<p>“Go on?”</p>
+
+<p>“Following up the clews which you have yourself given me? I’ve only
+finished with one; there’s another—”</p>
+
+<p>“The bottles?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, the bottles. I believe that I shall not fail there if you’ll give
+me a little time. I’m a stranger in town, you remember, and cannot be
+expected to move as fast as a local detective.”</p>
+
+<p>“Sweetwater, you have but one duty—to follow both clews as far as they
+will take you. As for my duty, that is equally plain, to uphold you in
+all reasonable efforts and to shrink at nothing which will save the
+innocent and bring penalty to the guilty. Only be careful. Remember
+the evidence against Ranelagh. You will have to forge an exceedingly
+strong chain to hold your own against the facts which have brought this
+recreant lover to book. You see—O, I wish that poor girl could get
+ease!” he impetuously cried, as “Lila! Lila!” rang again through the
+house.</p>
+
+<p>“There can never be any ease for her,” murmured Sweetwater. “Whatever
+the truth, she’s bound to suffer if ever she awakens to reality again.
+Do you agree with the reporters that she knew why and for what her
+unhappy sister left this house that night?”</p>
+
+<p>“If not, why this fever?”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s sound.”</p>
+
+<p>“<i>She</i>—” the coroner was emphatic, “<i>she</i> is the only one who is
+wholly innocent in this whole business. Consider her at every point.
+Her life is invaluable to every one concerned. But she must not be
+roused to the fact; not yet. Nor must he be startled either; you know
+whom I mean. Quiet does it, Sweetwater. Quiet and a seeming deference
+to his wishes as the present head of the house.”</p>
+
+<p>“Is the place his? Has Miss Cumberland made a will?”</p>
+
+<p>“Her will will be read to-morrow. For to-night, Arthur Cumberland’s
+position here is the position of a master.”</p>
+
+<p>“I will respect it, sir, up to all reasonable bounds. I don’t think
+he meditates giving any trouble. He’s not at all impressed by our
+presence. All he seems to care about is what his sister may be led to
+say in her delirium.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s how you look at it?” The coroner’s tone was one of gloom. Then,
+after a moment of silence: “You may call my carriage, Sweetwater. I can
+do nothing further here to-day. The atmosphere of this house stifles
+me. Dead flowers, dead hopes, and something worse than death lowering
+in the prospect. I remember my old friend—this was his desk. Let us
+go, I say.”</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater threw open the door, but his wistful look did not escape the
+older man’s eye.</p>
+
+<p>“You’re not ready to go? Wish to search the house, perhaps.”</p>
+
+<p>“Naturally.”</p>
+
+<p>“It has already been done in a general way.”</p>
+
+<p>“I wish to do it thoroughly.”</p>
+
+<p>The coroner sighed.</p>
+
+<p>“I should be wrong to stand in your way. Get your warrant and the house
+is yours. But remember the sick girl.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s why I wish to do the job my self.”</p>
+
+<p>“You’re a good fellow, Sweetwater.” Then as he was passing out, “I’m
+going to rely on you to see this thing through, quietly if you can,
+openly and in the public eye if you must. The keys tell the tale—the
+keys and the hat. If the former had been left in the club-house and
+the latter found without the mark set on it by the mechanic’s wife,
+Ranelagh’s chances would look as slim to-day as they did immediately
+after the event. But with things as they are, he may well rest easily
+to-night; the clouds are lifting for him.”</p>
+
+<p>Which shows how little we poor mortals realise what makes for the peace
+even of those who are the nearest to us and whose lives and hearts we
+think we can read like an open book.</p>
+
+<p>The coroner gone, Sweetwater made his way to the room where he had last
+seen Mr. Clifton. He found it empty and was soon told by Hexford that
+the lawyer had left. This was welcome news to him; he felt that he had
+a fair field before him now; and learning that it would be some fifteen
+minutes yet before he could hope to see the carriages back, he followed
+Hexford upstairs.</p>
+
+<p>“I wish I had your advantages,” he remarked as they reached the upper
+floor.</p>
+
+<p>“What would you do?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’d wander down that hall and take a long look at things.”</p>
+
+<p>“You would?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’d like to see the girl and I’d like to see the brother when he
+thought no one was watching him.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why see the girl?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know. I’m afraid that’s just curiosity. I’ve heard she was a
+wonder for beauty.”</p>
+
+<p>“She was, once.”</p>
+
+<p>“And not now?”</p>
+
+<p>“You cannot tell; they have bound up her cheeks with cloths. She fell
+on the grate and got burned.”</p>
+
+<p>“But I say that’s dreadful, if she was so beautiful.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, it’s bad, but there are worse things than that. I wonder what she
+meant by that wild cry of ‘Tear it open! See if her heart is there?’
+Tear what open? the coffin?”</p>
+
+<p>“Of course. What else could she have meant?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well! delirium is a queer thing; makes a fellow feel creepy all over.
+I don’t reckon on my nights here.”</p>
+
+<p>“Hexford, help me to a peep. I’ve got a difficult job before me and I
+need all the aid I can get.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, there’s no trouble about that! Walk boldly along; he won’t
+notice—”</p>
+
+<p>“<i>He won’t notice</i>?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, he notices nothing but what comes from the sick room.”</p>
+
+<p>“I see.” Sweetwater’s jaw had fallen, but it righted itself at this
+last word.</p>
+
+<p>“Listening, eh?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes—as a fellow never listened before.”</p>
+
+<p>“Expectant like?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I should call it expectant.”</p>
+
+<p>“Does the nurse know this?”</p>
+
+<p>“The nurse is a puzzler.”</p>
+
+<p>“How so?”</p>
+
+<p>“Half nurse and half—but go see for yourself. Here’s a package to take
+in,—medicine from the drug store. Tell her there was no one else to
+bring it up. She’ll show no surprise.”</p>
+
+<p>Muttering his thanks, Sweetwater seized the proffered package, and
+hastened with it down the hall. He had been as far as the turn before,
+but now he passed the turn to find, just as he expected, a closed door
+on the left and an open alcove on the right. The door led into Miss
+Cumberland’s room; the alcove, circular in shape and lighted by several
+windows, projected from the rear of the extension, and had for its
+outlook the stable and the huge sycamore tree growing beside it.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater’s fingers passed thoughtfully across his chin as he remarked
+this and took in the expressive outline of its one occupant. He could
+not see his face; that was turned towards the table before which he
+sat. But his drooping head, rigid with desperate thinking; his relaxed
+hand closed around the neck of a decanter which, nevertheless, he did
+not lift, made upon Sweetwater an impression which nothing he saw
+afterwards ever quite effaced.</p>
+
+<p>“When I come back, that whiskey will be half gone,” thought he, and
+lingered to see the tumbler filled and the first draught taken.</p>
+
+<p>But no. The hand slowly unclasped and fell away from the decanter; his
+head sank forward until his chin rested on his breast; and a sigh,
+startling to Sweetwater, fell from his lips. Hexford was right; only
+one thing could arouse him.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater now tried that thing. He knocked softly on the sick-room
+door.</p>
+
+<p>This reached the ear oblivious to all else. Young Cumberland started
+to his feet; and for a moment Sweetwater saw again the heavy features
+which, an hour before, had produced such a repulsive effect upon him in
+the rooms below. Then the nerveless figure sank again into place, with
+the same constraint in its lines, and the same dejection.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater’s hand, lifted in repetition of his knock, hung suspended.
+He had not expected quite such indifference as this. It upset his
+calculations just a trifle. As his hand fell, he reminded himself of
+the coroner’s advice to go easy. “Easy it is,” was his internal reply.
+“I’ll walk as lightly as if eggshells were under my feet.”</p>
+
+<p>The door was opened to him, this time. As it swung back, he saw, first,
+a burst of rosy color as a room panelled in exquisite pink burst upon
+his sight; then the great picture of his life—the bloodless features
+of Carmel, calmed for the moment into sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Perfect beauty is so rare, its effect so magical! Not even the
+bandage which swathed one cheek could hide the exquisite symmetry
+of the features, or take from the whole face its sweet and natural
+distinction. Frenzy, which had distorted the muscles and lit the eyes
+with a baleful glare, was lacking at this moment. Repose had quieted
+the soul and left the body free to express its natural harmonies.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater gazed at the winsome, brown head over the nurse’s shoulder,
+and felt that for him a new and important factor had entered into this
+case, with his recognition of this woman’s great beauty. How deep
+a factor, he was far from suspecting, or he would not have met the
+nurse’s eye with quite so cheery and self-confident a smile.</p>
+
+<p>“Excuse the intrusion,” he said. “We thought you might need these
+things. Hexford signed for them.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m obliged to you. Are you—one of them?” she sharply asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Would it disturb you if I were? I hope not. I’ve no wish to seem
+intrusive.”</p>
+
+<p>“What do you want? Something, I know. Give it a name before there’s a
+change there.”</p>
+
+<p>She nodded towards the bed, and Sweetwater took advantage of the
+moment to scrutinise more closely the nurse herself. She was a robust,
+fine-looking woman, producing an impression of capability united to
+kindness. Strength of mind and rigid attendance to duty dominated the
+kindness, however. If crossed in what she considered best for her
+patient, possibly for herself, she could be severe, if not biting, in
+her speech and manner. So much Sweetwater read in the cold, clear eye
+and firm, self-satisfied mouth of the woman awaiting his response to
+the curt demand she had made.</p>
+
+<p>“I want another good look at your patient, and I want your confidence
+since you and I may have to see much of each other before this matter
+is ended. You asked me to speak plainly and I have done so.”</p>
+
+<p>“You are from headquarters?”</p>
+
+<p>“Coroner Perry sent me.” Throwing back his coat, he showed his badge.
+“The coroner has returned to his office. He was quite upset by the
+outcry which came from this room at an unhappy moment during the
+funeral.”</p>
+
+<p>“I know. It was my fault; I opened the door just for an instant, and in
+that instant my patient broke through her torpor and spoke.”</p>
+
+<p>She had drawn him in, by this time, and, after another glance at her
+patient, softly closed the door behind him.</p>
+
+<p>“I have nothing to report,” said she, “but the one sentence everybody
+heard.”</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater took in the little memorandum book and pencil which hung at
+her side, and understood her position and extraordinary amenability to
+his wishes. Unconsciously, a low exclamation escaped him. He was young
+and had not yet sunk the man entirely in the detective.</p>
+
+<p>“A cruel necessity to watch so interesting a patient, for anything but
+her own good,” he remarked. Yet, because he was a detective as well
+as a man, his eye went wandering all over the room as he spoke until
+it fell upon a peculiar-looking cabinet or closet, let into the wall
+directly opposite the bed. “What’s that?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know; I can’t make it out, and I don’t like to ask.”</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater examined it for a moment from where he stood; then crossed
+over, and scrutinised it more particularly. It was a unique specimen.
+What it lacked in height—it could not have measured more than a foot
+from the bottom to the top—it made up in length, which must have
+exceeded five feet. The doors, of which it had two, were both tightly
+locked; but as they were made of transparent glass, the objects
+behind them were quite visible. It was the nature of these objects
+which made the mystery. The longer Sweetwater examined them, the less
+he understood the reason for their collection, much less for their
+preservation in a room which in all other respects, expressed the
+quintessence of taste.</p>
+
+<p>At one end he saw a stuffed canary, not perched on a twig, but lying
+prone on its side. Near it was a doll, with scorched face and limbs
+half-consumed. Next this, the broken pieces of a china bowl and what
+looked like the torn remnants of some very fine lace. Further along,
+his eye lighted on a young girl’s bonnet, exquisite in colour and
+nicety of material, but crushed out of all shape and only betraying its
+identity by its dangling strings. The next article, in this long array
+of totally unhomogeneous objects, was a metronome, with its pendulum
+wrenched half off and one of its sides lacking. He could not determine
+the character of what came next, and only gave a casual examination to
+the rest. The whole affair was a puzzle to him, and he had no time for
+puzzles disconnected with the very serious affair he was engaged in
+investigating.</p>
+
+<p>“Some childish nonsense,” he remarked, and moved towards the door.
+“The servants will be coming back, and I had rather not be found here.
+You’ll see me again—I cannot tell just when. Perhaps you may want to
+send for me. If so, my name is Sweetwater.”</p>
+
+<p>His hand was on the knob, and he was almost out of the room when he
+started and looked back. A violent change in the patient had occurred.
+Disturbed by his voice or by some inner pulsation of the fever which
+devoured her, Carmel had risen from the pillow and now sat, staring
+straight before her with every feature working and lips opened as if to
+speak. Sweetwater held his breath, and the nurse leaped towards her and
+gently encircled her with protecting arms.</p>
+
+<p>“Lie down,” she prayed; “lie down. Everything is all right: I am
+looking after things. Lie down, little one, and rest.”</p>
+
+<p>The young girl drooped, and, yielding to the nurse’s touch, sank slowly
+back on the pillow; but in an instant she was up again, and flinging
+out her hand, she cried out loudly just as she had cried an hour before:</p>
+
+<p>“Break it open! Break the glass and look in. Her heart should be
+there—her heart—her heart!”</p>
+
+<p>“Go, or I cannot quiet her!” ordered the nurse, and Sweetwater turned
+to obey.</p>
+
+<p>But a new obstacle offered. The brother had heard this cry, and now
+stood in the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>“Who are you?” he impatiently demanded, surveying Sweetwater in sudden
+anger.</p>
+
+<p>“I brought up the drugs,” was the quiet explanation of the ever-ready
+detective. “I didn’t mean to alarm the young lady, and I don’t think I
+did. It’s the fever, sir, which makes her talk so wildly.”</p>
+
+<p>“We want no strangers here,” was young Cumberland’s response.
+“Remember, nurse, no strangers.” His tone was actually peremptory.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater observed him in real astonishment as he slid by and made his
+quiet escape. He was still more astonished when, on glancing towards
+the alcove, he perceived that, contrary to his own prognostication, the
+whiskey stood as high in the decanter as before.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve got a puzzler this time,” was his comment, as he made his way
+downstairs. “Even Mr. Gryce would say that. I wonder how I’ll come out.
+Uppermost!” he finished in secret emphasis to himself. “<i>Uppermost</i>! It
+would never do for me to fail in the first big affair I’ve undertaken
+on my own account.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XV">XV<br><span class="small">HELEN SURPRISES SWEETWATER</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">Lurk, lurk.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>King Lear</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>The returning servants drove up just as Sweetwater reached the lower
+floor. He was at the side door when they came in, and a single glance
+convinced him that all had gone off decorously at the grave, and that
+nothing further had occurred during their absence to disturb them.</p>
+
+<p>He followed them as they filed away into the kitchen, and, waiting till
+the men had gone about their work, turned his attention to the girls
+who stood about very much as if they did not know just what to do with
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>“Sit, ladies,” said he, drawing up chairs quite as if he were doing the
+honours of the house. Then with a sly, compassionate look into each
+woe-begone face, he artfully remarked: “You’re all upset, you are, by
+what Mr. Cumberland said in such an unbecoming way at the funeral. He’d
+like to strangle Mr. Ranelagh! Why couldn’t he wait for the sheriff. It
+looks as if that gentleman would have the job, all right.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! don’t!” wailed out one of the girls, the impressionable,
+warm-hearted Maggie. “The horrors of this house’ll kill me. I can’t
+stand it a minute longer. I’ll go—I’ll go to-morrow.”</p>
+
+<p>“You won’t; you’re too kind-hearted to leave Mr. Cumberland and his
+sister in their desperate trouble,” Sweetwater put in, with a decision
+as suggestive of admiration as he dared to assume.</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes filled, and she said no more. Sweetwater shifted his attention
+to Helen. Working around by her side, he managed to drop these words
+into her ear:</p>
+
+<p>“She talks most, but she doesn’t feel her responsibilities any more
+than you do. I’ve had my experience with women, and you’re of the sort
+that stays.”</p>
+
+<p>She rolled her eyes towards him, in a slow, surprised way, that would
+have abashed most men.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know your name, or your business here,” said she; “but I do
+know that you take a good deal upon yourself when you say what I shall
+do or shan’t do. I don’t even know, myself.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s because your eye is not so keen to your own virtues as—well, I
+won’t say as mine, but as those of any appreciative stranger. I can’t
+help seeing what you are, you know.”</p>
+
+<p>She turned her shoulder but not before he caught a slight disdainful
+twitch of her rosy, non-communicative mouth.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah, ah, my lady, not quick enough!” thought he; and, with the most
+innocent air in the world, he launched forth in a tirade against the
+man then in custody, as though his guilt were an accepted fact and
+nothing but the formalities of the law stood between him and his final
+doom. “It must make you all feel queer,” he wound up, “to think you
+have waited on him and seen him tramping about these rooms for months,
+just as if he had no wicked feelings in his heart and meant to marry
+Miss Cumberland, not to kill her.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, oh,” Maggie sobbed out. “And a perfect gentleman he was, too. I
+can’t believe no bad of him. He wasn’t like—” Her breath caught, and
+so suddenly that Sweetwater was always convinced that the more cautious
+Helen had twitched her by her skirt. “Like—like other gentlemen who
+came here. It was a kind word he had or a smile. I—I—” She made no
+attempt to finish but bounded to her feet, pulling up the more sedate
+Helen with her. “Let’s go,” she whispered, “I’m afeared of the man.”</p>
+
+<p>The other yielded and began to cross the floor behind the impetuous
+Maggie.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater summoned up his courage.</p>
+
+<p>“One moment,” he prayed. “Will you not tell me, before you go, whether
+the candlestick I have noticed on the dining-room mantel is not one of
+a pair?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, there were two—<i>once</i>,” said Helen, resisting Maggie’s effort to
+drag her out through the open door.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Once</i>,” smiled Sweetwater; “by which you mean, three days ago.”</p>
+
+<p>A lowering of her head and a sudden make for the door.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater changed his tone to one of simple inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>“And was that where they always stood, the pair of them, one on each
+end of the dining-room mantel?”</p>
+
+<p>She nodded; involuntarily, perhaps, but decisively.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater hid his disappointment. The room mentioned was a
+thoroughfare for the whole family. Any member of it could have taken
+the candlestick.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m obliged to you,” said he; and might have ventured further had she
+given him the opportunity. But she was too near the door to resist the
+temptation of flight. In another moment she was gone, and Sweetwater
+found himself alone with his reflections.</p>
+
+<p>They were not altogether unpleasing. He was sure that he read the
+evidences of struggle in her slowly working lips and changing impulses.</p>
+
+<p>“So, so!” thought he. “The good seed has found its little corner of
+soil. I’ll leave it to take root and sprout. Perhaps the coroner will
+profit by it. If not, I’ve a way of coaxing tender plants which should
+bring this one to fruit. We’ll see.”</p>
+
+<p>The moon shone that night, much to Sweetwater’s discomforture. As he
+moved about the stable-yard, he momentarily expected to see the window
+of the alcove thrown up and to hear Mr. Cumberland’s voice raised in
+loud command for him to quit the premises. But no such interruption
+came. The lonely watcher, whose solitary figure he could just discern
+above the unshaded sill, remained immovable, with his head buried in
+his arms, but whether in sleep or in brooding misery, there was naught
+to tell.</p>
+
+<p>The rest of the house presented an equally dolorous and forsaken
+appearance. There were lights in the kitchen and lights in the
+servants’ rooms at the top of the house, but no sounds either of
+talking or laughing. All voices had sunk to a whisper, and if by chance
+a figure passed one of the windows, it was in a hurried, frightened
+way, which Sweetwater felt very ready to appreciate.</p>
+
+<p>In the stable it was no better. Zadok had bought an evening paper,
+and was seeking solace from its columns. Sweetwater had attempted the
+sociable but had been met by a decided rebuff. The coachman could
+not forget his attitude before the funeral and nothing, not even the
+pitcher of beer the detective proposed to bring in, softened the
+forbidding air with which this old servant met the other’s advances.</p>
+
+<p>Soon Sweetwater realised that his work was over for the night and
+planned to leave. But there was one point to be settled first. Was
+there any other means of exit from these grounds save that offered by
+the ordinary driveway?</p>
+
+<p>He had an impression that in one of his strolls about, he had detected
+the outlines of a door in what looked like a high brick wall in the
+extreme rear. If so, it were well worth his while to know where that
+door led. Working his way along in the shadow cast by the house and
+afterward by the stable itself, he came upon what was certainly a
+wall and a wall with a door in it. He could see the latter plainly
+from where he halted in the thick of the shadows. The moonlight shone
+broadly on it, and he could detect the very shape and size of its
+lock. It might be as well to try that lock, but he would have to cross
+a very wide strip of moonlight in order to do so, and he feared to
+attract attention to his extreme inquisitiveness. Yet who was there to
+notice him at this hour? Mr. Cumberland had not moved, the girls were
+upstairs, Zadok was busy with his paper, and the footman dozing over
+his pipe in his room over the stable. Sweetwater had just come from
+that room, and he knew.</p>
+
+<p>A quiet stable-yard and a closed door only ten feet away! He glanced
+again at the latter, and made up his mind. Advancing in a quiet,
+sidelong way he had, he laid his hand on the small knob above the
+lock and quickly turned it. The door was unlocked and swung under his
+gentle push. An alley-way opened before him, leading to what appeared
+to be another residence street. He was about to test the truth of this
+surmise when he heard a step behind him, and turning, encountered the
+heavy figure of the coachman advancing towards him, with a key in his
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>Zadok was of an easy turn, but he had been sorely tried that day, and
+his limit had been reached.</p>
+
+<p>“You snooper!” he bawled. “What do you want here? Won’t the run of the
+house content ye? Come! I want to lock that door. It’s my last duty
+before going to bed.”</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater assumed the innocent.</p>
+
+<p>“And I was just going this way. It looks like a short road into town.
+It is, isn’t it?”</p>
+
+<p>“No! Yes,” growled the other. “Whichever it is, it isn’t your road
+to-night. That’s private property, sir. The alley you see, belongs to
+our neighbours. No one passes through there but myself and—”</p>
+
+<p>He caught himself in time, with a sullen grunt which may have been the
+result of fatigue or of that latent instinct of loyalty which is often
+the most difficult obstacle a detective has to encounter.</p>
+
+<p>“And Mr. Ranelagh, I suppose you would say?” was Sweetwater’s easy
+finish.</p>
+
+<p>No answer; the coachman simply locked the door and put the key in his
+pocket.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater made no effort to deter him. More than that he desisted from
+further questions though he was dying to ask where this key was kept at
+night, and whether it had been in its usual place on the evening of the
+murder. He had gone far enough, he thought. Another step and he might
+rouse this man’s suspicion, if not his enmity. But he did not leave
+the shadows into which he again receded until he had satisfied himself
+that the key went into the stable with the coachman, where it probably
+remained for this night, at least.</p>
+
+<p>It was after ten when Sweetwater re-entered the house to say good night
+to Hexford. He found him on watch in the upper hall, and the man,
+Clarke, below. He had a word with the former:</p>
+
+<p>“What is the purpose of the little door in the wall back of the stable?”</p>
+
+<p>“It connects these grounds with those of the Fultons. The Fultons live
+on Huested Street.”</p>
+
+<p>“Are the two families intimate?”</p>
+
+<p>“Very. Mr. Cumberland is sweet on the young lady there. She was at the
+funeral to-day. She fainted when—you know when.”</p>
+
+<p>“I can guess. God! What complications arise! You don’t say that any
+woman can care for <i>him</i>?”</p>
+
+<p>Hexford gave a shrug. He had seen a good deal of life.</p>
+
+<p>“He uses that door, then?” Sweetwater pursued, after a minute.</p>
+
+<p>“Probably.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did he use it that night?”</p>
+
+<p>“He didn’t visit <i>her</i>”</p>
+
+<p>“Where did he go?”</p>
+
+<p>“We can’t find out. He was first seen on Garden Street, coming home
+after a night of debauch. He had drunk hard. Asked where he got the
+liquor, he maundered out something about a saloon; but none of the
+places which he usually frequents had seen him that night. I have tried
+them all and some that weren’t in his books. It was no good.”</p>
+
+<p>“That door is supposed to be locked at night. Zadok says that’s his
+duty. Was it locked that night?”</p>
+
+<p>“Can’t say. Perhaps the coroner can. You see the inquiry ran in such a
+different direction, at first, that a small matter like that may have
+been overlooked.”</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater subdued the natural retort, and, reverting to the subject of
+the saloons, got some specific information in regard to them. Then he
+passed thoughtfully down-stairs, only to come upon Helen who was just
+extinguishing the front-hall light.</p>
+
+<p>“Good night!” he said, in passing.</p>
+
+<p>“Good night, Mr. Sweetwater.”</p>
+
+<p>There was something in her tone which made him stop and look back. She
+had stepped into the library and was blowing out the lamp there. He
+paused a moment and sighed softly. Then he started towards the door,
+only to stop again and cast another look back. She was standing in one
+of the doorways, anxiously watching him and twisting her fingers in and
+out in an irresolute way truly significant in one of her disposition.</p>
+
+<p>He felt his heart leap.</p>
+
+<p>Returning softly, he took up his stand before her, looking her straight
+in the eye.</p>
+
+<p>“Good night,” he repeated, with an odd emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>“Good night,” she answered, with equal force and meaning.</p>
+
+<p>But the next moment she was speaking rapidly, earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>“I can’t sleep,” said she. “I never can when I’m not certain of my
+duty. Mr. Ranelagh is an injured man. Ask what was said and done at
+their last dinner here. I can’t tell you. I didn’t listen and I didn’t
+see what happened, but it was something out of the ordinary. Three
+broken wineglasses lay on the tablecloth when I went in to clear away.
+I heard the clatter when they fell and smashed, but I said nothing. I
+have said nothing since; but I know there was a quarrel, and that Mr.
+Ranelagh was not in it, for his glass was the only one which remained
+unbroken. Am I wrong in telling you? I wouldn’t if—if it were not
+for Mr. Ranelagh. He didn’t do right by Miss Cumberland, but he don’t
+deserve to be in prison; and so would Miss Carmel tell you if she knew
+what was going on and could speak. <i>She</i> loved him and—I’ve said
+enough; I’ve said enough,” the agitated girl protested, as he leaned
+eagerly towards her. “I couldn’t tell the priest any more. Good night.”</p>
+
+<p>And she was gone.</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated a moment, then pursued his way to the side door, and so
+out of the house into the street. As he passed along the front of the
+now darkened building, he scanned it with a new interest and a new
+doubt. Soon he returned to his old habit of muttering to himself. “We
+don’t know the half of what has taken place within those walls during
+the last four weeks,” said he. “But one thing I will solve, and that is
+where this miserable fellow spent the hours between this dinner they
+speak of and the time of his return next day. Hexford has failed at it.
+Now we’ll see what a blooming stranger can do.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XVI">XVI<br><span class="small">62 CUTHBERT ROAD</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">Tush! I will stir about,<br>
+And all things will be well, I warrant thee.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Romeo and Juliet</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>He was walking south and on the best lighted and most beautiful street
+in town, but his eyes were forever seeking a break in the long line of
+fence which marked off the grounds of a seemingly interminable stretch
+of neighbouring mansions, and when a corner was at last reached, he
+dashed around it and took a straight course for Huested Street, down
+which he passed with quickened steps and an air of growing assurance.</p>
+
+<p>He was soon at the bottom of the hill where the street, taking a turn,
+plunged him at once into a thickly populated district. As this was
+still the residence quarter, he passed on until he gained the heart
+of the town and the region of the saloons. Here he slackened pace and
+consulted a memorandum he had made while talking to Hexford. “A big
+job,” was his comment, sorry to find the hour quite so late. “But I’m
+not bound to finish it to-night. A start is all I can hope for, so here
+goes.”</p>
+
+<p>It was not his intention to revisit the places so thoroughly overhauled
+by the police. He carried another list, that of certain small groceries
+and quiet unobtrusive hotels where a man could find a private room
+in which to drink alone; it being Sweetwater’s conviction that in
+such a place, and in such a place only, would be found the tokens of
+those solitary hours spent by Arthur Cumberland between the time of
+his sister’s murder and his reappearance the next day. “Had they been
+spent in his old haunts or in any of the well-known drinking saloons
+of the city, some one would have peached on him before this,” he went
+on, in silent argument with himself. “He’s too well known, too much of
+a swell for all his lowering aspect and hang-dog look, to stroll along
+unnoticed through any of the principal streets, so soon after the news
+of his sister’s murder had set the whole town agog. Yet he was not seen
+till he struck Garden Street, a good quarter of a mile from his usual
+resorts.”</p>
+
+<p>Here, Sweetwater glanced up at the corner gas-lamp beneath which
+he stood, and seeing that he was in Garden Street, tried to locate
+himself in the exact spot where this young man had first been seen on
+the notable morning in question. Then he looked carefully about him.
+Nothing in the street or its immediate neighbourhood suggested the low
+and secret den he was in search of.</p>
+
+<p>“I shall have to make use of the list,” he decided, and asked the first
+passer-by the way to Hubbell’s Alley.</p>
+
+<p>It was a mile off. “That settles it,” muttered Sweetwater. “Besides, I
+doubt if he would go into an <i>alley</i>. The man has sunk low, but hardly
+so low as that. What’s the next address I have? Cuthbert Road. Where’s
+that?”</p>
+
+<p>Espying a policeman eyeing him with more or less curiosity from the
+other side of the street, he crossed over and requested to be directed
+to Cuthbert Road.</p>
+
+<p>“Cuthbert Road! That’s where the markets are. They’re closed at this
+time of night,” was the somewhat suspicious reply.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently the location was not a savoury one.</p>
+
+<p>“Are there nothing but markets there?” inquired Sweetwater, innocently.
+It was his present desire not to be recognised as a detective even by
+the men on beat. “I’m looking up a friend. He keeps a grocery or some
+kind of small hotel. I have his number, but I don’t know how to get to
+Cuthbert Road.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then turn straight about and go down the first street, and you’ll
+reach it before the trolley-car you see up there can strike this
+corner. But first, sew up your pockets. There’s a bad block between you
+and the markets.”</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater slapped his trousers and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>“I wasn’t born yesterday,” he cried; and following the officer’s
+directions, made straight for the Road. “Worse than the alley,” he
+muttered; “but too near to be slighted. I wonder if I shouldn’t have
+borrowed somebody’s old coat.”</p>
+
+<p>It had been wiser, certainly. In Garden Street all the houses had been
+closed and dark, but here they were open and often brightly lighted and
+noisy from cellar to roof. Men, women, and frequently children, jostled
+him on the pavement, and he felt his pockets touched more than once.
+But he wasn’t Caleb Sweetwater of the New York department of police
+for nothing. He laughed, bantered, fought his way through and finally
+reached the quieter region and, at this hour, the almost deserted
+one, of the markets. Sixty-two was not far off, and, pausing a moment
+to consider his course, he mechanically took in the surroundings. He
+was surprised to find himself almost in the open country. The houses
+extending on his left were fronted by the booths and stalls of the
+market but beyond these were the fields. Interested in this discovery,
+and anxious to locate himself exactly, he took his stand under a
+favouring gas-lamp, and took out his map.</p>
+
+<p>What he saw, sent him forward in haste. Shops had now taken the place
+of tenements, and as these were mostly closed, there were very few
+persons on the block, and those were quiet and unobtrusive. He reached
+a corner before coming to 62 and was still more interested to perceive
+that the street which branched off thus immediately from the markets
+was a wide and busy one, offering both a safe and easy approach to
+dealer and customer. “I’m on the track,” he whispered almost aloud in
+his secret self-congratulation. “Sixty-two will prove a decent quiet
+resort which I may not be above patronising myself.”</p>
+
+<p>But he hesitated when he reached it. Some houses invite and some repel.
+This house repelled. Yet there was nothing shabby or mysterious about
+it. There was the decent entrance, lighted, but not too brilliantly; a
+row of dark windows over it; and, above it all, a sloping roof in which
+another sparkle of light drew his attention to an upper row of windows,
+this time, of the old dormer shape. An alley ran down one side of the
+house to the stables, now locked but later to be thrown open for the
+use of the farmers who begin to gather here as early as four o’clock.
+Nothing wrong in its appearance, everything ship-shape and yet—“I
+shall find some strange characters here,” was the Sweetwater comment
+with which our detective opened the door and walked into the house.</p>
+
+<p>It was an unusual hour for guests, and the woman whom he saw bending
+over a sort of desk in one corner of the room he strode into, looked up
+hastily, almost suspiciously.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, and what is your business?” she asked, with her eye on his
+clothes, which while not fashionable, were evidently of the sort not
+often seen in that place.</p>
+
+<p>“I want a room,” he tipsily confided to her, “in which I can drink and
+drink till I cannot see. I’m in trouble I am; but I don’t want to do
+any mischief; I only want to forget. I’ve money, and—” as he saw her
+mouth open, “and I’ve the stuff. Whiskey, just whiskey. Give me a room.
+I’ll be quiet.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll give you nothing.” She was hot, angry, and full of distrust.
+“This house is not for such as you. It’s a farmer’s lodging; honest
+men, who’d stare and go mad to see a feller like you about. Go along, I
+tell you, or I’ll call Jim. He’ll know what to do with you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then, he’ll know mor’n I do myself,” mumbled the detective, with a
+crushed and discouraged air. “Money and not a place to spend it in! Why
+can’t I go in there?” he peevishly inquired with a tremulous gesture
+towards a half-open door through which a glimpse could be got of a neat
+little snuggery. “Nobody’ll see me. Give me a glass and leave me till I
+rap for you in the morning. That’s worth a fiver. Don’t you think so,
+missus?—And we’ll begin by passing over the fiver.”</p>
+
+<p>“No.”</p>
+
+<p>She was mighty peremptory and what was more, she was in a great hurry
+to get rid of him. This haste and the anxious ear she turned towards
+the hall enlightened him as to the situation. There was some one within
+hearing or liable to come within hearing, who possibly was not so stiff
+under temptation. Could it be her husband? If so, it might be worth his
+own while to await the good man’s coming, if only he could manage to
+hold his own for the next few minutes.</p>
+
+<p>Changing his tactics, he turned his back on the snuggery and surveyed
+the offended woman, with just a touch of maudlin sentiment.</p>
+
+<p>“I say,” he cried, just loud enough to attract the attention of any one
+within ear-shot. “You’re a mighty fine woman and the boss of this here
+establishment; that’s evident. I’d like to see the man who could say
+no to you. He’s never sat in that ’ere cashier’s seat where you be; of
+that I’m dead sure. He wouldn’t care for fivers if you didn’t, nor for
+tens either.”</p>
+
+<p>She was really a fine woman for her station, and a buxom, powerful one,
+too. But her glance wavered under these words and she showed a desire,
+with difficulty suppressed, to use the strength of her white but brawny
+arms, in shoving him out of the house. To aid her self-control, he, on
+his part, began to edge towards the door, always eyeing her and always
+speaking loudly in admirably acted tipsy unconsciousness of the fact.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m a man who likes my own way as well as anybody,” were the words
+with which he sought to save the situation, and further his own
+purposes. “But I never quarrel with a woman. Her whims are sacred to
+me. I may not believe in them; they may cost me money and comfort; but
+I yield, I do, when they are as strong in their wishes as you be. I’m
+going, missus —I’m going—Oh!”</p>
+
+<p>The exclamation burst from him. He could not help it. The door behind
+him had opened, and a man stepped in, causing him so much astonishment
+that he forgot himself. The woman was big, bigger than most women who
+rule the roost and do the work in haunts where work calls for muscle
+and a good head behind it. She was also rosy and of a make to draw the
+eye, if not the heart. But the man who now entered was small almost to
+the point of being a manikin, and more than that, he was weazen of face
+and ill-balanced on his two tiny, ridiculous legs. Yet she trembled
+at his presence, and turned a shade paler as she uttered the feeble
+protest:</p>
+
+<p>“Jim!”</p>
+
+<p>“Is she making a fool of herself?” asked the little man in a voice as
+shrill as it was weak. “Do your business with me. Women are no good.”
+And he stalked into the room as only little men can.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater took out his ten; pointed to the snuggery, and tapped his
+breast-pocket. “Whiskey here,” he confided. “Bring me a glass. I don’t
+mind your farmers. They won’t bother me. What I want is a locked door
+and a still mouth in your head.”</p>
+
+<p>The last he whispered in the husband’s ear as the wife crossed
+reluctantly back to her books.</p>
+
+<p>The man turned the bill he had received, over and over in his hand;
+then scrutinised Sweetwater, with his first show of hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>“You don’t want to kill yourself?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater laughed with a show of good humour that appeared to relieve
+the woman, if it did not the man.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, that’s it,” he cried. “That’s what the missus was afraid of, was
+it? Well, I vow! And ten thousand dollars to my credit in the bank!
+No, I don’t want to kill myself. I just want to booze to my heart’s
+content, with nobody by to count the glasses. You’ve known such fellers
+before, and that cosey, little room over there has known them, too.
+Just add me to the list; it won’t harm you.”</p>
+
+<p>The man’s hand closed on the bill. Sweetwater noted the action out of
+the corner of his eye, but his direct glance was on the woman. Her back
+was to him, but she had started as he mentioned the snuggery and made
+as if to turn; but thought better of it, and bent lower over her books.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve struck the spot,” he murmured, exultantly to himself. “This is
+the place I want and here I’ll spend the night; but not to booze my
+wits away, oh, no.”</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless it was a night virtually wasted. He learned nothing more
+than what was revealed by that one slight movement on the part of the
+woman.</p>
+
+<p>Though the man came in and sat with him for an hour, and they drank
+together out of the flask Sweetwater had brought with him, he was as
+impervious to all Sweetwater’s wiles and as blind to every bait he
+threw out, as any man the young detective had ever had to do with.
+When the door closed on him, and Sweetwater was left to sit out the
+tedious night alone, it was with small satisfaction to himself, and
+some regret for his sacrificed bill. The driving in of the farmers and
+the awakening of life in the market, and all the stir it occasioned
+inside the house and out, prevented sleep even if he had been inclined
+that way. He had to swallow his pill, and he did it with the best
+grace possible. Sooner than was expected of him, sooner than was wise,
+perhaps, he was on his feet and peering out of the one small window
+this most dismal day room contained. He had not mistaken the outlook.
+It gave on to the alley, and all that was visible from behind the
+curtains where he stood, was the high brick wall of the neighbouring
+house. This wall had not even a window in it; which in itself was a
+disappointment to one of his resources. He turned back into the room,
+disgusted; then crept to the window again, and, softly raising the
+sash, cast one of his lightning glances up and down the alley. Then he
+softly let the sash fall again and retreated to the centre of the room,
+where he stood for a moment with a growing smile of intelligence and
+hope on his face. He had detected close against the side of the wall,
+a box or hand-cart full of empty bottles. It gave him an idea. With an
+impetuosity he would have criticised in another man, he flung himself
+out of the room in which he had been for so many hours confined, and
+coming face to face with the landlady standing in unexpected watch
+before the door, found it a strain on his nerves to instantly assume
+the sullen, vaguely abused air with which he had decided to leave the
+house. Nevertheless, he made the attempt, and if he did not succeed to
+his own satisfaction, he evidently did to hers, for she made no effort
+to stop him as he stumbled out, and in her final look, which he managed
+with some address to intercept, he perceived nothing but relief. What
+had been in her mind? Fear for him or fear for themselves? He could
+not decide until he had rummaged that cart of bottles. But how was he
+to do this without attracting attention to himself in a way he still
+felt, to be undesirable. In his indecision, he paused on the sidewalk
+and let his glances wander vaguely over the busy scene before him.
+Before be knew it, his eye had left the market and travelled across
+the snow-covered fields to a building standing by itself in the far
+distance. Its appearance was not unfamiliar. Seizing hold of the first
+man who passed him, he pointed it out, crying:</p>
+
+<p>“What building is that?”</p>
+
+<p>“That? That’s The Whispering Pines, the country club-house, where—”</p>
+
+<p>He didn’t wait for the end of the sentence, but plunged into the
+thickest group of people he could find, with a determination greater
+than ever to turn those bottles over before he ate.</p>
+
+<p>His manner of going about this was characteristic. Lounging about
+the stalls until he found just the sort of old codger he wanted, he
+scraped up an acquaintance with him on the spot, and succeeded in
+making himself so agreeable that when the old fellow sauntered back to
+the stables to take a look at his horse, Sweetwater accompanied him.
+Hanging round the stable-door, he kept up his chatter, while sizing up
+the bottles heaped in the cart at his side. He even allowed himself to
+touch one or two in an absent way, and was meditating an accidental
+upset of the whole collection when a woman he had not seen before,
+thrust her head out of a rear window, shouting sharply:</p>
+
+<p>“Leave those bottles alone. They’re waiting for the old clothes man. He
+pays us money for them.”</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater gaped and strolled away. He had used his eyes to purpose,
+and was quite assured that the bottle he wanted was not there. But
+the woman’s words had given him his cue, and when later in the day a
+certain old Jew peddler went his rounds through this portion of the
+city, a disreputable-looking fellow accompanied him, whom even the
+sharp landlady in Cuthbert Road would have failed to recognise as the
+same man who had occupied the snuggery the night before. He was many
+hours on the route and had many new experiences with human nature. But
+he gained little else, and was considering with what words he should
+acknowledge his defeat at police headquarters, when he found himself
+again at the markets and a minute later in the alley where the cart
+stood, with the contents of which he had busied himself earlier in the
+day.</p>
+
+<p>He had followed the peddler here because he had followed him to every
+other back door and alley. But he was tired and had small interest
+in the cart which looked quite undisturbed and in exactly the same
+condition as when he turned his back upon it in the morning. But when
+he drew nearer and began to lend a hand in removing the bottles to the
+waggon, he discovered that a bottle had been added to the pile, and
+that this bottle bore the label which marked it as being one of the two
+which had been taken from the club-house on the night of the murder.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XVII">XVII<br><span class="small">“MUST I TELL THESE THINGS?”</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">Had I but died an hour before this chance,<br>
+I had liv’d a blessed time; for from this instant,<br>
+There’s nothing serious in mortality:<br>
+All is but toys; renown, and grace is dead;<br>
+The wine of life is drawn, and the lees<br>
+Is left this vault to brag of.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Macbeth</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>The lamp in the coroner’s room shone dully on the perturbed faces of
+three anxious men. They had been talking earnestly and long, but were
+now impatiently awaiting the appearance of a fourth party, as was shown
+by the glances which each threw from time to time towards the door
+leading into the main corridor.</p>
+
+<p>The district attorney courted the light, and sat where he would be the
+first seen by any one entering. He had nothing to hide, being entirely
+engrossed in his duty.</p>
+
+<p>Further back and rather behind the lamp than in front of it stood
+or sat, as his restlessness prompted, Coroner Perry, the old friend
+of Amasa Cumberland, with whose son he had now to do. Behind him,
+and still further in the shadow, could be seen the quiet figure of
+Sweetwater. All counted the minutes and all showed relief—the coroner
+by a loud sigh—when the door finally opened and an officer appeared,
+followed by the lounging form of Adelaide’s brother.</p>
+
+<p>Arthur Cumberland had come unwillingly, and his dissatisfaction did
+not improve his naturally heavy countenance. However, he brightened a
+little at sight of the two men sitting at the table, and, advancing,
+broke into speech before either of the two officials had planned their
+questions.</p>
+
+<p>“I call this hard,” he burst forth. “My place is at home and at the
+bedside of my suffering sister, and you drag me down here at nine
+o’clock at night to answer questions about things of which I am
+completely ignorant. I’ve said all I have to say about the trouble
+which has come into my family; but if another repetition of the same
+things will help to convict that scoundrel who has broken up my home
+and made me the wretchedest dog alive, then I’m ready to talk. So, fire
+ahead, Dr. Perry, and let’s be done with it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Sit down,” replied the district attorney, gravely, with a gesture
+of dismissal to the officer. “Mr. Cumberland, we have spared you up
+to this time, for two very good reasons. You were in great trouble,
+and you appeared to be in the possession of no testimony which
+would materially help us. But matters have changed since you held
+conversation with Dr. Perry on the day following your sister’s decease.
+You have laid that sister away; the will which makes you an independent
+man for life has been read in your hearing; you are in as much ease of
+mind as you can be while your remaining sister’s life hangs trembling
+in the balance; and, more important still, discoveries not made before
+the funeral, have been made since, rendering it very desirable for
+you to enter into particulars at this present moment, which were not
+thought necessary then.”</p>
+
+<p>“Particulars? What particulars? Don’t you know enough, as it is, to
+hang the fellow? Wasn’t he seen with his fingers on Adelaide’s throat?
+What can I tell you that is any more damaging than that? Particulars!”
+The word seemed to irritate him beyond endurance. Never had he looked
+more unprepossessing or a less likely subject for sympathy, than when
+he stumbled into the chair set for him by the district attorney.</p>
+
+<p>“Arthur!”</p>
+
+<p>The word had a subtle ring. The coroner, who uttered it, waited to
+watch its effect. Seemingly it had none, after the first sullen glance
+thrown him by the young man; and the coroner sighed again, but this
+time softly, and as a prelude to the following speech:</p>
+
+<p>“We can understand,” said he, “why you should feel so strongly against
+one who has divided the hearts of your sisters, and played with one,
+if not with both. Few men could feel differently. You have reason for
+your enmity and we excuse it; but you must not carry it to the point
+of open denunciation before the full evidence is in and the fact of
+murder settled beyond all dispute. Whatever you may think, whatever we
+may think, it has not been so settled. There are missing links still to
+be supplied, and this is why we have summoned you here and ask you to
+be patient and give the district attorney a little clearer account of
+what went on in your own house, before you broke up that evening and
+you went to your debauch, and your sister Adelaide to her death at The
+Whispering Pines.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know what you mean.” He brought his fist down on the table
+with each word. “Nothing went on. That is,—”</p>
+
+<p>“Something went on at dinner-time. It was not a usual meal,” put in the
+district attorney. “You and your sisters—”</p>
+
+<p>“Stop!” He was at that point of passion which dulls the most
+self-controlled to all sense of propriety.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t talk to me about that dinner. I want to forget that dinner. I
+want to forget everything but the two things I live for—to see that
+fellow hanged, and to—” The words choked him, and he let his head
+fall, but presently threw it up again. “That dastard, whom may God
+confound, passed a letter across Adelaide into Carmel’s hand,” he
+panted out. “I saw him, but I didn’t take it in; I wasn’t thinking. I
+was—”</p>
+
+<p>“Who broke the glasses?” urged his relentless inquisitor. “One at your
+plate, one at Carmel’s, and one at the head of the board where sat your
+sister Adelaide?”</p>
+
+<p>“God! Must I tell these things?” He had started to his feet and his
+hand, violent in all it did, struck his forehead impulsively, as he
+uttered this exclamation. “Have it, then! Heaven knows I think of it
+enough not to be afraid to speak it out in words. Adelaide”—the name
+came with passion, but once uttered, produced its own calming effect,
+so that he went on with more restraint—“Adelaide never had much
+patience with me. She was a girl who only saw one way. ‘The right! the
+right!’ was what she dinned into my ears from the time I was a small
+boy and didn’t know but that all youngsters were brought up by sisters.
+I grew to hate what she called ‘the right,’ I wanted pleasure, a free
+time, and a good drink whenever the fancy took me. You know what I
+am, Dr. Perry, and everybody in town knows; but the impulse which has
+always ruled me was not a downright evil one; or if it was, I called
+it natural independence, and let it go at that. But Adelaide suffered.
+I didn’t understand it and I didn’t care a fig for it, but she <i>did</i>
+suffer. God forgive me!”</p>
+
+<p>He stopped and mopped his forehead. Sweetwater moved a trifle on his
+seat, but the others—men who had passed the meridian of life, who
+had known temptations, possibly had succumbed to them, from time to
+time—sat like two statues, one in full light and the other in as dark
+a shadow as he could find.</p>
+
+<p>“That afternoon,” young Cumberland presently resumed, “she was keyed up
+more than usual. She loved Ranelagh,—damn him!—and he had played or
+was playing her false. She watched him with eyes that madden me, now,
+when I think of them. She saw him look at Carmel, and she saw Carmel
+look at him. Then her eyes fell on me. I was angry; angry at them all,
+and I wanted a drink. It was not her habit to have wine on the table;
+but sometimes, when Ranelagh was there, she did. She was a slave to
+Ranelagh, and he could make her do whatever he wished, just as he can
+make you and everybody else.”</p>
+
+<p>Here he shot insolent glances at his two interlocutors, one of whom
+changed colour—which, happily, he did not see. “‘Ring the bell,’ I
+ordered, ‘and have in the champagne. I want to drink to your marriage
+and the happy days in prospect for us all,’ It was brutal and I
+knew it; but I was reckless and wild for the wine. So, I guess, was
+Ranelagh, for he smiled at her, and she rang for the champagne. When
+the glasses had been set beside each plate, she turned towards Carmel.
+‘We will all drink,’ she said, ‘to my coming marriage,’ This made
+Carmel turn pale; for Adelaide had never been known to drink a drop
+of liquor in her life. I felt a little queer, myself; and not one
+of us spoke till the glasses were filled and the maid had left the
+dining-room and shut the door.</p>
+
+<p>“Then Adelaide rose. ‘We will drink standing,’ said she, and never
+had I seen her look as she did then. I thought of my evil life
+when I should have been watching Ranelagh; and when she lifted the
+glass to her lips and looked at me, almost as earnestly as she did
+at Ranelagh,—but it was a different kind of earnestness,—I felt
+like—like—well, like the wretch I was and always had been; possibly,
+always will be. She drank;—we wouldn’t call it drinking, for she just
+touched the wine with her lips; but to her it was debauch. Then she
+stood waiting, with the strangest gleam in her eyes, while Ranelagh
+drained his glass and I drained mine. Ranelagh thought she wanted some
+sentiment, and started to say something appropriate; but his eye fell
+on Carmel, who had tried to drink and couldn’t, and he bungled over his
+words and at last came to a pause under the steady stare of Adelaide’s
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Never mind, Elwood,’ she said; ‘I know what you would like to
+say. But that’s not what I am thinking of now. I am thinking of my
+brother, the boy who will soon be left to find his way through life
+without even the unwelcome restraint of my presence. I want him to
+remember this day. I want him to remember me as I stand here before
+him with this glass in my hand. You see wine in it, Arthur; but I see
+poison—poison—nothing else, for one like you who cannot refuse a
+friend, cannot refuse your own longing. Never from this day on shall
+another bottle be opened under my roof. Carmel, you have grieved as
+well as I over what has passed for pleasure in this house. Do as I do,
+and may Arthur see and remember.’</p>
+
+<p>“Her fingers opened; the glass fell from her hand, and lay in broken
+fragments beside her plate. Carmel followed suit, and, before I knew
+it, my own fingers had opened, and my own glass lay in pieces on the
+table-cloth beneath me. Only Ranelagh’s hand remained steady. He did
+not choose to please her, or he was planning his perfidy and had
+not caught her words or understood her action. She held her breath,
+watching that hand; and I can hear the gasp yet with which she saw him
+set his glass down quietly on the board. That’s the story of those
+three broken glasses. If she had not died that night, I should be
+laughing at them now; but she did die and I don’t laugh! I curse—curse
+her recreant lover, and sometimes myself! Do you want anything more of
+me? I’m eager to be gone, if you don’t.”</p>
+
+<p>The district attorney sought out and lifted a paper from the others
+lying on the desk before him. It was the first movement he had made
+since Cumberland began his tale.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m sorry,” said he, with a rapid examination of the paper in his
+hand, “but I shall have to detain you a few minutes longer. What
+happened after the dinner? Where did you go from the table?”</p>
+
+<p>“I went to my room to smoke. I was upset and thirsty as a fish.”</p>
+
+<p>“Have you liquor in your room?”</p>
+
+<p>“Sometimes.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you have any that night?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not a drop. I didn’t dare. I wanted that champagne bottle, but
+Adelaide had been too quick for me. It was thrown out—wasted—I do
+believe, wasted.”</p>
+
+<p>“So you did not drink? You only smoked in your room?”</p>
+
+<p>“Smoked one cigar. That was all. Then I went down town.”</p>
+
+<p>His tone had grown sulky, the emotion which had buoyed him up till now,
+seemed suddenly to have left him. With it went the fire from his eye,
+the quiver from his lip, and it is necessary to add, everything else
+calculated to awaken sympathy. He was simply sullen now.</p>
+
+<p>“May I ask by which door you left the house?”</p>
+
+<p>“The side door—the one I always take.”</p>
+
+<p>“What overcoat did you wear?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t remember. The first one I came to, I suppose.”</p>
+
+<p>“But you can surely tell what hat?”</p>
+
+<p>They expected a violent reply, and they got it.</p>
+
+<p>“No, I can’t. What has my hat got to do with the guilt of Elwood
+Ranelagh?”</p>
+
+<p>“Nothing, we hope,” was the imperturbable answer. “But we find it
+necessary to establish absolutely just what overcoat and what hat you
+wore down street that night.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve told you that I don’t remember.” The young man’s colour was
+rising.</p>
+
+<p>“Are not these the ones?” queried the district attorney, making a sign
+to Sweetwater, who immediately stepped forward, with a shabby old
+ulster over his arm, and a battered derby in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>The young man started, rose, then sat again, shouting out with angry
+emphasis:</p>
+
+<p>“<i>No!</i>”</p>
+
+<p>“Yet you recognise these?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why shouldn’t I? They’re mine. Only I don’t wear them any more.
+They’re done for. You must have rooted them out from some closet.”</p>
+
+<p>“We did; perhaps you can tell us what closet.”</p>
+
+<p>“I? No. What do I know about my old clothes? I leave that to the women.”</p>
+
+<p>The slight faltering observable in the latter word conveyed nothing to
+these men.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland,”—the district attorney was very serious,—“this hat
+and this coat, old as they are, were worn into town from your house
+that night. This we know, absolutely. We can even trace them to the
+club-house.”</p>
+
+<p>Mechanically, not spontaneously this time, the young man rose to his
+feet, staring first at the man who had uttered these words, then at the
+garments which Sweetwater still held in view. No anger now; he was too
+deeply shaken for that, too shaken to answer at once—too shaken to be
+quite the master of his own faculties. But he rallied after an interval
+during which these three men devoured his face, each under his own
+special anxiety, and read there possibly what each least wanted to see.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know anything about it,” were the words with which Arthur
+Cumberland sought to escape from the net which had been thus deftly
+cast about him. “I didn’t wear the things. Anybody can tell you what
+clothes I came home in. Ranelagh may have borrowed—”</p>
+
+<p>“Ranelagh wore his own coat and hat. We will let the subject of apparel
+drop, and come to a topic on which you may be better qualified to
+speak. Mr. Cumberland, you have told us that you didn’t know at the
+time, and can’t remember now, where you spent that night and most of
+the next morning. All you can remember is that it was in some place
+where they let you drink all you wished and leave when the fancy
+took you, and not before. It was none of your usual haunts. This
+seemed strange to your friends, at the time; but it is easier for us
+to understand, now that you have told us what had occurred at your
+home-table. You dreaded to have your sister know how soon you could
+escape the influence of that moment. You wished to drink your fill and
+leave your family none the wiser. Am I not right?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; it’s plain enough, isn’t it? Why harp on that string? Don’t you
+see that it maddens me? Do you want to drive me to drink again?”</p>
+
+<p>The coroner interposed. He had been very willing to leave the burden of
+this painful inquiry to the man who had no personal feelings to contend
+with; but at this indignant cry he started forward, and, with an air of
+fatherly persuasion, remarked kindly:</p>
+
+<p>“You mustn’t mind the official tone, or the official persistence. There
+is reason for all that Mr. Fox says. Answer him frankly, and this
+inquiry will terminate speedily. We have no wish to harry you—only to
+get at the truth.”</p>
+
+<p>“The truth? I thought you had that pat enough. The truth? The truth
+about what? Ranelagh or me? I should think it was about me, from the
+kind of questions you ask.”</p>
+
+<p>“It is, just now,” resumed the district attorney, as his colleague drew
+back out of sight once more. “You cannot remember the saloon in which
+you drank. That’s possible enough; but perhaps you can remember what
+they gave you. Was it whiskey, rum, absinthe, or what?”</p>
+
+<p>The question took his irritable listener by surprise. Arthur gasped,
+and tried to steal some comfort from Coroner Perry’s eye. But that old
+friend’s face was too much in shadow, and the young man was forced to
+meet the district attorney’s eye, instead, and answer the district
+attorney’s question.</p>
+
+<p>“I drank—absinthe,” he cried, at last.</p>
+
+<p>“From this bottle?” queried the other, motioning again to Sweetwater,
+who now brought forward the bottle he had picked up in Cuthbert Road.</p>
+
+<p>Arthur Cumberland glanced at the bottle the detective held up, saw the
+label, saw the shape, and sank limply in his chair, his eyes starting,
+his jaw falling.</p>
+
+<p>“Where did you get that?” he asked, pulling himself together with a
+sudden desperate self-possession that caused Sweetwater to cast a
+quick significant glance at the coroner, as he withdrew to his corner,
+leaving the bottle on the table.</p>
+
+<p>“That,” answered the district attorney, “was picked up at a small hotel
+on Cuthbert Road, just back of the markets.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know the place.”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s not far from The Whispering Pines. In fact, you can see the
+club-house from the front door of this hotel.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know the place, I tell you.”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s not a high-class resort; not select enough by a long shot, to
+have this brand of liquor in its cellar. They tell me that this is of
+very choice quality. That very few private families, even, indulge in
+it. That there were only two bottles of it left in the club-house when
+the inventory was last taken, that those two bottles are now gone, and
+that—”</p>
+
+<p>“This is one of them? Is that what you want to say? Well, it may be for
+all I know. I didn’t carry it there. I didn’t have the drinking of it.”</p>
+
+<p>“We have seen the man and woman who keep that hotel. They will talk, if
+they have to.”</p>
+
+<p>“They will?” His dogged self-possession rather astonished them. “Well,
+that ought to please you. I’ve nothing to do with the matter.”</p>
+
+<p>A change had taken place in him. The irritability approaching to
+violence, which had attended every speech and infused itself into every
+movement since he came into the room, had left him. He spoke quietly,
+and with a touch of irony in his tone. He seemed more the man, but not
+a whit more prepossessing, and, if anything, less calculated to inspire
+confidence. The district attorney showed that he was baffled, and Dr.
+Perry moved uneasily in his seat, until Sweetwater, coming forward,
+took up the cue and spoke for the first time since young Cumberland
+entered the room.</p>
+
+<p>“Then I have no doubt but you will do us this favour,” he volunteered,
+in his pleasantest manner. “It’s not a long walk from here. Will you go
+there in my company, with your coat-collar pulled up and your hat well
+down over your eyes, and ask for a seat in the snuggery and show them
+this bottle? They won’t know that it’s empty. The man is sharp and the
+woman intelligent. They will see that you are a stranger, and admit you
+readily. They are only shy of one man—the man who drank there on the
+night of your sister’s murder.”</p>
+
+<p>“You ’re a—” he began, with a touch of his old violence; but
+realising, perhaps, that his fingers were in a trap, he modified his
+manner again, and continued more quietly. “This is an odd request
+to make. I begin to feel as if my word were doubted here; as if my
+failings and reckless confession of the beastly way in which I spent
+that night, were making you feel that I have no good in me and am at
+once a liar and a sneak. I’m not. I won’t go with you to that low
+drinking hell, unless you make me, but I’ll swear—”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t swear.” It is unnecessary to say who spoke. “We wouldn’t believe
+you, and it would be only adding perjury to the rest.”</p>
+
+<p>“You wouldn’t believe me?”</p>
+
+<p>“No; we have reasons, my boy. There were two bottles.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well?”</p>
+
+<p>“The other has been found nearer your home.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s a trick. You’re all up to tricks—”</p>
+
+<p>“Not in this case, Arthur. Let me entreat you in memory of your father
+to be candid with us. We have arrested a man. He denies his guilt,
+but can produce no witnesses in support of his assertions. Yet such
+witnesses may exist. Indeed, we think that one such does exist. The man
+who took the bottles from the club-house’s wine-vault did so within a
+few minutes of the time when this crime was perpetrated on your sister.
+He should be able to give valuable testimony for or against Elwood
+Ranelagh. Now, you can see why we are in search of this witness and
+why we think you can serve us in this secret and extraordinary matter.
+If you can’t, say so; and we will desist from all further questions.
+But this will not help you. It will only show that, in our opinion,
+you have gained the rights of a man suspected of something more than
+shirking his duty as an unknown and hitherto unsuspected witness.”</p>
+
+<p>“This is awful!” Young Cumberland had risen to his feet and was swaying
+to and fro before them like a man struck between the eyes by some
+maddening blow.</p>
+
+<p>“God! if I had only died that night!” he muttered, with his eyes upon
+the floor and every muscle tense with the shock of this last calamity.
+“Dr. Perry,” he moaned suddenly, stretching out one hand in entreaty,
+and clutching at the table for support with the other, “let me go
+for to-night. Let me think. My brain is all in a whirl. I’ll try to
+answer to-morrow.” But even as he spoke he realised the futility of his
+request. His eye had fallen again on the bottle, and, in its shape and
+tell-tale label, he beheld a witness bound to testify against him if he
+kept silent himself.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t answer,” he went on, holding fast to the table, but letting his
+other hand fall. “I was always a fool. I’m nothing but a fool now. I
+may as well own the truth, and be done with it. I was in the clubhouse.
+I did rob the wine-vault; I did carry off the bottles to have a quiet
+spree, and it was to some place on Cuthbert Road I went. But, when
+I’ve admitted so much, I’ve admitted all. I saw nothing of my sister’s
+murder; saw nothing of what went on in the rooms upstairs. I crept in
+by the open window at the top of the kitchen stairs, and I came out by
+the same. I only wanted the liquor, and when I got it, I slid out as
+quickly as I could, and made my way over the golf-links to the Road.”</p>
+
+<p>Wiping the sweat from his brow, he stood trembling. There was something
+in the silence surrounding him which seemed to go to his heart; for
+his free right hand rose unconsciously to his breast, and clung there.
+Sweetwater began to wish himself a million of miles away from this
+scene. This was not the enjoyable part of his work. This was the part
+from which he always shrunk with overpowering distaste.</p>
+
+<p>The district attorney’s voice sounded thin, almost piercing, as he made
+this remark:</p>
+
+<p>“You entered by an open window. Why didn’t you go in by the door?”</p>
+
+<p>“I hadn’t the key. I had only abstracted the one which opens the
+wine-vault. The rest I left on the ring. It was the sight of this key,
+lying on our hall-table, which first gave me the idea. I feel like a
+cad when I think of it, but that’s of no account now. All I really care
+about is for you to believe what I tell you. I wasn’t mixed up in that
+matter of my sister’s death. I didn’t know about it—I wish I had.
+Adelaide might have been saved; we might all have been saved; <i>but it
+was not to be.</i>”</p>
+
+<p>Flushed, he slowly sank back into his seat. No complaint, now, of being
+in a hurry, or of his anxiety to regain his sick sister’s bedside.
+He seemed to have forgotten those fears in the perturbations of the
+moment. His mind and interest were here; everything else had grown dim
+with distance.</p>
+
+<p>“Did you try the front door?”</p>
+
+<p>“What was the use? I knew it to be locked.”</p>
+
+<p>“What was the use of trying the window? Wasn’t it also, presumably,
+locked?”</p>
+
+<p>The red mounted hot and feverish to his cheek.</p>
+
+<p>“You’ll think me no better than a street urchin or something worse,” he
+exclaimed. “I knew that window; I had been through it before. You can
+move that lock with your knife-blade. I had calculated on entering that
+way.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Ranelagh’s story receives confirmation,” commented the district
+attorney, wheeling suddenly towards the coroner. “He says that he found
+this window unlocked, when he approached it with the idea of escaping
+that way.”</p>
+
+<p>Arthur Cumberland remained unmoved.</p>
+
+<p>The district attorney wheeled back.</p>
+
+<p>“There were a number of bottles taken from the wine-vault; some half
+dozen were left on the kitchen table. Why did you trouble yourself to
+carry up so many?”</p>
+
+<p>“Because my greed outran my convenience. I thought I could lug away an
+armful, but there are limits to one’s ability. I realised this when I
+remembered how far I had to go, and so left the greater part of them
+behind.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, when you had a team ready to carry you?”</p>
+
+<p>“A—I had no team.” But the denial cost him something. His cheek lost
+its ruddiness, and took on a sickly white which did not leave it again
+as long as the interview lasted.</p>
+
+<p>“You had no team? How then did you manage to reach home in time to make
+your way back to Cuthbert Road by half-past eleven?”</p>
+
+<p>“I didn’t go home. I went straight across the golf-links. If fresh snow
+hadn’t fallen, you would have seen my tracks all the way to Cuthbert
+Road.”</p>
+
+<p>“If fresh snow had not fallen, we should have known the whole story of
+that night before an hour had passed. How did you carry those bottles?”</p>
+
+<p>“In my overcoat pockets. These pockets,” he blurted out, clapping his
+hands on either side of him.</p>
+
+<p>“Had it begun to snow when you left the clubhouse?”</p>
+
+<p>“No.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was it dark?”</p>
+
+<p>“I guess not; the links were bright as day, or I shouldn’t have got
+over them as quickly as I did.”</p>
+
+<p>“Quickly? How quickly?” The district attorney stole a glance at the
+coroner, which made Sweetwater advance a step from his corner.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know. I don’t understand these questions,” was the sullen
+reply.</p>
+
+<p>“You walked quickly. Does that mean you didn’t look back?”</p>
+
+<p>“How, look back?”</p>
+
+<p>“Your sister lit a candle in the small room where her coat was found.
+This light should have been visible from the golf-links.”</p>
+
+<p>“I didn’t see any light.”</p>
+
+<p>He was almost rough in these answers. He was showing himself now at his
+very worst.</p>
+
+<p>A few more questions followed, but they were of minor import, and
+aroused less violent feeling. The serious portion of the examination,
+if thus it might be called, was over, and all parties showed the
+reaction which follows all unnatural restraint or subdued excitement.</p>
+
+<p>The coroner glanced meaningly at the district attorney, who, tapping
+with his fingers on the table, hesitated for a moment before he finally
+turned again upon Arthur Cumberland.</p>
+
+<p>“You wish to return to your sister? You are at liberty to do so; I will
+trouble you no more to-night. Your sleigh is at the door, I presume.”</p>
+
+<p>The young man nodded, then rising slowly, looked first at the district
+attorney, then at the coroner, with a glance of searching inquiry which
+did not escape the watchful eye of Sweetwater, lurking in the rear.
+There was no display of anger, scarcely of impatience, in him now. If
+he spoke, they did not hear him; and when he moved, it was heavily and
+with a drooping head. They watched him go, each as silent as he. The
+coroner tried to speak, but succeeded no better than the boy himself.
+When the door opened under his hand, they all showed relief, but were
+startled back into their former attention by his turning suddenly in
+the doorway with this final remark:</p>
+
+<p>“What did you say about a bottle with a special label on it being found
+at our house? It never was, or, if it was, some fellow has been playing
+you a trick. I carried off those two bottles myself. One you see there;
+the other is—I can’t tell where; but I didn’t take it home. That you
+can bet on.”</p>
+
+<p>One more look, followed by a heavy frown and a low growling sound in
+his throat—which may have been his way of saying good-bye—and he was
+gone.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater came forward and shut the door; then the three men drew more
+closely together, and the district attorney remarked:</p>
+
+<p>“He is better at the house. I hadn’t the heart on your account, Dr.
+Perry, to hurry matters faster than necessity compels. What a lout he
+is! Pardon me, but what a lout he is to have had two such uncommon and
+attractive sisters.”</p>
+
+<p>“And such a father,” interposed the coroner.</p>
+
+<p>“Just so—and such a father. Sweetwater? Hey! what’s the matter? You
+don’t look satisfied. Didn’t I cover the ground?”</p>
+
+<p>“Fully, sir, so far as I see now, but—”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, well—out with it.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know what to out with. It’s all right but—I guess I’m a
+fool, or tired, or something. Can I do anything more for you? If not,
+I should like to hunt up a bunk. A night’s sleep will make a man of me
+again.”</p>
+
+<p>“Go then; that is, if Dr. Perry has no orders for you.”</p>
+
+<p>“None. I want my sleep, too.” But Dr. Perry had not the aspect of one
+who expects to get it.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater brightened. A few more words, some understanding as to the
+morrow, and he was gone. The district attorney and the coroner still
+sat, but very little passed between them. The clock overhead struck
+the hour; both looked up but neither moved. Another fifteen minutes,
+then the telephone rang. The coroner rose and lifted the receiver. The
+message could be heard by both gentlemen, in the extreme quiet of this
+midnight hour.</p>
+
+<p>“Dr. Perry?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I’m listening.”</p>
+
+<p>“He came in at a quarter to twelve, greatly agitated and very white.
+I ran upon him in the lower hall, and he looked angry enough to knock
+me down; but he simply let out a curse and passed straight up to his
+sister’s room. I waited till he came out; then I managed to get hold of
+the nurse and she told me this queer tale:</p>
+
+<p>“He was all in a tremble when he came in, but she declares he had not
+been drinking. He went immediately to the bedside; but his sister was
+asleep, and he didn’t stay there, but went over where the nurse was,
+and began to hang about her till suddenly she felt a twitch at her side
+and, looking quickly, saw the little book she carries there, falling
+back into place. He had lifted it, and probably read what she had
+written in it during his absence.</p>
+
+<p>“She was displeased, but he laughed when he saw that he had been caught
+and said boldly: ‘You are keeping a record of my sister’s ravings.
+Well, I think I’m as interested in them as you are, and have as much
+right to read as you to write. Thank God! they are innocent enough.
+Even you must acknowledge that,’ She made no answer, for they were
+innocent enough; but she’ll keep the book away from him after this—of
+that you may be sure.”</p>
+
+<p>“And what is he doing now? Is he going into his own room to-night?”</p>
+
+<p>“No. He went there but only to bring out his pillows. He will sleep in
+the alcove.”</p>
+
+<p>“Drink?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, not a drop. He has ordered the whiskey locked up. I hear him
+moaning sometimes to himself as if he missed it awfully, but not a
+thimbleful has left the decanter.”</p>
+
+<p>“Goodnight, Hexford.”</p>
+
+<p>“Good night.”</p>
+
+<p>“You heard?” This to the district attorney.</p>
+
+<p>“Every word.”</p>
+
+<p>Both went for their overcoats. Only on leaving did they speak again,
+and then it was to say:</p>
+
+<p>“At ten o’clock to-morrow morning.”</p>
+
+<p>“At ten o’clock.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XVIII">XVIII<br><span class="small">ON IT WAS WRITTEN—</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">Can this avail thee? Look to it!</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Prometheus Bound</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>The district attorney was right; Sweetwater was not happy. His night’s
+rest had not benefited him. He had seemed natural enough when he first
+appeared at the coroner’s office in the early morning, and equally
+natural all through the lengthy conference which followed; but a half
+hour later, any one who knew him well,—any of his fellow detectives in
+New York; especially Mr. Gryce, who had almost fathered him since he
+came among them, a raw and inexperienced recruit—would have seen at
+first glance that his spirits were no longer at par, and that the cheer
+he displayed in manner and look was entirely assumed, and likely to
+disappear as soon as he found himself alone.</p>
+
+<p>And it did so disappear. When, at two o’clock, he entered the
+club-house grounds, it was without buoyancy or any of the natural
+animation with which he usually went about his work. Each step seemed
+weighted with thought, or, at least, heavy with inner dissatisfaction.
+But his eye was as keen as ever, and he began to use that eye from the
+moment he passed the gates. What was in his mind? Was he hunting for
+new clews, or was he merely seeking to establish the old?</p>
+
+<p>The officers on guard knew him, by this time, and let him pass hither,
+thither, and where he would, unmolested. He walked up and down the
+driveways, peering continuously at the well-trodden snow. He studied
+the spaces between. He sauntered to the rear, and looked out over the
+golf-links. Then he began to study the ground in this direction, as he
+had already studied it in front. The few mutterings which left his lips
+continued to speak of discontent. “If I had only had Clarke’s chance,
+or even Hexford’s,” was among his complaints. “But what can I hope now?
+The snow has been trampled till it is one solid cake of ice, to the
+very edge of the golf-links. Beyond that, the distance is too great
+for minute inspection. Yet it will have to be gone over, inch by inch,
+before I shall feel satisfied. I must know how much of his story is to
+be believed, and how much of it we can safely set aside.”</p>
+
+<p>He ended by wandering down on the golf-links. Taking out his watch, he
+satisfied himself that he had time for an experiment, and immediately
+started for Cuthbert Road. An hour later, he came wandering back, on a
+different line. He looked soured, disappointed. When near the building
+again, he cast his eye over its rear, and gazed long and earnestly at
+the window which had been pointed out to him as the one from which
+a possible light had shone forth that night. There were no trees on
+this side of the house—only vines. But the vines were bare of leaves
+and offered no obstruction to his view. “If there had been a light
+in that window, any one leaving this house by the rear would have
+seen it, unless he had been drunk or a fool,” muttered Sweetwater, in
+contemptuous comment to himself. “Arthur Cumberland’s story is one lie.
+I’ll take the district attorney’s suggestion and return to New York
+to-night. My work’s done here.”</p>
+
+<p>Yet he hung about the links for a long time, and finally ended by
+entering the house, and taking up his stand beneath the long, narrow
+window of the closet overlooking the golf-links. With chin resting on
+his arms, he stared out over the sill and sought from the space before
+him, and from the intricacies of his own mind, the hint he lacked
+to make this present solution of the case satisfactory to all his
+instincts.</p>
+
+<p>“Something is lacking.” Thus he blurted out after a look behind him
+into the adjoining room of death. “I can’t say what; nor can I explain
+my own unrest, or my disinclination to leave this spot. The district
+attorney is satisfied, and so, I’m afraid is the coroner; but I’m not,
+and I feel as guilty—”</p>
+
+<p>Here he threw open the window for air, and, thrusting his head out,
+glanced over the links, then aside at the pines, showing beyond the
+line of the house on the southern end, and then out of mere idleness,
+down at the ground beneath him. “As guilty,” he went on, “as Ranelagh
+appears to be, and some one really is. I—”</p>
+
+<p>Starting, he leaned farther out. What was that he saw in the vines—not
+on the snow of the ground, but half way up in the tangle of small
+branches clinging close to the stone of the lower story, just beneath
+this window? He would see. Something that glistened, something that
+could only have got there by falling from this window. Could he reach
+it? No; he would have to climb up from below to do that. Well, that
+was easy enough. With the thought, he rushed from the room. In another
+minute he was beneath that window; had climbed, pulled, pushed his way
+up; had found the little pocket of netted vines observable from above;
+had thrust in his fingers and worked a small object out; had looked
+at it, uttered an exclamation curious in its mixture of suppressed
+emotions, and let himself down again into the midst of the two or three
+men who had scented the adventure and hastened to be witnesses of its
+outcome.</p>
+
+<p>“A phial!” he exclaimed, “An empty phial, but—” Holding the little
+bottle up between his thumb and forefinger, he turned it slowly about
+until the label faced them.</p>
+
+<p>On it was written one word, but it was a word which invariably carries
+alarm with it.</p>
+
+<p>That word was: <i>Poison</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater did not return to New York that night.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XIX">XIX<br><span class="small">“IT’S NOT WHAT YOU WILL FIND”</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">I am not mad;—I would to heaven I were!<br>
+For then, ’tis like I should forget myself:<br>
+O, if I could, what grief should I forget!—<br>
+Preach some philosophy to make me mad,<br>
+For being not mad, but sensible of grief,<br>
+My reasonable part produces reason<br>
+How I may be delivered of these woes.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>King John</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>“I regret to disturb you, Arthur; but my business is of great
+importance, and should be made known to you at once. This I say as a
+friend. I might have waited for the report to have reached you from
+hearsay, or through the evening papers; but I preferred to be the one
+to tell you. You can understand why.”</p>
+
+<p>Sullen and unmollified, the young man thus addressed eyed,
+apprehensively, his father’s old friend, placed so unfortunately in his
+regard, and morosely exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>“Out with it! I’m a poor hand at guessing. What has happened now?”</p>
+
+<p>“A discovery. A somewhat serious one I fear; at least, it will force
+the police to new action. Your sister may not have died entirely from
+strangulation; other causes may have been at work!”</p>
+
+<p>“Now, what do you mean by that?” Arthur Cumberland was under his own
+roof and in presence of one who should have inspired his respect; but
+he made no effort to hide the fury which these words called up. “I
+should like to know what deviltry is in your minds now. Am I never to
+have peace?”</p>
+
+<p>“Peace and tragedy do not often run together,” came in the mild tones
+of his would-be friend. “A great crime has taken place. All the members
+of this family are involved—to say nothing of the man who lies, now,
+under the odium of suspicion, in our common county jail. Peace can only
+come with the complete clearing up of this crime, and the punishment
+of the guilty. But the clearing up must antedate the punishment.
+Mr. Ranelagh’s assertion that he found Miss Cumberland dead when he
+approached her, may not be, as so many now believe, the reckless denial
+of a criminal, disturbed in his act. It may have had a basis in fact.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t believe it. Nothing will make me believe it,” stormed the
+other, jumping up, and wildly pacing the drawing-room floor. “It is all
+a scheme for saving the most popular man in society. Society! That for
+society!” he shouted out, snapping his fingers. “He is president of the
+club; the pet of women; the admired of all the dolts and gawks who are
+taken with his style, his easy laughter, and his knack at getting at
+men’s hearts. He won’t laugh so easily when he’s up before a jury for
+murder; and he’ll never again fool women or bulldoze men, even if they
+are weak enough to acquit him of this crime. Enough of the smirch will
+stick to prevent that. If it doesn’t, I’ll—”</p>
+
+<p>Again his hands went out in the horribly suggestive way they had done
+at his sister’s funeral. The coroner sat appalled,—confused, almost
+distracted between his doubts, his convictions, his sympathy for the
+man and his recoil from the passions he would be only too ready to
+pardon if he could feel quite sure of their real root and motive.
+Cumberland may have felt the other’s silence, or he may have realised
+the imprudence of his own fury; for he dropped his hands with an
+impatient sigh, and blurted out:</p>
+
+<p>“But you haven’t told me your discovery. It seems to me it is a little
+late to make discoveries now.”</p>
+
+<p>“This was brought about by the persistence of Sweetwater. He seems
+to have an instinct for things. He was leaning out of the window at
+the rear of the clubhouse—the window of that small room where your
+sister’s coat was found—and he saw, caught in the vines beneath, a—”</p>
+
+<p>“Why don’t you speak out? I cannot tell what he found unless you name
+it.”</p>
+
+<p>“A little bottle—an apothecary’s phial. It was labelled ‘Poison,’ and
+it came from this house.”</p>
+
+<p>Arthur Cumberland reeled; then he caught himself up and stood, staring,
+with a very obvious intent of getting a grip on himself before he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>The coroner waited, a slight flush deepening on his cheek.</p>
+
+<p>“How do you know that phial came from this house?”</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Perry looked up, astonished. He was prepared for the most frantic
+ebullitions of wrath, for violence even; or for dull, stupid, blank
+silence. But this calm, quiet questioning of fact took him by surprise.
+He dropped his anxious look, and replied:</p>
+
+<p>“It has been seen on the shelves by more than one of your servants.
+Your sister kept it with her medicines, and the druggist with whom you
+deal remembers selling it some time ago to a member of your family.”</p>
+
+<p>“Which member? I don’t believe this story; I don’t believe any of
+your—” He was fast verging on violence now.</p>
+
+<p>“You will have to, Arthur. Facts are facts, and we cannot go against
+them. The person who bought it was yourself. Perhaps you can recall the
+circumstance now.”</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot.” He did not seem to be quite master of himself. “I don’t
+know half the things I do; at least, I didn’t use to. But what are
+you coming to? What’s in your mind, and what are your intentions?
+Something to shame us further, I’ve no doubt. You’re soft on Ranelagh
+and don’t care how I feel, or how Carmel will feel when she comes to
+herself—poor girl. Are you going to call it suicide? You can’t, with
+those marks on her throat.”</p>
+
+<p>“We’re going to carry out our investigations to the full. We’re going
+to hold the autopsy, which we didn’t think necessary before. That’s
+why I am here, Arthur. I thought it your due to know our intentions
+in regard to this matter. If you wish to be present, you have only to
+say so; if you do not, you may trust me to remember that she was your
+father’s daughter, as well as my own highly esteemed friend.”</p>
+
+<p>Shaken to the core, the young man sat down amid innumerable tokens of
+the two near, if not dear, ones just mentioned; and for a moment had
+nothing to say. Gone was his violence, gone his self-assertion, and
+his insolent, captious attitude towards his visitor. The net had been
+drawn too tightly, or the blow fallen too heavily. He was no longer a
+man struggling with his misery, but a boy on whom had fallen a man’s
+responsibilities, sufferings, and cares.</p>
+
+<p>“My duty is here,” he said at last. “I cannot leave Carmel.”</p>
+
+<p>“The autopsy will take place to-morrow. How is Carmel to-day?”</p>
+
+<p>“No better.” The words came with a shudder. “Doctor, I’ve been a brute
+to you. I am a brute! I have misused my life and have no strength with
+which to meet trouble. What you propose to do with—with Adelaide is
+horrible to me. I didn’t love her much while she was living; I broke
+her heart and shamed her, from morning till night, every day of her
+life; but good-for-nothing as I am and good-for-nothing as I’ve always
+been, if I could save her body this last humiliation, I would willingly
+die right here and now, and be done with it. Must this autopsy take
+place?”</p>
+
+<p>“It must.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then—” He raised his arm; the blood swept up, dyeing his cheeks, his
+brow, his very neck a vivid scarlet. “Tell them to lock up every bottle
+the house holds, or I cannot answer for myself. I should like to drink
+and drink till I knew nothing, cared for nothing, was a madman or a
+beast.”</p>
+
+<p>“You will not drink.” The coroner’s voice rang deep; he was greatly
+moved. “You will not drink, and you will come to the office at five
+o’clock to-morrow. We may have only good news to impart. We may find
+nothing to complicate the situation.”</p>
+
+<p>Arthur Cumberland shook his head. “It’s not what you will find—” said
+he, and stopped, biting his lips and looking down.</p>
+
+<p>The coroner uttered a few words of consolation forced from him by the
+painfulness of the situation. The young man did not seem to hear them.
+The only sign of life he gave was to rush away the moment the coroner
+had taken his leave, and regain his seat within sight and hearing of
+his still unconscious sister. As he did so, these words came to his
+ears through the door which separated them:</p>
+
+<p>“Flowers—I smell flowers! Lila, you always loved flowers; but I never
+saw your hands so full of them.”</p>
+
+<p>Arthur uttered a sharp cry; then, bowing his face upon his aims, he
+broke into sobs which shook the table where he sat.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty-four hours later, in the coroner’s office, sat an anxious group
+discussing the great case and the possible revelations awaiting them.
+The district attorney, Mr. Clifton, the chief of police, and one or two
+others—among them Sweetwater—made up the group, and carried on the
+conversation. Dr. Perry only was absent. He had undertaken to make the
+autopsy and had been absent, for this purpose, several hours.</p>
+
+<p>Five o’clock had struck, and they were momentarily looking for his
+reappearance; but, when the door opened, as it did at this time, it was
+to admit young Cumberland, whose white face and shaking limbs betrayed
+his suspense and nervous anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>He was welcomed coldly, but not impolitely, and sat down in very much
+the same place he had occupied during his last visit, but in a very
+different, and much more quiet state of mind. To Sweetwater, his aspect
+was one of despair, but he made no remark upon it; only kept all his
+senses alert for the coming moment, of so much importance to them all.
+But even he failed to guess how important, until the door opened again,
+and the coroner appeared, looking not so much depressed as stunned.
+Picking out Arthur from the group, he advanced towards him with some
+commonplace remark; but desisted suddenly and turned upon the others
+instead.</p>
+
+<p>“I have finished the autopsy,” said he. “I knew just what poison the
+phial had held, and lost no time in my tests. A minute portion of
+this drug, which is dangerous only in large quantities, was found
+in the stomach of the deceased; but not enough to cause serious
+trouble, and she died, as we had already decided, from the effect of
+the murderous clutch upon her throat. But,” he went on sternly, as
+young Cumberland moved, and showed signs of breaking in with one of
+his violent invectives against the supposed assassin, “I made another
+discovery of still greater purport. When we lifted the body out of its
+resting-place, something beside withered flowers slid from her breast
+and fell at our feet. The ring, gentlemen—the ring which Ranelagh says
+was missing from her hand when he came upon her, and which certainly
+was not on her finger when she was laid in the casket,—rolled to the
+floor when we moved her. Here it is; there is one person here, at
+least, who can identify it. But I do not ask that person to speak. That
+we may well spare him.”</p>
+
+<p>He laid the ring on the table, not too near Arthur, not within reach
+of his hand, but close enough for him to see it. Then he sat down, and
+hid his face in his hands. The last few days had told on him. He looked
+older, by ten years, than he had at the beginning of the month.</p>
+
+<p>The silence which followed these words and this action, was memorable
+to everybody there concerned. Some had seen, and all had heard of young
+Cumberland’s desperate interruption of the funeral, and the way his
+hand had invaded the flowers which the children had cast in upon her
+breast. As the picture, real or fancied, rose before their eyes, one
+man rose and left his place at the table; then another, and presently
+another. Even Charles Clifton drew back. The district attorney remained
+where he was, and so did young Cumberland. The latter had reached out
+his hand, but he had not touched the ring, and he sat thus, frozen.
+What went on in his heart, no man there could guess, and he did not
+enlighten them. When at last he looked up, it was with a dazed air and
+an almost humble mien:</p>
+
+<p>“Providence has me this time,” he muttered. “I don’t understand these
+mysteries. You will have to deal with them as you think best.” His
+eyes, still glued to the jewel, dilated and filled with fierce light
+as he said this. “Damn the ring, and damn the man who gave it to her!
+However it came into her casket, he’s at the bottom of the business,
+just as he was at the bottom of her death. If you think anything else,
+you will think a lie.”</p>
+
+<p>Turning away, he made for the door. There was in his manner,
+desperation approaching to bravado, but no man made the least effort to
+detain him. Not till he was well out of the room did any one move, then
+the district attorney raised his finger, and Arthur Cumberland did not
+ride back to his home alone.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_III">BOOK THREE<br><span class="small">HIDDEN SURPRISES</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XX">XX<br><span class="small">“HE OR YOU! THERE IS NO THIRD”</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,<br>
+And yet I would not sleep Merciful powers!<br>
+Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature<br>
+Gives way to in repose.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Macbeth</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>For several days I had been ill. They were merciful days to me since
+I was far too weak for thought. Then there came a period of conscious
+rest, then renewed interest in life and my own fate and reputation.
+What had happened during this interval?</p>
+
+<p>I had a confused memory of having seen Clifton’s face at my bedside,
+but I was sure that no words had passed between us. When would he come
+again? When should I hear about Carmel, and whether she were yet alive,
+or mercifully dead, like her sister? I might read the papers, but they
+had been carefully kept from me. Not one was in sight. The nurse would
+undoubtedly give me the information I desired, but, kind as she had
+been, I dreaded to consult a stranger about matters which involved my
+very existence and every remaining hope. Yet I must know; for I could
+not help thinking, now, and I dreaded to think amiss and pile up misery
+for myself when I needed support and consolation.</p>
+
+<p>I would risk one question, but no more. I would ask about the inquest.
+Had it been held? If she said yes—ah, if she said yes!—I should know
+that Carmel was dead; and the news, coming thus, would kill me. So I
+asked nothing, and was lying in a sufficiently feverish condition when
+the doctor came in, saw my state, and thinking to cheer me up, remarked
+blandly:</p>
+
+<p>“You are well enough this morning to hear good news. Do you recognise
+the room you are in?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m in the hospital, am I not?”</p>
+
+<p>“Hardly. You are in one of Mr. O’Hagen’s own rooms.” (Mr. O’Hagen was
+the head keeper.) “You are detained, now, simply as a witness.”</p>
+
+<p>I was struck to the heart; terrified in an instant.</p>
+
+<p>“What? Why? What has happened?” I questioned, rapidly, half starting
+up, then falling back on my pillow under his astonished eye.</p>
+
+<p>“Nothing,” he parried, seeing his mistake, and resorting to the
+soothing process. “They simply have had time to think. You’re not the
+sort of man from which criminals are made.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s nonsense,” I retorted, reckless of his opinion, and mad to know
+the truth, yet shrinking horribly from it. “Criminals are made from all
+kinds of men; neither are the police so philosophical. Something has
+occurred. But don’t tell me—” I protested inconsistently, as he opened
+his lips. “Send for Mr. Clifton. He’s my friend; I can better bear—”</p>
+
+<p>“Here he is,” said the doctor, as the door softly opened under the
+nurse’s careful hand.</p>
+
+<p>I looked up, saw Charles’s faithful face, and stretched out my hand
+without speaking. Never had I needed a friend more, and never had I
+been more constrained in my greeting. I feared to show my real heart,
+my real fears, my real reason for not hailing my release, as every one
+evidently expected me to!</p>
+
+<p>With a gesture to the nurse, the doctor tiptoed out, muttering to
+Clifton, as he passed, some word of warning or casual instruction. The
+nurse followed, and Clifton, coming forward, took a seat at my side.
+He was cheerful but not too cheerful; and the air of slight constraint
+which tinged his manner, as much as it did mine, did not escape me.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, old fellow,” he began—</p>
+
+<p>My hand went up in entreaty.</p>
+
+<p>“Tell me why they have withdrawn their suspicions. I’ve heard
+nothing—read nothing—for days. I don’t understand this move.”</p>
+
+<p>For reply, he laid his hand on mine.</p>
+
+<p>“You’re stanch,” he began. “You have my regard, Elwood. Not many men
+would have stood the racket and sacrificed themselves as you have done.
+The fact is recognised, now, and your motive—”</p>
+
+<p>I must have turned very white; for he stopped and sprang to his feet,
+searching for some restorative.</p>
+
+<p>I felt the need of blinding him to my condition. With an effort, which
+shook me from head to foot, I lifted myself from the depths into which
+his words had plunged me, and fighting for self-control, faltered
+forth, feebly enough:</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t be frightened. I’m all right again; I guess I’m not very strong
+yet. Sit down; I don’t need anything.”</p>
+
+<p>He turned and surveyed me carefully, and finding my colour restored,
+reseated himself, and proceeded, more circumspectly:</p>
+
+<p>“Perhaps I had better wait till to-morrow before I satisfy your
+curiosity,” said he.</p>
+
+<p>“And leave me to imagine all sorts of horrors? No! Tell me at once.
+Is—is—has anything happened at the Cumberlands’?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes. What you feared has happened—No, no; Carmel is not dead. Did
+you think I meant that? Forgive me. I should have remembered that you
+had other causes for anxiety than the one weighing on our minds. She
+is holding her own—just holding it—but that is something, in one so
+young and naturally healthy.”</p>
+
+<p>I could see that I baffled him. It could not be helped. I did not dare
+to utter the question with which my whole soul was full. I could only
+look my entreaty. He misunderstood it, as was natural enough.</p>
+
+<p>“She does not know yet what is in store for her,” were his words;
+and I could only lie still, and look at him helplessly, and try
+not to show the despair that was sinking me deeper and deeper into
+semi-unconsciousness. “When she comes to herself, she will have to
+be told; but you will be on your feet, then, and will be allowed, no
+doubt, to soften the blow for her by your comfort and counsel. The fact
+that it must have been you, if not he—”</p>
+
+
+<p>“<i>He!</i>” Did I shout it, or was the shout simply in my own mind? I
+trembled as I rose on my elbow. I searched his face in terror of my
+self-betrayal; but his showed only compassion and an eager desire to
+clear the air between us by telling me the exact facts.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes—Arthur. His guilt has not been proven; he has not even been
+remanded; the sister’s case is too pitiful and Coroner Perry too
+soft-hearted, where any of that family is involved. But no one doubts
+his guilt, and he does not deny it himself. You know—probably no
+one better—that he cannot very consistently do this, in face of
+the evidence accumulated against him, evidence stronger in many
+regards, than that accumulated against yourself. The ungrateful boy!
+The—the—Pardon me, I don’t often indulge in invectives against
+unhappy men who have their punishment before them, but I was thinking
+of you and what you have suffered in this jail, where you have not
+belonged—no, not for a day.”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t think of me.” The words came with a gasp. I was never so hard
+put to it—not when I first realised that I had been seen with my
+fingers on Adelaide’s throat. Arthur! A booby and a boor, but certainly
+not the slayer of his sister, unless I had been woefully mistaken in
+all that had taken place in that club-house previous to my entrance
+into it on that fatal night. As I caught Clifton’s eye fixed upon me,
+I repeated—though with more self-control, I hope: “Don’t think of me.
+I’m not thinking of myself. You speak of evidence. What evidence? Give
+me details. Don’t you see that I am burning with curiosity? I shan’t be
+myself till I hear.”</p>
+
+<p>This alarmed him.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s a risk,” said he. “The doctor told me to be careful not to excite
+you too much. But suspense is always more intolerable than certainty,
+and you have heard too much to be left in ignorance of the rest.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, yes,” I agreed feverishly, pressing his hand.</p>
+
+<p>“It all came about through you,” he blundered on. “You told me of the
+fellow you saw riding away from The Whispering Pines at the time you
+entered the grounds. I passed the story on to the coroner, and he to
+a New York detective they have put on this case. He and Arthur’s own
+surly nature did the rest.”</p>
+
+<p>I cringed where I lay. This was my work. The person who drove out
+of the club-house grounds while I stood in the club-house hall was
+Carmel—and the clew I had given, instead of baffling and confusing
+them, had led directly to Arthur!</p>
+
+<p>Seeing nothing peculiar—or at all events, giving no evidence of having
+noted anything peculiar in my movement—Clifton went evenly on, pouring
+into my astonished ears the whole long story of this detective’s
+investigations.</p>
+
+<p>I heard of his visit at the mechanic’s cottage and of the
+identification of the hat marked by Eliza Simmons’s floury thumb,
+with an old one of Arthur’s, fished out from one of the Cumberland
+closets; then, as I lay dumb, in my secret dismay and perturbation, of
+Arthur’s acknowledged visit to the club-house, and his abstraction of
+the bottles, which to all minds save my own, perhaps, connected him
+directly and well-nigh unmistakably, with the crime.</p>
+
+<p>“The finger of God! Nothing else. Such coincidences cannot be natural,”
+was my thought. And I braced myself to meet the further disclosures I
+saw awaiting me.</p>
+
+<p>But when these disclosures were made, and Arthur’s conduct at the
+funeral was given its natural explanation by the finding of the
+tell-tale ring in Adelaide’s casket, I was so affected, both by the
+extraordinary nature of the facts and the doubtful position in which
+they seemed to place one whom, even now, I found it difficult to
+believe guilty of Adelaide’s death, that Clifton, aroused, in spite of
+his own excitement, to a sudden realisation of my condition, bounded to
+his feet and impetuously cried out:</p>
+
+<p>“I had to tell you. It was your due and you would not have been
+satisfied if I had not. But I fear that I rushed my narrative too
+suddenly upon you; that you needed more preparation, and that the
+greatest kindness I can show you now, is to leave before I do further
+mischief.”</p>
+
+<p>I believe I answered. I know that his idea of leaving was insupportable
+to me. That I wanted him to stay until I had had time to think and
+adjust myself to these new conditions. Instinctively, I did not
+feel as certain of Arthur’s guilt as he did. My own case had taught
+me the insufficiency of circumstantial evidence to settle a mooted
+fact. Besides, I knew Arthur even better than I did his sisters. He
+was as full of faults, and as lacking in amiable and reliable traits
+as any fellow of my acquaintance. But he had not the inherent snap
+which makes for crime. He lacked the vigour which,—God forgive me
+the thought!—lay back of Carmers softer characteristics. I could not
+imagine him guilty; I could, for all my love, imagine his sister so,
+and did. The conviction would not leave my mind.</p>
+
+<p>“Charles,” said I, at last, struggling for calmness, and succeeding
+better in my task than either he or I expected; “what motive do
+they assign for this deed? Why should Arthur follow Adelaide to the
+club-house and kill her? Now, if he had followed me—”</p>
+
+<p>“You were at dinner with them that night, and know what she did and
+what she vowed about the wine. He was very angry. Though he dropped
+his glass, and let it shiver on the board, he himself says that he was
+desperately put out with her, and could only drown his mad emotions in
+drink. He knew that she would hear of it if he went to any saloon in
+town; so he stole the key from your bunch, and went to help himself
+out of the club-house wine-vault. That’s how he came to be there. What
+followed, who knows? He won’t tell, and we can only conjecture. The
+ring, which she certainly wore that night, might give the secret away;
+but it is not gifted with speech, though as a silent witness it is
+exceedingly eloquent.”</p>
+
+<p>The episode of the ring confused me. I could make nothing out of
+it, could not connect it with what I myself knew of the confused
+experiences of that night. But I could recall the dinner and the sullen
+aspect, not unmixed with awe, with which this boy contemplated his
+sister when his own glass fell from his nerveless fingers. My own heart
+was not in the business; it was on the elopement I had planned; but I
+could not help seeing what I have just mentioned, and it recurred to me
+now with fatal distinctness. The awe was as great as the sullenness.
+Did that offer a good foundation for crime? I disliked Arthur. I had
+no use for the boy, and I wished with all my heart to detect guilt in
+his actions, rather than in those of the woman I loved; but I could not
+forget that tinge of awe on features too heavy to mirror very readily
+the nicer feelings of the human soul. It would come up, and, under the
+influence of this impression I said:</p>
+
+<p>“Are you sure that he made no denial of this crime? That does not seem
+like Arthur, guilty or innocent.”</p>
+
+<p>“He made none in my presence and I was in the coroner’s office when
+the ring was produced from its secret hiding-place and set down before
+him. There was no open accusation made, but he must have understood the
+silence of all present. He acknowledged some days ago, when confronted
+with the bottle found in Cuthbert Road, that he had taken both it and
+another from the club-house just before the storm began to rage that
+night.”</p>
+
+<p>“The hour, the very hour!” I muttered.</p>
+
+<p>“He entered and left by that upper hall window, or so he says; but he
+is not to be believed in all his statements. Some of his declarations
+we know to be false.”</p>
+
+<p>“Which ones? Give me a specimen, Charlie. Mention something he has said
+that you know to be false.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, it is hard to accuse a man of a direct lie. But he cannot be
+telling the truth when he says that he crossed the links immediately to
+Cuthbert Road, thus cutting out the ride home, of which we have such
+extraordinary proof.”</p>
+
+<p>Under the fear of betraying my thoughts, I hurriedly closed my eyes.
+I was in an extraordinary position, myself. What seemed falsehood to
+them, struck me as the absolute truth. Carmel had been the one to go
+home; he, without doubt, had crossed the links, as he said. As this
+conviction penetrated deeply and yet more deeply into my mind, I
+shrank inexpressibly from the renewed mental struggle into which it
+plunged me. To have suffered, myself,—to have fallen under the ban of
+suspicion and the disgrace of arrest—had certainly been hard; but it
+was nothing to beholding another in the same plight through my own rash
+and ill-advised attempt to better my position and Carmel’s by what I
+had considered a totally harmless subterfuge.</p>
+
+<p>I shuddered as I anticipated the sleepless hours of silent debate which
+lay before me. The voice which whispered that Arthur Cumberland was
+not over-gifted with sensitiveness and would not feel the shame of his
+position like another, did not carry with it an indisputable message,
+and could not impose on my conscience for more than a passing moment.
+The lout was human; and I could not stifle my convictions in his favour.</p>
+
+<p>But Carmel!</p>
+
+<p>I clenched my hands under the clothes. I wished it were not high
+noon, but dark night; that Clifton would only arise or turn his eyes
+away; that something or anything might happen to give me an instant
+of solitary contemplation, without the threatening possibility of
+beholding my thoughts and feelings reflected in another’s mind.</p>
+
+<p>Was this review instantaneous, or the work of many minutes? Forced by
+the doubt to open my eyes, I met Clifton’s full look turned watchfully
+on me. The result was calming; even to my apprehensive gaze it betrayed
+no new enlightenment. My struggle had been all within; no token of it
+had reached him.</p>
+
+<p>This he showed still more plainly when he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>“There will be a close sifting of evidence at the inquest. You will
+not enjoy this; but the situation, hard as it may prove, has certainly
+improved so far as you are concerned. That should hasten your
+convalescence.”</p>
+
+<p>“Poor Arthur!” burst from my lips, and the cry was echoed in my heart.
+Then, because I could no longer endure the pusillanimity which kept me
+silent, I rose impulsively into a sitting posture, and, summoning all
+my faculties into full play, endeavoured to put my finger on the one
+weak point in the evidence thus raised against Carmel’s brother.</p>
+
+<p>“What sort of a man would you make Arthur out to be, when you accuse
+him of robbing the wine-vault on top of a murderous assault on his
+sister?”</p>
+
+<p>“I know. It argues a brute, but he—”</p>
+
+<p>“Arthur Cumberland is selfish, unresponsive, and hard, but he is not a
+brute. I’m disposed to give him the benefit of my good opinion to this
+extent, Charlie; I cannot believe he first poisoned and then choked
+that noble woman.”</p>
+
+<p>Clifton drew himself up in his turn, astonishment battling with renewed
+distrust.</p>
+
+<p>“Either he or you, Ranelagh!” he exclaimed, firmly. “There is no third
+person. This you must realise.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXI">XXI<br><span class="small">CARMEL AWAKES</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">One woe doth tread upon another’s heel,<br>
+So fast they follow.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Hamlet</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>Later, I asked myself many questions, and wandered into mazes of
+speculation which only puzzled me and led nowhere. I remembered the
+bottles; I remembered the ring. I went back, in fancy, to the hour of
+my own entrance into the club-house, and, recalling each circumstance,
+endeavoured to fit the facts of Arthur’s story with those of my own
+experience.</p>
+
+<p>Was he in the building when I first stepped into it? It was just
+possible. I had been led to prevaricate as to the moment I entered the
+lower gateway, and he may have done the same as to the hour he left by
+the upper hall window. Whatever his denials on this or any subject, I
+was convinced that he knew, as well as I, that Carmel had been in the
+building with her sister, and was involved more or less personally in
+the crime committed there. Might it not be simply as his accessory
+after the fact? If only I could believe this! If my knowledge of him
+and of her would allow me to hug this forlorn hope, and behold, in
+this shock to her brain, and in her look and attitude on leaving the
+club-house, only a sister’s horror at a wilful brother’s crime!</p>
+
+<p>But one fact stood in the way of this—a fact which nothing but some
+predetermined, underhanded purpose on her part could explain. She had
+gone in disguise to The Whispering Pines, and she had returned home
+in the same suspicious fashion. The wearing of her brother’s hat and
+coat over her own womanly garments was no freak. There had been purpose
+in it—a purpose which demanded secrecy. That Adelaide should have
+accompanied her under these circumstances was a mystery. But then the
+whole affair was a mystery, totally out of keeping, in all its details,
+with the characters of these women, save—and what a fearful exception
+I here make—the awful end, which, alas! bespoke the fiery rush and
+impulse to destroy which marked Carmel’s unbridled rages.</p>
+
+<p>Of a less emotional attack she would be as incapable as any other
+good woman. Poison she would never use. Its presence there was due to
+another’s forethought, another’s determination. But the poison had
+not killed. Both glasses had been emptied, but—Ah! those glasses.
+What explanation had the police, now, for those two emptied glasses?
+They had hitherto supposed me to be the second person who had joined
+Adelaide in this totally uncharacteristic drinking.</p>
+
+<p>To whom did they now attribute this act? To Arthur, the brother whose
+love for liquor in every form she had always decried, and had publicly
+rebuked only a few hours before? Knowing nothing of Carmel having
+been on the scene, they must ascribe this act either to him or to me;
+and when they came to dwell upon this point more particularly—when
+they came to study the exact character of the relations which had
+always subsisted between Adelaide and her brother—they must see the
+improbability of her drinking with him under any circumstances. Then
+their thoughts would recur to me, and I should find myself again a
+suspect. The monstrous suggestion that Arthur had brought the liquor
+there himself, had poured it out and forced her to drink it, poison and
+all, out of revenge for her action at the dinner-table a short time
+before, did not occur to me then, but if it had, there were the three
+glasses—he would not bring <i>three</i>; nor would Adelaide; nor, as I saw
+it, would Carmel.</p>
+
+<p>Chaos! However one looked at it, chaos! Only one fact was clear—that
+Carmel knew the whole story and might communicate the same, if ever her
+brain cleared and she could be brought to reveal the mysteries of that
+hour. Did I desire such a consummation? Only God, who penetrates more
+deeply than ourselves into the hidden regions of the human heart, could
+tell. I only know that the fear and expectation of such an outcome made
+my anguish for the next two weeks.</p>
+
+<p>Would she live? Would she die? The question was on every tongue. The
+crisis of her disease was approaching, and the next twenty-four hours
+would decide her fate, and in consequence, my own, if not her brother
+Arthur’s. As I contemplated the suspense of these twenty-four hours,
+I revolted madly for the first time against the restrictions of my
+prison. I wanted air, movement, the rush into danger, which my horse
+or my automobile might afford. Anything which would drag my thoughts
+from that sick room, and the anticipated stir of that lovely form
+into conscious life and suffering. Her eyes—I could see her eyes
+wakening upon the world again, after her long wandering in the unknown
+and unimaginable intricacies of ungoverned thought and delirious
+suggestion. Eyes of violet colour and infinite expression; eyes which
+would make a man’s joy if they smiled on him in innocence; but which,
+as I well knew, had burned more than once, in her short but strenuous
+life, with fiery passions; and might, at the instant of waking, betray
+this same unholy gleam under the curious gaze of the unsympathetic ones
+set in watch over her.</p>
+
+<p>What would her first word be? Whither would her first thought fly? To
+Adelaide or to me; to Arthur or to her own frightened and appalled
+self? I maddened as I dwelt upon the possibilities of this moment. I
+envied Arthur; I envied the attendants; I envied even the servants in
+the house. They would all know sooner than I. Carmel! Carmel!</p>
+
+<p>Sending for Clifton, I begged him to keep himself in communication with
+the house, or with the authorities. He promised to do what he could;
+then, perceiving the state I was in, he related all he knew of present
+conditions. No one was allowed in the sick room but the nurse and the
+doctor. Even Arthur was denied admission, and was wearing himself
+out in his own room as I was wearing myself out here, in restless
+inactivity. He expected her to sink and never to recover consciousness,
+and was loud in his expressions of rebellion against the men who
+dared to keep him from her bedside when her life was trembling in the
+balance. But the nurse had hopes and so had the doctor. As for Carmel’s
+looks, they were greatly changed, but beautiful still in spite of the
+cruel scar left by her fall against the burning bars of her sister’s
+grate. No delirium disturbed the rigid immobility in which she now lay.
+I could await her awakening with quiet confidence in the justice of God.</p>
+
+<p>Thus Clifton, in his ignorance.</p>
+
+<p>The day was a bleak one, dispiriting in itself even to those who could
+go about the streets and lose themselves in their tasks and round of
+duties. To me it was a dead blank, marked by such interruptions as
+necessarily took place under the prison routine. The evening hours
+which followed them were no better. The hands on my watch crawled. When
+the door finally opened, it came as a shock. I seemed to be prepared
+for anything but the termination of my suspense. I knew that it was
+Clifton who entered, but I could not meet his eye. I dug my nails
+into my palms, and waited for his first word. When it came, I felt my
+spirits go down, down—I had thought them at their lowest ebb before.
+He hesitated, and I started up:</p>
+
+<p>“Tell me,” I cried. “Carmel is dead!”</p>
+
+<p>“Not dead,” said he, “but silly. Her testimony is no more to be relied
+upon than that of any other wandering mind.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXII">XXII<br><span class="small">“BREAK IN THE GLASS!”</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">This inundation of mistempered humour
+Rests by you only to be qualified.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>King John</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>It was some time before I learned the particulars of this awakening.</p>
+
+<p>It had occurred at sunset. A level beam of light had shot across the
+bed, and the nurse had moved to close the blind, when a low exclamation
+from the doctor drew her back, to mark the first faint fluttering of
+the snowy lids over the long-closed eyes. Afterwards she remembered
+what a picture her youthful patient made, with the hue of renewed life
+creeping into her cheeks, in faint reflection of the nest of roseate
+colour in which she lay.</p>
+
+<p>Carmel’s hair was dark; so were her exquisitely pencilled eye-brows,
+and the long lashes which curled upward from her cheek. In her
+surroundings of pink—warm pink, such as lives in the heart of the
+sea-shell—their duskiness took on an added beauty; and nothing, not
+even the long, dark scar running from eye to chin could rob the face
+of its individuality and suggestion of charm. She was lovely; but it
+was the loveliness of line and tint, just as a child is lovely. Soul
+and mind were still asleep, but momentarily rousing, as all thought,
+to conscious being—and, if to conscious being, then to conscious
+suffering as well.</p>
+
+<p>It was a solemn moment. If the man who loved her had been present—or
+even her brother, who, sullen as he was, must have felt the tie of
+close relationship rise superior even to his fears at an instant so
+critical,—it would have been more solemn yet. But with the exception
+of the doctor and possibly the nurse, only those interested in her as a
+witness in the most perplexing case on the police annals, were grouped
+in silent watchfulness about the room, waiting for the word or look
+which might cut the Gordian knot which none of them, as yet, had been
+able to untangle.</p>
+
+<p>It came suddenly, as all great changes come. One moment her lids were
+down, her face calm, her whole figure quiet in its statue-like repose;
+the next, her big violet eyes had flashed open upon the world, and
+lips and limbs were moving feebly, but certainly, in their suddenly
+recovered freedom. It was then—and not at a later moment when
+consciousness had fully regained its seat—that her face, to those who
+stood nearest wore the aspect of an angel’s. What she saw, or what
+vision remained to her from the mysterious world of which she had so
+long been a part, none ever knew—nor could she, perhaps, have told.
+But the rapture which informed her features and elevated her whole
+expression but poorly prepared them for the change which followed her
+first glance around on nurse and doctor. The beam which lay across
+the bed had been no brighter than her eye during that first tremulous
+instant of renewed life. But the clouds fell speedily and very
+human feelings peered from between those lids as she murmured, half
+petulantly:</p>
+
+<p>“Why do you look at me so? Oh, I remember, I remember!”</p>
+
+<p>And a flush, of which they little thought her weakened heart capable,
+spread over her features, hiding the scar and shaming her white lips.
+“What’s the matter?” she complained again, as she tried to raise her
+hands, possibly to hide her face. “I cannot move as I used to do, and I
+feel—I feel—”</p>
+
+<p>“You have been ill,” came soothingly from the doctor. “You have been
+in bed many days; now you are better and will soon be well. This is
+your nurse.” He said nothing of the others, who were so placed behind
+screens as to be invisible to her.</p>
+
+<p>She continued to gaze, first at one, then at the other; confidently at
+the doctor, doubtfully at the nurse. As she did so, the flush faded and
+gave way to an anxious, troubled expression. Not just the expression
+anticipated by those who believed that, with returning consciousness,
+would come returning memory of the mysterious scene which had taken
+place between herself and sister, or between her sister and her
+brother, prior to Adelaide’s departure for The Whispering Pines. Had
+they shared my knowledge—had they even so much as dreamed that their
+patient had been the companion of one or both of the others in this
+tragic escapade—how much greater would have been their wonder at the
+character of this awakening.</p>
+
+<p>“You have the same kind look for me as always,” were her next words,
+as her glance finally settled on the doctor. “But hers—Bring me the
+mirror,” she cried. “Let me see with my own eyes what I have now to
+expect from every one who looks at me. I want to know before Lila comes
+in. Why isn’t she here? Is she with—with—” She was breaking down, but
+caught herself back with surprising courage, and almost smiled, I was
+told. Then in the shrill tones which will not be denied, she demanded
+again, “The mirror!”</p>
+
+<p>Nurse Unwin brought it. Her patient evidently remembered the fall she
+had had in her sister’s room, and possibly the smart to her cheek when
+it touched the hot iron.</p>
+
+<p>“I see only my forehead,” she complained, as the nurse held the mirror
+before her. “Move it a little. Lower—lower,” she commanded. Then
+suddenly “Oh!”</p>
+
+<p>She was still for a long time, during which the nurse carried off the
+glass.</p>
+
+<p>“I—I don’t like it,” she acknowledged quaintly to the doctor, as
+he leaned over her with compassionate words. “I shall have to get
+acquainted with myself all over again. And so I have been ill! I
+shouldn’t have thought a little burn like that would make me ill. How
+Adelaide must have worried.”</p>
+
+<p>“Adelaide is—is not well herself. It distressed her to have been out
+when you fell. Don’t you remember that she went out that night?”</p>
+
+<p>“Did she? She was right. Adelaide must have every pleasure. She
+had earned her good times. I must be the one to stay home now, and
+look after things, and learn to be useful. I don’t expect anything
+different. Call Adelaide, and let me tell her how—how satisfied I am.”</p>
+
+<p>“But she’s ill. She cannot come. Wait till tomorrow, dear child. Rest
+is what you need now. Take these few drops and go to sleep again, and
+you’ll not know yourself to-morrow.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know myself now,” she repeated, glancing with slowly dilating
+eyes at the medicine glass he proffered. “I can’t take it,” she
+protested. “I forget now why, but I can’t take anything more from a
+glass. I’ve promised not to, I think. Take it away; it makes me feel
+queer. Where is Adelaide?”</p>
+
+<p>Her memory was defective. She could not seem to take in what the doctor
+told her. But he tried her again. Once more he spoke of illness as the
+cause of Adelaide’s absence. Her attention wandered while he spoke of
+it.</p>
+
+<p>“How it did hurt!” she cried. “But I didn’t think much about it. I
+thought only of—” Next moment her voice rose in a shriek, thin but
+impetuous, and imbued with a note of excited feeling which made every
+person there start. “There should be <i>two</i>,” she cried. “<i>Two</i>! Why is
+there only one?”</p>
+
+<p>This sounded like raving. The doctor’s face took on a look of concern,
+and the nurse stirred uneasily.</p>
+
+<p>“One is not enough! That is why Adelaide is not satisfied; why she does
+not come and love and comfort me, as I expected her to. Tell her it is
+not too late yet, not too late yet, not too late—”</p>
+
+<p>The doctor’s hand was on her forehead. This “not too late,” whatever
+she meant by it, was indescribably painful to the listeners, oppressed
+as they were by the knowledge that Adelaide lay in her grave, and that
+all fancies, all hopes, all meditated actions between these two were
+now, so far as this world goes, forever at an end.</p>
+
+<p>“Rest,” came in Dr. Carpenter’s most soothing tones. “Rest, my
+little Carmel; forget everything and rest.” He thought he knew the
+significance of her revolt from the glass he had offered her. She
+remembered the scene at the Cumberland dinner-table on that fatal
+night and shrank from anything that reminded her of it. Ordering the
+medicine put in a cup, he offered it to her again, and she drank it
+without question. As she quieted under its influence, the disappointed
+listeners, now tip-toeing carefully from the room, heard her murmur in
+final appeal:</p>
+
+<p>“Cannot Adelaide spare one minute from—from her company downstairs, to
+wish me health and kiss me good night?”</p>
+
+<p>Was it weakness, or a settled inability to remember anything but that
+which filled her own mind?</p>
+
+<p>It proved to be a settled inability to take in any new ideas or even
+to remember much beyond the completion of that dinner. As the days
+passed and news of her condition came to me from time to time, I found
+that she had not only forgotten what had passed between herself and
+the rest of the family previous to their departure for the club-house,
+but all that had afterwards occurred at The Whispering Pines, even to
+her own presence there and the ride home. She could not even retain
+in her mind for any appreciable length of time the idea of Adelaide’s
+death. Even after Dr. Carpenter, with infinite precautions, revealed to
+her the truth—not that Adelaide had been murdered, but that Adelaide
+had passed away during the period of her own illness, Carmel gave but
+one cry of grief, then immediately burst forth in her old complaint
+that Adelaide neglected her. She had lost her happiness and hope, and
+Adelaide would not spare her an hour.</p>
+
+<p>This expression, when I heard of it, convinced me, as I believe it did
+some others, that her act of self-denial in not humouring my whim and
+flying from home and duty that night, had made a stronger impression on
+her mind than all that came after.</p>
+
+<p>She never asked for Arthur. This may have grieved him; but, according
+to my faithful friend and attorney, it appeared to have the contrary
+effect, and to bring him positive relief. When it was borne in on
+him, as it was soon to be borne in on all, that her mind was not what
+it was, and that the beautiful Carmel had lost something besides her
+physical perfection in the awful calamity which had made shipwreck of
+the whole family, he grew noticeably more cheerful and less suspicious
+in his manner. Was it because the impending inquiry must go on without
+her, and proceedings, which had halted till now, be pushed with all
+possible speed to a finish? So those who watched him interpreted his
+changed mood, with a result not favourable to him.</p>
+
+<p>With this new shock of Carmel’s inability to explain her own part in
+this tragedy and thus release my testimony and make me a man again
+in my own eyes, I lost the sustaining power which had previously
+held me up. I became apathetic; no longer counting the hours, and
+thankful when they passed. Arthur had not been arrested; but he
+understood—or allowed others to see that he understood, the reason
+for the surveillance under which he was now strictly kept; and, though
+he showed less patience than myself under the shameful suspicion which
+this betokened, he did not break out into open conflict with the
+authorities, nor did he protest his innocence, or take any other stand
+than the one he had assumed from the first.</p>
+
+<p>All this gave me much food for thought, but I declined to think. I
+had made up my mind from the moment I realised Carmel’s condition,
+that there was nothing for me to do till after the inquest. The
+public investigation which this would involve, would show the trend
+of popular opinion, and thus enlighten me as to my duty. Meanwhile, I
+would keep to the old lines and do the best I could for myself without
+revealing the fact of Carmel’s near interest in a matter she was in
+no better condition to discuss now than when in a state of complete
+unconsciousness.</p>
+
+<p>Of that inquest, which was held in due course, I shall not say much.
+Only one new fact was elicited by its means, and that of interest
+solely as making clear how there came to be evidences of poison in
+Adelaide’s stomach, without the quantity being great enough for more
+than a temporary disturbance.</p>
+
+<p>Maggie, the second girl, had something to say about this when the
+phial which had held the poison was handed about for inspection. She
+had handled that phial many times on the shelf where it was kept. Once
+she had dropped it, and the cork coming out, some of the contents had
+escaped. Frightened at the mishap, she had filled the phial up with
+water, and put it, thus diluted, back on the shelf. No one had noticed
+the difference, and she had forgotten all about the matter until now.
+From her description, there must have been very little of the dangerous
+drug left in the phial; and the conclusions of Dr. Perry’s autopsy
+received a confirmation which ended, after a mass of testimony tending
+rather to confuse than enlighten, the jury, in the non-committal
+verdict:</p>
+
+<p>Death by strangulation at the hands of some person unknown.</p>
+
+<p>I had expected this. The evidence, pointing as it did in two opposing
+directions, presented a problem which a coroner’s jury could hardly be
+expected to solve. What followed, showed that not only they but the
+police authorities as well, acknowledged the dilemma. I was allowed one
+sweet half hour of freedom, then I was detained to await the action of
+the grand jury, and so was Arthur.</p>
+
+<p>When I was informed of this latter fact, I made a solemn vow to myself.
+It was this: If it falls to my lot to be indicted for this murderous
+offence, I will continue to keep my own counsel, as I have already
+done, in face of lesser provocation and at less dangerous risk. But,
+if I escape and a true bill should be found against Arthur, then
+will I follow my better instinct, and reveal what I have hitherto
+kept concealed, even if the torment of the betrayal drive me to
+self-destruction afterwards. For I no longer cherished the smallest
+doubt, that to Carmel’s sudden rage and to that alone, the death of
+Adelaide was due.</p>
+
+<p>My reason for this change from troubled to absolute conviction can be
+easily explained. It dated from the inquest, and will best appear in
+the relation of an interview I held with my attorney, Charles Clifton,
+very soon after my second incarceration.</p>
+
+<p>We had discussed the situation till there seemed to be nothing left to
+discuss. I understood him, and he thought he understood me. He believed
+Arthur guilty, and credited me with the same convictions. Thus only
+could he explain my inconceivable reticence on certain points he was
+very well assured I could make clear if I would. That he was not the
+only man who had drawn these same conclusions from my attitude both
+before and during the inquest, troubled me greatly and deeply disturbed
+my conscience, but I could indulge in no protests—or, rather would
+indulge in no protests—as yet. There was an unsolved doubt connected
+with some facts which had come out at the inquest—or perhaps, I should
+call it a circumstance not as yet fully explained—which disturbed me
+more than did my conscience, and upon this circumstance I must have
+light before I let my counsel leave me.</p>
+
+<p>I introduced the topic thus:</p>
+
+<p>“You remember the detached sentences taken down by the nurse during the
+period of Carmel’s unconsciousness. They were regarded as senseless
+ravings, and such they doubtless were; but there was one of them which
+attracted my attention, and of which I should like an explanation. I
+wish I had that woman’s little book here; I should like to read for
+myself those wandering utterances.”</p>
+
+<p>“You can,” was the unexpected and welcome reply. “I took them all down
+in shorthand as they fell from Dr. Perry’s lips. I have not had time
+since to transcribe them, but I can read some of them to you, if you
+will give me an idea as to which ones you want.”</p>
+
+<p>“Read the first—what she said on the day of the funeral. I do not
+think the rest matter very much.”</p>
+
+<p>Clifton took a paper from his pocket, and, after only a short delay,
+read out these words:</p>
+
+<p>“<i>December the fifth</i>: Her sister’s name, uttered many times and with
+greatly varied expression—now in reproach, now in terror, now in what
+seemed to me in tones of wild pleading and even despair. This continued
+at intervals all through the day.</p>
+
+<p>“At three P.M., just as people were gathering for the funeral, the
+quick, glad cry: ‘I smell flowers, sweet, sweet flowers!’”</p>
+
+<p>Alas! she did.</p>
+
+<p>“At three-forty P.M., as the services neared their close, a violent
+change took place in her appearance, and she uttered in shrill tones
+those astonishing words which horrified all below and made us feel that
+she had a clairvoyant knowledge of the closing of the casket, then
+taking place:</p>
+
+<p>“‘Break it open! Break it open! and see if her heart is there!’”</p>
+
+<p>“Pause there,” I said; “that is what I mean. It was not the only time
+she uttered that cry. If you will glance further down, you will come
+across a second exclamation of the like character.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; here it is. It was while the ubiquitous Sweetwater was mousing
+about the room.”</p>
+
+<p>“Read the very words he heard. I have a reason, Clifton. Humour me for
+this once.”</p>
+
+<p>“Certainly—no trouble. She cried, this time: ‘Break it open! Break the
+glass and look in. Her heart should be there—her heart—her heart!
+Horrible! but you insisted, Ranelagh.”</p>
+
+<p>“I thought I heard that word glass,” I muttered, more to myself than to
+him. Then, with a choking fear of giving away my thought, but unable to
+resist the opportunity of settling my own fears, I asked: “Was there
+glass in the casket lid?”</p>
+
+<p>“No; there never is.”</p>
+
+<p>“But she may have thought there was,” I suggested hastily. “I’m
+much obliged to you, Clifton. I had to hear those sentences again.
+Morbidness, no doubt; the experience of the last three weeks would
+affect a stronger-minded man than myself.” Then before he could reply:
+“What do you think the nurse meant by a violent change in her patient?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, she roused up, I suppose—moved, or made some wild or feverish
+gesture.”</p>
+
+<p>“That is what I should like to know. I may seem foolish and
+unnecessarily exacting about trifles; but I would give a great deal to
+learn precisely where she looked, and what she did at the moment she
+uttered those wild words. Is the detective Sweetwater still in town?”</p>
+
+<p>“I believe so. Came up for the inquest but goes back to-night.”</p>
+
+<p>“See him, Clifton. Ask him to relate this scene. He was present, you
+know. Get him to talk about it. You can, and without rousing his
+suspicion, keen as they all say he is. And when he talks, listen
+and remember what he says. But don’t ask questions. Do this for me,
+Clifton. Some day I may be able to explain my request, but not now.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m at your service,” he replied; but he looked hurt at being thus set
+to work in the dark, and I dared say nothing to ease the situation. I
+did not dare even to prolong the conversation on this subject, or on
+any other subject. In consequence, he departed speedily, and I spent
+the afternoon wondering whether he would return before the day ended,
+or leave me to the endurance of a night of suspense. I was spared this
+final distress. He came in again towards evening, and this was what he
+told me:</p>
+
+<p>“I have seen Sweetwater, and was more fortunate in my interview than
+I expected. He talked freely, and in the course of the conversation,
+described the very occurrence in which you are so interested. Carmel
+had been lying quietly previous to this outbreak, but suddenly started
+into feverish life and, raising herself up in her bed, pointed straight
+before her and uttered the words we have so often repeated. That’s all
+there was to it, and I don’t see for my part, what you have gained by a
+repetition of the same, or why you lay so much stress upon her gesture.
+What she said was the thing, though even that is immaterial from a
+legal point of view—which is the only view of any importance to you or
+to me, at this juncture.”</p>
+
+<p>“You’re a true friend to me,” I answered, “and never more so than in
+this instance. Forgive me that I cannot show my appreciation of your
+goodness, or thank you properly for your performance of an uncongenial
+task. I am sunk deep in trouble. I’m not myself and cannot be till I
+know what action will be taken by the grand jury.”</p>
+
+<p>If he replied, I have no remembrance of it; neither do I recall his
+leave-taking. But I was presently aware that I was alone and could
+think out my hideous thought, undisturbed.</p>
+
+<p>Carmel had pointed straight before her, shouting out: “Break in the
+glass!”</p>
+
+<p>I knew her room; I had been taken in there once by Adelaide, as a
+sequence to a long conversation about Carmel, shortly after her first
+return from school. Adelaide wished to show me the cabinet in the wall,
+the cabinet at which Carmel undoubtedly pointed, if her bed stood as it
+had stood then. It was not quite full, at that time. It did not contain
+Adelaide’s heart among the other broken toys which Carmel had destroyed
+with her own hand or foot, in her moments of frenzied passion—the
+canary, that would not pick from her hand, the hat she hated, the bowl
+which held only bread and milk when she wanted meat or cake. Adelaide
+had kept them all, locked behind glass and in full view of the child’s
+eyes night and day, that the shame of those past destructive moments
+might guard her from their repetition and help her to understand her
+temper and herself. I had always thought it cruel of Adelaide, one of
+the evidences of the flint-like streak which ran through her otherwise
+generous and upright nature. But its awful prophecy was what affected
+me most now; for destruction had fallen on something more tender than
+aught that cabinet held.</p>
+
+<p>Adelaide’s heart! And Carmel acknowledged it—acknowledged that it
+should be there, with what else she had trampled upon and crushed
+in her white heat of rage. I could not doubt her guilt, after this.
+Whatever peace her forgetfulness had brought—whatever innocent longing
+after Adelaide—the wild cry of those first few hours, ere yet the
+impressions of her awful experience had succumbed to disease, revealed
+her secret and showed the workings of her conscience. It had not been
+understood; it had passed as an awesome episode. But for me, since
+hearing of it, she stood evermore convicted out of her own mouth—that
+lovely mouth which angels might kiss in her hours of joyous serenity;
+but from whose caress friends would fly, when the passion reigned in
+her heart and she must break, crush, kill, or go mad.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXIII">XXIII<br><span class="small">AT TEN INSTEAD OF TWELVE</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">Forget the world around you. Meantime friendship<br>
+Shall keep strict vigils for you, anxious, active,<br>
+Only be manageable when that friendship<br>
+Points you the road to full accomplishment.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Coleridge</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>“I don’t care a rush what you do to me. If you are so besotted by your
+prejudices that you refuse to see the nose before your face; if you
+don’t believe your own officer who swore he saw Ranelagh’s hands upon
+my sister’s throat, then this world is all a jumble and it makes very
+little difference to me whether I’m alive or dead.”</p>
+
+<p>When these words of Arthur Cumberland were repeated to me, I echoed
+them in my inmost soul. I, too, cared very little whether I lived or
+died.</p>
+
+<p>The grand jury reeled off its cases and finally took up ours. To the
+last I hoped—sincerely I think—that I should be the man to suffer
+indictment. But I hoped in vain. A true bill was brought against
+Arthur, and his trial was set for the eighteenth of January.</p>
+
+<p>The first use I made of my liberty was to visit Adelaide’s grave. In
+that sacred place I could best review my past and gather strength for
+the future. The future! Was it under my control? Did Arthur’s fate hang
+upon my word? I believed so. But had I strength to speak that word? I
+had expected to; I had seen my duty clearly enough before the sitting
+of the grand jury. But now that Arthur was indicted—now that it was an
+accepted fact that he would have to stand trial instead of myself, I
+was conscious of such a recoil from my contemplated action that I lost
+all confidence in myself and my stoical adherence to what I considered
+the claims of justice.</p>
+
+<p>Standing in the cemetery grounds with my eyes upon the snow-covered
+mound beneath which lay the doubly injured Adelaide, I had it out with
+myself, for good and all.</p>
+
+<p>I trusted Arthur; I distrusted Carmel. But she had claims to
+consideration, which he lacked. She was a woman. Her fall would mean
+infinitely more to her than any disgrace to him. Even he had seemed to
+recognise this. Miserable and half-hearted as his life had been, he had
+shown himself man enough not to implicate his young sister in the crime
+laid to his charge. What then was I that I should presume to disregard
+his lead in the difficult maze in which we were both lost. Yet, because
+of the self-restraint he manifested, he had my sympathy and when I left
+the cemetery and took my mournful way back into town, it was with the
+secret resolution to stand his friend if I saw the case really going
+against him. Till then, I would consider the helpless girl, tongue-tied
+by her condition, and injured enough already by my misplaced love and
+its direful consequences.</p>
+
+<p>The only change I now allowed myself was an occasional midnight stroll
+up Huested Street. This was as near as I dared approach Carmel’s
+windows. I feared some watchful police spy. Perhaps I feared my own
+hardly-to-be-restrained longings.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fulton’s house and extensive grounds lay between this street and
+the dismal walls beyond the huge sycamore which lifted itself like a
+beacon above the Cumberland estate. But I allowed myself the doubtful
+pleasure of traversing this course, and this course only, and if I
+obtained one glimpse through bush and tree of the spot whither all my
+thoughts ran continuously, I went home satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>This was before Carmel left with her nurse for Lakewood. After that
+event, I turned my head no more, in taking my midnight stroll. I was
+not told the day or hour of her departure. Happily, perhaps, for us
+both, for I could never have kept away from the station. I should have
+risked everything for one glimpse of her face, if only to satisfy
+my own judgment as to whether she would ever recognise me again, or
+remember what had occurred on that doleful night when the light of her
+intellect set in the darkness of sin and trouble.</p>
+
+<p>The police had the same idea, I think, for I heard later that she was
+deliberately driven past The Whispering Pines, though the other road
+was more direct and less free, if anything, from possible spectators.
+They thought, no doubt, that a sight of the place might reawaken
+whatever memories remained of the last desperate scene preceding her
+brother and sister’s departure for this out-of-the-way spot. They
+little knew how cruel was the test, or what a storm of realisation
+might have overwhelmed her mind as her eye fell on those accursed
+walls, peering from their bower of snow-laden, pines. But I did, and I
+never rested till I learned how she had borne herself in her slow drive
+by the two guarded gateways: merrily, it seems, and with no sign of the
+remembrances I feared. The test, if it were meant for such, availed
+them nothing; no more, indeed, than an encounter with her on the road,
+or at the station would have availed me. For the veil she begged for
+had shrouded her features completely, and it was only from her manner
+that those who accompanied her, perceived her light-heartedness and
+delight in this change.</p>
+
+<p>One sentence, and one only, reached my ears of all she said before she
+disappeared from town.</p>
+
+<p>“If Adelaide were only going, too! But I suppose I shall meet her and
+Mr. Ranelagh somewhere before my return. She must be very happy. But
+not so peaceful as I am. She will see that when we meet. I can hardly
+wait for the day.”</p>
+
+<p>Words which set me thinking; but which I was bound to acknowledge
+could be only the idle maunderings of a diseased mind from which all
+impressions had fled, save those of innocence and futile hope.</p>
+
+<p>One incident more before I enter upon the serious business of the
+trial. I had no purpose in what I did. I merely followed the impulse
+of the moment, as I had so often done before in my selfish and
+thoughtless life, when I started one night for my walk at ten o’clock
+instead of twelve. I went the old way; and the old longing recurring
+at the one charmed spot on the road, I cast a quick look at the
+towering sycamore and the desolated house beneath, which, short as it
+was, roused feelings which kept my head lowered for the remainder of
+my walk north and to the very moment, when, on my return, the same
+chimneys and overhanging roofs came again into view through the wintry
+branches. Then habit lifted my head, and I paused to look again, when
+the low sound of a human voice, suppressed into a moan or sob, caused
+me to glance about for the woman or child who had uttered this note
+of sorrow. No one was in sight; but as I started to move on, I heard
+my name uttered in choked tones from behind the hedge separating the
+Fulton grounds from the city sidewalk.</p>
+
+<p>I halted instantly. A lamp from the opposite side of the street threw
+a broad illumination across the walk where I stood, but the gate-posts
+behind threw a shadow. Had the voice issued from this isolated point of
+darkness? I went back to see. A pitiful figure was crouching there, a
+frail, agitated little being, whom I had no sooner recognised than my
+manner instantly assumed an air of friendly interest, called out by her
+timid and appealing attitude.</p>
+
+<p>“Ella Fulton!” I exclaimed. “You wish to speak to me?”</p>
+
+<p>“Hush!” she prayed, with a frightened gesture towards the house. “No
+one knows I am here. Mamma thinks me in bed, and papa, who is out, may
+come home any minute. Oh, Mr. Ranelagh, I’m in such misery and no one
+but you can give me any help. I have watched you go by night after
+night, and I have wanted to call out and beg you to come in and see me,
+or let me go and meet you somewhere, and I have not dared, it was so
+late. To-night you have come earlier, and I have slipped out and—O,
+Elwood, you won’t think badly of me? It’s all about Arthur, and I shall
+die if some one does not help me and tell me how I can reach him with a
+message.”</p>
+
+<p>As she spoke the last words, she caught at the gatepost which was too
+broad and ponderous to offer her any hold. Gravely I held out my arm,
+which she took; we were old friends and felt no necessity of standing
+on any sort of ceremony.</p>
+
+<p>“You don’t wish to bother,” was her sensitive cry. “You had rather not
+stop; rather not listen to my troubles.”</p>
+
+<p>Had I shown my feelings so plainly as that? I felt mortified. She was a
+girl of puny physique and nervous manner—the last sort of person you
+would expect Arthur Cumberland to admire or even to have patience with,
+and the very last sort who could be expected to endure his rough ways,
+or find anything congenial to herself in his dissipated and purposeless
+life. But the freaks of youthful passion are endless, and it was
+evident that they loved each other sincerely.</p>
+
+<p>Her tremulous condition and meek complaint went to my heart,
+notwithstanding my growing dread of any conversation between us on this
+all-absorbing but equally peace-destroying topic. Reassuringly pressing
+her hand, I was startled to find a small piece of paper clutched
+convulsively within it.</p>
+
+<p>“For Arthur,” she explained under her breath. “I thought you might find
+some way of getting it to him. Father and mother are so prejudiced.
+They have never liked him, and now they believe the very worst. They
+would lock me up if they knew I was speaking to you about him. Mother
+is very stern and says that all this nonsense between Arthur and
+myself must stop. That we must never—no matter whether he is cleared
+or—or—” Silence, then a little gasp, after which she added with an
+emphasis which bespoke the death of every hope: “She is very decided
+about it, Elwood.”</p>
+
+<p>I hardly blamed the mother.</p>
+
+<p>“I—I love Arthur. I don’t think him guilty and I would gladly stand by
+him if they would let me. I want him to know this. I want him to get
+such comfort as he can out of my belief and my desire to serve him.
+I want to sacrifice myself. But I can’t, I can’t,” she moaned. “You
+don’t know how mother frightens me. When she looks at me, the words
+falter on my tongue and I feel as if it would be easier to die than to
+acknowledge what is in my heart.”</p>
+
+<p>I could believe her. Mrs. Fulton was a notable woman, whom many men
+shrank from encountering needlessly. It was not her tongue, though
+that could be bitter enough, but a certain way she had of infusing her
+displeasure into attitude, tone, and manner, which insensibly sapped
+your self-confidence and forced you to accept her bad opinion of you as
+your rightful due. This, whether your judgment coincided with hers or
+not.</p>
+
+<p>“Yet your mother is your very best friend,” I ventured gently, with
+a realisation of my responsibility which did not add much to my
+self-possession.</p>
+
+<p>She seemed startled.</p>
+
+<p>“Not in this, not in this,” she objected, with a renewal of her anxious
+glances, this time up and down the street. “I must get a word to
+Arthur. I <i>must</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>I saw that she had some deeper reason than appeared, for desiring
+communication with him. I was debating how best to meet the situation
+and set her right as to my ability to serve her, without breaking down
+her spirit too seriously, when I felt her feverish hand pressing her
+little note into my unwilling palm.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t read it,” she whispered, innocent of all offence and only
+anxious to secure my good offices. “It’s for Arthur. I’ve used the
+thinnest paper, so that you can secrete it in something he will be sure
+to get. Don’t disappoint me. I was sorry for you, too, and glad when
+they let you out. Both of you are old playmates of mine, but Arthur—”</p>
+
+<p>I had to tell her; I had to dash her small hopes to the ground.</p>
+
+<p>“Forgive me, Ella,” I said, “but I cannot carry him this message or
+even get it to him secretly. I am watched myself; I know it, though I
+have never really detected the man doing it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh!” she ejaculated, terror-stricken at once. “Is there any one here,
+behind these trees or in the street on the other side of the hedge-row?”</p>
+
+<p>I hastened to reassure her.</p>
+
+<p>“No, no. If I’ve been followed, it was not so near as that. I cannot do
+what you ask for several reasons. Arthur will credit you with the best
+of impulses without your incurring any such risk.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, yes, but that’s not enough. What shall I do? What shall I do?”</p>
+
+<p>I strove to help her.</p>
+
+<p>“There is a man,” said I, “who sees him constantly and may be induced
+to assure Arthur of your belief and continued interest in him. That man
+is his lawyer, Mr. Moffat. Any one will tell you how to reach him.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, no,” she disclaimed, hurriedly, breathlessly. “My last hope was in
+you. You wouldn’t think the worse of me for—for what I’ve done; or let
+mother know. I couldn’t tell a stranger even if he went right to Arthur
+with it. I’m not made that way. I couldn’t stand the shame.” Drawing
+back a step she wrung her small hands together, exclaiming, “What an
+unhappy girl I am!” Then stepping up to my side, she whispered in my
+ear: “There is something I could say which might—”</p>
+
+<p>I stopped her. Right or wrong, I stopped her. I hadn’t the courage just
+then to face the possibilities of what lay at the end of this simple
+sentence. She possessed evidence, or thought she did, which might help
+to clear Arthur. Evidence of what? Evidence which would implicate
+Carmel? The very thought unnerved me.</p>
+
+<p>“I had rather not be the recipient of this confidence if it is at
+all important or at all in the line of testimony. Remember the man I
+mentioned. He will be glad to hear of anything helpful to his client.”</p>
+
+<p>Her distress mounted to passion.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s—it’s something that will destroy my mother’s confidence in me.
+I disobeyed her. I did what she would never have let me do if she had
+known. I—I used to meet Arthur in the driveway back by the barns. I
+had a key made to the little side door so that I could do it. I used
+to meet him late. I would get up out of bed when mother was asleep,
+and dress myself and sit at the window until I heard him come up
+the street. Then I would steal down and catch him on his way to the
+stables. I—I had a good reason for this, Elwood. He knew I would be
+there, and it brought him home earlier and not quite so—so full of
+liquor. If he was very bad, he would come up the other way and I would
+sit waiting and crying till three o’clock struck, then creep into my
+bed and try to sleep. Nights and nights I have done this. Nothing else
+in life seemed so important, for it did hold him back a little. But not
+so much as if he had loved me more. He loved me some, but he couldn’t
+have loved me very much, or he would have sent me some word, or seen
+me, if but for a minute, since Adelaide’s death. And he hasn’t, he
+hasn’t! and that makes it harder for me to acknowledge the watch I kept
+on him, and how I know he never went through our grounds for the second
+time that night. He went once, about nine, but not later. I am certain
+of this, for I was looking out for him till three in the morning. If he
+came back and then returned afterwards to town, it was through his own
+street, and that takes so long, he would never have been able to get
+to the place they said he did at the time they have agreed upon. Oh! I
+have studied every word of the case, to see if what I had to tell would
+help him any. Father cannot bear to see me with a newspaper in my hand,
+and mother comes and takes them out of my room; but I have managed to
+read every word since they accused him of being at the club-house that
+night, and I know that he needs some one to come out boldly in his
+cause, and I want to be that some one, and I will be, too, whatever
+happens to me, if—if I must,” she faintly added.</p>
+
+<p>I was dumb, but not from lack of interest, God knows, or from
+unsympathetic feeling for this brave-hearted girl. The significance
+of the situation was what held me speechless. Here was help for
+Arthur without my braving all the horrors of Carmel’s downfall by any
+impulsive act of my own. For a moment, hope in one burning and renewing
+flame soared high in my breast. I was willing to accept my release
+in this way. I was willing to shift the load from my own back to the
+delicate shoulders of this shrinking but ardent girl. Then reason
+returned, if consideration halted, and I asked myself: “But is the
+help she offers of any practical worth? Would her timid declarations,
+trembling as she was between her awe of her parents and her desire to
+serve the man she loved, weigh in the balance against the evidence
+accumulated by the district attorney?”</p>
+
+<p>It seemed doubtful. She would not be believed, and I should have to
+back up her statement with my own hitherto suppressed testimony. It
+was a hard case, any way I looked at it. A woman to be sacrificed
+whichever course I took. Contemplating the tremulous, half-fainting
+figure drooping in the shadows before me, such native chivalry as
+remained to me, urged me to spare this little friend of mine, so
+ungifted by nature, so innocent in intention, so sensitive and so
+shrinking in temperament and habit. Then Carmel’s image rose before
+me, glorious, impassioned, driven by the fierce onrush of some mighty
+inherent force into violent deeds undreamed of by most women; but when
+thus undriven, gentle in manner, elevated in thought, refined as only
+a few rare characters are refined; and my heart stood still again
+with doubt, and I could not say: “It is your duty to save him at all
+hazards. Brave your father, brave your mother, brave public opinion and
+possibly the wrecking of your whole future, but tell the truth, and rid
+your days of doubt, your nights of remorse.” I could not say this. So
+many things might happen to save Arthur, to save Carmel, to save the
+little woman before me. I would trust that future, temporise a bit and
+give such advice as would relieve us both from immediate fear without
+compromising Arthur’s undoubted rights to justice.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Ella Fulton had become distracted by new fears. The sound
+of sleigh-bells could be heard on the hill. It might be her father.
+Should she try to reach the house, or hide her small body, like a
+trapped animal’s, on the dark side of the hedge? I was conscious of her
+thoughts, shared her uncertainties, notwithstanding the struggle then
+going on in my own mind. But I remained quiet and so did she, and the
+sleigh ultimately flew past us up the road. The sigh which broke from
+her lips as this terror subsided, brought my disordered thoughts to a
+focus. I must not keep her longer. Something must be said at once. As
+soon as she looked my way again, I spoke:</p>
+
+<p>“Ella, this is no easy problem you have offered me. You are right in
+thinking that this testimony of yours might be of benefit to Arthur,
+and that you ought to give it in case of extremity. But I cannot advise
+you to obtrude it yet. I understand what it would cost you, and the
+sacrifice you would make is too great for the doubtful good which might
+follow. Neither must you trust me to act for you in this matter. My
+own position is too unstable for me to be of assistance to any one.
+I can sympathise with you, possibly as no one else can; but I cannot
+reach Arthur, either by word or by message. Your father is the man to
+appeal to in case interference becomes necessary and you must speak.
+You have not quite the same fear of him that you have of your mother.
+Take him into your confidence—not now but later when things press and
+you must have a friend. He’s a just man. You may shock his fatherly
+susceptibilities, you may even lose some of his regard, but he will do
+the right thing by you and Arthur. Have confidence that this is so, and
+rest, little friend, in the hope and help it gives you. Will you?”</p>
+
+<p>“I will try. I could only tell father on my knees, but I will do it
+if—if I must,” she faltered out, unconsciously repeating her former
+phrase. “Now, I must go. You have been good; only I asked too much.”
+And with no other farewell she left me and disappeared up the walk.</p>
+
+<p>I lingered till I heard the faint click of her key in the door she had
+secretly made her own; then I moved on. As I did so, I heard a rustle
+somewhere about me on street or lawn. I never knew whence it came,
+but I felt assured that neither her fears nor mine had been quite
+unfounded; that a listener had been posted somewhere near us and that
+a part, if not all, we had said had been overheard. I was furious for
+an instant, then the soothing thought came that possibly Providence had
+ordained that the Gordian knot should be cut in just this way.</p>
+
+<p>But the event bore no ostensible fruit. The week ended, and the case of
+the People <i>against</i> Arthur Cumberland was moved for trial.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXIV">XXIV<br><span class="small">ALL THIS STOOD</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">It’s fit this royal session do proceed;<br>
+And that, without delay, their arguments<br>
+Be now produc’d and heard</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>King Henry VIII</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>There was difficulty, as you will conceive, in selecting an
+unprejudiced jury. But this once having been accomplished, the case
+went quickly and smoothly on under the able guidance of the prosecuting
+attorney.</p>
+
+<p>I shall spare you the opening details, also much of the preliminary
+testimony. Enough that at the close of the sixth day, the outlook was
+a serious one for Arthur Cumberland. The prosecution appeared to be
+making good its claims. The quiet and unexpectedly dignified way in
+which, at the beginning, the defendant had faced the whole antagonistic
+court-room, with the simple plea of “Not Guilty,” was being slowly but
+surely forgotten in the accumulated proofs of his discontented life
+under his sister’s dominating influence, his desire for independence
+and a free use of the money held in trust for him by this sister
+under their father’s will, the quarrels which such a situation would
+naturally evoke between characters cast in such different moulds
+and actuated by such opposing tastes and principles, and the final
+culmination of the same at the dinner-table when Adelaide forced him,
+as it were, to subscribe to her prohibition of all further use of
+liquor in their house. Following this evidence of motive, came the
+still more damaging one of opportunity. He was shown to have been in
+the club-house at or near the time of Adelaide’s death. The matter of
+the bottles was gone into and the event in Cuthbert Road. Then I was
+called to the stand, and my testimony asked for.</p>
+
+<p>I had prepared myself for the ordeal and faced it unflinchingly. That
+I might keep intact the one point necessary to Carmel’s safety, I met
+my inquisitors, now as before, with the utmost candour in all other
+respects. Indeed, in one particular I was even more exact in my details
+than at any previous examination. Anxious to explain my agitated and
+hesitating advance through the club-house, prior to my discovery of
+the crime which had been committed there, I acknowledged what I had
+hitherto concealed, that in my first entrance into the building, I had
+come upon a man’s derby hat and coat hanging in the lower hall, and
+when questioned more minutely on the subject, allowed it to appear that
+it was owing to the disappearance of these articles during my stay
+upstairs, that I had been led into saying that some one had driven away
+from The Whispering Pines before the coming of the police.</p>
+
+<p>This, as you will see, was in open contradiction of my former
+statements that I had <i>seen</i> an unknown party, thus attired, driving
+away through the upper gateway just as I entered by the lower. But it
+was a contradiction which while noted by Mr. Moffat, failed to injure
+me with the jury, and much less with the spectators. The impression
+had become so firmly fixed in the public mind and in that of certain
+officials as well, that my early hesitations and misstatements were
+owing to a brotherly anxiety to distract attention from Arthur whose
+clothing they believed me to have recognised in these articles I
+have mentioned—that I rather gained than lost by what, under other
+circumstances would have seriously damaged my testimony. That I should
+prevaricate even to my own detriment, at a preliminary examination,
+only to tell the truth openly and like a man when in court and under
+the sanctity of an oath was, in the popular estimation, something to my
+credit; and Mr. Moffat, whose chief recommendation as counsel lay in
+his quick appreciation of the exigencies of the moment, did not press
+me too sharply on this point when he came to his cross-examination.</p>
+
+<p>But in other respects he drove me hard. An effort was made by him,
+first of all, to discredit me as a witness. My lack of appreciation for
+Adelaide and my secret but absorbing love for Carmel were inexorably
+brought out: also the easy, happy-go-lucky tenor of my life, and
+my dogged persistence in any course I thought consistent with my
+happiness. My character was well known in this town of my birth, and
+it would have been folly for me to attempt to gloss it over. I had not
+even the desire to do so. If my sins exacted penance, I would pay it
+here and now and to the full. Only Carmel should not suffer. I refused
+to admit that she had given any evidences of returning my reckless
+passion. My tongue would not speak the necessary words, and it was
+not made to. It was not her character but mine which Mr. Moffat was
+endeavouring to assail.</p>
+
+<p>But though I was thus shown up for what I was, in a manner most public
+and undesirable, neither the rulings of the court, nor the attitude of
+the jury betrayed any loss of confidence in me as a credible witness,
+and seeing this, the wily lawyer shifted his ground and confined
+himself to an endeavour to shake me on certain definite and important
+points. How were the pillows heaped upon the couch? What ones at top,
+what ones at bottom? Which did I remove first, and why did I remove any
+of them? What had I expected to find? These questions answered, the
+still more-to-be-dreaded ones followed of just how my betrothed looked
+at the moment I uncovered her face. Were the marks very plain upon her
+throat? How plain; and what did I mean by saying that I felt forced to
+lay my thumbs upon them? Was that a natural thing to do? Where was the
+candle at that moment? How many feet away? A candle does not give much
+light at that distance, was I sure that I saw those marks immediately;
+that they were dark enough and visible enough to draw my eyes from her
+face which would naturally attract my gaze first? It was horrible,
+devilish, but I won through, only to meet the still more disturbing
+question as to whether I saw any other evidences of strangulation
+besides the marks. I could only mention the appearance of the eyes;
+and when Mr. Moffat found that he could not shake me on this point,
+he branched off into a less harrowing topic and cross-examined me in
+regard to the ring. I had said that it was on her hand when I bade
+good-bye to her in her own house, and that it was not there when I came
+upon her dead. Had the fact made me curious to examine her hand? No.
+Then I could not tell whether the finger on which she wore it gave any
+evidence of this ring having been pulled off with violence? No. I could
+not swear that in my opinion it was? I could not.</p>
+
+<p>The small flask of cordial and the three glasses, one clean and the
+others showing signs of having been used, were next taken up, but
+with no result for the defence. I had told all I knew about these in
+my direct examination; also about such matters as the bottles found
+on the kitchen table, the leaving of my keys at the Cumberland house,
+and the fact, well known, that the two bottles of wine left in the
+wine-vault and tabulated by the steward as so left in the list found
+in my apartments, were of an exclusive brand unlikely to be found
+anywhere else in town. I could add nothing more, and, having spoken the
+exact truth concerning them, from the very first, I ran no chance of
+contradicting myself even under the close fire of the opposing counsel.</p>
+
+<p>But there was a matter I dreaded to see him approach, and, which, I was
+equally sure, with an insight unshared I believe by any one else in the
+whole courtroom, was equally dreaded by the prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>This was the presence in the club-house chimney of the half-burned
+letter I had long ago been compelled, in my own defence, to acknowledge
+having written to the victim’s young sister, Carmel Cumberland. As I
+saw District Attorney Fox about to enter upon this topic, I gathered
+myself together to meet the onslaught, for in this matter I could not
+be strictly truthful, since the least slip on my part might awaken the
+whole world to the fact that it could only have come there through the
+agency of Carmel herself.</p>
+
+<p>What Mr. Moffat thought of it—what he hoped to prove in the prisoner’s
+behalf by raking this subject over—it was left for me to discover
+later. The prisoner was an innocent man, in his eyes. I was not; and,
+while the time had not come for him to make this openly apparent, he
+was not above showing even now that the case contained a factor which
+weakened the prosecution—a factor totally dissociated with the openly
+accepted theory that the crime was simply the result of personal
+cupidity and drunken spite.</p>
+
+<p>And in this he was right. It did weaken it—weakened it to the point
+of collapse, if the counsel for the defence had fully acted up to his
+opportunity. But something withheld him. Just at the moment when I
+feared the truth must come out, he hesitated and veered gradually away
+from this subject. In his nervous pacings to and fro before the witness
+stand, his eye had rested for a moment on Arthur’s, and with this
+result. The situation was saved, but at a great loss to the defendant.</p>
+
+<p>I began to cherish softened feelings towards Arthur Cumberland, from
+this moment. Was it then, or later, that he began in his turn to
+cherish new and less hostile feelings towards myself? He had hated me
+and vowed my death if I escaped the fate he could now dimly see opening
+out before himself; yet I could see that he was glad to see me slip
+from my tormentor’s hands with my story unimpeached, and that he drew
+his breath more deeply and with much more evidence of freedom, now that
+my testimony had been thoroughly sifted and nothing had come to light
+implicating Carmel. I even thought I caught a kindly gleam in his eye
+as it met mine at this critical juncture, and by its light I understood
+my man and what he hoped from me. He wished me at any risk to himself,
+to unite with him in saving Carmel’s good name. That I should accede
+to this; that I should respect his generous wishes and let him go to
+unmerited destruction for even so imperative an obligation as we both
+lay under, was a question for the morrow. I could not decide upon it
+to-day—not while the smallest hope remained that he would yet escape
+conviction by other means than the one which would wreck the life we
+were both intent on saving.</p>
+
+<p>Several short examinations followed mine, all telling in their nature,
+all calculated to fix in the minds of the jury the following facts:</p>
+
+<p>(Pray pardon the repetition. It is necessary to present the case to you
+just as it stood at this period of my greatest struggle.)</p>
+
+<p>1.—That Arthur, swayed by cupidity and moved to rage by the scene at
+the dinner-table, had, by some unknown means of a more or less violent
+character, prevailed upon Adelaide to accompany him to The Whispering
+Pines, in the small cutter, to which, in the absence of every servant
+about the place, he himself had harnessed the grey mare.</p>
+
+<p>2.—That in preparation for this visit to a spot remote from
+observation and closed against all visitors, they, still for some
+unknown reason, had carried between them a candlestick and candle, a
+flask of cordial, three glasses, and a small bottle marked “Poison”;
+also some papers, letters, or scraps of correspondence, among them the
+compromising line I had written to Carmel.</p>
+
+<p>3.—That, while in this building, at an hour not yet settled, a second
+altercation had arisen between them, or some attempt been made by
+the brother which had alarmed Adelaide and sent her flying to the
+telephone, in great agitation, with an appeal to the police for help.
+This telephone was in a front room and the jury was led to judge
+that she had gained access to it while her companion ransacked the
+wine-vault and brought the six bottles of spirit up from the cellar.</p>
+
+<p>4.—That her outcry had alarmed the prisoner in his turn, causing him
+to leave most of the bottles below, and hasten up to the room, where he
+completed the deed with which he had previously threatened her.</p>
+
+<p>5.—That poison having failed, he resorted to strangulation; after
+which—or before—came the robbery of her ring, the piling up of the
+cushions over the body in a vain endeavour to hide the deed, or to
+prolong the search for the victim. Then the departure—the locking of
+the front door behind the perpetrator; the flight of the grey horse and
+cutter through the blinding storm; the blowing off of the driver’s hat;
+the identification of the same by means of the flour-mark left on its
+brim by the mechanic’s wife; the presence of a portion of one of the
+two abstracted bottles in the stable where the horse was put up; and
+the appearance of Arthur with the other bottle at the door of the inn
+in Cuthbert Road, just as the clock was striking half-past eleven.</p>
+
+<p>This latter fact might have been regarded as proving an alibi, owing
+to the length of road between the Cumberland house and the place just
+mentioned, if there had not been a short cut to town open to him by
+means of a door in the wall separating the Cumberland and Fulton
+grounds—a door which was found unlocked, and with the key in it, by
+Zadok Brown, the coachman, when he came home about three next morning.</p>
+
+<p>All this stood; not an item of this testimony could be shaken. Most of
+it was true; some of it false; but what was false, so unassailable by
+any ordinary means, that, as I have already said, the clouds seemed
+settling heavily over Arthur Cumberland when, at the end of the sixth
+day, the proceedings closed.</p>
+
+<p>The night that followed was a heavy one for me. Then came the fateful
+morrow, and, after that, the day of days destined to make a life-long
+impression on all who attended this trial.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXV">XXV<br><span class="small">“I AM INNOCENT”</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">All is oblique,<br>
+There’s nothing level in our cursed natures,<br>
+But direct villainy. Therefore, be abhorred<br>
+All feasts, societies, and throngs of men!<br>
+His semblable, yea, himself, Timon disdains.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Timon of Athens</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>I was early in my seat. Feeling the momentousness of the occasion—for
+this day must decide my action for or against the prisoner—I searched
+the faces of the jury, of the several counsel, and of the judge. I was
+anxious to know what I had to expect from them, in case my conscience
+got the better of my devotion to Carmel’s interests and led me into
+that declaration of the real facts which was forever faltering on my
+tongue, without having, as yet, received the final impetus which could
+only end in speech.</p>
+
+<p>To give him his rightful precedence, the judge showed an impenetrable
+countenance but little changed from that with which he had faced
+us all from the start. He, like most of the men involved in these
+proceedings, had been a close friend of the prisoner’s father, and, in
+his capacity of judge in this momentous trial, had had to contend with
+his personal predilections, possibly with concealed sympathies, if not
+with equally well-concealed prejudices. This had lent to his aspect a
+sternness never observable in it before; but no man, even the captious
+Mr. Moffat, had seriously questioned his rulings; and, whatever the
+cost to himself, he had, up to this time, held the scales of justice so
+evenly that it would have taken an audacious mind to have ventured on
+an interpretation of his real attitude or mental leaning in this case.</p>
+
+<p>From this imposing presence, nobly sustained by a well-proportioned
+figure and a head and face indicative of intellect and every kindly
+attribute, I turned to gaze upon Mr. Fox and his colleagues. One spirit
+seemed to animate them—confidence in their case, and unqualified
+satisfaction at its present status.</p>
+
+<p>I was conscious of a certain ironic impulse to smile, as I noted the
+eager whisper and the bustle of preparation with which they settled
+upon their next witness and prepared to open their batteries upon him.
+How easily I could call down that high look, and into what a turmoil I
+could throw them all by an ingenuous demand to be recalled to the stand!</p>
+
+<p>But the psychological moment had not yet come, and I subdued the
+momentary impulse and proceeded with my scrutiny of the people about
+me. The jury looked tired, with the exception of one especially alert
+little man who drank in even the most uninteresting details with
+avidity. But they all had good faces, and none could doubt their
+interest, or that they were fully alive to the significance of the
+occasion.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat, leading counsel for the defendant, was a spare man of
+unusual height, modified a little, and only a little, by the forward
+droop of his shoulders. Nervous in manner, quick, short, sometimes
+rasping in speech, he had the changeful eye and mobile expression of
+a very sensitive nature; and from him, if from any one, I might hope
+to learn how much or how little Arthur had to fear from the day’s
+proceedings. But Mr. Moffat’s countenance was not as readable as usual.
+He looked preoccupied—a strange thing for him; and, instead of keeping
+his eye on the witness, as was his habitual practice, he allowed it
+to wander over the sea of heads before him, with a curious expectant
+interest which aroused my own curiosity, and led me to hunt about for
+its cause.</p>
+
+<p>My first glance was unproductive. I saw only the usual public, such as
+had confronted us the whole week, with curious and increasing interest.
+But as I searched further, I discerned in an inconspicuous corner, the
+bowed head, veiled almost beyond recognition, of Ella Fulton. It was
+her first appearance in court. Each day I had anticipated her presence,
+and each day I had failed to see my anticipations realised. But she
+was here now, and so were her father and her cold and dominating
+mother; and, beholding her thus accompanied, I fancied I understood Mr.
+Moffat’s poorly concealed excitement. But another glance at Mrs. Fulton
+assured me that I was mistaken in this hasty surmise. No such serious
+purpose, as I feared, lay back of their presence here to-day. Curiosity
+alone explained it; and as I realised what this meant, and how little
+understanding it betokened of the fierce struggle then going on in the
+timid breast of their distracted child, a sickening sense of my own
+responsibility drove Carmel’s beauty, and Carmel’s claims temporarily
+from my mind, and following the direction of Ella’s thoughts, if not
+her glances, I sought in the face of the prisoner a recognition of her
+presence, if not of the promise this presence brought him.</p>
+
+<p>His eye had just fallen on her. I was assured of this by the sudden
+softening of his expression—the first real softening I had ever seen
+in it. It was but a momentary flash, but it was unmistakable in its
+character, as was his speedy return to his former stolidity. Whatever
+his thoughts were at sight of his little sweetheart, he meant to hide
+them even from his counsel—most of all from his counsel, I decided
+after further contemplation of them both. If Mr. Moffat still showed
+nervousness, it was for some other reason than anxiety about this
+little body hiding from sight behind the proudly held figures of father
+and mother.</p>
+
+<p>The opening testimony of the day, while not vital, was favourable to
+the prosecution in that it showed Arthur’s conduct since the murder
+to have been inconsistent with perfect innocence. His belated return
+at noon the next day, raging against the man who had been found in
+an incriminating position on the scene of crime, while at the same
+time failing to betray his own presence there till driven to it by
+accumulating circumstances and the persistent inquiries of the police;
+the care he took to avoid drink, though constant tippling was habitual
+to him and formed the great cause of quarrel between himself and the
+murdered Adelaide; his haunting of Carmel’s door and anxious listening
+for any words she might let fall in her delirium; the suspicion which
+he constantly betrayed of the nurse when for any reason he was led to
+conclude that she had heard something which he had not; his behaviour
+at the funeral and finally his action in demanding to have the
+casket-lid removed that he might look again at the face he had made no
+effort to gaze upon when opportunity offered and time and place were
+seemly: these facts and many more were brought forward in grim array
+against the prisoner, with but little opposition from his counsel and
+small betrayal of feeling on the part of Arthur himself. His stolid
+face had remained stolid even when the ring which had fallen out of his
+sister’s casket was shown to the jury and the connection made between
+its presence there and the intrusion of his hand into the same, on
+the occasion above mentioned. This once thoughtless, pleasure-loving,
+and hopelessly dissipated boy had not miscalculated his nerve. It
+was sufficient for an ordeal which might have tried the courage and
+self-possession of the most hardened criminal.</p>
+
+<p>Then came the great event of the day, in anticipation of which the
+court-room had been packed, and every heart within it awakened by slow
+degrees to a state of great nervous expectancy. The prosecution rested
+and the junior counsel for the defence opened his case to the jury.</p>
+
+<p>If I had hoped for any startling disclosure, calculated to establish
+his client’s alleged alibi, or otherwise to free the same from the
+definite charge of murder, I had reason to be greatly disappointed by
+this maiden effort of a young and inexperienced lawyer. If not exactly
+weak, there was an unexpected vagueness in its statements which seemed
+quite out of keeping with the emphatic declaration which he made of the
+prisoner’s innocence.</p>
+
+<p>Even Arthur was sensible of the bad effect made by this preliminary
+address. More than once during its delivery and notably at its
+conclusion, he turned to Mr. Moffat, with a bitter remark, which was
+not without effect on that gentleman’s cheek, and at once called forth
+a retort stinging enough to cause Arthur to sink back into his place,
+with the first sign of restlessness I had observed in him.</p>
+
+<p>“Moffat is sly. Moffat has something up his sleeve. I will wait till
+he sees fit to show it,” was my thought; then, as I caught a wild and
+pleading look from Ella, I added in positive assertion to myself, “And
+so must she.”</p>
+
+<p>Answering her unspoken appeal with an admonitory shake of the head,
+I carelessly let my fingers rest upon my mouth until I saw that she
+understood me and was prepared to follow my lead for a little while
+longer.</p>
+
+<p>My satisfaction at this was curtailed by the calling of Arthur
+Cumberland to the stand to witness in his own defence.</p>
+
+<p>I had dreaded this contingency. I saw that for some reason, both his
+counsel and associate counsel, were not without their own misgivings as
+to the result of their somewhat doubtful experiment.</p>
+
+<p>A change was observable in this degenerate son of the Cumberlands since
+many there had confronted him face to face. Physically he was improved.
+Enough time had elapsed since his sudden dropping of old habits, for
+him to have risen above its first effects and to have acquired that
+tone of personal dignity which follows a successful issue to any moral
+conflict. But otherwise the difference was such as to arouse doubt as
+to the real man lurking behind his dogged, uncommunicative manner.</p>
+
+<p>Even with the knowledge of his motives which I believed myself to
+possess, I was at a loss to understand his indifference to self and the
+immobility of manner he maintained under all circumstances and during
+every fluctuation which took place in the presentation of his case, or
+in the temper of the people surrounding him. I felt that beyond the
+one fact that he could be relied upon to protect Carmel’s name and
+Carmel’s character, even to the jeopardising of his case, he was not
+to be counted on, and might yet startle many of us, and most notably
+of all, the little woman waiting to hear what he had to say in his own
+defence before she threw herself into the breach and made that devoted
+attempt to save him, in his own despite, which had been my terror from
+the first and was my terror now.</p>
+
+<p>Perjury! but not in his own defence—rather in opposition to it—that
+is what his counsel had to fear; and I wondered if they knew it.
+My attention became absorbed in the puzzle. Carmel’s fate, if not
+Ella’s—and certainly my own—hung upon the issue. This I knew, and
+this I faced, calmly, but very surely, as, the preliminary questions
+having been answered, Mr. Moffat proceeded.</p>
+
+<p>The witness’s name having been demanded and given and some other
+preliminary formalities gone through, he was asked:</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland, did you have any quarrel with your sister during the
+afternoon or evening of December the second?”</p>
+
+<p>“I did.” Then, as if not satisfied with this simple statement, he
+blurted forth: “And it wasn’t the first. I hated the discipline she
+imposed upon me, and the disapproval she showed of my ways and the
+manner in which I chose to spend my money.”</p>
+
+<p>A straightforward expression of feeling, but hardly a judicious one.</p>
+
+<p>Judge Edwards glanced, in some surprise, from Mr. Moffat to the daring
+man who could choose thus to usher in his defence; and then, forgetting
+his own emotions, in his instinctive desire for order, rapped sharply
+with his gavel in correction of the audible expression of a like
+feeling on the part of the expectant audience.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat, apparently unaffected by this result of his daring move,
+pursued his course, with the quiet determination of one who sees his
+goal and is working deliberately towards it.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you mind particularising? Of what did she especially disapprove in
+your conduct or way of spending money?”</p>
+
+<p>“She disapproved of my fondness for drink. She didn’t like my late
+hours, or the condition in which I frequently came home. I did not like
+her expressions of displeasure, or the way she frequently cut me short
+when I wanted to have a good time with my friends. We never agreed. I
+made her suffer often and unnecessarily. I regret it now; she was a
+better sister to me than I could then understand.”</p>
+
+<p>This was uttered slowly and with a quiet emphasis which reawakened that
+excited hum the judge had been at such pains to quell a moment before.
+But he did not quell it now; he seemed to have forgotten his duty in
+the strong interest called up by these admissions from the tongue of
+the most imperturbable prisoner he had had before him in years.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat, with an eye on District Attorney Fox, who had shown his
+surprise at the trend the examination was taking by a slight indication
+of uneasiness, grateful enough, no doubt, to the daring counsellor,
+went on with his examination:</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland, will you tell us when you first felt this change of
+opinion in regard to your sister?”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fox leaped to his feet. Then he slowly reseated himself. Evidently
+he thought it best to let the prisoner have his full say. Possibly he
+may have regretted his leniency the next moment when, with a solemn
+lowering of his head, Arthur answered:</p>
+
+<p>“When I saw my home desolated in one dreadful night. With one sister
+dead in the house, the victim of violence, and another delirious from
+fright or some other analogous cause, I had ample time to think—and I
+used that time. That’s all.”</p>
+
+<p>Simple words, read or repeated; but in that crowded court-room, with
+every ear strained to catch the lie which seemed the only refuge for
+the man so hemmed in by circumstance, these words, uttered without the
+least attempt at effect, fell with a force which gave new life to such
+as wished to see this man acquitted.</p>
+
+<p>His counsel, as if anxious to take advantage of this very expectation
+to heighten the effect of what followed, proceeded immediately to
+inquire:</p>
+
+<p>“When did you see your sister Adelaide for the last time alive?”</p>
+
+<p>A searching question. What would be his reply?</p>
+
+<p>A very quiet one.</p>
+
+<p>“That night at the dinner-table. When I left the room, I turned to
+look at her. She was not looking at me; so I slammed the door and went
+upstairs. In an hour or so, I had left the house to get a drink. I got
+the drink, but I never saw Adelaide again till I saw her in her coffin.”</p>
+
+<p>This blunt denial of the crime for which he stood there arraigned, fell
+on my heart with a weight which showed me how inextinguishable is the
+hope we cherish deep down under all surface convictions. I had been
+unconscious of this hope, but it was there. It seemed to die a double
+death at these words. For I believed him! Courage is needed for a lie.
+There were no signs visible in him, as yet, of his having drawn upon
+this last resource of the despairing. I should know it when he did; he
+could not hide the subtle change from me.</p>
+
+<p>To others, this declaration came with greater or less force, according
+as it was viewed in the light of a dramatic trick of Mr. Moffat’s, or
+as the natural outburst of a man fighting for his life in his own way
+and with his own weapons. I could not catch the eye of Ella cowering
+low in her seat, so could not judge what tender chords had been struck
+in her sensitive breast by these two assertions so dramatically offset
+against each other—the one, his antagonism to the dead; the other, his
+freedom from the crime in which that antagonism was supposed to have
+culminated.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat, satisfied so far, put his next question with equal
+directness:</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland, you have mentioned seeing your sister in her coffin.
+When was this?”</p>
+
+<p>“At the close of her funeral, just before she was carried out.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was that the first and only time you had seen her so placed?”</p>
+
+<p>“It was.”</p>
+
+<p>“Had you seen the casket itself prior to this moment of which you
+speak?”</p>
+
+<p>“I had not.”</p>
+
+<p>“Had you been near it? Had you handled it in any way?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland, you have heard mention made of a ring worn by your
+sister in life, but missing from her finger after death?”</p>
+
+<p>“I have.”</p>
+
+<p>“You remember this ring?”</p>
+
+<p>“I do.”</p>
+
+<p>“Is this it?”</p>
+
+<p>“It is, so far as I can judge at this distance.”</p>
+
+<p>“Hand the ring to the witness,” ordered the judge.</p>
+
+<p>The ring was so handed.</p>
+
+<p>He glanced at it, and said bitterly: “I recognise it. It was her
+engagement ring.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was this ring on her finger that night at the dinner-table?”</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot say, positively, but I believe so. I should have noticed its
+absence.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, may I ask?”</p>
+
+<p>For the first time the prisoner flushed and the look he darted at his
+counsel had the sting of a reproach in it. Yet he answered: “It was
+the token of an engagement I didn’t believe in or like. I should have
+hailed any proof that this engagement was off.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat smiled enigmatically.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland, if you are not sure of having seen this ring then,
+when did you see it and where?”</p>
+
+<p>A rustle from end to end of that crowded court-room. This was an
+audacious move. What was coming? What would be the answer of the man
+who was believed not only to have made himself the possessor of this
+ring, but to have taken a most strange and uncanny method of disposing
+of it afterward? In the breathless hush which followed this first
+involuntary expression of feeling, Arthur’s voice rose, harsh but
+steady in this reply:</p>
+
+<p>“I saw it when the police showed it to me, and asked me if I could
+identify it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was that the only time you have seen it up to the present moment?”</p>
+
+<p>Instinctively, the witness’s right hand rose; it was as if he were
+mentally repeating his oath before he uttered coldly and with emphasis,
+though without any show of emotion:</p>
+
+<p>“It is.”</p>
+
+<p>The universal silence gave way to a universal sigh of excitement and
+relief. District Attorney Fox’s lips curled with an imperceptible
+smile of disdain, which might have impressed the jury if they had been
+looking his way; but they were all looking with eager and interested
+eyes at the prisoner, who had just uttered this second distinct and
+unequivocal denial.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat noted this, and his own lip curled, but with a very
+different show of feeling from that which had animated his
+distinguished opponent. Without waiting for the present sentiment to
+cool, he proceeded immediately with his examination:</p>
+
+<p>“You swear that you have seen this ring but once since the night
+of your sister’s death, and that was when it was shown you in the
+coroner’s office?”</p>
+
+<p>“I do.”</p>
+
+<p>“Does this mean that it was not in your possession at any time during
+that interim?”</p>
+
+<p>“It certainly does.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland, more than one witness has testified to the fact of
+your having been seen to place your hand in the casket of your sister,
+before the eyes of the minister and of others attending her funeral. Is
+this true?”</p>
+
+<p>“It is.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was not this a most unusual thing to do?”</p>
+
+<p>“Perhaps. I was not thinking about that. I had a duty to perform, and I
+performed it.”</p>
+
+<p>“A duty? Will you explain to the jury what duty?”</p>
+
+<p>The witness’s head rose, then sank. He, as well as every one else,
+seemed to be impressed by the solemnity of the moment. Though the
+intensity of my own interest would not allow my eyes to wander from his
+face, I could imagine the strained look in Ella’s, as she awaited his
+words.</p>
+
+<p>They came in another instant, but with less steadiness than he had
+shown before. I even thought I could detect a tremor in his muscles, as
+well as in his voice:</p>
+
+<p>“I had rebelled against my sister’s wishes; I had grieved and deceived
+her up to the very night of her foul and unnatural death—and all
+through <i>drink</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>Here his eye flashed, and for that fleeting moment he looked a man.
+“I wished to take an oath—an oath I would remember. It was for this
+purpose I ordered the casket opened, and thrust my fingers through
+the flowers I found there. When my fingers touched my sister’s brow,
+I inwardly swore never to taste liquor again. I have kept that oath.
+Difficult as it was, in my state of mind, and with all my troubles, I
+have kept it—and been misunderstood in doing so,” he added, in lower
+tones, and with just a touch of bitterness.</p>
+
+<p>It was such an unexpected explanation, and so calculated to cause a
+decided and favourable reaction in the minds of those who had looked
+upon this especial act of his as an irrefutable proof of guilt, that
+it was but natural that some show of public feeling should follow. But
+this was checked almost immediately, and Mr. Moffat’s voice was heard
+rising again in his strange but telling examination:</p>
+
+<p>“When you thrust your hand in to take this oath, did you drop anything
+into your sister’s casket?”</p>
+
+<p>“I did not. My hand was empty. I held no ring, and dropped none in. I
+simply touched her forehead.”</p>
+
+<p>This added to the feeling; and, in another instant, the excitement
+might have risen into hubbub, had not the emotions of one little woman
+found vent in a low and sobbing cry which relieved the tension and gave
+just the relief needed to hold in check the overstrained feelings of
+the crowd. I knew the voice and cast one quick glance that way, in time
+to see Ella sinking affrightedly out of sight under the dismayed looks
+of father and mother; then, anxious to note whether the prisoner had
+recognised her, too, looked hastily back to find him standing quietly
+and unmoved, with his eyes on his counsel and his lips set in the stern
+line which was slowly changing his expression.</p>
+
+<p>That counsel, strangely alive to the temper and feelings of his
+audience, waited just long enough for the few simple and solemn words
+uttered by the accused man to produce their full effect, then with a
+side glance at Mr. Fox, whose equanimity he had at last succeeded in
+disturbing, and whose cross-examination of the prisoner he had still
+to fear, continued his own examination by demanding why, when the ring
+was discovered in Adelaide’s casket and he saw what inferences would be
+drawn from the fact, he had not made an immediate public explanation of
+his conduct and the reasons he had had for putting his hand there.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m not a muff,” shot from the prisoner’s lips, in his old manner. “A
+man who would take such an oath, in such a way, and at such a time, is
+not the man to talk about it until he is forced to. I would not talk
+about it now—”</p>
+
+<p>He was checked at this point; but the glimpse we thus obtained of
+the natural man, in this indignant and sullen outburst, following so
+quickly upon the solemn declarations of the moment before, did more for
+him in the minds of those present than the suavest and most discreet
+answer given under the instigation of his counsel. Every face showed
+pleasure, and for a short space, if for no longer, all who listened
+were disposed to accept his assertions and accord the benefit of doubt
+to this wayward son of an esteemed father.</p>
+
+<p>To me, who had hoped nothing from Moffat’s efforts, the substantial
+nature of the defence thus openly made manifest, brought reanimation
+and an unexpected confidence in the future.</p>
+
+<p>The question as to who had dropped the ring into the casket if Arthur
+had not—the innocent children, the grieving servants—was latent, of
+course, in every breast, but it had not yet reached the point demanding
+expression.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the examination proceeded.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland, you have stated that you did not personally drop this
+ring into the place where it was ultimately found. Can you tell us of
+your own knowledge who did?”</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot. I know nothing about the ring. I was much surprised,
+probably more surprised than any one else, to hear of its discovery in
+that place.”</p>
+
+<p>The slip—and it was a slip for him to introduce that <i>more</i>—was
+immediately taken advantage of by his counsel.</p>
+
+<p>“You say ‘more,’ Why should it be more of a surprise to you than to any
+one else to learn where this missing engagement ring of your sister’s
+had been found?”</p>
+
+<p>Again that look of displeasure directed towards his questioner, and a
+certain additional hardness in his reply, when he finally made it.</p>
+
+<p>“I was her brother. I had a brother’s antipathies and rightful
+suspicions. I could not see how that ring came to be where it was, when
+the only one interested in its restoration was in prison.”</p>
+
+<p>This was a direct blow at myself, and of course called Mr. Fox to his
+feet, with a motion to strike out this answer. An altercation followed
+between him and Mr. Moffat, which, deeply as it involved my life and
+reputation, failed to impress me, as it might otherwise have done, if
+my whole mind had not been engaged in reconciling the difficulty about
+this ring with what I knew of Carmel and the probability which existed
+of her having been responsible for its removal from her sister’s hand.
+But Carmel had been ill since, desperately ill and unconscious. She
+could have had nothing to do with its disposal afterwards among the
+flowers at her sister’s funeral. Nor had she been in a condition to
+delegate this act of concealment to another. Who, then, had been the
+intermediary in this business? The question was no longer a latent one
+in my mind; it was an insistent one, compelling me either to discredit
+Arthur’s explanation (in which case anything might be believed of him)
+or to accept for good and all this new theory that some person of
+unknown identity had played an accessory’s part in this crime, whose
+full burden I had hitherto laid upon the shoulders of the impetuous
+Carmel. Either hypothesis brought light. I began to breathe again the
+air of hope, and if observed at that moment, must have presented the
+odd spectacle of a man rejoicing in his own shame and accepting with
+positive uplift, the inevitable stigma cast upon his honour by the
+suggestive sentence just hurled at him by an indignant witness.</p>
+
+<p>The point raised by the district attorney having been ruled upon
+and sustained by the court, Mr. Moffat made no effort to carry his
+inquiries any further in the direction indicated; but I could see,
+with all my inexperience of the law and the ways of attorneys before a
+jury, that the episode had produced its inevitable result, and that my
+position, as a man released from suspicion, had received a shock, the
+results of which I might yet be made to feel.</p>
+
+<p>A moment’s pause followed, during which some of Mr. Moffat’s
+nervousness returned. He eyed the prisoner doubtfully, found him
+stoical and as self-contained as at the beginning of his examination,
+and plunged into a topic which most people had expected him to avoid.
+I certainly had, and felt all the uncertainty and secret alarm which
+an unexpected move occasions where the issue is momentous with life
+or death. I was filled with terror, not for the man on trial, but for
+my secret. Was it shared by the defence? Was Mr. Moffat armed with
+the knowledge I thought confined to myself and Arthur? Had the latter
+betrayed the cause I had been led to believe he was ready to risk
+his life to defend? Had I mistaken his gratitude to myself; or had I
+underrated Mr. Moffat’s insight or powers of persuasion? We had just
+been made witness to one triumph on the part of this able lawyer in a
+quarter deemed unassailable by the prosecution. Were we about to be
+made witnesses of another? I felt the sweat start on my forehead, and
+was only able to force myself into some show of self-possession by
+the evident lack of perfect assurance with which this same lawyer now
+addressed his client.</p>
+
+<p>The topic which had awakened in me these doubts and consequent
+agitation will appear from the opening question.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland, to return to the night of your sister’s death. Can you
+tell us what overcoat you put on when leaving your house?”</p>
+
+<p>Arthur was as astonished and certainly as disconcerted, if not as
+seriously alarmed, as I was, by this extraordinary move. Surprise,
+anger, then some deeper feeling rang in his voice as he replied:</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot. I took down the first I saw and <i>the first hat.</i>”</p>
+
+<p>The emphasis placed on the last three words may have been meant as a
+warning to his audacious counsel, but if so, it was not heeded.</p>
+
+<p>“Took down? Took down from where?”</p>
+
+<p>“From the rack in the hall where I hang my things; the side hall
+leading to the door where we usually go out.”</p>
+
+<p>“Have you many coats—overcoats, I mean?”</p>
+
+<p>“More than one.”</p>
+
+<p>“And you do not know which one you put on that cold night?”</p>
+
+<p>“I do not.”</p>
+
+<p>“But you know what one you wore back?”</p>
+
+<p>“No.”</p>
+
+<p>Short, sharp, and threatening was this <i>no</i>. A war was on between this
+man and his counsel, and the wonder it occasioned was visible in every
+eye. Perhaps Mr. Moffat realised this; this was what he had dreaded,
+perhaps. At all events, he proceeded with his strange task, in apparent
+oblivion of everything but his own purpose.</p>
+
+<p>“You do not know what one you wore back?”</p>
+
+<p>“I do not.”</p>
+
+<p>“You have seen the hat and coat which have been shown here and sworn to
+as being the ones in which you appeared on your return to the house,
+the day following your sister’s murder?”</p>
+
+<p>“I have.”</p>
+
+<p>“Also the hat and coat found on a remote hook in the closet under the
+stairs, bearing the flour-mark on its under brim?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, that too.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yet cannot say which of these two overcoats you put on when you left
+your home, an hour or so after finishing your dinner?”</p>
+
+<p>Trapped by his own lawyer—visibly and remorselessly trapped! The
+blood, shooting suddenly into the astounded prisoner’s face, was
+reflected on the cheeks of the other lawyers present. Even Mr.
+Fox betrayed his surprise; but it was a surprise not untinged by
+apprehension. Mr. Moffat must feel very sure of himself to venture thus
+far. I, who feared to ask myself the cause of this assurance, could
+only wait and search the partially visible face of little Ella for an
+enlightenment, which was no more to be found there than in the swollen
+features of the outraged Arthur. The excitement which this event
+caused, afforded the latter some few moments in which to quell his own
+indignation; and when he spoke, it was passionately, yet not without
+some effort at restraint.</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot. I was in no condition to notice. I was bent on going into
+town, and immediately upon coming downstairs went straight to the rack
+and pulled on the first things that offered.”</p>
+
+<p>It appeared to be a perfect give-a-way. And it was, but it was a
+give-a-way which, I feared, threatened Carmel rather than her brother.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat, still nervous, still avoiding the prisoner’s eye,
+relentlessly pursued his course, unmindful—wilfully so, it
+appeared—of the harm he was doing himself, as well as the witness.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland, were a coat and hat all that you took from that hall?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, I took a key—a key from the bunch which I saw lying on the table.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you recognise this key?”</p>
+
+<p>“I did.”</p>
+
+<p>“What key was it?”</p>
+
+<p>“It belonged to Mr. Ranelagh, and was the key to the club-house
+wine-vault.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where did you put it after taking it up?”</p>
+
+<p>“In my trousers’ pocket.”</p>
+
+<p>“What did you do then?”</p>
+
+<p>“Went out, of course.”</p>
+
+<p>“Without seeing anybody?”</p>
+
+<p>“Of course. Whom should I see?”</p>
+
+<p>It was angrily said, and the flush, which had begun to die away, slowly
+made its way back into his cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you willing to repeat that you saw no one?”</p>
+
+<p>“There was no one.”</p>
+
+<p>A lie! All knew it, all felt it. The man was perjuring himself, under
+his own counsel’s persistent questioning on a point which that counsel
+had evidently been warned by him to avoid. I was assured of this by the
+way Moffat failed to meet Arthur’s eye, as he pressed on hastily, and
+in a way to forestall all opposition.</p>
+
+<p>“There are two ways of leaving your house for the city. Which way did
+you take?”</p>
+
+<p>“The shortest. I went through my neighbour’s grounds to Huested Street.”</p>
+
+<p>“Immediately?”</p>
+
+<p>“As soon as I could. I don’t know what you mean by immediately.”</p>
+
+<p>“Didn’t you stop at the stable?”</p>
+
+<p>A pause, during which more than one person present sat breathless.
+These questions were what might be expected from Mr. Fox in
+cross-examination. They seemed totally unsuited to a direct examination
+at the hands of his own counsel. What did such an innovation mean?</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I stopped at the stable.”</p>
+
+<p>“What to do?”</p>
+
+<p>“To look at the horses.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why?”</p>
+
+<p>“One of them had gone lame. I wanted to see his condition.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was it the grey mare?”</p>
+
+<p>Had the defence changed places with the prosecution? It looked like
+it; and Arthur looked as if he considered Mr. Moffat guilty of the
+unheard of, inexplainable act, of cross-examining his own witness. The
+situation was too tempting for Mr. Fox to resist calling additional
+attention to it. With an assumption of extreme consideration, he leaned
+forward and muttered under his breath to his nearest colleague, but
+still loud enough for those about him to hear:</p>
+
+<p>“The prisoner must know that he is not bound to answer questions when
+such answers tend to criminate him.”.</p>
+
+<p>A lightning glance, shot in his direction, was the eloquent advocate’s
+sole reply.</p>
+
+<p>But Arthur, nettled into speaking, answered the question put him, in a
+loud, quick tone: “It was not the grey mare; but I went up to the grey
+mare before going out; I patted her and bade her be a good girl.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where was she then?”</p>
+
+<p>“Where she belonged—in her stall.”</p>
+
+<p>The tones had sunk; so had the previously lifted head; he no longer
+commanded universal sympathy or credence. The effect of his former
+avowals was almost gone.</p>
+
+<p>Yet Mr. Moffat could smile. As I noticed this, and recognised the
+satisfaction it evinced, my heart went down, in great trouble. This
+esteemed advocate, the hero of a hundred cases, was not afraid to have
+it known that Arthur had harnessed that mare; he even wanted it known.
+Why? There could be but one answer to that—or, so I thought, at the
+moment. The next, I did not know what to think; for he failed to pursue
+this subject, and simply asked Arthur if, upon leaving, he had locked
+the stable-door.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes—no,—I don’t remember,” was the bungling, and greatly confused
+reply.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat glanced at the jury, the smile still on his lips. Did he
+wish to impress that body with the embarrassment of his client?</p>
+
+<p>“Relate what followed. I am sure the jury will be glad to hear your
+story from your own lips.”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s a beastly one, but if I’ve got to tell it, here it is: I went
+straight down to Cuthbert Road and across the fields to the club-house.
+I had not taken the key to the front door, because I knew of a window
+I could shake loose. I did this and went immediately down to the
+wine-vault. I used an electric torch of my own for light. I pulled
+out several bottles, and carried them up into the kitchen, meaning to
+light the gas, kindle a fire, and have a good time generally. But I
+soon found that I must do without light if I stayed there. The meter
+had been taken out; and to drink by the flash of an electric torch was
+anything but a pleasing prospect. Besides—” here he flashed at his
+counsel a glance, which for a moment took that gentleman aback—“I
+had heard certain vague sounds in the house which alarmed me, as well
+as roused my curiosity. Choosing the bottle I liked best, I went to
+investigate these sounds.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat started. His witness was having his revenge. Kept in
+ignorance of his counsel’s plan of defence, he was evidently advancing
+testimony new to that counsel. I had not thought the lad so subtle, and
+quaked in secret contemplation of the consequences. So did some others;
+but the interest was intense. He had heard sounds—he acknowledged it.
+But what sounds?</p>
+
+<p>Observing the excitement he had caused, and gratified, perhaps, that
+he had succeeded in driving that faint but unwelcome smile from Mr.
+Moffat’s lips, Arthur hastened to add:</p>
+
+<p>“But I did not complete my investigations. Arrived at the top of
+the stairs, I heard what drove me from the house at once. It was my
+sister’s voice—Adelaide’s. She was in the building, and I stood almost
+on a level with her, with a bottle in my pocket. It did not take me a
+minute to clamber through the window. I did not stop to wonder, or ask
+why she was there, or to whom she was speaking. I just fled and made
+my way as well as I could across the golf-links to a little hotel on
+Cuthbert Road, where I had been once before. There I emptied my bottle,
+and was so overcome by it that I did not return home till noon the
+next day. It was on the way to the Hill that I was told of the awful
+occurrence which had taken place in the club-house after I had left it.
+That sobered me. I have been sober ever since.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat’s smile came back. One might have said that he had been
+rather pleased than otherwise by the introduction of this unexpected
+testimony.</p>
+
+<p>But I doubt if any one but myself witnessed this evidence of
+good-humour on his part. Arthur’s attitude and Arthur’s manner had
+drawn all eyes to himself. As the last words I have recorded left
+his lips, he had raised his head and confronted the jury with a
+straightforward gaze. The sturdiness and immobility of his aspect were
+impressive, in spite of his plain features and the still unmistakable
+signs of long cherished discontent and habitual dissipation. He had
+struck bottom with his feet, and there he would stand,—or so I thought
+as I levelled my own glances at him.</p>
+
+<p>But I had not fully sounded all of Alonzo Moffat’s resources. That
+inscrutable lawyer and not-easily-to-be-understood man seemed
+determined to mar every good impression his unfortunate client managed
+to make.</p>
+
+<p>Ignoring the new facts just given, undoubtedly thinking that they would
+be amply sifted in the coming cross-examination, he drew the attention
+of the prisoner to himself by the following question:</p>
+
+<p>“Will you tell us again how many bottles of wine you took from the
+club-house?”</p>
+
+<p>“One. No—I’m not sure about that—I’m not sure of anything. I had only
+one when at the inn in Cuthbert Road.”</p>
+
+<p>“You remember but one?”</p>
+
+<p>“I had but one. One was enough. I had trouble in carrying that.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was the ground slippery?”</p>
+
+<p>“It was snowy and it was uneven. I stumbled more than once in crossing
+the links.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland, is there anything you would like to say in your own
+defence before I close this examination?”</p>
+
+<p>The prisoner thus appealed to, let his eye rest for a moment on the
+judge, then on the jury, and finally on one little white face lifted
+from the crowd before him as if to meet and absorb his look. Then he
+straightened himself, and in a quiet and perfectly natural voice,
+uttered these simple words:</p>
+
+<p>“Nothing but this: I am innocent.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXVI">XXVI<br><span class="small">THE SYLLABLE OF DOOM</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">I alit<br>
+On a great ship lightning-split,<br>
+And speeded hither on the sigh<br>
+Of one who gave an enemy<br>
+His plank, then plunged aside to die.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Prometheus Unbound</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>Recess followed. Clifton and I had the opportunity of exchanging a few
+words. He was voluble; I was reticent. I felt obliged to hide from
+him the true cause of the deep agitation under which I was labouring.
+Attached as he was to me, keenly as he must have felt my anomalous
+position, he was too full of Moffat’s unwarrantable introduction of
+testimony damaging to his client, to think or talk of anything else.</p>
+
+<p>“He has laid him open to attack on every side. Fox has but to follow
+his lead, and the thing is done. Poor Arthur may be guilty, but he
+certainly should have every chance a careful lawyer could give him.
+You can see—he makes it very evident—that he has no further use for
+Moffat. I wonder under whose advice he chose him for his counsel. I
+have never thought much of Moffat, myself. He wins his cases but—”</p>
+
+<p>“He will win this,” I muttered.</p>
+
+<p>Clifton started; looked at me very closely for a minute, paled a
+little—I fear that I was very pale myself—but did not ask the
+question rising to his lips.</p>
+
+<p>“There is method in the madness of a man like that,” I pursued with a
+gloom I could not entirely conceal. “He has come upon some evidence
+which he has not even communicated to his client. At least, I fear so.
+We must be prepared for any untoward event.” Then, noticing Clifton’s
+alarm and wishing to confine it within safe bounds, I added: “I feel
+that I am almost as much on trial as Arthur himself. Naturally I am
+anxious at the appearance of anything I do not understand.”</p>
+
+<p>Clifton frowned. We were quite alone. Leaning forward, he touched my
+arm.</p>
+
+<p>“Elwood,” said he, “you’ve not been quite open with me.”</p>
+
+<p>I smiled. If half the bitterness and sorrow in my heart went into that
+smile, it must have been a sad and bitter one indeed.</p>
+
+<p>“You have a right to reproach me,” said I, “but not wholly. I did not
+deceive you in essentials. You may still believe me as guiltless of
+Adelaide’s violent death as a man can be who drove her and hers into
+misery which death alone could end.”</p>
+
+<p>“I will believe it,” he muttered, “I must.” And he dropped the subject,
+as he made me see, forever.</p>
+
+<p>I drew a deep breath of relief. I had come very near to revealing my
+secret.</p>
+
+<p>When we returned to the court-room, we found it already packed with a
+very subdued and breathless crowd. It differed somewhat from the one
+which had faced us in the morning; but Ella and her parents were there
+and many others of the acknowledged friends of the accused and of his
+family.</p>
+
+<p>He, himself, wore the heavy and dogged air which became him least.
+Physically refreshed, he carried himself boldly, but it was a boldness
+which convinced me that any talk he may have had with his lawyer, had
+been no more productive of comfort than the one I had held with mine.</p>
+
+<p>As he took the witness chair, and prepared to meet the
+cross-examination of the district attorney, a solemn hush settled
+upon the room. Would the coming ordeal rob his brow of its present
+effrontery, or would he continue to bear himself with the same surly
+dignity, which, misunderstood as it was, produced its own effect, and
+at certain moments seemed to shake even the confidence of Mr. Fox,
+settled as he seemed to be in his belief in the integrity of his cause
+and the rights of the prosecution.</p>
+
+<p>Shaken or not, his attack was stern, swift, and to the point.</p>
+
+<p>“Was the visit you made to the wine-vault on the evening of the second
+of December, the first one you had ever paid there?”</p>
+
+<p>“No; I had been there once before. But I always paid for my
+depredations,” he added, proudly.</p>
+
+<p>“The categorical answer, Mr. Cumberland. Anything else is superfluous.”</p>
+
+<p>Arthur’s lip curled, but only for an instant; and nothing could have
+exceeded the impassiveness of his manner as Mr. Fox went on.</p>
+
+<p>“Then you knew the way?”</p>
+
+<p>“Perfectly.”</p>
+
+<p>“And the lock?”</p>
+
+<p>“Sufficiently well to open it without difficulty.”</p>
+
+<p>“How long do you think you were in entering the house and procuring
+these bottles?”</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot say. I have no means of knowing; I never thought of looking
+at my watch.”</p>
+
+<p>“Not when you started? Not when you left Cuthbert Road?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“But you know when you left the club-house to go back?”</p>
+
+<p>“Only by this—it had not yet begun to snow. I’m told that the
+first flakes fell that night at ten minutes to eleven. I was on the
+golf-links when this happened. You can fix the time yourself. Pardon
+me,” he added, with decided ill-grace as he met Mr. Fox’s frown. “I
+forgot your injunction.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fox smiled an acrid smile, as he asked: “Whereabouts on the
+golf-links? They extend for some distance, you remember.”</p>
+
+<p>“They are six hundred yards across from first tee to the third hole,
+which is the nearest one to Cuthbert Road,” Arthur particularised. “I
+was—no, I can’t tell you just where I was at that moment. It was a
+good ways from the house. The snow came on very fiercely. For a little
+while I could not see my way.”</p>
+
+<p>“How, not see your way?”</p>
+
+<p>“The snow flew into my eyes.”</p>
+
+<p>“Crossing the links?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir, crossing the links.”</p>
+
+<p>“But the storm came from the west. It should have beaten against your
+back.”</p>
+
+<p>“Back or front, it bothered me. I could not get on as fast as I wished.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fox cast a look at the jury. Did they remember the testimony of the
+landlord that Mr. Cumberland’s coat was as thickly plastered with snow
+on the front as it had been on the back. He seemed to gather that they
+did, for he went on at once to say:</p>
+
+<p>“You are accustomed to the links? You have crossed them often?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I play golf there all summer.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m not alluding to the times when you play. I mean to ask whether or
+not you had ever before crossed them directly to Cuthbert Road?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I had.”</p>
+
+<p>“In a storm?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, not in a storm.”</p>
+
+<p>“How long did it take you that time to reach Cuthbert Road from The
+Whispering Pines?”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat bounded to his feet, but the prisoner had answered before he
+could speak.</p>
+
+<p>“Just fifteen minutes.”</p>
+
+<p>“How came you to know the time so exactly?”</p>
+
+<p>“Because that day I did look at my watch. I had an engagement in the
+lower town, and had only twenty minutes in which to keep it. I was on
+time.”</p>
+
+<p>Honest at the core. This boy was growing rapidly in my favour. But this
+frank but unwise answer was not pleasing to his counsel, who would have
+advised, no doubt, a more general and less precise reply. However, it
+had been made and Moffat was not a man to cry over spilled milk. He
+did not even wince when the district attorney proceeded to elicit from
+the prisoner that he was a good walker, not afraid in the least of
+snow-storms and had often walked, in the teeth of the gale twice that
+distance in less than half an hour. Now, as the storm that night had
+been at his back, and he was in a hurry to reach his destination, it
+was evidently incumbent upon him to explain how he had managed to use
+up the intervening time of forty minutes before entering the hotel at
+half-past eleven.</p>
+
+<p>“Did you stop in the midst of the storm to take a drink?” asked the
+district attorney.</p>
+
+<p>As the testimony of the landlord in Cuthbert Road had been explicit
+as to the fact of his having himself uncorked the bottle which the
+prisoner had brought into the hotel, Arthur could not plead yes. He
+must say no, and he did.</p>
+
+<p>“I drank nothing; I was too busy thinking. I was so busy thinking I
+wandered all over those links.”</p>
+
+<p>“In the blinding snow?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, in the snow. What did I care for the snow? I did not understand
+my sister being in the club-house. I did not like it; I was tempted at
+times to go back.”</p>
+
+<p>“And why didn’t you?”</p>
+
+<p>“Because I was more of a brute than a brother—because Cuthbert Road
+drew me in spite of myself—because—” He stopped with the first hint
+of emotion we had seen in him since the morning. “I did not know what
+was going on there or I should have gone back,” he flashed out, with a
+defiant look at his counsel.</p>
+
+<p>Again sympathy was with him. Mr. Fox had won but little in this first
+attempt. He seemed to realise this, and shifted his attack to a point
+more vulnerable.</p>
+
+<p>“When you heard your sister’s voice in the club-house, how did you
+think she had got into the building?”</p>
+
+<p>“By means of the keys Ranelagh had left at the house.”</p>
+
+<p>“When, instead of taking the whole bunch, you took the one key you
+wanted from the ring, did you do so with any idea she might want to
+make use of the rest?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, I never thought of it. I never thought of her at all.”</p>
+
+<p>“You took your one key, and let the rest lie?”</p>
+
+<p>“You’ve said it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was this before or after you put on your overcoat?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m not sure; after, I think. Yes, it was after; for I remember that
+I had a deuce of a time unbuttoning my coat to get at my trousers’
+pocket.”</p>
+
+<p>“You dropped this key into your trousers’ pocket?”</p>
+
+<p>“I did.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland, let me ask you to fix your memory on the moments you
+spent in the hall. Did you put on your hat before you pocketed the key,
+or afterwards?”</p>
+
+<p>“My hat? How can I tell? My mind wasn’t on my hat. I don’t know when I
+put it on.”</p>
+
+<p>“You absolutely do not remember?”</p>
+
+<p>“No.”</p>
+
+<p>“Nor where you took it from?”</p>
+
+<p>“No.”</p>
+
+<p>“Whether you saw the keys first, and then went for your hat; or having
+pocketed the key, waited—”</p>
+
+<p>“I did not wait.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did not stand by the table thinking?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, I was in too much of a hurry.”</p>
+
+<p>“So that you went straight out?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, as quickly as I could.”</p>
+
+<p>The district attorney paused, to be sure of the attention of the jury.
+When he saw that every eye of that now thoroughly aroused body was on
+him, he proceeded to ask: “Does that mean immediately, or as soon as
+you could after you had made certain preparations, or held certain talk
+with some one you called, or who called to you?”</p>
+
+<p>“I called to nobody. I—I went out immediately.”</p>
+
+<p>It was evident that he lied; evident, too, that he had little hope from
+his lie. Uneasiness was taking the place of confidence in his youthful,
+untried, undisciplined mind. Carmel had spoken to him in the hall—I
+guessed it then, I knew it afterward—and he thought to deceive this
+court and blindfold a jury, whose attention had been drawn to this
+point by his own counsel.</p>
+
+<p>District Attorney Fox smiled. “How then did you get into the stable?”</p>
+
+<p>“The stable! Oh, I had no trouble in getting into the stable.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was it unlocked?”</p>
+
+<p>A slow flush broke over the prisoner’s whole face. He saw where he
+had been landed and took a minute to pull himself together before he
+replied: “I had the key to that door, too. I got it out of the kitchen.”</p>
+
+<p>“You have not spoken of going into the kitchen.”</p>
+
+<p>“I have not spoken of coming downstairs.”</p>
+
+<p>“You went into the kitchen?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“When?”</p>
+
+<p>“When I first came down.”</p>
+
+<p>“That is not in accordance with your direct testimony. On the contrary,
+you said that on coming downstairs you went straight to the rack for
+your overcoat. Stenographer read what the prisoner said on this topic.”</p>
+
+<p>A rustling of leaves, distinctly to be heard in the deathlike silence
+of the room, was followed by the reading of this reply and answer:</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Yet you cannot say which of these two overcoats you put on when you
+left your home an hour or so after finishing your dinner?</i>”</p>
+
+<p>“<i>I cannot. I was in no condition to notice. I was bent on going into
+town and, on coming downstairs, I went straight to the rack and pulled
+on the first things that offered.</i>”</p>
+
+<p>The prisoner stood immobile but with a deepening line gathering on his
+brow until the last word fell. Then he said: “I forgot. I went for the
+key before I put on my overcoat. I wanted to see how the sick horse
+looked.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you drop this key into your pocket, too?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, I carried it into the hall.”</p>
+
+<p>“What did you do with it there?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know. Put it on the table, I suppose.”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t you remember? There were other keys lying on this table. Don’t
+you remember what you did with the one in your hand while you took the
+club-house key from the midst of Mr. Ranelagh’s bunch?”</p>
+
+<p>“I laid it on the table. I must have—there was no other place to put
+it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Laid it down by itself?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“And took it up when you went out?”</p>
+
+<p>“Of course.”</p>
+
+<p>“Carrying it straight to the stable?”</p>
+
+<p>“Naturally.”</p>
+
+<p>“What did you do with it when you came out?”</p>
+
+<p>“I left it in the stable-door.”</p>
+
+<p>“You did? What excuse have you to give for that?”</p>
+
+<p>“None. I was reckless, and didn’t care for anything—that’s all.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yet you took several minutes, for all your hurry and your
+indifference, to get the stable key and look in at a horse that wasn’t
+sick enough to keep your coachman home from a dance.”</p>
+
+<p>The prisoner was silent.</p>
+
+<p>“You have no further explanation to give on this subject?”</p>
+
+<p>“No. All fellows who love horses will understand.”</p>
+
+<p>The district attorney shrugged this answer away before he went on to
+say: “You have listened to Zadok Brown’s testimony. When he returned at
+three, he found the stable-door locked, and the key hanging up on its
+usual nail in the kitchen. How do you account for this?”</p>
+
+<p>“There are two ways.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mention them, if you please.”</p>
+
+<p>“Zadok had been to a dance, and may not have been quite clear as to
+what he saw. Or, finding the stable door open, may have blamed himself
+for the fact and sought to cover up his fault with a lie.”</p>
+
+<p>“Have you ever caught him in a lie?”</p>
+
+<p>“No; but there’s always a first time.”</p>
+
+<p>“You would impeach his testimony then?”</p>
+
+<p>“No. You asked me how this discrepancy could be explained, and I have
+tried to show you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland, the grey mare was out that night; this has been amply
+proved.”</p>
+
+<p>“If you believe Zadok, yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“You have heard other testimony corroborative of this fact. She was
+seen on the club-house road that night, by a person amply qualified to
+identify her.”</p>
+
+<p>“So I’ve been told.”</p>
+
+<p>“The person driving this horse wore a hat, identified as an old one
+of yours, which hat was afterwards found at your house on a remote
+peg in a seldom-used closet. If you were not this person, how can you
+explain the use of your horse, the use of your clothes, the locking of
+the stable-door—which you declare yourself to have left open—and the
+hanging up of the key on its own nail?”</p>
+
+<p>It was a crucial question—how crucial no one knew but our two selves.
+If he answered at all, he must compromise Carmel. I had no fear of his
+doing this, but I had great fear of what Ella might do if he let this
+implication stand and made no effort to exonerate himself by denying
+his presence in the cutter, and consequent return to the Cumberland
+home. The quick side glances I here observed cast in her direction
+by both father and mother, showed that she had made some impulsive
+demonstration visible to them, if not to others and fearful of the
+consequences if I did not make some effort to hold her in check, I kept
+my eyes in her direction, and so lost Arthur’s look and the look of his
+counsel as he answered, with just the word I had expected—a short and
+dogged:</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot explain.”</p>
+
+<p>It was my death warrant. I realised this even while I held Ella’s eye
+with mine and smoothed my countenance to meet the anguish in hers, in
+the effort to hold her back for a few minutes longer till I could quite
+satisfy myself that Arthur’s case was really lost and that I must speak
+or feel myself his murderer.</p>
+
+<p>The gloom which followed this recognition of his inability, real or
+fancied, to explain away the most damning feature of the case against
+him, taken with his own contradictions and growing despondency, could
+not escape my eye, accustomed as I was to the habitual expression of
+most every person there. But it was not yet the impenetrable gloom
+presaging conviction; and directing Ella’s gaze towards Mr. Moffat,
+who seemed but little disturbed either by Mr. Fox’s satisfaction or
+the prisoner’s open despair, I took heart of grace and waited for the
+district attorney’s next move. It was a fatal one. I began to recognise
+this very soon, simple as was the subject he now introduced.</p>
+
+<p>“When you went into the kitchen, Mr. Cumberland, to get the stable-door
+key, was the gas lit, or did you have to light it?”</p>
+
+<p>“It—it was lit, I think.”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t you know?”</p>
+
+<p>“It was lit, but turned low. I could see well enough.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, then, didn’t you take both keys?”</p>
+
+<p>“Both keys?”</p>
+
+<p>“You have said you went down town by the short cut through your
+neighbour’s yard. That cut is guarded by a door, which was locked that
+night. You needed the key to that door more than the one to the stable.
+Why didn’t you take it?”</p>
+
+<p>“I—I did.”</p>
+
+<p>“You haven’t said so.”</p>
+
+<p>“I—I took it when I took the other.”</p>
+
+<p>“Are you sure?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; they both hung on one nail. I grabbed them both at the same time.”</p>
+
+<p>“It does not appear so in your testimony. You mentioned a key, not
+keys, in all your answers to my questions.”</p>
+
+<p>“There were two; I didn’t weigh my words. I needed both and I took
+both.”</p>
+
+<p>“Which of the two hung foremost?”</p>
+
+<p>“I didn’t notice.”</p>
+
+<p>“You took both?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I took both.”</p>
+
+<p>“And went straight out with them?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, to the stable.”</p>
+
+<p>“And then where?”</p>
+
+<p>“Through the adjoining grounds downtown.”</p>
+
+<p>“You are sure you went through Mr. Fulton’s grounds at this early hour
+in the evening?”</p>
+
+<p>“I am positive.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was it not at a later hour, much later, a little before eleven instead
+of a little before nine?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir. I was on the golf-links then.”</p>
+
+<p>“But some one drove into the stable.”</p>
+
+<p>“So you say.”</p>
+
+<p>“Unharnessed the horse, drew up the cutter, locked the stable-door,
+and, entering the house, hung up the key where it belonged.”</p>
+
+<p>No answer this time.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland, you admitted in your direct examination that you took
+with you out of the clubhouse only one bottle of the especial brand you
+favoured, although you carried up two into the kitchen?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, I said that I only had one when I got to Cuthbert Road. I don’t
+remember anything about the other.”</p>
+
+<p>“But you know where the other—or rather remnants of the other, was
+found?”</p>
+
+<p>“In my own stable, taken there by my man Zadok Brown, who says he
+picked it out of one of our waste barrels.”</p>
+
+<p>“This is the part of bottle referred to. Do you recognise the label
+still adhering to it as similar to the one to be found on the bottle
+you emptied in Cuthbert Road?”</p>
+
+<p>“It is like that one.”</p>
+
+<p>“Had you carried that other bottle off, and had it been broken as
+this has been broken would it not have presented an exactly similar
+appearance to this?”</p>
+
+<p>“Possibly.”</p>
+
+<p>“Only possibly?”</p>
+
+<p>“It would have looked the same. I cannot deny it. What’s the use
+fooling?”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Cumberland, the only two bottles known to contain this especial
+brand of wine were in the clubhouse at ten o’clock that night. How came
+one of them to get into the barrel outside your stable before your
+return the next day?”</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot say.”</p>
+
+<p>“This barrel stood where?”</p>
+
+<p>“In the passage behind the stable.”</p>
+
+<p>“The passage you pass through on your way to the door leading into your
+neighbour’s grounds?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>The dreaded moment had come. This “Yes” had no sooner left Arthur’s
+lips than I saw Ella throw out her innocent arms, and leap impetuously
+to her feet, with a loud “No, no, I can tell—”</p>
+
+<p>She did not say what, for at the hubbub roused by this outbreak in
+open court, she fainted dead away and was carried out in her dismayed
+father’s arms.</p>
+
+<p>This necessarily caused a break in the proceedings. Mr. Fox suspended
+his cross-examination and in a few minutes more, the judge adjourned
+the court. As the prisoner rose and turned to pass out, I cast him
+a hurried glance to see what effect had been made upon him by this
+ingenuous outburst from one he had possibly just a little depreciated.
+A great one, evidently. His features were transformed, and he seemed
+almost as oblivious of the countless eyes upon him as she had been when
+she rose to testify for him in her self-forgetful enthusiasm. As I
+observed this and the satisfaction with which Mr. Moffat scented this
+new witness,—a satisfaction which promised little consideration for
+her if she ever came upon the stand—I surrendered to fate.</p>
+
+<p>Inwardly committing Carmel’s future to the God who made her and who
+knew better than we the story of her life and what her fiery temper
+had cost her, I drew a piece of paper from my pocket, and, while the
+courtroom was slowly emptying, hastily addressed the following lines to
+Mr. Moffat who had lingered to have a few words with his colleague:</p>
+
+<p>“There is a witness in this building who can testify more clearly and
+definitely than Miss Fulton, that Arthur Cumberland, for all we have
+heard in seeming contradiction to the same, might have been on the
+golf-links at the time he swears to. That witness is myself.</p>
+
+<p>“ELWOOD RANELAGH.”</p>
+
+<p>The time which elapsed between my passing over this note and his
+receiving and reading it, was to me like the last few moments of
+a condemned criminal. How gladly would I have changed places with
+Arthur, and with what sensations of despair I saw flitting before me
+in my mind’s eye, the various visions of Carmel’s loveliness which had
+charmed me out of myself. But the die had been cast, and I was ready
+to meet the surprised lawyer’s look when his eye rose from the words I
+had written and settled steadily on my face. Next minute he was writing
+busily and in a second later I was reading these words:</p>
+
+<p>“Do you absolutely wish to be recalled as a witness, and by the
+defence? M.”</p>
+
+<p>My answer was brief:</p>
+
+<p>“I do. Not to make a confession of crime. I have no such confession to
+make. But I know who drove that horse. R.”</p>
+
+<p>I had sacrificed Carmel to my sense of right. Never had I loved her as
+I did at that moment.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXVII">XXVII<br><span class="small">EXPECTANCY</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">I see your end,<br>
+’T is my undoing.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>King Henry VIII</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>A turning-point had been reached in the defence. That every one knew
+after the first glance at Mr. Moffat, on the opening of the next
+morning’s session. As I noted the excitement which this occasioned
+even in quarters where self-control is usually most marked and such
+emotions suppressed, I marvelled at the subtle influence of one man’s
+expectancy, and the powerful effect which can be produced on a feverish
+crowd by a well-ordered silence suggestive of coming action.</p>
+
+<p>I, who knew the basis of this expectancy and the nature of the action
+with which Mr. Moffat anticipated startling the court, was the quietest
+person present. Since it was my hand and none other which must give
+this fresh turn to the wheel of justice, it were well for me to
+do it calmly and without any of the old maddening throb of heart.
+But the time seemed long before Arthur was released from further
+cross-examination, and the opportunity given Mr. Moffat to call his
+next witness.</p>
+
+<p>Something in the attitude he now took, something in the way he bent
+over his client and whispered a few admonitory words, and still more
+the emotion with which these words were received and answered by some
+extraordinary protest, aroused expectation to a still greater pitch,
+and made my course seem even more painful to myself than I had foreseen
+when dreaming over and weighing the possibilities of this hour. With
+something like terror, I awaited the calling of my name; and, when it
+was delayed, it was with emotions inexplicable to myself that I looked
+up and saw Mr. Moffat holding open a door at the left of the judge,
+with that attitude of respect, which a man only assumes in the presence
+and under the dominating influence of woman.</p>
+
+<p>“Ella!” thought I. “Instead of saving her by my contemplated sacrifice
+of Carmel, I have only added one sacrifice to another.”</p>
+
+<p>But when the timid faltering step we could faintly hear crossing the
+room beyond, had brought its possessor within sight, and I perceived
+the tall, black-robed, heavily veiled woman who reached for Mr.
+Moffat’s sustaining arm, I did not need the startling picture of the
+prisoner, standing upright, with outheld and repellant hands, to
+realise that the impossible had happened, and that all which he, as
+well as I, had done and left undone, suffered and suppressed, had been
+in vain.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat, with no eye for him or for me, conducted his witness to a
+chair; then, as she loosened her veil and let it drop in her lap, he
+cried in tones which rang from end to end of the court-room: “I summon
+Carmel Cumberland to the stand, to witness in her brother’s defence.”</p>
+
+<p>The surprise was complete. It was a great moment for Mr. Moffat; but
+for me all was confusion, dread, a veil of misty darkness, through
+which shone her face, marred by its ineffaceable scar, but calm as I
+had never expected to see it again in this life, and beautiful with a
+smile under which her deeply shaken and hardly conscious brother sank
+slowly back into his seat, amid a silence as profound as the hold she
+had immediately taken upon all hearts.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXVIII">XXVIII<br><span class="small">“WHERE IS MY BROTHER?”</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">Let me see the writing.<br>
+My lord, ’tis nothing.<br>
+No matter, then, who sees it;<br>
+I will be satisfied, let me see the writing.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Richard II</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>What is the explanation of Carmel’s reappearance in town and of this
+sensational introduction of her into the court-room, in a restored
+state of health of which no one, so far as known, had had any
+intimation save the man who was responsible for her appearance? The
+particulars are due you.</p>
+
+<p>She had passed some weeks at Lakewood, under the eye of the nurse who
+was detailed to watch, as well as tend her. During these weeks she gave
+no sign of improvement mentally, though she constantly gained strength
+otherwise, and impressed everybody with the clear light in her eye and
+the absence of everything suggestive of gloom in her expression and
+language. There was the same complete loss of memory up to the time of
+the tragic occurrence which had desolated her home; the same harping
+at odd moments on Adelaide’s happiness and her own prospect of seeing
+this dear sister very soon which had marked the opening days of her
+convalescence. But beyond and back of all this was some secret joy,
+unintelligible to the nurse, which helped rather than retarded the sick
+girl’s recovery, and made Carmel appear at times as if she walked on
+air and breathed the very breath of Paradise—an anomaly which not only
+roused Miss Unwin’s curiosity, but led her to regard with something
+like apprehension, any change in her patient’s state of mind which
+would rob her of the strange and unseen delights which fed her secret
+soul and made her oblivious of the awful facts awaiting a restored
+memory.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Carmel was allowed such liberty as her condition required;
+but was never left alone for a moment after a certain day when her
+eye suddenly took on a strange look of confused inquiry, totally
+dissociated with anything she saw or heard. A stir had taken place
+in her brain, and her nurse wanted to take her back home. But this
+awakening—if such it could be called, was so short in its duration and
+was followed so immediately by a string of innocent questions about
+Adelaide, that Nurse Unwin concluded to remain a few days longer before
+risking this delicately balanced mind amid old scenes and the curious
+glances of her townspeople.</p>
+
+<p>Alas! the awakening was to take place in Lakewood and under
+circumstances of the most ordinary nature. Carmel had been out and was
+just crossing the hall of her hotel to the elevator, when she stopped
+with a violent start and clutching the air, was caught by her nurse
+who had hurried up at the first intimation of anything unusual in the
+condition of her patient.</p>
+
+<p>The cause of this agitation was immediately apparent. Near them sat two
+ladies, each with a small wine-glass in her hand. One was drinking,
+the other waiting and watching, but with every apparent intention of
+drinking when the other had ceased. A common sight enough, but it
+worked a revolution in Carmel’s darkened mind. The light of youthful
+joyousness fled from her face; and the cheek, just pulsing softly with
+new life, blanched to the death-like hue of mortal suffering. Dropping
+her eyes from the women, who saw nothing and continued to sip their
+wine in happy ignorance of the soul-tragedy going on within ten feet of
+them, she looked down at her dress, then up at the walls about her; and
+then slowly, anxiously, and with unmistakable terror, at the woman in
+whose arms she felt herself supported.</p>
+
+<p>“Explain,” she murmured. “Where am I?”</p>
+
+<p>“At Lakewood, in a hotel. You have been ill, and are only just
+recovering.”</p>
+
+<p>Her hand went up to her cheek, the one that had been burned, and still
+showed the deep traces of that accident.</p>
+
+<p>“I remember,” said she. Then with another glance at her dress, which
+had studiously been kept cheerful, she remarked, with deep reproach:
+“My sister is dead; why am I not in black?”</p>
+
+<p>The nurse, realising her responsibility (she said afterwards that it
+was the most serious moment of her life), subdued her own astonishment
+at this proof of her young patient’s knowledge of a crime of which she
+was universally supposed to be entirely ignorant, and, bestowing a
+reassuring smile on the agitated girl, observed softly:</p>
+
+<p>“You wore too ill to be burdened with black. You are better now and may
+assume it if you will. I will help you buy your mourning.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, you look like a kind woman. What is your name, please, and are we
+here alone in this great hotel?”</p>
+
+<p>Now, as a matter of expediency—to save Carmel from the unendurable
+curiosity of the crowd, and herself from the importunities of the New
+York reporters, Miss Unwin had registered herself and her charge under
+assumed names. She was, therefore, forced to reply:</p>
+
+<p>“My name is Huckins, and we are here alone. But that need not worry
+you. I have watched over you night and day for many weeks.”</p>
+
+<p>“You have? Because of this slight burn?” Again Carmel’s hand went to
+her cheek.</p>
+
+<p>“Not on account of that only. You have had a serious illness quite
+apart from that injury. But you are better; you are almost well—well
+enough to go home, if you will.”</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot go home—not just yet. I’m—I’m not strong enough. But
+we shouldn’t be here alone without some man to look after us. Miss
+Huckins, <i>where is my brother</i>?”</p>
+
+<p>At this question, uttered with emphasis, with anxiety—with indignation
+even—Miss Unwin felt the emotion she had so successfully subdued up to
+this moment, betray itself in her voice as she answered, with a quiet
+motion towards the elevator: “Let us go up to our room. There I will
+answer all your questions.”</p>
+
+<p>But Carmel, with the waywardness of her years—or perhaps, with deeper
+reasoning powers than the other would be apt to attribute to her—broke
+softly away from Miss Unwin’s detaining hand, and walking directly
+into the office, looked about for the newspaper stand. Miss Unwin,
+over-anxious not to make a scene, followed, but did not seek to deter
+her, until they were once again by themselves in the centre of the
+room. Then she ventured to speak again:</p>
+
+<p>“We have all the papers in our room. Come up, and let me read them to
+you.”</p>
+
+<p>But Fate was making ready its great stroke. Just as Carmel seemed about
+to yield to this persuasion, some lingering doubt drew her eyes again
+to the stand, just at the very moment a boy stepped into view with the
+evening bulletin, on which had just been written these words:</p>
+
+<p>The Last Juror Obtained in the Trial of Arthur Cumberland for the
+Murder of His Sister, Adelaide.</p>
+
+<p>Carmel saw, and stood—a breathless image of horror. A couple of
+gentlemen came running; but the nurse waved them back, and herself
+caught Carmel and upheld her, in momentary dread of another mental, if
+not physical, collapse.</p>
+
+<p>But Carmel had come back into the world of consciousness to stay.
+Accepting her nurse’s support, but giving no sign of waning faculties
+or imperfect understanding of what she had seen, she spoke quite
+clearly and with her eyes fixed upon Miss Unwin:</p>
+
+<p>“So that is why I am here, away from all my friends. Was I too ill
+to be told? Couldn’t you make me know what was happening? You or the
+doctors or—or anybody?”</p>
+
+<p>“You were much too ill,” protested the nurse, leading her towards the
+elevator and so by degrees to her room. “I tried to arouse you after
+the crisis of your illness had passed; but you seemed to have forgotten
+everything which took place that night and the doctors warned me not to
+press you.”</p>
+
+<p>“And Arthur—poor Arthur, has been the sufferer! Tell me the whole
+story. I can bear it,” she pleaded. “I can bear anything but not
+knowing. Why should he have fallen under suspicion? He was not even
+there. I must go to him! Pack up our clothing, Miss Huckins. I must go
+to him at once.”</p>
+
+<p>They were in their own room now, and Carmel was standing quite by
+herself in the full light of the setting sun. With the utterance of
+this determination, she had turned upon her companion; and that astute
+and experienced woman had every opportunity for observing her face.
+There was a woman’s resolution in it. With the sudden rending of the
+clouds which had obscured her intellect, strange powers had awakened in
+this young girl, giving her a force of expression which, in connection
+with her inextinguishable beauty, formed a spectacle before which this
+older woman, in spite of her long experience, hesitated in doubt.</p>
+
+<p>“You shall go—” began the nurse, and stopped.</p>
+
+<p>Carmel was not listening. Another change of thought had come, and her
+features, as keenly alive now to every passing emotion as they had
+formerly been set in a dull placidity, mirrored doubts of her own,
+which had a deeper source than any which had disturbed the nurse, even
+in these moments of serious perplexity.</p>
+
+<p>“How can I?” fell in unconscious betrayal from her lips. “How can I!”
+Then she stood silent, ghastly with lack of colour one minute, and
+rosy red with its excess the next, until it was hard to tell in which
+extreme her feeling spoke most truly.</p>
+
+<p>What was the feeling? Nurse Unwin felt it imperative to know. Relying
+on the confidence shown her by this unfortunate girl, in her lonely
+position and unbearable distress, she approached Carmel, with renewed
+offers of help and such expressions of sympathy as she thought might
+lure her into open speech.</p>
+
+<p>But discretion had come with fear, and Carmel, while not disdaining the
+other’s kindness, instantly made it apparent that, whatever her burden,
+and however unsuited it was to her present weak condition, it was not
+one she felt willing to share.</p>
+
+<p>“I must think,” she murmured, as she finally followed the nurse’s lead
+and seated herself on a lounge. “Arthur on trial for his life! <i>Arthur
+on trial for his life!</i> And Adelaide was not even murdered!”</p>
+
+<p>“No?” gasped the nurse, intent on every word this long-silenced witness
+let fall.</p>
+
+<p>“Had he no friend? Was there not some one to understand? Adelaide—”
+here her head fell till her face was lost to sight—“had—a—lover—”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes. Mr. Elwood Ranelagh. He was the first to be arrested for the
+crime.”</p>
+
+<p>The soul in Carmel seemed to vanish at this word. The eyes, which had
+been so far-seeing the moment before, grew blank, and the lithe young
+body stiff with that death in life which is almost worse to look upon
+than death itself. She did not speak; but presently she arose, as
+an automaton might arise at the touch of some invisible spring, and
+so stood, staring, until the nurse, frightened at the result of her
+words and the complete overthrow which might follow them, sprang for a
+newspaper and thrust it into her patient’s unwilling hand.</p>
+
+<p>Was it too late? For a minute it seemed to be so; then the stony eyes
+softened and fell, the rigidity of her frame relaxed, and Carmel sank
+back again on the sofa and tried to read the headlines on the open
+sheet before her. But her eyes were unequal to the task. With a sob she
+dropped the paper and entreated the nurse to relate to her from her own
+knowledge, all that had passed, sparing her nothing that would make the
+situation perfectly clear to one who had been asleep during the worst
+crisis of her life.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Unwin complied, but with reservations. She told of Adelaide having
+been found dead at The Whispering Pines by the police, whom she had
+evidently summoned during a moment of struggle or fear; of Ranelagh’s
+presence there, and of the suspicions to which it gave rise; of his
+denial of the crime; of his strange reticence on certain points, which
+served to keep him incarcerated till a New York detective got to work
+and found so much evidence against her brother that Mr. Ranelagh was
+subsequently released and Arthur Cumberland indicted. But she said
+nothing about the marks on Adelaide’s throat, or of the special reason
+which the police had for arresting Mr. Ranelagh. She did not dare.
+Strangulation was a horrible death to contemplate; and if this factor
+in the crime—she was not deceived by Carmel’s exclamation that there
+had been no murder—was unknown as yet to her patient, as it must be
+from what she had said, and the absolute impossibility, as she thought,
+of her having known what went on in The Whispering Pines, then it had
+better remain unknown to her until circumstances forced it on her
+knowledge, or she had gotten sufficient strength to bear it.</p>
+
+<p>Carmel received the account well. She started when she heard of
+the discovery of Ranelagh in the club-house on the entrance of the
+police, and seemed disposed to ask some questions. But though the
+nurse gave her an opportunity to do so, she appeared to hunt in vain
+for the necessary words, and the narrative proceeded without further
+interruption. When all was done, she sat quite still; then carefully,
+and with a show of more judgment than might be expected from one of
+her years, she propounded certain inquiries which brought out the main
+causes for her brother’s arraignment. When she had these fully in mind,
+she looked up into the nurse’s face again and repeated, quite calmly,
+but with immovable decision, the order of an hour before:</p>
+
+<p>“We must return at once. You will pack up immediately.”</p>
+
+<p>Miss Unwin nodded, and began to open the trunks.</p>
+
+<p>This, however, was a ruse. She did not intend to take her patient
+back that night. She was afraid to risk it. The next day would be
+soon enough. But she would calm her by making ready, and when the
+proper moment came, would find some complication of trains which would
+interfere with their immediate departure.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, she would communicate at the earliest moment with Mr. Fox.
+She had been in the habit of sending him frequent telegrams as to her
+patient’s condition. They had been invariable so far: “No difference;
+mind still a blank,” or some code word significant of the same. But
+a new word was necessary now. She must look it up, and formulate her
+telegram before she did anything else.</p>
+
+<p>The code-book was in her top tray. She hunted and hunted for it,
+without being able to lay her hands on it. She grew very nervous. She
+was only human; she was in a very trying position, and she realised it.
+Where could that book be? Suddenly she espied it and, falling on her
+knees before the trunk, with her back still to Carmel, studied out the
+words she wanted. She was leaning over the tray to write these words
+in her note-book, when—no one ever knew how it happened—the lid of
+the heavy trunk fell forward and its iron edge struck her on the nape
+of the neck, with a keen blow which laid her senseless. When Carmel
+reached her side, she found herself the strong one and her stalwart
+nurse the patient.</p>
+
+<p>When help had been summoned, the accident explained, and everything
+done for the unconscious woman which medical skill could suggest,
+Carmel, finding a moment to herself, stole to the trunk, and, lifting
+up the lid, looked in. She had been watchful of her nurse from the
+first, and was suspicious of the actions which had led to this untoward
+accident. Seeing the two little books, she took them out. The note-book
+lay open and on the page thus disclosed, she beheld written:</p>
+
+<p class="poetry">Ap Lox Fidestum Truhum</p>
+
+<p>Ridiculous nonsense—until she consulted the code. Then these detached
+and meaningless words took on a significance which she could not afford
+to ignore:</p>
+
+<p class="poetry">Ap&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;A change.<br>
+Lox&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;Makes remarkable statements.<br>
+Fidestum&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;Shall we return?<br>
+Trubum&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;Not tractable.</p>
+
+<p>Carmel endeavoured to find out for whom this telegram was intended.
+There was nothing to inform her. A moment of indecision was followed by
+quick action. She had noticed that she had been invariably addressed as
+Miss Campbell by every one who had come into the room. Whether this was
+a proof of the care with which she had been guarded from the curiosity
+of strangers, or whether it was part of a system of deception springing
+from quite different causes, she felt that in the present emergency it
+was a fact to be thankful for and to be utilised.</p>
+
+<p>Regaining her own room, which was on the other side of their common
+sitting-room, she collected a few necessary articles, and placed them
+in a bag which she thrust under her bed. Hunting for money, she found
+quite an adequate amount in her own purse, which was attached to her
+person. Satisfied thus far, she chose her most inconspicuous hat and
+coat, and putting them on, went out by her own door into the corridor.</p>
+
+<p>The time—it was the dinner-hour—favoured her attempt. She found her
+way to the office unobserved, and, going frankly up to the clerk,
+informed him that she had some telegrams to send and that she would
+be out for some little time. Would he see that Miss Huckins was not
+neglected in her absence?</p>
+
+<p>The clerk, startled at these evidences of sense and self-reliance in
+one he had been accustomed to see under the special protection of the
+very woman she was now confiding to his care, surveyed her eloquent
+features beaming with quiet resolve, and for a moment seemed at a loss
+how to take this change and control the strange situation. Perhaps she
+understood him, perhaps she only followed the impulses natural to her
+sex. She never knew; she only remembers that she smiled, and that his
+hesitation vanished at that smile.</p>
+
+<p>“I will see to it,” said he. Then, as she turned to go, he ventured
+to add, “It is quite dark now. If you would like one of the boys to
+go with you—”. But he received no encouragement, and allowed his
+suggestion to remain unfinished.</p>
+
+<p>She looked grateful for this, and was pulling down her veil when she
+perceived two or three men on the other side of the room, watching her
+in evident wonder. Stepping back to the desk, she addressed the clerk
+again, this time with a marked distinctness:</p>
+
+<p>“I have been very ill, I know, and not always quite myself. But the
+shock of this accident to my nurse has cleared my brain and made me
+capable again of attending to my own affairs. You can trust me; I can
+do my errands all right; but perhaps I had better have one of the boys
+go with me.”</p>
+
+<p>The clerk, greatly relieved, rang his bell, and the gentlemen at the
+other end of the room sauntered elsewhere to exchange their impressions
+of an incident which was remarkable enough in itself, without the
+accentuation put upon it by the extreme beauty of the girl and the
+one conspicuous blemish to that beauty—her unfortunate scar. With
+what additional wonder would they have regarded the occurrence, had
+they known that the object of their interest was not an unknown Miss
+Campbell, but the much pitied, much talked-of Carmel Cumberland, sister
+of the man then on trial for his life in a New York town.</p>
+
+<p>With her first step into the street, Carmel’s freshly freed mind began
+its work. She knew she was in a place called Lakewood, but she knew
+little of its location, save that it was somewhere in New Jersey.
+Another strange thing! she did not recognise the streets. They were new
+to her. She did not remember ever having been in them before.</p>
+
+<p>“Where is the railroad station?” she inquired of the boy who was
+trotting along at her side.</p>
+
+<p>“Over there,” he answered, vaguely.</p>
+
+<p>“Take me to it.”</p>
+
+<p>He obeyed, and they threaded several streets whose lighted shops
+pleased her, notwithstanding her cares; such a joy it was to be
+alive to things once more, and capable of remembrance, even though
+remembrance brought visions at which she shuddered, and turned away,
+appalled.</p>
+
+<p>The sight of the station, from which a train was just leaving,
+frightened her for a moment with its bustle and many lights; but she
+rallied under the stress of her purpose, and, entering, found the
+telegraph office, from which she sent this message, directed to her
+physician, at home, Dr. Carpenter:</p>
+
+<p>“Look for me on early train. All is clear to me now, and I must return.
+Preserve silence till we meet.”</p>
+
+<p>This she signed with a pet name, known only to themselves, and dating
+back to her childish days.</p>
+
+<p>Then she bought a ticket, and studied the time-table. When quite
+satisfied, she returned to the hotel. She was met in the doorway by the
+physician who was attending the so-called Miss Huckins. He paused when
+he saw her, and asked a few questions which she was penetrating enough
+to perceive were more for the purpose of testing her own condition
+than to express interest in his patient. She answered quietly, and
+was met by a surprise and curiosity which evinced that he was greatly
+drawn towards her case. This alarmed her. She did not wish to be the
+object of any one’s notice. On the contrary, she desired to obliterate
+herself; to be counted out so far as all these people were concerned.
+But above all, she was anxious not to rouse suspicion. So she stopped
+and talked as naturally as she could about Miss Huckins’s accident
+and what the prospects were for the night. These were favourable, or
+so the doctor declared, but the injured woman’s condition called for
+great care and he would send over a capable nurse at once. Meanwhile,
+the maid who was with her would do very well. She, herself, need have
+no worry. He would advise against worry, and suggested that she should
+have a good and nourishing dinner sent to her room, after which she
+should immediately retire and get what sleep she could by means of an
+anodyne he would send her.</p>
+
+<p>Carmel exerted herself.</p>
+
+<p>“You are very good,” said she, “I need no anodyne. I <i>am</i> tired and
+when I once get to bed shall certainly sleep. I shall give orders not
+to be disturbed. Isn’t that right?”</p>
+
+<p>“Quite right. I will myself tell the nurse.”</p>
+
+<p>He was going, but turned to look at her again.</p>
+
+<p>“Shall I accompany you to the door of your room?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head, with a smile. This delay was a torment to her, but
+it must be endured.</p>
+
+<p>“I am quite capable of finding my room. I hope Miss Huckins will be
+as well in a week from now as I am at this moment. But, doctor—” she
+had been struck by a strange possibility—“I should like to settle one
+little matter before we part. The money I have may not be quite safe in
+my hands. My memory might leave me again, and then Miss Huckins might
+suffer. If you will take charge of some of it on her account, I shall
+feel relieved.”</p>
+
+<p>“It would be a wise precaution,” he admitted. “But you could just as
+well leave it at the desk.”</p>
+
+<p>“So I can,” she smiled. Then, as his eye remained fixed on her: “You
+are wondering if I have friends. We both have and I have just come
+from telegraphing to one of them. You can leave us, with an easy mind.
+All that I dread is that Miss Huckins will worry about me if her
+consciousness should return during the night.”</p>
+
+<p>“It will not return so soon. Next week we may look for it. Then you can
+be by to reassure her if she asks for you.”</p>
+
+<p>Carmers eyes fell.</p>
+
+<p>“I would not be a cause of distress to her for the world. She has been
+very good to me.” Bowing, she turned in the direction of the office.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor, lifting his hat, took his departure. The interview might
+have lasted five minutes. She felt as though it had lasted an hour.</p>
+
+<p>She followed the doctor’s advice and left half the money she had, in
+charge of the clerk. Then she went upstairs. She was not seen to come
+down again; but when the eight-forty-five train started out of the
+station that night, it had for a passenger, a young, heavily veiled
+girl, who went straight to her section. A balcony running by her window
+had favoured her escape. It led to a hall window at the head of a side
+staircase. She met no one on the staircase, and, once out of the door
+at its foot, her difficulties were over, and her escape effected.</p>
+
+<p>She was missed the next morning, and an account of her erratic flight
+reached the papers, and was published far and wide. But the name of
+Miss Caroline Campbell conveyed nothing to the public, and the great
+trial went on without a soul suspecting the significance of this
+midnight flitting of an unknown and partially demented girl.</p>
+
+<p>At the house of Dr. Carpenter she met Mr. Moffat. What she told him
+heartened him greatly for the struggle he saw before him. Indeed, it
+altered the whole tone of the defence. Perceiving from her story,
+and from what the doctor could tell him of their meeting at the
+station that her return to town was as yet a secret to every one but
+themselves, he begged that the secret should continue to be kept, in
+order that the <i>coup d’etat</i> which he meditated might lose none of
+its force by anticipation. Carmel, whose mind was full of her coming
+ordeal, was willing enough to hide her head until it came; while Dr.
+Carpenter, alarmed at all this excitement, would have insisted on it in
+any event.</p>
+
+<p>Carmel wished her brother informed of her return, but the wily lawyer
+persuaded her to excuse him from taking Arthur into his confidence
+until the last moment. He knew that he would receive only opposition
+from his young and stubborn client; that Carmel’s presence and
+Carmel’s determination would have to be sprung upon Arthur even
+more than upon the prosecution; that the prisoner at the bar would
+struggle to the very last against Carmel’s appearance in court, and
+make an infinite lot of trouble, if he did not actually endanger his
+own cause. One of the stipulations which he had made in securing
+Mr. Moffat for his counsel was that Carmel’s name was to be kept as
+much as possible out of the proceedings; and to this Mr. Moffat had
+subscribed, notwithstanding his conviction that the crime laid to the
+defendant’s charge was a result of Ranelagh’s passion for Carmel, and,
+consequently, distinctly the work of Ranelagh’s own hand.</p>
+
+<p>He had thought that he could win his case by the powers of oratory and
+a somewhat free use of innuendo; but his view changed under the fresh
+enlightenment which he received in his conversation with Carmel. He
+saw unfolding before him a defence of unparalleled interest. True, it
+involved this interesting witness in a way that would be unpleasant
+to the brother; but he was not the man to sacrifice a client to any
+sentimental scruple—certainly not this client, whose worth he was just
+beginning to realise. Professional pride, as well as an inherent love
+of justice, led him to this conclusion. Nothing in God’s world appealed
+to him, or ever had appealed to him, like a prisoner in the dock facing
+a fate from which only legal address, added to an orator’s eloquence,
+could save him. His sympathies went out to a man so placed, even when
+he was a brute and his guilt far from doubtful. How much more, then,
+must he feel the claims of this surly but chivalrous-hearted boy,
+son of a good father and pious mother, who had been made the butt of
+circumstances, and of whose innocence he was hourly becoming more and
+more convinced.</p>
+
+<p>Could he have probed the whole matter, examined and re-examined this
+new witness until every detail was his and the whole story of that
+night stood bare before him, he might have hesitated a little longer
+and asked himself some very serious questions. But Carmel was not
+strong enough for much talk. Dr. Carpenter would not allow it, and the
+continued clearness of her mind was too invaluable to his case for this
+far-seeing advocate to take any risk. She had told him enough to assure
+him that circumstances and not guilt had put Arthur where he was,
+and had added to the assurance, details of an unexpected nature—so
+unexpected, indeed, that the lawyer was led away by the prospect they
+offered of confounding the prosecution by a line of defence to which no
+clew had been given by anything that had appeared.</p>
+
+<p>He planned then and there a dramatic climax which should take the
+breath away from his opponent, and change the whole feeling of the
+court towards the prisoner. It was a glorious prospect, and if the girl
+remained well—the bare possibility of her not doing so, drove him
+prematurely from her presence; and so it happened that, for the second
+time, the subject of Adelaide’s death was discussed in her hearing
+without any mention being made of strangulation as its immediate cause.
+Would her action have been different had she known that this was a
+conceded fact?</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat did not repeat this visit. He was not willing to risk his
+secret by being seen too often at the doctor’s house; but telephonic
+communication was kept up between him and her present guardian, and
+he was able to bear himself quietly and with confidence until the
+time drew near for the introduction of her testimony. Then he grew
+nervous, fearing that Nurse Unwin would come to herself and telegraph
+Carmel’s escape, and so prepare the prosecution for his great stroke.
+But nothing of the kind happened; and, when the great day came, he had
+only to consider how he should prepare Arthur for the surprise awaiting
+him, and finally decided not to prepare him at all, but simply to state
+at the proper moment, and in the face of the whole court-room, that
+his sister had recovered and would soon take her place upon the stand.
+The restraint of the place would thus act as a guard between them,
+and Carmel’s immediate entrance put an end to the reproaches of whose
+bitterness he could well judge from his former experience of them.</p>
+
+<p>With all these anxieties and his deeply planned <i>coup d’etat</i> awaiting
+the moment of action, Ella’s simple outburst and even Ranelagh’s
+unexpected and somewhat startling suggestion lost much of their
+significance. All his mind and heart were on his next move. It was to
+be made with the queen, and must threaten checkmate. Yet he did not
+forget the two pawns, silent in their places—but guarding certain
+squares which the queen, for all her royal prerogatives, might not be
+able to reach.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_IV">BOOK FOUR<br><span class="small">WHAT THE PINES WHISPERED</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXIX">XXIX<br><span class="small">“I REMEMBERED THE ROOM”</span></h3></div>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>MERCURY.—If thou mightst dwell among the Gods the while<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Lapped in voluptuous joy?</span><br>
+
+<p>PROMETHEUS.—I would not quit<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 6.5em;">This bleak ravine, these unrepentant pains.</span><br>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Prometheus Unbound</i>.</p>
+
+</div>
+<p>Great moments, whether of pain, surprise, or terror, awaken in the
+startled breast very different emotions from those we are led to
+anticipate from the agitation caused by lesser experiences. As Carmel
+disclosed her features to the court, my one absorbing thought was:
+Would she look at me? Could I hope for a glance of her eye? Did I wish
+it? My question was answered before Mr. Moffat had regained his place
+and turned to address the court.</p>
+
+<p>As her gaze passed from her brother’s face, it travelled slowly and
+with growing hesitation over the countenances of those near her, on and
+on past the judge, past the jury, until they reached the spot where I
+sat. There they seemed to falter, and the beating of my heart became so
+loud that I instinctively shrank away from my neighbour. By so doing,
+I drew her eye, which fell full upon mine for one overwhelming minute;
+then she shrank and looked away, but not before the colour had risen in
+a flood to her cheek.</p>
+
+<p>The hope which had sprung to life under her first beautiful aspect,
+vanished in despair at sight of this flush. For it was not one of
+joy, or surprise, or even of unconscious sympathy. It was the banner
+of a deep, unendurable shame. Versed in her every expression, I could
+not mistake the language of her dismayed soul, at this, the most
+critical instant of her life. She had hoped to find me absent; she was
+overwhelmed to find me there. Could she, with a look, have transported
+me a thousand miles from this scene of personal humiliation and
+unknown, unimaginable outcome, she would have bestowed that look and
+ignored the consequences.</p>
+
+<p>Nor was I behind her in the reckless passion of the moment. Could I, by
+means of a wish, have been transported those thousand miles, I should
+even now have been far from a spot where, in the face of a curious
+crowd, busy in associating us together, I must submit to the terror of
+hearing her speak and betray herself to these watchful lawyers, and to
+the just and impartial mind of the presiding judge.</p>
+
+<p>But the days of magic had passed. I could not escape the spot; I could
+not escape her eye. The ordeal to which she was thus committed, I must
+share. As she advanced step by step upon her uncertain road, it would
+be my unhappy fate to advance with her, in terror of the same pitfalls,
+with our faces set towards the same precipice—slipping, fainting,
+experiencing agonies together. She knew my secret, and I, alas! knew
+hers. So I interpreted this intolerable, overwhelming blush.</p>
+
+<p>Recoiling from the prospect, I buried my face in my hands, and so
+missed the surprising sight of this young girl, still in her teens,
+conquering a dismay which might well unnerve one of established years
+and untold experiences. In a few minutes, as I was afterward told by my
+friends, her features had settled into a strange placidity, undisturbed
+by the levelled gaze of a hundred eyes. Her whole attention was
+concentrated on her brother, and wavered only, when the duties of the
+occasion demanded a recognition of the various gentlemen concerned in
+the trial.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat prefaced his examination by the following words:</p>
+
+<p>“May it please your Honour, I wish to ask the indulgence of the court
+in my examination of this witness. She is just recovering from a long
+and dangerous illness; and while I shall endeavour to keep within the
+rules of examination, I shall be grateful for any consideration which
+may be shown her by your Honour and by the counsel on the other side.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fox at once rose. He had by this time recovered from his
+astonishment at seeing before him, and in a fair state of health,
+the young girl whom he had every reason to believe to be still in a
+condition of partial forgetfulness at Lakewood, and under the care
+of a woman entirely in his confidence and under his express orders.
+He had also mastered his chagrin at the triumph which her presence
+here, and under these dramatic circumstances, had given his adversary.
+Moved, perhaps, by Miss Cumberland’s beauty, which he saw for the first
+time—or, perhaps, by the spectacle of this beauty devoting its first
+hours of health to an attempt to save a brother, of whose precarious
+position before the law she had been ignorant up to this time—or more
+possibly yet, by a fear that it might be bad tactics to show harshness
+to so interesting a personality before she had uttered a word of
+testimony, he expressed in warmer tones than usual, his deep desire to
+extend every possible indulgence.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat bowed his acknowledgments, and waited for his witness
+to take the oath, which she did with a simple grace which touched
+all hearts, even that of her constrained and unreconciled brother.
+Compelled by the silence and my own bounding pulses to look at her in
+my own despite, I caught the sweet and elevated look with which she
+laid her hand on the Book, and asked myself if her presence here was
+not a self-accusation, which would bring satisfaction to nobody—which
+would sink her and hers into an ignominy worse than the conviction of
+the brother whom she was supposedly there to save.</p>
+
+<p>Tortured by this fear, I awaited events in indescribable agitation.</p>
+
+<p>The cool voice of Mr. Moffat broke in upon my gloom. Carmel had
+reseated herself, after taking the oath, and the customary question
+could be heard:</p>
+
+<p>“Your name, if you please.”</p>
+
+<p>“Carmel Cumberland.”</p>
+
+<p>“Do you recognise the prisoner, Miss Cumberland?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; he is my brother.”</p>
+
+<p>A thrill ran through the room. The lingering tone, the tender accent,
+told. Some of the feeling she thus expressed seemed to pass into every
+heart which contemplated the two. From this moment on, he was looked
+upon with less harshness; people showed a disposition to discern
+innocence, where, perhaps, they had secretly desired, until now, to
+discover guilt.</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, will you be good enough to tell us where you were, at
+or near the hour of ten, on the evening of your sister’s death?”</p>
+
+<p>“I was in the club-house—in the house you call The Whispering Pines.”</p>
+
+<p>At this astounding reply, unexpected by every one present save myself
+and the unhappy prisoner, incredulity, seasoned with amazement, marked
+every countenance. Carmel Cumberland in the club-house that night—she
+who had been found at a late hour, in her own home, injured and
+unconscious! It was not to be believed—or it would not have been, if
+Arthur with less self-control than he had hitherto maintained, had not
+shown by his morose air and the silent drooping of his head that he
+accepted this statement, wild and improbable as it seemed. Mr. Fox,
+whose mind without doubt had been engaged in a debate from the first,
+as to the desirability of challenging the testimony of this young girl,
+whose faculties had so lately recovered from a condition of great
+shock and avowed forgetfulness that no word as yet had come to him of
+her restored health, started to arise at her words; but noting the
+prisoner’s attitude, he hastily reseated himself, realising, perhaps,
+that evidence of which he had never dreamed lay at the bottom of the
+client’s manner and the counsel’s complacency. If so, then his own air
+of mingled disbelief and compassionate forbearance might strike the
+jury unfavourably; while, on the contrary, if his doubts were sound,
+and the witness were confounding the fancies of her late delirium with
+the actual incidents of this fatal night, then would he gain rather
+than lose by allowing her to proceed until her testimony fell of its
+own weight, or succumbed before the fire of his cross-examination.</p>
+
+<p>Modifying his manner, he steadied himself for either exigency, and, in
+steadying himself, steadied his colleagues also.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat, who saw everything, smiled slightly as he spoke
+encouragingly to his witness, and propounded his next question:</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, was your sister with you when you went to the
+club-house?”</p>
+
+<p>“No; we went separately”</p>
+
+<p>“How? Will you explain?”</p>
+
+<p>“I drove there. I don’t know how Adelaide went.”</p>
+
+<p>“You drove there?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes. I had Arthur harness up his horse for me and I drove there.”</p>
+
+<p>A moment of silence; then a slow awakening—on the part of judge, jury,
+and prosecution—to the fact that the case was taking a turn for which
+they were ill-prepared. To Mr. Moffat, it was a moment of intense
+self-congratulation, and something of the gratification he felt crept
+into his voice as he said:</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, will you describe this horse?”</p>
+
+<p>“It was a grey horse. It has a large black spot on its left shoulder.”</p>
+
+<p>“To what vehicle was it attached?”</p>
+
+<p>“To a cutter—my brother’s cutter.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was that brother with you? Did he accompany you in your ride to The
+Whispering Pines?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, I went quite alone.”</p>
+
+<p>Entrancement had now seized upon every mind. Even if her testimony were
+not true, but merely the wanderings of a mind not fully restored, the
+interest of it was intense. Mr. Fox, glancing at the jury, saw there
+would be small use in questioning at this time the mental capacity of
+the witness. This was a story which all wished to hear. Perhaps he
+wished to hear it, too.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat rose to more than his accustomed height. The light which
+sometimes visited his face when feeling, or a sense of power, was
+strongest in him, shone from his eye and irradiated his whole aspect as
+he inquired tellingly:</p>
+
+<p>“And how did you return? With whom, and by what means, did you regain
+your own house?”</p>
+
+<p>The answer came, with simple directness:</p>
+
+<p>“In the same way I went. I drove back in my brother’s cutter and being
+all alone just as before, I put the horse away myself, and went into my
+empty home and up to Adelaide’s room, where I lost consciousness.”</p>
+
+<p>The excitement, which had been seething, broke out as she ceased; but
+the judge did not need to use his gavel, or the officers of the court
+exert their authority. At Mr. Moffat’s lifted hand, the turmoil ceased
+as if by magic.</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, do you often ride out alone on nights like that?”</p>
+
+<p>“I never did before. I would not have dared to do it then, if I had not
+taken a certain precaution.”</p>
+
+<p>“And what was this precaution?”</p>
+
+<p>“I wore an old coat of my brother’s over my dress, and one of his hats
+on my head.”</p>
+
+<p>It was out—the fact for the suppression of which I had suffered arrest
+without a word; because of which Arthur had gone even further, and
+submitted to trial with the same constancy. Instinctively, his eyes
+and mine met, and, at that moment, there was established between us an
+understanding that was in strong contrast to the surrounding turmoil,
+which now exceeded all limits, as the highly wrought up spectators
+realised that these statements, if corroborated, destroyed one of the
+strongest points which had been made by the prosecution. This caused
+a stay in the proceedings until order was partially restored, and the
+judge’s voice could be heard in a warning that the court-room would be
+cleared of all spectators if this break of decorum was repeated.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, my own mind had been busy. I had watched Arthur; I had
+watched Mr. Moffat. The discouragement of the former, the ill-concealed
+elation of the latter, proved the folly of any hope, on my part, that
+Carmel would be spared a full explanation of what I would have given
+worlds to leave in the darkness and ignorance of the present moment. To
+save Arthur, unwilling as he was, she was to be allowed to consummate
+the sacrifice which the real generosity of her heart drove her into
+making. Before these doors opened again and sent forth the crowd
+now pulsating under a preamble of whose terrible sequel none as yet
+dreamed, I should have to hear those sweet lips give utterance to the
+revelation which would consign her to opprobrium, and break, not only
+my heart, but her brother’s.</p>
+
+<p>Was there no way to stop it? The district attorney gave no evidence
+of suspecting any issue of this sort, nor did the friendly and humane
+judge. Only the scheming Moffat knew to what all this was tending,
+and Moffat could not be trusted. The case was his and he would gain
+it if he could. Tender and obliging as he was in his treatment of the
+witness, there was iron under the velvet of his glove. This was his
+reputation; and this I must now see exemplified before me, without
+the power to stop it. The consideration with which he approached his
+subject did not deceive me.</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, will you now give the jury the full particulars
+of that evening’s occurrences, as witnessed by yourself. Begin your
+relation, if you please, with an account of the last meal you had
+together.”</p>
+
+<p>Carmel hesitated. Her youth—her conscience, perhaps—shrank in
+manifest distress from this inquisition.</p>
+
+<p>“Ask me a question,” she prayed. “I do not know how to begin.”</p>
+
+<p>“Very well. Who were seated at the dinner-table that night?”</p>
+
+<p>“My sister, my brother, Mr. Ranelagh, and myself.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did anything uncommon happen during the meal?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, my sister ordered wine, and had our glasses all filled. She
+never drank wine herself, but she had her glass filled also. Then she
+dismissed Helen, the waitress; and when the girl was gone, she rose and
+held up her glass, and invited us to do the same. ‘We will drink to my
+coming marriage,’ said she; but when we had done this, she turned upon
+Arthur, with bitter words about his habits, and, declaring that another
+bottle of wine should never be opened again in the house, unclosed her
+fingers and let her glass drop on the table where it broke. Arthur then
+let his fall, and I mine. We all three let our glasses fall and break.”</p>
+
+<p>“And Mr. Ranelagh?”</p>
+
+<p>“He did not let his fall. He set it down on the cloth. He had not drank
+from it.”</p>
+
+<p>Clear, perfectly clear—tallying with what we had heard from other
+sources. As this fact forced itself in upon the minds of the jury, new
+light shone in every eye and each and all waited eagerly for the next
+question.</p>
+
+<p>It came with a quiet, if not insinuating, intonation.</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, where were you looking when you let your glass fall?”</p>
+
+<p>My heart gave a bound. I remembered that moment well. So did she, as
+could be seen from the tremulous flush and the determination with which
+she forced herself to speak.</p>
+
+<p>“At Mr. Ranelagh,” she answered, finally.</p>
+
+<p>“Not at your brother?”</p>
+
+<p>“No.”</p>
+
+<p>“And at whom was Mr. Ranelagh looking?”</p>
+
+<p>“At—at me.”</p>
+
+<p>“Not at your sister?”</p>
+
+<p>“No.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was anything said?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not then. With the dropping of the glasses, we all drew back from the
+table, and walked towards a little room where we sometimes sat before
+going into the library. Arthur went first, and Mr. Ranelagh and I
+followed, Adelaide coming last. We—we went this way into the little
+room and—what other question do you wish to ask?” she finished, with a
+burning blush.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat was equal to the appeal.</p>
+
+<p>“Did anything happen? Did Mr. Ranelagh speak to you or you to him, or
+did your sister Adelaide speak?”</p>
+
+<p>“No one spoke; but Mr. Ranelagh put a little slip of paper into my
+hand—a—a note. As he did this, my brother looked round. I don’t know
+whether he saw the note or not; but his eye caught mine, and I may
+have blushed. Next moment he was looking past me; and presently he had
+flung himself out of the room, and I heard him going upstairs. Adelaide
+had joined me by this time, and Mr. Ranelagh turned to speak to her,
+and—and I went over to the book-shelves to read my note.”</p>
+
+<p>“And did you read it then?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, I was afraid. I waited till Mr. Ranelagh was gone; then I went up
+to my room and read it. It was not a—a note to be glad of. I mean,
+proud of. I’m afraid I was a little glad of it at first. I was a wicked
+girl.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat glanced at Mr. Fox; but that gentleman, passing over this
+artless expression of feeling, as unworthy an objection, he went
+steadily on:</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, before you tell us about this note, will you be good
+enough to inform us whether any words passed between you and your
+sister before you went upstairs?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes; we talked. We all three talked, but it was about indifferent
+matters. The servants were going to a ball, and we spoke of that. Mr.
+Ranelagh did not stay long. Very soon he remarked that he had a busy
+evening before him, and took his leave. I was not in the room with them
+when he did this. I was in the adjoining one, but I heard his remark
+and saw him go. I did not wait to talk to Adelaide.”</p>
+
+<p>“Now, about the note?”</p>
+
+<p>“I read it as soon as I reached my room. Then I sat still for a long
+time.”</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, pardon my request, but will you tell us what was in
+that note?”</p>
+
+<p>She lifted her patient eyes, and looked straight at her brother. He
+did not meet her gaze; but the dull flush which lit up the dead-white
+of his cheek showed how he suffered under this ordeal. At me she never
+glanced; this was the only mercy shown me that dreadful morning. I grew
+to be thankful for it as she went on.</p>
+
+<p>“I do not remember the words,” she said, finally, as her eyes fell
+again to her lap. “But I remember its meaning. It was an invitation
+for me to leave town with him that very evening and be married at
+some place he mentioned. He said it would be the best way to—to
+end—matters.”</p>
+
+<p>This brought Mr. Fox to his feet. For all his self-command, he had been
+perceptibly growing more and more nervous as the examination proceeded;
+and he found himself still in the dark as to his opponent’s purpose and
+the character of the revelations he had to fear. Turning to the judge,
+he cried:</p>
+
+<p>“This testimony is irrelevant and incompetent, and I ask to have it
+stricken out.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat’s voice, as he arose to answer this, was like honey poured
+upon gall.</p>
+
+<p>“It is neither irrelevant nor incompetent, and, if it were, the
+objection comes too late. My friend should have objected to the
+question.”</p>
+
+<p>“The whole course of counsel has been very unusual,” began Mr. Fox.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, but so is the case. I beg your Honour to believe that, in some
+of its features, this case is not only unusual, but almost without a
+precedent. That it may be lightly understood, and justice shown my
+client, a full knowledge of the whole family’s experiences during
+those fatal hours is not only desirable, but absolutely essential. I
+beg, therefore, that my witness may be allowed to proceed and tell her
+story in all its details. Nothing will be introduced which will not
+ultimately be seen to have a direct bearing upon the attitude of my
+client towards the crime for which he stands here arraigned.”</p>
+
+<p>“The motion is denied,” declared the judge.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fox sat down, to the universal relief of all but the two persons
+most interested—Arthur and myself.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat, generous enough or discreet enough to take no note of his
+opponent’s discomfiture, lifted a paper from the table and held it
+towards the witness.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you recognise these lines?” he asked, placing the remnants of my
+half-burned communication in her hands.</p>
+
+<p>She started at sight of them. Evidently she had never expected to see
+them again.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” she answered, after a moment. “This is a portion of the note I
+have mentioned.”</p>
+
+<p>“You recognise it as such?”</p>
+
+<p>“I do.”</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes lingered on the scrap, and followed it as it was passed back
+and marked as an exhibit.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat recalled her to the matter in hand.</p>
+
+<p>“What did you do next, Miss Cumberland?”</p>
+
+<p>“I answered the note.”</p>
+
+<p>“May I ask to what effect?”</p>
+
+<p>“I refused Mr. Ranelagh’s request. I said that I could not do what he
+asked, and told him to wait till the next day, and he would see how I
+felt towards him and towards Adelaide. That was all. I could not write
+much. I was suffering greatly.”</p>
+
+<p>“Suffering in mind, or suffering in body?”</p>
+
+<p>“Suffering in my mind. I was terrified, but that feeling did not last
+very long. Soon I grew happy, happier than I had been in weeks, happier
+than I had ever been in all my life before. I found that I loved
+Adelaide better than I did myself. This made everything easy, even the
+sending of the answer I have told you about to Mr. Ranelagh.”</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, how did you get this answer to Mr. Ranelagh?”</p>
+
+<p>“By means of a gentleman who was going away on the very train I had
+been asked to leave on. He was a guest next door, and I carried the
+note in to him.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you do this openly?”</p>
+
+<p>“No. I’m afraid not; I slipped out by the side door, in as careful a
+way as I could.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did this attempt at secrecy succeed? Were you able to go and come
+without meeting any one?”</p>
+
+<p>“No. Adelaide was at the head of the stairs when I came back, standing
+there, very stiff and quiet.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did she speak to you?”</p>
+
+<p>“No. She just looked at me; but it wasn’t a common look. I shall never
+forget it.”</p>
+
+<p>“And what did you do then?”</p>
+
+<p>“I went to my room.”</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, did you sec anybody else when you came in at this
+time?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, our maid Helen. She was just laying down a bunch of keys on
+the table in the lower hall. I stopped and looked at the keys. I had
+recognised them as the ones I had seen in Mr. Ranelagh’s hands many
+times. He had gone, yet there were his keys. One of them unlocked the
+club-house. I noticed it among the others, but I didn’t touch it then.
+Helen was still in the hall, and I ran straight upstairs, where I met
+my sister, as I have just told you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, continue the story. What did you do after re-entering
+your room?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know what I did first. I was very excited—elated one minute,
+deeply wretched and very frightened the next. I must have sat down; for
+I was shaking very much, and felt a little sick. The sight of that key
+had brought up pictures of the club-house; and I thought and thought
+how quiet it was, and how far away and—how cold it was too, and how
+secret. I would go there for what I had to do; <i>there</i>! And then I saw
+in my fancy one of its rooms, with the moon in it, and—but I soon shut
+my eyes to that. I heard Arthur moving about his room, and this made me
+start up and go out into the hall again.”</p>
+
+<p>During all this Mr. Fox had sat by, understanding his right to object
+to the witness’s mixed statements of fact and of feelings, and quite
+confident that his objections would be sustained. But he had determined
+long since that he would not interrupt the witness in her relation.
+The air of patience he assumed was sufficiently indicative of his
+displeasure, and he confined himself to this. Mr. Moffat understood,
+and testified his appreciation by a slight bow.</p>
+
+<p>Carmel, who saw nothing, resumed her story.</p>
+
+<p>“Arthur’s room is near, and Adelaide’s far off; but I went to
+Adelaide’s first. Her door was shut and when I went to open it I found
+it locked. Calling her name, I said that I was tired and would be glad
+to say good night. She did not answer at once. When she did, her voice
+was strange, though what she said was very simple. I was to please
+myself; she was going to retire, too. And then she tried to say good
+night, but she only half said it, like one who is choked with tears
+or some other dreadful emotion. I cannot tell you how this made me
+feel—but you don’t care for that. You want to know what I did—what
+Adelaide did. I will tell you, but I cannot hurry. Every act of the
+evening was so crowded with purpose; all meant so much. I can see the
+end, but the steps leading to it are not so clear.”</p>
+
+<p>“Take your time, Miss Cumberland; we have no wish to hurry you.”</p>
+
+<p>“I can go on now. The next thing I did was to knock at Arthur’s door. I
+heard him getting ready to go out, and I wanted to speak to him before
+he went. When he heard me, he opened the door and let me in. He began
+at once on his grievances, but I could not listen to them. I wanted him
+to harness the grey mare for me and leave it standing in the stable.
+I explained the request by saying that it was necessary for me to see
+a certain friend of mine immediately, and that no one would notice me
+in the cutter under the bear-skins. He didn’t approve, but I persuaded
+him. I even persuaded him to wait till Zadok was gone, so that Adelaide
+would know nothing about it. He looked glum, but he promised.</p>
+
+<p>“He was going away when I heard Adelaide’s steps in the adjoining room.
+This frightened me. The partition is very thin between these two rooms,
+and I was afraid she had heard me ask Arthur for the grey mare and
+cutter. I could hear her rattling the bottles in the medicine cabinet
+hanging on this very wall. Looking back at Arthur, I asked him how
+long Adelaide had been there. He said, ‘For some time.’ This sent me
+flying from the room. I would join her, and find out if she had heard.
+But I was too late. As I stepped into the hall I saw her disappearing
+round the corner leading to her own room. This convinced me that she
+had heard nothing, and, light of heart once more, I went back to my
+own room, where I collected such little articles as I needed for the
+expedition before me.</p>
+
+<p>“I had hardly done this when I heard the servants on the walk outside,
+then Arthur going down. The impulse to see and speak to him again
+was irresistible. I flew after him and caught him in the lower hall.
+‘Arthur,’ I cried, ‘look at me, look at me well, and then—kiss me!’
+And he did kiss me—I’m glad when I think of it, though he did say,
+next minute: ‘What is the matter with you? What are you going to do? To
+meet that villain?’</p>
+
+<p>“I looked straight into his face. I waited till I saw I had his whole
+attention; then I said, as slowly and emphatically as I could: ‘If you
+mean Elwood—no! I shall never meet him again, except in Adelaide’s
+presence. He will not want to meet me. You may be at ease about that.
+To-morrow all will be well, and Adelaide very happy,’</p>
+
+<p>“He shrugged his shoulders, and reached for his coat and hat. As he
+was putting them on, I said, ‘Don’t forget to harness up Jenny.’ Jenny
+is the grey mare. ‘And leave off the bells,’ I urged. ‘I don’t want
+Adelaide to hear me go out.’</p>
+
+<p>“He swung about at this. ‘You and Adelaide are not very good friends
+it seems.’ ‘As good as you and she are,’ I answered. Then I flung my
+arms about him. ‘Don’t go down street to-night,’ I prayed. ‘Stay home
+for this one night. Stay in the house with Adelaide; stay till I come
+home.’ He stared, and I saw his colour change. Then he flung me off,
+but not rudely. ‘Why don’t <i>you</i> stay?’ he asked. Then he laughed, and
+added, ‘I’ll go harness the mare.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘The key’s in the kitchen,’ I said. ‘I’ll go get it for you. I heard
+Zadok bring it in.’ He did not answer, and I went for the key. I found
+two on the nail, and I brought them both; but I only handed him one,
+the key to the stable-door. ‘Which way are you going?’ I asked, as he
+looked at the key, then back towards the kitchen. ‘The short way, of
+course,’ ‘Then here’s the key to the Fulton grounds,’</p>
+
+<p>“As he took the key, I prayed again, ‘Don’t do what’s in your mind,
+Arthur. Don’t drink to-night. He only laughed, and I said my last word:
+‘If you do, it will be for the last time. You’ll never drink again
+after to-morrow.’</p>
+
+<p>“He made no answer to this, and I went slowly upstairs. Everything was
+quiet—quiet as death—in the whole house. If Adelaide had heard us,
+she made no sign. Going to my own room, I waited until I heard Arthur
+come out of the stable and go away by the door in the rear wall. Then I
+stole out again. I carried a small bag with me, but no coat or hat.</p>
+
+<p>“Pausing and listening again and again, I crept downstairs and halted
+at the table under the rack. The keys were still there. Putting them
+in my bag, I searched the rack for one of my brother’s warm coats.
+But I took none I saw. I remembered an old one which Adelaide had put
+away in the closet under the stairs. Getting this, I put it on, and,
+finding a hat there too, I took that also; and when I had pulled it
+over my forehead and drawn up the collar of the coat, I was quite
+unrecognisable. I was going out, when I remembered there would be
+no light in the club-house. I had put a box of matches in my bag
+while I was upstairs, but I needed a candle. Slipping back, I took
+a candlestick and candle from the dining-room mantel, and finding
+that the bag would not hold them, thrust them into the pocket of the
+coat I wore, and quickly left the house. Jenny was in the stable, all
+harnessed; and hesitating no longer, I got in among the bear-skins and
+drove swiftly away.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment’s silence. Carmel had paused, and was sitting with
+her hand on her heart, looking past judge, past jury, upon the lonely
+and desolate scene in which she at this moment moved and suffered. An
+inexpressible fatality had entered into her tones, always rich and
+resonant with feeling. No one who listened could fail to share the
+dread by which she was moved.</p>
+
+<p>District Attorney Fox fumbled with his papers, and endeavoured to
+maintain his equanimity and show an indifference which his stern but
+fascinated glances at the youthful witness amply belied. He was biding
+his time, but biding it in decided perturbation of mind. Neither he
+nor any one else, unless it were Moffat, could tell whither this tale
+tended. While she held the straight course which had probably been
+laid out for her, he failed to object; but he could not prevent the
+subtle influence of her voice, her manner, and her supreme beauty on
+the entranced jury. Nevertheless, his pencil was busy; he was still
+sufficiently master of himself for that.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat, quite aware of the effect which was being produced on every
+side, but equally careful to make no show of it, put in a commonplace
+question at this point, possibly to rouse the witness from her own
+abstraction, possibly to restore the judicial tone of the inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>“How did you leave the stable-door?”</p>
+
+<p>“Open.”</p>
+
+<p>“Can you tell us what time it was when you started?”</p>
+
+<p>“No. I did not look. Time meant nothing to me. I drove as fast as I
+could, straight down the hill, and out towards The Whispering Pines. I
+had seen Adelaide in her window as I went flying by the house, but not
+a soul on the road, nor a sign of life, near or far. The whistle of a
+train blew as I stopped in the thicket near the club-house door. If it
+was the express train, you can tell—”</p>
+
+<p>“Never mind the <i>if</i>” said Mr. Moffat. “It is enough that you heard the
+whistle. Go on with what you did.”</p>
+
+<p>“I tied up my horse; then I went into the house. I had used Mr.
+Ranelagh’s key to open the door and for some reason I took it out of
+the lock when I got in, and put the whole bunch back into my satchel.
+But I did not lock the door. Then I lit my candle and then—I went
+upstairs.”</p>
+
+<p>Fainter and fainter the words fell, and slower and slower heaved the
+youthful breast under her heavily pressing palm. Mr. Moffat made a
+sign across the court-room, and I saw Dr. Carpenter get up and move
+nearer to the witness stand. But she stood in no need of his help. In
+an instant her cheek flushed; the eye I watched with such intensity of
+wonder that apprehension unconsciously left me, rose, glowed, and fixed
+itself at last—not on the judge, not on the prisoner, not even on that
+prisoner’s counsel—but on <i>me</i>; and as the soft light filled my soul
+and awoke awe, where it had hitherto awakened passion, she quietly said:</p>
+
+<p>“There is a room upstairs, in the club-house, where I have often been
+with Adelaide. It has a fireplace in it, and I had seen a box there,
+half filled with wood the day before. This is the room I went to, and
+here I built a fire. When it was quite bright, I took out something I
+had brought in my satchel, and thrust it into the flame. Then I got up
+and walked away. I—I did not feel very strong, and sank on my knees
+when I got to the couch, and buried my face in my arms. But I felt
+better when I came back to the fire again, and very brave till I caught
+a glimpse of my face in the mirror over the mantelpiece. That—that
+unnerved me, and I think I screamed. Some one screamed, and I think it
+was I. I know my hands went out—I saw them in the glass; then they
+fell straight down at my side, and I looked and looked at myself till I
+saw all the terror go out of my face, and when it was quite calm again,
+I stooped down and pulled out the little tongs I had been heating
+in the fire, and laid them quick—quick, before I could be sorry
+again—right across my cheek, and then—”</p>
+
+<p>Uproar in the court. If she had screamed when she said she did, so
+some one cried out loudly now. I think that pitiful person was myself.
+They say I had been standing straight up in my place for the last two
+minutes.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXX">XXX<br><span class="small">“CHOOSE”</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">Let me have<br>
+A dram of poison; such soon speeding geer<br>
+As will disperse itself through all the veins,<br>
+That the life-weary taker may fall dead.</p>
+
+<p class="poetry">Come, bitter conduct, come unsavoury guide!<br>
+Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on<br>
+The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Romeo and Juliet</i></p>
+
+
+<p>“I have not finished,” were the first words we heard, when order was
+restored, and we were all in a condition to listen again.</p>
+
+<p>“I had to relate what you have just heard, that you might understand
+what happened next. I was not used to pain, and I could never have
+kept on pressing those irons to my cheek if I had not had the strength
+given me by my own reflection in the glass. When I thought the burn was
+quite deep enough, I tore the tongs away, and was lifting them to the
+other cheek when I saw the door behind me open, inch by inch, as though
+pushed by hesitating touches.</p>
+
+<p>“Instantly, I forgot my pain, almost my purpose, watching that door. I
+saw it slowly swing to its full width, and disclose my sister standing
+in the gap, with a look and in an attitude which terrified me more than
+the fire had done. Dropping the tongs, I turned and faced her, covering
+my cheek instinctively with my hand.</p>
+
+<p>“I saw her eyes run over my elaborate dinner dress—my little hand-bag,
+and the candle burning in a room made warm with a fire on the hearth.
+This, before she spoke a single word. Then, with a deep labouring
+breath, she looked me in the eye again, with the simple question:</p>
+
+<p>“‘And where is he?’”</p>
+
+<p>Carmel’s head had drooped at this, but she raised it almost instantly.
+Mine did not rise so readily.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Do you mean Elwood?’ I asked. ‘You know!’ said she. ‘The veil is down
+between us, Carmel; we will speak plainly now. I saw him give you the
+letter. I heard you ask Arthur to harness up the horse. I have demeaned
+myself to follow you, and we will have no subterfuges now. You expect
+him here?’</p>
+
+<p>“‘No,’ I cried. ‘I am not so bad as that, Adelaide—nor is he. Here
+is the note. You will see by it what he expects, and at what place I
+should have joined him, if I had been the selfish creature you think,’
+I had the note hidden in my breast. I took it out, and held it towards
+her. I did not feel the burn at all, but I kept it covered. She glanced
+down at the words; and I felt like falling at her feet, she looked so
+miserable. I am told that I must keep to fact, and must not express my
+feelings, or those of others. I will try to remember this; but it is
+hard for a sister, relating such a frightful scene.</p>
+
+<p>“She glanced down at the paper and let it drop, almost immediately,
+from her hand, ‘I cannot read his words!’ she cried; ‘I do not need to;
+we both know which of us he loves best. You cannot say that it is I,
+his engaged wife.’ I was silent, and her face took on an awful pallor.
+‘Carmel,’ said she, ‘do you know what this man’s love has been to me?
+You are a child, a warm-hearted and passionate child; but you do not
+know a woman’s heart. Certainly, you do not know mine. I doubt if any
+one does—even he. Cares have warped my life. I do not quarrel with
+these cares; I only say that they have robbed me of what makes girlhood
+lovely. Duty is a stern task-master; and sternness, coming early into
+one’s life, hardens its edges, but does not sap passion from the soul
+or devotion from the heart. I was ready for joy when it came, but I
+was no longer capable of bestowing it. I thought I was, but I soon saw
+my mistake. You showed it to me—you with your beauty, your freshness,
+your warm and untried heart. I have no charms to rival these; I have
+only love, such love as you cannot dream of at your age. And <i>this</i> is
+no longer desirable to him!’</p>
+
+<p>“You see that I remember every word she spoke. They burned more
+fiercely than the iron. That did not burn at all, just then. I was cold
+instead—bitterly, awfully cold. My very heart seemed frozen, and the
+silence was dreadful. But I could not speak, I could not answer her.</p>
+
+<p>“‘You have everything,’ she now went on. ‘Why did you rob me of my one
+happiness? And you have robbed me. I have seen your smile when his head
+turned your way. It was the smile which runs before a promise. I know
+it; I have had that smile in my heart a long, long time—but it never
+reached my lips. Carmel, do you know why I am here?’ I shook my head.
+Was it her teeth that were chattering or mine? ‘I am here to end it
+all,’ said she. ‘With my hope gone, my heart laid waste, life has no
+prospect for me. I believe in God, and I know that my act is sinful;
+but I can no more live than can a tree stricken at the root. To-morrow
+he will not need to write notes; he can come and comfort you in our
+home. But never let him look at me. As we are sisters, and I almost a
+mother to you, shut my face away from his eyes—or I shall rise in my
+casket and the tangle of our lives will be renewed.’</p>
+
+<p>“I tell you this—I bare my sister’s broken heart to you, giving you
+her very words, sacred as they are to me and—and to others, who are
+present, and must listen to all I say—because it is right that you
+should understand her frenzy, and know all that passed between us in
+that awful hour.”</p>
+
+<p>This was irregular, highly irregular—but District Attorney Fox sat
+on, unmoved. Possibly he feared to prejudice the jury; possibly
+he recognised the danger of an interruption now, not only to the
+continuity of her testimony, but to the witness herself; or—what
+is just as likely—possibly he cherished a hope that, in giving her
+a free rein and allowing her to tell her story thus artlessly, she
+would herself supply the clew he needed to reconstruct his case on the
+new lines upon which it was being slowly forced by these unexpected
+revelations. Whatever the cause, he let these expressions of feeling
+pass.</p>
+
+<p>At a gesture from Mr. Moffat, Carmel proceeded:</p>
+
+<p>“I tottered at this threat; and she, a mother to me from my cradle,
+started instinctively to catch me; but the feeling left her before
+she had taken two steps, and she stopped still. ‘Drop your hand,’
+she cried. ‘I want to see your whole face while I ask you one last
+question. I could not read the note. Why did you come <i>here?</i> I dropped
+my hand, and she stood staring; then she uttered a cry and ran quickly
+towards me. ‘What is it?’ she cried. ‘What has happened to you? Is it
+the shadow or—’</p>
+
+<p>“I caught her by the hand. I could speak now. ‘Adelaide,’ said I,
+‘you are not the only one to love to the point of hurt. I love <i>you</i>.
+Let this little scar be witness,’ Then, as her eyes opened and she
+staggered, I caught her to my breast and hid my face on her shoulder.
+‘You say that to-morrow I shall be free to receive notes. He will
+not wish to write them, tomorrow. The beauty he liked is gone. If it
+weighed overmuch with him, then you and I are on a plane again—or I am
+on an inferior one. Your joy will be sweeter for this break!’</p>
+
+<p>“She started, raised my head from her shoulder, looked at me and
+shuddered—but no longer with hate. ‘Carmel!’ she whispered, ‘the
+story—the story I read you of Francis the First and—’</p>
+
+<p>“‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘that made me think,’ Her knees bent under her; she
+sank at my feet, but her eyes never left my face. ‘And—and Elwood?’
+‘He knows nothing. I did not make up my mind till to-night. Adelaide,
+it had to be. I hadn’t the strength to—to leave you all, or—or to say
+no, if he ever asked me to my face what he asked me in that note,’</p>
+
+<p>“And then I tried to lift her; but she was kissing my feet, kissing my
+dress, sobbing out her life on my hands. Oh, I was happy! My future
+looked very simple to me. But my cheek began to burn, and instinctively
+I put up my hand. This brought her to her feet. ‘You are suffering,’
+she cried. ‘You must go home, at once, at once, while I telephone to
+Dr. Carpenter,’ ‘We will go together,’ I said. ‘We can telephone from
+there.’ But at this, the awful look came back into her face, and seeing
+her forget my hurt, I forgot it, too, in dread of what she would say
+when she found strength to speak.</p>
+
+<p>“It was worse than anything I had imagined; she refused absolutely to
+go back home. ‘Carmel,’ said she, ‘I have done injustice to your youth.
+You love him, too—not like a child but a woman. The tangle is worse
+than I thought; your heart is caught in it, as well as mine, and you
+shall have your chance. My death will give it to you.’ I shook my head,
+pointing to my cheek. She shook hers, and quietly, calmly said, ‘You
+have never looked so beautiful. Should we go back together and take
+up the old life, the struggle which has undermined my conscience and
+my whole existence would only begin again. I cannot face that ordeal,
+Carmel. The morning light would bring me daily torture, the evening
+dusk a night of blasting dreams. We three cannot live in this world
+together. I am the least loved and so I should be the one to die. I am
+determined, Carmel. Life, with me, has come to this.’</p>
+
+<p>“I tried to dissuade her. I urged every plea, even that of my own
+sacrifice. But she was no more her natural self. She had taken up the
+note and read it during my entreaties, and my words fell on deaf ears.
+‘Why, these words have killed me,’ she cried crumpling the note in her
+hand. ‘What will a little poison do? It can only finish what he has
+begun.’</p>
+
+<p>“Poison! I remembered how I had heard her pushing about bottles in
+the medicine cabinet, and felt my legs grow weak and my head swim.
+‘You will not!’ I cried, watching her hand, in terror of seeing it
+rise to her breast. ‘You are crazed to-night; to-morrow you will feel
+differently.’</p>
+
+<p>“But the fixed set look of her bleak face gave me no hope. ‘I shall
+never feel differently. If I do not end it to-night, I shall do so
+soon. When a heart like mine goes down, it goes down forever,’ I could
+only shudder. I did not know what to do, or which way to turn. She
+stood between me and the door, and her presence was terrible. ‘When I
+came here,’ she said, ‘I brought a bottle of cordial with me and three
+glasses. I brought a little phial of poison too, once ordered for
+sickness. I expected to find Elwood here. If I had, I meant to drop
+the poison into one glass, and then fill them all up with the cordial.
+We should have drunk, each one of us his glass, and one of us would
+have fallen. I did not care which, you or Elwood or myself. But he is
+not here, and the cast of the die is between us two, unless you wish
+a certainty, Carmel,—in which case I will pour out but one glass and
+drink that myself.’</p>
+
+<p>“She was in a fever, now, and desperate. Death was in the room; I felt
+it in my lifted hair, and in her strangely drawn face. If I screamed,
+who would hear me? I never thought of the telephone, and I doubt if she
+would have let me use it then. The power she had always exerted over me
+was very strong in her at this moment; and not till afterwards did it
+cross my mind that I had never asked her how she got to the house, or
+whether we were as much alone in the building as I believed.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Shall I drink alone?’ she repeated, and I cried out ‘No’; at which
+her hand went to her breast, as I had so long expected, and I saw the
+glitter of a little phial as she drew it forth.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Oh, Adelaide!’ I began; but she heeded me no more than the dead.</p>
+
+<p>“On leaving home, she had put on a long coat with pockets and this coat
+was still on her, and the pockets gaping. Thrusting her other hand into
+one of these, she drew out a little flask covered with wicker, and set
+it on a stand beside her. Then she pulled out two small glasses, and
+set them down also, and then she turned her back. I could hear the
+drop, drop of the liquor; and, dark as the room was, it seemed to turn
+darker, till I put out my hands like one groping in a sudden night. But
+everything cleared before me when she turned around again. Features set
+like hers force themselves to be seen.</p>
+
+<p>“She advanced, a glass in either hand. As she came, the floor swayed,
+and the walls seemed to bow together; but they did not sway her. Step
+by step, she drew near, and when she reached my side she smiled in
+my face once. Then she said: ‘Choose aright, dear heart. Leave the
+poisoned one for me.’</p>
+
+<p>“Fascinated, I stared at one glass, then at the other. Had either of
+her hands trembled, I should have grasped at the glass it held; but not
+a tremor shook those icy fingers, nor did her eyes wander to the right
+hand or to the left. ‘Adelaide!’ I shrieked out. ‘Toss them behind you.
+Let us live—live!’ But she only reiterated that awful word: ‘Choose!’
+and I dare not hesitate longer, lest I lose my chance to save her.
+Groping, I touched a glass—I never knew which one—and drawing it from
+her fingers, I lifted it to my mouth. Instantly her other hand rose. ‘I
+don’t know which is which, myself,’ she said, and drank. That made me
+drink, also.</p>
+
+<p>“The two glasses sent out a clicking sound as we set them back on the
+stand. Then we waited, looking at each other. ‘Which?’ her lips seemed
+to say. ‘Which?’ In another moment we knew. ‘Your choice was the right
+one,’ said she, and she sank back into a chair. ‘Don’t leave me!’ she
+called out, for I was about to run shrieking out into the night. ‘I—I
+am happy now that it is all settled; but I do not want to die alone.
+Oh, how hot I am!’ And leaping up, she flung off her coat, and went
+gasping about the room for air. When she sank down again, it was on
+the lounge; and again I tried to fly for help, and again she would not
+let me. Suddenly she started up, and I saw a great change in her. The
+heavy, leaden look was gone; tenderness had come back to her eyes,
+and a human anxious expression to her whole face. ‘I have been mad!’
+she cried. ‘Carmel, Carmel, what have I done to you, my more than
+sister—my child, my child!’</p>
+
+<p>“I tried to soothe her—to keep down my awful fear and soothe her. But
+the nearness of death had calmed her poor heart into its old love and
+habitual thoughtfulness. She was terrified at my position. She recalled
+our mother, and the oath she had taken at that mother’s death-bed to
+protect me and care for me and my brother. ‘And I have failed to do
+either,’ she cried. ‘Arthur, I have alienated, and you I am leaving to
+unknown trouble and danger,’</p>
+
+<p>“She was not to be comforted. I saw her life ebbing and could do
+nothing. She clung to me while she called up all her powers, and made
+plans for me and showed me a way of escape. I was to burn the note,
+fling two of the glasses from the window and leave the other and the
+deadly phial near her hand. This, before I left the room. Then I was to
+call up the police and say there was something wrong at the club-house,
+but I was not to give my name or ever acknowledge I was there. ‘Nothing
+can save trouble,’ she said, ‘but that trouble must not come near you.
+Swear that you will heed my words—swear that you will do what I say,’</p>
+
+<p>“I swore. All that she asked I promised. I was almost dying, too;
+and had the light gone out and the rafters of the house fallen in
+and buried us both, it would have been better. But the light burned
+on, and the life in her eyes faded out, and the hands grasping mine
+relaxed. I heard one little gasp; then a low prayer: ‘Tell Arthur
+never—never—again to—’ Then—silence!”</p>
+
+<p>Sobs—cries—veiled faces—then silence in the courtroom, too. It was
+broken but by one sound, a heartrending sigh from the prisoner. But
+nobody looked at him, and thank God!—nobody looked at me. Every eye
+was on the face of this young girl, whose story bore such an impress
+of truth, and yet was so contradictory of all former evidence. What
+revelations were yet to follow. It would seem that she was speaking of
+her sister’s death.</p>
+
+<p>But her sister had not died that way; her sister had been strangled.
+Could this dainty creature, with beauty scarred and yet powerfully
+triumphant, be the victim of an hallucination as to the cause of that
+scar and the awesome circumstances which attended its infliction?
+Or, harder still to believe, were these soul-compelling tones, these
+evidences of grief, this pathetic yielding to the rights of the law
+in face of the heart’s natural shrinking from disclosures sacred as
+they were tragic—were these the medium by which she sought to mislead
+justice and to conceal truth?</p>
+
+<p>Even I, with my memory of her looks as she faltered down the staircase
+on that memorable night—pale, staring, her left hand to her cheek and
+rocking from side to side in pain or terror—could not but ask if this
+heart-rending story did not involve a still more terrible sequel. I
+searched her face, and racked my very soul, in my effort to discern
+what lay beneath this angelic surface—beneath this recital which if it
+were true and the whole truth, would call not only for the devotion of
+a lifetime, but a respect transcending love and elevating it to worship.</p>
+
+<p>But, in her cold and quiet features, I could detect nothing beyond the
+melancholy of grief; and the suspense from which all suffered, kept me
+also on the rack, until at a question from Mr. Moffat she spoke again,
+and we heard her say:</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, she died that way, with her hands in mine. There was no one else
+by; we were quite alone.”</p>
+
+<p>That settled it, and for a moment the revulsion of feeling threatened
+to throw the court into tumult. But one thing restrained them. Not the
+look of astonishment on her face, not the startled uplift of Arthur’s
+head, not the quiet complacency which in an instant replaced the
+defeated aspect of the district attorney; but the gesture and attitude
+of Mr. Moffat, the man who had put her on the stand, and who now from
+the very force of his personality, kept the storm in abeyance, and by
+his own composure, forced back attention to his witness and to his own
+confidence in his case. This result reached, he turned again towards
+Carmel, with renewed respect in his manner and a marked softening in
+his aspect and voice.</p>
+
+<p>“Can you fix the hour of this occurrence?” he asked. “In any way can
+you locate the time?”</p>
+
+<p>“No; for I did not move at once. I felt tied to that couch; I am very
+young, and I had never seen death before. When I did get up, I hobbled
+like an old woman and almost went distracted; but came to myself as I
+saw the note on the floor—the note I was told to burn. Lifting it, I
+moved towards the fireplace, but got a fright on the way, and stopped
+in the middle of the floor and looked back. I thought I had heard my
+sister speak!</p>
+
+<p>“But the fancy passed as I saw how still she lay, and I went on, after
+a while, and threw the note into the one small flame which was all that
+was left of the fire. I saw it caught by a draught from the door behind
+me, and go flaming up the chimney.</p>
+
+<p>“Some of my trouble seemed to go with it, but a great one yet remained.
+I didn’t know how I could ever turn around again and see my sister
+lying there behind me, with her face fixed in death, for which I was,
+in a way, responsible. I was abjectly frightened, and knelt there a
+long time, praying and shuddering, before I could rise again to my
+feet and move about as I had to, since God had not stricken me and I
+must live my life and do what my sister had bidden me. Courage—such
+courage as I had had—was all gone from me now; and while I knew there
+was something else for me to do before I left the room, I could not
+remember what it was, and stood hesitating, dreading to lift my eyes
+and yet feeling that I ought to, if only to aid my memory by a look at
+my sister’s face.</p>
+
+<p>“Suddenly I did look up, but it did not aid my memory; and, realising
+that I could never think with that lifeless figure before me, I lifted
+a pillow from the window-seat near by and covered her face. I must
+have done more; I must have covered the whole lounge with pillows and
+cushions; for, presently my mind cleared again, and I recollected
+that it was something about the poison. I was to put the phial in her
+hand—or was I to throw it from the window? Something was to be thrown
+from the window—it must be the phial. But I couldn’t lift the window,
+so having found the phial standing on the table beside the little
+flask, I carried it into the closet where there was a window opening
+inward, and I dropped it out of that, and thought I had done all. But
+when I came back and saw Adelaide’s coat lying in a heap where she had
+thrown it, I recalled that she had said something about this but what,
+I didn’t know. So I lifted it and put it in the closet—why, I cannot
+say. Then I set my mind on going home.</p>
+
+<p>“But there was something to do first—something not in that room. It
+was a long time before it came to me; then the sight of the empty
+hall recalled it. The door by which Adelaide had come in had never
+been closed, and as I went towards it I remembered the telephone, and
+that I was to call up the police. Lifting the candle, I went creeping
+towards the front hall. Adelaide had commanded me, or I could never
+have accomplished this task. I had to open a door; and when it swung to
+behind me and latched, I turned around and looked at it, as if I never
+expected it to open again. I almost think I fainted, if one can faint
+standing, for when I knew anything, after the appalling latching of
+that door, I was in quite another part of the room and the candle which
+I still held, looked to my dazed eyes shorter than when I started with
+it from the place where my sister lay.</p>
+
+<p>“I was wasting time. The thought drove me to the table. I caught up
+the receiver and when central answered, I said something about The
+Whispering Pines and wanting help. This is all I remember about that.</p>
+
+<p>“Some time afterward—I don’t know when—I was stumbling down the
+stairs on my way out. I had gone to—to the room again for my little
+bag; for the keys were in it, and I dared not leave them. But I didn’t
+stay a minute, and I cast but one glance at the lounge. What happened
+afterward is like a dream to me. I found the horse; the horse found the
+road; and some time later I reached home. As I came within sight of the
+house I grew suddenly strong again. The open stable door reminded me of
+my duty, and driving in, I quickly unharnessed Jenny and put her away.
+Then I dragged the cutter into place, and hung up the harness. Lastly,
+I locked the door and carried the key with me into the house and hung
+it up on its usual nail in the kitchen. I had obeyed Adelaide, and now
+I would go to my room. That is what she would wish; but I don’t know
+whether I did this or not. My mind was full of Adelaide till confusion
+came—then darkness—and then a perfect blank.”</p>
+
+<p>She had finished; she had done as she had been asked; she had told the
+story of that evening as she knew it, from the family dinner till her
+return home after midnight—and the mystery of Adelaide’s death was
+as great as ever. Did she realise this? Had I wronged this lovely,
+tempestuous nature by suspicions which this story put to blush? I
+was happy to think so—madly, unreasonably happy. Whatever happened,
+whatever the future threatening Arthur or myself, it was rapture to be
+restored to right thinking as regards this captivating and youthful
+spirit, who had suffered and must suffer always—and all through me,
+who thought it a pleasant pastime to play with hearts, and awoke to
+find I was playing with souls, and those of the two noblest women I had
+ever known!</p>
+
+<p>The cutting in of some half dozen questions from Mr. Moffat, which I
+scarcely heard and which did not at all affect the status of the case
+as it now stood, served to cool down the emotional element, which had
+almost superseded the judicial, in more minds than those of the jury;
+and having thus prepared his witness for an examination at other and
+less careful hands, he testified his satisfaction at her replies, and
+turned her over to the prosecution, with the time-worn phrase:</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. District Attorney, the witness is yours.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fox at once arose; the moment was ripe for conquest. He put his
+most vital question first:</p>
+
+<p>“In all this interview with your sister, did you remark any
+discoloration on her throat?”</p>
+
+<p>The witness’s lips opened; surprise spoke from her every feature.
+“Discoloration?” she repeated. “I do not know what you mean.”</p>
+
+<p>“Any marks darker than the rest of her skin on her throat or neck?”</p>
+
+<p>“No. Adelaide had a spotless skin. It looked like marble as she lay
+there. No, I saw no marks.”</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, have you heard or read a full account of this trial?”</p>
+
+<p>She was trembling, now. Was it from fear of the truth, or under that
+terror of the unknown embodied in this question.</p>
+
+<p>“I do not know,” said she. “What I heard was from my nurse and Mr.
+Moffat. I read very little, and that was only about the first days of
+the trial and the swearing in of jurors. This is the first time I have
+heard any mention made of marks, and I do not understand yet what you
+allude to.”</p>
+
+<p>District Attorney Fox cast at Mr. Moffat an eloquent glance, which that
+gentleman bore unmoved; then turning back to the witness, he addressed
+her in milder and more considerate tones than were usually heard from
+him in cross-examination, and asked: “Did you hold your sister’s hands
+all the time she lay dying, as you thought, on the lounge?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“And did not see her raise them once?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, no.”</p>
+
+<p>“How was it when you let go of them? Where did they fall then?”</p>
+
+<p>“On her breast. I laid them down softly and crossed them. I did not
+leave her till I had done this and closed her eyes.”</p>
+
+<p>“And what did you do then?”</p>
+
+<p>“I went for the note, to burn it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, in your direct examination, you said that you stopped
+still as you crossed the floor at the time, thinking that your sister
+called, and that you looked back at her to see.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Were her hands crossed then?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir, just the same.”</p>
+
+<p>“And afterward, when you came from the fire after waiting some little
+time for courage?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, yes. There were no signs of movement. Oh, she was dead—quite
+dead.”</p>
+
+<p>“No statements, Miss Cumberland. She looked the same, and you saw no
+change in the position of her hands?”</p>
+
+<p>“None; they were just as I left them.”</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, you have told us how, immediately after taking the
+poison, she staggered about the room, and sank first on a chair and
+then on the lounge. Were you watching her then?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes—every moment.”</p>
+
+<p>“Her hands as well as her face?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know about her hands. I should have observed it if she had
+done anything strange with them.”</p>
+
+<p>“Can you say she did not clutch or grip her throat during any of this
+time?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, yes. I couldn’t have forgotten it, if she had done that. I
+remember every move she made so well. She didn’t do that.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fox’s eye stole towards the jury. To a man, they were alert,
+anxious for the next question, and serious, as the arbitrators of a
+man’s life ought to be.</p>
+
+<p>Satisfied, he put the question: “When, after telephoning, you returned
+to the room where your sister lay, you glanced at the lounge?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I could not help it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was it in the same condition as when you left—the pillows, I mean?”</p>
+
+<p>“I—I think so. I cannot say; I only half looked; I was terrified by
+it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Can you say they had not been disturbed?”</p>
+
+<p>“No. I can say nothing. But what does—”</p>
+
+<p>“Only the answer, Miss Cumberland. Can you tell us how those pillows
+were arranged?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m afraid not. I threw them down quickly, madly, just as I collected
+them. I only know that I put the window cushion down first. The rest
+fell anyhow; but they quite covered her—quite.”</p>
+
+<p>“Hands and face?”</p>
+
+<p>“Her whole body.”</p>
+
+<p>“And did they cover her quite when you came back?”</p>
+
+<p>“They must have—Wait—wait! I know I have no right to say that, but I
+cannot swear that I saw any change.”</p>
+
+<p>“Can you swear that there was no change—that the pillows and the
+window cushion lay just as they did when you left the room?”</p>
+
+<p>She did not answer. Horror seemed to have seized hold of her. Her
+eyes, fixed on the attorney’s face, wavered and, had they followed
+their natural impulse, would have turned towards her brother, but her
+fear—possibly her love—was her counsellor and she brought them back
+to Mr. Fox. Resolutely, but with a shuddering insight of the importance
+of her reply, she answered with that one weighty monosyllable which can
+crush so many hopes, and even wreck a life:</p>
+
+<p>“No.”</p>
+
+<p>At the next moment she was in Dr. Carpenter’s arms. Her strength had
+given way for the time, and the court was hastily adjourned, to give
+her opportunity for rest and recuperation.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXXI">XXXI<br><span class="small">“WERE HER HANDS CROSSED THEN?”</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">Threescore and ten I can remember well:<br>
+Within the volume of which time, I have seen<br>
+Hours dreadful, and things strange; but this sore night<br>
+Hath trifled former knowledge.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Macbeth</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>I shall say nothing about myself at this juncture. That will come
+later. I have something of quite different purport to relate.</p>
+
+<p>When I left the court-room with the other witnesses, I noticed a man
+standing near the district attorney. He was a very plain man—with no
+especial claims to attention, that I could see, yet I looked at him
+longer than I did at any one else, and turned and looked at him again
+as I passed through the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>Afterward I heard that he was Sweetwater, the detective from New
+York who had had so much to do in unearthing the testimony against
+Arthur,—testimony which in the light of this morning’s revelations,
+had taken on quite a new aspect, as he was doubtless the first to
+acknowledge. It was the curious blending of professional disappointment
+and a personal and characteristic appreciation of the surprising
+situation, which made me observe him, I suppose. Certainly my heart
+and mind were full enough not to waste looks on a commonplace stranger
+unless there had been some such overpowering reason.</p>
+
+<p>I left him still talking to Mr. Fox, and later received this account of
+the interview which followed between them and Dr. Perry.</p>
+
+<p>“Is this girl telling the truth?” asked District Attorney Fox, as soon
+as the three were closeted and each could speak his own mind. “Doctor,
+what do you think?”</p>
+
+<p>“I do not question her veracity in the least. A woman who for purely
+moral reasons could defy pain and risk the loss of a beauty universally
+acknowledged as transcendent, would never stoop to falsehood even in
+her desire to save a brother’s life. I have every confidence in her.
+Fox, and I think you may safely have the same.”</p>
+
+<p>“You believe that she burnt herself—intentionally?”</p>
+
+<p>“I wouldn’t disbelieve it—you may think me sentimental; I knew and
+loved her father—for any fortune you might name.”</p>
+
+<p>“Say that you never knew her father; say that you had no more interest
+in the girl or the case, than the jurors have? What then—-?</p>
+
+<p>“I should believe her for humanity’s sake; for the sake of the
+happiness it gives one to find something true and strong in this sordid
+work-a-day world—a jewel in a dust-heap. Oh, I’m a sentimentalist, I
+acknowledge.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fox turned to Sweetwater. “And you?”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Fox, have you those tongs?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I forgot; they were brought to my office, with the other
+exhibits. I attached no importance to them, and you will probably find
+them just where I thrust them into the box marked ‘Cumb.’”</p>
+
+<p>They were in the district attorney’s office, and Sweetwater at once
+rose and brought forward the tongs.</p>
+
+<p>“There is my answer,” he said pointing significantly at one of the legs.</p>
+
+<p>The district attorney turned pale, and motioned Sweetwater to carry
+them back. He sat silent for a moment, and then showed that he was a
+man.</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland has my respect,” said he.</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater came back to his place.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Perry waited.</p>
+
+<p>Finally Mr. Fox turned to him and put the anticipated question:</p>
+
+<p>“You are satisfied with your autopsy? Miss Cumberland’s death was due
+to strangulation and not to the poison she took?”</p>
+
+<p>“That was what I swore to, and what I should have to swear to again
+if you placed me back on the stand. The poison, taken with her great
+excitement, robbed her of consciousness, but there was too little of
+it, or it was too old and weakened to cause death. She would probably
+have revived, in time; possibly did revive. But the clutch of those
+fingers was fatal; she could not survive it. It costs me more than
+you can ever understand to say this, but questions like yours must be
+answered. I should not be an honest man otherwise.”</p>
+
+<p>Sweetwater made a movement. Mr. Fox turned and looked at him critically.</p>
+
+<p>“Speak out,” said he.</p>
+
+<p>But Sweetwater had nothing to say.</p>
+
+<p>Neither had Dr. Perry. The oppression of an unsolved problem, involving
+lives of whose value each formed a different estimate, was upon them
+all; possibly heaviest upon the district attorney, the most serious
+portion of whose work lay still before him.</p>
+
+<p>To the relief of all, Carmel was physically stronger than we expected
+when she came to retake the stand in the afternoon. But she had lost
+a little of her courage. Her expectation of clearing her brother at
+a word had left her, and with it the excitation of hope. Yet she
+made a noble picture as she sat there, meeting, without a blush, but
+with an air of sweet humility impossible to describe, the curious,
+all-devouring glances of the multitude, some of them anxious to repeat
+the experience of the morning; some of them new to the court, to her,
+and the cause for which she stood.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fox kept nobody waiting. With a gentleness such as he seldom showed
+to any witness for the defence, he resumed his cross-examination by
+propounding the following question:</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, in your account of the final interview you had with
+your sister, you alluded to a story you had once read together. Will
+you tell us the name of this story?”</p>
+
+<p>“It was called ‘A Legend of Francis the First.’ It was not a novel, but
+a little tale she found in some old magazine. It had a great effect
+upon us; I have never forgotten it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Can you relate this tale to us in a few words?”</p>
+
+<p>“I will try. It was very simple; it merely told how a young girl marred
+her beauty to escape the attentions of the great king, and what respect
+he always showed her after that, even calling her sister.”</p>
+
+<p>Was the thrill in her voice or in my own heart, or in the
+story—emphasised as it was by her undeniable attempt upon her own
+beauty? As that last word fell so softly, yet with such tender
+suggestion, a sensation of sympathy passed between us for the first
+time; and I knew, from the purity of her look and the fearlessness of
+this covert appeal to one she could not address openly, that the doubts
+I had cherished of her up to this very moment were an outrage and that
+were it possible or seemly, I should be bowed down in the dust at her
+feet—in reality, as I was in spirit.</p>
+
+<p>Others may have shared my feeling; for the glances which flew from her
+face to mine were laden with an appreciation of the situation, which
+for the moment drove the prisoner from the minds of all, and centred
+attention on this tragedy of souls, bared in so cruel a way to the
+curiosity of the crowd. I could not bear it. The triumph of my heart
+battled with the shame of my fault, and I might have been tempted into
+some act of manifest imprudence, if Mr. Fox had not cut my misery short
+by recalling attention to the witness, with a question of the most
+vital importance.</p>
+
+<p>“While you were holding your sister’s hands in what you supposed to be
+her final moments, did you observe whether or not she still wore on her
+finger the curious ring given her by Mr. Ranelagh, and known as her
+engagement ring?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes—I not only saw it, but felt it. It was the only one she wore on
+her left hand.”</p>
+
+<p>The district attorney paused. This was an admission unexpected,
+perhaps, by himself, which it was desirable to have sink into the minds
+of the jury. The ring had not been removed by Adelaide herself; it
+was still on her finger as the last hour drew nigh. An awful fact, if
+established—telling seriously against Arthur. Involuntarily I glanced
+his way. He was looking at me. The mutual glance struck fire. What I
+thought, he thought—but possibly with a difference. The moment was
+surcharged with emotion for all but the witness herself. She was calm;
+perhaps she did not understand the significance of the occasion.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fox pressed his advantage.</p>
+
+<p>“And when you rose from the lounge and crossed your sister’s hands?”</p>
+
+<p>“It was still there; I put that hand uppermost.”</p>
+
+<p>“And left the ring on?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes—oh, yes.” Her whole attitude and face were full of protest.</p>
+
+<p>“So that, to the best of your belief, it was still on your sister’s
+finger when you left the room?”</p>
+
+<p>“Certainly, sir, certainly.”</p>
+
+<p>There was alarm in her tone now, she was beginning to see that her
+testimony was not as entirely helpful to Arthur as she had been led
+to expect. In her helplessness, she cast a glance of entreaty at her
+brother’s counsel. But he was busily occupied with pencil and paper,
+and she received no encouragement unless it was from his studiously
+composed manner and general air of unconcern. She did not know—nor did
+I know then—what uneasiness such an air may cover.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fox had followed her glances, and perhaps understood his adversary
+better than she did; for he drew himself up with an appearance of
+satisfaction as he asked very quietly:</p>
+
+<p>“What material did you use in lighting the fire on the club-house
+hearth?”</p>
+
+<p>“Wood from the box, and a little kindling I found there.”</p>
+
+<p>“How large was this kindling?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not very large; some few stray pieces of finer wood I picked out from
+she rest.”</p>
+
+<p>“And how did you light these?”</p>
+
+<p>“With some scraps of paper I brought in my bag?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh—you brought scraps?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes. I had seen the box, seen the wood, but knew the wood would not
+kindle without paper. So I brought some.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did the fire light quickly?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not very quickly.”</p>
+
+<p>“You had trouble with it?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir. But I made it burn at last.”</p>
+
+<p>“Are you in the habit of kindling fires in your own home?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, on the hearth.”</p>
+
+<p>“You understand them?”</p>
+
+<p>“I have always found it a very simple matter, if you have paper and
+enough kindling.”</p>
+
+<p>“And the draught is good.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Wasn’t the draught good at the club-house?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not at first.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh—not at first. When did you see a change?”</p>
+
+<p>“When the note I was trying to burn flew up the chimney.”</p>
+
+<p>“I see. Was that after or before the door opened?”</p>
+
+<p>“After.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did the opening of this door alter the temperature of the room?”</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot say; I felt neither heat nor cold at any time.”</p>
+
+<p>“Didn’t you feel the icy cold when you opened the dressing-closet
+window to throw out the phial?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t remember.”</p>
+
+<p>“Wouldn’t you remember if you had?”</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot say.”</p>
+
+<p>“Can you say whether you noticed any especial chill in the hall when
+you went out to telephone?”</p>
+
+<p>“My teeth were chattering but—”</p>
+
+<p>“Had they chattered before?”</p>
+
+<p>“They may have. I only noticed it then; but—”</p>
+
+<p>“The facts, Miss Cumberland. Your teeth chattered while you were
+passing through the hall. Did this keep up after you entered the room
+where you found the telephone?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t remember; I was almost insensible.”</p>
+
+<p>“You don’t remember that they did?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“But you do remember having shut the door behind you?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>An open window in the hall! That was what he was trying to prove—open
+at this time. From the expression of such faces of the jury as I could
+see, I think he had proved it. The next point he made was in the same
+line. Had she, in all the time she was in the building, heard any
+noises she could not account for?</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, many times.”</p>
+
+<p>“Can you describe these noises?”</p>
+
+<p>“No; they were of all kinds. The pines sighed continually; I knew it
+was the pines, but I had to listen. Once I heard a rushing sound—it
+was when the pines stopped swaying for an instant—but I don’t know
+what it was. It was all very dreadful.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was this rushing sound such as a window might make on being opened?”</p>
+
+<p>“Possibly. I didn’t think of it at the time, but it might have been.”</p>
+
+<p>“From what direction did it come?”</p>
+
+<p>“Back of me, for I turned my head about.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where were you at the time?”</p>
+
+<p>“At the hearth. It was before Adelaide came in.”</p>
+
+<p>“A near sound, or a far?”</p>
+
+<p>“Far, but I cannot locate it—indeed, I cannot. I forgot it in a
+moment.”</p>
+
+<p>“But you remember it now?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“And cannot you remember <i>now</i> any other noises than those you speak
+of? That time you stepped into the hall—when your teeth chattered, you
+know—did you hear nothing then but the sighing of the pines?”</p>
+
+<p>She looked startled. Her hands went up and one of them clutched at her
+throat, then they fell, and slowly—carefully—like one feeling his
+way—she answered:</p>
+
+<p>“I had forgotten. I did hear something—a sound in one of the doorways.
+It was very faint—a sigh—a—a—I don’t know what. It conveyed nothing
+to me then, and not much now. But you asked, and I have answered.”</p>
+
+<p>“You have done right, Miss Cumberland. The jury ought to know these
+facts. Was it a human sigh?”</p>
+
+<p>“It wasn’t the sigh of the pines.”</p>
+
+<p>“And you heard it in one of the doorways? Which doorway?”</p>
+
+<p>“The one opposite the room in which I left my sister.”</p>
+
+<p>“The doorway to the large hall?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>Oh, the sinister memories! The moments which I myself had spent
+there—after this time of her passing through the hall, thank God!—but
+not long after. And some one had been there before me! Was it Arthur? I
+hardly had the courage to interrogate his face, but when I did, I, like
+every one else who looked that way, met nothing but the quietude of a
+fully composed man. There was nothing to be learned from him now; the
+hour for self-betrayal was past. I began to have a hideous doubt.</p>
+
+<p>Carmel being innocent, who could be guilty but he. I knew of no one.
+The misery under which I had suffered was only lightened, not removed.
+We were still to see evil days. The prosecution would prove its case,
+and—But there was Mr. Moffat. I must not reckon without Moffat. He had
+sprung one surprise. Was he not capable of springing another? Relieved,
+I fixed my mind again upon the proceedings. What was Mr. Fox asking her
+now?</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, are you ready to swear that you did not hear a step
+at that time?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Or see a face?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“That you only heard a sigh?”</p>
+
+<p>“A sigh, or something like one.”</p>
+
+<p>“Which made you stop—”</p>
+
+<p>“No, I did not stop.”</p>
+
+<p>“You went right on?”</p>
+
+<p>“Immediately.”</p>
+
+<p>“Entering the telephone room?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“The door of which you shut?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“Intentionally?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, not intentionally.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you shut that door yourself?”</p>
+
+<p>“I do not know. I must have but I—”</p>
+
+<p>“Never mind explanations. You do not know whether you shut it, or
+whether some one else shut it?”</p>
+
+<p>“I do not.”</p>
+
+<p>The words fell weightily. They seemed to strike every heart.</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, you have said that you telephoned for the police.”</p>
+
+<p>“I telephoned to central.”</p>
+
+<p>“For help?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, for help.”</p>
+
+<p>“You were some minutes doing this, you say?”</p>
+
+<p>“I have reason to think so, but I don’t know definitely. The candle
+seemed shorter when I went out than when I came in.”</p>
+
+<p>“Are you sure you telephoned for help?”</p>
+
+<p>“Help was what I wanted—help for my sister. I do not remember my
+words.”</p>
+
+<p>“And then you left the building?”</p>
+
+<p>“After going for my little bag.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you see any one then?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Hear any one?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you see your sister again?”</p>
+
+<p>“I have said that I just glanced at the couch.”</p>
+
+<p>“Were the pillows there?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Just as you had left them?”</p>
+
+<p>“I have said that I could not tell.”</p>
+
+<p>“Wouldn’t you know if they had been disturbed?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir—not from the look I gave them.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then they might have been disturbed—might even have been
+rearranged—-without your knowing it?”</p>
+
+<p>“They might.”</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, when you left the building, did you leave it alone?”</p>
+
+<p>“I did.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was the moon shining?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, it was snowing.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did the moon shine when you went to throw the phial out of the window?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, very brightly.”</p>
+
+<p>“Bright enough for you to see the links?”</p>
+
+<p>“I didn’t look at the links.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where were you looking?”</p>
+
+<p>“Behind me.”</p>
+
+<p>“When you threw the phial out?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“What was there behind you?”</p>
+
+<p>“A dead sister.” Oh, the indescribable tone!</p>
+
+<p>“Nothing else?”</p>
+
+<p>“No.”</p>
+
+<p>“Forgive me, Miss Cumberland, I do not want to trouble you, but was
+there not something or some one in the adjoining room besides your dead
+sister, to make you look back?”</p>
+
+<p>“I saw no one. But I looked back—I do not know why.”</p>
+
+<p>“And didn’t you turn at all?”</p>
+
+<p>“I do not think so.”</p>
+
+<p>“You threw the phial out without looking?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“How do you know you threw it out?”</p>
+
+<p>“I felt it slip from my hand.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where?”</p>
+
+<p>“Over the window ledge. I had pulled the window open before I turned
+my head. I had only to feel for the sill. When I touched its edge, I
+opened my fingers.”</p>
+
+<p>Triumph for the defence. Cross-examination on this point had only
+served to elucidate a mysterious fact. The position of the phial,
+caught in the vines, was accounted for in a very natural manner.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fox shifted his inquiries.</p>
+
+<p>“You have said that you wore a hat and coat of your brother’s in coming
+to the club-house? Did you keep these articles on?”</p>
+
+<p>“No; I left them in the lower hall.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where in the lower hall?”</p>
+
+<p>“On the rack there.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was your candle lit?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not then, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yet you found the rack?”</p>
+
+<p>“I felt for it. I knew where it was.”</p>
+
+<p>“When did you light the candle?”</p>
+
+<p>“After I hung up the coat.”</p>
+
+<p>“And when you came down? Did you have the candle then?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, for a while. But I didn’t have any light when I went for the coat
+and hat. I remember feeling all along the wall. I don’t know what I did
+with the candlestick or the candle. I had them on the stairs; I didn’t
+have them when I put on the coat and hat.”</p>
+
+<p>I knew what she did with them. She flung them out of her hand upon the
+marble floor. Should I ever forget the darkness swallowing up that face
+of mental horror and physical suffering.</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, you are sure about having telephoned for help, and
+that you mentioned The Whispering Pines in doing so?”</p>
+
+<p>“Quite sure.” Oh, what weariness was creeping into her voice!</p>
+
+<p>“Then, of course, you left the door unlocked when you went out of the
+building?”</p>
+
+<p>“No—no, I didn’t. I had the key and I locked it. But I didn’t realise
+this till I went to untie my horse; then I found the keys in my hand.
+But I didn’t go back.”</p>
+
+<p>“Do you mean that you didn’t know you locked the door?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t remember whether I knew or not at the time. I do remember
+being surprised and a little frightened when I saw the keys. But I
+didn’t go back.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yet you had telephoned for the police?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“And then locked them out?”</p>
+
+<p>“I didn’t care—I didn’t care.”</p>
+
+<p>An infinite number of questions followed. The poor child was near
+fainting, but bore up wonderfully notwithstanding, contradicting
+herself but seldom; and then only from lack of understanding the
+question, or from sheer fatigue. Mr. Fox was considerate, and Mr.
+Moffat interrupted but seldom. All could see that this noble-hearted
+girl, this heroine of all hearts was trying to tell the truth, and
+sympathy was with her, even that of the prosecution. But certain facts
+had to be brought out, among them the blowing off of her hat on that
+hurried drive home through the ever thickening snow-storm—a fact
+easily accounted for, when one considered the thick coils of hair over
+which it had been drawn.</p>
+
+<p>The circumstances connected with her arrival at the house were all
+carefully sifted, but nothing new came up, nor was her credibility as
+a witness shaken. The prosecution had lost much by this witness, but
+it had also gained. No doubt now remained that the ring was still on
+the victim’s hand when she succumbed to the effects of the poison; and
+the possibility of another presence in the house during the fateful
+interview just recorded, had been strengthened, rather than lessened,
+by Carmel’ s hesitating admissions. And so the question hung poised,
+and I was expecting to see her dismissed from the stand, when the
+district attorney settled himself again into his accustomed attitude of
+inquiry, and launched this new question:</p>
+
+<p>“When you went into the stable to unharness your horse, what did you do
+with the little bag you carried?”</p>
+
+<p>“I took it out of the cutter.”</p>
+
+<p>“What, then?”</p>
+
+<p>“Set it down somewhere.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was there anything in the bag?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not now. I had left the tongs at the club-house, and the paper I had
+burned. I took nothing else.”</p>
+
+<p>“How about the candlestick?”</p>
+
+<p>“That I carried in one of the pockets of my coat. That I left, too.”</p>
+
+<p>“Was that all you carried in your pockets?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes—the candlestick and the candle. The candlestick on one side and
+the candle on the other.”</p>
+
+<p>“And these you did not have on your return?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, I left both.”</p>
+
+<p>“So that your pockets were empty—entirely empty—when you drove into
+your own gate?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir, so far as I know. I never looked into them.”</p>
+
+<p>“And felt nothing there?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Took nothing out?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then or when you unharnessed your horse, or afterward, as you passed
+back to the house?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“What path did you take in returning to the house?”</p>
+
+<p>“There is only one.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you walk straight through it?”</p>
+
+<p>“As straight as I could. It was snowing heavily, and I was dizzy and
+felt strange, I may have zigzagged a little.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you zigzag enough to go back of the stable?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, no.”</p>
+
+<p>“You are sure that you did not wander in back of the stable?”</p>
+
+<p>“As sure as I can be of anything.”</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, I have but a few more questions to ask. Will you look
+at this portion of a broken bottle?”</p>
+
+<p>“I see it, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Will you take it in your hand and examine it carefully?”</p>
+
+<p>She reached out her hand; it was trembling visibly and her face
+expressed a deep distress, but she took the piece of broken bottle and
+looked at it before passing it back.</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Cumberland, did you ever see that bit of broken glass before?”</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head. Then she cast a quick look at her brother, and
+seemed to gain an instantaneous courage.</p>
+
+<p>“No,” said she. “I may have seen a whole bottle like that, at some time
+in the club-house, but I have no memory of this broken end—none at
+all.”</p>
+
+<p>“I am obliged to you, Miss Cumberland. I will trouble you no more
+to-day.”</p>
+
+<p>Then he threw up his head and smiled a slow, sarcastic smile at Mr.
+Moffat.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXXII">XXXII<br><span class="small">AND I HAD SAID NOTHING!</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">O my soul’s joy!<br>
+If after every tempest come such calms<br>
+May the winds blow till they have wakened death!</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Othello</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>I had always loved her; that I knew even in the hour of my darkest
+suspicion—but now I felt free to worship her. As the thought
+penetrated my whole being, it made the night gladsome. Whatever awaited
+her, whatever awaited Arthur, whatever awaited me, she had regenerated
+me. A change took place that night in my whole nature, in my aspect of
+life and my view of women. One fact rode triumphant above all other
+considerations and possible distresses. Fate—I was more inclined now
+to call it Providence—had shown me the heart of a great and true
+woman; and I was free to expend all my best impulses in honouring her
+and loving her, whether she ever looked my way again, received or even
+acknowledged a homage growing out of such wrong as I had done her
+and her unfortunate sister. It set a star in my firmament. It turned
+down all the ill-written and besmirched leaves in my book of life and
+opened up a new page on which her name, written in letters of gold,
+demanded clean work in the future and a record which should not shame
+the aura surrounding that pure name. Sorrow for the past, dread of the
+future—both were lost in the glad rebound of my distracted soul. The
+night was dedicated to joy, and to joy alone.</p>
+
+<p>The next day being Sunday, I had ample time for the reaction bound to
+follow hours of such exaltation. I had no wish for company. I even
+denied myself to Clifton. The sight of a human face was more than I
+could bear unless it were the one face; and that I could not hope
+for. But the desire to see her, to hear from her—if only to learn
+how she had endured the bitter ordeal of the day before—soon became
+unbearable. I must know this much at any cost to her feelings or to
+mine.</p>
+
+<p>After many a struggle with myself, I called up Dr. Carpenter on the
+telephone. From him I learned that she was physically prostrated, but
+still clear in mind and satisfied of her brother’s innocence. This
+latter statement might mean anything; but imparted by him to me, it
+seemed to be capable of but one interpretation. I must be prepared for
+whatever distrust of myself this confidence carried with it.</p>
+
+<p>This was intolerable. I had to speak; I had to inquire if she had yet
+heard the real reason why I was the first to be arrested.</p>
+
+<p>A decided “No,” cut short that agony. I could breathe again and proffer
+a humble request.</p>
+
+<p>“Doctor, I cannot approach her; I cannot even write,—it would seem too
+presumptuous. But tell her, as you find the opportunity, how I honour
+her. Do not let her remain under the impression that I am not capable
+of truly feeling what she has borne and must still bear.”</p>
+
+<p>“I will do what I can,” was his reply, and he mercifully cut short the
+conversation.</p>
+
+<p>This was the event of the morning.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon I sat in my window thinking. My powers of reasoning
+had returned, and the insoluble problem of Adelaide’s murder occupied
+my whole mind. With Carmel innocent, who was there left to suspect?
+Not Arthur. His fingers were as guiltless as my own of those marks on
+her throat. Of this I was convinced, difficult as it made my future.
+My mind refused to see guilt in a man who could meet my eye with just
+the look he gave me on leaving the courtroom, at the conclusion of his
+sister’s triumphant examination. It was a momentary glance, but I read
+it, I am sure, quite truthfully.</p>
+
+<p>“You are the man,” it said; but not in the old, bitter, and revengeful
+way voiced by his tongue before we came together in the one effort to
+save Carmel from what, in our short-sightedness and misunderstanding
+of her character, we had looked upon as the worst of humiliations and
+the most desperate of perils. There was sadness in his conviction and
+an honest man’s regret—which, if noted by those about us—was far more
+dangerous to my good name than the loudest of denunciations or the most
+acrimonious of assaults. It put me in the worst of positions. But one
+chance remained for me now.</p>
+
+<p>The secret man of guilt might yet come to light; but how or through
+whose agency, I found myself unable to conceive. I had neither the wit
+nor the experience to untangle this confused web. Should I find the law
+in shape to deal with it? A few days would show. With the termination
+of Arthur’s trial, the story of my future would begin. Meanwhile, I
+must have patience and such strength as could be got from the present.</p>
+
+<p>And so the afternoon passed.</p>
+
+<p>With the coming on of night, my mood changed. I wanted air, movement.
+The closeness of my rooms had become unbearable. As soon as the lamps
+were lit in the street, I started out and I went—toward the cemetery.</p>
+
+<p>I had no motive in choosing this direction for my walk. The road was an
+open one, and I should neither avoid people nor escape the chilly blast
+blowing directly in my face from the northeast. Whim, or shall I not
+say, true feeling, carried me there though I was quite conscious, all
+the time, of a strong desire to see Ella Fulton and learn from her the
+condition of affairs—whether she was at peace, or in utter disgrace,
+with her parents.</p>
+
+<p>It was a cold night, as I have said, and there were but few people in
+the streets. On the boulevard I met nobody. As I neared the cemetery,
+I passed one man; otherwise I was, to all appearance, alone on this
+remote avenue. The effect was sinister, or my mood made it so; yet
+I did not hasten my steps; the hours till midnight had to be lived
+through in some way, and why not in this? No companion would have been
+welcome, and had the solitude been less perfect, I should have murmured
+at the prospect of intrusion.</p>
+
+<p>The cemetery gates were shut. This I had expected, but I did not
+need to enter the grounds to have a view of Adelaide’s grave. The
+Cumberland lot occupied a knoll in close proximity to the fence, and
+my only intention had been to pass this spot and cast one look within,
+in memory of Adelaide. To reach the place, however, I had to turn
+a corner, and on doing so I saw good reason, as I thought, for not
+carrying out my intention at this especial time.</p>
+
+<p>Some man—I could not recognise him from where I stood—had forestalled
+me. Though the night was a dark one, sufficient light shone from the
+scattered lamps on the opposite side of the way for me to discern his
+intent figure, crouching against the iron bars and gazing, with an
+intentness which made him entirely oblivious of my presence, at the
+very plot—and on the very grave—which had been the end of my own
+pilgrimage. So motionless he stood, and so motionless I myself became
+at this unexpected and significant sight, that I presently imagined I
+could hear his sighs in the dread quiet into which the whole scene had
+sunk.</p>
+
+<p>Grief, deeper than mine, spoke in those labouring breaths. Adelaide was
+mourned by some one as I, for all my remorse, could never mourn her.</p>
+
+<p><i>And I did not know the man</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Was not this strange enough to rouse my wonder?</p>
+
+<p>I thought so, and was on the point of satisfying this wonder by a quick
+advance upon this stranger, when there happened an uncanny thing,
+which held me in check from sheer astonishment. I was so placed, in
+reference to one of the street lamps I have already mentioned, that my
+shadow fell before me plainly along the snow. This had not attracted my
+attention until, at the point of moving, I cast my eyes down and saw
+two shadows where only one should be.</p>
+
+<p>As I had heard no one behind me, and had supposed myself entirely
+alone with the man absorbed in contemplation of Adelaide’s grave, I
+experienced a curious sensation which, without being fear, held me
+still for a moment, with my eyes on this second shadow. It did not
+move, any more than mine did. This was significant, and I turned.</p>
+
+<p>A man stood at my back—not looking at me but at the fellow in front
+of us. A quiet “hush!” sounded in my ear, and again I stood still. But
+only for an instant.</p>
+
+<p>The man at the fence—aroused by my movement, perhaps—had turned,
+and, seeing our two figures, started to fly in the opposite direction.
+Instinctively I darted forward in pursuit, but was soon passed by the
+man behind me. This caused me to slacken; for I had recognised this
+latter, as he flew by, as Sweetwater, the detective, and knew that he
+would do this work better than myself.</p>
+
+<p>But I reckoned without my host. He went only as far as the spot where
+the man had been standing. When, in my astonishment, I advanced upon
+him there, he wheeled about quite naturally in my direction and,
+accosting me by name, remarked, in his genial off-hand manner:</p>
+
+<p>“There is no need for us to tire our legs in a chase after that man. I
+know him well enough.”</p>
+
+<p>“And who—” I began.</p>
+
+<p>A quizzical smile answered me. The light was now in our faces, and I
+had a perfect view of his. Its expression quite disarmed me; but I
+knew, as well as if he had spoken, that I should receive no other reply
+to my half-formed question.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you going back into town?” he asked, as I paused and looked down
+at the umbrella swinging in his hand. I was sure that he had not held
+this umbrella when he started by me on the run. “If so, will you allow
+me to walk beside you for a little way?”</p>
+
+<p>I could not refuse him; besides, I was not sure that I wanted to.
+Homely as any man I had ever seen, there was a magnetic quality in his
+voice and manner that affected even one so fastidious as myself. I felt
+that I had rather talk to him, at that moment, than to any other person
+I knew. Of course, curiosity had something to do with it, and that
+community of interest which is the strongest bond that can link two
+people together.</p>
+
+<p>“You are quite welcome,” said I; and again cast my eye at the umbrella.</p>
+
+<p>“You are wondering where I got this,” he remarked, looking down at it
+in his turn. “I found it leaning against the fence. It gives me all the
+clue I need to our fleet-footed friend. Mr. Ranelagh, will you credit
+me with good intentions if I ask a question or two which you may or may
+not be willing to answer?”</p>
+
+<p>“You may ask what you will,” said I. “I have nothing to conceal, since
+hearing Miss Cumberland’s explanation of her presence at The Whispering
+Pines.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah!”</p>
+
+<p>The ejaculation was eloquent. So was the silence which followed it.
+Without good reason, perhaps, I felt the strain upon my heart loosen a
+little. Was it possible that I should find a friend in this man?</p>
+
+<p>“The question I am going to ask,” he continued presently, “is one which
+you may consider unpardonable. Let me first express an opinion. You
+have not told all that you know of that evening’s doings.”</p>
+
+<p>This called for no reply and I made none.</p>
+
+<p>“I can understand your reticence, if your knowledge included the fact
+of Miss Cumberland’s heroic act and her sister’s manner of death at the
+club-house.”</p>
+
+<p>“But it did not,” I asserted, with deliberate emphasis. “I knew nothing
+of either. My arrival happened later. Miss Cumberland’s testimony gave
+me my first enlightenment on these points. But I did know that the two
+sisters were there together, for I had a glimpse of the younger as she
+was leaving the house.”</p>
+
+<p>“You had. And are willing to state it now?”</p>
+
+<p>“Assuredly. But any testimony of that kind is for the defence, and
+your interests are all with the prosecution. Mr. Moffat is the man who
+should talk to me.”</p>
+
+<p>“Does he know it?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>“Who told him?”</p>
+
+<p>“I did.”</p>
+
+<p>“You?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, it was my duty.”</p>
+
+<p>“You are interested then in seeing young Cumberland freed?”</p>
+
+<p>“I must be; he is innocent.”</p>
+
+<p>The man at my side turned, shot at me one glance which I met quite
+calmly, then, regulating his step by mine, moved on silently for a
+moment—thinking, as it appeared to me, some very serious thoughts.
+It was not until we had traversed a whole block in this way that he
+finally put his question. Whether it was the one he had first had in
+mind, I cannot say.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Ranelagh, will you tell me why, when you found yourself in such
+a dire extremity as to be arrested for this crime, on evidence as
+startling as to call for all and every possible testimony to your
+innocence, you preserved silence in regard to a fact which you must
+have then felt would have secured you a most invaluable witness? I can
+understand why Mr. Cumberland has been loth to speak of his younger
+sister’s presence in the club-house on that night; but his reason was
+not your reason. Yet you have been as hard to move on this point as he.”</p>
+
+<p>Then it was I regretted my thoughtless promise to be candid with this
+man. To answer were impossible, yet silence has its confidences, too.
+In my dilemma, I turned towards him and just then we stepped within the
+glare of an electric light pouring from some open doorway. I caught his
+eye, and was astonished at the change which took place in him.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t answer,” he muttered, volubly. “It isn’t necessary. I understand
+the situation, now, and you shall never regret that you met Caleb
+Sweetwater on your walk this evening. Will you trust me, sir? A
+detective who loves his profession is no gabbler. Your secret is as
+safe with me as if you had buried it in the grave.”</p>
+
+<p>And I had said nothing!</p>
+
+<p>He started to go, then he stopped suddenly and observed, with one of
+his wise smiles:</p>
+
+<p>“I once spent several minutes in Miss Carmel Cumberland’s room, and I
+saw a cabinet there which I found it very hard to understand. But its
+meaning came to me later. I could not rest till it did.”</p>
+
+<p>At the next moment he was half way around a corner, and in another, out
+of sight.</p>
+
+<p>This was the evening’s event.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXXIII">XXXIII<br><span class="small">THE ARROW OF DEATH</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">O if you rear this house against this house,<br>
+It will the wofulest division prove<br>
+That ever fell upon this cursed earth.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Prometheus Unbound</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>In my first glance around the court-room the next morning, I sought
+first for Carmel and then for the detective Sweetwater. Neither was
+visible. But this was not true of Ella. She had come in on her father’s
+arm, closely followed by the erect figure of her domineering mother.
+As I scrutinised the latter’s bearing, I seemed to penetrate the
+mystery of her nature. Whatever humiliation she may have felt at the
+public revelation of her daughter’s weakness, it had been absorbed by
+her love for that daughter, or had been forced, through the agency
+of her indomitable will, to become a ministrant to her pride which
+was unassailable. She had accepted the position exacted from her by
+the situation, and she looked for no loss of prestige, either on her
+daughter’s or her own account. Such was the language of her eyes; and
+it was a language which should have assured Ella that she had a better
+friend in her mother than she had ever dreamed of. The entrance of the
+defendant cut short my contemplation of any mere spectator. The change
+in him was so marked that I was conscious of it before I really saw
+him. Every eye had reflected it, and it was no surprise to me when I
+noted the relieved, almost cheerful aspect of his countenance as he
+took his place and met his counsel’s greeting with a smile—the first,
+I believe, which had been seen on his face since his sister’s death.
+That counsel I had already noted. He was cheerful also, but with a
+restrained cheerfulness. His task was not yet over, and the grimness of
+Mr. Fox, and the non-committal aspect of the jurymen, proved that it
+was not to be made too easy for him.</p>
+
+<p>The crier announced the opening of the court, and the defence proceeded
+by the calling of Ella Fulton to the witness stand.</p>
+
+<p>I need not linger over her testimony. It was very short and contained
+but one surprise. She had stated under direct examination that she
+had waited and watched for Arthur’s return that whole night, and was
+positive that he had not passed through their grounds again after that
+first time in the early evening. This was just what I had expected
+from her. But the prosecution remembered the snowfall, and in her
+cross-examination on this point, she acknowledged that it was very
+thick, much too thick for her to see her own gate distinctly; but
+added, that this only made her surer of the fact she had stated; for
+finding that she could not see, she had dressed herself for the storm
+and gone out into the driveway to watch there, and had so watched until
+the town clock struck three.</p>
+
+<p>This did not help the prosecution. Sympathy could not fail to be
+with this young and tremulous girl, heroic in her love, if weak in
+other respects, and when on her departure from the stand, she cast
+one deprecatory glance at the man for whom she had thus sacrificed
+her pride, and, meeting his eye fixed upon her with anything but
+ingratitude, flushed and faltered till she with difficulty found
+her way, the sentiments of the onlookers became so apparent that
+the judge’s gavel was called into requisition before order could be
+restored and the next witness summoned to testify.</p>
+
+<p>This witness was no less a person than Arthur himself. Recalled by his
+counsel, he was reminded of his former statement that he had left the
+club-house in a hurry because he heard his sister Adelaide’s voice, and
+was now asked if hers was the only voice he had heard.</p>
+
+<p>His answer revealed much of his mind.</p>
+
+<p>“No, I heard Carmel’s answering her.”</p>
+
+<p>This satisfying Mr. Moffat, he was passed over to Mr. Fox, and a short
+cross-examination ensued on this point.</p>
+
+<p>“You heard both your sisters speaking?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Any of their words, or only their voices?”</p>
+
+<p>“I heard one word.”</p>
+
+<p>“What word?”</p>
+
+<p>“The word, ‘Elwood.’”</p>
+
+<p>“In which voice?”</p>
+
+<p>“In that of my sister Adelaide.”</p>
+
+<p>“And you fled?”</p>
+
+<p>“Immediately.”</p>
+
+<p>“Leaving your two sisters alone in this cold and out-of-the-way house?”</p>
+
+<p>“I did not think they were alone.”</p>
+
+<p>“Who did you think was with them?”</p>
+
+<p>“I have already mentioned the name.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yet you left them?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I’ve already explained that. I was engaged in a mean act. I was
+ashamed to be caught at it by Adelaide. I preferred flight. I had no
+premonition of tragedy—any such tragedy as afterwards occurred. I
+understood neither of my sisters and my thoughts were only for myself.”</p>
+
+<p>“Didn’t you so much as try to account for their both being there?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not then.”</p>
+
+<p>“Had you expected Adelaide to accompany your younger sister when you
+harnessed the horse for her?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Had not this younger sister even enjoined secrecy upon you in asking
+you to harness the horse?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yet you heard the two together in this remote building without
+surprise?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, I must have felt surprise, but I didn’t stop to analyse my
+feelings. Afterward, I turned it over in my mind and tried to make
+something out of the whole thing. But that was when I was far out on
+the links.”</p>
+
+<p>A losing game thus far. This the district attorney seemed to feel;
+but he was not an ungenerous man though cursed (perhaps, I should say
+blessed, considering the position he held) by a tenacity which never
+let him lose his hold until the jury gave their verdict.</p>
+
+<p>“You have a right to explain yourself fully,” said he, after a
+momentary struggle in which his generosity triumphed over his pride.
+“When you did think of your sisters, what explanation did you give
+yourself of the facts we have just been considering?”</p>
+
+<p>“I could not imagine the truth, so I just satisfied myself that
+Adelaide had discovered Carmel’s intentions to ride into town and had
+insisted on accompanying her. They were having it out, I thought, in
+the presence of the man who had made all this trouble between them.”</p>
+
+<p>“And you left them to the task?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir, but not without a struggle. I was minded several times to
+return. This I have testified to before.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did this struggle consume forty minutes?”</p>
+
+<p>“It must have and more, if I entered the hold in Cuthbert Road at the
+hour they state.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fox gave up the game, and I looked to be the next person called.
+But it was not a part of Mr. Moffat’s plan to weaken the effect
+of Carmel’s testimony by offering any weak corroboration of facts
+which nobody showed the least inclination to dispute. Satisfied with
+having given the jury an opportunity to contrast his client’s present
+cheerfulness and manly aspect with the sullenness he had maintained
+while in doubt of Carmel’s real connection with this crime, Mr. Moffat
+rested his case.</p>
+
+<p>There was no testimony offered in rebuttal and the court took a recess.</p>
+
+<p>When it reassembled I cast another anxious glance around. Still no
+Carmel, nor any signs of Sweetwater. I could understand her absence,
+but not his, and it was in a confusion of feeling which was fast
+getting the upper hand of me, that I turned my attention to Mr. Moffat
+and the plea he was about to make for his youthful client.</p>
+
+<p>I do not wish to obtrude myself too much into this trial of another man
+for the murder of my betrothed. But when, after a wait during which
+the prisoner had a chance to show his mettle under the concentrated
+gaze of an expectant crowd, the senior counsel for the defence slowly
+rose, and, lifting his ungainly length till his shoulders lost their
+stoop and his whole presence acquired a dignity which had been entirely
+absent from it up to this decisive moment, I felt a sudden slow and
+creeping chill seize and shake me, as I have heard people say they
+experienced when uttering the common expression, “Some one is walking
+over my grave.”</p>
+
+<p>It was not that he glanced my way, for this he did not do; yet I
+received a subtle message from him, by some telepathic means I could
+neither understand nor respond to—a message of warning, or, possibly
+of simple preparation for what his coming speech might convey.</p>
+
+<p>It laid my spirits low for a moment; then they rose as those of a
+better man might rise at the scent of danger. If he could warn, he
+could also withhold. I would trust him, or I would, at least, trust
+my fate. And so, good-bye to self. Arthur’s life and Carmel’s future
+peace were trembling in the balance. Surely these were worth the full
+attention of the man who loved the woman, who pitied the man.</p>
+
+<p>At the next moment I heard these words, delivered in the slow and
+but slightly raised tones with which Mr. Moffat invariably began his
+address:</p>
+
+<p>“May it please the court and gentlemen of the jury, my learned friend
+of the prosecution has shown great discretion in that, so far as
+appears from the trend of his examinations, he is planning no attempt
+to explain the many silences and the often forbidding attitude of my
+young client by any theory save the obvious one—the natural desire of
+a brother to hide his only remaining sister’s connection with a tragedy
+of whose details he was ignorant, and concerning which he had formed a
+theory derogatory to her position as a young and well-bred woman.</p>
+
+<p>“I am, therefore, spared the task of pressing upon your consideration
+these very natural and, I may add, laudable grounds for my client’s
+many hesitations and suppressions—which, under other circumstances,
+would militate so deeply against him in the eyes of an upright and
+impartial jury. Any man with a heart in his breast, and a sense of
+honour in his soul, can understand why this man—whatever his record,
+and however impervious he may have seemed in the days of his prosperity
+and the wilfulness of his youth—should recoil from revelations which
+would attack the honour, if not the life, of a young and beautiful
+sister, sole remnant of a family eminent in station, and in all those
+moral and civic attributes which make for the honour of a town and lend
+distinction to its history.</p>
+
+<p>“Fear for a loved one, even in one whom you will probably hear
+described as a dissipated man, of selfish tendencies and hitherto
+unbrotherly qualities, is a great miracle-worker. No sacrifice
+seems impossible which serves as a guard for one so situated and so
+threatened.</p>
+
+<p>“Let us review his history. Let us disentangle, if we can, our
+knowledge of what occurred in the clubhouse, from his knowledge of
+it at the time he showed these unexpected traits of self-control and
+brotherly anxiety, which you will yet hear so severely scored by my
+able opponent. His was a nature in which honourable instincts had
+forever battled with the secret predilections of youth for independence
+and free living. He rebelled at all monition; but this did not make
+him altogether insensible to the secret ties of kinship, or the
+claims upon his protection of two highly gifted sisters. Consciously
+or unconsciously, he kept watch upon the two; and when he saw that
+an extraneous influence was undermining their mutual confidence, he
+rebelled in his heart, whatever restraint he may have put upon his
+tongue and actions. Then came an evening, when, with heart already
+rasped by a personal humiliation, he saw a letter passed. You have
+heard the letter and listened to its answer; but he knew nothing beyond
+the fact—a fact which soon received a terrible significance from the
+events which so speedily followed.”</p>
+
+<p>Here Mr. Moffat recapitulated those events, but always from the
+standpoint of the defendant—a standpoint which necessarily brought
+before the jury the many excellent reasons which his client had for
+supposing this crime to have resulted solely from the conflicting
+interests represented by that furtively passed note, and the visit
+of two girls instead of one to The Whispering Pines. It was very
+convincing, especially his picture of Arthur’s impulsive flight from
+the club-house at the first sound of his sisters’ voices.</p>
+
+<p>“The learned counsel for the people may call this unnatural,” he
+cried. “He may say that no brother would leave the place under such
+circumstances, whether sober or not sober, alive to duty or dead to
+it—that curiosity would hold him there, if nothing else. But he
+forgets, if thus he thinks and thus would have you think, that the
+man who now confronts you from the bar is separated by an immense
+experience from the boy he was at that hour of surprise and selfish
+preoccupation.</p>
+
+<p>“You who have heard the defendant tell how he could not remember if
+he carried up one or two bottles from the kitchen, can imagine the
+blank condition of this untutored mind at the moment when those voices
+fell upon his ear, calling him to responsibilities he had never before
+shouldered, and which he saw no way of shouldering now. In that first
+instant of inconsiderate escape, he was alarmed for himself,—afraid of
+the discovery of the sneaking act of which he had just been guilty—not
+fearful for his sisters. <i>You</i> would have done differently; but you are
+all men disciplined to forget yourselves and think first of others,
+taught, in the school of life to face responsibility rather than shirk
+it. But discipline had not yet reached this unhappy boy—the slave, so
+far, of his unfortunate habits. It began its work later; yet not much
+later. Before he had half crossed the golf-links, the sense of what he
+had done stopped him in middle course, and, reckless of the oncoming
+storm, he turned his back upon the place he was making for, only to
+switch around again, as craving got the better of his curiosity, or of
+that deeper feeling to which my experienced opponent will, no doubt,
+touchingly allude when he comes to survey this situation with you.</p>
+
+<p>“The storm, continuing, obliterated his steps as fast as the ever
+whitening spaces beneath received them; but if it had stopped then
+and there, leaving those wandering imprints to tell their story,
+what a tale we might have read of the first secret conflict in this
+awakening soul! I leave you to imagine this history, and pass to the
+bitter hour when, racked by a night of dissipation, he was aroused,
+indeed, to the magnitude of his fault and the awful consequences of his
+self-indulgence, by the news of his elder sister’s violent death and
+the hardly less pitiful condition of the younger.</p>
+
+<p>“The younger!” The pause he here made was more eloquent than any words.
+“Is it for me to laud her virtues, or to seek to impress upon you in
+this connection, the overwhelming nature of the events which in reality
+had laid her mind and body low? You have seen her; you have heard her;
+and the memory of the tale she has here told will never leave you, or
+lose its hold upon your sympathies or your admiration. If everything
+else connected with this case is forgotten, the recollection of that
+will remain. You, and I, and all who wait upon your verdict, will in
+due time pass from among the living, and leave small print behind us
+on the sands of time. But her act will not die, and to it I now offer
+the homage of silence, since that would best please her heroic soul,
+which broke the bonds of womanly reserve only to save from an unmerited
+charge a falsely arraigned brother.”</p>
+
+<p>The restraint and yet the fire with which Mr. Moffat uttered these
+simple words, lifted all hearts and surcharged the atmosphere with
+an emotion rarely awakened in a court of law. Not in my pulses
+alone was started the electric current of renewed life. The jury,
+to a man, glowed with enthusiasm, and from the audience rose one
+long and suppressed sigh of answering feeling, which was all the
+tribute he needed for his eloquence—or Carmel for her uncalculating,
+self-sacrificing deed. I could have called upon the mountains to cover
+<i>me</i>; but—God be praised—no one thought of me in that hour. Every
+throb, every thought was for her.</p>
+
+<p>At the proper moment of subsiding feeling, Mr. Moffat again raised his
+voice:</p>
+
+<p>“Gentlemen of the jury, you have seen point after point of the
+prosecution’s case demolished before your eyes by testimony which
+no one has had the temerity to attempt to controvert. What is left?
+Mr. Fox will tell you—three strong and unassailable facts. The ring
+found in the murdered woman’s casket, the remnants of the tell-tale
+bottle discovered in the Cumberland stable, and the opportunity for
+crime given by the acknowledged presence of the defendant on or near
+the scene of death. He will harp on these facts; he will make much of
+them; and he will be justified in doing so, for they are the only links
+remaining of the strong chain forged so carefully against my client.</p>
+
+<p>“But are these points so vital as they seem? Let us consider them, and
+see. My client has denied that he dropped anything into his sister’s
+casket, much less the ring missing from that sister’s finger. Dare you,
+then, convict on this point when, according to count, ten other persons
+were seen to drop flowers into this very place—any one of which might
+have carried this object with it?</p>
+
+<p>“And the bit of broken bottle found in or near the defendant’s own
+stable! Is he to be convicted on the similarity it offers to the one
+known to have come from the club-house wine-vault, while a reasonable
+doubt remains of his having been the hand which carried it there? No!
+Where there is a reasonable doubt, no high-minded jury will convict;
+and I claim that my client has made it plain that there is such a
+reasonable doubt.”</p>
+
+<p>All this and more did Mr. Moffat dilate upon. But I could no longer fix
+my mind on details, and much of this portion of his address escaped me.</p>
+
+<p>But I do remember the startling picture with which he closed. His
+argument so far, had been based on the assumption of Arthur’s ignorance
+of Carmers purpose in visiting the club-house, or of Adelaide’s attempt
+at suicide. His client had left the building when he said he did,
+and knew no more of what happened there afterward than circumstances
+showed, or his own imagination conceived. But now the advocate took
+a sudden turn, and calmly asked the jury to consider with him the
+alternative outlined by the prosecution in the evidence set before them.</p>
+
+<p>“My distinguished opponent,” said he, “would have you believe that the
+defendant did not fly at the moment declared, but that he waited to
+fulfil the foul deed which is the only serious matter in dispute in
+his so nearly destroyed case. I hear as though he were now speaking,
+the attack which he will make upon my client when he comes to review
+this matter with you. Let me see if I cannot make you hear those words,
+too.” And with a daring smile at his discomforted adversary, Alonzo
+Moffat launched forth into the following sarcasm:</p>
+
+<p>“Arthur Cumberland, coming up the kitchen stairs, hears voices
+where he had expected total silence—sees light where he had left
+total darkness. He has two bottles in his hands, or in his large
+coat-pockets. If they are in his hands, he sets them down and steals
+forward to listen. He has recognised the voices. They are those of
+his two sisters, one of whom had ordered him to hitch up the cutter
+for her to escape, as he had every reason to believe, the other.
+Curiosity—or is it some nobler feeling—causes him to draw nearer
+and nearer to the room in which they have taken up their stand. He
+can hear their words now and what are the words he hears? Words that
+would thrill the most impervious heart, call for the interference of
+the most indifferent. But <i>he</i> is made of ice, welded together with
+steel. He sees—for no place save one from which he can watch and see,
+<i>viz</i>.: the dark dancing hall, would satisfy any man of such gigantic
+curiosity—Adelaide fall at Carmel’s feet, in recognition of the great
+sacrifice she has made for her. But he does not move; he falls at no
+one’s feet; he recognises no nobility, responds to no higher appeal.
+Stony and unmoved, he crouches there, and watches and watches—still
+curious, or still feeding his hate on the sufferings of the elder, the
+forbearance of the younger.</p>
+
+<p>“And on what does he look? You have already heard, but consider it.
+Adelaide, despairing of happiness, decides on death for herself or
+sister. Both loving one man, one of the two must give way to the other.
+Carmel has done her part; she must now do hers. She has brought poison;
+she has brought glasses—three glasses, for three persons, but only two
+are on the scene, and so she fills but two. One has only cordial in
+it, but the other is, as she believes, deadly. Carmel is to have her
+choice; but who believes that Adelaide would ever have let her drink
+the poisoned glass?</p>
+
+<p>“And this man looks on, as the two faces confront each other—one white
+with the overthrow of every earthly hope, the other under the stress
+of suffering and a fascination of horror sufficient to have laid her
+dead, without poison, at the other one’s feet. This is what he sees—<i>a
+brother!</i>—and he makes no move, then or afterwards, when, the die
+cast, Adelaide succumbs to her fear and falls into a seemingly dying
+state on the couch.</p>
+
+<p>“Does he go now? Is his hate or his cupidity satisfied? No! He remains
+and listens to the tender interchange of final words, and all the
+late precautions of the elder to guard the younger woman’s good name.
+Still he is not softened; and when, the critical moment passed, Carmel
+rises and totters about the room in her endeavour to fulfil the tasks
+enjoined upon her by her sister, he gloats over a death which will give
+him independence and gluts himself with every evil thought which could
+blind him to the pitiful aspects of a tragedy such as few men in this
+world could see unmoved. <i>A brother</i>!</p>
+
+<p>“But this is not the worst. The awful cup of human greed and hatred
+is but filled to the brim; it has not yet overflowed. Carmel leaves
+the room; she has a telephonic message to deliver. She may be gone a
+minute; she may be gone many. Little does he care which; he must see
+the dead, look down on the woman who has been like a mother to him, and
+see if her influence is forever removed, if his wealth is his, and his
+independence forever assured.</p>
+
+<p>“Safe in the darkness of the gloomy recesses of the dancing hall, he
+steals slowly forward. Drawn as by a magnet, he enters the room of
+seeming death, draws up to the pillow-laden couch, pulls off first one
+cushion, and then another, till face and hands are bare and—</p>
+
+<p>“Ah!—there is a movement! death has not, then, done its work. She
+lives—the hated one—<i>lives</i>! And he is no longer rich, no longer
+independent. With a clutch, he seizes her at the feeble seat of life;
+and as the breath ceases and her whole body becomes again inert, he
+stoops to pull off the ring, which can have no especial value or
+meaning for him—and then, repiling the cushions over her, creeps forth
+again, takes up the bottles, and disappears from the house.</p>
+
+<p>“Gentlemen of the jury, this is what my opponent would have you
+believe. This will be his explanation of this extraordinary murder. But
+when his eloquence meets your ears—when you hear this arraignment, and
+the emphasis he will place upon the few points remaining to his broken
+case, then ask yourself if you see such a monster in the prisoner now
+confronting you from the bar. I do not believe it. I do not believe
+that such a monster lives.</p>
+
+<p>“But you say, <i>some one</i> entered that room—<i>some one</i> stilled the
+fluttering life still remaining in that feeble breast. Some one may
+have, but that some one was not my client, and it is his guilt or
+innocence we are considering now, and it is his life and freedom for
+which you are responsible. No brother did that deed; no witness of the
+scene which hallowed this tragedy ever lifted hand against the fainting
+Adelaide, or choked back a life which kindly fate had spared.</p>
+
+<p>“Go further for the guilty perpetrator of this most inhuman act; he
+stands not in the dock. Guilt shows no such relief as you see in him
+to-day. Guilt would remember that his sister’s testimony, under the
+cross-examination of the people’s prosecutor, left the charge of murder
+still hanging over the defendant’s head. But the brother has forgotten
+this. His restored confidence in one who now represents to him father,
+mother, and sister has thrown his own fate into the background. Will
+you dim that joy—sustain this charge of murder?</p>
+
+<p>“If in your sense of justice you do so, you forever place this
+degenerate son of a noble father, on the list of the most unimaginative
+and hate-driven criminals of all time. Is he such a demon? Is he such a
+madman? Look in his face to-day, and decide. I am willing to leave his
+cause in your hands. It could be placed in no better.</p>
+
+<p>“May it please your Honour, and gentlemen of the jury, I am done.”</p>
+
+<p>If any one at that moment felt the arrow of death descending into his
+heart, it was not Arthur Cumberland.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXXIV">XXXIV<br><span class="small">“STEADY!”</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">I am a tainted wether of the flock,<br>
+Meetest for death; the weakest kind of fruit<br>
+Drops earliest to the ground, and so let me.<br>
+You cannot better be employ’d, Bassanio,<br>
+Than to live still, and write my epitaph.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Merchant of Venice</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>Why linger over the result. Arthur Cumberland’s case was won before
+Mr. Fox arose to his feet. The usual routine was gone through. The
+district attorney made the most of the three facts which he declared
+inconsistent with the prisoner’s innocence, just as Mr. Moffat said
+he would; but the life was gone from his work, and the result was
+necessarily unsatisfactory.</p>
+
+<p>The judge’s charge was short, but studiously impartial. When the jury
+filed out, I said to myself, “They will return in fifteen minutes.”
+They returned in ten, with a verdict of acquittal.</p>
+
+<p>The demonstrations of joy which followed filled my ears, and doubtless
+left their impression upon my other senses; but my mind took in
+nothing but the apparition of my own form taking his place at the bar,
+under circumstances less favourable to acquittal than those which
+had exonerated him. It was a picture which set my brain whirling. A
+phantom judge, a phantom jury, a phantom circle of faces, lacking
+the consideration and confidence of those I saw before me; but not a
+phantom prisoner, or any mere dream of outrageous shame and suffering.</p>
+
+<p>That shame and that suffering had already seized hold of me. With the
+relief of young Arthur’s acquittal my faculties had cleared to the
+desperate position in which this very acquittal had placed me.</p>
+
+<p>I saw, as never before, how the testimony which had reinstated Carmel
+in my heart and won for her and through her the sympathies of the
+whole people, had overthrown every specious reason which I and those
+interested in me had been able to advance in contradiction of the
+natural conclusion to be drawn from the damning fact of my having been
+seen with my fingers on Adelaide’s throat.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moffat’s words rang in my ears: “Some one entered that room; some
+one stilled the fluttering life still remaining in that feeble breast;
+but that some one was not her brother. You must look further for the
+guilty perpetrator of this most inhuman act; some one who had not been
+a witness to the scene preceding this tragedy, some one—” he had not
+said this but every mind had supplied the omission,—“some one who had
+come in later, who came in after Carmel had gone, some one who knew
+nothing of the telephone message which was even then hastening the
+police to the spot; some one who had every reason for lifting those
+cushions and, on meeting <i>life</i>—”</p>
+
+<p>The horror stifled me; I was reeling in my place on the edge of the
+crowd, when I heard a quiet voice in my ear:</p>
+
+<p>“Steady! Their eyes will soon be off of Arthur, and then they will look
+at you.”</p>
+
+<p>It was Clifton, and his word came none too soon. I stiffened under its
+quiet force, and, taking his arm, let him lead me out of a side door,
+where the crowd was smaller and its attention even more absorbed.</p>
+
+<p>I soon saw its cause—Carmel was entering the doorway from the street.
+She had come to greet her brother; and her face, quite unveiled, was
+beaming with beauty and joy. In an instant I forgot myself, forgot
+everything but her and the effect she produced upon those about her. No
+noisy demonstration here; admiration and love were shown in looks and
+the low-breathed prayer for her welfare which escaped from more than
+one pair of lips. She smiled and their hearts were hers; she essayed to
+move forward and the people crowded back as if at a queen’s passage;
+but there was no noise.</p>
+
+<p>When she reappeared, it was on Arthur’s arm. I had not been able to
+move from the place in which we were hemmed; nor had I wished to. I
+was hungry for a glance of her eye. Would it turn my way, and, if it
+did, would it leave a curse or a blessing behind it? In anxiety for the
+blessing, I was willing to risk the curse; and I followed her every
+step with hungry glances, until she reached the doorway and turned to
+give another shake of the hand to Mr. Moffat, who had followed them.
+But she did not see me.</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot miss it! I must catch her eye!” I whispered to Clifton. “Get
+me out of this; it will be several minutes before they can reach the
+sleigh. Let me see her, for one instant, face to face.”</p>
+
+<p>Clifton disapproved, and made me aware of it; but he did my bidding,
+nevertheless. In a few moments we were on the sidewalk, and quite by
+ourselves; so that, if she turned again she could not fail to observe
+me. I had small hope, however, that she would so turn. She and Arthur
+were within a few feet of the curb and their own sleigh.</p>
+
+<p>I had just time to see this sleigh, and note the rejoicing face of
+Zadok leaning sideways from the box, when I beheld her pause and slowly
+turn her head around and peer eagerly—and with what divine anxiety in
+her eyes—back over the heads of those thronging about her, until her
+gaze rested fully and sweetly on mine. My heart leaped, then sank down,
+down into unutterable depths; for in that instant her face changed,
+horror seized upon her beauty, and shook her frantic hold on Arthur’s
+arm.</p>
+
+<p>I heard words uttered very near me, but I did not catch them. I did
+feel, however, the hand which was laid strongly and with authority
+upon my shoulder; and, tearing my eyes from her face only long enough
+to perceive that it was Sweetwater who had thus arrested me, I looked
+back at her, in time to see the questions leap from her lips to Arthur,
+whose answers I could well understand from the pitying movement in
+the crowd and the low hum of restrained voices which ran between her
+sinking figure and the spot where I stood apart, with the detective’s
+hand on my shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>She had never been told of the incriminating position in which I had
+been seen in the club-house. It had been carefully kept from her, and
+she had supposed that my acquittal in the public mind was as certain as
+Arthur’s. Now she saw herself undeceived, and the reaction into doubt
+and misery was too much for her, and I saw her sinking under my eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“Let me go to her!” I shrieked, utterly unconcerned with anything in
+the world but this tottering, fainting girl.</p>
+
+<p>But Sweetwater’s hand only tightened on my shoulder, while Arthur, with
+an awful look at me, caught his sister in his arms, just as she fell to
+the ground before the swaying multitude.</p>
+
+<p>But he was not the only one to kneel there. With a sound of love and
+misery impossible to describe, Zadok had leaped from the box and had
+grovelled at those dear feet, kissing the insensible hands and praying
+for those shut eyes to open. Even after Arthur had lifted her into
+the sleigh, the man remained crouching where she had fallen, with his
+eyes roaming back and forth in a sightless stare from her to myself,
+muttering and groaning, and totally unheedful of Arthur’s commands to
+mount the box and drive home. Finally some one else stepped from the
+crowd and mercifully took the reins. I caught one more glimpse of her
+face, with Arthur’s bent tenderly over it; then the sleigh slipped away.</p>
+
+<p>An officer shook Zadok by the arm and he got up and began to move
+aside. Then I had mind to face my own fate, and, looking up, I met
+Sweetwater’s eye.</p>
+
+<p>It was quietly apologetic.</p>
+
+<p>“I only wished to congratulate you,” said he, “on the conclusion of a
+case in which I know you are highly interested.” Lifting his hat, he
+nodded affably and was gone before I could recover from my stupor.</p>
+
+<p>It was for Clifton to show his indignation. I was past all feeling.
+Farce as an after-piece never appealed to me.</p>
+
+<p>Would I have considered it farce if I could have heard the words
+which this detective was at that moment whispering into the district
+attorney’s ears:</p>
+
+<p>“Do you want to know who throttled Adelaide Cumberland? It was not her
+brother; it was not her lover; it was her old and trusted coachman.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXXV">XXXV<br><span class="small">“AS IF IT WERE A MECCA”</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">—I have within my mind<br>
+A thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks<br>
+Which I will practise.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Merchant of Venice</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>“Give me your reasons. They must be excellent ones, Sweetwater, or you
+would not risk making a second mistake in a case of this magnitude and
+publicity.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Fox, they are excellent. But you shall judge of them. From the
+moment Miss Carmel Cumberland overthrew the very foundations of our
+case by her remarkable testimony, I have felt that my work was only
+half done. It was a strain on credulity to believe Arthur guilty of
+a crime so prefaced, and the alternative which Mr. Moffat believed
+in, which you were beginning to believe in, and perhaps are allowing
+yourself to believe in even now, never appealed to me.</p>
+
+<p>“I allude to the very natural suspicion that the act beheld by your
+man Clarke was a criminal act, and that Ranelagh is the man really
+responsible for Miss Cumberland’s death. Some instinct held me back
+from this conclusion, as well as the incontrovertible fact that he
+could have had no hand in carrying that piece of broken bottle into the
+Cumberland stable, or of dropping his engagement ring in the suggestive
+place where it was found. Where, then, should I look for the unknown,
+the unsuspected third party? Among the ten other persons who dropped
+something into that casket.</p>
+
+<p>“Most of these were children, but I made the acquaintance of every one.
+I spent most of my Sunday that way; then, finding no clouded eye among
+them, I began a study of the Cumberland servants, naturally starting
+with Zadok. For two hours I sat at his stable fire, talking and turning
+him inside out, as only we detectives know how. I found him actually
+overwhelmed with grief; not the grief of a sane man, but of one in whom
+the very springs of life are poisoned by some dreadful remorse.</p>
+
+<p>“He did not know he revealed this; he expressed himself as full of hope
+that his young master would be acquitted the next day; but I could see
+that this prospect could never still the worm working at his heart, and
+resolved to understand why. I left him ostensibly alone, but in reality
+shadowed him. The consequence was that, in the evening dusk, he led me
+to the cemetery, where he took up his watch at Miss Cumberland’s grave,
+as if it were a Mecca and he a passionate devotee. I could hear his
+groans as he hung to the fence and spoke softly to the dead; and though
+I was too far away to catch a single word, I felt confident that I had
+at last struck the right track, and should soon see my way more clearly
+than at any time since this baffling case opened.</p>
+
+<p>“But before I allowed my fancy to run away with me, I put in an evening
+of inquiry. If this man had an absolute alibi, what was the use of
+wasting effort upon him. But I could not find that he had, Mr. Fox. He
+went with the rest of the servants to the ball—which, you know, was
+held in Tibbitt’s Hall, on Ford Street and he was seen there later,
+dancing and making merry in a way not usual to him. But there was a
+space of time dangerously tallying with that of the tragic scene at the
+club-house, when he was not seen by any one there, so far as I can make
+out; and this fact gave me courage to consider a certain point which
+had struck me, and of which I thought something might be made.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Fox, after the fiasco I have made of this affair, it costs me
+something to go into petty details which must suggest my former
+failures and may not strike you with the force they did me. That broken
+bottle— or rather, that piece of broken bottle! Where was the rest of
+it? Sought for almost immediately after the tragedy, it had not been
+found at the Cumberland place or on the golf-links. It had been looked
+for carefully when the first thaw came; but, though glass was picked
+up, it was not the same glass. The task had become hopeless and ere
+long was abandoned.</p>
+
+<p>“But with this idea of Zadok being the means of its transfer from The
+Whispering Pines to the house on the Hill, I felt the desire to look
+once more, and while court was in session this morning, I started
+a fresh search—this time not on the golf-links. Tibbitt’s Hall
+communicates more quickly with The Whispering Pines by the club-house
+road than by the market one. So I directed my attention to the ground
+in front, and on the further side of the driveways. <i>And I found the
+neck of that bottle</i>!</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir, I will show it to you later. I picked it up at some distance
+from the northern driveway, under a small tree, against the trunk of
+which it had evidently been struck off. This meant that the lower part
+had been carried away, broken.</p>
+
+<p>“Now, who would do this but Zadok, who saw in it, he has said, a
+receptacle for some varnish which he had; and if Zadok, how had he
+carried it, if not in some pocket of his greatcoat. But glass edges
+make quick work with pockets; and if this piece of bottle had gone from
+The Whispering Pines to Tibbitt’s Hall, and from there to the Hill,
+there should be some token of its work in Zadok’s overcoat pocket.</p>
+
+<p>“This led me to look for those tokens; and as I had by this time
+insinuated my way into his confidence by a free and cheerful manner
+which gave him a rest from his gloomy thoughts, I soon had a chance
+to see for myself the condition of those pockets. The result was
+quite satisfactory. In one of them I found a frayed lining, easily
+explainable on the theory I had advanced. That pocket can be seen by
+you.</p>
+
+<p>“But Mr. Fox, I wanted some real proof. I wasn’t willing to embarrass
+another man, or to risk my own reputation on a hazard so blind as this,
+without something really definite. A confession was what I wanted, or
+such a breakdown of the man as would warrant police action. How could I
+get this?</p>
+
+<p>“I am a pupil of Mr. Gryce, and I remembered some of his methods.</p>
+
+<p>“This man, guilty though he might be, loved this family, and was
+broken-hearted over the trouble in which he saw it plunged. Excused
+to-day from attendance at court, he was in constant telephonic
+communication with some friend of his, who kept him posted as to the
+conduct of the trial and the probabilities of a favourable verdict.</p>
+
+<p>“If the case had gone against Arthur, we should have heard from his
+coachman—that I verily believe, but when we all saw that he was likely
+to be acquitted, I realised that some other course must be taken to
+shake Zadok from his new won complacency, and I chose the most obvious
+one.</p>
+
+<p>“Just when everything looked most favourable to their restored peace
+and happiness, I shocked Miss Carmel and, through her, this Zadok,
+into the belief that the whole agony was to be gone over again, in the
+rearrest and consequent trial of the man she still loves, in spite of
+all that has happened to separate them.</p>
+
+<p>“He was not proof against this new responsibility. As she fainted, he
+leaped from the box; and, could I have heard the words he muttered in
+her ear, I am sure that I should have that to give you which would
+settle this matter for all time. As it is, I can only say that my own
+convictions are absolute; the rest remains with you.”</p>
+
+<p>“We will go see the man,” said District Attorney Fox.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="XXXVI">XXXVI<br><span class="small">THE SURCHARGED MOMENT</span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="poetry">For Justice, when triumphant, will weep down<br>
+Pity, not punishment, on her own wrongs,<br>
+Too much avenged by those who err. I wait,<br>
+Enduring thus, the retributive hour<br>
+Which since we spake is even nearer now.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Prometheus Unbound</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>The moment I felt Sweetwater’s hand lifted from my shoulder I sprang
+into the first hack I could find, and bade the driver follow the
+Cumberland sleigh post-haste. I was determined to see Carmel and have
+Carmel see me. Whatever cold judgment might say against the meeting,
+I could not live in my present anxiety. If the thunderbolt which had
+struck her had spared her life and reason she must know from my own
+lips that I was not only a free man, but as innocent of the awful
+charge conveyed in Sweetwater’s action as was the brother, who had just
+been acquitted of it by the verdict of his peers.</p>
+
+<p>I must declare this, and she must believe me. Nothing else
+mattered—nothing else in all the world. That Arthur might stop me,
+that anything could stop me, did not disturb my mind for a minute. All
+that I dreaded was that I might find myself too late; that this second
+blow might have proved to be too much for her, and that I should find
+my darling dead or passed from me into that living death which were the
+harder punishment of the two. But I was spared this killing grief. When
+our two conveyances stopped, it was in the driveway of her old home;
+and as I bounded upon the walk, it was to see her again in Arthur’s
+arms, but this time with open eyes and horror-drawn features.</p>
+
+<p>“Carmel!” rushed in a cry from my lips. “Don’t believe what they say. I
+cannot bear it—I cannot bear it!”</p>
+
+<p>She roused; she looked my way, and struggling to her feet, held back
+Arthur with one hand while she searched my face—and possibly searched
+her own soul—for answer to my plea. Never was moment more surcharged.
+Further word I could not speak; I could only meet her eyes with the
+steady, demanding look of a despairing heart, while Arthur moved in
+every fibre of his awakened manhood, waited—thinking, perhaps, how
+few minutes had passed since he hung upon the words of a fellow being
+for his condemnation to death, or release to the freedom which he now
+enjoyed.</p>
+
+<p>A moment! But what an eternity before I saw the rigid lines of her
+white, set face relax—before I marked the play of human, if not
+womanly, emotion break up the misery of her look and soften her
+youthful lips into some semblance of their old expression. Love
+might be dead—friendship, even, be a thing of the far past—but
+consideration was still alive and in another instant it spoke in these
+trembling sentences, uttered across a threshold made sacred by a
+tragedy involving our three lives:</p>
+
+<p>“Come in and explain yourself. No man should go unheard. I know you
+will not come where Adelaide’s spirit yet lingers, if you cannot bring
+hands clean from all actual violence.”</p>
+
+<p>I motioned my driver away, and as Carmel drew back out of sight, I
+caught at Arthur’s arm and faced him with the query:</p>
+
+<p>“Are you willing that I should enter? I only wish to declare to her,
+and to you, an innocence I have no means of proving, but which you
+cannot disbelieve if I swear it, here and now, by your sister Carmel’s
+sacred disfigurement. Such depravity could not exist, as such a vow
+from the lips guilty of the crime you charge me with. Look at me,
+Arthur. I considered you—now consider me.”</p>
+
+<p>Quickly he stepped back. “Enter,” said he.</p>
+
+<p>It was some minutes later—I cannot say how many—that one of the
+servants disturbed us by asking if we knew anything about Zadok.</p>
+
+<p>“He has not come home,” said he, “and here is a man who wants him.”</p>
+
+<p>“What man?” asked Arthur.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, that detective chap. He never will leave us alone.”</p>
+
+<p>I arose. In an instant enlightenment had come to me. “It’s nothing,”
+said I with my eyes on Carmel; but the gesture I furtively made Arthur,
+said otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later we were both in the driveway. “We are on the brink
+of a surprise,” I whispered. “I think I understand this Sweetwater now.”</p>
+
+<p>Arthur looked bewildered, but he took the lead in the interview which
+followed with the man who had made him so much trouble and was now
+doing his best to make us all amends.</p>
+
+<p>Zadok could not be found; he was wanted by the district attorney, who
+wished to put some questions to him. Were there any objections to his
+searching the stable-loft for indications of his whereabouts?</p>
+
+<p>Arthur made none; and the detective, after sending the Cumberlands’
+second man before him to light up the stable, disappeared beneath the
+great door, whither we more slowly followed him.</p>
+
+<p>“Not here!” came in a shout from above, as we stepped in from the night
+air; and in a few minutes the detective came running down the stairs,
+baffled and very ill at ease. Suddenly he encountered my eye. “Oh—I
+know!” he cried, and started for the gate.</p>
+
+<p>“I am going to follow him,” I confided to Arthur. “Look for me again
+to-night; or, at least, expect a message. If fortune favours us, as
+I now expect, we two shall sleep to-night as we have not slept for
+months.” And waiting for no answer, not even to see if he comprehended
+my meaning, I made a run for the gate, and soon came up with Sweetwater.</p>
+
+<p>“To the cemetery?” I asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, to the cemetery.”</p>
+
+<p>And there we found him, in the same place where we had seen him before,
+but not in the same position. He was sunken now to the ground; but his
+face was pressed against the rails, and in his stiff, cold hand was
+clutched a letter which afterwards we read.</p>
+
+<p>Let it be read by you here. It will explain the mystery which came near
+destroying the lives of more than Adelaide.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>No more unhappy wretch than I goes to his account. I killed her who had
+shown me only goodness, and will be the death of others if I do not
+confess my dreadful, my unsuspected secret. This is how it happened. I
+cannot give reasons; I cannot even ask for pardon.</p>
+
+<p>That night, just as I was preparing to leave the stable to join the
+other servants on their ride to Tibbitt’s Hall, the telephone rang and
+I heard Miss Cumberland’s voice. “Zadok,” she said—and at first I
+could hardly understand her,—“I am in trouble; I want help, and you
+are the only one who can aid me. Answer; do you hear me and are you
+quite alone in the stable?” I told her yes, and that I was listening to
+all she said. I suspected her trouble, and was ready to stand by her,
+if a man like me could do anything.</p>
+
+<p>I had been with her many years, and I loved her as well as I could love
+anybody; though you won’t think it when I tell you my whole story. What
+she wanted was this: I was to go to the ball just as if nothing had
+happened, but I was not to stay there. As soon as I could, I was to
+slip out, get a carriage from some near-by stable, and hurry back up
+the road to meet her and take her where she would tell me; or, if I did
+not meet her, to wait two houses below hers, till she came along. She
+would not want me long, and very soon I could go back and have as good
+a time as I pleased. But she would like me to be secret, for her errand
+was not one for gossip, even among her own servants.</p>
+
+<p>It was the first time she had ever asked me to do anything for her
+which any one else might not have done, and I was proud of her
+confidence, and happy to do just what she asked. I even tried to do
+better, and be even more secret about it than she expected. Instead of
+going to a stable, I took one of the rigs which I found fastened up
+in the big shed alongside the hall; and being so fortunate as not to
+attract anybody’s attention by this business, I was out on the road and
+half way to The Whispering Pines, before Helen and Maggie could wonder
+why I had not asked them to dance.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later I was on the Hill, for the horse I had chosen was a
+fast one; and I was just turning into our street when I was passed by
+Mr. Arthur’s grey mare and cutter. This made me pull up for a minute,
+for I hadn’t expected this; but on looking ahead and seeing Miss
+Cumberland peering from our own gateway, I drove quickly on and took
+her up.</p>
+
+<p>I was not so much astonished as you would think, to be ordered to
+follow fast after the mare and cutter, and to stop where it stopped.
+That was all she wanted—to follow that cutter, and to stop where it
+stopped. Well, it stopped at the club-house; and when she saw it turn
+in there, I heard her give a little gasp.</p>
+
+<p>“Wait,” she whispered. “Wait till she has had time to get out and go
+in; then drive in, too, and help me to find my way into the building
+after her.”</p>
+
+<p>And then I knew it was Miss Carmel we had been following. Before, I
+thought it was Mr. Arthur.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, she pulled me by the sleeve. “I heard the door shut,” said
+she—and I was a little frightened at her voice, but I was full of my
+importance, and went on doing just as she bade me. Driving in after the
+cutter, I drew up into the shadows where the grey mare was hid, and
+then, reaching out my hand to Miss Cumberland, I helped her out, and
+went with her as far as the door. “You may go back now,” said she. “If
+I survive the night, I shall never forget this service, my good Zadok.”
+And I saw her lift her hand to the door, then fall back white and
+trembling in the moonlight. “I can’t,” she whispered, over and over; “I
+can’t—I can’t.”</p>
+
+<p>“Shall I knock?” I asked.</p>
+
+<p>“No, no,” she whispered back. “I want to go in quietly; let’s see if
+there’s no other way. Run about the house, Zadok; I will submit to
+any humiliation; only find me some entrance other than this.” She was
+shaking so and her face looked so ghastly in the moonlight that I was
+afraid to leave her; but she made me a gesture of such command that I
+ran quickly down the steps, and so round the house till I came to a
+shed over the top of which I saw a window partly open.</p>
+
+<p>Could I get her up on to the shed? I thought I could, and went hurrying
+back to the big entrance where I had left her. She was still there,
+shivering with the cold, but just as determined as ever. “Come,” I
+whispered; “I have found a way.”</p>
+
+<p>She gave me her hand and I led her around to the shed. She was like
+a snow woman and her touch was ice itself. “Wait till I get a box or
+board or something,” I said. Hunting about, I found a box leaning
+against the kitchen side, and, bringing it, I helped her up and soon
+had her on a level with the window.</p>
+
+<p>As she made her way in, she turned and whispered to me: “Go back now.
+Carmel has a horse, and will see me home. You have served me well,
+Zadok.”</p>
+
+<p>I nodded, and she vanished into the darkness. Then I should have gone;
+but my curiosity was too great. I wanted to know just a little more.
+Two women in this desolate and bitterly cold club-house! What did it
+mean?</p>
+
+<p>I could not restrain myself from following her in and listening, for a
+few minutes, to what they had to say. But I did not catch much of it;
+and when I heard other sounds from some place below, and recognised
+these sounds as a man’s heavy footsteps coming up the rear stairs, I
+got a fright at being where I should not be, and slipped into the first
+door I found, expecting this man to come out and join the ladies.</p>
+
+<p>But he did not; he just lingered for a moment in the hall I had left,
+then I heard him clamber out of the window and go. I now know that this
+was Mr. Arthur. But I did not know it then, and I was frightened for
+the horse I had run off with, and so got out of the building as quickly
+as I could.</p>
+
+<p>And all might yet have been well if I had not found, lying on the snow
+at the foot of the shed, a bottle of whiskey such as I had never drunk
+and did not know how to resist. Catching it up, I ran about the house
+to where I had left my rig. It was safe, and in my relief at finding
+it, I knocked off the head of the bottle and took a long drink.</p>
+
+<p>Then I drank again; then I sat down in the snow and drank again. In
+short, I nearly finished it; then I became confused; I looked at the
+piece of broken bottle in my hand, took a fancy to its shape, and
+breaking off a bit more, thrust it into one of my big pockets. Then I
+staggered up to the horse; but I did not untie him.</p>
+
+<p>Curiosity seized me again, and I thought I would take another look at
+the ladies—perhaps they might want me—perhaps—I was pretty well
+confused, but I went back and crawled once more into the window.</p>
+
+<p>This time the place was silent—not a sound, not a breath,—but I could
+see a faint glimmer of light. I followed this glimmer. Still there was
+no sound.</p>
+
+<p>I came to an open door. A couch was before me, heaped with cushions. A
+long ray of moonlight had shot in through a communicating door, and I
+could see everything by it. This was where the ladies had been when I
+listened before, but they were not here now.</p>
+
+<p>Weren’t they? Why did I tremble so, then, and stare and stare at those
+cushions? Why did I feel I must pull them away, as I presently did? I
+was mad with liquor and might easily have imagined what I there saw;
+but I did not think of this then. I believed what I saw instantly. Miss
+Cumberland was dead, and I had discovered the crime. She had killed
+herself—no, she had been killed!</p>
+
+<p>Should I yell out murder? No, no; I could be sorry without that. I
+would not yell—mistresses were plenty. I had liked her, but I need not
+yell. There was something else I could do.</p>
+
+<p>She had a ring on her finger—a ring that for months I had gloated
+over and watched, as I had never watched and gloated over any other
+beautiful thing in my life. I wanted it—I had always wanted it. It was
+before me, for the taking now—I should be a fool to leave it there for
+some other wretch to pilfer. I had loved her—I would love the ring.</p>
+
+<p>Reaching down, I took it. I drew it from her finger; I put it in my
+pocket; I—God in heaven! The eyes I had seen glassed in death were
+looking at me.</p>
+
+<p>She was not dead—she had been witness of the theft. Without a
+thought of what I was doing, my hands closed round her throat. It was
+drink—fright—terror at the look she gave me—which made me kill her;
+not my real self. My real self could have shrieked when, in another
+instant, I saw my work.</p>
+
+<p>But shrieking would not bring her back and it would quite ruin me. Miss
+Carmel was somewhere near. I heard her now at the telephone; in another
+minute she would come out and meet me. I dared not linger.</p>
+
+<p>Tossing back the pillows, I stumbled from the place. Why I was not
+heard by my young mistress, I do not know; her ears were deaf, just as
+my eyes were half-blind. In a half hour I was dancing with the maids,
+telling them of the pretty stranger with whom I had been sitting out an
+hour of fun in a quiet corner. They believed me, and not a particle of
+suspicion has any man ever had of me since.</p>
+
+<p>But others have had to suffer, and that has made hell of my nights.
+I restored the ring to my poor mistress; but even that brought harm
+to one I had no quarrel with. But he has escaped conviction; and if I
+thought Mr. Ranelagh would also escape, I might have courage to live
+out my miserable life, and seek to make amends in the way she would
+have me.</p>
+
+<p>But I fear for him; I fear for Miss Carmel. Never could I testify in
+another trial which threatened her peace of mind. I see that, instead
+of being the selfish stealer of her sister’s happiness, as I had
+thought, she is an angel from whom all future suffering should be kept.</p>
+
+<p>This is my way of sparing her. Perhaps it will help her sister to
+forgive me when we meet in the world to which I am now going.</p>
+
+
+
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE OF THE WHISPERING
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@@ -0,0 +1,13157 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The House of the Whispering Pines, by Anna
+Katharine Green
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The House of the Whispering Pines
+
+Author: Anna Katharine Green
+
+Release Date: November 14, 2003  [eBook #10083]
+
+Language: English
+
+Chatacter set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE OF THE WHISPERING
+PINES***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+THE HOUSE OF THE WHISPERING PINES
+
+By ANNA KATHARINE GREEN
+
+1910
+
+Author of
+
+"The Leavenworth Case," "That Affair Next Door," "One of My Sons," etc.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+"Mazes intricate,
+Eccentric, interwov'd, yet regular
+Then most, when most irregular they seem".
+
+_Milton_
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+SMOKE
+
+     I.--THE HESITATING STEP
+
+    II.--IT WAS SHE--SHE INDEED!
+
+   III.--"OPEN!"
+
+    IV.--THE ODD CANDLESTICK
+
+     V.--A SCRAP OF PAPER
+
+    VI.--COMMENTS AND REFLECTIONS
+
+   VII.--CLIFTON ACCEPTS MY CASE
+
+  VIII.--A CHANCE! I TAKE IT
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+SWEETWATER TO THE FRONT
+
+    IX.--"WE KNOW OF No SUCH LETTER"
+
+     X.--"I CAN HELP YOU"
+
+    XI.--IN THE COACH HOUSE
+
+   XII.--"LILA--LILA!"
+
+  XIII.--"WHAT WE WANT IS HERE"
+
+   XIV.--THE MOTIONLESS FIGURE
+
+    XV.--HELEN SURPRISES SWEETWATER
+
+   XVI.--62 CUTHBERT ROAD
+
+  XVII.--"MUST I TELL THESE THINGS?"
+
+ XVIII.--ON IT WAS WRITTEN--
+
+   XIX.--"IT'S NOT WHAT YOU WILL FIND"
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+HIDDEN SURPRISES
+
+    XX.---"HE OR YOU! THERE IS NO THIRD"
+
+   XXI.--CARMEL AWAKES
+
+  XXII.---"BREAK IN THE GLASS!"
+
+ XXIII.--AT TEN INSTEAD OF TWELVE
+
+  XXIV.--ALL THIS STOOD
+
+   XXV.--"I AM INNOCENT"
+
+  XXVI.--THE SYLLABLE OF DOOM
+
+ XXVII.--EXPECTANCY
+
+XXVIII.--"WHERE Is MY BROTHER?"
+
+
+BOOK IV
+
+WHAT THE PINES WHISPERED
+
+  XXIX.--"I REMEMBERED THE ROOM"
+
+   XXX.--"CHOOSE"
+
+  XXXI.--"WERE HER HANDS CROSSED THEN?"
+
+ XXXII.--AND I HAD SAID NOTHING!
+
+XXXIII.--THE ARROW OF DEATH
+
+ XXXIV.--"STEADY!"
+
+  XXXV.--"As IF IT WERE A MECCA"
+
+ XXXVI.--THE SURCHARGED MOMENT
+
+
+
+
+BOOK ONE
+
+SMOKE
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE HESITATING STEP
+
+To have reared a towering scheme
+Of happiness, and to behold it razed,
+Were nothing: all men hope, and see their hopes
+Frustrate, and grieve awhile, and hope anew;
+But--
+
+_A Blot in the 'Scutcheon._
+
+
+The moon rode high; but ominous clouds were rushing towards it--clouds
+heavy with snow. I watched these clouds as I drove recklessly,
+desperately, over the winter roads. I had just missed the desire of my
+life, the one precious treasure which I coveted with my whole
+undisciplined heart, and not being what you call a man of
+self-restraint, I was chafed by my defeat far beyond the bounds I have
+usually set for myself.
+
+The moon--with the wild skurry of clouds hastening to blot it out of
+sight--seemed to mirror the chaos threatening my better impulses; and,
+idly keeping it in view, I rode on, hardly conscious of my course till
+the rapid recurrence of several well-known landmarks warned me that I
+had taken the longest route home, and that in another moment I should be
+skirting the grounds of The Whispering Pines, our country clubhouse. _I_
+had taken? Let me rather say, my horse; for he and I had traversed this
+road many times together, and he had no means of knowing that the season
+was over and the club-house closed. I did not think of it myself at the
+moment, and was recklessly questioning whether I should not drive in and
+end my disappointment in a wild carouse, when, the great stack of
+chimneys coming suddenly into view against the broad disk of the still
+unclouded moon, I perceived a thin trail of smoke soaring up from their
+midst and realised, with a shock, that there should be no such sign of
+life in a house I myself had closed, locked, and barred that very day.
+
+I was the president of the club and felt responsible. Pausing only long
+enough to make sure that I had yielded to no delusion, and that fire of
+some kind was burning on one of the club-house's deserted hearths, I
+turned in at the lower gateway. For reasons which I need not now state,
+there were no bells attached to my cutter and consequently my approach
+was noiseless. I was careful that it should be so, also careful to stop
+short of the front door and leave my horse and sleigh in the black depths
+of the pine-grove pressing up to the walls on either side. I was sure
+that all was not as it should be inside these walls, but, as God lives, I
+had no idea what was amiss or how deeply my own destiny was involved in
+the step I was about to take.
+
+Our club-house stands, as it may be necessary to remind you, on a knoll
+thickly wooded with the ancient trees I have mentioned. These trees--all
+pines and of a growth unusual and of an aspect well-nigh hoary--extend
+only to the rear end of the house, where a wide stretch of gently
+undulating ground opens at once upon the eye, suggesting to all lovers of
+golf the admirable use to which it is put from early spring to latest
+fall. Now, links, as well as parterres and driveways, are lying under an
+even blanket of winter snow, and even the building, with its picturesque
+gables and rows of be-diamonded windows, is well-nigh indistinguishable
+in the shadows cast by the heavy pines, which soar above it and twist
+their limbs over its roof and about its forsaken corners, with a moan and
+a whisper always desolate to the sensitive ear, but from this night on,
+simply appalling.
+
+No other building stood within a half-mile in any direction. It was
+veritably a country club, gay and full of life in the season, but
+isolated and lonesome beyond description after winter had set in and
+buried flower and leaf under a wide waste of untrodden snow.
+
+I felt this isolation as I stepped from the edge of the trees and
+prepared to cross the few feet of open space leading to the main door.
+The sudden darkness instantly enveloping me, as the clouds, whose
+advancing mass I had been watching, made their final rush upon the moon,
+added its physical shock to this inner sense of desolation, and, in some
+moods, I should have paused and thought twice before attempting the door,
+behind which lurked the unknown with its naturally accompanying
+suggestion of peril. But rage and disappointment, working hotly within
+me, had left no space for fear. Rather rejoicing in the doubtfulness of
+the adventure, I pushed my way over the snow until my feet struck the
+steps. Here, instinct caused me to stop and glance quickly up and down
+the building either way. Not a gleam of light met my eye from the
+smallest scintillating pane. Was the house as soundless as it was dark?
+
+I listened but heard nothing. I listened again and still heard nothing.
+Then I proceeded boldly up the steps and laid my hand on the door.
+
+It was unlatched and yielded to my touch. Light or no light, sound or no
+sound there was some one within. The fire which had sent its attenuated
+streak of smoke up into the moonlit air, was burning yet on one of the
+many hearths within, and before it I should presently see--
+
+Whom?
+
+What?
+
+The question scarcely interested me.
+
+Nevertheless I proceeded to enter and close the door carefully behind me.
+As I did so, I cast an involuntary glance without. The sky was inky and a
+few wandering flakes of the now rapidly advancing storm came whirling in,
+biting my cheeks and stinging my forehead.
+
+Once inside, I stopped short, possibly to listen again, possibly to
+assure myself as to what I had best do next. The silence was profound.
+Not a sound disturbed the great, empty building. My own footfall, as I
+stirred, seemed to wake extraordinary echoes. I had moved but a few
+steps, yet to my heightened senses, the noise seemed loud enough to wake
+the dead. Instinctively I stopped and stood stock-still. There was no
+answering cessation of movement. Darkness, silence everywhere. Yet not
+quite absolute darkness. As my eyes grew accustomed to the place, I found
+it possible to discern the outlines of the windows and locate the stairs
+and the arches where the side halls opened. I was even able to pick out
+the exact spot where the great antlers spread themselves above the
+hatrack, and presently the rack itself came into view, with its row of
+empty pegs, yesterday so full, to-day quite empty. That rack interested
+me,--I hardly knew why,--and regardless of the noise I made, I crossed
+over to it and ran my hand along the wall underneath. The result was
+startling. A man's coat and hat hung from one of the pegs.
+
+I knew my business as president of this club. I also knew that no one
+should be in the house at this time--that no one could be in it on any
+honest errand. Some secret and sinister business must be at the bottom of
+this mysterious intrusion immediately after the place had been shut for
+the winter. Would this hat and coat identify the intruder? I would strike
+a light and see. But this involved difficulties. The gas had been turned
+off that very morning and I had no matches in my pocket. But I remembered
+where they could be found. I had seen them when I passed through the
+kitchen earlier in the day. They were very accessible from the end of the
+hall where I stood. I had but to feel my way through a passage or two and
+I should come to the kitchen door.
+
+I began to move that way, and presently came creeping back, with a
+match-box half full of matches in my hand. But I did not strike one then.
+I had just made a move to do so, when the unmistakable sound of a door
+opening somewhere in the house made me draw back into as quiet and dark a
+place as I could find. This lay in the rear and at the right of the
+staircase, and as the sound had appeared to come from above, it was the
+most natural retreat that offered. And a good one I found it.
+
+I had hardly taken up my stand when the darkness above gave way to a
+faint glimmer, and a step became audible coming from some one of the
+many small rooms in the second story, but so slowly and with such
+evident hesitation that my imagination had ample time to work and fill
+my mind with varying anticipations, each more disconcerting than the
+last. Now I seemed to be listening to the movements of an intoxicated
+man seeking an issue out of strange quarters, then to the wary approach
+of one who had his own reasons for dread and was as conscious of my
+presence as I was of his.
+
+But the light, steadily increasing with each lagging but surely advancing
+step, soon gave the lie to this latter supposition, since no sane man,
+afraid of an ambush, would be likely to offer such odds to the one lying
+in wait for him, as his own face illumined by a flaming candle, and I was
+yielding to the bewilderment of the moment when the uncertain step paused
+and a sob came faintly to my ears, wrung from lips so stiff with human
+anguish that my fears took on new shape and the event a significance
+which in my present mood of personal suffering and preoccupation was
+anything but welcome. Indeed, I was coward enough to contemplate flight
+and might in another moment have yielded to the unworthy impulse if the
+sound of a second sigh had not struck shudderingly on my ear, followed by
+the renewal of the step and the almost immediate appearance on the stairs
+of a young girl holding a candle in one hand and shielding her left cheek
+with the other.
+
+Life offers few such shocks to any man, whatever his story or whatever
+his temperament. I had been prepared by the sob I had heard to see a
+woman, but not this woman. Nothing could have prepared me for an
+encounter with this woman anywhere that night, after what had passed
+between us and the wreck she had made of my life. But here! in a place so
+remote and desolate I had hesitated to enter it myself! What was I to
+think? How was I to reconcile so inconceivable a fact with what I knew of
+her in the past, with what I hoped from her in the future.
+
+To steady my thoughts and bring my whirling brain again under control, I
+fixed my eyes on her well-known form and features as upon a stranger's
+whom I would understand and judge. I have called her a woman and
+certainly I had loved her as such, but as, in this moment of strange
+detachment, I watched her descend, swaying foot following swaying foot
+falteringly down the stairs, I was able to see that only the emotions
+which denaturalised her expression were a woman's; that her features, her
+pose, and the peculiar childlike contour of the one cheek open to view
+were those of one whose yesterday was in the playroom.
+
+But beautiful! You do not often see such beauty. Under all the
+disfigurement of an agitation so great as to daunt me and make me
+question if I were its sole cause, her face shone with an individual
+charm which marked her out as one of the few who are the making or
+marring of men, sometimes of nations. This is the heritage she was born
+to, this her lot, not to be shirked, not to be evaded even now at her
+early age of seventeen. So much any one could see even in a momentary
+scrutiny of her face and figure. But what was not so clear, not even to
+myself with the consciousness of what had passed between us during the
+last few hours, was why her heart should have so outrun her years, and
+the emotion I beheld betray such shuddering depths. Some grisly fear,
+some staring horror had met her in this strange retreat. Simple grief
+speaks with a different language from that which I read in her distorted
+features and tottering, slowly creeping form. What had happened above?
+She had escaped me to run upon what? My lips refused to ask, my limbs
+refused to move, and if I breathed at all, I did so with such fierceness
+of restraint that her eyes never turned my way, not even when she had
+reached the lowest step and paused for a moment there, oscillating in
+pain or uncertainty. Her face was turned more fully towards me now, and I
+had just begun to discern something in it besides its tragic beauty, when
+she made a quick move and blew out the candle she held. One moment that
+magical picture of superhuman loveliness, then darkness, I might say
+silence, for I do not think either of us so much as stirred for several
+instants. Then there came a crash, followed by the sound of flying feet.
+She had flung the candlestick out of her hand and was hurriedly crossing
+the hail. I thought she was coming my way, and instinctively drew back
+against the wall. But she stopped far short of me, and I heard her
+groping about, then give a sudden spring towards the front door. It
+opened and the wind soughed in. I felt the chill of snow upon my face,
+and realised the tempest. Then all was quiet and dark again. She had slid
+quickly out and the door had swung to behind her. Another instant and I
+heard the click of the key as it turned in the lock, heard it and made no
+outcry, such the spell, such the bewilderment of my faculties! But once
+the act was accomplished and egress made difficult, nay, for the moment,
+impossible, I felt all lesser emotions give way to an anxiety which
+demanded immediate action, for the girl had gone out without wraps or
+covering for her head, and my experience of the evening had told me how
+cold it was. I must follow and find her and rescue her if possible from
+the snow. The distance was long to town, the cold would seize and perhaps
+prostrate her, after which, the wind and snow would do the rest.
+
+Throwing myself against the door, I shook it violently. It was immovable.
+Then I flew to the windows. Their fastenings yielded readily enough, but
+not the windows themselves; one had a broken cord, another seemed glued
+to its frame, and I was still struggling with the latter when I heard a
+sound which lifted the hair on my head and turned my whole attention back
+to what lay behind and above me. There was still some one in the house. I
+had forgotten everything in this apparition of the woman I have described
+in a place so disassociated with any conception I could possibly have of
+her whereabouts on this especial evening. But this noise, short, sharp,
+but too distant to be altogether recognisable, roused doubts which once
+awakened changed the whole tenor of my thoughts and would not let me rest
+till I had probed the house from top to bottom. To find Carmel Cumberland
+alone in this desolation was a mystifying discovery to which I had found
+it hard enough to reconcile myself. But Carmel here in company with
+another at the very moment when I had expected the fruition of my own
+joy,--ah, that was to open hell's door in my breast; a possibility too
+intolerable to remain unsettled for an instant. Though she had passed out
+before my eyes in a drooping, almost agonised condition, not she, dear as
+she was, and great as were my fears in her regard, was to be sought out
+first, but the man! The man who was back of all this, possibly back of my
+disappointment; the man whose work I may have witnessed, but at whose
+identity I could not even guess.
+
+Leaving the window, I groped my way along the wall until I reached the
+rack where the man's coat and hat hung. Whether it was my intention to
+carry them away and hide them, in my anxiety to secure this intruder and
+hold him to a bitter account for the misery he was causing me, or whether
+I only meant to satisfy myself that they were the habiliments of a
+stranger and not those of some sneaking member of the club, is of little
+importance in the light of the fact which presently burst upon me. The
+hat and coat were gone. Nothing hung from the rack. The wall was free
+from end to end. She had taken these articles of male apparel with her;
+she had not gone forth into the driving snow, unprotected, but--
+
+I did not know what to think. No acquaintanceship with her girlish
+impulses, nothing that had occurred between us before or during this
+night, had prepared me for a freak of this nature. I felt backward
+along the wall; I felt forward; I even handled the pegs and counted
+them as I passed to and fro, touching every one; but I could not alter
+the fact. The groping she had done had been in this direction. She was
+searching for this hat and coat (a man's hat,--a derby, as I had been
+careful to assure myself at the first handling) and, in them, she had
+gone home as she had probably come, and there was no man in the case,
+or if there were--
+
+The doubt drove me to the staircase. Making no further effort to unravel
+the puzzle which only beclouded my faculties, I began my wary ascent. I
+had not the slightest fear, I was too full of cold rage for that.
+
+The arrangement of rooms on the second floor was well known to me. I
+understood every nook and corner and could find my way about the whole
+place without a light. I took but one precaution--that of slipping off
+my shoes at the foot of the stairs. I wished to surprise the intruder. I
+was willing to resort to any expedient to accomplish this. The matches I
+carried in my pocket would make this possible if once I heard him
+breathing. I held my own breath as I stole softly up, and waited for an
+instant at the top of the stairs to listen. There was an awesome silence
+everywhere, and I was hesitating whether to attack the front rooms first
+or to follow up a certain narrow hall leading to a rear staircase, when
+I remembered the thin line of smoke which, rising from one of the
+chimneys, had first attracted my attention to the house. In that was my
+clue. There was but one room on this floor where a fire could be lit.
+It lay a few feet beyond me down the narrow hall I have just mentioned.
+Why had I trusted everything to my ears when my nose would have been a
+better guide? As I took the few steps necessary, a slight smell of smoke
+became very perceptible, and no longer in doubt of my course, I pushed
+boldly on and entering the half-open door, struck a match and peered
+anxiously about.
+
+Emptiness here just as everywhere else. A few chairs, a dresser,--it was
+a ladies' dressing-room,--some smouldering ashes on the hearth, a lounge
+piled up with cushions. But no person. The sound I had heard had not
+issued from this room, yet something withheld me from seeking further.
+Chilled to the bone, with teeth chattering in spite of myself, I paused
+just inside the door, and when the match went out in my hand remained
+shivering there in the darkness, a prey to sensations more nearly
+approaching those of fear than any I had ever before experienced in my
+whole life.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+IT WAS SHE--SHE INDEED!
+
+Look on death itself!--up, up, and see
+The great doom's visage!
+
+_Macbeth_.
+
+
+Why, I did not know. There seemed to be no reason for this excess of
+feeling. I had no dread of attack; my apprehension was of another sort.
+Besides, any attack here must come from the rear--from the open doorway
+in which I stood--and my dread lay before me, in the room itself, which,
+as I have already said, appeared to be totally empty. What could occasion
+my doubts, and why did I not fly the place? There were passage-ways yet
+to search, why linger here like a gaby in the dark when perhaps the man I
+believed to be in hiding somewhere within these walls, was improving the
+opportunity to escape?
+
+If I asked myself this question, I did not answer it, but I doubt if I
+asked it then. I had forgotten the intruder; the interest which had
+carried me thus far had become lost in a fresher one of which the
+beginning and ending lay hidden within the four walls I now stared upon,
+unseeing. Not to see and yet to feel--did that make the horror? If so,
+another lighted match must help me out. I struck one while the thought
+was hot within me, and again took a look at the room.
+
+I noted but one thing new, but that made me reel back till I was half way
+into the hall. Then a certain dogged persistency I possess came to my
+rescue, and I re-entered the room at a leap and stood before the lounge
+and its pile of cushions. They were numerous,--all that the room
+contained, and more! Chairs had been stripped, window-seats denuded, and
+the whole collection disposed here in a set way which struck me as
+unnatural. Was this the janitor's idea? I hardly thought so, and was
+about to pluck one of these cushions off, when that most unreasonable
+horror seized me again and I found myself looking back over my shoulder
+at the fireplace from which rose a fading streak of smoke which some
+passing gust, perhaps, had blown out into the room.
+
+I felt sick. Was it the smell? It was not that of burning wood, hardly of
+burning paper, I--but here my second match went out.
+
+Thoroughly roused now (you will say, by what?) I felt my way out of the
+room and to the head of the staircase. I remembered the candle and
+candlestick I had heard thrown down on the lower floor by Carmel
+Cumberland. I would secure them and come back and settle these uncanny
+doubts. It might be the veriest fool business, but my mind was
+disturbed and must be set at ease. Nothing else seemed so important,
+yet I was not without anxiety for the lovely and delicate woman
+wandering the snow-covered roads in the teeth of a furious gale, any
+more than I was dead to the fact that I should never forgive myself if
+I allowed the man to escape whom I believed to be hiding somewhere in
+the rear of this house.
+
+I had a hunt for the candlestick and a still longer one for the candle,
+but finally I recovered both, and, lighting the latter, felt myself, for
+the first time, more or less master of the situation.
+
+Rapidly regaining the room in which my interest was now centred, I set
+the candlestick down on the dresser, and approached the lounge. Hardly
+knowing what I feared, or what I expected to find, I tore off one of the
+cushions and flung it behind me. More cushions were revealed--but that
+was not all.
+
+Escaping from the edge of one of them I saw a shiny tress of woman's
+hair. I gave a gasp and pulled off more cushions, then I fell on my
+knees, struck down by the greatest horror which a man can feel. Death lay
+before me--violent, uncalled-for death--and the victim was a woman. But
+it was not that. Though the head was not yet revealed, I thought I knew
+the woman and that she--Did seconds pass or many minutes before I lifted
+that last cushion? I shall never know. It was an eternity to me and I am
+not of a sentimental cast, but I have some sort of a conscience and
+during that interval it awoke. It has never quite slept since.
+
+The cushion had not concealed the hands, but I did not look at
+them--I did not dare. I must first see the face. But I did not twitch
+this pillow off; I drew it aside slowly, as though held by the
+restraining clutch of some one behind me. And I was so held, but not
+by what was visible--rather by the terrors which gather in the soul
+at the summons of some dreadful doom. I could not meet the certainty
+without some preparation. I released another strand of hair; then
+the side of a cheek, half buried out of sight in the loosened locks
+and bulging pillows; then, with prayers to God for mercy, an icy
+brow; two staring eyes--which having seen I let the cushion drop,
+for mercy was not to be mine.
+
+It was _she_, she, indeed! and judgment was glassed in the look I
+met--judgment and nothing more kindly, however I might appeal to
+Heaven for mercy or whatever the need of my fiercely startled and
+repentant soul.
+
+Dead! Adelaide! the woman I had planned to wrong that very night, and who
+had thus wronged me! For a moment I could take in nothing but this one
+astounding fact, then the how and the why woke in maddening curiosity
+within me, and seizing the cushion, I dragged it aside and stared down
+into the pitiful and accusing features thus revealed, as though to tear
+from them the story of the crime which had released me as I would not
+have been released, no, not to have had my heart's desire in all the
+fulness with which I had contemplated it a few short hours before.
+
+But beyond the ever accusing, protuberant stare, those features told
+nothing; and steeling myself to the situation, I made what observation I
+could of her condition and the surrounding circumstances. For this was my
+betrothed wife. Whatever my intentions, however far my love had strayed
+under the spell cast over me by her sister,--the young girl who had just
+passed out,--Adelaide and I had been engaged for many months; our wedding
+day was even set.
+
+But that was all over now--ended as her life was ended: suddenly,
+incomprehensibly, and by no stroke of God. Even the jewel on her finger
+was gone, the token of our betrothal. This was to be expected. She would
+be apt to take it off before committing herself to a fate that proclaimed
+me a traitor to this symbol. I should see that ring again. I should find
+it in a letter filled with bitter words. I would not think of it or of
+them now. I would try to learn how she had committed this act, whether by
+poison or--
+
+It must have been by poison; no other means would suggest themselves to
+one of her refined sense; but if so, why those marks on her neck, growing
+darker and darker as I stared at them!
+
+My senses reeled as I scrutinised those marks. Small, delicate but
+deadly, they stared upon me from either side of her white neck till
+nature could endure no more and I tottered back against the further wall,
+beholding no longer room, nor lounge, nor recumbent body, but a young
+girl's exquisite face, set in lines which belied her seventeen years, and
+made futile any attempt on my part at self-deception when my reason
+inexorably demanded an explanation of this death. As suicide it was
+comprehensible, as murder, not, unless--
+
+And it had been murder!
+
+I sank to the floor as I fully realised this.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+"OPEN!"
+
+PRINCE.--Bring forth the parties of suspicion.
+
+FRIAR.--I am the greatest, as the time and place Doth make against me, of
+this direful murder; And here I stand, both to impeach and purge. Myself
+condemned and myself excused.
+
+_Romeo and Juliet_.
+
+
+I have mentioned poison as my first thought. It was a natural one, the
+result undoubtedly of having noticed two small cordial glasses standing
+on a little table over against the fireplace. When I was conscious again
+of my own fears, I crossed to the table and peered into these glasses.
+They were both empty. However, they had not been so long. In each I found
+traces of anisette cordial, and though no bottle stood near I was very
+confident that it could readily be found somewhere in the room. What had
+preceded and followed the drinking of this cordial?
+
+As I raised my head from bending over these glasses--not club glasses,
+by the way--I caught sight of my face in the mantel mirror. It gave me
+maddening thoughts. In this same mirror there had been reflected but a
+little while before, two other faces, for a sight of whose expression at
+that fatal moment I would gladly risk my soul.
+
+How had _she_ looked--how that other? Would not the story of those
+awful, those irrevocable moments be plain to my eye, if the quickly
+responsive glass could but retain the impressions it receives and give
+back at need what had once informed its surface with moving life!
+
+I stared at the senseless glass, appealed to it with unreasoning frenzy,
+as to something which could give up its secret if it would, but only to
+meet my own features in every guise of fury and despair--features I no
+longer knew--features which insensibly increased my horror till I tore
+myself wildly from the spot, and cast about for further clues to
+enlightenment, before yielding to the conviction which was making a
+turmoil in mind, heart, and conscience. Alas! there was but little more
+to see. A pair of curling-irons lay on the hearth, but I had no sooner
+lifted them than I dropped them with a shudder of unspeakable loathing,
+only to start at the noise they made in striking the tiles. For it was
+the self-same noise I had heard when listening from below. These tongs,
+set up against the side of the fireplace had been jarred down by the
+forcible shutting of the large front door, and no man other than myself
+was in the house, or had been in the house; only the two women. But the
+time when this discovery would have brought comfort was passed. Better a
+hundred times that a man--I had almost said any man--should have been
+with them here, than that they should be closeted together in a spot so
+secluded, with rancour and cause for complaint in one heart, and a
+biting, deadly flame in the other, which once reaching up must from its
+very nature leave behind it a corrosive impress. I saw,-I felt,--but I
+did not desist from my investigations. A stick or two still smouldered on
+the hearthstone. In the ashes lay some scattered fragments of paper which
+crumbled at my touch. On the floor in front I espied only a stray
+hair-pin; everything else was in place throughout the room except the
+cushions and that horror on the lounge, waiting the second look I had so
+far refrained from giving it.
+
+That look I could no longer withhold. I must know the depth of the gulf
+over which I hung. I must not wrong with a thought one who had smiled
+upon me like an angel of light--a young girl, too, with the dew of
+innocence on her beauty to every eye but mine and only not to mine
+within--shall I say ten awful minutes? It seemed ages,--all of my life
+and more. Yet that lovely breast had heaved not so many times since I
+looked upon her as a deified mortal, and now two small spots on another
+woman's pulseless throat had drawn a veil of blood over that beauty, and
+given to a child the attributes of a Medusa. Yet hope was not quite
+stilled. I would look again and perhaps discover that my own eyes had
+been at fault, that there were no marks, or if marks, not just the ones
+my fancy had painted there.
+
+Turning, I let my glance fall first on the feet. I had not noted them
+before, and I was startled to see that the arctics in which they were
+clad were filled all around with snow. She had walked then, as the other
+was walking now; she, who detested every effort and was of such delicate
+make that exertion of unusual kind could not readily be associated with
+her. Had she come alone or in Carmel's company, and if in Carmel's
+company, on what ostensible errand if not that of death? Her dress,
+which was of dark wool, showed that she had changed her garments for this
+trip. I had seen her at dinner, and this was not the gown she had worn
+then--the gown in which she had confronted me during those few
+intolerable minutes when I could not meet her eyes. Fatal cowardice! A
+moment of realisation then and we might all have been saved this horror
+of sin and death and shameful retribution.
+
+And yet who knows? Not understanding what I saw, how could I measure the
+might-have-beens! I would proceed with my task--note if she wore the
+diamond brooch I had given her. No, she was without ornament; I had never
+seen her so plainly clad. Might I draw a hope from this? Even the pins
+which had fallen from her hair were such as she wore when least adorned.
+Nothing spoke of the dinner party or of her having been dragged here
+unaware; but all of previous intent and premeditation. Surely hope was
+getting uppermost. If I had dreamed the marks--
+
+But no! There they were, unmistakable and damning, just where the breath
+struggles up. I put my own thumbs on these two dark spots to see
+if--when what was it? A lightning stroke or a call of fate which one
+must answer while sense remains? I felt my head pulled around by some
+unseen force from behind, and met staring into mine through the glass of
+the window a pair of burning eyes. Or was it fantasy? For in another
+moment they were gone, nor was I in the condition just then to
+dissociate the real from the unreal. But the possibility of a person
+having seen me in this position before the dead was enough to startle
+me to my feet, and though in another instant I became convinced that I
+had been the victim of hallucination, I nevertheless made haste to cross
+to the window and take a look through its dismal panes. A gale of
+blinding snow was sweeping past, making all things indistinguishable,
+but the absence of balcony outside was reassuring and I stepped hastily
+back, asking myself for the first time what I should do and where I
+should now go to ensure myself from being called as a witness to the
+awful occurrence which had just taken place in this house. Should I go
+home and by some sort of subterfuge now unthought of, try to deceive my
+servants as to the time of my return, or attempt to create an alibi
+elsewhere? Something I must do to save myself the anguish and Carmel the
+danger of my testimony in this matter. She must never know, the world
+must never know that I had seen her here.
+
+I had lost at a blow everything that gives zest or meaning to life, but I
+might still be spared the bottommost depth of misery--be saved the
+utterance of the word which would sink that erring but delicate soul into
+the hell yawning beneath her. It was my one thought now--though I knew
+that the woman who had fallen victim to her childish hate had loved me
+deeply and was well worth my avenging.
+
+I could not be the death of two women; the loss of one weighed heavily
+enough upon my conscience. I would fly the place--I would leave this
+ghastly find to tell its own story. The night was stormy, the hour late,
+the spot a remote one, and the road to it but little used. I could easily
+escape and when the morrow came--but it was the present I must think of
+now, this hour, this moment. How came I to stay so long! In feverish
+haste, I began to throw the pillows back over the quiet limbs, the
+accusing face. Shudderingly I hid those eyes (I understood their strange
+protuberance now) and recklessly bent on flight, was half way across the
+floor when my feet were stayed--I wonder that my reason was not
+unseated--by a sudden and tremendous attack on the great door below,
+mingled with loud cries to open which ran thundering through the house,
+calling up innumerable echoes from its dead and hidden corners.
+
+It was the police. The wild night, the biting storm had been of no avail.
+An alarm had reached headquarters, and all hope of escape on my part was
+at an end. Yet because at such crises instinct rises superior to reason,
+I blew out the candle and softly made my way into the hall. I had
+remembered a window opening over a shed at the head of the kitchen
+staircase. I could reach it from this rear hall by just a turn or two,
+and once on that shed, a short leap would land me on the ground; after
+which I could easily trust to the storm to conceal my flight across the
+open golf-links. It was worth trying at least; anything was better than
+being found in the house with my murdered betrothed.
+
+I had no reason to think that I was being sought, or that my presence in
+this building was even suspected. It might well be that the police were
+even ignorant of the tragedy awaiting them across the threshold of the
+door they seemed intent on battering down. The gleam of a candle burning
+in this closed-up house, or even the tale told by the rising smoke, may
+have drawn them from the road to investigate. Such coincidences had
+been. Such untoward happenings had misled people into useless
+self-betrayal. My case was too desperate for such weakness. Flight at
+this moment might save all; I would at least attempt it. The door was
+shaking on its hinges; these intruders seemed determined to enter.
+
+With a spring I reached the window by which I hoped to escape, and
+quickly raised it. A torrent of snow swept in, covering my face and
+breast in a moment. It did something more: it cleared my brain, and I
+remembered my poor horse standing in this blinding gale under cover of
+the snow-packed pines. Every one knew my horse. I could commit no greater
+folly than to flee by the rear fields while such a witness to my presence
+remained in full view in front. With the sensation of a trapped animal, I
+reclosed the window and cast about for a safe corner where I could lie
+concealed until I learned what had brought these men here and how much I
+really had to fear from their presence.
+
+I had but little time in which to choose. The door below had just given
+way and a party of at least three men were already stamping their feet
+free from snow in the hall. I did not like the tone of their voices, it
+was too low and steady to suit me. I had rather have heard drunken cries
+or a burst of wild hilarity than these stern and purposeful whispers. Men
+of resolution could have but one errand here. My doom was closing round
+me. I could only put off the fatal moment. But it was better to do this
+than to plunge headlong into the unknown fate awaiting me.
+
+I knew of a possible place of concealment. It was in the ballroom not far
+from where I stood. I remembered the spot well. It was at the top of a
+little staircase leading to the musicians' gallery. A balustrade guarded
+this gallery, supported by a boarding wide enough to hide a man lying
+behind it at his full length. If the search I was endeavouring to evade
+was not minute enough to lead them to look behind this boarding, it would
+offer me the double advantage of concealment and an unobstructed view of
+what went on in the hall, through the main doorway opening directly
+opposite. I could reach this ballroom and its terminal gallery without
+going around to this door. A smaller one communicated directly with the
+corridor in which I was then lurking, and towards this I now made my way
+with all the precaution suggested by my desperate situation. No man ever
+moved more lightly. The shoes which I had taken off in the lower hall
+were yet in my hand. I had caught them up after replacing the cushions on
+Adelaide's body. Even to my own straining ears I made no perceptible
+sound. I reached the balcony and had stretched myself out at full length
+behind the boarding, before the men below had left the lower floor.
+
+An interval of heart-torture and wearing suspense now followed. They were
+ransacking the rooms below by the aid of their own lanterns, as I could
+tell from their assured manner. That they had not made at once for the
+scene of crime brought me some small sense of comfort, but not much. They
+were too resolute in their movements and much too thorough and methodical
+in their search, for me to dream of their confining their investigations
+to the first floor. Unless I very much mistook their purpose, I should
+soon hear them ascending the stairs, after which, instinct, if not the
+faint smell of smoke still lingering in the air, would lead them to the
+room where my poor Adelaide lay.
+
+And thus it proved. More quickly than I expected, the total darkness in
+which I lay, brightened under an advancing lantern, and I heard the steps
+of two men coming down the hall. It was a steady if not rapid approach,
+and I was quite prepared for their presence when they finally reached the
+doorway opposite and stopped to look in at what must have appeared to
+them a vast and empty space. They were officials, true enough--one hasty
+glance through the balustrade assured me of that. I even knew one of them
+by name--he was a sergeant of police and a highly trustworthy man. But
+how they had been drawn to this place at a moment so critical, I could
+not surmise. Do men of this stamp scent crime as a hound scents out prey?
+They had the look of hounds. Even in the momentary glimpse I got of them,
+I noted the tense and expectant look with which they endeavoured to
+pierce the dim spaces between us. The chase was on. It was something more
+than curiosity or a chance exercise of their duty which had brought them
+here. Their object was definite, and if the sight of the low gallery in
+which I lay, should suggest to them all its possibilities as a
+hiding-place, I should know in just one moment more what it is for the
+helpless quarry to feel the clutch of the captor.
+
+But the moment passed without any attempt at approach on their part, and
+when I lifted my head again it was to catch a glimpse of their side faces
+as they turned to look elsewhere for what they were plainly in search
+of. An oath, muffled but stern, which was the first word above a whisper
+that I had heard issue from their lips, told me that they had reached
+_the_ room and had come upon the horror which lay there. What would they
+say to it! Would they know who she was--her name, her quality, her
+story--and respect her dead as they certainly must have respected her
+living? I listened but caught only a low murmur as they conferred
+together. I imagined their movements; saw them in my mind's eye leaning
+over that death-tenanted couch, pointing with accusing finger at those
+two dark marks, and consulting each other with side-long looks, as they
+passed from one detail of her appearance to another. I even imagined them
+crossing the floor and lifting the two cordial glasses just as I had
+done, and then slowly setting them down again, with perhaps a lift of the
+brows or a suggestive shake of the head; and maddened by my own
+intolerable position, drawn by a power I felt it impossible to resist, I
+crept to my feet and took my staggering way down the half-dozen steps of
+the gallery and thence along by the left-hand wall towards the further
+doorway, and through it to where these men stood weighing the chances in
+which my life and honour were involved, and those of one other of whom I
+dared not think and would not have these men think for all that was left
+me of hope and happiness.
+
+It was dark in the ballroom, and it was only a little less so in the
+corridor. All the light was in _that_ room; but I still slid along the
+wall like a thief, with eyes set and ears agape for any chance word which
+might reach me. Suddenly I heard one. It was this, uttered with a
+decision which had the strange effect of lifting my head and making a man
+of me again:
+
+"That settles it. He will find it hard to escape after this."
+
+_He!_ I had been dreading to hear a _she_. Yet why? Who on God's earth,
+save myself, could know that Carmel had been within these woeful walls
+to-night. _He!_ I never stopped to question who was meant by this
+definite pronoun. I was not even conscious of caring very much. I was in
+a coil of threatening troubles, but I was in it alone, and, greatly
+relieved by the discovery, I drew myself up and stepped quickly forward
+into the room where the two officials stood.
+
+Their faces, as they wheeled sharply about and took in my shoeless and
+more or less dishevelled figure, told me with an eloquence which made my
+heart sink, the unfortunate impression which my presence made upon them.
+It was but a fleeting look, for these men were both by nature and
+training easy masters of themselves; but its language was unmistakable
+and I knew that if I were to hold my own with them, I must get all the
+support I could from the truth, save where it would involve her--from the
+truth and my own consciousness of innocence, if I had any such
+consciousness. I was not sure that I had, for my falseness had
+precipitated this tragedy,--how I might never know, but a knowledge of
+the how was not necessary to my self-condemnation. Nevertheless my hands
+were clean of this murder, and allowing the surety of this fact to take a
+foremost place in my mind, I faced these men and with real feeling, but
+as little display of it as possible, I observed:
+
+"You have come to my aid in a critical moment. This is my betrothed
+wife--the woman I was to marry--and I find her lying here dead, in this
+closed and lonely house. What does it mean? I know no more than you do."
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE ODD CANDLESTICK
+
+It is a damned and a bloody work;
+The graceless action of a heavy hand,
+If that it be the work of any hand.
+
+_King John_.
+
+
+The two men eyed me quietly, then Hexford pointed to my shoeless feet and
+sternly retorted:
+
+"Permit us to doubt your last assertion. You seem to be in better
+position than ourselves to explain the circumstances which puzzle you."
+
+They were right. It was for me to talk, not for them. I conceded the
+point in these words:
+
+"Perhaps--but you cannot always trust appearances. I can explain my own
+presence here and the condition in which you find me, but I cannot
+explain this tragedy, near and dear as Miss Cumberland was to me. I did
+not know she was in the building, alive or dead. I came upon her here
+covered with the cushions just as you found her. I have felt the shock. I
+do not look like myself--I do not feel like myself; it was enough--" Here
+real emotion seized me and I almost broke down. I was in a position much
+more dreadful than any they could imagine or should be allowed to.
+
+Their silence led me to examine their faces. Hexford's mouth had settled
+into a stiff, straight line and the other man's wore a cynical smile I
+did not like. At this presage of the difficulties awaiting me, I felt one
+strand of the rope sustaining me above this yawning gulf of shame and
+ignominy crack and give way. Oh, for a better record in the past!--a
+staff on which to lean in such an hour as this! But while nothing serious
+clouded my name, I had more to blush for than to pride myself upon in my
+career as prince of good fellows,--and these men knew it, both of them,
+and let it weigh in the scale already tipped far off its balance by
+coincidences which a better man than myself would have found it
+embarrassing to explain. I recognised all this, I say, in the momentary
+glance I cast at their stern and unresponsive figures; but the courage
+which had served me in lesser extremities did not fail me now, and,
+kneeling down before my dead betrothed, I kissed her cold white hand with
+sincere compunction, before attempting the garbled and probably totally
+incoherent story with which I endeavoured to explain the inexplainable
+situation.
+
+They listened--I will do them that much justice; but it was with such an
+air of incredulity that my words fell with less and less continuity and
+finally lost themselves in a confused stammer as I reached the point
+where I pulled the cushions from the couch and made my ghastly discovery.
+
+"You see--see for yourselves--what confronted me. My betrothed--a dainty,
+delicate woman--dead--alone--in this solitary, far-away spot--the victim
+of what? I asked myself then--I ask myself now. I cannot understand
+it--or those glasses yonder--or _those marks!"_ They were black by
+this time--unmistakable--not to be ignored by them or by me.
+
+"We understand those marks, and you ought to," came from the second man,
+the one I did not know.
+
+My head fell forward; my lips refused to speak the words. I saw as in a
+flash, a picture of the one woman bending over the other; terror,
+reproach, anguish in the eyes whose fixed stare would never more leave
+my consciousness, an access of rage or some such sadden passion
+animating the other whose every curve spoke tenderness, whose every look
+up to this awful day had been as an angel's look to me. The vision was a
+maddening one. I shook myself free from it by starting to my feet."
+It's--it's--" I gasped.
+
+"She has been strangled," quoth Hexford, doggedly.
+
+"A dog's death," mumbled the other.
+
+My hands came together involuntarily. At that instant, with the memory
+before me of the vision I have just described, I almost wished that it
+had been _my_ hate, _my_ anger which had brought those tell-tale marks
+out upon that livid skin. I should have suffered less. I should only have
+had to pay the penalty of my crime and not be forced to think of Carmel
+with terrible revulsion, as I was now thinking, minute by minute, fight
+with it as I would.
+
+"You had better sit down," Hexford suddenly suggested, pushing a chair my
+way. "Clarke, look up the telephone and ask for three more men. I am
+going into this matter thoroughly. Perhaps you will tell us where the
+telephone is," he asked, turning my way.
+
+It was some little time before I took in these words. When I did, I
+became conscious of his keen look, also of a change in my own expression.
+I had forgotten the telephone. It had not yet been taken out. If only I
+had remembered this before these men came--I might have saved--No,
+nothing could have saved her or me, except the snow, except the snow.
+That may already have saved her. All this time I was trying to tell where
+the telephone was.
+
+That I succeeded at last I judged from the fact that the second man left
+the room. As he did so, Hexford lit the candle. Idly watching, for
+nothing now could make me look at the lounge again, I noticed the
+candlestick. It was of brass and rare in style and workmanship--a
+candlestick to be remembered; one of a pair perhaps. I felt my hair stir
+as I took in the details of its shape and ornamentation. If its mate
+were in her house--No, no, no! I would not have it so. I could not
+control my emotion if I let my imagination stray too far. The
+candlestick must be the property of the club. I had only forgotten. It
+was bought when? While thinking, planning, I was conscious of Hexford's
+eyes fixed steadily upon me.
+
+"Did you go into the kitchen in your wanderings below?" he asked.
+
+"No," I began, but seeing that I had made a mistake, I bungled and added
+weakly: "Yes; after matches."
+
+"Only matches?"
+
+"That's all."
+
+"And did you get them?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"In the dark? You must have had trouble in finding them?"
+
+"Not at all. Only safety matches are allowed here, and they are put in a
+receptacle at the side of each door. I had but to open the kitchen door,
+feel along the jamb, find this receptacle, and pull the box out. I'm well
+used to all parts of the house."
+
+"And you did this?"
+
+"I have said so."
+
+"May I ask which door you allude to?"
+
+"The one communicating with the front hall."
+
+"Where did you light your first match?"
+
+"Upstairs."
+
+"Not in the kitchen?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"You are sure?"
+
+"Quite sure."
+
+"That's a pity. I thought you might be able to tell me how so many wine
+and whiskey bottles came to be standing on the kitchen table."
+
+I stared at him, dazed. Then I remembered the two small glasses on the
+little table across the room, and instinctively glanced at them. But no
+whiskey had been drunk out of them--the odor of anisette is unmistakable.
+
+"You carry the key to the wine-cellar?" he asked.
+
+I considered a moment. I did not know what to make of bottles on the
+kitchen table. These women and _bottles_! They abhorred wine; they had
+reason to, God knows; T remembered the dinner and all that had signalised
+it, and felt my confusion grow. But a question had been asked, and I must
+answer it. It would not do for me to hesitate about a matter of this
+kind. Only what was the question. Something about a key. I had no key;
+the cellar had been ransacked without my help; should I acknowledge this?
+
+"The keys were given up by the janitor yesterday," I managed to
+stammer at last. "But I did not bring them here to-night. They are in
+my rooms at home."
+
+I finished with a gasp. I had suddenly remembered that these keys were
+not in my rooms. I had had them with me at Miss Cumberland's and being
+given to fooling with something when embarrassed, I had fooled with them
+and dropped them while talking with Adelaide and watching Carmel. I had
+meant to pick them up but I forgot and--
+
+"You need say nothing more about it," remarked Hexford. "I have no right
+to question you at all." And stepping across the room, he took up the
+glasses one after the other and smelled of them. "Some sweet stuff," he
+remarked. "Cordial, I should say anisette. There wasn't anything like
+that on the kitchen table. Let us see what there is in here," he added,
+stepping into the adjoining small room into which I had simply peered in
+my own investigation of the place.
+
+As he did so, a keen blast blew in; a window in the adjoining room was
+open. He cast me a hurried glance and with the door in his hand, made the
+following remark:
+
+"Your lady love--the victim here--could not have come through the snow
+with no more clothing on her than we see now. She must have worn a hat
+and coat or furs or something of that nature. Let us look for them."
+
+I rose, stumbling. I saw that he did not mean to leave me alone for a
+moment. Indeed, I did not wish to be so left. Better any companionship
+than that of my own thoughts and of her white upturned face. As I
+followed him into this closet he pushed the door wide, pulling out an
+electric torch as he did so. By its light we saw almost at first glance
+the coat and hat he professed to seek, lying in a corner of the floor,
+beside an overturned chair.
+
+"Good!" left my companion's lips. "That's all straight. You recognise
+these garments?"
+
+I nodded, speechless. A thousand memories rushed upon me at the sight of
+the long plush coat which I had so often buttoned about her, with a
+troubled heart. How her eyes would seek mine as we stood thus close
+together, searching, searching for the old love or the fancied love of
+which the ashes only remained. Torment, all torment to remember now, as
+Hexford must have seen, if the keenness of his intelligence equalled that
+of his eye at this moment.
+
+The window which stood open was a small one,-a mere slit in the wall;
+but it let in a stream of zero air and I saw Hexford shiver as he stepped
+towards it and looked out. But I felt hot rather than cold, and when I
+instinctively put my hand to my forehead, it came away wet.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+A SCRAP OF PAPER
+
+Look to the lady:--
+And when we have our naked frailties hid,
+That suffer in exposure, let us meet,
+And question this most bloody piece of work,
+To know it further. Fears and scruples shake us;
+In the great hand of God I stand; and, thence,
+Against the undivulg'd pretence I fight
+Of treasonous malice.
+
+_Macbeth_.
+
+
+Shortly after this, a fresh relay of police arrived and I could hear the
+whole house being ransacked. I had found my shoes, and was sitting in my
+own private room before a fire which had been lighted for me on the
+hearth. I was in a state of stupor now, and if my body shook, as it did
+from time to time, it was not from cold, nor do I think from any special
+horror of mind or soul (I felt too dull for that), but in response to the
+shuddering pines which pressed up close to the house at this point and
+soughed and tapped at the walls and muttered among themselves with an
+insistence which I could not ignore, notwithstanding my many reasons for
+self-absorption.
+
+The storm, which had been exceedingly fierce while it lasted, had quieted
+down to a steady fall of snow. Had its mission been to serve as a blanket
+to this crime by wiping out from the old snow all tell-tale footsteps
+and such other records as simplify cases of this kind for the detectives,
+it could not have happened more _apropos_ to the event. From the
+complaints which had already reached my ears from the two policemen, I
+was quite aware that even as early as their first arrival, they had found
+a clean page where possibly a few minutes before the whole secret of this
+tragedy may have been written in unmistakable characters; and while this
+tilled me with relief in one way, it added to my care in another, for the
+storm which could accomplish so much in so short a time was a bitter one
+for a young girl to meet, and Carmel must have met it at its worst, in
+her lonesome struggle homeward.
+
+Where was she? Living or dead, where was she now and where was
+Adelaide--the two women who for the last six weeks had filled my life
+with so many unhallowed and conflicting emotions? The conjecture
+passed incessantly through my brain, but it passed idly also and was
+not answered even in thought. Indeed, I seemed incapable of sustaining
+any line of thought for more than an instant, and when after an
+indefinite length of time the door behind me opened, the look I turned
+upon the gentleman who entered must have been a strange and far from
+encouraging one.
+
+He brought a lantern with him. So far the room had had no other
+illumination than such as came from the fire, and when he had set this
+lantern down on the mantel and turned to face me, I perceived, with a
+sort of sluggish hope, that he was Dr. Perry, once a practising physician
+and my father's intimate friend, now a county official of no ordinary
+intelligence and, what was better, of no ordinary feeling.
+
+His attachment to my father had not descended to me and, for the moment,
+he treated me like a stranger.
+
+"I am the coroner of this district," said he. "I have left my bed to have
+a few words with you and learn if your detention here is warranted. You
+are the president of this club, and the lady whose violent death in this
+place I have been called upon to investigate, is Miss Cumberland, your
+affianced wife?"
+
+My assent, though hardly audible, was not to be misunderstood. Drawing up
+a chair, he sat down and something in his manner which was not wholly
+without sympathy, heartened me still more, dispelling some of the
+cloudiness which had hitherto befogged my faculties.
+
+"They have told me what you had to say in explanation of your presence
+here where a crime of some nature has taken place. But I should like to
+hear the story from your own lips. I feel that I owe you this
+consideration. At all events, I am disposed to show it. This is no common
+case of violence and the parties to it are not of the common order. Miss
+Cumberland's virtue and social standing no one can question, while you
+are the son of a man who has deservedly been regarded as an honour to the
+town. You have been intending to marry Miss Cumberland?"
+
+"Yes." I looked the man directly in the eye. "Our wedding-day was set."
+
+"Did you love her? Pardon me; if I am to be of any benefit to you at this
+crisis I must strike at the root of things. If you do not wish to
+answer, say so, Mr. Ranelagh."
+
+"I do wish." This was a lie, but what was I to do, knowing how dangerous
+it would be for Carmel to have it publicly known where my affections were
+really centred and what a secret tragedy of heart-struggle and jealous
+passion underlay this open one of foul and murderous death. "I am in no
+position to conceal anything from you. I did love Miss Cumberland. We
+have been engaged for a year. She was a woman of fortune but I am not
+without means of my own and could have chosen a penniless girl and still
+been called prosperous."
+
+"I see, and she returned your love?"
+
+"Sincerely." Was the room light enough to reveal my guilty flush? She
+had loved me only too well, too jealously, too absorbingly for her
+happiness or mine.
+
+"And the sister?"
+
+It was gently but gravely put, and instantly I knew that our secret was
+out, however safe we had considered it. This man was cognisant of it,
+and if he, why not others! Why not the whole town! A danger which up to
+this moment I had heard whispered only by the pines, was opening in a
+gulf beneath our feet. Its imminence steadied me. I had kept my glance
+on Coroner Perry, and I do not think it changed. My tone, I am quite
+assured, was almost as quiet and grave as his as I made my reply in
+these words:
+
+"Her sister is her sister. I hardly think that either of us would be apt
+to forget that. Have you heard otherwise, sir?"
+
+He was prepared for equivocation, possibly for denial, but not for
+attack. His manner changed and showed distrust and I saw that I had lost
+rather than made by this venturous move.
+
+"Is this your writing?" he suddenly asked, showing me a morsel of paper
+which he had drawn from his vest pocket.
+
+I looked, and felt that I now understood what the pines had been trying
+to tell me for the last few hours. That compromising scrap of writing had
+not been destroyed. It existed for her and my undoing! Then doubt came.
+Fate could not juggle thus with human souls and purposes. I had simply
+imagined myself to have recognised the words lengthening and losing
+themselves in a blur before my eyes. Carmel was no fool even if she had
+wild and demoniacal moments. This could not be my note to her,--that
+fatal note which would make all denial of our mutual passion unavailing.
+
+"Is it your writing?" my watchful inquisitor repeated.
+
+I looked again. The scrap was smaller than my note had been when it left
+my hands. If it were the same, then some of the words were gone. Were
+they the first ones or the last? It would make a difference in the
+reading, or rather, in the conclusions to be drawn from what remained. If
+only the mist would clear from before my eyes, or he would hold the slip
+of paper nearer! The room was very dark. The--the--
+
+"Is it your writing?" Coroner Perry asked for the third time.
+
+There was no denying it. My writing was peculiar and quite unmistakable.
+I should gain nothing by saying no.
+
+"It looks like it," I admitted reluctantly. "But I cannot be sure in this
+light. May I ask what this bit of paper is and where you found it?"
+
+"Its contents I think you know. As for the last question I think you can
+answer that also if you will."
+
+Saying which, he quietly replaced the scrap of paper in his pocket-book.
+
+I followed the action with my eyes. I caught a fresh glimpse of a
+darkened edge, and realised the cause of the faint odour which I had
+hitherto experienced without being conscious of it. The scrap had been
+plucked out of the chimney. She had tried to burn it. I remembered the
+fire and the smouldering bits of paper which crumbled at my touch. And
+this one, this, the most important--the only important one of them
+all, had flown, half-scorched, up the chimney and clung there within
+easy reach.
+
+The whole incident was plain to me, and I could even fix upon the moment
+when Hexford or Clarke discovered this invaluable bit of evidence. It was
+just before I burst in upon them from the ballroom, and it was the
+undoubted occasion of the remark I then overheard:
+
+"_This settles it. He cannot escape us now_."
+
+During the momentary silence which now ensued, I tried to remember the
+exact words which had composed this note. They were few---sparks from my
+very heart--I ought to be able to recollect them.
+
+"To-night--10:30 train--we will be married at P----. Come, come, my
+darling, my life. She will forgive when all is done. Hesitation will
+only undo us. To-night at 10 30. Do not fail me. I shall never marry any
+one but you."
+
+Was that all? I had an indistinct remembrance of having added some wild
+and incoherent words of passionate affection affixed to her name. _Her
+name_! But it may be that in the hurry and flurry of the moment, these
+terms of endearment simply passed through my mind and found no expression
+on paper. I could not be sure, any more than I could be positive from the
+half glimpse I got of these lines, which portion had been burned
+off,--the top in which the word _train_ occurred, or the final words,
+emphasising a time of meeting and my determination to marry no one but
+the person addressed. The first gone, the latter might take on any
+sinister meaning. The latter gone, the first might prove a safeguard,
+corroborating my statement that an errand had taken me into town.
+
+I was oppressed by the uncertainty of my position. Even if I carried off
+this detail successfully, others of equal importance might be awaiting
+explanation. My poor, maddened, guilt-haunted girl had made the
+irreparable mistake of letting this note of mine fly unconsumed up the
+chimney, and she might have made others equally incriminating. It would
+be hard to find an alibi for her if suspicion once turned her way. She
+had not met me at the train. The unknown but doubtless easily-to-be-found
+man who had handed me her note could swear to that fact.
+
+Then the note itself! I had destroyed it, it is true, but its phrases
+were so present to my mind--had been so branded into it by the terrors of
+the tragedy which they appeared to foreshadow, that I had a dreadful
+feeling that this man's eye could read them there. I remember that under
+the compelling power of this fancy, my hand rose to my brow outspread and
+concealing, as if to interpose a barrier between him and them. Is my
+folly past belief? Possibly. But then I have not told you the words of
+this fatal communication. They were these--innocent, if she were
+innocent, but how suggestive in the light of her probable guilt:
+
+"I cannot. Wait till to-morrow. Then you will see the depth of my love
+for you--what I owe you--what I owe Adelaide."
+
+I should see!
+
+I was seeing.
+
+Suddenly I dropped my hand; a new thought had come to me. Had Carmel been
+discovered on the road leading from this place?
+
+You perceive that by this time I had become the prey of every threatening
+possibility; even of that which made the present a nightmare from which I
+should yet wake to old conditions and old struggles, bad enough, God
+knows, but not like this--not like this.
+
+Meantime I was conscious that not a look or movement of mine had escaped
+the considerate but watchful eye of the man before me.
+
+"You do not relish my questions," he dryly observed. "Perhaps you would
+rather tell your story without interruption. If so, I beg you to be as
+explicit as possible. The circumstances are serious enough for perfect
+candour on your part."
+
+He was wrong. They were too serious for that. Perfect candour would
+involve Carmel. Seeming candour was all I could indulge in. I took a
+quick resolve. I would appear to throw discretion to the winds; to
+confide to him what men usually hold sacred; to risk my reputation as a
+gentleman, rather than incur a suspicion which might involve others
+more than it did myself. Perhaps I should yet win through and save her
+from an ignominy she possibly deserved but which she must never receive
+at my hands.
+
+"I will give you an account of my evening," said I. "It will not aid you
+much, but will prove my good faith. You asked me a short time ago if I
+loved the lady whom I was engaged to marry and whose dead body I most
+unexpectedly came upon in this house some time before midnight. I
+answered yes, and you showed that you doubted me. You were justified in
+your doubts. I did love her once, or thought so, but my feelings changed.
+A great temptation came into my life. Carmel returned from school
+and--you know her beauty, her fascination. A week in her presence, and
+marriage with Adelaide became impossible. But how evade it? I only knew
+the coward's way; to lure this inexperienced young girl, fresh from
+school, into a runaway match. A change which now became perceptible in
+Miss Cumberland's manner, only egged me on. It was not sufficiently
+marked in character to call for open explanation, yet it was unmistakable
+to one on the watch as I was, and betokened a day of speedy reckoning for
+which I was little prepared. I know what the manly course would have
+been, but I preferred to skulk. I acknowledge it now; it is the only
+retribution I have to offer for a past I am ashamed of. Without losing
+one particle of my intention, I governed more carefully my looks and
+actions, and thought I had succeeded in blinding Adelaide to my real
+feelings and purpose. Whether I did or not, I cannot say. I have no means
+of knowing now. She has not been her natural self for these last few
+days, but she had other causes for worry, and I have been willing enough
+to think that these were the occasion of her restless ways and short,
+sharp speech and the blankness with which she met all my attempts to
+soothe and encourage her. This evening"--I choked at the word. The day
+had been one string of extraordinary experiences, accumulating in
+intensity to the one ghastly discovery which had overtopped and
+overwhelmed all the rest. "This evening," I falteringly continued, "I had
+set as the limit to my endurance of the intolerable situation. During a
+minute of solitude preceding the dinner at Miss Cumberland's house on the
+Hill, I wrote a few lines to her sister, urging her to trust me with her
+fate and meet me at the station in time for the ten-thirty train. I meant
+to carry her at once to P----, where I had a friend in the ministry who
+would at once unite us in marriage. I was very peremptory, for my nerves
+were giving way under the secret strain to which they had been subjected
+for so long, and she herself was looking worn with her own silent and
+uncommunicated conflict.
+
+"To write this note was easy, but to deliver it involved difficulties.
+Miss Cumberland's eyes seemed to be more upon me than usual. Mine were
+obliged to respond and Carmel seeing this, kept hers on her plate or on
+the one other person seated at the table, her brother Arthur. But the
+opportunity came as we all rose and passed together into the
+drawing-room. Carmel fell into place at my side and I slipped the note
+into her hand. She had not expected it and I fear that the action was
+observed, for when I took my leave of Miss Cumberland shortly after, I
+was struck by her expression. I had never seen such a look on her face
+before, nor can I conceive of one presenting a more extraordinary
+contrast to the few and commonplace words with which she bade me good
+evening. I could not forget that look. I continued to see those pinched
+features and burning eyes all the way home where I went to get my
+grip-sack, and I saw them all the way to the station, though my thoughts
+were with her sister and the joys I had planned for myself. Man's
+egotism, Dr. Perry. I neither knew Adelaide nor did I know the girl whose
+love I had so over-estimated. She failed me, Dr. Perry. I was met at the
+station not by herself, but by a letter--a few hurried lines given me by
+an unknown man--in which she stated that I had asked too much of her,
+that she could not so wrong her sister who had brought her up and done
+everything for her since her mother died. I have not that letter now, or
+I would show it to you. In my raging disappointment I tore it up on the
+place where I received it, and threw the pieces away. I had staked my
+whole future on one desperate throw and I had lost. If I had had a
+pistol--" I stopped, warned by an uneasy movement on the part of the man
+I addressed, that I had better not dilate too much upon my feelings.
+Indeed, I had forgotten to whom I was talking. I realised nothing,
+thought of nothing but the misery I was describing. His action recalled
+me to the infinitely deeper misery of my present situation, and conscious
+of the conclusions which might be drawn from such impulsive utterances, I
+pulled myself together and proceeded to finish my story with greater
+directness.
+
+"I did not leave the station till the ten-thirty train had gone. I had
+hopes, still, of seeing her, or possibly I dreaded the long ride back to
+my apartments. It was from sheer preoccupation of mind that I drove this
+way instead of straight out by Marshall Avenue. I had no intention of
+stopping here; the club-house was formally closed yesterday, as you may
+know, and I did not even have the keys with me. But, as I reached the
+bend in the road where you get your first sight of the buildings, I saw a
+thin streak of smoke rising from one of its chimneys, and anxious as to
+its meaning, I drove in--"
+
+"Wait, Mr. Ranelagh, I am sorry to interrupt you, but by which gate did
+you enter?"
+
+"By the lower one."
+
+"Was it snowing at this time?"
+
+"Not yet. It was just before the clouds rushed upon the moon. I could see
+everything quite plainly."
+
+My companion nodded and I went breathlessly on. Any question of his
+staggered me. I was so ignorant of the facts at his command, of the facts
+at any one's command outside my own experience and observation, that the
+simplest admission I made might lead directly to some clew of whose very
+existence I was unaware. I was not even able to conjecture by what chance
+or at whose suggestion the police had raided the place and discovered
+the tragedy which had given point to that raid. No one had told me, and I
+had met with no encouragement to ask. I felt myself sliding amid
+pitfalls. My own act might precipitate the very doom I sought to avert.
+Yet I must preserve my self-possession and answer all questions as
+truthfully as possible lest I stumble into a web from which no skill of
+my own or of another could extricate me.
+
+"Fastening my horse to one of the pine trees in the thickest clump I
+saw--he is there now, I suppose--I crept up to the house, and tried the
+door. It was on the latch and I stole in. There was no light on the lower
+floor, and after listening for any signs of life, I began to feel my way
+about the house, searching for the intruder. As I did not wish to attract
+attention to myself, I took off my shoes. I went through the lower rooms,
+and then I came upstairs. It was some time before I reached the--the room
+where a fire had been lit; but when I did I knew--not," I hastily
+corrected, as I caught his quick concentrated glance, "what had happened
+or whom I should find there, but that this was the spot where the
+intruder had been, possibly was now, and I determined to grapple with
+him. What--what have I said?" I asked in anguish, as I caught a look on
+the coroner's face of irrepressible repulsion and disgust, slight and
+soon gone but unmistakable so long as it lasted.
+
+"Nothing," he replied, "go on."
+
+But his tone, considerate as it had been from the first, did not deceive
+me. I knew that I had been detected in some slip or prevarication. As I
+had omitted all mention of the most serious part of my adventure--had
+said nothing of my vision of Carmel or the terrible conclusions which her
+presence there had awakened--my conscience was in a state of perturbation
+which added greatly to my confusion. For a moment I did not know where I
+stood, and I am afraid I betrayed a sense of my position. He had to
+recall me to myself by an unimportant question or two before I could go
+on. When I did proceed, it was with less connection of ideas and a haste
+in speaking which was not due altogether to the harrowing nature of the
+tale itself.
+
+"I had matches in my pocket and I struck one," I began. "Afterwards I lit
+the candle. The emptiness of the room did not alarm me. I experienced the
+sense of tragedy. Seeing the pillows heaped high and too regularly for
+chance along a lounge ordinarily holding only two, I tore them off. I saw
+a foot, a hand, a tress of bright hair. Even then I did not think of
+_her_. Why should I? Not till I uncovered the face did I know the terrors
+of my discovery, and then, the confusion of it all unmanned me and I fell
+on my knees--"
+
+"Go on! Go on!"
+
+The impetuosity, the suspense in the words astounded me. I stared at the
+coroner and lost the thread of my story--What had I to say more? How
+account for what must be ever unaccountable to him, to the world, to my
+own self, if in obedience to the demands of the situation I subdued my
+own memory and blotted out all I had seen but that which it was safe to
+confess to?
+
+"There is no more to say," I murmured. "The horror of that moment made a
+chaos in my mind. I looked at the dead body of her who lay there as I
+have looked at everything since; as I looked at the police when they
+came--as I look at you now. But I know nothing. It is all a
+phantasmagoria to me--with no more meaning than a nightmare. She is
+dead--I know that--but beyond that, all is doubt--confusion--what the
+world and all its passing show is to a blind man. I can neither
+understand nor explain."
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+COMMENTS AND REFLECTIONS
+
+There is no agony and no solace left;
+Earth can console, Heaven can torment, no more
+
+_Prometheus Unbound_
+
+
+The coroner's intent look which had more or less sustained me through
+this ordeal, remained fixed upon my face as though he were still anxious
+to see me exonerate myself. How much did he know? That was the question.
+_How much did he know_?
+
+Having no means of telling, I was forced to keep silent. I had revealed
+all I dared to. As I came to this conclusion, his eyes fell and I knew
+that the favorable minute had passed.
+
+The question he now asked proved it.
+
+"You say that you were not blind to surrounding objects, even if they
+conveyed but little meaning to you. You must have seen, then, that the
+room where Miss Cumberland lay contained two small cordial glasses, both
+still moist with some liqueur."
+
+"I noticed that, yes."
+
+"Some one must have drunk with her?"
+
+"I cannot contradict you."
+
+"Was Miss Cumberland fond of that sort of thing?"
+
+"She detested liquor of all kinds. She never drank I never saw a woman
+so averse to wine." I spoke before I thought. I might better have been
+less emphatic, but the mystery of those glasses had affected me from the
+first. Neither she nor Carmel ever allowed themselves so much as a social
+glass, yet those glasses had been drained. "Perhaps the cold--"
+
+"There was a third glass. We found it in the adjoining closet. It had not
+been used. That third glass has a meaning if only we could find it out."
+
+A possibility which had risen in my mind faded at these words.
+
+"Three glasses," I dully repeated.
+
+"And a small flask of cordial. The latter seems pure enough."
+
+"I cannot understand it." The phrase had become stereotyped. No other
+suggested itself to me.
+
+"The problem would be simple enough if it were not for those-marks on her
+neck. You saw those, too, I take it?"
+
+"Yes. Who made them? What man--"
+
+The lie, or rather the suggestion of a lie, flushed my face. I was
+conscious of this, but it did not trouble me. I was panting for relief. I
+could not rest till I knew the nature of the doubt in this man's mind. If
+these words, or any words I could use, would serve to surprise his
+secret, then welcome the lie or suggestion of a lie. "It was a brute's
+act," I went on, bungling with my sentences in anxiety to see if my
+conclusions fitted in with his own. "_Who was the brute_? Do you know,
+Dr. Perry?"
+
+"There were three glasses in those rooms. Only two were drank from," he
+answered, steadily. "Tomorrow I may be in a position to answer your
+question. I am not to-night."
+
+Why did I take heart? Not a change, not the flicker of one had passed
+over his countenance at my utterance of the word _man_. Either his
+official habit had stood him in wonderful stead, or the police had failed
+so far to see any connection between this murder and the young girl whose
+footprints, for all I knew, still lingered on the stairs.
+
+Would the morrow arm them with completer knowledge? As I turned from his
+retreating figure and flung myself down before the hearth, this was the
+question I continually propounded to myself, in vain repetition. Would
+the morrow reveal the fact that Adelaide's young sister had been with her
+in the hour of death, or would the fates propitiously aid her in
+preserving this secret as they had already aided her in selecting for the
+one man who shared it, him who of all others was bound by honour and
+personal consideration for her not to divulge what he knew.
+
+Thus the hours between two and seven passed when I fell into a fitful
+sleep, from which I was rudely wakened by a loud rattle at my door,
+followed by the entrance of the officer who had walked up and down the
+corridor all night.
+
+"The waggon is here," said he. "Breakfast will be given you at the
+station."
+
+To which Hexford, looking over his shoulder, added: "I'm sorry to
+say that we have here the warrant for your arrest. Can I do
+anything for you?"
+
+"Warrant!" I burst out, "what do you want of a warrant? It is as a
+witness you seek to detain me, I presume?"
+
+"No," was his brusque reply. "The charge upon which you are arrested is
+one of murder. You will have to appear before a magistrate. I'm sorry to
+be the one to tell you this, but the evidence against you is very strong,
+and the police must do their duty."
+
+"But I am innocent, absolutely innocent," I protested, the perspiration
+starting from every pore as the full meaning of the charge burst upon me.
+"What I have told you was correct. I, myself, found her dead--"
+
+Hexford gave me a look.
+
+"Don't talk," he kindly suggested. "Leave that to the lawyers." Then, as
+the other man turned aside for a moment, he whispered in my ear, "It's no
+go; one of our men saw you with your fingers on her throat. He had
+clambered into a pine tree and the shade of the window was up. You had
+better come quietly. Not a soul believes you innocent."
+
+This, then, was what had doomed me from the start; this, and that partly
+burned letter. I understood now why the kind-hearted coroner, who loved
+my father, had urged me to tell my tale, hoping that I would explain this
+act and give him some opportunity to indulge in a doubt. And I had failed
+to respond to the hint he had given me. The act itself must appear so
+sinister and the impulse which drove me to it so incomprehensible,
+without the heart-rending explanation I dare not subjoin, that I never
+questioned the wisdom of silence in its regard.
+
+Yet this silence had undone me. I had been seen fingering my dead
+betrothed's throat, and nothing I could now say or do would ever convince
+people that she was dead before my hands touched her, strangled by
+another's clutch. One person only in the whole world would know and feel
+how false this accusation was. And yesterday that one's trust in my
+guiltlessness would have thrown a ray of light upon the deepest infamy
+which could befall me. But to-day there had settled over that once
+innocent spirit, a cloud of too impenetrable a nature for any light to
+struggle to and fro between us.
+
+I could not contemplate that cloud. I could not dwell upon her misery, or
+upon the revulsion of feeling which follows such impetuous acts. And it
+had been an impetuous act--the result of one of her rages. I had been
+told of these rages. I had even seen her in one. When they passed she was
+her lovable self once more and very penitent and very downcast. If all I
+feared were true, she was suffering acutely now. But I gave no thought to
+this. I could dream of but one thing--how to save her from the penalty of
+crime, a penalty I might be forced to suffer myself and would prefer to
+suffer rather than see it fall upon one so young and so angelically
+beautiful.
+
+Turning to the officer next me, I put the question which had been burning
+in my mind for hours:
+
+"Tell me, how you came to know there was trouble here? What brought you
+to this house? There can be nothing wrong in telling me that."
+
+"Well, if you don't know--" he began.
+
+"I do not," I broke in.
+
+"I guess you'd better wait till the chief has had a word with you."
+
+I suppressed all tokens of my disappointment, and by a not unnatural
+reaction, perhaps, began to take in, and busy myself with, the very
+considerations I had hitherto shunned. Where was Carmel, and how was she
+enduring these awful hours? Had repentance come, and with it a desire to
+own her guilt? Did she think of me and the effect this unlooked-for death
+would have upon my feelings? That I should suffer arrest for her crime
+could not have entered her mind. I had seen her, but she had not seen me,
+in the dark hall which I must now traverse as a prisoner and a suspect.
+No intimation of my dubious position or its inevitable consequences had
+reached her yet. When it did, what would she do? I did not know her well
+enough to tell. The attraction she had felt for me had not been strong
+enough to lead her to accommodate herself to my wishes and marry me
+off-hand, but it had been strong enough to nerve her arm in whatever
+altercation she may have had with her jealous-minded sister. It was the
+temper and not the strength of the love which would tell in a strait like
+this. Would it prove of a generous kind? Should I have to combat her
+desire to take upon herself the full blame of her deed, with all its
+shames and penalties? Or should I have the still deeper misery of finding
+her callous to my position and welcoming any chance which diverted
+suspicion from herself? Either supposition might be possible, according
+to my judgment in this evil hour. All communication between us, in spite
+of our ardent and ungovernable passion, had been so casual and so slight.
+Looks, a whispered word or so, one furtive clasp in which our hands
+seemed to grow together, were all I had to go upon as tests of her
+feeling towards me. Her character I had judged from her face, which was
+lovely. But faces deceive, and the loveliness of youth is not like the
+loveliness of age--an absolute mirror of the soul within. Was not Medusa
+captivating, for all her snaky locks? Hide those locks and one might have
+thought her a Daphne.
+
+What would relieve my doubts? As Hexford drew near me again on our way to
+the head of the staircase, I summoned up courage to ask:
+
+"Have you heard anything from the Hill? Has the news of this tragedy been
+communicated to Miss Cumberland's family, and if so, how are they bearing
+this affliction?"
+
+His lip curled, and for a minute he hesitated; then something in my
+aspect or the straight-forward look I gave him, softened him and he
+answered frankly, if coldly:
+
+"Word has gone there, of course, but only the servants are affected by
+it so far. Miss Cumberland, the younger, is very ill, and the boy--I
+don't know his name--has not shown up since last evening. He's very
+dissipated, they say, and may be in any one of the joints in the lower
+part of the town."
+
+I stopped in dismay, clutching wildly at the railing of the stairs we
+were descending. I had hardly heard the latter words, all my mind was on
+what he had said first.
+
+"Miss Carmel Cumberland ill?" I stammered, "too ill to be told?"
+
+I was sufficiently master of myself to put it this way.
+
+"Yes," he rejoined, kindly, as he urged me down the very stairs I had
+seen her descend in such a state of mind a few hours before. "A servant
+who had been out late, heard the fall of some heavy body as she was
+passing Miss Cumberland's rooms, and rushing in found Miss Carmel, as she
+called her, lying on the floor near the open fire. Her face had struck
+the bars of the grate in falling, and she was badly burned. But that was
+not all; she was delirious with fever, brought on, they think, by anxiety
+about her sister, whose name she was constantly repeating. They had a
+doctor for her and the whole house was up before ever the word came of
+what had happened here."
+
+I thanked him with a look. I had no opportunity for more. Half a dozen
+officers were standing about the front door, and in another moment I was
+bustled into the conveyance provided and was being driven away from the
+death-haunted spot.
+
+I had heard the last whisper of those pines for many, many days. But not
+in my dreams; it ever came back at night, sinister, awesome, haunted with
+dead hopes and breathing of an ever doubtful future.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+CLIFTON ACCEPTS MY CASE
+
+This hand of mine
+Is yet a maiden and an innocent hand,
+Not painted with the crimson spots of blood.
+Within this bosom never enter'd yet
+The dreadful motion of a murd'rous thought.
+
+_King John_.
+
+
+My first thought (when I could think at all) was this:
+
+"She has some feeling, then! Her terror and remorse have maddened her. I
+can dwell upon her image with pity." The next, "Will they find her wet
+clothes and discover that she was out last night?" The latter possibility
+troubled me. My mind was the seat of strange contradictions.
+
+As the day advanced and I began to realise that I, Elwood Ranelagh,
+easy-going man of the world, but with traditions of respectable living on
+both sides of my house and a list of friends of which any man might be
+proud, was in a place of detention on the awful charge of murder, I found
+that my keenest torment arose from the fact that I was shut off from the
+instant knowledge of what was going on in the house where all my
+thoughts, my fears, and shall I say it, latent hopes were centred. To
+know Carmel ill and not to know how ill! To feel the threatening arm of
+the law hovering constantly over her head and neither to know the instant
+of its fall nor be given the least opportunity to divert it. To realise
+that some small inadvertance on her part, some trivial but incriminating
+object left about, some heedless murmur or burst of unconscious frenzy
+might precipitate her doom, and I remain powerless, bearing my share of
+suspicion and ignominy, it is true, but not the chief share if matters
+befell as I have suggested, which they were liable to do at any hour,
+nay, at any minute.
+
+My examination before the magistrate held one element of comfort.
+Nothing in its whole tenor went to show that, as yet, she was in the
+least suspected of any participation in my so-called crime. But the
+knowledge which came later, of how the police first learned of trouble
+at the club-house did not add to this sense of relief, whatever
+satisfaction it gave my curiosity. A cry of distress had come to them
+over the telephone; a wild cry, in a woman's choked and tremulous voice:
+"Help at The Whispering Pines! Help!" That was all, or all they revealed
+to me. In their endeavour to find out whether or not I was present when
+this call was made, I learned the nature of their own suspicions. They
+believed that Adelaide in some moment of prevision had managed to reach
+the telephone and send out this message. But what did I believe? What
+could I believe? All the incidents of the deadly struggle which must
+have preceded the fatal culminating act, were mysteries which my mind
+refused to penetrate. After hours of torturing uncertainty, and an
+evening which was the miserable precursor of a still more miserable
+night, I decided to drop conjecture and await the enlightenment which
+must come with the morrow.
+
+It was, therefore, in a condition of mingled dread and expectation that I
+opened the paper which was brought me the next morning. Of the shock
+which it gave me to see my own name blotting the page with suggestions of
+hideous crime, I will not speak, but pass at once to the few gleams of
+added knowledge I was able to gather from those abominable columns.
+Arthur, the good-for-nothing brother, had returned from his wild carouse
+and had taken affairs in charge with something like spirit and a decent
+show of repentance for his own shortcomings and the mad taste for liquor
+which had led him away from home that night. Carmel was still ill, and
+likely to be so for many days to come. Her case was diagnosed as one of
+brain fever and of a most dangerous type. Doctors and nurses were busy at
+her bedside and little hope was held out of her being able to tell soon,
+if ever, what she knew of her sister's departure from the house on that
+fatal evening. That her testimony on this point would be invaluable was
+self-evident, for proofs were plenty of her having haunted her sister's
+rooms all the evening in a condition of more or less delirium. She was
+alone in the house and this may have added to her anxieties, all of the
+servants having gone to the policemen's ball. It was on their return in
+the early morning hours that she had been discovered, lying ill and
+injured before her sister's fireplace.
+
+One fact was mentioned which set me thinking. The keys of the club-house
+had been found lying on a table in the side hall of the Cumberland
+mansion--the keys which I have already mentioned as missing from my
+pocket. An alarming discovery which might have acted as a clew to the
+suspicious I feared, if their presence there had not been explained by
+the waitress who had cleared the table after dinner. Coming upon these
+keys lying on the floor beside one of the chairs, she had carried them
+out into the hall and laid them where they would be more readily seen.
+She had not recognised the keys, but had taken it for granted that they
+belonged to Mr. Ranelagh who had dined at the house that night.
+
+They were my keys, and I have already related how I came to drop them on
+the floor. Had they but stayed there! Adelaide, or was it Carmel, might
+not have seen them and been led by some strange, if not tragic, purpose,
+incomprehensible to us now and possibly never to find full explanation,
+to enter the secret and forsaken spot where I later found them, the one
+dead, the other fleeing in frenzy, but not in such a thoughtless frenzy
+as to forget these keys or to fail to lock the club-house door behind
+her. That she, on her return home, should have had sufficient presence of
+mind to toss these keys down in the same place from which she or her
+sister had taken them, argued well for her clear-headedness up to that
+moment. The fever must have come on later--a fever which with my
+knowledge of what had occurred at The Whispering Pines, seemed the only
+natural outcome of the situation.
+
+The next paragraph detailed a fact startling enough to rouse my deepest
+interest. Zadok Brown, the Cumberlands' coachman, declared that Arthur's
+cutter and what he called the grey mare had been out that night. They
+were both in place when he returned to the stable towards early morning,
+but the signs were unmistakable that both had been out in the snow since
+he left the stable at about nine. He had locked the stable-door at that
+time, but the key always hung in the kitchen where any one could get it.
+This was on account of Arthur, who, if he wanted to go out late,
+sometimes harnessed a horse himself. Zadok judged that he had done so
+this night, though how the horse happened to be back and in her stall and
+no Mr. Arthur in the house, it would take wiser heads than his to
+explain. But he was sure the mare had been out.
+
+There was some comment made on this, because Arthur had denied using his
+cutter that night. He declared instead that he had gone out on foot and
+designated the coachman's tale as all bosh. "I was not the only one who
+had a drop too much down-town," was the dogged assertion with which he
+met all questions on this subject. "I wouldn't give a snap of my finger
+for Zadok's opinion on any subject, after five hours of dancing and the
+necessary drinks. There were no signs of the mare having been out when I
+got home." As this was about noon the next day, his opinion on this point
+could not be said to count for much.
+
+As for myself, I felt inclined to believe that the mare had been out,
+that one or both of the women had harnessed him and that it was by these
+means they had reached The Whispering Pines. The night was too cold, a
+storm too imminent, for them to have contemplated so long a walk on a
+road so remote as that leading to the club-house. Arthur was athletic but
+Adelaide was far from strong and never addicted to walking under the
+most favourable conditions. Of all the mysteries surrounding her dead
+presence in the club-house, the one which from the first had struck me as
+the most inexplicable was the manner of her reaching there. Now I could
+understand both that fact and how Carmel had succeeded in returning in
+safety to her home. She had ridden both ways--a theory which likewise
+explained how she came to wear a man's derby and possibly a man's
+overcoat. With her skirts covered by a bear-skin she would present a very
+fair figure of a man to any one who chanced to pass her. This was
+desirable in her case. A man and woman driving at a late hour through the
+city streets would attract little, if any, attention, while two women
+might. Having no wish to attract attention, they had resorted to
+subterfuge--or Carmel had; it was not like Adelaide to do so. She was
+always perfectly open, both in manner and speech.
+
+These were my deductions drawn from my own knowledge. Would others who
+had not my knowledge be in any wise influenced to draw the same? Would
+the fact that the mare had been out during those mysterious hours when
+everybody had appeared to be absent from the house, saving the one young
+girl whom they afterwards found stark, staring mad with delirium, serve
+to awaken suspicion of her close and personal connection with this crime?
+There was nothing in this reporter's article to show that such an idea
+had dawned upon his mind, but the police are not readily hoodwinked and I
+dreaded the result of their inquiries, if they chose to follow this
+undoubted clew.
+
+Yet, if they let this point slip, where should I be? Human nature is
+human all the way through, and I could not help having moments when I
+asked myself if this young girl were worth the sacrifice I contemplated
+making for her? She was lovely to look at, amiable and of womanly promise
+save at those rare and poignant moments when passion would seize her in a
+gust which drove everything before it. But were any of these
+considerations sufficient to justify me in letting my whole manhood slip
+for the sake of one who, whatever the provocation, had used the strength
+of her hands against the sister who had been as a mother to her for so
+many years. That she had had provocation I did not doubt. Adelaide, for
+all her virtues, was not an easy person to deal with. Upright and
+perfectly sincere herself, she had no sympathy with or commiseration for
+any lack of principle or any display of selfishness in others. A little
+cold, a little reserved, a little lacking in spontaneity, though always
+correct and always generous in her gifts and often in her acts, her whole
+nature would rise at any evidence of meanness or ingratitude, and though
+she said little, you would feel her disapprobation through and through.
+She would even change physically. Naturally pallid and of small
+inconspicuous features, her eyes on these occasions would so flame and
+her whole figure so dilate that she looked like another woman. I have
+seen her brother, six feet in height and weighty for his years, cringe
+under her few quiet words at these times till she absolutely seemed the
+taller of the two. It was only in these moments she was handsome, and had
+I loved her, I should probably have admired this passionate purity, this
+intolerance of all that was small or selfish or unworthy a good woman's
+esteem. But not loving her, I had merely cherished a wholesome fear of
+her displeasure, and could quite comprehend what a full display of anger
+on her part might call up in her sensitive, already deeply suffering
+sister. The scathing arraignment, the unbearable taunt--Well, well, it
+was all dream-work, but I had time to dream and opportunity for little
+else, and pictures, which till now I had sedulously kept in the
+background of my imagination, would come to the front as I harped on this
+topic and weighed in my disturbed mind the following question: Should I
+continue the course which I had instinctively taken out of a natural
+sense of chivalry, or face my calumniators with the truth and leave my
+cause and hers to the justice of men, rather than to the slow but
+righteous workings of Providence?
+
+I struggled with the dilemma for hours, the more so, that I did not stand
+alone in the world. I had relatives and I had friends, some of whom had
+come to see me and gone away deeply grieved at my reticence. I was
+swayed, too, by another consideration. I had deeply loved my mother. She
+was dead, but I had her honour to think of. Should it be said she had a
+murderer for her son? In the height of my inner conflict, I had almost
+cried aloud the fierce denial which would arise at this thought. But ere
+the word could leave my lips, such a vision rose before me of a
+bewildering young face with wonderful eyes and a smile too innocent for
+guile and too loving for hypocrisy, that I forgot my late antagonistic
+feelings, forgot the claims of my dear, dead mother, and even those of my
+own future. Such passion and such devotion merited consideration from
+the man who had called them forth. I would not slight the claims of my
+dead mother but I would give this young girl a chance for her life. Let
+others ferret out the fact that she had visited the club-house with her
+sister; I would not proclaim it. It was enough for me to proclaim my
+innocence, and that I would do to the last.
+
+I was in this frame of mind when Charles Clifton called and was allowed
+to see me. I had sent for him in one of my discouraged moods. He was my
+friend, but he was also my legal adviser, and it was as such I had
+summoned him, and it was as such he had now come. Cordial as our
+relations had been--though he was hardly one of my ilk--I noted no
+instinctive outstretching of his hand, and so did not reach out mine.
+Appearances had been too strong against me for any such spontaneous
+outburst from even my best friends. I realised that to expect otherwise
+from him or from any other man would be to play the fool; and this was no
+time for folly. The day for that was passed.
+
+I was the first to speak.
+
+"You see me where you have never thought to see a friend of yours. But we
+won't go into that. The police have good reasons for what they have done
+and I presume feel justified in my commitment. Notwithstanding, I am an
+innocent man so far as the attack made upon Miss Cumberland goes. I had
+no hand in her murder, if murder it is found out to be. My story which
+you have read in the papers and which I felt forced to give out, possibly
+to my own shame and that of another whom I would fain have saved, is an
+absolutely true one. I did not arrive at The Whispering Pines until
+after Miss Cumberland was dead. To this I am ready to swear and it is
+upon this fact you must rely, in any defence you may hereafter be called
+upon to make in my regard."
+
+He listened as a lawyer would be apt to listen to such statements from
+the man who had summoned him to his aid. But I saw that I had made no
+impression on his convictions. He regarded me as a guilty man, and what
+was more to the point no doubt, as one for whom no plea could be made or
+any rational defence undertaken.
+
+"You don't believe me," I went on, still without any great bitterness. "I
+am not surprised at it, after what the man Clarke has said of seeing me
+with my hands on her throat. Any man, friend or not, would take me for a
+villain after that. But, Charles, to you I will confess what cowardice
+kept me from owning to Dr. Perry at the proper, possibly at the only
+proper moment, that I did this out of a wild desire to see if those marks
+were really the marks of strangling fingers. I could not believe that she
+had been so killed and, led away by my doubts, I leaned over her and--You
+shall believe me, you must," I insisted, as I perceived his hard gaze
+remain unsoftened. "I don't ask it of the rest of the world. I hardly
+expect any one to give me credit for good impulses or even for speaking
+the plain truth after the discovery which has been made of my treacherous
+attitude towards these two virtuous and devoted women. But you--if you
+are to act as my counsel--must take this denial from me as gospel truth.
+I may disappoint you in other ways. I may try you and often make you
+regret that you undertook my case, but on this fact you may safely pin
+your faith. She was dead before I touched her. Had the police spy whose
+testimony is likely to hang me, climbed the tree a moment sooner than he
+did, he would have seen that. Are you ready to take my case?"
+
+Clifton is a fair fellow and I knew if he once accepted the fact I thus
+urged upon him, he would work for me with all the skill and ability my
+desperate situation demanded. I, therefore, watched him with great
+anxiety for the least change in the constrained attitude and fixed,
+unpromising gaze with which he had listened to me, and was conscious of a
+great leap of heart as the set expression of his features relaxed, and he
+responded almost warmly:
+
+"I will take your case, Ranelagh. God help me to make it good against
+all odds."
+
+I was conscious of few hopes, but some of the oppression under which I
+laboured lifted at those words. I had assured one man of my innocence! It
+was like a great rock in the weary desert. My sigh of relief bespoke my
+feelings and I longed to take his hand, but the moment had not yet come.
+Something was wanting to a perfect confidence between us, and I was in
+too sensitive a frame of mind to risk the slightest rebuff.
+
+He was ready to speak before I was. "Then, you had not been long on the
+scene of crime when the police arrived?"
+
+"I had been in the room but a few minutes. I do not know how long I was
+searching the house."
+
+"The police say that fully twenty minutes elapsed between the time they
+received Miss Cumberland's appeal for help and their arrival at the
+club-house. If you were there that long--"
+
+"I cannot say. Moments are hours at such a crisis--I--"
+
+My emotions were too much for me, and I confusedly stopped. He was
+surveying me with the old distrust. In a moment I saw why.
+
+"You are not open with me," he protested. "Why should moments be hours to
+you previous to the instant when you stripped those pillows from the
+couch? You are not a fanciful man, nor have you any cowardly instincts.
+Why were you in such a turmoil going through a house where you could have
+expected to find nothing worse than some miserable sneak thief?"
+
+This was a poser. I had laid myself open to suspicion by one
+thoughtless admission, and what was worse, it was but the beginning in
+all probability of many other possible mistakes. I had never taken the
+trouble to measure my words and the whole truth being impossible, I
+necessarily must make a slip now and then. He had better be warned of
+this. I did not wish him to undertake my cause blindfolded. He must
+understand its difficulties while believing in my innocence. Then, if
+he chose to draw back, well and good. I should have to face the
+situation alone.
+
+"Charles," said I, as soon as I could perfectly control my speech, "you
+are quite just in your remark. I am not and can not be perfectly open
+with you. I shall tell you no lies, but beyond that I cannot promise. I
+am caught in a net not altogether of my own weaving. So far I will be
+frank with you. A common question may trip me up, others find me free and
+ready with my defence. You have chanced upon one of the former. I was in
+a turmoil of mind from the moment of my entrance into that fatal house,
+but I can give no reason for it unless I am, as you hinted, a coward."
+
+He settled that supposition with a gesture I had rather not have seen. It
+would be better for him to consider me a poltroon than to suspect my real
+reasons for the agitation which I had acknowledged.
+
+"You say you cannot be open with me. That means you have certain memories
+connected with that night which you cannot divulge."
+
+"Right, Charles; but not memories of guilt--of active guilt, I mean. This
+I have previously insisted on, and this is what you must believe. I am
+not even an accessory before the fact. I am perfectly innocent so far as
+Adelaide's death is concerned. You may proceed on that basis without
+fear. That is, if you continue to take an interest in my case. If not, I
+shall be the last to blame you. Little honour is likely to accrue to you
+from defending me."
+
+"I have accepted the case and I shall continue to interest myself in it,"
+he assured me, with a dogged rather than genial persistence. "But I
+should like to know what I am to work upon, if it cannot be shown that
+her call for help came before you entered the building."
+
+"That would be the best defence possible, of course," I replied; "but
+neither from your standpoint nor mine is it a feasible one. I have no
+proof of my assertion, I never looked at my watch from the time I left
+the station till I found it run down this very morning. The club-house
+clock has been out of order for some time and was not running. All I know
+and can swear to about the length of time I was in that building prior
+to the arrival of the police, is that it could not have been very long,
+since she was not only dead and buried under those accumulated cushions,
+but in a room some little distance from the telephone."
+
+"That will do for me," said he, "but scarcely for those who are
+prejudiced against you. Everything points so indisputably to your guilt.
+The note which you say you wrote to Carmel to meet you at the station
+looks very much more like one to Miss Cumberland to meet you at the
+club-house."
+
+It was thus I first learned which part of this letter had been
+burned off.[1]
+
+[Footnote :1 It was the top portion, leaving the rest to read:
+
+_"Come, come my darling, my life. She will forgive when all is done.
+Hesitation will only undo us. To-night at 10:30. I shall never marry any
+one but you."_
+
+It was also evident that I had failed to add those expressions of
+affection linked to Carmel's name which had been in my mind and awakened
+my keenest apprehension.]
+
+"Otherwise," he pursued, "what could have taken her there? Everybody who
+knew her will ask that. Such a night! so soon after seeing you! It is a
+mystery any way, but one entirely inconceivable without some such excuse
+for her. These lines said 'Come!' and she went, for reasons which may be
+clear to you who were acquainted with her weak as well as strong points.
+Went how? No one knows. By chance or by intention on her part or yours,
+every servant was out of the house by nine o'clock, and her brother, too.
+Only the sister remained, the sister whom you profess to have urged to
+leave the town with you that very evening; and she can tell us
+nothing,--may die without ever being able to do so. Some shock to her
+feelings--you may know its character and you may not--drove her from a
+state of apparent health into the wildest delirium in a few hours. It was
+not your letter--if your story is true about that letter--or she would
+have shown its effect immediately upon receiving it; that is, in the
+early evening. And she did not. Helen, one of the maids, declares that
+she saw her some time after you left the house, and that she wore
+anything but a troubled look; that, in fact, her countenance was beaming
+and so beautiful that, accustomed as the girl was to her young mistress's
+good looks, she was more than struck by her appearance and spoke of it
+afterwards at the ball. A telling circumstance against you, Ranelagh, not
+only contradicting your own story but showing that her after condition
+sprang from some sudden and extreme apprehension in connection with her
+sister. Did you speak?"
+
+No, I had not spoken. I had nothing to say. I was too deeply shaken by
+what he had just told me, to experience anything but the utmost confusion
+of ideas. Carmel beaming and beautiful at an hour I had supposed her
+suffering and full of struggle! I could not reconcile it with the letter
+she had written me, or with that understanding with her sister which
+ended so hideously in The Whispering Pines.
+
+The lawyer, seeing my helpless state, proceeded with his presentation of
+my case as it looked to unprejudiced eyes.
+
+"Miss Cumberland comes to the club-house; so do you. You have not the
+keys and so go searching about the building till you find an unlocked
+window by which you both enter. There are those who say you purposely
+left this window unfastened when you went about the house the day
+before; that you dropped the keys in her house where they would be sure
+to be found, and drove down to the station and stood about there for a
+good half hour, in order to divert suspicion from yourself afterwards and
+create an alibi in case it should be wanted. I do not believe any of this
+myself, not since accepting your assurance of innocence, but there are
+those who do believe it firmly and discern in the whole affair a cool and
+premeditated murder. Your passion for Carmel, while not generally known,
+has not passed unsuspected by your or her intimates; and this in itself
+is enough to give colour to these suspicions, even if you had not gone so
+far as to admit its power over you and the extremes to which you were
+willing to go to secure the wife you wished. So much for the situation as
+it appears to outsiders. Of the circumstantial evidence which links you
+personally to this crime, we have already spoken. It is very strong and
+apparently unassailable. But truth is truth, and if you only felt free to
+bare your whole soul to me as you now decline to do, I should not despair
+of finding some weak link in the chain which seems so satisfactory to the
+police and, I am forced to add, to the general public."
+
+"Charles--"
+
+I was very near unbosoming myself to him at that moment. But I caught
+myself back in time. While Carmel lay ill and unconscious, I would not
+clear my name at her expense by so much as a suggestion.
+
+"Charles," I repeated, but in a different tone and with a different
+purpose, "how do they account for the cordial that was drunk--the two
+emptied glasses and the flask which were found in the adjacent closet?"
+
+"It's one of the affair's conceded incongruities. Miss Cumberland is a
+well-known temperance woman. Had the flask and glasses not come from her
+house, you would get no one to believe that she had had anything to do
+with them. Have you any hint to give on this point? It would be a welcome
+addition to our case."
+
+Alas! I was as much puzzled by those emptied cordial glasses as he was,
+and told him so; also by the presence of the third unused one. As I dwelt
+in thought on the latter circumstance, I remembered the observation which
+Coroner Perry had made concerning it.
+
+"Coroner Perry speaks of a third and unused glass which was found with
+the flask," I ventured, tentatively. "He seemed to consider it an
+important item, hiding some truth that would materially help this case.
+What do you think, or rather, what is the general opinion on this point?"
+
+"I have not heard. I have seen the fact mentioned, but without comment.
+It is a curious circumstance. I will make a note of it. You have no
+suggestions to offer on the subject?"
+
+"None."
+
+"The clew is a small one," he smiled.
+
+"So is the one offered by the array of bottles found on the kitchen
+table; yet the latter may lead directly to the truth. Adelaide never dug
+those out of the cellar where they were locked up, and I'm sure I did
+not. Yet I suppose I'm given credit for doing so."
+
+"Naturally. The key to the wine-vault was the only key which was lacking
+from the bunch left at Miss Cumberland's. That it was used to open the
+wine-vault door is evident from the fact that it was found in the lock."
+
+This was discouraging. Everything was against me. If the whole affair had
+been planned with an intent to inculpate me and me only, it could not
+have been done with more attention to detail, nor could I have found
+myself more completely enmeshed. Yet I knew, both from circumstances and
+my own instinct that no such planning had occurred. I was a victim, not
+of malice but of blind chance, or shall I say of Providence? As to this
+one key having been slipped from the rest and used to open the wine-vault
+for wine which nobody wanted and nobody drank--this must be classed with
+the other incongruities which might yet lead to my enlargement.
+
+"You may add this coincidence to the other," I conceded, after I had
+gone thus far in my own mind. "I swear that I had nothing to do with
+that key."
+
+Neither could I believe that it had been used or even carried there by
+Adelaide or Carmel, though I knew that the full ring of keys had been in
+their hands and that they had entered the building by means of one of
+them. So assured was I of their innocence in this regard that the idea
+which afterwards assumed such proportions in all our minds had, at this
+moment, its first dawning in mine, as well as its first outward
+expression.
+
+"Some other man than myself was thirsty that night," I firmly declared.
+"We are getting on, Charles."
+
+Evidently he did not consider the pace a very fast one, but being a
+cheerful fellow by nature, he simply expressed his dissatisfaction by an
+imperceptible shrug.
+
+"Do you know exactly what the club-house's wine-vault contained?" he
+asked.
+
+"An inventory was given me by the steward the morning we closed. It must
+be in my rooms."
+
+"Your rooms have been examined. You expected that, didn't you? Probably
+this inventory has been found. I don't suppose it will help any."
+
+"How should it?"
+
+"Very true; how should it! No thoroughfare there, of course."
+
+"No thoroughfare anywhere to-day," I exclaimed. "To-morrow some loop-hole
+of escape may suggest itself to me. I should like to sleep on the matter.
+I--I should like to sleep on it."
+
+He saw that I had something in mind of which I had thus far given him no
+intimation, and he waited anxiously for me to reconsider my last words
+before he earnestly remarked:
+
+"A day lost at a time like this is often a day never retrieved. Think
+well before you bid me leave you, unenlightened as to the direction in
+which you wish me to work."
+
+But I was not ready, not by any means ready, and he detected this when I
+next spoke.
+
+"I will see you to-morrow; any time to-morrow; meantime I will give you a
+commission which you are at liberty to perform yourself or to entrust to
+some capable detective. The letter, of which a portion remains, _was_
+written to Carmel, and she sent me a reply which was handed me on the
+station platform by a man who was a perfect stranger to me. I have
+hardly any memory of how the man looked, but it should be an easy task to
+find him and if you cannot do that, the smallest scrap of the note he
+gave me, and which unfortunately I tore up and scattered to the winds,
+would prove my veracity in this one particular and so make it easier for
+them to believe the rest."
+
+His eye lightened. I presume the prospect of making any practical attempt
+in my behalf was welcome.
+
+"One thing more," I now added. "My ring was missing from Miss
+Cumberland's hand when I took away those pillows. I have reason to
+think--or it is natural for me to think--that she planned to return it to
+me by some messenger or in some letter. Do you know if such messenger or
+such letter has been received at my apartments? Have you heard anything
+about this ring? It was a notable one and not to be confounded with any
+other. Any one who knew us or who had ever remarked it on her hand would
+be able to identify it."
+
+"I have heard the ring mentioned," he replied, "I have even heard that
+the police are interested in finding it; but I have not heard that they
+have been successful. You encourage me much by assuring me that it was
+missing from her hand when you first saw her. That ring may prove our
+most valuable clew."
+
+"Yes, but you must also remember that she may have taken it off before
+she started for the club-house."
+
+"That is very true."
+
+"You do not know whether they have looked for it at her home?"
+
+"I do not."
+
+"Will you find out, and will you see that I get all my letters?"
+
+"I certainly will, but you must not expect to receive the latter
+unopened."
+
+"I suppose not."
+
+I said this with more cheerfulness than he evidently expected. My heart
+had been lightened of one load. The ring had not been discovered on
+Carmel as I had secretly feared.
+
+"I will take good care of your interests from now on," he remarked, in a
+tone much more natural than any he had before used. "Be hopeful and show
+a brave front to the district attorney when he comes to interview you. I
+hear that he is expected home to-morrow. If you are innocent, you can
+face him and his whole office with calm assurance." Which showed how
+little he understood my real position.
+
+There was comfort in this very thought, however, and I quietly remarked
+that I did not despair.
+
+"And I _will_ not," he emphasised, rising with an assumption of ease
+which left him as he remained hesitating before me.
+
+It was my moment of advantage, and I improved it by proffering a request
+which had been more or less in my mind during the whole of this
+prolonged colloquy.
+
+First thanking him for his disinterestedness, I remarked that he had
+shown me so much consideration as a lawyer, that I now felt emboldened to
+ask something from him as my friend.
+
+"You are free," said I; "I am not. Miss Cumberland will be buried before
+I leave these four walls. I hate to think of her going to her grave
+without one token from the man to whom she has been only too good and
+who, whatever outrage he may have planned to her feelings, is not without
+reverence for her character and a heartfelt repentance for whatever he
+may have done to grieve her. Charles, a few flowers,--white--no wreath,
+just a few which can be placed on her breast or in her hand. You need not
+say whom they are from. It would seem a mockery to any one but her.
+Lilies, Charles. I shall feel happier to know that they are there. Will
+you do this for me?"
+
+"I will."
+
+"That is all."
+
+Instinctively he held out his hand. I dropped mine in it; there was a
+slight pressure, some few more murmured words and he was gone.
+
+I slept that night.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+A CHANCE! I TAKE IT
+
+I entreat you then
+From one that so imperfectly conjects,
+You'd take no notice; nor build yourself a trouble
+Out of his scattering and unsure observance:
+It were not for your quiet, nor your good,
+Nor for my manhood, honesty or wisdom,
+To let you know my thoughts.
+
+_Othello_
+
+
+I slept, though a question of no small importance was agitating my mind,
+demanding instant consideration and a definite answer before I again saw
+this friend and adviser. I woke to ask if the suggestion which had come
+to me in our brief conversation about the bottles taken from the
+wine-vault, was the promising one it had then appeared, or only a fool's
+trick bound to end in disaster. I weighed the matter in every
+conceivable way, and ended by trusting to the instinct which impelled me
+to have resource to the one and only means by which the scent might be
+diverted from its original course, confusion be sown in the minds of the
+police, and Carmel, as well as myself, be saved from the pit gaping to
+receive us.
+
+This was my plan. I would acknowledge to having seen a horse and cutter
+leave the club-house by the upper gateway, simultaneously with my
+entrance through the lower one. I would even describe the appearance of
+the person driving this cutter. No one by the greatest stretch of
+imagination would be apt to associate this description with Carmel; but
+it might set the authorities thinking, and if by any good chance a cutter
+containing a person wearing a derby hat and a coat with an extra high
+collar should have been seen on this portion of the road, or if, as I
+earnestly hoped, the snow had left any signs of another horse having been
+tethered in the clump of trees opposite the one where I had concealed my
+own, enough of the truth might be furnished to divide public opinion and
+start fresh inquiry.
+
+That a woman's form had sought concealment under these masculine
+habiliments would not, could not, strike anybody's mind. Nothing in
+the crime had suggested a woman's presence, much less a woman's
+active agency.
+
+On the contrary, all the appearances, save such as I believed known to
+myself alone, spoke so openly of a man's strength, a man's methods, a
+man's appetite, and a man's brutal daring that the suspicion which had
+naturally fallen on myself as the one and only person implicated, would
+in shifting pass straight to another man, and, if he could not be found,
+return to me, or be lost in a maze of speculation. This seemed so evident
+after a long and close study of the situation that I was ready with my
+confession when Mr. Clifton next came. I had even forestalled it in a
+short interview forced upon me by the assistant district attorney and
+Chief Hudson. That it had made an altogether greater impression upon the
+latter than I had expected, gave me additional courage when I came to
+discuss this new line of defence with the young lawyer. I was even able
+to tell him that, to all appearance, my long silence on a point so
+favourable to my own interests had not militated against me to the extent
+one would expect from men so alive to the subterfuges and plausible
+inventions of suspected criminals.
+
+"Chief Hudson believes me, late as my statement is. I saw it in his eye."
+Thus I went on. "And the assistant district attorney, too. At least, the
+latter is willing to give me the benefit of the doubt, which was more
+than I expected. What do you suppose has happened? Some new discovery on
+their part? If so, I ought to know what it is. Believe me, Charles, I
+ought to know what it is."
+
+"I have heard of no new discovery," he coldly replied, not quite pleased,
+as I could see, either with my words or my manner. "An old one may have
+served your purpose. If another cutter besides yours passed through the
+club-house grounds at the time you mention, it left tracks which all the
+fury of the storm would not have entirely obliterated in the fifteen
+minutes elapsing between that time and the arrival of the police. Perhaps
+they remember these tracks, and if you had been entirely frank that
+night--"
+
+"I know, I know," I put in, "but I wasn't. Lay it to my confusion of
+mind--to the great shock I had received, to anything but my own
+blood-guiltiness, and take up the matter as it now stands. Can't you
+follow up my suggestion? A witness can certainly be found who encountered
+that cutter and its occupant somewhere on the long stretch of open road
+between The Whispering Pines and the resident district."
+
+"Possibly. It would help. You have not asked for news from the Hill."
+
+The trembling which seized and shook me at these words testified to the
+shock they gave me. "Carmel!" I cried. "She is worse--dead!"
+
+"No. She's not worse and she's not dead. But the doctors say it will be
+weeks before they can allow a question of any importance to be put to
+her. You can see what that will do for us. Her testimony is too important
+to the case to be ignored. A delay will follow which may or may not be
+favourable to you. I am inclined to think now that it will redound to
+your interests. You are ready to swear to the sleigh you speak of; that
+you saw it leave the club-house grounds and turn north?"
+
+"Quite ready; but you must not ask me to describe or in any way to
+identify its occupant. I saw nothing but the hat and coat I have told you
+about. It was just before the moon went under a cloud, or I could not
+have seen that much."
+
+Is it so hard to preserve a natural aspect in telling or suggesting a lie
+that Charles's look should change as I uttered the last sentence? I do
+not easily flush, and since my self-control had been called upon by the
+dreadful experiences of the last few days, I had learned to conceal all
+other manifestations of feeling except under some exceptional shock. But
+a lie embodied in so many words, never came easy to my lips, and I
+suppose my voice fell, for his glance became suddenly penetrating, and
+his voice slightly sarcastic as he remarked:
+
+"Those clouds obscured more than the moon, I fancy. I only wish that
+they had not risen between you and me. This is the blindest case that has
+ever been put in my hands. All the more credit to me if I see you through
+it, I suppose; but--"
+
+"Tell me," I broke in, with equal desire to cut these recriminations
+short and to learn what was going on at the Cumberland house, "have you
+been to the Hill or seen anybody who has? Can't you give me some details
+of--of Carmel's condition; of the sort of nurse who cares for her, and
+how Arthur conducts himself under this double affliction?"
+
+"I was there last night. Miss Clifford was in the house and received me.
+She told me that Arthur's state of mind was pitiful. He was never a very
+affectionate brother, you know, but now they cannot get him away from
+Carmel's door. He sits or stands all day just outside the threshold and
+casts jealous and beseeching looks at those who are allowed to enter.
+They say you wouldn't know him. I tried to get him to come down and see
+me, but he wouldn't leave his post."
+
+"Doesn't he grieve for Adelaide? I always thought that of the two she had
+the greater influence over him."
+
+"Yes, but they cannot get him to enter the place where she lies. His duty
+is to the living, he says; at least, his anxiety is there. He starts at
+every cry Carmel utters."
+
+"She--cries out--then?"
+
+"Very often. I could hear her from where I sat downstairs."
+
+"And what does she say?"
+
+"The one thing constantly. 'Lila! Lila!' Nothing more."
+
+I kept my face in shadow. If he saw it at all, it must have looked as
+cold and hard as stone. After a moment, I went on with my queries:
+
+"Does he--Arthur--mention me at all?"
+
+"I did not discuss you greatly with Miss Clifford. I saw that she was
+prejudiced, and I preferred not to risk an argument; but she let fall
+this much: that Arthur felt very hard towards you and loudly insisted
+upon your guilt. She seemed to think him justified in this. You don't
+mind my telling you? It is better for you to know what is being said
+about you in town."
+
+I understood his motive. He was trying to drive me into giving him my
+full confidence. But I would not be driven. I simply retorted quietly but
+in a way to stop all such future attempts:
+
+"Miss Clifford is a very good girl and a true friend of the whole
+Cumberland family; but she is not the most discriminating person in the
+world, and even if she were, her opinion would not turn me from the
+course I have laid out for myself. Does the doctor--Dr. Carpenter, I
+presume,--venture to say how long Carmel's present delirium will hold?"
+
+"He cannot, not knowing its real cause. Carmel fell ill before the news
+of her sister's death arrived at the house, you remember. Some frightful
+scene must have occurred between the two, previous to Adelaide's
+departure for The Whispering Pines. What that scene was can only be told
+by Carmel and for her account we must wait. Happily you have an alibi
+which will serve you in this instance. You were at the station during
+the time we are speaking of."
+
+"Has that been proved?"
+
+"Yes; several men saw you there."
+
+"And the gentleman who brought me the--her letter?" It was more than
+difficult for me to speak Carmel's name. "He has not come forward?"
+
+"Not yet; not to my knowledge, at least."
+
+"And the ring?"
+
+"No news."
+
+"The nurse--you have told me nothing about her," I now urged, reverting
+to the topic of gravest interest to me. "Is she any one we know or an
+importation of the doctor's?"
+
+"I did not busy myself with that. She's a competent woman, of course. I
+suppose that is what you mean?"
+
+Could I tell him that this was not what I meant at all--that it was her
+qualities as woman rather than her qualifications as nurse which were
+important in this case? If she were of a suspicious, prying
+disposition, given to weighing every word and marking every gesture of
+a delirious patient, what might we not fear from her circumspection
+when Carmel's memory asserted itself and she grew more precise in the
+frenzy which now exhausted itself in unintelligible cries, or the
+ceaseless repetition of her sister's name. The question seemed of such
+importance to me that I was tempted to give expression to my secret
+apprehension on this score, but I bethought myself in time and passed
+the matter over with the final remark:
+
+"Watch her, watch them all, and bring me each and every detail of the
+poor girl's sickness. You will never regret humouring me in this. You
+ordered the flowers for--Adelaide?"
+
+"Yes; lilies, as you requested."
+
+A short silence, then I observed:
+
+"There will be no autopsy the papers say. The evidences of death by
+strangulation are too well defined."
+
+"Very true. Yet I wonder at their laxity in this. There were signs of
+some other agency having been at work also. Those two empty glasses
+smelling of cordial--innocent perhaps--yet--"
+
+"Don't! I can bear no more to-day. I shall be stronger to-morrow."
+
+Another feeler turned aside. His cheek showed his displeasure, but the
+words were kind enough with which he speedily took his leave and left me
+to solitude and a long night of maddening thought.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK TWO
+
+SWEETWATER TO THE FRONT
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+"WE KNOW OF NO SUCH LETTER"
+
+O, he sits high in all the people's hearts;
+And that, which would appear offence in us,
+His countenance like richest alchemy
+Will change to virtue, and to worthiness.
+
+_Julius Caesar_.
+
+
+And you still hold him?"
+
+"Yes, but with growing uncertainty. He's one of those fellows who affect
+your judgment in spite of yourself. Handsome beyond the ordinary, a
+finished gentleman and all that, he has, in addition to these advantages,
+a way with him that goes straight to the heart in spite of prejudice and
+the claims of conscience. That's a dangerous factor in a case like this.
+It hampers a man in the exercise of his duties. You may escape the
+fascination, probably will; but at least you will understand my present
+position and why I telephoned to New York for an expert detective to help
+us on this job. I wish to give the son of my old friend a chance."
+
+The man whom Coroner Perry thus addressed, leaned back in his chair and
+quietly replied:
+
+"You're right; not because he's the son of your old friend, a handsome
+fellow and all that, but for the reason that every man should have his
+full chance, whatever the appearances against him. Personally, I have no
+fear of my judgment being affected by his attractions. I've had to do
+with too many handsome scamps for that. But I shall be as just to him as
+you will, simply because it seems an incredibly brutal crime for a
+gentleman to commit, and also because I lay greater stress than you do on
+the two or three minor points which seem to favour his latest
+declaration, that a man had preceded him in his visit to this lonely
+club-house,--a man whom he had himself seen leaving the grounds in a
+cutter just as he entered by the opposite driveway."
+
+"Ah!" came in quick ejaculation from the coroner's lips, "I like to hear
+you say that. I was purposely careful not to lay emphasis on the facts
+you allude to. I wished you to draw your own inferences, without any aid
+from me. The police did find traces of a second horse and cutter having
+passed through the club-house grounds. It was snowing hard, and these
+traces were speedily obliterated, but Hexford and Clarke saw them in time
+to satisfy themselves that they extended from the northern clump of trees
+to the upper gateway where they took the direction of the Hill."
+
+"That is not all. A grip-sack, packed for travelling, was in Mr.
+Ranelagh's cutter, showing that his story of an intended journey was not
+without some foundation."
+
+"Yes. We have retained that grip-sack. It is not the only proof we have
+of his intention to leave the city for a while. He had made other
+arrangements, business arrangements--But that's neither here nor there.
+No one doubts that he planned an elopement with the beautiful Carmel; the
+question is, was his disappointment followed by the murder of the woman
+who stood in his way?"
+
+District Attorney Fox (you will have guessed his identity before now)
+took his time, deliberating carefully with himself before venturing to
+reply. Then when the coroner's concealed impatience was about to disclose
+itself, he quietly remarked:
+
+"I suppose that no conclusion can be drawn from the condition of the body
+when our men reached it. I judge that it was still warm."
+
+"Yes, but so it would have been if she had met her fate several minutes
+earlier than was supposed. Clarke and Hexford differ about the length of
+time which intervened between the moment when the former looked into the
+room from the outside and that of their final entrance. But whether it
+was five minutes or ten, the period was long enough to render their
+testimony uncertain as to the exact length of time she had lain there
+dead. Had I been there--But it's useless to go into that. Let us take up
+something more tangible."
+
+"Very good. Here it is. Of the six bottles of spirits which were
+surreptitiously taken from the club-house's wine-vault, four were found
+standing unopened on the kitchen table. Where are the other two?"
+
+"That's it! That's the question I have put myself ever since I
+interrogated the steward and found him ready to swear to the correctness
+of his report and the disappearance of these two bottles. Ranelagh did
+not empty them, or the bottles themselves would have been found somewhere
+about the place. Now, who did?"
+
+"No one within the club-house precincts. They were opened and emptied
+elsewhere. There's our clew and if the man you've got up from New York is
+worth his salt, he has his task ready to hand."
+
+"A hard task for a stranger--and such a stranger! Not very prepossessing,
+to say the least. But he has a good eye, and will get along with the boys
+all right. Nothing assertive about him; not enough go, perhaps. Would you
+like to see him?"
+
+"In a moment. I want to clear my mind in reference to these bottles. Only
+some one addicted to drink would drag those six bottles out of that cold,
+unlighted cellar."
+
+"Yes, and a connoisseur at that. The two missing bottles held the
+choicest brand in the whole stock. They were kept far back
+too--hidden, as it were, behind the other bottles. Yet they were
+hauled to the front and carried off, as you say, and by some one who
+knows a good thing in spirits."
+
+"What was in the four bottles found on the kitchen table?"
+
+"Sherry, whiskey, and rum. Two bottles of rum and one each of sherry
+and whiskey."
+
+"The thief meant to carry them all off, but had not time."
+
+"The _gentleman_ thief! No common man such as we are looking for, would
+make choice of just those bottles. So there we are again! Contradictions
+in every direction."
+
+"Don't let us bother with the contradictions, but just follow the clew.
+Those bottles, full or empty, must be found. You know the labels?"
+
+"Yes, and the shape and colour of the bottles, both of which are
+peculiar."
+
+"Good! Now let us see your detective."
+
+But Sweetwater was not called in yet. Just as Coroner Perry offered to
+touch his bell, the door opened and Mr. Clifton was ushered in. Well and
+favourably known to both men, he had no difficulty in stating his
+business and preferring his request.
+
+"I am here in the interests of Elwood Ranelagh," said he. "He is willing
+to concede, and so am I, that under the circumstances his arrest was
+justifiable, but not his prolonged detention. He has little excuse to
+offer for the mistakes he has made, or the various offences of which he
+has been guilty. His best friends must condemn his hypocrisy and
+fast-and-loose treatment of Miss Cumberland; but he vows that he had no
+hand in her violent death, and in this regard I feel not only bound but
+forced to believe him. At all events, I am going to act on that
+conviction, and have come here to entreat your aid in clearing up one or
+two points which may affect your own opinion of his guilt.
+
+"As his counsel I have been able to extract from him a fact or two which
+he has hitherto withheld from the police. Reticent as he has shown
+himself from the start,--and considering the character of the two women
+involved in this tragedy, this cannot be looked upon as entirely to his
+discredit,--he has confided to me a circumstance, which in the
+excitement attendant on Miss Carmel Cumberland's sudden illness, may
+have escaped the notice of the family and very naturally, of the police.
+It is this:
+
+"The ring which Miss Cumberland wore as the sign and seal of her
+engagement to him was not on her hand when he came upon her, as he
+declares he did, dead. It was there at dinner-time--a curious ring which
+I have often noted myself and could accurately describe if required. If
+she took it off before starting for The Whispering Pines, it should be
+easily found. But if she did not, what a clew it offers to her unknown
+assailant! Up till now, Mr. Ranelagh has been anticipating receiving this
+ring back in a letter, written before she left her home. But he has heard
+of no such letter, and doubts now if you have. May I ask if he is correct
+in this surmise?"
+
+"We know of no such letter. None has come to his rooms," replied
+the coroner.
+
+"I thought not. The whereabouts of this ring, then, is still to be
+determined. You will pardon my having called your attention to it. As Mr.
+Ranelagh's legal adviser, I am very anxious to have that ring found."
+
+"We are glad to receive your suggestion," replied the district attorney.
+"But you must remember that some of its force is lost by its having
+originated with the accused."
+
+"Very true; but Mr. Ranelagh was only induced to speak of this matter
+after I had worked with him for an hour. There is a mystery in his
+attitude which I, for one, have not yet fathomed. You must have noticed
+this also, Coroner Perry? Your inquest, when you hold it, will reveal
+some curious facts; but I doubt if it will reveal the secret underlying
+this man's reticence. That we shall have to discover for ourselves."
+
+"He has another secret, then, than the one involving his arrest as a
+suspected murderer?" was the subtle conclusion of the district attorney.
+
+"Yes, or why does he balk so at the simplest inquiries? I have my notion
+as to its nature; but I'm not here to express notions unless you call my
+almost unfounded belief in him a notion. What I want to present to you is
+fact, and fact which can be utilised."
+
+"In the cause of your client!"
+
+"Which is equally the cause of justice."
+
+"Possibly. We'll search for the ring, Mr. Clifton."
+
+"Meanwhile, will you cast your eye over these fragments of a note which
+Mr. Ranelagh says he received from Miss Carmel Cumberland while waiting
+on the station platform for her coming."
+
+Taking an envelope from his pocket, Mr. Clifton drew forth two small
+scraps of soiled and crumpled paper, one of which was the half of another
+envelope presenting very nearly the following appearance:
+
+As he pointed this out, he remarked:
+
+"Elwood is not so common a baptismal name, that there can be any doubt
+as to the person addressed."
+
+The other scraps, also written in pencil and by the same hand, contained
+but two or three disconnected words; but one of those words was
+_Adelaide_.
+
+"I spent an hour and a half in the yards adjoining the station before I
+found those two bits," explained the young lawyer with a simple
+earnestness not displeasing to the two seasoned men he addressed. "One
+was in hiding under a stacked-up pile of outgoing freight, and the other
+I picked out of a cart of stuff which had been swept up in the early
+morning. I offer them in corroboration of Mr. Ranelagh's statement that
+the '_Come!_' used in the partially consumed letter found in the
+clubhouse chimney was addressed to Miss Carmel Cumberland and not to
+Adelaide, and that the place of meeting suggested by this word was the
+station platform, and not the spot since made terrible by death."
+
+"You are acquainted with Miss Carmel Cumberland's handwriting?"
+
+"If I am not, the town is full of people who are. I believe these words
+to have been written by Carmel Cumberland."
+
+Mr. Fox placed the pieces back in their envelope and laid the whole
+carefully away.
+
+"For a second time we are obliged to you," said he.
+
+"You can cancel the obligation," was the quick retort, "by discovering
+the identity of the man who in derby hat and a coat with a very high
+collar, left the grounds of The Whispering Pines just as Mr. Ranelagh
+drove into them. I have no facilities for the job, and no desire to
+undertake it."
+
+He had endeavoured to speak naturally, if not with an off-hand air; but
+he failed somehow--else why the quick glance of startled inquiry which
+Dr. Perry sent him from under his rather shaggy eyebrows.
+
+"Well, we'll undertake that, too," promised the district attorney.
+
+"I can ask no more," returned Charles Clifton, arising to depart. "The
+confronting of that man with Ranelagh will cause the latter to unseal his
+lips. Before you have finished with my client, you will esteem him much
+more highly than you do now."
+
+The district attorney smiled at what seemed the callow enthusiasm of a
+youthful lawyer; but the coroner who knew his district well, looked very
+thoughtfully down at the table before which he sat, and failed to raise
+his head until the young man had vanished from the room and his place had
+been taken by another of very different appearance and deportment. Then
+he roused himself and introduced the newcomer to the prosecuting attorney
+as Caleb Sweetwater, of the New York police department.
+
+Caleb Sweetwater was no beauty. He was plain-featured to the point of
+ugliness; so plain-featured that not even his quick, whimsical smile
+could make his face agreeable to one who did not know his many valuable
+qualities. His receding chin and far too projecting nose were not likely
+to create a favourable impression on one ignorant of his cheerful,
+modest, winsome disposition; and the district attorney, after eyeing him
+for a moment with ill-concealed disfavour, abruptly suggested:
+
+"You have brought some credentials with you, I hope."
+
+"Here is a letter from one of the department. Mr. Gryce wrote it," he
+added, with just a touch of pride.
+
+"The letter is all right," hastily remarked Dr. Perry on looking it
+over. "Mr. Sweetwater is commended to us as a man of sagacity and
+becoming reserve."
+
+"Very good. To business, then. The sooner we get to work on this new
+theory, the better. Mr. Sweetwater, we have some doubts if the man we
+have in hand is the man we really want. But first, how much do you know
+about this case?"
+
+"All that's in the papers."
+
+"Nothing more?"
+
+"Very little. I've not been in town above an hour."
+
+"Are you known here?"
+
+"I don't think so; it's my first visit this way."
+
+"Then you are as ignorant of the people as they are of you. Well, that
+has its disadvantages."
+
+"And its advantages, if you will permit me to say so, sir. I have no
+prejudices, no preconceived notions to struggle against. I can take
+persons as I find them; and if there is any deep family secret to
+unearth, it's mighty fortunate for a man to have nothing stand in the way
+of his own instincts. No likings, I mean--no leanings this way or that,
+for humane or other purely unprofessional reasons."
+
+The eye of District Attorney Fox stole towards that of his brother
+official, but did not meet it. The coroner had turned his attention to
+the table again, and, while betraying no embarrassment, was not quite his
+usual self. The district attorney's hand stole to his chin, which he
+softly rubbed with his lean forefinger as he again addressed Sweetwater.
+
+"This tragedy--the most lamentable which has ever occurred in this
+town--is really, and without exaggeration, a tragedy in high life. The
+lady who was strangled by a brute's clutch, was a woman of the highest
+culture and most estimable character. Her sister, who is supposed to have
+been the unconscious cause of the crime, is a young girl of blameless
+record. Of the man who was seen bending over the victim with his hands on
+her throat, we cannot speak so well. He has the faults and has lived the
+life of a social favourite. Gifted in many ways, and popular with both
+men and women, he has swung on his course with an easy disregard of the
+claims of others, which, while leaving its traces no doubt in many a
+humble and uncomplaining heart, did not attract notice to his inherent
+lack of principle, until the horrors of this tragedy lifted him into
+public view stripped of all his charms. He's an egotist, of the first
+water; there is no getting over that. But did he strangle the woman? He
+says not; that he was only following some extraordinary impulse of the
+moment in laying his thumbs on the marks he saw on Miss Cumberland's
+neck. A fantastic story--told too late, besides, for perfect credence,
+and not worthy of the least attention if--"
+
+The reasons which followed are too well known to us for repetition.
+Sweetwater listened with snapping eyes to all that was said; and when he
+had been given the various clews indicating the presence of a third--and
+as yet unknown--party on the scene of crime, he rose excitedly to his
+feet and, declaring that it was a most promising case, begged permission
+to make his own investigations at The Whispering Pines, after which he
+would be quite ready to begin his search for the man in the derby hat and
+high coat-collar, whose love for wine was so great that he chose and
+carried off the two choicest bottles that the club-house contained.
+
+"A hardy act for any man, gentleman or otherwise, who had just strangled
+the life out of a fine woman like that. If he exists and the whole story
+is not a pure fabrication of the entrapped Ranelagh, he shouldn't be hard
+to find. What do you say, gentlemen? He shouldn't be hard to find."
+
+"_We_ have not found him," emphasised the district attorney, with the
+shortest possible glance at the coroner's face.
+
+"Then the field is all before me," smiled Sweetwater. "Wish me luck,
+gentlemen. It's a blind job, but that's just in my line. A map of the
+town, a few general instructions, and I'm off."
+
+Mr. Fox turned towards the coroner, and opened his lips; but closed them
+again without speaking. Did Sweetwater notice this act of self-restraint?
+If he did, he failed to show it.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+"I CAN HELP YOU"
+
+A subtle knave; a finder out of occasions;
+That has an eye can stamp and counterfeit
+Advantages though true advantage never presents
+Itself; A devilish knave!
+
+_Othello_.
+
+
+A half hour spent with Hexford in and about the club-house, and
+Sweetwater was ready for the road. As he made his way through the
+northern gate, he cast a quick look back at the long, low building he had
+just left, with its tall chimneys and rows of sightless windows, half
+hidden, half revealed by the encroaching pines. The mystery of the place
+fascinated him. To his awakened imagination, there was a breathless
+suggestion in it--a suggestion which it was his foremost wish, just now,
+to understand.
+
+And those pines--gaunt, restless, communicative! ready with their secret,
+if one could only interpret their language. How their heads came together
+as their garrulous tongues repeated the tale, which would never grow old
+to them until age nipped their hoary heads and laid them low in the dust,
+with their horror half expressed, their gruesome tale unfinished.
+
+"Witnesses of it all," commented the young detective as he watched the
+swaying boughs rising and dipping before a certain window. "They were
+peering into that room long before Clarke stole the glimpse which has
+undone the unfortunate Ranelagh. If I had their knowledge, I'd do
+something more than whisper."
+
+Thus musing, thus muttering, he plodded up the road, his insignificant
+figure an unpromising break in the monotonous white of the wintry
+landscape. But could the prisoner who had indirectly speeded this young
+detective on his present course, have read his thoughts and rightly
+estimated the force of his purpose, would he have viewed with so much
+confidence the entrance of this unprepossessing stranger upon the
+no-thoroughfare into which his own carefully studied admissions had
+blindly sent him?
+
+As has been said before, this road was an outlying one and but little
+travelled save in the height of summer. Under ordinary circumstances
+Sweetwater would have met not more than a half-dozen carts or sledges
+between the club-house gates and the city streets. But to-day, the road
+was full of teams carrying all sorts of incongruous people, eager for a
+sight of the spot made forever notorious by a mysterious crime. He noted
+them all; the faces of the men, the gestures of the women; but he did not
+show any special interest till he came to that portion of the road where
+the long line of half-buried fences began to give way to a few scattered
+houses. Then his spirit woke, and be became quick, alert, and persuasive.
+He entered houses; he talked with the people. Though evidently not a
+dissipated man, he stopped at several saloons, taking his time with his
+glass and encouraging the chatter of all who chose to meet his advances.
+He was a natural talker and welcomed every topic, but his eye only
+sparkled at one. This he never introduced himself; he did not need to.
+Some one was always ready with the great theme; and once it was started,
+he did not let the conversation languish till every one present had given
+his or her quota of hearsay or opinion to the general fund.
+
+It seemed a great waste of time, for nobody had anything to say worth the
+breath expended on it. But Sweetwater showed no impatience, and proceeded
+to engage the attention of the next man, woman, or child he encountered
+with undiminished zest and hopefulness.
+
+He had left the country road behind, and had entered upon the jumble of
+sheds, shops, and streets which marked the beginnings of the town in this
+direction, when his quick and experienced eye fell on a woman standing
+with uncovered head in an open doorway, peering up the street in anxious
+expectation of some one not yet in sight. He liked the air and well-kept
+appearance of the woman; he appreciated the neatness of the house at her
+back and gauged at its proper value the interest she displayed in the
+expected arrival of one whom he hoped would delay that arrival long
+enough for him to get in the word which by this time dropped almost
+unconsciously from his lips.
+
+But a second survey of the woman's face convinced him that his ordinary
+loquaciousness would not serve him here. There was a refinement in her
+aspect quite out of keeping with the locality in which she lived, and he
+was hesitating how to proceed, when fortune favoured him by driving
+against his knees a small lad on an ill-directed sled, bringing him
+almost to the ground and upsetting the child who began to scream
+vociferously.
+
+It was the woman's child, for she made instantly for the gate which,
+for some reason, she found difficulty in opening. Sweetwater, seeing
+this, blessed his lucky stars. He was at his best with children, and
+catching the little fellow up, he soothed and fondled him and finally
+brought him with such a merry air of triumph straight to his mother's
+arms, that confidence between them was immediately established and
+conversation started.
+
+He had in his pocket an ingenious little invention which he had exhibited
+all along the road as an indispensable article in every well-kept house.
+He wanted to show it to her, but it was too cold a day for her to stop
+outside. Wouldn't she allow him to step in and explain how her work could
+be materially lessened and her labour turned to play by a contrivance so
+simple that a child could run it?
+
+It was all so ridiculous in face of this woman's quiet intelligence, that
+he laughed at his own words, and this laughter, echoed by the child and
+in another instant by the mother, made everything so pleasant for the
+moment that she insensibly drew back while he pulled open the gate, only
+remarking, as she led the way in:
+
+"I was looking for my husband. He may come any minute and I'm afraid he
+won't care much about contrivances to save me work--that is, if they cost
+very much."
+
+Sweetwater, whose hand was in his pocket, drew it hastily out.
+
+"You were watching for your husband? Do you often stand in the open
+doorway, looking for him?"
+
+Her surprised eyes met his with a stare that would have embarrassed the
+most venturesome book agent, but this man was of another ilk.
+
+"If you do," he went on imperturbably, but with a good-humoured smile
+which deepened her favourable impression of him, "how much I would give
+if you had been standing there last Tuesday night when a certain cutter
+and horse went by on its way up the hill."
+
+She was a self-contained woman, this wife of a master mechanic in one of
+the great shops hard by; but her jaw fell at this, and she forgot to
+chide or resist her child when he began to pull her towards the open
+kitchen door.
+
+Sweetwater, sensitive to the least change in the human face, prayed that
+the husband might be detained, if only for five minutes longer, while he,
+Sweetwater, worked this promising mine.
+
+"You _were_ looking out," he ventured. "And you _did_ see that horse and
+cutter. What luck! It may save a man's life."
+
+"Save!" she repeated, staggering back a few steps and dragging the child
+with her. "Save a man's life! What do you mean by that?"
+
+"Not much if it was any cutter and any horse, and at any hour. But if it
+was the horse and cutter which left The Whispering Pines at ten or half
+past ten that night, then it may mean life and death to the man now in
+jail under the dreadful charge of murder."
+
+Catching up her child, she slid into the kitchen and sat down with it, in
+the first chair she came to. Sweetwater following her, took up his stand
+in the doorway, unobtrusive, but patiently waiting for her to speak. The
+steaming kettles and the table set for dinner gave warning of the
+expected presence for which she had been watching, but she seemed to have
+forgotten her husband; forgotten everything but her own emotions.
+
+"Who are you?" she asked at length. "You have not told me your real
+business."
+
+"No, madam, and I ask your pardon. I feared that my real business, if
+suddenly made known to you, might startle, perhaps frighten you. I am a
+detective on the look-out for evidence in the case I have just mentioned.
+I have a theory that a most important witness in the same, drove by here
+at the hour and on the night I have named. I want to substantiate that
+theory. Can you help me?"
+
+A sensitiveness to, and quick appreciation of, the character of those he
+addressed was one of Sweetwater's most valuable attributes. No glossing
+of the truth, however skillfully applied, would have served him with this
+woman so well as this simple statement, followed by its equally simple
+and direct inquiry. Scrutinising him over the child's head, she gave but
+a casual glance at the badge he took pains to show her, then in as quiet
+and simple tones as he had himself used, she made this reply:
+
+"I can help you some. You make it my duty, and I have never shrunk from
+duty. A horse and cutter did go by here on its way uphill, last Tuesday
+night at about eleven o'clock. I remember the hour because I was
+expecting my husband every minute, just as I am now. He had some extra
+work on hand that night which he expected to detain him till eleven or a
+quarter after. Supper was to be ready at a quarter after. To surprise
+him I had beaten up some biscuits, and I had just put them in the pan
+when I heard the clock strike the hour. Afraid that he would come before
+they were baked, I thrust the pan into the oven and ran to the front door
+to look out. It was snowing very hard, and the road looked white and
+empty, but as I stood there a horse and cutter came in sight, which, as
+it reached the gate, drew up in a great hurry, as if something was the
+matter. Frightened, because I'm always thinking of harm to my husband
+whose work is very dangerous, I ran out bare-headed to the gate, when I
+saw why the man in the sleigh was making me such wild gestures. His hat
+had blown off, and was lying close up against the fence in front of me.
+Anxious always to oblige, I made haste to snatch at it and carry it out
+to its owner. I received a sort of thank you, and would never have
+remembered the occurrence if it had not been for that murder and if--"
+She paused doubtfully, ran her fingers nervously over her child's head,
+looked again at Sweetwater waiting expectantly for her next word, and
+faltered painfully--"if I had not recognised the horse."
+
+Sweetwater drew a deep breath; it was such a happy climax. Then, as she
+showed no signs of saying more, asked as quietly as his rapidly beating
+heart permitted:
+
+"Didn't you recognise the man?"
+
+Her answer was short but as candid as her expression.
+
+"No. The snow was blinding; besides he wore a high collar, in which his
+head was sunk down almost out of sight."
+
+"But the horse--"
+
+"Was one which is often driven by here. I had rather not tell you whose
+it is. I have not told any one, not even my husband, about seeing it on
+the road that night. I couldn't somehow. But if it will save a man's life
+and make clear who killed that good woman, ask any one on the Hill, in
+what stable you can find a grey horse with a large black spot on his left
+shoulder, and you will know as much about it as I do. Isn't that enough,
+sir? Now, I must dish up my dinner."
+
+"Yes, yes; it's almost enough. Just one question, madam. Was the hat what
+folks call a derby? Like this one, madam," he explained, drawing his own
+from behind his back.
+
+"Yes, I think so. As well as I can remember, it was like that. I'm afraid
+I didn't do it any good by my handling. I had to clutch it quick and I'm
+sure I bent the brim, to say nothing of smearing it with flour-marks."
+
+"How?" Sweetwater had started for the door, but stopped, all eagerness at
+this last remark.
+
+"I had been cutting out biscuits, and my hands were white with flour,"
+she explained, simply. "But that brushes off easily; I don't suppose it
+mattered."
+
+"No, no," he hastily assented. Then while he smiled and waved his hand to
+the little urchin who had been his means of introduction to this possibly
+invaluable witness, he made one final plea and that was for her name.
+
+"Eliza Simmons," was the straightforward reply; and this ended the
+interview.
+
+The husband, whose anticipated approach had occasioned all this
+abruptness, was coming down the hill when Sweetwater left the gate. As
+this detective of ours was as careful in his finish as in all the rest
+of his work, he called out as he went by:
+
+"I've just been trying to sell a wonderful contrivance of mine to the
+missus. But it was no go."
+
+The man looked, smiled, and went in at his own gate with the air of one
+happy in wife, child, and home.
+
+Sweetwater went on up the hill. Towards the top, he came upon a
+livery-stable. Stopping in his good-humoured way, he entered into talk
+with a man loitering inside the great door. Before he left him, he had
+asked him these questions:
+
+"Any grey horse in town?"
+
+"Yes, _one_."
+
+"I think I've seen it--has a patch of black on its left shoulder."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Whose is it? I've a mighty curiosity about the horse. Looks like a
+trick horse."
+
+"I don't know what you mean by that. It belongs to a respectable family.
+A family you must have heard about if you ever heard anything. There's a
+funeral there to-day--"
+
+"Not Miss Cumberland's?" exclaimed Sweetwater, all agog in a moment.
+
+"Yes, Miss Cumberland's. I thought you might have heard the name."
+
+"Yes, I've heard it."
+
+The tone was dry, the words abrupt, but the detective's heart was dancing
+like a feather. The next turn he took was toward the handsome residence
+district crowning the hill.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+IN THE COACH HOUSE
+
+All things that we ordained festival
+Turn from their office to black funeral;
+Our instruments to melancholy bells;
+Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast;
+And all things change them to the contrary.
+
+_Romeo and Juliet_.
+
+
+Fifteen minutes later, he stood in a finely wooded street before an open
+gateway guarded by a policeman. Showing his badge, he passed in, and
+entered a long and slightly curved driveway. As he did so, he took a
+glance at the house. It was not as pretentious as he expected, but
+infinitely more inviting. Low and rambling, covered with vines, and
+nestling amid shrubbery which even in winter gave it a habitable air, it
+looked as much the abode of comfort as of luxury, and gave--in outward
+appearance at least--no hint of the dark shadow which had so lately
+fallen across it.
+
+The ceremonies had been set for three o'clock, and it was now half past
+two. As Sweetwater reached the head of the driveway, he saw the first of
+a long file of carriages approaching up the street.
+
+"Lucky that my business takes me to the stable," thought he. "What is the
+coachman's name? I ought to remember it. Ah--Zadok! Zadok Brown. There's
+a combination for you!"
+
+He had reached this point in his soliloquy (a bad habit of his, for it
+sometimes took audible expression) when he ran against another policeman
+set to guard the side door. A moment's parley, and he left this man
+behind; but not before he had noted this door and the wide and hospitable
+verandah which separated it from the driveway.
+
+"I am willing to go all odds that I shall find that verandah the most
+interesting part of the house," he remarked, in quiet conviction, to
+himself, as he noted its nearness to the stable and the ease with which
+one could step from it into a vehicle passing down the driveway.
+
+It had another point of interest, or, rather the wing had to which it was
+attached. As his eye travelled back across this wing, in his lively walk
+towards the stable, he caught a passing glimpse of a nurse's face and
+figure in one of its upper windows. This located the sick chamber, and
+unconsciously he hushed his step and moved with the greatest caution,
+though he knew that this sickness was not one of the nerves, and that the
+loudest sound would fail to reach ears lapsed in a blessed, if alarming,
+unconsciousness.
+
+Once around the corner, he resumed a more natural pace, and perceiving
+that the stable-door was closed but that a window well up the garden side
+was open, he cast a look towards the kitchen windows at his back, and,
+encountering no watchful eye, stepped up to the former one and peered in.
+
+A man sat with his back to him, polishing a bit of harness. This was
+probably Zadok, the coachman. As his interest was less with him than with
+the stalls beyond, he let his eye travel on in their direction, when he
+suddenly experienced a momentary confusion by observing the head and
+shoulders of Hexford leaning towards him from an opposite window--in much
+the same fashion, and certainly with exactly the same intent, as himself.
+As their glances crossed, both flushed and drew back, only to return
+again, each to his several peep-hole. Neither meant to lose the advantage
+of the moment. Both had heard of the grey horse and wished to identify
+it; Hexford for his own satisfaction, Sweetwater as the first link of the
+chain leading him into the mysterious course mapped out for him by fate.
+That each was more or less under the surveillance of the other did not
+trouble either.
+
+There were three stalls, and in each stall a horse stamped and fidgeted.
+Only one held their attention. This was a mare on the extreme left, a
+large grey animal with a curious black patch on its near shoulder. The
+faces of both men changed as they recognised this distinguishing mark,
+and instinctively their eyes met across the width of the open space
+separating them. Hexford's finger rose to his mouth, but Sweetwater
+needed no such hint. He stood, silent as his own shadow, while the
+coachman rubbed away with less and less purpose, until his hands stood
+quite still and his whole figure drooped in irresistible despondency. As
+he raised his face, moved perhaps by that sense of a watchful presence to
+which all of us are more or less susceptible, they were both surprised to
+see tears on it. The next instant he had started to his feet and the bit
+of harness had rattled from his hands to the floor.
+
+"Who are you?" he asked, with a touch of anger, quite natural under the
+circumstances. "Can't you come in by the door, and not creep sneaking up
+to take a man at disadvantage?"
+
+As he spoke, he dashed away the tears with which his cheeks were
+still wet.
+
+"I thought a heap of my young mistress," he added, in evident apology for
+this display of what such men call weakness. "I didn't know that it was
+in me to cry for anything, but I find that I can cry for her."
+
+Hexford left his window, and Sweetwater slid from his; next minute they
+met at the stable door.
+
+"Had luck?" whispered the local officer.
+
+"Enough to bring me here," acknowledged the other.
+
+"Do you mean to this house or to this stable?"
+
+"To this stable."
+
+"Have you heard that the horse was out that night?"
+
+"Yes, she was out."
+
+"Who driving?"
+
+"Ah, that's the question!"
+
+"This man can't tell you."
+
+A jerk of Hexford's thumb in Zadok's direction emphasised this statement.
+
+"But I'm going to talk to him, for all that."
+
+"He wasn't here that night; he was at a dance. He only knows that the
+mare was out."
+
+"But I'm going to talk to him."
+
+"May I come in, too? I'll not interrupt. I've just fifteen minutes
+to spare."
+
+"You can do as you please. I've nothing to hide--from you, at any rate."
+
+Which wasn't quite true; but Sweetwater wasn't a stickler for truth,
+except in the statements he gave his superiors.
+
+Hexford threw open the stable-door, and they both walked in. The coachman
+was not visible, but they could hear him moving about above, grumbling to
+himself in none too encouraging a way.
+
+Evidently he was in no mood for visitors.
+
+"I'll be down in a minute," he called out, as their steps sounded on the
+hardwood floor.
+
+Hexford sauntered over to the stalls. Sweetwater stopped near the doorway
+and glanced very carefully about him. Nothing seemed to escape his eye.
+He even took the trouble to peer into a waste-bin, and was just on the
+point of lifting down a bit of broken bottle from an open cupboard when
+Brown appeared on the staircase, dressed in his Sunday coat and carrying
+a bunch of fresh, hot-house roses.
+
+He stopped midway as Sweetwater turned towards him from the cupboard, but
+immediately resumed his descent and was ready with his reply when Hexford
+accosted him from the other end of the stable:
+
+"An odd beast, this. They don't drive her for her beauty, that's
+evident."
+
+"She's fast and she's knowing," grumbled the coachman. "Reason enough for
+overlooking her spots. Who's that man?" he grunted, with a drop of his
+lantern jaws, and a slight gesture towards the unknown interloper.
+
+"Another of us," replied Hexford, with a shrug. "We're both rather
+interested in this horse."
+
+"Wouldn't another time do?" pleaded the coachman, looking gravely down at
+the flowers he held. "It's most time for the funeral and I don't feel
+like talking, indeed I don't, gentlemen."
+
+"We won't keep you." It was Sweetwater who spoke. "The mare's
+company enough for us. She knows a lot, this mare. I can see it in
+her eye. I understand horses; we'll have a little chat, she and I,
+when you are gone."
+
+Brown cast an uneasy glance at Hexford.
+
+"He'd better not touch her," he cautioned. "He don't know the beast well
+enough for that."
+
+"He won't touch her," Hexford assured him. "She does look knowing, don't
+she? Would like to tell us something, perhaps. Was out _that_ night, I've
+heard you say. Curious! How did you know it?"
+
+"I've said and said till I'm tired," Brown answered, with sudden heat.
+"This is pestering a man at a very unfortunate time. Look! the people
+are coming. I must go. My poor mistress! and poor Miss Carmel! I liked
+'em, do ye understand? Liked 'em--and I do feel the trouble at the
+house, I do."
+
+His distress was so genuine that Hexford was inclined to let him go; but
+Sweetwater with a cock of his keen eye put in his word and held the
+coachman where he was.
+
+"The old gal is telling me all about it," muttered this sly, adaptable
+fellow. He had sidled up to the mare and their heads were certainly very
+close together. "Not touch her? See here!" Sweetwater had his arm round
+the filly's neck and was looking straight into her fiery and intelligent
+eye. "Shall I pass her story on?" he asked, with a magnetic smile at the
+astonished coachman, which not only softened him but seemed to give the
+watchful Hexford quite a new idea of this gawky interloper.
+
+"You'll oblige _me_ if you can put her knowledge into words," the man
+Zadok declared, with one fascinated eye on the horse and the other on the
+house where he evidently felt that his presence was wanted. "She was out
+that night, and I know it, as any coachman would know, who doesn't come
+home stone drunk. But where she was and who took her, get her to tell if
+you can, for I don't know no more 'n the dead."
+
+"The dead!" flashed out Sweetwater, wheeling suddenly about and pointing
+straight through the open stable-door towards the house where the young
+mistress the old servant mourned, lay in her funeral casket. "Do you mean
+her--the lady who is about to be buried? Could _she_ tell if her lips
+were not sealed by a murderer's hand?"
+
+"She!" The word came low and awesomely. Rude and uncultured as the man
+was, he seemed to be strangely affected by this unexpected suggestion. "I
+haven't the wit to answer that," said he. "How can we tell what she knew.
+The man who killed her is in jail. _He_ might talk to some purpose. Why
+don't you question him?"
+
+"For a very good reason," replied Sweetwater, with an easy good-nature
+that was very reassuring. "He was arrested on the spot; so that it wasn't
+he who drove this mare home, unharnessed her, put her back in her stall,
+locked the stable-door and hung up the key in its place in the kitchen.
+Somebody else did _that_."
+
+"That's true enough, and what does it show? That the mare was out on some
+other errand than the one which ended in blood and murder," was the
+coachman's unexpected retort.
+
+"Is that so?" whispered Sweetwater into the mare's cocked ear. "She's not
+quite ready to commit herself," he drawled, with another enigmatical
+smile at the lingering Zadok. "She's keeping something back. Are you?" he
+pointedly inquired, leaving the stalls and walking briskly up to Zadok.
+
+The coachman frowned and hastily retreated a step; but in another moment
+he leaped in a rage upon Sweetwater, when the sight of the flowers he
+held recalled him to himself and he let his hand fall again with the
+quiet remark:
+
+"You're overstepping your dooty. I don't know who you are or what you
+want with me, but you're overstepping your dooty."
+
+"He's right," muttered Hexford. "Better let the fellow go. See! one of
+the maids is beckoning to him."
+
+"He shall go, and welcome, if he will tell me where he gets his taste for
+this especial brand of whiskey." Sweetwater had crossed to the cupboard
+and taken down the lower half of the broken bottle which had attracted
+his notice on his first entrance, and was now holding it out, with a
+quizzical look at the departing coachman.
+
+Hexford was at his shoulder with a spring, and together they inspected
+the label still sticking to it--which was that of the very rare and
+expensive spirit found missing from the club-house vault.
+
+"This is a find," muttered Hexford into his fellow detective's ear. Then,
+with a quick move towards Zadok, he shouted out:
+
+"You'd better answer that question. Where did this bit of broken bottle
+come from? They don't give you whiskey like this to drink."
+
+"That they don't," muttered the coachman, not so much abashed as they had
+expected. "And I wouldn't care for it if they did. I found that bit of
+bottle in the ash-barrel outside, and fished it out to put varnish in. I
+liked the shape."
+
+"Broken this way?"
+
+"Yes; it's just as good."
+
+"Is it? Well, never mind, run along. We'll close the stable-door for
+you."
+
+"I'd rather do it myself and carry in the key."
+
+"Here then; we're going to the funeral, too. You'd like to?" This latter
+in a whisper to Sweetwater.
+
+The answer was a fervent one. Nothing in all the world would please this
+protean-natured man quite so well.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+"LILA--LILA!"
+
+O, treble woe
+Fall ten times treble on that cursed head,
+Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense
+Depriv'd thee of!--Hold off the earth awhile,
+Till I have caught her once more in my arms.
+
+_Hamlet_.
+
+
+"Let us enter by the side door," suggested Sweetwater, as the two moved
+towards the house. "And be sure you place me where I can see without
+being seen. I have no wish to attract attention to myself, or to be
+identified with the police until the necessity is forced upon me."
+
+"Then we won't go in together," decided Hexford. "Find your own place;
+you won't have any difficulty. A crowd isn't expected. Miss Cumberland's
+condition forbids it."
+
+Sweetwater nodded and slid in at the side door.
+
+He found himself at once in a narrow hall, from the end of which opened a
+large room. A few people were to be seen in this latter place, and his
+first instinct was to join them; but finding that a few minutes yet
+remained before the hour set for the services, he decided to improve them
+by a rapid glance about this hall, which, for certain reasons hardly as
+yet formulated in his own mind, had a peculiar interest for him.
+
+The most important object within view, according to his present judgment,
+was the staircase which connected it with the floor above; but if you had
+asked his reason for this conclusion, he would not have told you, as
+Ranelagh might have done, that it was because it was the most direct and
+convenient approach to Carmel Cumberland's room. His thoughts were far
+from this young girl, intimately connected as she was with this crime;
+which shows through what a blind maze he was insensibly working. With his
+finger on the thread which had been put in his hand, he was feeling his
+way along inch by inch. It had brought him to this staircase, and it led
+him next to a rack upon which hung several coats and a gentleman's hat.
+
+He inspected the former and noted that one was finished with a high
+collar; but he passed the latter by--it was not a derby. The table stood
+next the rack, and on its top lay nothing more interesting than a
+clothes-brush and one or two other insignificant objects; but, with his
+memory for details, he had recalled the keys which one of the maids had
+picked up somewhere about this house, and laid on a hall table. If this
+were the hall and this the table, then was every inch of the latter's
+simple cloth-covered top of the greatest importance in his eyes.
+
+He had no further time for even these cursory investigations; Hexford's
+step could be heard on the verandah, and Sweetwater was anxious to locate
+himself before the officer came in. Entering the room before him, he
+crossed to the small group clustered in its further doorway. There were
+several empty chairs in sight; but he passed around them all to a dark
+and inconspicuous corner, from which, without effort, he could take in
+every room on that floor--from the large parlour in which the casket
+stood, to the remotest region of the servants' hall.
+
+The clergyman had not yet descended, and Sweetwater had time to observe
+the row of little girls sitting in front of the bearers, each with a
+small cluster of white flowers in her hand. Miss Cumberland's
+Sunday-school class, he conjectured, and conjectured rightly. He also
+perceived that some of these children loved her.
+
+Near them sat a few relatives and friends. Among these was a very, very
+old man, whom he afterwards heard was a great-uncle and a centenarian.
+Between him and one of the little girls, there apparently existed a
+strong sympathy; for his hand reached out and drew her to him when the
+tears began to steal down her cheeks, and the looks which passed between
+the two had all the appeal and all the protection of a great love.
+
+Sweetwater, who had many a soft spot in his breast, felt his heart warm
+at this one innocent display of natural feeling in an assemblage
+otherwise frozen by the horror of the occasion. His eyes dwelt
+lingeringly on the child, and still more lingeringly on the old, old man,
+before passing to that heaped-up mound of flowers, under which lay a
+murdered body and a bruised heart. He could not see the face, but the
+spectacle was sufficiently awe-compelling without that.
+
+Would it have seemed yet more so, had he known at whose request the huge
+bunch of lilies had been placed over that silent heart?
+
+The sister sick, the brother invisible, there was little more to hold his
+attention in this quarter; so he let it roam across the heads of the
+people about him, to the distant hall communicating with the kitchen.
+
+Several persons were approaching from this direction, among them Zadok.
+The servants of the house, no doubt, for they came in all together and
+sat down, side by side, in the chairs Sweetwater had so carefully passed
+by. There were five persons in all: two men and three women. Only two
+interested him--Zadok, with whom he had already made a superficial
+acquaintance and had had one bout; and a smart, bright-eyed girl with a
+resolute mouth softened by an insistent dimple, who struck him as
+possessing excellent sense and some natural cleverness. A girl to know
+and a girl to talk to, was his instantaneous judgment. Then he forgot
+everything but the solemnity of the occasion, for the clergyman had
+entered and taken his place, and a great hush had fallen upon the rooms
+and upon every heart there present.
+
+
+"_I am the resurrection and the life_."
+
+Never had these consoling words sounded more solemn than when they rang
+above the remains of Adelaide Cumberland, in this home where she had
+reigned as mistress ever since her seventeenth year. The nature of the
+tragedy which had robbed the town of one of its most useful young women;
+the awful fate impending over its supposed author,--a man who had come
+and gone in these rooms with a spell of fascination to which many of
+those present had themselves succumbed--the brooding sense of illness,
+if not of impending death, in the room above; gave to these services a
+peculiar poignancy which in some breasts of greater susceptibility than
+the rest, took the form of a vague expectancy bordering on terror.
+
+Sweetwater felt the poignancy, but did not suffer from the terror. His
+attention had been attracted in a new direction, and he found himself
+watching, with anxious curiosity, the attitude and absorbed expression of
+a good-looking young man whom he was far from suspecting to be the secret
+representative of the present suspect, whom nobody could forget, yet whom
+nobody wished to remember at this hallowed hour.
+
+Had this attitude and this absorption been directed towards the casket
+over which the clergyman's words rose and fell with ever increasing
+impressiveness, he might have noted the man but would scarcely have been
+held by him. But this interest, sincere and strong as it undoubtedly was,
+centred not so much in the services, careful as he was to maintain a
+decorous attitude towards the same, but in the faint murmurs which now
+and then came down from above where unconsciousness reigned and the
+stricken brother watched over the delirious sister, with a concentration
+and abandonment to fear which made him oblivious of all other duties, and
+almost as unconscious of the rites then being held below over one who had
+been as a mother to him, as the sick girl herself with her ceaseless and
+importunate "Lila! Lila!" The detective, watching this preoccupied
+stranger, shared in some measure his secret emotions, and thus was
+prepared for the unexpected occurrence of a few minutes later.
+
+No one else had the least forewarning of any break in the services. There
+had been nothing in the subdued but impressive rendering of the prayers
+to foreshadow a dramatic episode; yet it came, and in this manner:
+
+The final words had been said, and the friends present invited to look
+their last on the calm face which, to many there, had never worn so sweet
+a smile in life. Some had hesitated; but most had obeyed the summons,
+among them Sweetwater. But he had not much time in which to fix those
+features in his mind; for the little girls, who had been waiting
+patiently for this moment, now came forward; and he stepped aside to
+watch them as they filed by, dropping as they did so, a tribute of
+fragrant flowers upon the quiet breast. They were followed by the
+servants, among whom Zadok had divided his roses. As the last cluster
+fell from the coachman's trembling hand, the undertaker advanced with the
+lid, and, pausing a moment to be sure that all were satisfied, began to
+screw it on.
+
+Suddenly there was a cry, and the crowd about the door leading into the
+main hall started back, as wild steps were heard on the stairs and a
+young man rushed into the room where the casket stood, and advanced upon
+the officiating clergyman and the astonished undertaker with a fierceness
+which was not without its suggestion of authority.
+
+"Take it off!" he cried, pointing at the lid which had just been fastened
+down. "I have not seen her--I must see her. Take it off!"
+
+It was the brother, awake at last to the significance of the hour!
+
+The clergyman, aghast at the sacrilegious look and tone of the intruder,
+stepped back, raising one arm in remonstrance, and instinctively
+shielding the casket with the other. But the undertaker saw in the
+frenzied eye fixed upon his own, that which warned him to comply with the
+request thus harshly and peremptorily uttered. Unscrewing the lid, he
+made way for the intruder, who, drawing near, pushed aside the roses
+which had fallen on the upturned face, and, laying his hand on the brow,
+muttered a few low words to himself. Then he withdrew his hand, and
+without glancing to right or left, staggered back to the door amid a hush
+as unbroken as that which reigned behind him in that open casket. Another
+moment and his white, haggard face and disordered figure would be blotted
+from sight by the door-jamb.
+
+The minister recovered his poise and the bearers their breath; the men
+stirred in their seats and the women began to cast frightened looks at
+each other, and then at the children, some of whom had begun to whimper,
+when in an instant all were struck again into stone. The young man had
+turned and was facing them all, with his hands held out in a clench which
+in itself was horrible.
+
+"If they let the man go," he called out in loud and threatening tones, "I
+will strangle him with these two hands."
+
+The word, and not the shriek which burst irrepressibly from more than one
+woman before him, brought him to himself. With a ghastly look on his
+bloated features, he scanned for one moment the row of deeply shocked
+faces before him, then tottered back out of sight, and fled towards the
+staircase. All thought that an end had come to the harrowing scene, and
+minister and people faced each other once more; when, loud and sharp from
+above, there rang down the shrill cry of delirium, this time in
+articulate words which even the children could understand:
+
+"Break it open, I say! break it open, and see if her heart is there!"
+
+It was too awful. Men and women and children leaped to their feet and
+dashed away into the streets, uttering smothered cries and wild
+ejaculations. In vain the clergyman raised his voice and bade them
+respect the dead; the rooms were well-nigh empty before he had finished
+his appeal. Only the very old uncle and the least of the children
+remained of all who had come there in memory of their departed kinswoman
+and friend.
+
+The little one had fled to the old man's arms before he could rise, and
+was now held close to his aged and shaking knees, while he strove to
+comfort her and explain.
+
+Soon these, too, were gone, and the casket was refastened and carried out
+by the shrinking bearers, leaving in those darkened rooms a trail of
+desolation which was only broken from time to time by the now faint and
+barely heard reiteration of the name of her who had just been borne away!
+
+"Lila! Lila!"
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+"WHAT WE WANT IS HERE"
+
+I'll tell you, by the way,
+The greatest comfort in the world.
+You said
+There was a clew to all.
+Remember, Sweet,
+He said there was a clew!
+I hold it.
+Come!
+
+_A Blot in the 'Scutcheon._
+
+
+Sweetwater, however affected by this scene, had not lost control of
+himself or forgotten the claims of duty. He noted at a glance that, while
+the candid looking stranger, whose lead he had been following, was as
+much surprised as the rest at the nature of the interruption--which he
+had possibly anticipated and for which he was in some measure
+prepared--he was, of all present, the most deeply and peculiarly
+impressed by it. No element of fear had entered into his emotion; nor had
+it been heightened by any superstitious sense. Something deeper and more
+important by far had darkened his thoughtful eye and caused that ebb and
+flow of colour in a cheek unused, if Sweetwater read the man aright, to
+such quick and forcible changes.
+
+Sweetwater took occasion, likewise, while the excitement was at its
+height, to mark what effect had been made on the servants by the action
+and conduct of young Cumberland. "They know him better than we do," was
+his inner comment; "what do they think of his words, and what do they
+think of him?"
+
+It was not so easy to determine as the anxious detective might wish.
+Only one of them showed a simple emotion, and that one was, without any
+possibility of doubt, the cook. She was a Roman Catholic, and was
+simply horrified by the sacrilege of which she had been witness. There
+was no mistaking her feelings. But those of the other two women were
+more complex.
+
+So were those of the men. Zadok specially watched each movement of his
+young master with open mistrust; and very nearly started upright, in his
+repugnance and dismay, when that intruding hand fell on the peaceful brow
+of her over whose fate, to his own surprise, he had been able to shed
+tears. Some personal prejudice lay back of this or some secret knowledge
+of the man from whose touch even the dead appeared to shrink.
+
+And the women! Might not the same explanation account for that curious
+droop of the eye with which the two younger clutched at each other's
+hands, to keep from screaming, and interchanged whispered words which
+Sweetwater would have given considerable out of his carefully cherished
+hoard to have heard.
+
+It was impossible to tell, at present; but he was confident that it would
+not be long before he understood these latter, at least. He had great
+confidence in his success with women, homely as he was. He was not so
+sure of himself with men; and he felt that some difficulties and not a
+few pitfalls lay between him and, for instance, the uncommunicative
+Zadok. "But I've the whole long evening before me," he added in quiet
+consolation to himself. "It will be a pity if I can't work some of them
+in that time."
+
+The last thing he had remarked, before Carmel's unearthly cry had sent
+the horrified guests in disorder from the house, was the presence of Dr.
+Perry in a small room which Sweetwater had supposed empty, until the
+astonishing events I have endeavoured to describe brought its occupant to
+the door. What the detective then read in the countenance of the family's
+best friend, he kept to himself; but his own lost a trace of its former
+anxiety, as the official slipped back out of sight and remained so, even
+after the funeral cortege had started on its course.
+
+Plans had been made for carrying the servants to the cemetery, and,
+despite the universal disturbance consequent upon these events, these
+plans were adhered to. Sweetwater watched them all ride away in the last
+two carriages.
+
+This gave him the opportunity he wanted. Leaving his corner, he looked up
+Hexford, and asked who was left in the house.
+
+"Dr. Perry, Mr. Clifton, the lawyer, Mr. Cumberland, his sick sister, and
+the nurse."
+
+"Mr. Cumberland! Didn't he go to the grave?"
+
+"Did you expect him to, after _that_?"
+
+Sweetwater's shoulders rose, and his voice took on a tone of
+indifference.
+
+"There's no telling. Where is he now, do you think? Upstairs?"
+
+"Yes. It seems he spends all his time in a little alcove opposite his
+sister's door. They won't let him inside, for fear of disturbing the
+patient; so he just sits where I've told you, doing nothing but
+listening to every sound that comes through the door."
+
+"Is he there now?"
+
+"Yes, and shaking just like a leaf. I walked by him a moment ago and
+noticed particularly."
+
+"Where's his room? In sight of the alcove you mention?"
+
+"No; there's a partition or two between. If you go up by the side
+staircase, you can slip into it without any one seeing you. Coroner Perry
+and Mr. Clifton are in front."
+
+"Is the side door locked?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Lock it. The back door, of course, is."
+
+"Yes, the cook attended to that."
+
+"I want a few minutes all by myself. Help me, Hexford. If Dr. Perry has
+given you no orders, take your stand upstairs where you can give me
+warning if Mr. Cumberland makes a move to leave his post, or the nurse
+her patient."
+
+"I'm ready; but I've been in that room and I've found nothing."
+
+"I don't know that I shall. You say that it is near the head of the
+stairs running up from the side door?"
+
+"Just a few feet away."
+
+"I would have sworn to that fact, even if you hadn't told me," muttered
+Sweetwater.
+
+Five minutes later, he had slipped from sight; and for some time not even
+Hexford knew where he was.
+
+"Dr. Perry, may I have a few words with you?"
+
+The coroner turned quickly. Sweetwater was before him; but not the same
+Sweetwater he had interviewed some few hours before in his office. This
+was quite a different looking personage. Though nothing could change his
+features, the moment had come when their inharmonious lines no longer
+obtruded themselves upon the eye; and the anxious, nay, deeply troubled
+official whom he addressed, saw nothing but the ardour and quiet
+self-confidence they expressed.
+
+"It'll not take long," he added, with a short significant glance in the
+direction of Mr. Clifton.
+
+Dr. Perry nodded, excused himself to the lawyer and followed the
+detective into the small writing-room which he had occupied during the
+funeral. In the decision with which Sweetwater closed the door behind
+them there was something which caused the blood to mount to the
+coroner's brow.
+
+"You have made some discovery?" said he.
+
+"A very important one," was the quick, emphatic reply. And in a few brief
+words the detective related his interview with the master mechanic's wife
+on the highroad. Then with an eager, "Now let me show you something," he
+led the coroner through the dining-room into the side hall, where he
+paused before the staircase.
+
+"Up?" queried the coroner, with an obvious shrinking from what he might
+encounter above.
+
+"No," was the whispered reply. "What we want is _here_." And, pushing
+open a small door let into the under part of the stairway (if Ranelagh in
+his prison cell could have seen and understood this movement!), he
+disclosed a closet and in that closet a coat or two, and one derby hat.
+He took down the latter and, holding it out to the light, pointed to a
+spot on the under side of its brim.
+
+The coroner staggered as he saw it, and glanced helplessly about him. He
+had known this family all their lives and the father had been his
+dearest friend. But he could say nothing in face of this evidence. The
+spot was a flour-mark, in which could almost be discerned the outline of
+a woman's thumb.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+THE MOTIONLESS FIGURE
+
+'S blood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy
+could find it out.
+
+_Hamlet_.
+
+
+"The coat is here, too," whispered Sweetwater, after a moment of
+considerate silence. "I had searched the hall-rack for them; I had
+searched his closets; and was about owning myself to be on a false trail,
+when I spied this little door. We had better lock it, now, had we not,
+till you make up your mind what to do with this conclusive bit of
+evidence."
+
+"Yes, lock it. I'm not quite myself, Sweetwater. I'm no stranger to
+this house, or to the unfortunate young people in it. I wish I had not
+been re-elected last year. I shall never survive the strain if--" He
+turned away.
+
+Sweetwater carefully returned the hat to its peg, turned the key in the
+door, and softly followed his superior back into the dining-room, and
+thence to their former retreat.
+
+"I can see that it's likely to be a dreadful business," he ventured to
+remark, as the two stood face to face again. "But we've no choice. Facts
+are facts, and we've got to make the best of them. You mean me to go on?"
+
+"Go on?"
+
+"Following up the clews which you have yourself given me? I've only
+finished with one; there's another--"
+
+"The bottles?"
+
+"Yes, the bottles. I believe that I shall not fail there if you'll give
+me a little time. I'm a stranger in town, you remember, and cannot be
+expected to move as fast as a local detective."
+
+"Sweetwater, you have but one duty--to follow both clews as far as they
+will take you. As for my duty, that is equally plain, to uphold you in
+all reasonable efforts and to shrink at nothing which will save the
+innocent and bring penalty to the guilty. Only be careful. Remember the
+evidence against Ranelagh. You will have to forge an exceedingly strong
+chain to hold your own against the facts which have brought this recreant
+lover to book. You see--O, I wish that poor girl could get ease!" he
+impetuously cried, as "Lila! Lila!" rang again through the house.
+
+"There can never be any ease for her," murmured Sweetwater. "Whatever the
+truth, she's bound to suffer if ever she awakens to reality again. Do you
+agree with the reporters that she knew why and for what her unhappy
+sister left this house that night?"
+
+"If not, why this fever?"
+
+"That's sound."
+
+"_She_--" the coroner was emphatic, "_she_ is the only one who is wholly
+innocent in this whole business. Consider her at every point. Her life is
+invaluable to every one concerned. But she must not be roused to the
+fact; not yet. Nor must he be startled either; you know whom I mean.
+Quiet does it, Sweetwater. Quiet and a seeming deference to his wishes as
+the present head of the house."
+
+"Is the place his? Has Miss Cumberland made a will?"
+
+"Her will will be read to-morrow. For to-night, Arthur Cumberland's
+position here is the position of a master."
+
+"I will respect it, sir, up to all reasonable bounds. I don't think he
+meditates giving any trouble. He's not at all impressed by our presence.
+All he seems to care about is what his sister may be led to say in her
+delirium."
+
+"That's how you look at it?" The coroner's tone was one of gloom. Then,
+after a moment of silence: "You may call my carriage, Sweetwater. I can
+do nothing further here to-day. The atmosphere of this house stifles me.
+Dead flowers, dead hopes, and something worse than death lowering in the
+prospect. I remember my old friend--this was his desk. Let us go, I say."
+
+Sweetwater threw open the door, but his wistful look did not escape the
+older man's eye.
+
+"You're not ready to go? Wish to search the house, perhaps."
+
+"Naturally."
+
+"It has already been done in a general way."
+
+"I wish to do it thoroughly."
+
+The coroner sighed.
+
+"I should be wrong to stand in your way. Get your warrant and the house
+is yours. But remember the sick girl."
+
+"That's why I wish to do the job my self."
+
+"You're a good fellow, Sweetwater." Then as he was passing out, "I'm
+going to rely on you to see this thing through, quietly if you can,
+openly and in the public eye if you must. The keys tell the tale--the
+keys and the hat. If the former had been left in the club-house and the
+latter found without the mark set on it by the mechanic's wife,
+Ranelagh's chances would look as slim to-day as they did immediately
+after the event. But with things as they are, he may well rest easily
+to-night; the clouds are lifting for him."
+
+Which shows how little we poor mortals realise what makes for the peace
+even of those who are the nearest to us and whose lives and hearts we
+think we can read like an open book.
+
+The coroner gone, Sweetwater made his way to the room where he had last
+seen Mr. Clifton. He found it empty and was soon told by Hexford that
+the lawyer had left. This was welcome news to him; he felt that he had a
+fair field before him now; and learning that it would be some fifteen
+minutes yet before he could hope to see the carriages back, he followed
+Hexford upstairs.
+
+"I wish I had your advantages," he remarked as they reached the
+upper floor.
+
+"What would you do?"
+
+"I'd wander down that hall and take a long look at things."
+
+"You would?"
+
+"I'd like to see the girl and I'd like to see the brother when he thought
+no one was watching him."
+
+"Why see the girl?"
+
+"I don't know. I'm afraid that's just curiosity. I've heard she was a
+wonder for beauty."
+
+"She was, once."
+
+"And not now?"
+
+"You cannot tell; they have bound up her cheeks with cloths. She fell on
+the grate and got burned."
+
+"But I say that's dreadful, if she was so beautiful."
+
+"Yes, it's bad, but there are worse things than that. I wonder what she
+meant by that wild cry of 'Tear it open! See if her heart is there?' Tear
+what open? the coffin?"
+
+"Of course. What else could she have meant?"
+
+"Well! delirium is a queer thing; makes a fellow feel creepy all over. I
+don't reckon on my nights here."
+
+"Hexford, help me to a peep. I've got a difficult job before me and I
+need all the aid I can get."
+
+"Oh, there's no trouble about that! Walk boldly along; he won't
+notice--"
+
+"_He won't notice_?"
+
+"No, he notices nothing but what comes from the sick room."
+
+"I see." Sweetwater's jaw had fallen, but it righted itself at this
+last word.
+
+"Listening, eh?"
+
+"Yes--as a fellow never listened before."
+
+"Expectant like?"
+
+"Yes, I should call it expectant."
+
+"Does the nurse know this?"
+
+"The nurse is a puzzler."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Half nurse and half--but go see for yourself. Here's a package to take
+in,--medicine from the drug store. Tell her there was no one else to
+bring it up. She'll show no surprise."
+
+Muttering his thanks, Sweetwater seized the proffered package, and
+hastened with it down the hall. He had been as far as the turn before,
+but now he passed the turn to find, just as he expected, a closed door on
+the left and an open alcove on the right. The door led into Miss
+Cumberland's room; the alcove, circular in shape and lighted by several
+windows, projected from the rear of the extension, and had for its
+outlook the stable and the huge sycamore tree growing beside it.
+
+Sweetwater's fingers passed thoughtfully across his chin as he remarked
+this and took in the expressive outline of its one occupant. He could
+not see his face; that was turned towards the table before which he sat.
+But his drooping head, rigid with desperate thinking; his relaxed hand
+closed around the neck of a decanter which, nevertheless, he did not
+lift, made upon Sweetwater an impression which nothing he saw afterwards
+ever quite effaced.
+
+"When I come back, that whiskey will be half gone," thought he, and
+lingered to see the tumbler filled and the first draught taken.
+
+But no. The hand slowly unclasped and fell away from the decanter; his
+head sank forward until his chin rested on his breast; and a sigh,
+startling to Sweetwater, fell from his lips. Hexford was right; only one
+thing could arouse him.
+
+Sweetwater now tried that thing. He knocked softly on the sick-room door.
+
+This reached the ear oblivious to all else. Young Cumberland started to
+his feet; and for a moment Sweetwater saw again the heavy features
+which, an hour before, had produced such a repulsive effect upon him in
+the rooms below. Then the nerveless figure sank again into place, with
+the same constraint in its lines, and the same dejection.
+
+Sweetwater's hand, lifted in repetition of his knock, hung suspended. He
+had not expected quite such indifference as this. It upset his
+calculations just a trifle. As his hand fell, he reminded himself of the
+coroner's advice to go easy. "Easy it is," was his internal reply. "I'll
+walk as lightly as if eggshells were under my feet."
+
+The door was opened to him, this time. As it swung back, he saw, first, a
+burst of rosy color as a room panelled in exquisite pink burst upon his
+sight; then the great picture of his life--the bloodless features of
+Carmel, calmed for the moment into sleep.
+
+Perfect beauty is so rare, its effect so magical! Not even the bandage
+which swathed one cheek could hide the exquisite symmetry of the
+features, or take from the whole face its sweet and natural distinction.
+Frenzy, which had distorted the muscles and lit the eyes with a baleful
+glare, was lacking at this moment. Repose had quieted the soul and left
+the body free to express its natural harmonies.
+
+Sweetwater gazed at the winsome, brown head over the nurse's shoulder,
+and felt that for him a new and important factor had entered into this
+case, with his recognition of this woman's great beauty. How deep a
+factor, he was far from suspecting, or he would not have met the nurse's
+eye with quite so cheery and self-confident a smile.
+
+"Excuse the intrusion," he said. "We thought you might need these
+things. Hexford signed for them."
+
+"I'm obliged to you. Are you--one of them?" she sharply asked.
+
+"Would it disturb you if I were? I hope not. I've no wish to seem
+intrusive."
+
+"What do you want? Something, I know. Give it a name before there's a
+change there."
+
+She nodded towards the bed, and Sweetwater took advantage of the moment
+to scrutinise more closely the nurse herself. She was a robust,
+fine-looking woman, producing an impression of capability united to
+kindness. Strength of mind and rigid attendance to duty dominated the
+kindness, however. If crossed in what she considered best for her
+patient, possibly for herself, she could be severe, if not biting, in her
+speech and manner. So much Sweetwater read in the cold, clear eye and
+firm, self-satisfied mouth of the woman awaiting his response to the curt
+demand she had made.
+
+"I want another good look at your patient, and I want your confidence
+since you and I may have to see much of each other before this matter is
+ended. You asked me to speak plainly and I have done so."
+
+"You are from headquarters?"
+
+"Coroner Perry sent me." Throwing back his coat, he showed his badge.
+"The coroner has returned to his office. He was quite upset by the outcry
+which came from this room at an unhappy moment during the funeral."
+
+"I know. It was my fault; I opened the door just for an instant, and in
+that instant my patient broke through her torpor and spoke."
+
+She had drawn him in, by this time, and, after another glance at her
+patient, softly closed the door behind him.
+
+"I have nothing to report," said she, "but the one sentence
+everybody heard."
+
+Sweetwater took in the little memorandum book and pencil which hung at
+her side, and understood her position and extraordinary amenability to
+his wishes. Unconsciously, a low exclamation escaped him. He was young
+and had not yet sunk the man entirely in the detective.
+
+"A cruel necessity to watch so interesting a patient, for anything but
+her own good," he remarked. Yet, because he was a detective as well as a
+man, his eye went wandering all over the room as he spoke until it fell
+upon a peculiar-looking cabinet or closet, let into the wall directly
+opposite the bed. "What's that?" he asked.
+
+"I don't know; I can't make it out, and I don't like to ask."
+
+Sweetwater examined it for a moment from where he stood; then crossed
+over, and scrutinised it more particularly. It was a unique specimen.
+What it lacked in height--it could not have measured more than a foot
+from the bottom to the top--it made up in length, which must have
+exceeded five feet. The doors, of which it had two, were both tightly
+locked; but as they were made of transparent glass, the objects behind
+them were quite visible. It was the nature of these objects which made
+the mystery. The longer Sweetwater examined them, the less he understood
+the reason for their collection, much less for their preservation in a
+room which in all other respects, expressed the quintessence of taste.
+
+At one end he saw a stuffed canary, not perched on a twig, but lying
+prone on its side. Near it was a doll, with scorched face and limbs
+half-consumed. Next this, the broken pieces of a china bowl and what
+looked like the torn remnants of some very fine lace. Further along, his
+eye lighted on a young girl's bonnet, exquisite in colour and nicety of
+material, but crushed out of all shape and only betraying its identity by
+its dangling strings. The next article, in this long array of totally
+unhomogeneous objects, was a metronome, with its pendulum wrenched half
+off and one of its sides lacking. He could not determine the character of
+what came next, and only gave a casual examination to the rest. The whole
+affair was a puzzle to him, and he had no time for puzzles disconnected
+with the very serious affair he was engaged in investigating.
+
+"Some childish nonsense," he remarked, and moved towards the door. "The
+servants will be coming back, and I had rather not be found here. You'll
+see me again--I cannot tell just when. Perhaps you may want to send for
+me. If so, my name is Sweetwater."
+
+His hand was on the knob, and he was almost out of the room when he
+started and looked back. A violent change in the patient had occurred.
+Disturbed by his voice or by some inner pulsation of the fever which
+devoured her, Carmel had risen from the pillow and now sat, staring
+straight before her with every feature working and lips opened as if to
+speak. Sweetwater held his breath, and the nurse leaped towards her and
+gently encircled her with protecting arms.
+
+"Lie down," she prayed; "lie down. Everything is all right: I am looking
+after things. Lie down, little one, and rest."
+
+The young girl drooped, and, yielding to the nurse's touch, sank slowly
+back on the pillow; but in an instant she was up again, and flinging out
+her hand, she cried out loudly just as she had cried an hour before:
+
+"Break it open! Break the glass and look in. Her heart should be
+there--her heart--her heart!"
+
+"Go, or I cannot quiet her!" ordered the nurse, and Sweetwater
+turned to obey.
+
+But a new obstacle offered. The brother had heard this cry, and now stood
+in the doorway.
+
+"Who are you?" he impatiently demanded, surveying Sweetwater in
+sudden anger.
+
+"I brought up the drugs," was the quiet explanation of the ever-ready
+detective. "I didn't mean to alarm the young lady, and I don't think I
+did. It's the fever, sir, which makes her talk so wildly."
+
+"We want no strangers here," was young Cumberland's response. "Remember,
+nurse, no strangers." His tone was actually peremptory.
+
+Sweetwater observed him in real astonishment as he slid by and made his
+quiet escape. He was still more astonished when, on glancing towards the
+alcove, he perceived that, contrary to his own prognostication, the
+whiskey stood as high in the decanter as before.
+
+"I've got a puzzler this time," was his comment, as he made his way
+downstairs. "Even Mr. Gryce would say that. I wonder how I'll come out.
+Uppermost!" he finished in secret emphasis to himself. "_Uppermost_! It
+would never do for me to fail in the first big affair I've undertaken on
+my own account."
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+HELEN SURPRISES SWEETWATER
+
+Lurk, lurk.
+
+_King Lear_.
+
+
+The returning servants drove up just as Sweetwater reached the lower
+floor. He was at the side door when they came in, and a single glance
+convinced him that all had gone off decorously at the grave, and that
+nothing further had occurred during their absence to disturb them.
+
+He followed them as they filed away into the kitchen, and, waiting till
+the men had gone about their work, turned his attention to the girls who
+stood about very much as if they did not know just what to do with
+themselves.
+
+"Sit, ladies," said he, drawing up chairs quite as if he were doing the
+honours of the house. Then with a sly, compassionate look into each
+woe-begone face, he artfully remarked: "You're all upset, you are, by
+what Mr. Cumberland said in such an unbecoming way at the funeral. He'd
+like to strangle Mr. Ranelagh! Why couldn't he wait for the sheriff. It
+looks as if that gentleman would have the job, all right."
+
+"Oh! don't!" wailed out one of the girls, the impressionable,
+warm-hearted Maggie. "The horrors of this house'll kill me. I can't
+stand it a minute longer. I'll go--I'll go to-morrow."
+
+"You won't; you're too kind-hearted to leave Mr. Cumberland and his
+sister in their desperate trouble," Sweetwater put in, with a decision as
+suggestive of admiration as he dared to assume.
+
+Her eyes filled, and she said no more. Sweetwater shifted his attention
+to Helen. Working around by her side, he managed to drop these words
+into her ear:
+
+"She talks most, but she doesn't feel her responsibilities any more
+than you do. I've had my experience with women, and you're of the sort
+that stays."
+
+She rolled her eyes towards him, in a slow, surprised way, that would
+have abashed most men.
+
+"I don't know your name, or your business here," said she; "but I do know
+that you take a good deal upon yourself when you say what I shall do or
+shan't do. I don't even know, myself."
+
+"That's because your eye is not so keen to your own virtues as--well, I
+won't say as mine, but as those of any appreciative stranger. I can't
+help seeing what you are, you know."
+
+She turned her shoulder but not before he caught a slight disdainful
+twitch of her rosy, non-communicative mouth.
+
+"Ah, ah, my lady, not quick enough!" thought he; and, with the most
+innocent air in the world, he launched forth in a tirade against the man
+then in custody, as though his guilt were an accepted fact and nothing
+but the formalities of the law stood between him and his final doom. "It
+must make you all feel queer," he wound up, "to think you have waited on
+him and seen him tramping about these rooms for months, just as if he had
+no wicked feelings in his heart and meant to marry Miss Cumberland, not
+to kill her."
+
+"Oh, oh," Maggie sobbed out. "And a perfect gentleman he was, too. I
+can't believe no bad of him. He wasn't like--" Her breath caught, and so
+suddenly that Sweetwater was always convinced that the more cautious
+Helen had twitched her by her skirt. "Like--like other gentlemen who came
+here. It was a kind word he had or a smile. I--I--" She made no attempt
+to finish but bounded to her feet, pulling up the more sedate Helen with
+her. "Let's go," she whispered, "I'm afeared of the man."
+
+The other yielded and began to cross the floor behind the
+impetuous Maggie.
+
+Sweetwater summoned up his courage.
+
+"One moment," he prayed. "Will you not tell me, before you go,
+whether the candlestick I have noticed on the dining-room mantel is
+not one of a pair?"
+
+"Yes, there were two--_once_," said Helen, resisting Maggie's effort to
+drag her out through the open door.
+
+"_Once_," smiled Sweetwater; "by which you mean, three days ago."
+
+A lowering of her head and a sudden make for the door.
+
+Sweetwater changed his tone to one of simple inquiry.
+
+"And was that where they always stood, the pair of them, one on each end
+of the dining-room mantel?"
+
+She nodded; involuntarily, perhaps, but decisively.
+
+Sweetwater hid his disappointment. The room mentioned was a thoroughfare
+for the whole family. Any member of it could have taken the candlestick.
+
+"I'm obliged to you," said he; and might have ventured further had she
+given him the opportunity. But she was too near the door to resist the
+temptation of flight. In another moment she was gone, and Sweetwater
+found himself alone with his reflections.
+
+They were not altogether unpleasing. He was sure that he read the
+evidences of struggle in her slowly working lips and changing impulses.
+
+"So, so!" thought he. "The good seed has found its little corner of soil.
+I'll leave it to take root and sprout. Perhaps the coroner will profit by
+it. If not, I've a way of coaxing tender plants which should bring this
+one to fruit. We'll see."
+
+The moon shone that night, much to Sweetwater's discomforture. As he
+moved about the stable-yard, he momentarily expected to see the window of
+the alcove thrown up and to hear Mr. Cumberland's voice raised in loud
+command for him to quit the premises. But no such interruption came. The
+lonely watcher, whose solitary figure he could just discern above the
+unshaded sill, remained immovable, with his head buried in his arms, but
+whether in sleep or in brooding misery, there was naught to tell.
+
+The rest of the house presented an equally dolorous and forsaken
+appearance. There were lights in the kitchen and lights in the servants'
+rooms at the top of the house, but no sounds either of talking or
+laughing. All voices had sunk to a whisper, and if by chance a figure
+passed one of the windows, it was in a hurried, frightened way, which
+Sweetwater felt very ready to appreciate.
+
+In the stable it was no better. Zadok had bought an evening paper, and
+was seeking solace from its columns. Sweetwater had attempted the
+sociable but had been met by a decided rebuff. The coachman could not
+forget his attitude before the funeral and nothing, not even the pitcher
+of beer the detective proposed to bring in, softened the forbidding air
+with which this old servant met the other's advances.
+
+Soon Sweetwater realised that his work was over for the night and
+planned to leave. But there was one point to be settled first. Was there
+any other means of exit from these grounds save that offered by the
+ordinary driveway?
+
+He had an impression that in one of his strolls about, he had detected
+the outlines of a door in what looked like a high brick wall in the
+extreme rear. If so, it were well worth his while to know where that door
+led. Working his way along in the shadow cast by the house and afterward
+by the stable itself, he came upon what was certainly a wall and a wall
+with a door in it. He could see the latter plainly from where he halted
+in the thick of the shadows. The moonlight shone broadly on it, and he
+could detect the very shape and size of its lock. It might be as well to
+try that lock, but he would have to cross a very wide strip of moonlight
+in order to do so, and he feared to attract attention to his extreme
+inquisitiveness. Yet who was there to notice him at this hour? Mr.
+Cumberland had not moved, the girls were upstairs, Zadok was busy with
+his paper, and the footman dozing over his pipe in his room over the
+stable. Sweetwater had just come from that room, and he knew.
+
+A quiet stable-yard and a closed door only ten feet away! He glanced
+again at the latter, and made up his mind. Advancing in a quiet, sidelong
+way he had, he laid his hand on the small knob above the lock and quickly
+turned it. The door was unlocked and swung under his gentle push. An
+alley-way opened before him, leading to what appeared to be another
+residence street. He was about to test the truth of this surmise when he
+heard a step behind him, and turning, encountered the heavy figure of the
+coachman advancing towards him, with a key in his hand.
+
+Zadok was of an easy turn, but he had been sorely tried that day, and his
+limit had been reached.
+
+"You snooper!" he bawled. "What do you want here? Won't the run of the
+house content ye? Come! I want to lock that door. It's my last duty
+before going to bed."
+
+Sweetwater assumed the innocent.
+
+"And I was just going this way. It looks like a short road into town. It
+is, isn't it?"
+
+"No! Yes," growled the other. "Whichever it is, it isn't your road
+to-night. That's private property, sir. The alley you see, belongs to our
+neighbours. No one passes through there but myself and--"
+
+He caught himself in time, with a sullen grunt which may have been the
+result of fatigue or of that latent instinct of loyalty which is often
+the most difficult obstacle a detective has to encounter.
+
+"And Mr. Ranelagh, I suppose you would say?" was Sweetwater's easy
+finish.
+
+No answer; the coachman simply locked the door and put the key in
+his pocket.
+
+Sweetwater made no effort to deter him. More than that he desisted from
+further questions though he was dying to ask where this key was kept at
+night, and whether it had been in its usual place on the evening of the
+murder. He had gone far enough, he thought. Another step and he might
+rouse this man's suspicion, if not his enmity. But he did not leave the
+shadows into which he again receded until he had satisfied himself that
+the key went into the stable with the coachman, where it probably
+remained for this night, at least.
+
+It was after ten when Sweetwater re-entered the house to say good night
+to Hexford. He found him on watch in the upper hall, and the man, Clarke,
+below. He had a word with the former:
+
+"What is the purpose of the little door in the wall back of the stable?"
+
+"It connects these grounds with those of the Fultons. The Fultons live on
+Huested Street."
+
+"Are the two families intimate?"
+
+"Very. Mr. Cumberland is sweet on the young lady there. She was at the
+funeral to-day. She fainted when--you know when."
+
+"I can guess. God! What complications arise! You don't say that any woman
+can care for _him_?"
+
+Hexford gave a shrug. He had seen a good deal of life.
+
+"He uses that door, then?" Sweetwater pursued, after a minute.
+
+"Probably."
+
+"Did he use it that night?"
+
+"He didn't visit _her_"
+
+"Where did he go?"
+
+"We can't find out. He was first seen on Garden Street, coming home after
+a night of debauch. He had drunk hard. Asked where he got the liquor, he
+maundered out something about a saloon; but none of the places which he
+usually frequents had seen him that night. I have tried them all and some
+that weren't in his books. It was no good."
+
+"That door is supposed to be locked at night. Zadok says that's his duty.
+Was it locked that night?"
+
+"Can't say. Perhaps the coroner can. You see the inquiry ran in such a
+different direction, at first, that a small matter like that may have
+been overlooked."
+
+Sweetwater subdued the natural retort, and, reverting to the subject of
+the saloons, got some specific information in regard to them. Then he
+passed thoughtfully down-stairs, only to come upon Helen who was just
+extinguishing the front-hall light.
+
+"Good night!" he said, in passing.
+
+"Good night, Mr. Sweetwater."
+
+There was something in her tone which made him stop and look back. She
+had stepped into the library and was blowing out the lamp there. He
+paused a moment and sighed softly. Then he started towards the door, only
+to stop again and cast another look back. She was standing in one of the
+doorways, anxiously watching him and twisting her fingers in and out in
+an irresolute way truly significant in one of her disposition.
+
+He felt his heart leap.
+
+Returning softly, he took up his stand before her, looking her straight
+in the eye.
+
+"Good night," he repeated, with an odd emphasis.
+
+"Good night," she answered, with equal force and meaning.
+
+But the next moment she was speaking rapidly, earnestly.
+
+"I can't sleep," said she. "I never can when I'm not certain of my duty.
+Mr. Ranelagh is an injured man. Ask what was said and done at their last
+dinner here. I can't tell you. I didn't listen and I didn't see what
+happened, but it was something out of the ordinary. Three broken
+wineglasses lay on the tablecloth when I went in to clear away. I heard
+the clatter when they fell and smashed, but I said nothing. I have said
+nothing since; but I know there was a quarrel, and that Mr. Ranelagh was
+not in it, for his glass was the only one which remained unbroken. Am I
+wrong in telling you? I wouldn't if--if it were not for Mr. Ranelagh. He
+didn't do right by Miss Cumberland, but he don't deserve to be in prison;
+and so would Miss Carmel tell you if she knew what was going on and could
+speak. _She_ loved him and--I've said enough; I've said enough," the
+agitated girl protested, as he leaned eagerly towards her. "I couldn't
+tell the priest any more. Good night."
+
+And she was gone.
+
+He hesitated a moment, then pursued his way to the side door, and so out
+of the house into the street. As he passed along the front of the now
+darkened building, he scanned it with a new interest and a new doubt.
+Soon he returned to his old habit of muttering to himself. "We don't know
+the half of what has taken place within those walls during the last four
+weeks," said he. "But one thing I will solve, and that is where this
+miserable fellow spent the hours between this dinner they speak of and
+the time of his return next day. Hexford has failed at it. Now we'll see
+what a blooming stranger can do."
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+62 CUTHBERT ROAD
+
+Tush! I will stir about,
+And all things will be well, I warrant thee.
+
+_Romeo and Juliet_.
+
+
+He was walking south and on the best lighted and most beautiful street in
+town, but his eyes were forever seeking a break in the long line of fence
+which marked off the grounds of a seemingly interminable stretch of
+neighbouring mansions, and when a corner was at last reached, he dashed
+around it and took a straight course for Huested Street, down which he
+passed with quickened steps and an air of growing assurance.
+
+He was soon at the bottom of the hill where the street, taking a turn,
+plunged him at once into a thickly populated district. As this was still
+the residence quarter, he passed on until he gained the heart of the town
+and the region of the saloons. Here he slackened pace and consulted a
+memorandum he had made while talking to Hexford. "A big job," was his
+comment, sorry to find the hour quite so late. "But I'm not bound to
+finish it to-night. A start is all I can hope for, so here goes."
+
+It was not his intention to revisit the places so thoroughly overhauled
+by the police. He carried another list, that of certain small groceries
+and quiet unobtrusive hotels where a man could find a private room in
+which to drink alone; it being Sweetwater's conviction that in such a
+place, and in such a place only, would be found the tokens of those
+solitary hours spent by Arthur Cumberland between the time of his
+sister's murder and his reappearance the next day. "Had they been spent
+in his old haunts or in any of the well-known drinking saloons of the
+city, some one would have peached on him before this," he went on, in
+silent argument with himself. "He's too well known, too much of a swell
+for all his lowering aspect and hang-dog look, to stroll along unnoticed
+through any of the principal streets, so soon after the news of his
+sister's murder had set the whole town agog. Yet he was not seen till he
+struck Garden Street, a good quarter of a mile from his usual resorts."
+
+Here, Sweetwater glanced up at the corner gas-lamp beneath which he
+stood, and seeing that he was in Garden Street, tried to locate himself
+in the exact spot where this young man had first been seen on the notable
+morning in question. Then he looked carefully about him. Nothing in the
+street or its immediate neighbourhood suggested the low and secret den he
+was in search of.
+
+"I shall have to make use of the list," he decided, and asked the first
+passer-by the way to Hubbell's Alley.
+
+It was a mile off. "That settles it," muttered Sweetwater. "Besides, I
+doubt if he would go into an _alley_. The man has sunk low, but hardly
+so low as that. What's the next address I have? Cuthbert Road.
+Where's that?"
+
+Espying a policeman eyeing him with more or less curiosity from the other
+side of the street, he crossed over and requested to be directed to
+Cuthbert Road.
+
+"Cuthbert Road! That's where the markets are. They're closed at this time
+of night," was the somewhat suspicious reply.
+
+Evidently the location was not a savoury one.
+
+"Are there nothing but markets there?" inquired Sweetwater, innocently.
+It was his present desire not to be recognised as a detective even by
+the men on beat. "I'm looking up a friend. He keeps a grocery or some
+kind of small hotel. I have his number, but I don't know how to get to
+Cuthbert Road."
+
+"Then turn straight about and go down the first street, and you'll
+reach it before the trolley-car you see up there can strike this
+corner. But first, sew up your pockets. There's a bad block between you
+and the markets."
+
+Sweetwater slapped his trousers and laughed.
+
+"I wasn't born yesterday," he cried; and following the officer's
+directions, made straight for the Road. "Worse than the alley," he
+muttered; "but too near to be slighted. I wonder if I shouldn't have
+borrowed somebody's old coat."
+
+It had been wiser, certainly. In Garden Street all the houses had been
+closed and dark, but here they were open and often brightly lighted and
+noisy from cellar to roof. Men, women, and frequently children, jostled
+him on the pavement, and he felt his pockets touched more than once. But
+he wasn't Caleb Sweetwater of the New York department of police for
+nothing. He laughed, bantered, fought his way through and finally
+reached the quieter region and, at this hour, the almost deserted one,
+of the markets. Sixty-two was not far off, and, pausing a moment to
+consider his course, he mechanically took in the surroundings. He was
+surprised to find himself almost in the open country. The houses
+extending on his left were fronted by the booths and stalls of the
+market but beyond these were the fields. Interested in this discovery,
+and anxious to locate himself exactly, he took his stand under a
+favouring gas-lamp, and took out his map.
+
+What he saw, sent him forward in haste. Shops had now taken the place of
+tenements, and as these were mostly closed, there were very few persons
+on the block, and those were quiet and unobtrusive. He reached a corner
+before coming to 62 and was still more interested to perceive that the
+street which branched off thus immediately from the markets was a wide
+and busy one, offering both a safe and easy approach to dealer and
+customer. "I'm on the track," he whispered almost aloud in his secret
+self-congratulation. "Sixty-two will prove a decent quiet resort which I
+may not be above patronising myself."
+
+But he hesitated when he reached it. Some houses invite and some repel.
+This house repelled. Yet there was nothing shabby or mysterious about it.
+There was the decent entrance, lighted, but not too brilliantly; a row of
+dark windows over it; and, above it all, a sloping roof in which another
+sparkle of light drew his attention to an upper row of windows, this
+time, of the old dormer shape. An alley ran down one side of the house
+to the stables, now locked but later to be thrown open for the use of the
+farmers who begin to gather here as early as four o'clock. Nothing wrong
+in its appearance, everything ship-shape and yet--"I shall find some
+strange characters here," was the Sweetwater comment with which our
+detective opened the door and walked into the house.
+
+It was an unusual hour for guests, and the woman whom he saw bending over
+a sort of desk in one corner of the room he strode into, looked up
+hastily, almost suspiciously.
+
+"Well, and what is your business?" she asked, with her eye on his
+clothes, which while not fashionable, were evidently of the sort not
+often seen in that place.
+
+"I want a room," he tipsily confided to her, "in which I can drink and
+drink till I cannot see. I'm in trouble I am; but I don't want to do any
+mischief; I only want to forget. I've money, and--" as he saw her mouth
+open, "and I've the stuff. Whiskey, just whiskey. Give me a room. I'll
+be quiet."
+
+"I'll give you nothing." She was hot, angry, and full of distrust. "This
+house is not for such as you. It's a farmer's lodging; honest men, who'd
+stare and go mad to see a feller like you about. Go along, I tell you, or
+I'll call Jim. He'll know what to do with you."
+
+"Then, he'll know mor'n I do myself," mumbled the detective, with a
+crushed and discouraged air. "Money and not a place to spend it in! Why
+can't I go in there?" he peevishly inquired with a tremulous gesture
+towards a half-open door through which a glimpse could be got of a neat
+little snuggery. "Nobody'll see me. Give me a glass and leave me till I
+rap for you in the morning. That's worth a fiver. Don't you think so,
+missus?--And we'll begin by passing over the fiver."
+
+"No."
+
+She was mighty peremptory and what was more, she was in a great hurry to
+get rid of him. This haste and the anxious ear she turned towards the
+hall enlightened him as to the situation. There was some one within
+hearing or liable to come within hearing, who possibly was not so stiff
+under temptation. Could it be her husband? If so, it might be worth his
+own while to await the good man's coming, if only he could manage to hold
+his own for the next few minutes.
+
+Changing his tactics, he turned his back on the snuggery and surveyed the
+offended woman, with just a touch of maudlin sentiment.
+
+"I say," he cried, just loud enough to attract the attention of any one
+within ear-shot. "You're a mighty fine woman and the boss of this here
+establishment; that's evident. I'd like to see the man who could say no
+to you. He's never sat in that 'ere cashier's seat where you be; of
+that I'm dead sure. He wouldn't care for fivers if you didn't, nor for
+tens either."
+
+She was really a fine woman for her station, and a buxom, powerful one,
+too. But her glance wavered under these words and she showed a desire,
+with difficulty suppressed, to use the strength of her white but brawny
+arms, in shoving him out of the house. To aid her self-control, he, on
+his part, began to edge towards the door, always eyeing her and always
+speaking loudly in admirably acted tipsy unconsciousness of the fact.
+
+"I'm a man who likes my own way as well as anybody," were the words with
+which he sought to save the situation, and further his own purposes. "But
+I never quarrel with a woman. Her whims are sacred to me. I may not
+believe in them; they may cost me money and comfort; but I yield, I do,
+when they are as strong in their wishes as you be. I'm going, missus
+--I'm going--Oh!"
+
+The exclamation burst from him. He could not help it. The door behind him
+had opened, and a man stepped in, causing him so much astonishment that
+he forgot himself. The woman was big, bigger than most women who rule the
+roost and do the work in haunts where work calls for muscle and a good
+head behind it. She was also rosy and of a make to draw the eye, if not
+the heart. But the man who now entered was small almost to the point of
+being a manikin, and more than that, he was weazen of face and
+ill-balanced on his two tiny, ridiculous legs. Yet she trembled at his
+presence, and turned a shade paler as she uttered the feeble protest:
+
+"Jim!"
+
+"Is she making a fool of herself?" asked the little man in a voice as
+shrill as it was weak. "Do your business with me. Women are no good." And
+he stalked into the room as only little men can.
+
+Sweetwater took out his ten; pointed to the snuggery, and tapped his
+breast-pocket. "Whiskey here," he confided. "Bring me a glass. I don't
+mind your farmers. They won't bother me. What I want is a locked door
+and a still mouth in your head."
+
+The last he whispered in the husband's ear as the wife crossed
+reluctantly back to her books.
+
+The man turned the bill he had received, over and over in his hand; then
+scrutinised Sweetwater, with his first show of hesitation.
+
+"You don't want to kill yourself?" he asked.
+
+Sweetwater laughed with a show of good humour that appeared to relieve
+the woman, if it did not the man.
+
+"Oh, that's it," he cried. "That's what the missus was afraid of, was it?
+Well, I vow! And ten thousand dollars to my credit in the bank! No, I
+don't want to kill myself. I just want to booze to my heart's content,
+with nobody by to count the glasses. You've known such fellers before,
+and that cosey, little room over there has known them, too. Just add me
+to the list; it won't harm you."
+
+The man's hand closed on the bill. Sweetwater noted the action out of the
+corner of his eye, but his direct glance was on the woman. Her back was
+to him, but she had started as he mentioned the snuggery and made as if
+to turn; but thought better of it, and bent lower over her books.
+
+"I've struck the spot," he murmured, exultantly to himself. "This is the
+place I want and here I'll spend the night; but not to booze my wits
+away, oh, no."
+
+Nevertheless it was a night virtually wasted. He learned nothing
+more than what was revealed by that one slight movement on the part
+of the woman.
+
+Though the man came in and sat with him for an hour, and they drank
+together out of the flask Sweetwater had brought with him, he was as
+impervious to all Sweetwater's wiles and as blind to every bait he threw
+out, as any man the young detective had ever had to do with. When the
+door closed on him, and Sweetwater was left to sit out the tedious night
+alone, it was with small satisfaction to himself, and some regret for his
+sacrificed bill. The driving in of the farmers and the awakening of life
+in the market, and all the stir it occasioned inside the house and out,
+prevented sleep even if he had been inclined that way. He had to swallow
+his pill, and he did it with the best grace possible. Sooner than was
+expected of him, sooner than was wise, perhaps, he was on his feet and
+peering out of the one small window this most dismal day room contained.
+He had not mistaken the outlook. It gave on to the alley, and all that
+was visible from behind the curtains where he stood, was the high brick
+wall of the neighbouring house. This wall had not even a window in it;
+which in itself was a disappointment to one of his resources. He turned
+back into the room, disgusted; then crept to the window again, and,
+softly raising the sash, cast one of his lightning glances up and down
+the alley. Then he softly let the sash fall again and retreated to the
+centre of the room, where he stood for a moment with a growing smile of
+intelligence and hope on his face. He had detected close against the side
+of the wall, a box or hand-cart full of empty bottles. It gave him an
+idea. With an impetuosity he would have criticised in another man, he
+flung himself out of the room in which he had been for so many hours
+confined, and coming face to face with the landlady standing in
+unexpected watch before the door, found it a strain on his nerves to
+instantly assume the sullen, vaguely abused air with which he had decided
+to leave the house. Nevertheless, he made the attempt, and if he did not
+succeed to his own satisfaction, he evidently did to hers, for she made
+no effort to stop him as he stumbled out, and in her final look, which he
+managed with some address to intercept, he perceived nothing but relief.
+What had been in her mind? Fear for him or fear for themselves? He could
+not decide until he had rummaged that cart of bottles. But how was he to
+do this without attracting attention to himself in a way he still felt,
+to be undesirable. In his indecision, he paused on the sidewalk and let
+his glances wander vaguely over the busy scene before him. Before be knew
+it, his eye had left the market and travelled across the snow-covered
+fields to a building standing by itself in the far distance. Its
+appearance was not unfamiliar. Seizing hold of the first man who passed
+him, he pointed it out, crying:
+
+"What building is that?"
+
+"That? That's The Whispering Pines, the country club-house, where--"
+
+He didn't wait for the end of the sentence, but plunged into the thickest
+group of people he could find, with a determination greater than ever to
+turn those bottles over before he ate.
+
+His manner of going about this was characteristic. Lounging about the
+stalls until he found just the sort of old codger he wanted, he scraped
+up an acquaintance with him on the spot, and succeeded in making himself
+so agreeable that when the old fellow sauntered back to the stables to
+take a look at his horse, Sweetwater accompanied him. Hanging round the
+stable-door, he kept up his chatter, while sizing up the bottles heaped
+in the cart at his side. He even allowed himself to touch one or two in
+an absent way, and was meditating an accidental upset of the whole
+collection when a woman he had not seen before, thrust her head out of a
+rear window, shouting sharply:
+
+"Leave those bottles alone. They're waiting for the old clothes man. He
+pays us money for them."
+
+Sweetwater gaped and strolled away. He had used his eyes to purpose, and
+was quite assured that the bottle he wanted was not there. But the
+woman's words had given him his cue, and when later in the day a certain
+old Jew peddler went his rounds through this portion of the city, a
+disreputable-looking fellow accompanied him, whom even the sharp landlady
+in Cuthbert Road would have failed to recognise as the same man who had
+occupied the snuggery the night before. He was many hours on the route
+and had many new experiences with human nature. But he gained little
+else, and was considering with what words he should acknowledge his
+defeat at police headquarters, when he found himself again at the markets
+and a minute later in the alley where the cart stood, with the contents
+of which he had busied himself earlier in the day.
+
+He had followed the peddler here because he had followed him to every
+other back door and alley. But he was tired and had small interest in the
+cart which looked quite undisturbed and in exactly the same condition as
+when he turned his back upon it in the morning. But when he drew nearer
+and began to lend a hand in removing the bottles to the waggon, he
+discovered that a bottle had been added to the pile, and that this bottle
+bore the label which marked it as being one of the two which had been
+taken from the club-house on the night of the murder.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+"MUST I TELL THESE THINGS?"
+
+Had I but died an hour before this chance,
+I had liv'd a blessed time; for from this instant,
+There's nothing serious in mortality:
+All is but toys; renown, and grace is dead;
+The wine of life is drawn, and the lees
+Is left this vault to brag of.
+
+_Macbeth_.
+
+
+The lamp in the coroner's room shone dully on the perturbed faces of
+three anxious men. They had been talking earnestly and long, but were now
+impatiently awaiting the appearance of a fourth party, as was shown by
+the glances which each threw from time to time towards the door leading
+into the main corridor.
+
+The district attorney courted the light, and sat where he would be the
+first seen by any one entering. He had nothing to hide, being entirely
+engrossed in his duty.
+
+Further back and rather behind the lamp than in front of it stood or sat,
+as his restlessness prompted, Coroner Perry, the old friend of Amasa
+Cumberland, with whose son he had now to do. Behind him, and still
+further in the shadow, could be seen the quiet figure of Sweetwater. All
+counted the minutes and all showed relief--the coroner by a loud
+sigh--when the door finally opened and an officer appeared, followed by
+the lounging form of Adelaide's brother.
+
+Arthur Cumberland had come unwillingly, and his dissatisfaction did not
+improve his naturally heavy countenance. However, he brightened a little
+at sight of the two men sitting at the table, and, advancing, broke into
+speech before either of the two officials had planned their questions.
+
+"I call this hard," he burst forth. "My place is at home and at the
+bedside of my suffering sister, and you drag me down here at nine o'clock
+at night to answer questions about things of which I am completely
+ignorant. I've said all I have to say about the trouble which has come
+into my family; but if another repetition of the same things will help to
+convict that scoundrel who has broken up my home and made me the
+wretchedest dog alive, then I'm ready to talk. So, fire ahead, Dr. Perry,
+and let's be done with it."
+
+"Sit down," replied the district attorney, gravely, with a gesture of
+dismissal to the officer. "Mr. Cumberland, we have spared you up to
+this time, for two very good reasons. You were in great trouble, and
+you appeared to be in the possession of no testimony which would
+materially help us. But matters have changed since you held
+conversation with Dr. Perry on the day following your sister's decease.
+You have laid that sister away; the will which makes you an independent
+man for life has been read in your hearing; you are in as much ease of
+mind as you can be while your remaining sister's life hangs trembling
+in the balance; and, more important still, discoveries not made before
+the funeral, have been made since, rendering it very desirable for you
+to enter into particulars at this present moment, which were not
+thought necessary then."
+
+"Particulars? What particulars? Don't you know enough, as it is, to hang
+the fellow? Wasn't he seen with his fingers on Adelaide's throat? What
+can I tell you that is any more damaging than that? Particulars!" The
+word seemed to irritate him beyond endurance. Never had he looked more
+unprepossessing or a less likely subject for sympathy, than when he
+stumbled into the chair set for him by the district attorney.
+
+"Arthur!"
+
+The word had a subtle ring. The coroner, who uttered it, waited to watch
+its effect. Seemingly it had none, after the first sullen glance thrown
+him by the young man; and the coroner sighed again, but this time softly,
+and as a prelude to the following speech:
+
+"We can understand," said he, "why you should feel so strongly against
+one who has divided the hearts of your sisters, and played with one, if
+not with both. Few men could feel differently. You have reason for your
+enmity and we excuse it; but you must not carry it to the point of open
+denunciation before the full evidence is in and the fact of murder
+settled beyond all dispute. Whatever you may think, whatever we may
+think, it has not been so settled. There are missing links still to be
+supplied, and this is why we have summoned you here and ask you to be
+patient and give the district attorney a little clearer account of what
+went on in your own house, before you broke up that evening and you went
+to your debauch, and your sister Adelaide to her death at The
+Whispering Pines."
+
+"I don't know what you mean." He brought his fist down on the table with
+each word. "Nothing went on. That is,--"
+
+"Something went on at dinner-time. It was not a usual meal," put in the
+district attorney. "You and your sisters--"
+
+"Stop!" He was at that point of passion which dulls the most
+self-controlled to all sense of propriety.
+
+"Don't talk to me about that dinner. I want to forget that dinner. I want
+to forget everything but the two things I live for--to see that fellow
+hanged, and to--" The words choked him, and he let his head fall, but
+presently threw it up again. "That dastard, whom may God confound, passed
+a letter across Adelaide into Carmel's hand," he panted out. "I saw him,
+but I didn't take it in; I wasn't thinking. I was--"
+
+"Who broke the glasses?" urged his relentless inquisitor. "One at your
+plate, one at Carmel's, and one at the head of the board where sat your
+sister Adelaide?"
+
+"God! Must I tell these things?" He had started to his feet and his hand,
+violent in all it did, struck his forehead impulsively, as he uttered
+this exclamation. "Have it, then! Heaven knows I think of it enough not
+to be afraid to speak it out in words. Adelaide"--the name came with
+passion, but once uttered, produced its own calming effect, so that he
+went on with more restraint--"Adelaide never had much patience with me.
+She was a girl who only saw one way. 'The right! the right!' was what
+she dinned into my ears from the time I was a small boy and didn't know
+but that all youngsters were brought up by sisters. I grew to hate what
+she called 'the right,' I wanted pleasure, a free time, and a good drink
+whenever the fancy took me. You know what I am, Dr. Perry, and everybody
+in town knows; but the impulse which has always ruled me was not a
+downright evil one; or if it was, I called it natural independence, and
+let it go at that. But Adelaide suffered. I didn't understand it and I
+didn't care a fig for it, but she _did_ suffer. God forgive me!"
+
+He stopped and mopped his forehead. Sweetwater moved a trifle on his
+seat, but the others--men who had passed the meridian of life, who had
+known temptations, possibly had succumbed to them, from time to time--sat
+like two statues, one in full light and the other in as dark a shadow as
+he could find.
+
+"That afternoon," young Cumberland presently resumed, "she was keyed up
+more than usual. She loved Ranelagh,--damn him!--and he had played or was
+playing her false. She watched him with eyes that madden me, now, when I
+think of them. She saw him look at Carmel, and she saw Carmel look at
+him. Then her eyes fell on me. I was angry; angry at them all, and I
+wanted a drink. It was not her habit to have wine on the table; but
+sometimes, when Ranelagh was there, she did. She was a slave to Ranelagh,
+and he could make her do whatever he wished, just as he can make you and
+everybody else."
+
+Here he shot insolent glances at his two interlocutors, one of whom
+changed colour--which, happily, he did not see. "'Ring the bell,' I
+ordered, 'and have in the champagne. I want to drink to your marriage and
+the happy days in prospect for us all,' It was brutal and I knew it; but
+I was reckless and wild for the wine. So, I guess, was Ranelagh, for he
+smiled at her, and she rang for the champagne. When the glasses had been
+set beside each plate, she turned towards Carmel. 'We will all drink,'
+she said, 'to my coming marriage,' This made Carmel turn pale; for
+Adelaide had never been known to drink a drop of liquor in her life. I
+felt a little queer, myself; and not one of us spoke till the glasses
+were filled and the maid had left the dining-room and shut the door.
+
+"Then Adelaide rose. 'We will drink standing,' said she, and never had I
+seen her look as she did then. I thought of my evil life when I should
+have been watching Ranelagh; and when she lifted the glass to her lips
+and looked at me, almost as earnestly as she did at Ranelagh,--but it was
+a different kind of earnestness,--I felt like--like--well, like the
+wretch I was and always had been; possibly, always will be. She
+drank;--we wouldn't call it drinking, for she just touched the wine with
+her lips; but to her it was debauch. Then she stood waiting, with the
+strangest gleam in her eyes, while Ranelagh drained his glass and I
+drained mine. Ranelagh thought she wanted some sentiment, and started to
+say something appropriate; but his eye fell on Carmel, who had tried to
+drink and couldn't, and he bungled over his words and at last came to a
+pause under the steady stare of Adelaide's eyes.
+
+"'Never mind, Elwood,' she said; 'I know what you would like to say. But
+that's not what I am thinking of now. I am thinking of my brother, the
+boy who will soon be left to find his way through life without even the
+unwelcome restraint of my presence. I want him to remember this day. I
+want him to remember me as I stand here before him with this glass in my
+hand. You see wine in it, Arthur; but I see poison--poison--nothing else,
+for one like you who cannot refuse a friend, cannot refuse your own
+longing. Never from this day on shall another bottle be opened under my
+roof. Carmel, you have grieved as well as I over what has passed for
+pleasure in this house. Do as I do, and may Arthur see and remember.'
+
+"Her fingers opened; the glass fell from her hand, and lay in broken
+fragments beside her plate. Carmel followed suit, and, before I knew it,
+my own fingers had opened, and my own glass lay in pieces on the
+table-cloth beneath me. Only Ranelagh's hand remained steady. He did not
+choose to please her, or he was planning his perfidy and had not caught
+her words or understood her action. She held her breath, watching that
+hand; and I can hear the gasp yet with which she saw him set his glass
+down quietly on the board. That's the story of those three broken
+glasses. If she had not died that night, I should be laughing at them
+now; but she did die and I don't laugh! I curse--curse her recreant
+lover, and sometimes myself! Do you want anything more of me? I'm eager
+to be gone, if you don't."
+
+The district attorney sought out and lifted a paper from the others lying
+on the desk before him. It was the first movement he had made since
+Cumberland began his tale.
+
+"I'm sorry," said he, with a rapid examination of the paper in his hand,
+"but I shall have to detain you a few minutes longer. What happened after
+the dinner? Where did you go from the table?"
+
+"I went to my room to smoke. I was upset and thirsty as a fish."
+
+"Have you liquor in your room?"
+
+"Sometimes."
+
+"Did you have any that night?"
+
+"Not a drop. I didn't dare. I wanted that champagne bottle, but
+Adelaide had been too quick for me. It was thrown out--wasted--I do
+believe, wasted."
+
+"So you did not drink? You only smoked in your room?"
+
+"Smoked one cigar. That was all. Then I went down town."
+
+His tone had grown sulky, the emotion which had buoyed him up till now,
+seemed suddenly to have left him. With it went the fire from his eye, the
+quiver from his lip, and it is necessary to add, everything else
+calculated to awaken sympathy. He was simply sullen now.
+
+"May I ask by which door you left the house?"
+
+"The side door--the one I always take."
+
+"What overcoat did you wear?"
+
+"I don't remember. The first one I came to, I suppose."
+
+"But you can surely tell what hat?"
+
+They expected a violent reply, and they got it.
+
+"No, I can't. What has my hat got to do with the guilt of Elwood
+Ranelagh?"
+
+"Nothing, we hope," was the imperturbable answer. "But we find it
+necessary to establish absolutely just what overcoat and what hat you
+wore down street that night."
+
+"I've told you that I don't remember." The young man's colour was rising.
+
+"Are not these the ones?" queried the district attorney, making a sign to
+Sweetwater, who immediately stepped forward, with a shabby old ulster
+over his arm, and a battered derby in his hand.
+
+The young man started, rose, then sat again, shouting out with
+angry emphasis:
+
+"_No!"_
+
+"Yet you recognise these?"
+
+"Why shouldn't I? They're mine. Only I don't wear them any more. They're
+done for. You must have rooted them out from some closet."
+
+"We did; perhaps you can tell us what closet."
+
+"I? No. What do I know about my old clothes? I leave that to the women."
+
+The slight faltering observable in the latter word conveyed nothing to
+these men.
+
+"Mr. Cumberland,"--the district attorney was very serious,--"this hat and
+this coat, old as they are, were worn into town from your house that
+night. This we know, absolutely. We can even trace them to the
+club-house."
+
+Mechanically, not spontaneously this time, the young man rose to his
+feet, staring first at the man who had uttered these words, then at the
+garments which Sweetwater still held in view. No anger now; he was too
+deeply shaken for that, too shaken to answer at once--too shaken to be
+quite the master of his own faculties. But he rallied after an interval
+during which these three men devoured his face, each under his own
+special anxiety, and read there possibly what each least wanted to see.
+
+"I don't know anything about it," were the words with which Arthur
+Cumberland sought to escape from the net which had been thus deftly cast
+about him. "I didn't wear the things. Anybody can tell you what clothes I
+came home in. Ranelagh may have borrowed--"
+
+"Ranelagh wore his own coat and hat. We will let the subject of apparel
+drop, and come to a topic on which you may be better qualified to speak.
+Mr. Cumberland, you have told us that you didn't know at the time, and
+can't remember now, where you spent that night and most of the next
+morning. All you can remember is that it was in some place where they let
+you drink all you wished and leave when the fancy took you, and not
+before. It was none of your usual haunts. This seemed strange to your
+friends, at the time; but it is easier for us to understand, now that you
+have told us what had occurred at your home-table. You dreaded to have
+your sister know how soon you could escape the influence of that moment.
+You wished to drink your fill and leave your family none the wiser. Am I
+not right?"
+
+"Yes; it's plain enough, isn't it? Why harp on that string? Don't you see
+that it maddens me? Do you want to drive me to drink again?"
+
+The coroner interposed. He had been very willing to leave the burden of
+this painful inquiry to the man who had no personal feelings to contend
+with; but at this indignant cry he started forward, and, with an air of
+fatherly persuasion, remarked kindly:
+
+"You mustn't mind the official tone, or the official persistence. There
+is reason for all that Mr. Fox says. Answer him frankly, and this
+inquiry will terminate speedily. We have no wish to harry you--only to
+get at the truth."
+
+"The truth? I thought you had that pat enough. The truth? The truth about
+what? Ranelagh or me? I should think it was about me, from the kind of
+questions you ask."
+
+"It is, just now," resumed the district attorney, as his colleague drew
+back out of sight once more. "You cannot remember the saloon in which you
+drank. That's possible enough; but perhaps you can remember what they
+gave you. Was it whiskey, rum, absinthe, or what?"
+
+The question took his irritable listener by surprise. Arthur gasped, and
+tried to steal some comfort from Coroner Perry's eye. But that old
+friend's face was too much in shadow, and the young man was forced to
+meet the district attorney's eye, instead, and answer the district
+attorney's question.
+
+"I drank--absinthe," he cried, at last.
+
+"From this bottle?" queried the other, motioning again to Sweetwater, who
+now brought forward the bottle he had picked up in Cuthbert Road.
+
+Arthur Cumberland glanced at the bottle the detective held up, saw the
+label, saw the shape, and sank limply in his chair, his eyes starting,
+his jaw falling.
+
+"Where did you get that?" he asked, pulling himself together with a
+sudden desperate self-possession that caused Sweetwater to cast a quick
+significant glance at the coroner, as he withdrew to his corner, leaving
+the bottle on the table.
+
+"That," answered the district attorney, "was picked up at a small hotel
+on Cuthbert Road, just back of the markets."
+
+"I don't know the place."
+
+"It's not far from The Whispering Pines. In fact, you can see the
+club-house from the front door of this hotel."
+
+"I don't know the place, I tell you."
+
+"It's not a high-class resort; not select enough by a long shot, to
+have this brand of liquor in its cellar. They tell me that this is of
+very choice quality. That very few private families, even, indulge in
+it. That there were only two bottles of it left in the club-house
+when the inventory was last taken, that those two bottles are now
+gone, and that--"
+
+"This is one of them? Is that what you want to say? Well, it may be for
+all I know. I didn't carry it there. I didn't have the drinking of it."
+
+"We have seen the man and woman who keep that hotel. They will talk, if
+they have to."
+
+"They will?" His dogged self-possession rather astonished them. "Well,
+that ought to please you. I've nothing to do with the matter."
+
+A change had taken place in him. The irritability approaching to
+violence, which had attended every speech and infused itself into every
+movement since he came into the room, had left him. He spoke quietly,
+and with a touch of irony in his tone. He seemed more the man, but not
+a whit more prepossessing, and, if anything, less calculated to
+inspire confidence. The district attorney showed that he was baffled,
+and Dr. Perry moved uneasily in his seat, until Sweetwater, coming
+forward, took up the cue and spoke for the first time since young
+Cumberland entered the room.
+
+"Then I have no doubt but you will do us this favour," he volunteered, in
+his pleasantest manner. "It's not a long walk from here. Will you go
+there in my company, with your coat-collar pulled up and your hat well
+down over your eyes, and ask for a seat in the snuggery and show them
+this bottle? They won't know that it's empty. The man is sharp and the
+woman intelligent. They will see that you are a stranger, and admit you
+readily. They are only shy of one man--the man who drank there on the
+night of your sister's murder."
+
+"You 're a--" he began, with a touch of his old violence; but realising,
+perhaps, that his fingers were in a trap, he modified his manner again,
+and continued more quietly. "This is an odd request to make. I begin to
+feel as if my word were doubted here; as if my failings and reckless
+confession of the beastly way in which I spent that night, were making
+you feel that I have no good in me and am at once a liar and a sneak. I'm
+not. I won't go with you to that low drinking hell, unless you make me,
+but I'll swear--"
+
+"Don't swear." It is unnecessary to say who spoke. "We wouldn't believe
+you, and it would be only adding perjury to the rest."
+
+"You wouldn't believe me?"
+
+"No; we have reasons, my boy. There were two bottles."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"The other has been found nearer your home."
+
+"That's a trick. You're all up to tricks--"
+
+"Not in this case, Arthur. Let me entreat you in memory of your father to
+be candid with us. We have arrested a man. He denies his guilt, but can
+produce no witnesses in support of his assertions. Yet such witnesses may
+exist. Indeed, we think that one such does exist. The man who took the
+bottles from the club-house's wine-vault did so within a few minutes of
+the time when this crime was perpetrated on your sister. He should be
+able to give valuable testimony for or against Elwood Ranelagh. Now, you
+can see why we are in search of this witness and why we think you can
+serve us in this secret and extraordinary matter. If you can't, say so;
+and we will desist from all further questions. But this will not help
+you. It will only show that, in our opinion, you have gained the rights
+of a man suspected of something more than shirking his duty as an unknown
+and hitherto unsuspected witness."
+
+"This is awful!" Young Cumberland had risen to his feet and was swaying
+to and fro before them like a man struck between the eyes by some
+maddening blow.
+
+"God! if I had only died that night!" he muttered, with his eyes upon
+the floor and every muscle tense with the shock of this last calamity.
+"Dr. Perry," he moaned suddenly, stretching out one hand in entreaty,
+and clutching at the table for support with the other, "let me go for
+to-night. Let me think. My brain is all in a whirl. I'll try to answer
+to-morrow." But even as he spoke he realised the futility of his
+request. His eye had fallen again on the bottle, and, in its shape and
+tell-tale label, he beheld a witness bound to testify against him if he
+kept silent himself.
+
+"Don't answer," he went on, holding fast to the table, but letting his
+other hand fall. "I was always a fool. I'm nothing but a fool now. I may
+as well own the truth, and be done with it. I was in the clubhouse. I did
+rob the wine-vault; I did carry off the bottles to have a quiet spree,
+and it was to some place on Cuthbert Road I went. But, when I've admitted
+so much, I've admitted all. I saw nothing of my sister's murder; saw
+nothing of what went on in the rooms upstairs. I crept in by the open
+window at the top of the kitchen stairs, and I came out by the same. I
+only wanted the liquor, and when I got it, I slid out as quickly as I
+could, and made my way over the golf-links to the Road."
+
+Wiping the sweat from his brow, he stood trembling. There was something
+in the silence surrounding him which seemed to go to his heart; for his
+free right hand rose unconsciously to his breast, and clung there.
+Sweetwater began to wish himself a million of miles away from this scene.
+This was not the enjoyable part of his work. This was the part from which
+he always shrunk with overpowering distaste.
+
+The district attorney's voice sounded thin, almost piercing, as he made
+this remark:
+
+"You entered by an open window. Why didn't you go in by the door?"
+
+"I hadn't the key. I had only abstracted the one which opens the
+wine-vault. The rest I left on the ring. It was the sight of this key,
+lying on our hall-table, which first gave me the idea. I feel like a cad
+when I think of it, but that's of no account now. All I really care
+about is for you to believe what I tell you. I wasn't mixed up in that
+matter of my sister's death. I didn't know about it--I wish I had.
+Adelaide might have been saved; we might all have been saved; _but it was
+not to be._"
+
+Flushed, he slowly sank back into his seat. No complaint, now, of being
+in a hurry, or of his anxiety to regain his sick sister's bedside. He
+seemed to have forgotten those fears in the perturbations of the
+moment. His mind and interest were here; everything else had grown dim
+with distance.
+
+"Did you try the front door?"
+
+"What was the use? I knew it to be locked."
+
+"What was the use of trying the window? Wasn't it also,
+presumably, locked?"
+
+The red mounted hot and feverish to his cheek.
+
+"You'll think me no better than a street urchin or something worse,"
+he exclaimed. "I knew that window; I had been through it before. You
+can move that lock with your knife-blade. I had calculated on entering
+that way."
+
+"Mr. Ranelagh's story receives confirmation," commented the district
+attorney, wheeling suddenly towards the coroner. "He says that he found
+this window unlocked, when he approached it with the idea of escaping
+that way."
+
+Arthur Cumberland remained unmoved.
+
+The district attorney wheeled back.
+
+"There were a number of bottles taken from the wine-vault; some half
+dozen were left on the kitchen table. Why did you trouble yourself to
+carry up so many?"
+
+"Because my greed outran my convenience. I thought I could lug away
+an armful, but there are limits to one's ability. I realised this
+when I remembered how far I had to go, and so left the greater part
+of them behind."
+
+"Why, when you had a team ready to carry you?"
+
+"A--I had no team." But the denial cost him something. His cheek lost its
+ruddiness, and took on a sickly white which did not leave it again as
+long as the interview lasted.
+
+"You had no team? How then did you manage to reach home in time to make
+your way back to Cuthbert Road by half-past eleven?"
+
+"I didn't go home. I went straight across the golf-links. If fresh
+snow hadn't fallen, you would have seen my tracks all the way to
+Cuthbert Road."
+
+"If fresh snow had not fallen, we should have known the whole story of
+that night before an hour had passed. How did you carry those bottles?"
+
+"In my overcoat pockets. These pockets," he blurted out, clapping his
+hands on either side of him.
+
+"Had it begun to snow when you left the clubhouse?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Was it dark?"
+
+"I guess not; the links were bright as day, or I shouldn't have got over
+them as quickly as I did."
+
+"Quickly? How quickly?" The district attorney stole a glance at the
+coroner, which made Sweetwater advance a step from his corner.
+
+"I don't know. I don't understand these questions," was the sullen reply.
+
+"You walked quickly. Does that mean you didn't look back?"
+
+"How, look back?"
+
+"Your sister lit a candle in the small room where her coat was found.
+This light should have been visible from the golf-links."
+
+"I didn't see any light."
+
+He was almost rough in these answers. He was showing himself now at his
+very worst.
+
+A few more questions followed, but they were of minor import, and aroused
+less violent feeling. The serious portion of the examination, if thus it
+might be called, was over, and all parties showed the reaction which
+follows all unnatural restraint or subdued excitement.
+
+The coroner glanced meaningly at the district attorney, who, tapping with
+his fingers on the table, hesitated for a moment before he finally turned
+again upon Arthur Cumberland.
+
+"You wish to return to your sister? You are at liberty to do so; I will
+trouble you no more to-night. Your sleigh is at the door, I presume."
+
+The young man nodded, then rising slowly, looked first at the district
+attorney, then at the coroner, with a glance of searching inquiry which
+did not escape the watchful eye of Sweetwater, lurking in the rear. There
+was no display of anger, scarcely of impatience, in him now. If he spoke,
+they did not hear him; and when he moved, it was heavily and with a
+drooping head. They watched him go, each as silent as he. The coroner
+tried to speak, but succeeded no better than the boy himself. When the
+door opened under his hand, they all showed relief, but were startled
+back into their former attention by his turning suddenly in the doorway
+with this final remark:
+
+"What did you say about a bottle with a special label on it being found
+at our house? It never was, or, if it was, some fellow has been playing
+you a trick. I carried off those two bottles myself. One you see there;
+the other is--I can't tell where; but I didn't take it home. That you
+can bet on."
+
+One more look, followed by a heavy frown and a low growling sound in his
+throat--which may have been his way of saying good-bye--and he was gone.
+
+Sweetwater came forward and shut the door; then the three men drew more
+closely together, and the district attorney remarked:
+
+"He is better at the house. I hadn't the heart on your account, Dr.
+Perry, to hurry matters faster than necessity compels. What a lout he is!
+Pardon me, but what a lout he is to have had two such uncommon and
+attractive sisters."
+
+"And such a father," interposed the coroner.
+
+"Just so--and such a father. Sweetwater? Hey! what's the matter? You
+don't look satisfied. Didn't I cover the ground?"
+
+"Fully, sir, so far as I see now, but--"
+
+"Well, well--out with it."
+
+"I don't know what to out with. It's all right but--I guess I'm a fool,
+or tired, or something. Can I do anything more for you? If not, I should
+like to hunt up a bunk. A night's sleep will make a man of me again."
+
+"Go then; that is, if Dr. Perry has no orders for you."
+
+"None. I want my sleep, too." But Dr. Perry had not the aspect of one
+who expects to get it.
+
+Sweetwater brightened. A few more words, some understanding as to the
+morrow, and he was gone. The district attorney and the coroner still
+sat, but very little passed between them. The clock overhead struck the
+hour; both looked up but neither moved. Another fifteen minutes, then
+the telephone rang. The coroner rose and lifted the receiver. The
+message could be heard by both gentlemen, in the extreme quiet of this
+midnight hour.
+
+"Dr. Perry?"
+
+"Yes, I'm listening."
+
+"He came in at a quarter to twelve, greatly agitated and very white. I
+ran upon him in the lower hall, and he looked angry enough to knock me
+down; but he simply let out a curse and passed straight up to his
+sister's room. I waited till he came out; then I managed to get hold of
+the nurse and she told me this queer tale:
+
+"He was all in a tremble when he came in, but she declares he had not
+been drinking. He went immediately to the bedside; but his sister was
+asleep, and he didn't stay there, but went over where the nurse was, and
+began to hang about her till suddenly she felt a twitch at her side and,
+looking quickly, saw the little book she carries there, falling back into
+place. He had lifted it, and probably read what she had written in it
+during his absence.
+
+"She was displeased, but he laughed when he saw that he had been caught
+and said boldly: 'You are keeping a record of my sister's ravings. Well,
+I think I'm as interested in them as you are, and have as much right to
+read as you to write. Thank God! they are innocent enough. Even you must
+acknowledge that,' She made no answer, for they were innocent enough; but
+she'll keep the book away from him after this--of that you may be sure."
+
+"And what is he doing now? Is he going into his own room to-night?"
+
+"No. He went there but only to bring out his pillows. He will sleep in
+the alcove."
+
+"Drink?"
+
+"No, not a drop. He has ordered the whiskey locked up. I hear him moaning
+sometimes to himself as if he missed it awfully, but not a thimbleful has
+left the decanter."
+
+"Goodnight, Hexford."
+
+"Good night."
+
+"You heard?" This to the district attorney.
+
+"Every word."
+
+Both went for their overcoats. Only on leaving did they speak again, and
+then it was to say:
+
+"At ten o'clock to-morrow morning."
+
+"At ten o'clock."
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+ON IT WAS WRITTEN--
+
+Can this avail thee? Look to it!
+
+_Prometheus Bound_.
+
+
+The district attorney was right; Sweetwater was not happy. His night's
+rest had not benefited him. He had seemed natural enough when he first
+appeared at the coroner's office in the early morning, and equally
+natural all through the lengthy conference which followed; but a half
+hour later, any one who knew him well,--any of his fellow detectives in
+New York; especially Mr. Gryce, who had almost fathered him since he came
+among them, a raw and inexperienced recruit--would have seen at first
+glance that his spirits were no longer at par, and that the cheer he
+displayed in manner and look was entirely assumed, and likely to
+disappear as soon as he found himself alone.
+
+And it did so disappear. When, at two o'clock, he entered the club-house
+grounds, it was without buoyancy or any of the natural animation with
+which he usually went about his work. Each step seemed weighted with
+thought, or, at least, heavy with inner dissatisfaction. But his eye was
+as keen as ever, and he began to use that eye from the moment he passed
+the gates. What was in his mind? Was he hunting for new clews, or was he
+merely seeking to establish the old?
+
+The officers on guard knew him, by this time, and let him pass hither,
+thither, and where he would, unmolested. He walked up and down the
+driveways, peering continuously at the well-trodden snow. He studied the
+spaces between. He sauntered to the rear, and looked out over the
+golf-links. Then he began to study the ground in this direction, as he
+had already studied it in front. The few mutterings which left his lips
+continued to speak of discontent. "If I had only had Clarke's chance, or
+even Hexford's," was among his complaints. "But what can I hope now? The
+snow has been trampled till it is one solid cake of ice, to the very edge
+of the golf-links. Beyond that, the distance is too great for minute
+inspection. Yet it will have to be gone over, inch by inch, before I
+shall feel satisfied. I must know how much of his story is to be
+believed, and how much of it we can safely set aside."
+
+He ended by wandering down on the golf-links. Taking out his watch, he
+satisfied himself that he had time for an experiment, and immediately
+started for Cuthbert Road. An hour later, he came wandering back, on a
+different line. He looked soured, disappointed. When near the building
+again, he cast his eye over its rear, and gazed long and earnestly at
+the window which had been pointed out to him as the one from which a
+possible light had shone forth that night. There were no trees on this
+side of the house--only vines. But the vines were bare of leaves and
+offered no obstruction to his view. "If there had been a light in that
+window, any one leaving this house by the rear would have seen it,
+unless he had been drunk or a fool," muttered Sweetwater, in
+contemptuous comment to himself. "Arthur Cumberland's story is one lie.
+I'll take the district attorney's suggestion and return to New York
+to-night. My work's done here."
+
+Yet he hung about the links for a long time, and finally ended by
+entering the house, and taking up his stand beneath the long, narrow
+window of the closet overlooking the golf-links. With chin resting on his
+arms, he stared out over the sill and sought from the space before him,
+and from the intricacies of his own mind, the hint he lacked to make this
+present solution of the case satisfactory to all his instincts.
+
+"Something is lacking." Thus he blurted out after a look behind him into
+the adjoining room of death. "I can't say what; nor can I explain my own
+unrest, or my disinclination to leave this spot. The district attorney
+is satisfied, and so, I'm afraid is the coroner; but I'm not, and I feel
+as guilty--"
+
+Here he threw open the window for air, and, thrusting his head out,
+glanced over the links, then aside at the pines, showing beyond the line
+of the house on the southern end, and then out of mere idleness, down at
+the ground beneath him. "As guilty," he went on, "as Ranelagh appears to
+be, and some one really is. I--"
+
+Starting, he leaned farther out. What was that he saw in the vines--not
+on the snow of the ground, but half way up in the tangle of small
+branches clinging close to the stone of the lower story, just beneath
+this window? He would see. Something that glistened, something that could
+only have got there by falling from this window. Could he reach it? No;
+he would have to climb up from below to do that. Well, that was easy
+enough. With the thought, he rushed from the room. In another minute he
+was beneath that window; had climbed, pulled, pushed his way up; had
+found the little pocket of netted vines observable from above; had thrust
+in his fingers and worked a small object out; had looked at it, uttered
+an exclamation curious in its mixture of suppressed emotions, and let
+himself down again into the midst of the two or three men who had scented
+the adventure and hastened to be witnesses of its outcome.
+
+"A phial!" he exclaimed, "An empty phial, but--" Holding the little
+bottle up between his thumb and forefinger, he turned it slowly about
+until the label faced them.
+
+On it was written one word, but it was a word which invariably carries
+alarm with it.
+
+That word was: _Poison_.
+
+Sweetwater did not return to New York that night.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+"IT 'S NOT WHAT YOU WILL FIND"
+
+I am not mad;--I would to heaven I were!
+For then, 't is like I should forget myself:
+O, if I could, what grief should I forget!--
+Preach some philosophy to make me mad,
+For being not mad, but sensible of grief,
+My reasonable part produces reason
+How I may be delivered of these woes.
+
+_King John_.
+
+
+"I regret to disturb you, Arthur; but my business is of great importance,
+and should be made known to you at once. This I say as a friend. I might
+have waited for the report to have reached you from hearsay, or through
+the evening papers; but I preferred to be the one to tell you. You can
+understand why."
+
+Sullen and unmollified, the young man thus addressed eyed,
+apprehensively, his father's old friend, placed so unfortunately in his
+regard, and morosely exclaimed:
+
+"Out with it! I'm a poor hand at guessing. What has happened now?"
+
+"A discovery. A somewhat serious one I fear; at least, it will force the
+police to new action. Your sister may not have died entirely from
+strangulation; other causes may have been at work!"
+
+"Now, what do you mean by that?" Arthur Cumberland was under his own
+roof and in presence of one who should have inspired his respect; but
+he made no effort to hide the fury which these words called up. "I
+should like to know what deviltry is in your minds now. Am I never to
+have peace?"
+
+"Peace and tragedy do not often run together," came in the mild tones of
+his would-be friend. "A great crime has taken place. All the members of
+this family are involved--to say nothing of the man who lies, now, under
+the odium of suspicion, in our common county jail. Peace can only come
+with the complete clearing up of this crime, and the punishment of the
+guilty. But the clearing up must antedate the punishment. Mr. Ranelagh's
+assertion that he found Miss Cumberland dead when he approached her, may
+not be, as so many now believe, the reckless denial of a criminal,
+disturbed in his act. It may have had a basis in fact."
+
+"I don't believe it. Nothing will make me believe it," stormed the other,
+jumping up, and wildly pacing the drawing-room floor. "It is all a scheme
+for saving the most popular man in society. Society! That for society!"
+he shouted out, snapping his fingers. "He is president of the club; the
+pet of women; the admired of all the dolts and gawks who are taken with
+his style, his easy laughter, and his knack at getting at men's hearts.
+He won't laugh so easily when he's up before a jury for murder; and he'll
+never again fool women or bulldoze men, even if they are weak enough to
+acquit him of this crime. Enough of the smirch will stick to prevent
+that. If it doesn't, I'll--"
+
+Again his hands went out in the horribly suggestive way they had done at
+his sister's funeral. The coroner sat appalled,--confused, almost
+distracted between his doubts, his convictions, his sympathy for the man
+and his recoil from the passions he would be only too ready to pardon if
+he could feel quite sure of their real root and motive. Cumberland may
+have felt the other's silence, or he may have realised the imprudence of
+his own fury; for he dropped his hands with an impatient sigh, and
+blurted out:
+
+"But you haven't told me your discovery. It seems to me it is a little
+late to make discoveries now."
+
+"This was brought about by the persistence of Sweetwater. He seems to
+have an instinct for things. He was leaning out of the window at the rear
+of the clubhouse--the window of that small room where your sister's coat
+was found--and he saw, caught in the vines beneath, a--"
+
+"Why don't you speak out? I cannot tell what he found unless you name
+it."
+
+"A little bottle--an apothecary's phial. It was labelled 'Poison,' and it
+came from this house."
+
+Arthur Cumberland reeled; then he caught himself up and stood, staring,
+with a very obvious intent of getting a grip on himself before he spoke.
+
+The coroner waited, a slight flush deepening on his cheek.
+
+"How do you know that phial came from this house?"
+
+Dr. Perry looked up, astonished. He was prepared for the most frantic
+ebullitions of wrath, for violence even; or for dull, stupid, blank
+silence. But this calm, quiet questioning of fact took him by surprise.
+He dropped his anxious look, and replied:
+
+"It has been seen on the shelves by more than one of your servants. Your
+sister kept it with her medicines, and the druggist with whom you deal
+remembers selling it some time ago to a member of your family."
+
+"Which member? I don't believe this story; I don't believe any of your--"
+He was fast verging on violence now.
+
+"You will have to, Arthur. Facts are facts, and we cannot go against
+them. The person who bought it was yourself. Perhaps you can recall the
+circumstance now."
+
+"I cannot." He did not seem to be quite master of himself. "I don't know
+half the things I do; at least, I didn't use to. But what are you coming
+to? What's in your mind, and what are your intentions? Something to shame
+us further, I've no doubt. You're soft on Ranelagh and don't care how I
+feel, or how Carmel will feel when she comes to herself--poor girl. Are
+you going to call it suicide? You can't, with those marks on her throat."
+
+"We're going to carry out our investigations to the full. We're going to
+hold the autopsy, which we didn't think necessary before. That's why I am
+here, Arthur. I thought it your due to know our intentions in regard to
+this matter. If you wish to be present, you have only to say so; if you
+do not, you may trust me to remember that she was your father's daughter,
+as well as my own highly esteemed friend."
+
+Shaken to the core, the young man sat down amid innumerable tokens of the
+two near, if not dear, ones just mentioned; and for a moment had nothing
+to say. Gone was his violence, gone his self-assertion, and his insolent,
+captious attitude towards his visitor. The net had been drawn too
+tightly, or the blow fallen too heavily. He was no longer a man
+struggling with his misery, but a boy on whom had fallen a man's
+responsibilities, sufferings, and cares.
+
+"My duty is here," he said at last. "I cannot leave Carmel."
+
+"The autopsy will take place to-morrow. How is Carmel to-day?"
+
+"No better." The words came with a shudder. "Doctor, I've been a brute to
+you. I am a brute! I have misused my life and have no strength with which
+to meet trouble. What you propose to do with--with Adelaide is horrible
+to me. I didn't love her much while she was living; I broke her heart and
+shamed her, from morning till night, every day of her life; but
+good-for-nothing as I am and good-for-nothing as I've always been, if I
+could save her body this last humiliation, I would willingly die right
+here and now, and be done with it. Must this autopsy take place?"
+
+"It must."
+
+"Then--" He raised his arm; the blood swept up, dyeing his cheeks, his
+brow, his very neck a vivid scarlet. "Tell them to lock up every
+bottle the house holds, or I cannot answer for myself. I should like
+to drink and drink till I knew nothing, cared for nothing, was a
+madman or a beast."
+
+"You will not drink." The coroner's voice rang deep; he was greatly
+moved. "You will not drink, and you will come to the office at five
+o'clock to-morrow. We may have only good news to impart. We may find
+nothing to complicate the situation."
+
+Arthur Cumberland shook his head. "It's not what you will find--" said
+he, and stopped, biting his lips and looking down.
+
+The coroner uttered a few words of consolation forced from him by the
+painfulness of the situation. The young man did not seem to hear them.
+The only sign of life he gave was to rush away the moment the coroner had
+taken his leave, and regain his seat within sight and hearing of his
+still unconscious sister. As he did so, these words came to his ears
+through the door which separated them:
+
+"Flowers--I smell flowers! Lila, you always loved flowers; but I never
+saw your hands so full of them."
+
+Arthur uttered a sharp cry; then, bowing his face upon his aims, he broke
+into sobs which shook the table where he sat.
+
+Twenty-four hours later, in the coroner's office, sat an anxious group
+discussing the great case and the possible revelations awaiting them. The
+district attorney, Mr. Clifton, the chief of police, and one or two
+others--among them Sweetwater--made up the group, and carried on the
+conversation. Dr. Perry only was absent. He had undertaken to make the
+autopsy and had been absent, for this purpose, several hours.
+
+Five o'clock had struck, and they were momentarily looking for his
+reappearance; but, when the door opened, as it did at this time, it was
+to admit young Cumberland, whose white face and shaking limbs betrayed
+his suspense and nervous anxiety.
+
+He was welcomed coldly, but not impolitely, and sat down in very much
+the same place he had occupied during his last visit, but in a very
+different, and much more quiet state of mind. To Sweetwater, his
+aspect was one of despair, but be made no remark upon it; only kept
+all his senses alert for the coming moment, of so much importance to
+them all. But even he failed to guess how important, until the door
+opened again, and the coroner appeared, looking not so much depressed
+as stunned. Picking out Arthur from the group, he advanced towards him
+with some commonplace remark; but desisted suddenly and turned upon
+the others instead.
+
+"I have finished the autopsy," said he. "I knew just what poison the
+phial had held, and lost no time in my tests. A minute portion of this
+drug, which is dangerous only in large quantities, was found in the
+stomach of the deceased; but not enough to cause serious trouble, and she
+died, as we had already decided, from the effect of the murderous clutch
+upon her throat. But," he went on sternly, as young Cumberland moved, and
+showed signs of breaking in with one of his violent invectives against
+the supposed assassin, "I made another discovery of still greater
+purport. When we lifted the body out of its resting-place, something
+beside withered flowers slid from her breast and fell at our feet. The
+ring, gentlemen--the ring which Ranelagh says was missing from her hand
+when he came upon her, and which certainly was not on her finger when she
+was laid in the casket,--rolled to the floor when we moved her. Here it
+is; there is one person here, at least, who can identify it. But I do not
+ask that person to speak. That we may well spare him."
+
+He laid the ring on the table, not too near Arthur, not within reach of
+his hand, but close enough for him to see it. Then he sat down, and hid
+his face in his hands. The last few days had told on him. He looked
+older, by ten years, than he had at the beginning of the month.
+
+The silence which followed these words and this action, was memorable to
+everybody there concerned. Some had seen, and all had heard of young
+Cumberland's desperate interruption of the funeral, and the way his hand
+had invaded the flowers which the children had cast in upon her breast.
+As the picture, real or fancied, rose before their eyes, one man rose and
+left his place at the table; then another, and presently another. Even
+Charles Clifton drew back. The district attorney remained where he was,
+and so did young Cumberland. The latter had reached out his hand, but he
+had not touched the ring, and he sat thus, frozen. What went on in his
+heart, no man there could guess, and he did not enlighten them. When at
+last he looked up, it was with a dazed air and an almost humble mien:
+
+"Providence has me this time," he muttered. "I don't understand these
+mysteries. You will have to deal with them as you think best." His eyes,
+still glued to the jewel, dilated and filled with fierce light as he
+said this. "Damn the ring, and damn the man who gave it to her! However
+it came into her casket, he's at the bottom of the business, just as he
+was at the bottom of her death. If you think anything else, you will
+think a lie."
+
+Turning away, he made for the door. There was in his manner, desperation
+approaching to bravado, but no man made the least effort to detain him.
+Not till he was well out of the room did any one move, then the district
+attorney raised his finger, and Arthur Cumberland did not ride back to
+his home alone.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THREE
+
+HIDDEN SURPRISES
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+"HE OR YOU! THERE IS NO THIRD"
+
+A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,
+And yet I would not sleep Merciful powers!
+Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature
+Gives way to in repose.
+
+_Macbeth_.
+
+
+For several days I had been ill. They were merciful days to me since I
+was far too weak for thought. Then there came a period of conscious rest,
+then renewed interest in life and my own fate and reputation. What had
+happened during this interval?
+
+I had a confused memory of having seen Clifton's face at my bedside, but
+I was sure that no words had passed between us. When would he come again?
+When should I hear about Carmel, and whether she were yet alive, or
+mercifully dead, like her sister? I might read the papers, but they had
+been carefully kept from me. Not one was in sight. The nurse would
+undoubtedly give me the information I desired, but, kind as she had been,
+I dreaded to consult a stranger about matters which involved my very
+existence and every remaining hope. Yet I must know; for I could not help
+thinking, now, and I dreaded to think amiss and pile up misery for myself
+when I needed support and consolation.
+
+I would risk one question, but no more. I would ask about the inquest.
+Had it been held? If she said yes--ah, if she said yes!--I should know
+that Carmel was dead; and the news, coming thus, would kill me. So I
+asked nothing, and was lying in a sufficiently feverish condition when
+the doctor came in, saw my state, and thinking to cheer me up,
+remarked blandly:
+
+"You are well enough this morning to hear good news. Do you recognise the
+room you are in?"
+
+"I'm in the hospital, am I not?"
+
+"Hardly. You are in one of Mr. O'Hagen's own rooms." (Mr. O'Hagen was the
+head keeper.) "You are detained, now, simply as a witness."
+
+I was struck to the heart; terrified in an instant.
+
+"What? Why? What has happened?" I questioned, rapidly, half starting up,
+then falling back on my pillow under his astonished eye.
+
+"Nothing," he parried, seeing his mistake, and resorting to the soothing
+process. "They simply have had time to think. You're not the sort of man
+from which criminals are made."
+
+"That's nonsense," I retorted, reckless of his opinion, and mad to know
+the truth, yet shrinking horribly from it. "Criminals are made from all
+kinds of men; neither are the police so philosophical. Something has
+occurred. But don't tell me--" I protested inconsistently, as he opened
+his lips. "Send for Mr. Clifton. He's my friend; I can better bear--"
+
+"Here he is," said the doctor, as the door softly opened under the
+nurse's careful hand.
+
+I looked up, saw Charles's faithful face, and stretched out my hand
+without speaking. Never had I needed a friend more, and never had I been
+more constrained in my greeting. I feared to show my real heart, my real
+fears, my real reason for not hailing my release, as every one evidently
+expected me to!
+
+With a gesture to the nurse, the doctor tiptoed out, muttering to
+Clifton, as he passed, some word of warning or casual instruction. The
+nurse followed, and Clifton, coming forward, took a seat at my side. He
+was cheerful but not too cheerful; and the air of slight constraint which
+tinged his manner, as much as it did mine, did not escape me.
+
+"Well, old fellow," he began--
+
+My hand went up in entreaty.
+
+"Tell me why they have withdrawn their suspicions. I've heard
+nothing--read nothing--for days. I don't understand this move."
+
+For reply, he laid his hand on mine.
+
+"You're stanch," he began. "You have my regard, Elwood. Not many men
+would have stood the racket and sacrificed themselves as you have done.
+The fact is recognised, now, and your motive--"
+
+I must have turned very white; for he stopped and sprang to his feet,
+searching for some restorative.
+
+I felt the need of blinding him to my condition. With an effort, which
+shook me from head to foot, I lifted myself from the depths into which
+his words had plunged me, and fighting for self-control, faltered forth,
+feebly enough:
+
+"Don't be frightened. I'm all right again; I guess I'm not very strong
+yet. Sit down; I don't need anything."
+
+He turned and surveyed me carefully, and finding my colour restored,
+reseated himself, and proceeded, more circumspectly:
+
+"Perhaps I had better wait till to-morrow before I satisfy your
+curiosity," said he.
+
+"And leave me to imagine all sorts of horrors? No! Tell me at once.
+Is--is--has anything happened at the Cumberlands'?"
+
+"Yes. What you feared has happened--No, no; Carmel is not dead. Did you
+think I meant that? Forgive me. I should have remembered that you had
+other causes for anxiety than the one weighing on our minds. She is
+holding her own--just holding it--but that is something, in one so young
+and naturally healthy."
+
+I could see that I baffled him. It could not be helped. I did not dare to
+utter the question with which my whole soul was full. I could only look
+my entreaty. He misunderstood it, as was natural enough.
+
+"She does not know yet what is in store for her," were his words;
+and I could only lie still, and look at him helplessly, and try not
+to show the despair that was sinking me deeper and deeper into
+semi-unconsciousness. "When she comes to herself, she will have to be
+told; but you will be on your feet, then, and will be allowed, no doubt,
+to soften the blow for her by your comfort and counsel. The fact that
+it must have been you, if not he--"
+
+
+"_He!"_ Did I shout it, or was the shout simply in my own mind? I
+trembled as I rose on my elbow. I searched his face in terror of my
+self-betrayal; but his showed only compassion and an eager desire to
+clear the air between us by telling me the exact facts.
+
+"Yes--Arthur. His guilt has not been proven; he has not even been
+remanded; the sister's case is too pitiful and Coroner Perry too
+soft-hearted, where any of that family is involved. But no one doubts his
+guilt, and he does not deny it himself. You know--probably no one
+better--that he cannot very consistently do this, in face of the evidence
+accumulated against him, evidence stronger in many regards, than that
+accumulated against yourself. The ungrateful boy! The--the--Pardon me, I
+don't often indulge in invectives against unhappy men who have their
+punishment before them, but I was thinking of you and what you have
+suffered in this jail, where you have not belonged--no, not for a day."
+
+"Don't think of me." The words came with a gasp. I was never so hard put
+to it--not when I first realised that I had been seen with my fingers on
+Adelaide's throat. Arthur! A booby and a boor, but certainly not the
+slayer of his sister, unless I had been woefully mistaken in all that had
+taken place in that club-house previous to my entrance into it on that
+fatal night. As I caught Clifton's eye fixed upon me, I repeated--though
+with more self-control, I hope: "Don't think of me. I'm not thinking of
+myself. You speak of evidence. What evidence? Give me details. Don't you
+see that I am burning with curiosity? I shan't be myself till I hear."
+
+This alarmed him.
+
+"It's a risk," said he. "The doctor told me to be careful not to excite
+you too much. But suspense is always more intolerable than certainty, and
+you have heard too much to be left in ignorance of the rest."
+
+"Yes, yes," I agreed feverishly, pressing his hand.
+
+"It all came about through you," he blundered on. "You told me of the
+fellow you saw riding away from The Whispering Pines at the time you
+entered the grounds. I passed the story on to the coroner, and he to a
+New York detective they have put on this case. He and Arthur's own surly
+nature did the rest."
+
+I cringed where I lay. This was my work. The person who drove out of the
+club-house grounds while I stood in the club-house hall was Carmel--and
+the clew I had given, instead of baffling and confusing them, had led
+directly to Arthur!
+
+Seeing nothing peculiar--or at all events, giving no evidence of having
+noted anything peculiar in my movement--Clifton went evenly on, pouring
+into my astonished ears the whole long story of this detective's
+investigations.
+
+I heard of his visit at the mechanic's cottage and of the identification
+of the hat marked by Eliza Simmons's floury thumb, with an old one of
+Arthur's, fished out from one of the Cumberland closets; then, as I lay
+dumb, in my secret dismay and perturbation, of Arthur's acknowledged
+visit to the club-house, and his abstraction of the bottles, which to all
+minds save my own, perhaps, connected him directly and well-nigh
+unmistakably, with the crime.
+
+"The finger of God! Nothing else. Such coincidences cannot be natural,"
+was my thought. And I braced myself to meet the further disclosures I saw
+awaiting me.
+
+But when these disclosures were made, and Arthur's conduct at the
+funeral was given its natural explanation by the finding of the
+tell-tale ring in Adelaide's casket, I was so affected, both by the
+extraordinary nature of the facts and the doubtful position in which
+they seemed to place one whom, even now, I found it difficult to believe
+guilty of Adelaide's death, that Clifton, aroused, in spite of his own
+excitement, to a sudden realisation of my condition, bounded to his feet
+and impetuously cried out:
+
+"I had to tell you. It was your due and you would not have been satisfied
+if I had not. But I fear that I rushed my narrative too suddenly upon
+you; that you needed more preparation, and that the greatest kindness I
+can show you now, is to leave before I do further mischief."
+
+I believe I answered. I know that his idea of leaving was insupportable
+to me. That I wanted him to stay until I had had time to think and adjust
+myself to these new conditions. Instinctively, I did not feel as certain
+of Arthur's guilt as he did. My own case had taught me the insufficiency
+of circumstantial evidence to settle a mooted fact. Besides, I knew
+Arthur even better than I did his sisters. He was as full of faults, and
+as lacking in amiable and reliable traits as any fellow of my
+acquaintance. But he had not the inherent snap which makes for crime. He
+lacked the vigour which,--God forgive me the thought!--lay back of
+Carmers softer characteristics. I could not imagine him guilty; I could,
+for all my love, imagine his sister so, and did. The conviction would not
+leave my mind.
+
+"Charles," said I, at last, struggling for calmness, and succeeding
+better in my task than either he or I expected; "what motive do they
+assign for this deed? Why should Arthur follow Adelaide to the club-house
+and kill her? Now, if he had followed me--"
+
+"You were at dinner with them that night, and know what she did and what
+she vowed about the wine. He was very angry. Though he dropped his glass,
+and let it shiver on the board, he himself says that he was desperately
+put out with her, and could only drown his mad emotions in drink. He knew
+that she would hear of it if he went to any saloon in town; so he stole
+the key from your bunch, and went to help himself out of the club-house
+wine-vault. That's how he came to be there. What followed, who knows? He
+won't tell, and we can only conjecture. The ring, which she certainly
+wore that night, might give the secret away; but it is not gifted with
+speech, though as a silent witness it is exceedingly eloquent."
+
+The episode of the ring confused me. I could make nothing out of it,
+could not connect it with what I myself knew of the confused experiences
+of that night. But I could recall the dinner and the sullen aspect, not
+unmixed with awe, with which this boy contemplated his sister when his
+own glass fell from his nerveless fingers. My own heart was not in the
+business; it was on the elopement I had planned; but I could not help
+seeing what I have just mentioned, and it recurred to me now with fatal
+distinctness. The awe was as great as the sullenness. Did that offer a
+good foundation for crime? I disliked Arthur. I had no use for the boy,
+and I wished with all my heart to detect guilt in his actions, rather
+than in those of the woman I loved; but I could not forget that tinge of
+awe on features too heavy to mirror very readily the nicer feelings of
+the human soul. It would come up, and, under the influence of this
+impression I said:
+
+"Are you sure that he made no denial of this crime? That does not seem
+like Arthur, guilty or innocent."
+
+"He made none in my presence and I was in the coroner's office when
+the ring was produced from its secret hiding-place and set down before
+him. There was no open accusation made, but he must have understood
+the silence of all present. He acknowledged some days ago, when
+confronted with the bottle found in Cuthbert Road, that he had taken
+both it and another from the club-house just before the storm began to
+rage that night."
+
+"The hour, the very hour!" I muttered.
+
+"He entered and left by that upper hall window, or so he says; but he is
+not to be believed in all his statements. Some of his declarations we
+know to be false."
+
+"Which ones? Give me a specimen, Charlie. Mention something he has said
+that you know to be false."
+
+"Well, it is hard to accuse a man of a direct lie. But he cannot be
+telling the truth when he says that he crossed the links immediately to
+Cuthbert Road, thus cutting out the ride home, of which we have such
+extraordinary proof."
+
+Under the fear of betraying my thoughts, I hurriedly closed my eyes. I
+was in an extraordinary position, myself. What seemed falsehood to them,
+struck me as the absolute truth. Carmel had been the one to go home; he,
+without doubt, had crossed the links, as he said. As this conviction
+penetrated deeply and yet more deeply into my mind, I shrank
+inexpressibly from the renewed mental struggle into which it plunged me.
+To have suffered, myself,--to have fallen under the ban of suspicion and
+the disgrace of arrest--had certainly been hard; but it was nothing to
+beholding another in the same plight through my own rash and ill-advised
+attempt to better my position and Carmel's by what I had considered a
+totally harmless subterfuge.
+
+I shuddered as I anticipated the sleepless hours of silent debate which
+lay before me. The voice which whispered that Arthur Cumberland was not
+over-gifted with sensitiveness and would not feel the shame of his
+position like another, did not carry with it an indisputable message, and
+could not impose on my conscience for more than a passing moment. The
+lout was human; and I could not stifle my convictions in his favour.
+
+But Carmel!
+
+I clenched my hands under the clothes. I wished it were not high noon,
+but dark night; that Clifton would only arise or turn his eyes away; that
+something or anything might happen to give me an instant of solitary
+contemplation, without the threatening possibility of beholding my
+thoughts and feelings reflected in another's mind.
+
+Was this review instantaneous, or the work of many minutes? Forced by
+the doubt to open my eyes, I met Clifton's full look turned watchfully on
+me. The result was calming; even to my apprehensive gaze it betrayed no
+new enlightenment. My struggle had been all within; no token of it had
+reached him.
+
+This he showed still more plainly when he spoke.
+
+"There will be a close sifting of evidence at the inquest. You will not
+enjoy this; but the situation, hard as it may prove, has certainly
+improved so far as you are concerned. That should hasten your
+convalescence."
+
+"Poor Arthur!" burst from my lips, and the cry was echoed in my heart.
+Then, because I could no longer endure the pusillanimity which kept me
+silent, I rose impulsively into a sitting posture, and, summoning all my
+faculties into full play, endeavoured to put my finger on the one weak
+point in the evidence thus raised against Carmel's brother.
+
+"What sort of a man would you make Arthur out to be, when you accuse him
+of robbing the wine-vault on top of a murderous assault on his sister?"
+
+"I know. It argues a brute, but he--"
+
+"Arthur Cumberland is selfish, unresponsive, and hard, but he is not a
+brute. I'm disposed to give him the benefit of my good opinion to this
+extent, Charlie; I cannot believe he first poisoned and then choked that
+noble woman."
+
+Clifton drew himself up in his turn, astonishment battling with
+renewed distrust.
+
+"Either he or you, Ranelagh!" he exclaimed, firmly. "There is no third
+person. This you must realise."
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+CARMEL AWAKES
+
+One woe doth tread upon another's heel,
+So fast they follow.
+
+_Hamlet_.
+
+
+Later, I asked myself many questions, and wandered into mazes of
+speculation which only puzzled me and led nowhere. I remembered the
+bottles; I remembered the ring. I went back, in fancy, to the hour of my
+own entrance into the club-house, and, recalling each circumstance,
+endeavoured to fit the facts of Arthur's story with those of my own
+experience.
+
+Was he in the building when I first stepped into it? It was just
+possible. I had been led to prevaricate as to the moment I entered the
+lower gateway, and he may have done the same as to the hour he left by
+the upper hall window. Whatever his denials on this or any subject, I was
+convinced that he knew, as well as I, that Carmel had been in the
+building with her sister, and was involved more or less personally in the
+crime committed there. Might it not be simply as his accessory after the
+fact? If only I could believe this! If my knowledge of him and of her
+would allow me to hug this forlorn hope, and behold, in this shock to her
+brain, and in her look and attitude on leaving the club-house, only a
+sister's horror at a wilful brother's crime!
+
+But one fact stood in the way of this--a fact which nothing but some
+predetermined, underhanded purpose on her part could explain. She had
+gone in disguise to The Whispering Pines, and she had returned home in
+the same suspicious fashion. The wearing of her brother's hat and coat
+over her own womanly garments was no freak. There had been purpose in
+it--a purpose which demanded secrecy. That Adelaide should have
+accompanied her under these circumstances was a mystery. But then the
+whole affair was a mystery, totally out of keeping, in all its details,
+with the characters of these women, save--and what a fearful exception I
+here make--the awful end, which, alas! bespoke the fiery rush and impulse
+to destroy which marked Carmel's unbridled rages.
+
+Of a less emotional attack she would be as incapable as any other good
+woman. Poison she would never use. Its presence there was due to
+another's forethought, another's determination. But the poison had not
+killed. Both glasses had been emptied, but--Ah! those glasses. What
+explanation had the police, now, for those two emptied glasses? They had
+hitherto supposed me to be the second person who had joined Adelaide in
+this totally uncharacteristic drinking.
+
+To whom did they now attribute this act? To Arthur, the brother whose
+love for liquor in every form she had always decried, and had publicly
+rebuked only a few hours before? Knowing nothing of Carmel having been on
+the scene, they must ascribe this act either to him or to me; and when
+they came to dwell upon this point more particularly--when they came to
+study the exact character of the relations which had always subsisted
+between Adelaide and her brother--they must see the improbability of her
+drinking with him under any circumstances. Then their thoughts would
+recur to me, and I should find myself again a suspect. The monstrous
+suggestion that Arthur had brought the liquor there himself, had poured
+it out and forced her to drink it, poison and all, out of revenge for her
+action at the dinner-table a short time before, did not occur to me then,
+but if it had, there were the three glasses--he would not bring _three_;
+nor would Adelaide; nor, as I saw it, would Carmel.
+
+Chaos! However one looked at it, chaos! Only one fact was clear--that
+Carmel knew the whole story and might communicate the same, if ever her
+brain cleared and she could be brought to reveal the mysteries of that
+hour. Did I desire such a consummation? Only God, who penetrates more
+deeply than ourselves into the hidden regions of the human heart, could
+tell. I only know that the fear and expectation of such an outcome made
+my anguish for the next two weeks.
+
+Would she live? Would she die? The question was on every tongue. The
+crisis of her disease was approaching, and the next twenty-four hours
+would decide her fate, and in consequence, my own, if not her brother
+Arthur's. As I contemplated the suspense of these twenty-four hours, I
+revolted madly for the first time against the restrictions of my prison.
+I wanted air, movement, the rush into danger, which my horse or my
+automobile might afford. Anything which would drag my thoughts from that
+sick room, and the anticipated stir of that lovely form into conscious
+life and suffering. Her eyes--I could see her eyes wakening upon the
+world again, after her long wandering in the unknown and unimaginable
+intricacies of ungoverned thought and delirious suggestion. Eyes of
+violet colour and infinite expression; eyes which would make a man's joy
+if they smiled on him in innocence; but which, as I well knew, had burned
+more than once, in her short but strenuous life, with fiery passions; and
+might, at the instant of waking, betray this same unholy gleam under the
+curious gaze of the unsympathetic ones set in watch over her.
+
+What would her first word be? Whither would her first thought fly? To
+Adelaide or to me; to Arthur or to her own frightened and appalled self?
+I maddened as I dwelt upon the possibilities of this moment. I envied
+Arthur; I envied the attendants; I envied even the servants in the house.
+They would all know sooner than I. Carmel! Carmel!
+
+Sending for Clifton, I begged him to keep himself in communication with
+the house, or with the authorities. He promised to do what he could;
+then, perceiving the state I was in, he related all he knew of present
+conditions. No one was allowed in the sick room but the nurse and the
+doctor. Even Arthur was denied admission, and was wearing himself out in
+his own room as I was wearing myself out here, in restless inactivity. He
+expected her to sink and never to recover consciousness, and was loud in
+his expressions of rebellion against the men who dared to keep him from
+her bedside when her life was trembling in the balance. But the nurse had
+hopes and so had the doctor. As for Carmel's looks, they were greatly
+changed, but beautiful still in spite of the cruel scar left by her fall
+against the burning bars of her sister's grate. No delirium disturbed the
+rigid immobility in which she now lay. I could await her awakening with
+quiet confidence in the justice of God.
+
+Thus Clifton, in his ignorance.
+
+The day was a bleak one, dispiriting in itself even to those who could go
+about the streets and lose themselves in their tasks and round of duties.
+To me it was a dead blank, marked by such interruptions as necessarily
+took place under the prison routine. The evening hours which followed
+them were no better. The hands on my watch crawled. When the door finally
+opened, it came as a shock. I seemed to be prepared for anything but the
+termination of my suspense. I knew that it was Clifton who entered, but I
+could not meet his eye. I dug my nails into my palms, and waited for his
+first word. When it came, I felt my spirits go down, down--I had thought
+them at their lowest ebb before. He hesitated, and I started up:
+
+"Tell me," I cried. "Carmel is dead!"
+
+"Not dead," said he, "but silly. Her testimony is no more to be relied
+upon than that of any other wandering mind."
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+"BREAK IN THE GLASS!"
+
+This inundation of mistempered humour
+Rests by you only to be qualified.
+
+_King John_.
+
+
+It was some time before I learned the particulars of this awakening.
+
+It had occurred at sunset. A level beam of light had shot across the
+bed, and the nurse had moved to close the blind, when a low exclamation
+from the doctor drew her back, to mark the first faint fluttering of the
+snowy lids over the long-closed eyes. Afterwards she remembered what a
+picture her youthful patient made, with the hue of renewed life creeping
+into her cheeks, in faint reflection of the nest of roseate colour in
+which she lay.
+
+Carmel's hair was dark; so were her exquisitely pencilled eye-brows, and
+the long lashes which curled upward from her cheek. In her surroundings
+of pink--warm pink, such as lives in the heart of the sea-shell--their
+duskiness took on an added beauty; and nothing, not even the long, dark
+scar running from eye to chin could rob the face of its individuality and
+suggestion of charm. She was lovely; but it was the loveliness of line
+and tint, just as a child is lovely. Soul and mind were still asleep, but
+momentarily rousing, as all thought, to conscious being--and, if to
+conscious being, then to conscious suffering as well.
+
+It was a solemn moment. If the man who loved her had been present--or
+even her brother, who, sullen as he was, must have felt the tie of close
+relationship rise superior even to his fears at an instant so
+critical,--it would have been more solemn yet. But with the exception of
+the doctor and possibly the nurse, only those interested in her as a
+witness in the most perplexing case on the police annals, were grouped
+in silent watchfulness about the room, waiting for the word or look
+which might cut the Gordian knot which none of them, as yet, had been
+able to untangle.
+
+It came suddenly, as all great changes come. One moment her lids were
+down, her face calm, her whole figure quiet in its statue-like repose;
+the next, her big violet eyes had flashed open upon the world, and lips
+and limbs were moving feebly, but certainly, in their suddenly recovered
+freedom. It was then--and not at a later moment when consciousness had
+fully regained its seat--that her face, to those who stood nearest wore
+the aspect of an angel's. What she saw, or what vision remained to her
+from the mysterious world of which she had so long been a part, none ever
+knew--nor could she, perhaps, have told. But the rapture which informed
+her features and elevated her whole expression but poorly prepared them
+for the change which followed her first glance around on nurse and
+doctor. The beam which lay across the bed had been no brighter than her
+eye during that first tremulous instant of renewed life. But the clouds
+fell speedily and very human feelings peered from between those lids as
+she murmured, half petulantly:
+
+"Why do you look at me so? Oh, I remember, I remember!"
+
+And a flush, of which they little thought her weakened heart capable,
+spread over her features, hiding the scar and shaming her white lips.
+"What's the matter?" she complained again, as she tried to raise her
+hands, possibly to hide her face. "I cannot move as I used to do, and I
+feel--I feel--"
+
+"You have been ill," came soothingly from the doctor. "You have been in
+bed many days; now you are better and will soon be well. This is your
+nurse." He said nothing of the others, who were so placed behind screens
+as to be invisible to her.
+
+She continued to gaze, first at one, then at the other; confidently at
+the doctor, doubtfully at the nurse. As she did so, the flush faded and
+gave way to an anxious, troubled expression. Not just the expression
+anticipated by those who believed that, with returning consciousness,
+would come returning memory of the mysterious scene which had taken place
+between herself and sister, or between her sister and her brother, prior
+to Adelaide's departure for The Whispering Pines. Had they shared my
+knowledge--had they even so much as dreamed that their patient had been
+the companion of one or both of the others in this tragic escapade--how
+much greater would have been their wonder at the character of this
+awakening.
+
+"You have the same kind look for me as always," were her next words, as
+her glance finally settled on the doctor. "But hers--Bring me the
+mirror," she cried. "Let me see with my own eyes what I have now to
+expect from every one who looks at me. I want to know before Lila comes
+in. Why isn't she here? Is she with--with--" She was breaking down, but
+caught herself back with surprising courage, and almost smiled, I was
+told. Then in the shrill tones which will not be denied, she demanded
+again, "The mirror!"
+
+Nurse Unwin brought it. Her patient evidently remembered the fall she had
+had in her sister's room, and possibly the smart to her cheek when it
+touched the hot iron.
+
+"I see only my forehead," she complained, as the nurse held the mirror
+before her. "Move it a little. Lower--lower," she commanded. Then
+suddenly "Oh!"
+
+She was still for a long time, during which the nurse carried off
+the glass.
+
+"I--I don't like it," she acknowledged quaintly to the doctor, as he
+leaned over her with compassionate words. "I shall have to get
+acquainted with myself all over again. And so I have been ill! I
+shouldn't have thought a little burn like that would make me ill. How
+Adelaide must have worried."
+
+"Adelaide is--is not well herself. It distressed her to have been out
+when you fell. Don't you remember that she went out that night?"
+
+"Did she? She was right. Adelaide must have every pleasure. She had
+earned her good times. I must be the one to stay home now, and look after
+things, and learn to be useful. I don't expect anything different. Call
+Adelaide, and let me tell her how--how satisfied I am."
+
+"But she's ill. She cannot come. Wait till tomorrow, dear child. Rest is
+what you need now. Take these few drops and go to sleep again, and you'll
+not know yourself to-morrow."
+
+"I don't know myself now," she repeated, glancing with slowly dilating
+eyes at the medicine glass he proffered. "I can't take it," she
+protested. "I forget now why, but I can't take anything more from a
+glass. I've promised not to, I think. Take it away; it makes me feel
+queer. Where is Adelaide?"
+
+Her memory was defective. She could not seem to take in what the doctor
+told her. But he tried her again. Once more he spoke of illness as the
+cause of Adelaide's absence. Her attention wandered while he spoke of it.
+
+"How it did hurt!" she cried. "But I didn't think much about it. I
+thought only of--" Next moment her voice rose in a shriek, thin but
+impetuous, and imbued with a note of excited feeling which made every
+person there start. "There should be _two_," she cried. "_Two_! Why is
+there only one?"
+
+This sounded like raving. The doctor's face took on a look of concern,
+and the nurse stirred uneasily.
+
+"One is not enough! That is why Adelaide is not satisfied; why she does
+not come and love and comfort me, as I expected her to. Tell her it is
+not too late yet, not too late yet, not too late--"
+
+The doctor's hand was on her forehead. This "not too late," whatever she
+meant by it, was indescribably painful to the listeners, oppressed as
+they were by the knowledge that Adelaide lay in her grave, and that all
+fancies, all hopes, all meditated actions between these two were now, so
+far as this world goes, forever at an end.
+
+"Rest," came in Dr. Carpenter's most soothing tones. "Rest, my little
+Carmel; forget everything and rest." He thought he knew the significance
+of her revolt from the glass he had offered her. She remembered the scene
+at the Cumberland dinner-table on that fatal night and shrank from
+anything that reminded her of it. Ordering the medicine put in a cup, he
+offered it to her again, and she drank it without question. As she
+quieted under its influence, the disappointed listeners, now tip-toeing
+carefully from the room, heard her murmur in final appeal:
+
+"Cannot Adelaide spare one minute from--from her company downstairs, to
+wish me health and kiss me good night?"
+
+Was it weakness, or a settled inability to remember anything but that
+which filled her own mind?
+
+It proved to be a settled inability to take in any new ideas or even to
+remember much beyond the completion of that dinner. As the days passed
+and news of her condition came to me from time to time, I found that she
+had not only forgotten what had passed between herself and the rest of
+the family previous to their departure for the club-house, but all that
+had afterwards occurred at The Whispering Pines, even to her own
+presence there and the ride home. She could not even retain in her mind
+for any appreciable length of time the idea of Adelaide's death. Even
+after Dr. Carpenter, with infinite precautions, revealed to her the
+truth--not that Adelaide had been murdered, but that Adelaide had passed
+away during the period of her own illness, Carmel gave but one cry of
+grief, then immediately burst forth in her old complaint that Adelaide
+neglected her. She had lost her happiness and hope, and Adelaide would
+not spare her an hour.
+
+This expression, when I heard of it, convinced me, as I believe it did
+some others, that her act of self-denial in not humouring my whim and
+flying from home and duty that night, had made a stronger impression on
+her mind than all that came after.
+
+She never asked for Arthur. This may have grieved him; but, according to
+my faithful friend and attorney, it appeared to have the contrary effect,
+and to bring him positive relief. When it was borne in on him, as it was
+soon to be borne in on all, that her mind was not what it was, and that
+the beautiful Carmel had lost something besides her physical perfection
+in the awful calamity which had made shipwreck of the whole family, he
+grew noticeably more cheerful and less suspicious in his manner. Was it
+because the impending inquiry must go on without her, and proceedings,
+which had halted till now, be pushed with all possible speed to a finish?
+So those who watched him interpreted his changed mood, with a result not
+favourable to him.
+
+With this new shock of Carmel's inability to explain her own part in
+this tragedy and thus release my testimony and make me a man again in my
+own eyes, I lost the sustaining power which had previously held me up. I
+became apathetic; no longer counting the hours, and thankful when they
+passed. Arthur had not been arrested; but he understood--or allowed
+others to see that he understood, the reason for the surveillance under
+which he was now strictly kept; and, though he showed less patience than
+myself under the shameful suspicion which this betokened, he did not
+break out into open conflict with the authorities, nor did he protest
+his innocence, or take any other stand than the one he had assumed from
+the first.
+
+All this gave me much food for thought, but I declined to think. I had
+made up my mind from the moment I realised Carmel's condition, that there
+was nothing for me to do till after the inquest. The public investigation
+which this would involve, would show the trend of popular opinion, and
+thus enlighten me as to my duty. Meanwhile, I would keep to the old lines
+and do the best I could for myself without revealing the fact of Carmel's
+near interest in a matter she was in no better condition to discuss now
+than when in a state of complete unconsciousness.
+
+Of that inquest, which was held in due course, I shall not say much. Only
+one new fact was elicited by its means, and that of interest solely as
+making clear how there came to be evidences of poison in Adelaide's
+stomach, without the quantity being great enough for more than a
+temporary disturbance.
+
+Maggie, the second girl, had something to say about this when the phial
+which had held the poison was handed about for inspection. She had
+handled that phial many times on the shelf where it was kept. Once she
+had dropped it, and the cork coming out, some of the contents had
+escaped. Frightened at the mishap, she had filled the phial up with
+water, and put it, thus diluted, back on the shelf. No one had noticed
+the difference, and she had forgotten all about the matter until now.
+From her description, there must have been very little of the dangerous
+drug left in the phial; and the conclusions of Dr. Perry's autopsy
+received a confirmation which ended, after a mass of testimony tending
+rather to confuse than enlighten, the jury, in the non-committal verdict:
+
+Death by strangulation at the hands of some person unknown.
+
+I had expected this. The evidence, pointing as it did in two opposing
+directions, presented a problem which a coroner's jury could hardly be
+expected to solve. What followed, showed that not only they but the
+police authorities as well, acknowledged the dilemma. I was allowed one
+sweet half hour of freedom, then I was detained to await the action of
+the grand jury, and so was Arthur.
+
+When I was informed of this latter fact, I made a solemn vow to myself.
+It was this: If it falls to my lot to be indicted for this murderous
+offence, I will continue to keep my own counsel, as I have already done,
+in face of lesser provocation and at less dangerous risk. But, if I
+escape and a true bill should be found against Arthur, then will I follow
+my better instinct, and reveal what I have hitherto kept concealed, even
+if the torment of the betrayal drive me to self-destruction afterwards.
+For I no longer cherished the smallest doubt, that to Carmel's sudden
+rage and to that alone, the death of Adelaide was due.
+
+My reason for this change from troubled to absolute conviction can be
+easily explained. It dated from the inquest, and will best appear in the
+relation of an interview I held with my attorney, Charles Clifton, very
+soon after my second incarceration.
+
+We had discussed the situation till there seemed to be nothing left to
+discuss. I understood him, and he thought he understood me. He believed
+Arthur guilty, and credited me with the same convictions. Thus only could
+he explain my inconceivable reticence on certain points he was very well
+assured I could make clear if I would. That he was not the only man who
+had drawn these same conclusions from my attitude both before and during
+the inquest, troubled me greatly and deeply disturbed my conscience, but
+I could indulge in no protests--or, rather would indulge in no
+protests--as yet. There was an unsolved doubt connected with some facts
+which had come out at the inquest--or perhaps, I should call it a
+circumstance not as yet fully explained--which disturbed me more than did
+my conscience, and upon this circumstance I must have light before I let
+my counsel leave me.
+
+I introduced the topic thus:
+
+"You remember the detached sentences taken down by the nurse during the
+period of Carmel's unconsciousness. They were regarded as senseless
+ravings, and such they doubtless were; but there was one of them which
+attracted my attention, and of which I should like an explanation. I wish
+I had that woman's little book here; I should like to read for myself
+those wandering utterances."
+
+"You can," was the unexpected and welcome reply. "I took them all down in
+shorthand as they fell from Dr. Perry's lips. I have not had time since
+to transcribe them, but I can read some of them to you, if you will give
+me an idea as to which ones you want."
+
+"Read the first--what she said on the day of the funeral. I do not think
+the rest matter very much."
+
+Clifton took a paper from his pocket, and, after only a short delay, read
+out these words:
+
+"_December the fifth_: Her sister's name, uttered many times and with
+greatly varied expression--now in reproach, now in terror, now in what
+seemed to me in tones of wild pleading and even despair. This continued
+at intervals all through the day.
+
+"At three P.M., just as people were gathering for the funeral, the quick,
+glad cry: 'I smell flowers, sweet, sweet flowers!'"
+
+Alas! she did.
+
+"At three-forty P.M., as the services neared their close, a violent
+change took place in her appearance, and she uttered in shrill tones
+those astonishing words which horrified all below and made us feel that
+she had a clairvoyant knowledge of the closing of the casket, then
+taking place:
+
+"'Break it open! Break it open! and see if her heart is there!'"
+
+"Pause there," I said; "that is what I mean. It was not the only time she
+uttered that cry. If you will glance further down, you will come across a
+second exclamation of the like character."
+
+"Yes; here it is. It was while the ubiquitous Sweetwater was mousing
+about the room."
+
+"Read the very words he heard. I have a reason, Clifton. Humour me for
+this once."
+
+"Certainly--no trouble. She cried, this time: 'Break it open! Break the
+glass and look in. Her heart should be there--her heart--her heart!"
+Horrible! but you insisted, Ranelagh."
+
+"I thought I heard that word glass," I muttered, more to myself than to
+him. Then, with a choking fear of giving away my thought, but unable to
+resist the opportunity of settling my own fears, I asked: "Was there
+glass in the casket lid?"
+
+"No; there never is."
+
+"But she may have thought there was," I suggested hastily. "I'm much
+obliged to you, Clifton. I had to hear those sentences again. Morbidness,
+no doubt; the experience of the last three weeks would affect a
+stronger-minded man than myself." Then before he could reply: "What do
+you think the nurse meant by a violent change in her patient?"
+
+"Why, she roused up, I suppose--moved, or made some wild or
+feverish gesture."
+
+"That is what I should like to know. I may seem foolish and unnecessarily
+exacting about trifles; but I would give a great deal to learn precisely
+where she looked, and what she did at the moment she uttered those wild
+words. Is the detective Sweetwater still in town?"
+
+"I believe so. Came up for the inquest but goes back to-night."
+
+"See him, Clifton. Ask him to relate this scene. He was present, you
+know. Get him to talk about it. You can, and without rousing his
+suspicion, keen as they all say he is. And when he talks, listen and
+remember what he says. But don't ask questions. Do this for me, Clifton.
+Some day I may be able to explain my request, but not now."
+
+"I'm at your service," he replied; but he looked hurt at being thus set
+to work in the dark, and I dared say nothing to ease the situation. I did
+not dare even to prolong the conversation on this subject, or on any
+other subject. In consequence, he departed speedily, and I spent the
+afternoon wondering whether he would return before the day ended, or
+leave me to the endurance of a night of suspense. I was spared this final
+distress. He came in again towards evening, and this was what he told me:
+
+"I have seen Sweetwater, and was more fortunate in my interview than I
+expected. He talked freely, and in the course of the conversation,
+described the very occurrence in which you are so interested. Carmel had
+been lying quietly previous to this outbreak, but suddenly started into
+feverish life and, raising herself up in her bed, pointed straight before
+her and uttered the words we have so often repeated. That's all there was
+to it, and I don't see for my part, what you have gained by a repetition
+of the same, or why you lay so much stress upon her gesture. What she
+said was the thing, though even that is immaterial from a legal point of
+view--which is the only view of any importance to you or to me, at this
+juncture."
+
+"You're a true friend to me," I answered, "and never more so than in this
+instance. Forgive me that I cannot show my appreciation of your goodness,
+or thank you properly for your performance of an uncongenial task. I am
+sunk deep in trouble. I'm not myself and cannot be till I know what
+action will be taken by the grand jury."
+
+If he replied, I have no remembrance of it; neither do I recall his
+leave-taking. But I was presently aware that I was alone and could think
+out my hideous thought, undisturbed.
+
+Carmel had pointed straight before her, shouting out: "Break in
+the glass!"
+
+I knew her room; I had been taken in there once by Adelaide, as a
+sequence to a long conversation about Carmel, shortly after her first
+return from school. Adelaide wished to show me the cabinet in the wall,
+the cabinet at which Carmel undoubtedly pointed, if her bed stood as it
+had stood then. It was not quite full, at that time. It did not contain
+Adelaide's heart among the other broken toys which Carmel had destroyed
+with her own hand or foot, in her moments of frenzied passion--the
+canary, that would not pick from her hand, the hat she hated, the bowl
+which held only bread and milk when she wanted meat or cake. Adelaide
+had kept them all, locked behind glass and in full view of the child's
+eyes night and day, that the shame of those past destructive moments
+might guard her from their repetition and help her to understand her
+temper and herself. I had always thought it cruel of Adelaide, one of
+the evidences of the flint-like streak which ran through her otherwise
+generous and upright nature. But its awful prophecy was what affected me
+most now; for destruction had fallen on something more tender than aught
+that cabinet held.
+
+Adelaide's heart! And Carmel acknowledged it--acknowledged that it
+should be there, with what else she had trampled upon and crushed in her
+white heat of rage. I could not doubt her guilt, after this. Whatever
+peace her forgetfulness had brought--whatever innocent longing after
+Adelaide--the wild cry of those first few hours, ere yet the impressions
+of her awful experience had succumbed to disease, revealed her secret and
+showed the workings of her conscience. It had not been understood; it had
+passed as an awesome episode. But for me, since hearing of it, she stood
+evermore convicted out of her own mouth--that lovely mouth which angels
+might kiss in her hours of joyous serenity; but from whose caress friends
+would fly, when the passion reigned in her heart and she must break,
+crush, kill, or go mad.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+AT TEN INSTEAD OF TWELVE
+
+Forget the world around you. Meantime friendship
+Shall keep strict vigils for you, anxious, active,
+Only be manageable when that friendship
+Points you the road to full accomplishment.
+
+_Coleridge_.
+
+
+"I don't care a rush what you do to me. If you are so besotted by your
+prejudices that you refuse to see the nose before your face; if you don't
+believe your own officer who swore he saw Ranelagh's hands upon my
+sister's throat, then this world is all a jumble and it makes very little
+difference to me whether I'm alive or dead."
+
+When these words of Arthur Cumberland were repeated to me, I echoed them
+in my inmost soul. I, too, cared very little whether I lived or died.
+
+The grand jury reeled off its cases and finally took up ours. To the last
+I hoped--sincerely I think--that I should be the man to suffer
+indictment. But I hoped in vain. A true bill was brought against Arthur,
+and his trial was set for the eighteenth of January.
+
+The first use I made of my liberty was to visit Adelaide's grave. In
+that sacred place I could best review my past and gather strength for
+the future. The future! Was it under my control? Did Arthur's fate hang
+upon my word? I believed so. But had I strength to speak that word? I
+had expected to; I had seen my duty clearly enough before the sitting of
+the grand jury. But now that Arthur was indicted--now that it was an
+accepted fact that he would have to stand trial instead of myself, I was
+conscious of such a recoil from my contemplated action that I lost all
+confidence in myself and my stoical adherence to what I considered the
+claims of justice.
+
+Standing in the cemetery grounds with my eyes upon the snow-covered mound
+beneath which lay the doubly injured Adelaide, I had it out with myself,
+for good and all.
+
+I trusted Arthur; I distrusted Carmel. But she had claims to
+consideration, which he lacked. She was a woman. Her fall would mean
+infinitely more to her than any disgrace to him. Even he had seemed to
+recognise this. Miserable and half-hearted as his life had been, he had
+shown himself man enough not to implicate his young sister in the crime
+laid to his charge. What then was I that I should presume to disregard
+his lead in the difficult maze in which we were both lost. Yet, because
+of the self-restraint he manifested, he had my sympathy and when I left
+the cemetery and took my mournful way back into town, it was with the
+secret resolution to stand his friend if I saw the case really going
+against him. Till then, I would consider the helpless girl, tongue-tied
+by her condition, and injured enough already by my misplaced love and its
+direful consequences.
+
+The only change I now allowed myself was an occasional midnight stroll up
+Huested Street. This was as near as I dared approach Carmel's windows. I
+feared some watchful police spy. Perhaps I feared my own
+hardly-to-be-restrained longings.
+
+Mr. Fulton's house and extensive grounds lay between this street and the
+dismal walls beyond the huge sycamore which lifted itself like a beacon
+above the Cumberland estate. But I allowed myself the doubtful pleasure
+of traversing this course, and this course only, and if I obtained one
+glimpse through bush and tree of the spot whither all my thoughts ran
+continuously, I went home satisfied.
+
+This was before Carmel left with her nurse for Lakewood. After that
+event, I turned my head no more, in taking my midnight stroll. I was not
+told the day or hour of her departure. Happily, perhaps, for us both, for
+I could never have kept away from the station. I should have risked
+everything for one glimpse of her face, if only to satisfy my own
+judgment as to whether she would ever recognise me again, or remember
+what had occurred on that doleful night when the light of her intellect
+set in the darkness of sin and trouble.
+
+The police had the same idea, I think, for I heard later that she was
+deliberately driven past The Whispering Pines, though the other road was
+more direct and less free, if anything, from possible spectators. They
+thought, no doubt, that a sight of the place might reawaken whatever
+memories remained of the last desperate scene preceding her brother and
+sister's departure for this out-of-the-way spot. They little knew how
+cruel was the test, or what a storm of realisation might have overwhelmed
+her mind as her eye fell on those accursed walls, peering from their
+bower of snow-laden, pines. But I did, and I never rested till I learned
+how she had borne herself in her slow drive by the two guarded gateways:
+merrily, it seems, and with no sign of the remembrances I feared. The
+test, if it were meant for such, availed them nothing; no more, indeed,
+than an encounter with her on the road, or at the station would have
+availed me. For the veil she begged for had shrouded her features
+completely, and it was only from her manner that those who accompanied
+her, perceived her light-heartedness and delight in this change.
+
+One sentence, and one only, reached my ears of all she said before she
+disappeared from town.
+
+"If Adelaide were only going, too! But I suppose I shall meet her and
+Mr. Ranelagh somewhere before my return. She must be very happy. But not
+so peaceful as I am. She will see that when we meet. I can hardly wait
+for the day."
+
+Words which set me thinking; but which I was bound to acknowledge could
+be only the idle maunderings of a diseased mind from which all
+impressions had fled, save those of innocence and futile hope.
+
+One incident more before I enter upon the serious business of the trial.
+I had no purpose in what I did. I merely followed the impulse of the
+moment, as I had so often done before in my selfish and thoughtless life,
+when I started one night for my walk at ten o'clock instead of twelve. I
+went the old way; and the old longing recurring at the one charmed spot
+on the road, I cast a quick look at the towering sycamore and the
+desolated house beneath, which, short as it was, roused feelings which
+kept my head lowered for the remainder of my walk north and to the very
+moment, when, on my return, the same chimneys and overhanging roofs came
+again into view through the wintry branches. Then habit lifted my head,
+and I paused to look again, when the low sound of a human voice,
+suppressed into a moan or sob, caused me to glance about for the woman or
+child who had uttered this note of sorrow. No one was in sight; but as I
+started to move on, I heard my name uttered in choked tones from behind
+the hedge separating the Fulton grounds from the city sidewalk.
+
+I halted instantly. A lamp from the opposite side of the street threw a
+broad illumination across the walk where I stood, but the gate-posts
+behind threw a shadow. Had the voice issued from this isolated point of
+darkness? I went back to see. A pitiful figure was crouching there, a
+frail, agitated little being, whom I had no sooner recognised than my
+manner instantly assumed an air of friendly interest, called out by her
+timid and appealing attitude.
+
+"Ella Fulton!" I exclaimed. "You wish to speak to me?"
+
+"Hush!" she prayed, with a frightened gesture towards the house. "No one
+knows I am here. Mamma thinks me in bed, and papa, who is out, may come
+home any minute. Oh, Mr. Ranelagh, I'm in such misery and no one but you
+can give me any help. I have watched you go by night after night, and I
+have wanted to call out and beg you to come in and see me, or let me go
+and meet you somewhere, and I have not dared, it was so late. To-night
+you have come earlier, and I have slipped out and--O, Elwood, you won't
+think badly of me? It's all about Arthur, and I shall die if some one
+does not help me and tell me how I can reach him with a message."
+
+As she spoke the last words, she caught at the gatepost which was too
+broad and ponderous to offer her any hold. Gravely I held out my arm,
+which she took; we were old friends and felt no necessity of standing on
+any sort of ceremony.
+
+"You don't wish to bother," was her sensitive cry. "You had rather not
+stop; rather not listen to my troubles."
+
+Had I shown my feelings so plainly as that? I felt mortified. She was a
+girl of puny physique and nervous manner--the last sort of person you
+would expect Arthur Cumberland to admire or even to have patience with,
+and the very last sort who could be expected to endure his rough ways, or
+find anything congenial to herself in his dissipated and purposeless
+life. But the freaks of youthful passion are endless, and it was evident
+that they loved each other sincerely.
+
+Her tremulous condition and meek complaint went to my heart,
+notwithstanding my growing dread of any conversation between us on this
+all-absorbing but equally peace-destroying topic. Reassuringly pressing
+her hand, I was startled to find a small piece of paper clutched
+convulsively within it.
+
+"For Arthur," she explained under her breath. "I thought you might find
+some way of getting it to him. Father and mother are so prejudiced. They
+have never liked him, and now they believe the very worst. They would
+lock me up if they knew I was speaking to you about him. Mother is very
+stern and says that all this nonsense between Arthur and myself must
+stop. That we must never--no matter whether he is cleared or--or--"
+Silence, then a little gasp, after which she added with an emphasis which
+bespoke the death of every hope: "She is very decided about it, Elwood."
+
+I hardly blamed the mother.
+
+"I--I love Arthur. I don't think him guilty and I would gladly stand by
+him if they would let me. I want him to know this. I want him to get such
+comfort as he can out of my belief and my desire to serve him. I want to
+sacrifice myself. But I can't, I can't," she moaned. "You don't know how
+mother frightens me. When she looks at me, the words falter on my tongue
+and I feel as if it would be easier to die than to acknowledge what is in
+my heart."
+
+I could believe her. Mrs. Fulton was a notable woman, whom many men
+shrank from encountering needlessly. It was not her tongue, though that
+could be bitter enough, but a certain way she had of infusing her
+displeasure into attitude, tone, and manner, which insensibly sapped your
+self-confidence and forced you to accept her bad opinion of you as your
+rightful due. This, whether your judgment coincided with hers or not.
+
+"Yet your mother is your very best friend," I ventured gently, with a
+realisation of my responsibility which did not add much to my
+self-possession.
+
+She seemed startled.
+
+"Not in this, not in this," she objected, with a renewal of her anxious
+glances, this time up and down the street. "I must get a word to Arthur.
+I _must_."
+
+I saw that she had some deeper reason than appeared, for desiring
+communication with him. I was debating how best to meet the situation and
+set her right as to my ability to serve her, without breaking down her
+spirit too seriously, when I felt her feverish hand pressing her little
+note into my unwilling palm.
+
+"Don't read it," she whispered, innocent of all offence and only anxious
+to secure my good offices. "It's for Arthur. I've used the thinnest
+paper, so that you can secrete it in something he will be sure to get.
+Don't disappoint me. I was sorry for you, too, and glad when they let you
+out. Both of you are old playmates of mine, but Arthur--"
+
+I had to tell her; I had to dash her small hopes to the ground.
+
+"Forgive me, Ella," I said, "but I cannot carry him this message or even
+get it to him secretly. I am watched myself; I know it, though I have
+never really detected the man doing it."
+
+"Oh!" she ejaculated, terror-stricken at once. "Is there any one here,
+behind these trees or in the street on the other side of the hedge-row?"
+
+I hastened to reassure her.
+
+"No, no. If I've been followed, it was not so near as that. I cannot do
+what you ask for several reasons. Arthur will credit you with the best of
+impulses without your incurring any such risk."
+
+"Yes, yes, but that's not enough. What shall I do? What shall I do?"
+
+I strove to help her.
+
+"There is a man," said I, "who sees him constantly and may be induced to
+assure Arthur of your belief and continued interest in him. That man is
+his lawyer, Mr. Moffat. Any one will tell you how to reach him."
+
+"No, no," she disclaimed, hurriedly, breathlessly. "My last hope was in
+you. You wouldn't think the worse of me for--for what I've done; or let
+mother know. I couldn't tell a stranger even if he went right to Arthur
+with it. I'm not made that way. I couldn't stand the shame." Drawing back
+a step she wrung her small hands together, exclaiming, "What an unhappy
+girl I am!" Then stepping up to my side, she whispered in my ear: "There
+is something I could say which might--"
+
+I stopped her. Right or wrong, I stopped her. I hadn't the courage just
+then to face the possibilities of what lay at the end of this simple
+sentence. She possessed evidence, or thought she did, which might help to
+clear Arthur. Evidence of what? Evidence which would implicate Carmel?
+The very thought unnerved me.
+
+"I had rather not be the recipient of this confidence if it is at all
+important or at all in the line of testimony. Remember the man I
+mentioned. He will be glad to hear of anything helpful to his client."
+
+Her distress mounted to passion.
+
+"It's--it's something that will destroy my mother's confidence in me. I
+disobeyed her. I did what she would never have let me do if she had
+known. I--I used to meet Arthur in the driveway back by the barns. I had
+a key made to the little side door so that I could do it. I used to meet
+him late. I would get up out of bed when mother was asleep, and dress
+myself and sit at the window until I heard him come up the street. Then
+I would steal down and catch him on his way to the stables. I--I had a
+good reason for this, Elwood. He knew I would be there, and it brought
+him home earlier and not quite so--so full of liquor. If he was very bad,
+he would come up the other way and I would sit waiting and crying till
+three o'clock struck, then creep into my bed and try to sleep. Nights and
+nights I have done this. Nothing else in life seemed so important, for it
+did hold him back a little. But not so much as if he had loved me more.
+He loved me some, but he couldn't have loved me very much, or he would
+have sent me some word, or seen me, if but for a minute, since Adelaide's
+death. And he hasn't, he hasn't! and that makes it harder for me to
+acknowledge the watch I kept on him, and how I know he never went through
+our grounds for the second time that night. He went once, about nine, but
+not later. I am certain of this, for I was looking out for him till three
+in the morning. If he came back and then returned afterwards to town, it
+was through his own street, and that takes so long, he would never have
+been able to get to the place they said he did at the time they have
+agreed upon. Oh! I have studied every word of the case, to see if what I
+had to tell would help him any. Father cannot bear to see me with a
+newspaper in my hand, and mother comes and takes them out of my room; but
+I have managed to read every word since they accused him of being at the
+club-house that night, and I know that he needs some one to come out
+boldly in his cause, and I want to be that some one, and I will be, too,
+whatever happens to me, if--if I must," she faintly added.
+
+I was dumb, but not from lack of interest, God knows, or from
+unsympathetic feeling for this brave-hearted girl. The significance of
+the situation was what held me speechless. Here was help for Arthur
+without my braving all the horrors of Carmel's downfall by any impulsive
+act of my own. For a moment, hope in one burning and renewing flame
+soared high in my breast. I was willing to accept my release in this way.
+I was willing to shift the load from my own back to the delicate
+shoulders of this shrinking but ardent girl. Then reason returned, if
+consideration halted, and I asked myself: "But is the help she offers of
+any practical worth? Would her timid declarations, trembling as she was
+between her awe of her parents and her desire to serve the man she loved,
+weigh in the balance against the evidence accumulated by the district
+attorney?"
+
+It seemed doubtful. She would not be believed, and I should have to back
+up her statement with my own hitherto suppressed testimony. It was a hard
+case, any way I looked at it. A woman to be sacrificed whichever course I
+took. Contemplating the tremulous, half-fainting figure drooping in the
+shadows before me, such native chivalry as remained to me, urged me to
+spare this little friend of mine, so ungifted by nature, so innocent in
+intention, so sensitive and so shrinking in temperament and habit. Then
+Carmel's image rose before me, glorious, impassioned, driven by the
+fierce onrush of some mighty inherent force into violent deeds undreamed
+of by most women; but when thus undriven, gentle in manner, elevated in
+thought, refined as only a few rare characters are refined; and my heart
+stood still again with doubt, and I could not say: "It is your duty to
+save him at all hazards. Brave your father, brave your mother, brave
+public opinion and possibly the wrecking of your whole future, but tell
+the truth, and rid your days of doubt, your nights of remorse." I could
+not say this. So many things might happen to save Arthur, to save Carmel,
+to save the little woman before me. I would trust that future, temporise
+a bit and give such advice as would relieve us both from immediate fear
+without compromising Arthur's undoubted rights to justice.
+
+Meanwhile, Ella Fulton had become distracted by new fears. The sound of
+sleigh-bells could be heard on the hill. It might be her father. Should
+she try to reach the house, or hide her small body, like a trapped
+animal's, on the dark side of the hedge? I was conscious of her thoughts,
+shared her uncertainties, notwithstanding the struggle then going on in
+my own mind. But I remained quiet and so did she, and the sleigh
+ultimately flew past us up the road. The sigh which broke from her lips
+as this terror subsided, brought my disordered thoughts to a focus. I
+must not keep her longer. Something must be said at once. As soon as she
+looked my way again, I spoke:
+
+"Ella, this is no easy problem you have offered me. You are right in
+thinking that this testimony of yours might be of benefit to Arthur, and
+that you ought to give it in case of extremity. But I cannot advise you
+to obtrude it yet. I understand what it would cost you, and the sacrifice
+you would make is too great for the doubtful good which might follow.
+Neither must you trust me to act for you in this matter. My own position
+is too unstable for me to be of assistance to any one. I can sympathise
+with you, possibly as no one else can; but I cannot reach Arthur, either
+by word or by message. Your father is the man to appeal to in case
+interference becomes necessary and you must speak. You have not quite the
+same fear of him that you have of your mother. Take him into your
+confidence--not now but later when things press and you must have a
+friend. He's a just man. You may shock his fatherly susceptibilities, you
+may even lose some of his regard, but he will do the right thing by you
+and Arthur. Have confidence that this is so, and rest, little friend, in
+the hope and help it gives you. Will you?"
+
+"I will try. I could only tell father on my knees, but I will do it
+if--if I must," she faltered out, unconsciously repeating her former
+phrase. "Now, I must go. You have been good; only I asked too much." And
+with no other farewell she left me and disappeared up the walk.
+
+I lingered till I heard the faint click of her key in the door she had
+secretly made her own; then I moved on. As I did so, I heard a rustle
+somewhere about me on street or lawn. I never knew whence it came, but I
+felt assured that neither her fears nor mine had been quite unfounded;
+that a listener had been posted somewhere near us and that a part, if not
+all, we had said had been overheard. I was furious for an instant, then
+the soothing thought came that possibly Providence had ordained that the
+Gordian knot should be cut in just this way.
+
+But the event bore no ostensible fruit. The week ended, and the case of
+the People _against_ Arthur Cumberland was moved for trial.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+ALL THIS STOOD
+
+It's fit this royal session do proceed;
+And that, without delay, their arguments
+Be now produc'd and heard
+
+_King Henry VIII_.
+
+
+There was difficulty, as you will conceive, in selecting an unprejudiced
+jury. But this once having been accomplished, the case went quickly and
+smoothly on under the able guidance of the prosecuting attorney.
+
+I shall spare you the opening details, also much of the preliminary
+testimony. Enough that at the close of the sixth day, the outlook was a
+serious one for Arthur Cumberland. The prosecution appeared to be making
+good its claims. The quiet and unexpectedly dignified way in which, at
+the beginning, the defendant had faced the whole antagonistic
+court-room, with the simple plea of "Not Guilty," was being slowly but
+surely forgotten in the accumulated proofs of his discontented life
+under his sister's dominating influence, his desire for independence and
+a free use of the money held in trust for him by this sister under their
+father's will, the quarrels which such a situation would naturally evoke
+between characters cast in such different moulds and actuated by such
+opposing tastes and principles, and the final culmination of the same at
+the dinner-table when Adelaide forced him, as it were, to subscribe to
+her prohibition of all further use of liquor in their house. Following
+this evidence of motive, came the still more damaging one of
+opportunity. He was shown to have been in the club-house at or near the
+time of Adelaide's death. The matter of the bottles was gone into and
+the event in Cuthbert Road. Then I was called to the stand, and my
+testimony asked for.
+
+I had prepared myself for the ordeal and faced it unflinchingly. That I
+might keep intact the one point necessary to Carmel's safety, I met my
+inquisitors, now as before, with the utmost candour in all other
+respects. Indeed, in one particular I was even more exact in my details
+than at any previous examination. Anxious to explain my agitated and
+hesitating advance through the club-house, prior to my discovery of the
+crime which had been committed there, I acknowledged what I had hitherto
+concealed, that in my first entrance into the building, I had come upon a
+man's derby hat and coat hanging in the lower hall, and when questioned
+more minutely on the subject, allowed it to appear that it was owing to
+the disappearance of these articles during my stay upstairs, that I had
+been led into saying that some one had driven away from The Whispering
+Pines before the coming of the police.
+
+This, as you will see, was in open contradiction of my former statements
+that I had _seen_ an unknown party, thus attired, driving away through
+the upper gateway just as I entered by the lower. But it was a
+contradiction which while noted by Mr. Moffat, failed to injure me with
+the jury, and much less with the spectators. The impression had become so
+firmly fixed in the public mind and in that of certain officials as well,
+that my early hesitations and misstatements were owing to a brotherly
+anxiety to distract attention from Arthur whose clothing they believed me
+to have recognised in these articles I have mentioned--that I rather
+gained than lost by what, under other circumstances would have seriously
+damaged my testimony. That I should prevaricate even to my own detriment,
+at a preliminary examination, only to tell the truth openly and like a
+man when in court and under the sanctity of an oath was, in the popular
+estimation, something to my credit; and Mr. Moffat, whose chief
+recommendation as counsel lay in his quick appreciation of the exigencies
+of the moment, did not press me too sharply on this point when he came to
+his cross-examination.
+
+But in other respects he drove me hard. An effort was made by him, first
+of all, to discredit me as a witness. My lack of appreciation for
+Adelaide and my secret but absorbing love for Carmel were inexorably
+brought out: also the easy, happy-go-lucky tenor of my life, and my
+dogged persistence in any course I thought consistent with my happiness.
+My character was well known in this town of my birth, and it would have
+been folly for me to attempt to gloss it over. I had not even the desire
+to do so. If my sins exacted penance, I would pay it here and now and to
+the full. Only Carmel should not suffer. I refused to admit that she had
+given any evidences of returning my reckless passion. My tongue would not
+speak the necessary words, and it was not made to. It was not her
+character but mine which Mr. Moffat was endeavouring to assail.
+
+But though I was thus shown up for what I was, in a manner most public
+and undesirable, neither the rulings of the court, nor the attitude of
+the jury betrayed any loss of confidence in me as a credible witness, and
+seeing this, the wily lawyer shifted his ground and confined himself to
+an endeavour to shake me on certain definite and important points. How
+were the pillows heaped upon the couch? What ones at top, what ones at
+bottom? Which did I remove first, and why did I remove any of them? What
+had I expected to find? These questions answered, the still
+more-to-be-dreaded ones followed of just how my betrothed looked at the
+moment I uncovered her face. Were the marks very plain upon her throat?
+How plain; and what did I mean by saying that I felt forced to lay my
+thumbs upon them? Was that a natural thing to do? Where was the candle at
+that moment? How many feet away? A candle does not give much light at
+that distance, was I sure that I saw those marks immediately; that they
+were dark enough and visible enough to draw my eyes from her face which
+would naturally attract my gaze first? It was horrible, devilish, but I
+won through, only to meet the still more disturbing question as to
+whether I saw any other evidences of strangulation besides the marks. I
+could only mention the appearance of the eyes; and when Mr. Moffat found
+that he could not shake me on this point, he branched off into a less
+harrowing topic and cross-examined me in regard to the ring. I had said
+that it was on her hand when I bade good-bye to her in her own house, and
+that it was not there when I came upon her dead. Had the fact made me
+curious to examine her hand? No. Then I could not tell whether the finger
+on which she wore it gave any evidence of this ring having been pulled
+off with violence? No. I could not swear that in my opinion it was? I
+could not.
+
+The small flask of cordial and the three glasses, one clean and the
+others showing signs of having been used, were next taken up, but with no
+result for the defence. I had told all I knew about these in my direct
+examination; also about such matters as the bottles found on the kitchen
+table, the leaving of my keys at the Cumberland house, and the fact, well
+known, that the two bottles of wine left in the wine-vault and tabulated
+by the steward as so left in the list found in my apartments, were of an
+exclusive brand unlikely to be found anywhere else in town. I could add
+nothing more, and, having spoken the exact truth concerning them, from
+the very first, I ran no chance of contradicting myself even under the
+close fire of the opposing counsel.
+
+But there was a matter I dreaded to see him approach, and, which, I was
+equally sure, with an insight unshared I believe by any one else in the
+whole courtroom, was equally dreaded by the prisoner.
+
+This was the presence in the club-house chimney of the half-burned letter
+I had long ago been compelled, in my own defence, to acknowledge having
+written to the victim's young sister, Carmel Cumberland. As I saw
+District Attorney Fox about to enter upon this topic, I gathered myself
+together to meet the onslaught, for in this matter I could not be
+strictly truthful, since the least slip on my part might awaken the whole
+world to the fact that it could only have come there through the agency
+of Carmel herself.
+
+What Mr. Moffat thought of it--what he hoped to prove in the prisoner's
+behalf by raking this subject over--it was left for me to discover
+later. The prisoner was an innocent man, in his eyes. I was not; and,
+while the time had not come for him to make this openly apparent, he was
+not above showing even now that the case contained a factor which
+weakened the prosecution--a factor totally dissociated with the openly
+accepted theory that the crime was simply the result of personal
+cupidity and drunken spite.
+
+And in this he was right. It did weaken it--weakened it to the point of
+collapse, if the counsel for the defence had fully acted up to his
+opportunity. But something withheld him. Just at the moment when I feared
+the truth must come out, he hesitated and veered gradually away from this
+subject. In his nervous pacings to and fro before the witness stand, his
+eye had rested for a moment on Arthur's, and with this result. The
+situation was saved, but at a great loss to the defendant.
+
+I began to cherish softened feelings towards Arthur Cumberland, from this
+moment. Was it then, or later, that he began in his turn to cherish new
+and less hostile feelings towards myself? He had hated me and vowed my
+death if I escaped the fate he could now dimly see opening out before
+himself; yet I could see that he was glad to see me slip from my
+tormentor's hands with my story unimpeached, and that he drew his breath
+more deeply and with much more evidence of freedom, now that my testimony
+had been thoroughly sifted and nothing had come to light implicating
+Carmel. I even thought I caught a kindly gleam in his eye as it met mine
+at this critical juncture, and by its light I understood my man and what
+he hoped from me. He wished me at any risk to himself, to unite with him
+in saving Carmel's good name. That I should accede to this; that I should
+respect his generous wishes and let him go to unmerited destruction for
+even so imperative an obligation as we both lay under, was a question for
+the morrow. I could not decide upon it to-day--not while the smallest
+hope remained that he would yet escape conviction by other means than the
+one which would wreck the life we were both intent on saving.
+
+Several short examinations followed mine, all telling in their nature,
+all calculated to fix in the minds of the jury the following facts:
+
+(Pray pardon the repetition. It is necessary to present the case to you
+just as it stood at this period of my greatest struggle.)
+
+1.--That Arthur, swayed by cupidity and moved to rage by the scene at the
+dinner-table, had, by some unknown means of a more or less violent
+character, prevailed upon Adelaide to accompany him to The Whispering
+Pines, in the small cutter, to which, in the absence of every servant
+about the place, he himself had harnessed the grey mare.
+
+2.--That in preparation for this visit to a spot remote from observation
+and closed against all visitors, they, still for some unknown reason, had
+carried between them a candlestick and candle, a flask of cordial, three
+glasses, and a small bottle marked "Poison"; also some papers, letters,
+or scraps of correspondence, among them the compromising line I had
+written to Carmel.
+
+3.--That, while in this building, at an hour not yet settled, a second
+altercation had arisen between them, or some attempt been made by the
+brother which had alarmed Adelaide and sent her flying to the telephone,
+in great agitation, with an appeal to the police for help. This telephone
+was in a front room and the jury was led to judge that she had gained
+access to it while her companion ransacked the wine-vault and brought the
+six bottles of spirit up from the cellar.
+
+4.--That her outcry had alarmed the prisoner in his turn, causing him to
+leave most of the bottles below, and hasten up to the room, where he
+completed the deed with which he had previously threatened her.
+
+5.--That poison having failed, he resorted to strangulation; after
+which--or before--came the robbery of her ring, the piling up of the
+cushions over the body in a vain endeavour to hide the deed, or to
+prolong the search for the victim. Then the departure--the locking of the
+front door behind the perpetrator; the flight of the grey horse and
+cutter through the blinding storm; the blowing off of the driver's hat;
+the identification of the same by means of the flour-mark left on its
+brim by the mechanic's wife; the presence of a portion of one of the two
+abstracted bottles in the stable where the horse was put up; and the
+appearance of Arthur with the other bottle at the door of the inn in
+Cuthbert Road, just as the clock was striking half-past eleven.
+
+This latter fact might have been regarded as proving an alibi, owing to
+the length of road between the Cumberland house and the place just
+mentioned, if there had not been a short cut to town open to him by means
+of a door in the wall separating the Cumberland and Fulton grounds--a
+door which was found unlocked, and with the key in it, by Zadok Brown,
+the coachman, when he came home about three next morning.
+
+All this stood; not an item of this testimony could be shaken. Most of it
+was true; some of it false; but what was false, so unassailable by any
+ordinary means, that, as I have already said, the clouds seemed settling
+heavily over Arthur Cumberland when, at the end of the sixth day, the
+proceedings closed.
+
+The night that followed was a heavy one for me. Then came the fateful
+morrow, and, after that, the day of days destined to make a life-long
+impression on all who attended this trial.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+"I AM INNOCENT"
+
+All is oblique,
+There's nothing level in our cursed natures,
+But direct villainy. Therefore, be abhorred
+All feasts, societies, and throngs of men!
+His semblable, yea, himself, Timon disdains.
+
+_Timon of Athens_.
+
+
+I was early in my seat. Feeling the momentousness of the occasion--for
+this day must decide my action for or against the prisoner--I searched
+the faces of the jury, of the several counsel, and of the judge. I was
+anxious to know what I had to expect from them, in case my conscience got
+the better of my devotion to Carmel's interests and led me into that
+declaration of the real facts which was forever faltering on my tongue,
+without having, as yet, received the final impetus which could only end
+in speech.
+
+To give him his rightful precedence, the judge showed an impenetrable
+countenance but little changed from that with which he had faced us all
+from the start. He, like most of the men involved in these proceedings,
+had been a close friend of the prisoner's father, and, in his capacity of
+judge in this momentous trial, had had to contend with his personal
+predilections, possibly with concealed sympathies, if not with equally
+well-concealed prejudices. This had lent to his aspect a sternness never
+observable in it before; but no man, even the captious Mr. Moffat, had
+seriously questioned his rulings; and, whatever the cost to himself, he
+had, up to this time, held the scales of justice so evenly that it would
+have taken an audacious mind to have ventured on an interpretation of his
+real attitude or mental leaning in this case.
+
+From this imposing presence, nobly sustained by a well-proportioned
+figure and a head and face indicative of intellect and every kindly
+attribute, I turned to gaze upon Mr. Fox and his colleagues. One spirit
+seemed to animate them--confidence in their case, and unqualified
+satisfaction at its present status.
+
+I was conscious of a certain ironic impulse to smile, as I noted the
+eager whisper and the bustle of preparation with which they settled upon
+their next witness and prepared to open their batteries upon him. How
+easily I could call down that high look, and into what a turmoil I could
+throw them all by an ingenuous demand to be recalled to the stand!
+
+But the psychological moment had not yet come, and I subdued the
+momentary impulse and proceeded with my scrutiny of the people about me.
+The jury looked tired, with the exception of one especially alert little
+man who drank in even the most uninteresting details with avidity. But
+they all had good faces, and none could doubt their interest, or that
+they were fully alive to the significance of the occasion.
+
+Mr. Moffat, leading counsel for the defendant, was a spare man of unusual
+height, modified a little, and only a little, by the forward droop of his
+shoulders. Nervous in manner, quick, short, sometimes rasping in speech,
+he had the changeful eye and mobile expression of a very sensitive
+nature; and from him, if from any one, I might hope to learn how much or
+how little Arthur had to fear from the day's proceedings. But Mr.
+Moffat's countenance was not as readable as usual. He looked
+preoccupied--a strange thing for him; and, instead of keeping his eye on
+the witness, as was his habitual practice, he allowed it to wander over
+the sea of heads before him, with a curious expectant interest which
+aroused my own curiosity, and led me to hunt about for its cause.
+
+My first glance was unproductive. I saw only the usual public, such as
+had confronted us the whole week, with curious and increasing interest.
+But as I searched further, I discerned in an inconspicuous corner, the
+bowed head, veiled almost beyond recognition, of Ella Fulton. It was her
+first appearance in court. Each day I had anticipated her presence, and
+each day I had failed to see my anticipations realised. But she was here
+now, and so were her father and her cold and dominating mother; and,
+beholding her thus accompanied, I fancied I understood Mr. Moffat's
+poorly concealed excitement. But another glance at Mrs. Fulton assured me
+that I was mistaken in this hasty surmise. No such serious purpose, as I
+feared, lay back of their presence here to-day. Curiosity alone explained
+it; and as I realised what this meant, and how little understanding it
+betokened of the fierce struggle then going on in the timid breast of
+their distracted child, a sickening sense of my own responsibility drove
+Carmel's beauty, and Carmel's claims temporarily from my mind, and
+following the direction of Ella's thoughts, if not her glances, I sought
+in the face of the prisoner a recognition of her presence, if not of the
+promise this presence brought him.
+
+His eye had just fallen on her. I was assured of this by the sudden
+softening of his expression--the first real softening I had ever seen
+in it. It was but a momentary flash, but it was unmistakable in its
+character, as was his speedy return to his former stolidity. Whatever
+his thoughts were at sight of his little sweetheart, he meant to hide
+them even from his counsel--most of all from his counsel, I decided
+after further contemplation of them both. If Mr. Moffat still showed
+nervousness, it was for some other reason than anxiety about this
+little body hiding from sight behind the proudly held figures of father
+and mother.
+
+The opening testimony of the day, while not vital, was favourable to the
+prosecution in that it showed Arthur's conduct since the murder to have
+been inconsistent with perfect innocence. His belated return at noon the
+next day, raging against the man who had been found in an incriminating
+position on the scene of crime, while at the same time failing to betray
+his own presence there till driven to it by accumulating circumstances
+and the persistent inquiries of the police; the care he took to avoid
+drink, though constant tippling was habitual to him and formed the great
+cause of quarrel between himself and the murdered Adelaide; his haunting
+of Carmel's door and anxious listening for any words she might let fall
+in her delirium; the suspicion which he constantly betrayed of the nurse
+when for any reason he was led to conclude that she had heard something
+which he had not; his behaviour at the funeral and finally his action in
+demanding to have the casket-lid removed that he might look again at the
+face he had made no effort to gaze upon when opportunity offered and time
+and place were seemly: these facts and many more were brought forward in
+grim array against the prisoner, with but little opposition from his
+counsel and small betrayal of feeling on the part of Arthur himself. His
+stolid face had remained stolid even when the ring which had fallen out
+of his sister's casket was shown to the jury and the connection made
+between its presence there and the intrusion of his hand into the same,
+on the occasion above mentioned. This once thoughtless, pleasure-loving,
+and hopelessly dissipated boy had not miscalculated his nerve. It was
+sufficient for an ordeal which might have tried the courage and
+self-possession of the most hardened criminal.
+
+Then came the great event of the day, in anticipation of which the
+court-room had been packed, and every heart within it awakened by slow
+degrees to a state of great nervous expectancy. The prosecution rested
+and the junior counsel for the defence opened his case to the jury.
+
+If I had hoped for any startling disclosure, calculated to establish his
+client's alleged alibi, or otherwise to free the same from the definite
+charge of murder, I had reason to be greatly disappointed by this maiden
+effort of a young and inexperienced lawyer. If not exactly weak, there
+was an unexpected vagueness in its statements which seemed quite out of
+keeping with the emphatic declaration which he made of the prisoner's
+innocence.
+
+Even Arthur was sensible of the bad effect made by this preliminary
+address. More than once during its delivery and notably at its
+conclusion, he turned to Mr. Moffat, with a bitter remark, which was not
+without effect on that gentleman's cheek, and at once called forth a
+retort stinging enough to cause Arthur to sink back into his place, with
+the first sign of restlessness I had observed in him.
+
+"Moffat is sly. Moffat has something up his sleeve. I will wait till he
+sees fit to show it," was my thought; then, as I caught a wild and
+pleading look from Ella, I added in positive assertion to myself, "And so
+must she."
+
+Answering her unspoken appeal with an admonitory shake of the
+head, I carelessly let my fingers rest upon my mouth until I saw
+that she understood me and was prepared to follow my lead for a
+little while longer.
+
+My satisfaction at this was curtailed by the calling of Arthur Cumberland
+to the stand to witness in his own defence.
+
+I had dreaded this contingency. I saw that for some reason, both his
+counsel and associate counsel, were not without their own misgivings as
+to the result of their somewhat doubtful experiment.
+
+A change was observable in this degenerate son of the Cumberlands since
+many there had confronted him face to face. Physically he was improved.
+Enough time had elapsed since his sudden dropping of old habits, for him
+to have risen above its first effects and to have acquired that tone of
+personal dignity which follows a successful issue to any moral conflict.
+But otherwise the difference was such as to arouse doubt as to the real
+man lurking behind his dogged, uncommunicative manner.
+
+Even with the knowledge of his motives which I believed myself to
+possess, I was at a loss to understand his indifference to self and the
+immobility of manner he maintained under all circumstances and during
+every fluctuation which took place in the presentation of his case, or in
+the temper of the people surrounding him. I felt that beyond the one fact
+that he could be relied upon to protect Carmel's name and Carmel's
+character, even to the jeopardising of his case, he was not to be counted
+on, and might yet startle many of us, and most notably of all, the little
+woman waiting to hear what he had to say in his own defence before she
+threw herself into the breach and made that devoted attempt to save him,
+in his own despite, which had been my terror from the first and was my
+terror now.
+
+Perjury! but not in his own defence--rather in opposition to it--that is
+what his counsel had to fear; and I wondered if they knew it. My
+attention became absorbed in the puzzle. Carmel's fate, if not
+Ella's--and certainly my own--hung upon the issue. This I knew, and this
+I faced, calmly, but very surely, as, the preliminary questions having
+been answered, Mr. Moffat proceeded.
+
+The witness's name having been demanded and given and some other
+preliminary formalities gone through, he was asked:
+
+"Mr. Cumberland, did you have any quarrel with your sister during the
+afternoon or evening of December the second?"
+
+"I did." Then, as if not satisfied with this simple statement, he
+blurted forth: "And it wasn't the first. I hated the discipline she
+imposed upon me, and the disapproval she showed of my ways and the manner
+in which I chose to spend my money."
+
+A straightforward expression of feeling, but hardly a judicious one.
+
+Judge Edwards glanced, in some surprise, from Mr. Moffat to the daring
+man who could choose thus to usher in his defence; and then, forgetting
+his own emotions, in his instinctive desire for order, rapped sharply
+with his gavel in correction of the audible expression of a like feeling
+on the part of the expectant audience.
+
+Mr. Moffat, apparently unaffected by this result of his daring move,
+pursued his course, with the quiet determination of one who sees his goal
+and is working deliberately towards it.
+
+"Do you mind particularising? Of what did she especially disapprove in
+your conduct or way of spending money?"
+
+"She disapproved of my fondness for drink. She didn't like my late hours,
+or the condition in which I frequently came home. I did not like her
+expressions of displeasure, or the way she frequently cut me short when I
+wanted to have a good time with my friends. We never agreed. I made her
+suffer often and unnecessarily. I regret it now; she was a better sister
+to me than I could then understand."
+
+This was uttered slowly and with a quiet emphasis which reawakened that
+excited hum the judge had been at such pains to quell a moment before.
+But he did not quell it now; he seemed to have forgotten his duty in the
+strong interest called up by these admissions from the tongue of the most
+imperturbable prisoner he had had before him in years.
+
+Mr. Moffat, with an eye on District Attorney Fox, who had shown his
+surprise at the trend the examination was taking by a slight indication
+of uneasiness, grateful enough, no doubt, to the daring counsellor, went
+on with his examination:
+
+"Mr. Cumberland, will you tell us when you first felt this change of
+opinion in regard to your sister?"
+
+Mr. Fox leaped to his feet. Then he slowly reseated himself. Evidently he
+thought it best to let the prisoner have his full say. Possibly he may
+have regretted his leniency the next moment when, with a solemn lowering
+of his head, Arthur answered:
+
+"When I saw my home desolated in one dreadful night. With one sister dead
+in the house, the victim of violence, and another delirious from fright
+or some other analogous cause, I had ample time to think--and I used that
+time. That's all."
+
+Simple words, read or repeated; but in that crowded court-room, with
+every ear strained to catch the lie which seemed the only refuge for the
+man so hemmed in by circumstance, these words, uttered without the least
+attempt at effect, fell with a force which gave new life to such as
+wished to see this man acquitted.
+
+His counsel, as if anxious to take advantage of this very expectation to
+heighten the effect of what followed, proceeded immediately to inquire:
+
+"When did you see your sister Adelaide for the last time alive?"
+
+A searching question. What would be his reply?
+
+A very quiet one.
+
+"That night at the dinner-table. When I left the room, I turned to look
+at her. She was not looking at me; so I slammed the door and went
+upstairs. In an hour or so, I had left the house to get a drink. I got
+the drink, but I never saw Adelaide again till I saw her in her coffin."
+
+This blunt denial of the crime for which he stood there arraigned, fell
+on my heart with a weight which showed me how inextinguishable is the
+hope we cherish deep down under all surface convictions. I had been
+unconscious of this hope, but it was there. It seemed to die a double
+death at these words. For I believed him! Courage is needed for a lie.
+There were no signs visible in him, as yet, of his having drawn upon this
+last resource of the despairing. I should know it when he did; he could
+not hide the subtle change from me.
+
+To others, this declaration came with greater or less force, according as
+it was viewed in the light of a dramatic trick of Mr. Moffat's, or as the
+natural outburst of a man fighting for his life in his own way and with
+his own weapons. I could not catch the eye of Ella cowering low in her
+seat, so could not judge what tender chords had been struck in her
+sensitive breast by these two assertions so dramatically offset against
+each other--the one, his antagonism to the dead; the other, his freedom
+from the crime in which that antagonism was supposed to have culminated.
+
+Mr. Moffat, satisfied so far, put his next question with equal
+directness:
+
+"Mr. Cumberland, you have mentioned seeing your sister in her coffin.
+When was this?"
+
+"At the close of her funeral, just before she was carried out."
+
+"Was that the first and only time you had seen her so placed?"
+
+"It was."
+
+"Had you seen the casket itself prior to this moment of which you speak?"
+
+"I had not."
+
+"Had you been near it? Had you handled it in any way?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Mr. Cumberland, you have heard mention made of a ring worn by your
+sister in life, but missing from her finger after death?"
+
+"I have."
+
+"You remember this ring?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Is this it?"
+
+"It is, so far as I can judge at this distance."
+
+"Hand the ring to the witness," ordered the judge.
+
+The ring was so handed.
+
+He glanced at it, and said bitterly: "I recognise it. It was her
+engagement ring."
+
+"Was this ring on her finger that night at the dinner-table?"
+
+"I cannot say, positively, but I believe so. I should have noticed
+its absence."
+
+"Why, may I ask?"
+
+For the first time the prisoner flushed and the look he darted at his
+counsel had the sting of a reproach in it. Yet he answered: "It was the
+token of an engagement I didn't believe in or like. I should have hailed
+any proof that this engagement was off."
+
+Mr. Moffat smiled enigmatically.
+
+"Mr. Cumberland, if you are not sure of having seen this ring then, when
+did you see it and where?"
+
+A rustle from end to end of that crowded court-room. This was an
+audacious move. What was coming? What would be the answer of the man
+who was believed not only to have made himself the possessor of this
+ring, but to have taken a most strange and uncanny method of disposing
+of it afterward? In the breathless hush which followed this first
+involuntary expression of feeling, Arthur's voice rose, harsh but
+steady in this reply:
+
+"I saw it when the police showed it to me, and asked me if I could
+identify it."
+
+"Was that the only time you have seen it up to the present moment?"
+
+Instinctively, the witness's right hand rose; it was as if he were
+mentally repeating his oath before he uttered coldly and with emphasis,
+though without any show of emotion:
+
+"It is."
+
+The universal silence gave way to a universal sigh of excitement and
+relief. District Attorney Fox's lips curled with an imperceptible smile
+of disdain, which might have impressed the jury if they had been
+looking his way; but they were all looking with eager and interested
+eyes at the prisoner, who had just uttered this second distinct and
+unequivocal denial.
+
+Mr. Moffat noted this, and his own lip curled, but with a very different
+show of feeling from that which had animated his distinguished opponent.
+Without waiting for the present sentiment to cool, he proceeded
+immediately with his examination:
+
+"You swear that you have seen this ring but once since the night of
+your sister's death, and that was when it was shown you in the
+coroner's office?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Does this mean that it was not in your possession at any time during
+that interim?"
+
+"It certainly does."
+
+"Mr. Cumberland, more than one witness has testified to the fact of
+your having been seen to place your hand in the casket of your sister,
+before the eyes of the minister and of others attending her funeral. Is
+this true?"
+
+"It is."
+
+"Was not this a most unusual thing to do?"
+
+"Perhaps. I was not thinking about that. I had a duty to perform, and I
+performed it."
+
+"A duty? Will you explain to the jury what duty?"
+
+The witness's head rose, then sank. He, as well as every one else, seemed
+to be impressed by the solemnity of the moment. Though the intensity of
+my own interest would not allow my eyes to wander from his face, I could
+imagine the strained look in Ella's, as she awaited his words.
+
+They came in another instant, but with less steadiness than he had shown
+before. I even thought I could detect a tremor in his muscles, as well as
+in his voice:
+
+"I had rebelled against my sister's wishes; I had grieved and deceived
+her up to the very night of her foul and unnatural death--and all
+through _drink_."
+
+Here his eye flashed, and for that fleeting moment he looked a man. "I
+wished to take an oath--an oath I would remember. It was for this purpose
+I ordered the casket opened, and thrust my fingers through the flowers I
+found there. When my fingers touched my sister's brow, I inwardly swore
+never to taste liquor again. I have kept that oath. Difficult as it was,
+in my state of mind, and with all my troubles, I have kept it--and been
+misunderstood in doing so," he added, in lower tones, and with just a
+touch of bitterness.
+
+It was such an unexpected explanation, and so calculated to cause a
+decided and favourable reaction in the minds of those who had looked upon
+this especial act of his as an irrefutable proof of guilt, that it was
+but natural that some show of public feeling should follow. But this was
+checked almost immediately, and Mr. Moffat's voice was heard rising again
+in his strange but telling examination:
+
+"When you thrust your hand in to take this oath, did you drop anything
+into your sister's casket?"
+
+"I did not. My hand was empty. I held no ring, and dropped none in. I
+simply touched her forehead."
+
+This added to the feeling; and, in another instant, the excitement might
+have risen into hubbub, had not the emotions of one little woman found
+vent in a low and sobbing cry which relieved the tension and gave just
+the relief needed to hold in check the overstrained feelings of the
+crowd. I knew the voice and cast one quick glance that way, in time to
+see Ella sinking affrightedly out of sight under the dismayed looks of
+father and mother; then, anxious to note whether the prisoner had
+recognised her, too, looked hastily back to find him standing quietly and
+unmoved, with his eyes on his counsel and his lips set in the stern line
+which was slowly changing his expression.
+
+That counsel, strangely alive to the temper and feelings of his audience,
+waited just long enough for the few simple and solemn words uttered by
+the accused man to produce their full effect, then with a side glance at
+Mr. Fox, whose equanimity he had at last succeeded in disturbing, and
+whose cross-examination of the prisoner he had still to fear, continued
+his own examination by demanding why, when the ring was discovered in
+Adelaide's casket and he saw what inferences would be drawn from the
+fact, he had not made an immediate public explanation of his conduct and
+the reasons he had had for putting his hand there.
+
+"I'm not a muff," shot from the prisoner's lips, in his old manner. "A
+man who would take such an oath, in such a way, and at such a time, is
+not the man to talk about it until he is forced to. I would not talk
+about it now--"
+
+He was checked at this point; but the glimpse we thus obtained of the
+natural man, in this indignant and sullen outburst, following so quickly
+upon the solemn declarations of the moment before, did more for him in
+the minds of those present than the suavest and most discreet answer
+given under the instigation of his counsel. Every face showed pleasure,
+and for a short space, if for no longer, all who listened were disposed
+to accept his assertions and accord the benefit of doubt to this wayward
+son of an esteemed father.
+
+To me, who had hoped nothing from Moffat's efforts, the substantial
+nature of the defence thus openly made manifest, brought reanimation and
+an unexpected confidence in the future.
+
+The question as to who had dropped the ring into the casket if Arthur had
+not--the innocent children, the grieving servants--was latent, of course,
+in every breast, but it had not yet reached the point demanding
+expression.
+
+Meanwhile, the examination proceeded.
+
+"Mr. Cumberland, you have stated that you did not personally drop this
+ring into the place where it was ultimately found. Can you tell us of
+your own knowledge who did?"
+
+"I cannot. I know nothing about the ring. I was much surprised,
+probably more surprised than any one else, to hear of its discovery in
+that place."
+
+The slip--and it was a slip for him to introduce that _more_--was
+immediately taken advantage of by his counsel.
+
+"You say 'more,' Why should it be more of a surprise to you than to any
+one else to learn where this missing engagement ring of your sister's had
+been found?"
+
+Again that look of displeasure directed towards his questioner, and a
+certain additional hardness in his reply, when he finally made it.
+
+"I was her brother. I had a brother's antipathies and rightful
+suspicions. I could not see how that ring came to be where it was, when
+the only one interested in its restoration was in prison."
+
+This was a direct blow at myself, and of course called Mr. Fox to his
+feet, with a motion to strike out this answer. An altercation followed
+between him and Mr. Moffat, which, deeply as it involved my life and
+reputation, failed to impress me, as it might otherwise have done, if my
+whole mind had not been engaged in reconciling the difficulty about this
+ring with what I knew of Carmel and the probability which existed of her
+having been responsible for its removal from her sister's hand. But
+Carmel had been ill since, desperately ill and unconscious. She could
+have had nothing to do with its disposal afterwards among the flowers at
+her sister's funeral. Nor had she been in a condition to delegate this
+act of concealment to another. Who, then, had been the intermediary in
+this business? The question was no longer a latent one in my mind; it was
+an insistent one, compelling me either to discredit Arthur's explanation
+(in which case anything might be believed of him) or to accept for good
+and all this new theory that some person of unknown identity had played
+an accessory's part in this crime, whose full burden I had hitherto laid
+upon the shoulders of the impetuous Carmel. Either hypothesis brought
+light. I began to breathe again the air of hope, and if observed at that
+moment, must have presented the odd spectacle of a man rejoicing in his
+own shame and accepting with positive uplift, the inevitable stigma cast
+upon his honour by the suggestive sentence just hurled at him by an
+indignant witness.
+
+The point raised by the district attorney having been ruled upon and
+sustained by the court, Mr. Moffat made no effort to carry his inquiries
+any further in the direction indicated; but I could see, with all my
+inexperience of the law and the ways of attorneys before a jury, that
+the episode had produced its inevitable result, and that my position, as
+a man released from suspicion, had received a shock, the results of which
+I might yet be made to feel.
+
+A moment's pause followed, during which some of Mr. Moffat's nervousness
+returned. He eyed the prisoner doubtfully, found him stoical and as
+self-contained as at the beginning of his examination, and plunged into a
+topic which most people had expected him to avoid. I certainly had, and
+felt all the uncertainty and secret alarm which an unexpected move
+occasions where the issue is momentous with life or death. I was filled
+with terror, not for the man on trial, but for my secret. Was it shared
+by the defence? Was Mr. Moffat armed with the knowledge I thought
+confined to myself and Arthur? Had the latter betrayed the cause I had
+been led to believe he was ready to risk his life to defend? Had I
+mistaken his gratitude to myself; or had I underrated Mr. Moffat's
+insight or powers of persuasion? We had just been made witness to one
+triumph on the part of this able lawyer in a quarter deemed unassailable
+by the prosecution. Were we about to be made witnesses of another? I felt
+the sweat start on my forehead, and was only able to force myself into
+some show of self-possession by the evident lack of perfect assurance
+with which this same lawyer now addressed his client.
+
+The topic which had awakened in me these doubts and consequent agitation
+will appear from the opening question.
+
+"Mr. Cumberland, to return to the night of your sister's death. Can you
+tell us what overcoat you put on when leaving your house?"
+
+Arthur was as astonished and certainly as disconcerted, if not as
+seriously alarmed, as I was, by this extraordinary move. Surprise, anger,
+then some deeper feeling rang in his voice as he replied:
+
+"I cannot. I took down the first I saw and _the first hat."_
+
+The emphasis placed on the last three words may have been meant as a
+warning to his audacious counsel, but if so, it was not heeded.
+
+"Took down? Took down from where?"
+
+"From the rack in the hall where I hang my things; the side hall leading
+to the door where we usually go out."
+
+"Have you many coats--overcoats, I mean?"
+
+"More than one."
+
+"And you do not know which one you put on that cold night?"
+
+"I do not."
+
+"But you know what one you wore back?"
+
+"No."
+
+Short, sharp, and threatening was this _no_. A war was on between this
+man and his counsel, and the wonder it occasioned was visible in every
+eye. Perhaps Mr. Moffat realised this; this was what he had dreaded,
+perhaps. At all events, he proceeded with his strange task, in apparent
+oblivion of everything but his own purpose.
+
+"You do not know what one you wore back?"
+
+"I do not."
+
+"You have seen the hat and coat which have been shown here and sworn to
+as being the ones in which you appeared on your return to the house, the
+day following your sister's murder?"
+
+"I have."
+
+"Also the hat and coat found on a remote hook in the closet under the
+stairs, bearing the flour-mark on its under brim?"
+
+"Yes, that too."
+
+"Yet cannot say which of these two overcoats you put on when you left
+your home, an hour or so after finishing your dinner?"
+
+Trapped by his own lawyer--visibly and remorselessly trapped! The blood,
+shooting suddenly into the astounded prisoner's face, was reflected on
+the cheeks of the other lawyers present. Even Mr. Fox betrayed his
+surprise; but it was a surprise not untinged by apprehension. Mr. Moffat
+must feel very sure of himself to venture thus far. I, who feared to ask
+myself the cause of this assurance, could only wait and search the
+partially visible face of little Ella for an enlightenment, which was no
+more to be found there than in the swollen features of the outraged
+Arthur. The excitement which this event caused, afforded the latter some
+few moments in which to quell his own indignation; and when he spoke, it
+was passionately, yet not without some effort at restraint.
+
+"I cannot. I was in no condition to notice. I was bent on going into
+town, and immediately upon coming downstairs went straight to the rack
+and pulled on the first things that offered."
+
+It appeared to be a perfect give-a-way. And it was, but it was a
+give-a-way which, I feared, threatened Carmel rather than her brother.
+
+Mr. Moffat, still nervous, still avoiding the prisoner's eye,
+relentlessly pursued his course, unmindful--wilfully so, it appeared--of
+the harm he was doing himself, as well as the witness.
+
+"Mr. Cumberland, were a coat and hat all that you took from that hall?"
+
+"No, I took a key--a key from the bunch which I saw lying on the table."
+
+"Did you recognise this key?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"What key was it?"
+
+"It belonged to Mr. Ranelagh, and was the key to the club-house
+wine-vault."
+
+"Where did you put it after taking it up?"
+
+"In my trousers' pocket."
+
+"What did you do then?"
+
+"Went out, of course."
+
+"Without seeing anybody?"
+
+"Of course. Whom should I see?"
+
+It was angrily said, and the flush, which had begun to die away, slowly
+made its way back into his cheeks.
+
+"Are you willing to repeat that you saw no one?"
+
+"There was no one."
+
+A lie! All knew it, all felt it. The man was perjuring himself, under his
+own counsel's persistent questioning on a point which that counsel had
+evidently been warned by him to avoid. I was assured of this by the way
+Moffat failed to meet Arthur's eye, as he pressed on hastily, and in a
+way to forestall all opposition.
+
+"There are two ways of leaving your house for the city. Which way did
+you take?"
+
+"The shortest. I went through my neighbour's grounds to Huested Street."
+
+"Immediately?"
+
+"As soon as I could. I don't know what you mean by immediately."
+
+"Didn't you stop at the stable?"
+
+A pause, during which more than one person present sat breathless. These
+questions were what might be expected from Mr. Fox in cross-examination.
+They seemed totally unsuited to a direct examination at the hands of his
+own counsel. What did such an innovation mean?
+
+"Yes, I stopped at the stable."
+
+"What to do?"
+
+"To look at the horses."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"One of them had gone lame. I wanted to see his condition."
+
+"Was it the grey mare?"
+
+Had the defence changed places with the prosecution? It looked like it;
+and Arthur looked as if he considered Mr. Moffat guilty of the unheard
+of, inexplainable act, of cross-examining his own witness. The situation
+was too tempting for Mr. Fox to resist calling additional attention to
+it. With an assumption of extreme consideration, he leaned forward and
+muttered under his breath to his nearest colleague, but still loud enough
+for those about him to hear:
+
+"The prisoner must know that he is not bound to answer questions when
+such answers tend to criminate him.".
+
+A lightning glance, shot in his direction, was the eloquent advocate's
+sole reply.
+
+But Arthur, nettled into speaking, answered the question put him, in a
+loud, quick tone: "It was not the grey mare; but I went up to the grey
+mare before going out; I patted her and bade her be a good girl."
+
+"Where was she then?"
+
+"Where she belonged--in her stall."
+
+The tones had sunk; so had the previously lifted head; he no longer
+commanded universal sympathy or credence. The effect of his former
+avowals was almost gone.
+
+Yet Mr. Moffat could smile. As I noticed this, and recognised the
+satisfaction it evinced, my heart went down, in great trouble. This
+esteemed advocate, the hero of a hundred cases, was not afraid to have it
+known that Arthur had harnessed that mare; he even wanted it known. Why?
+There could be but one answer to that--or, so I thought, at the moment.
+The next, I did not know what to think; for he failed to pursue this
+subject, and simply asked Arthur if, upon leaving, he had locked the
+stable-door.
+
+"Yes--no,--I don't remember," was the bungling, and greatly
+confused reply.
+
+Mr. Moffat glanced at the jury, the smile still on his lips. Did he wish
+to impress that body with the embarrassment of his client?
+
+"Relate what followed. I am sure the jury will be glad to hear your story
+from your own lips."
+
+"It's a beastly one, but if I've got to tell it, here it is: I went
+straight down to Cuthbert Road and across the fields to the club-house. I
+had not taken the key to the front door, because I knew of a window I
+could shake loose. I did this and went immediately down to the
+wine-vault. I used an electric torch of my own for light. I pulled out
+several bottles, and carried them up into the kitchen, meaning to light
+the gas, kindle a fire, and have a good time generally. But I soon found
+that I must do without light if I stayed there. The meter had been taken
+out; and to drink by the flash of an electric torch was anything but a
+pleasing prospect. Besides--" here he flashed at his counsel a glance,
+which for a moment took that gentleman aback--"I had heard certain vague
+sounds in the house which alarmed me, as well as roused my curiosity.
+Choosing the bottle I liked best, I went to investigate these sounds."
+
+Mr. Moffat started. His witness was having his revenge. Kept in
+ignorance of his counsel's plan of defence, he was evidently advancing
+testimony new to that counsel. I had not thought the lad so subtle, and
+quaked in secret contemplation of the consequences. So did some others;
+but the interest was intense. He had heard sounds--he acknowledged it.
+But what sounds?
+
+Observing the excitement he had caused, and gratified, perhaps, that he
+had succeeded in driving that faint but unwelcome smile from Mr. Moffat's
+lips, Arthur hastened to add:
+
+"But I did not complete my investigations. Arrived at the top of the
+stairs, I heard what drove me from the house at once. It was my sister's
+voice--Adelaide's. She was in the building, and I stood almost on a
+level with her, with a bottle in my pocket. It did not take me a minute
+to clamber through the window. I did not stop to wonder, or ask why she
+was there, or to whom she was speaking. I just fled and made my way as
+well as I could across the golf-links to a little hotel on Cuthbert Road,
+where I had been once before. There I emptied my bottle, and was so
+overcome by it that I did not return home till noon the next day. It was
+on the way to the Hill that I was told of the awful occurrence which had
+taken place in the club-house after I had left it. That sobered me. I
+have been sober ever since."
+
+Mr. Moffat's smile came back. One might have said that he had been rather
+pleased than otherwise by the introduction of this unexpected testimony.
+
+But I doubt if any one but myself witnessed this evidence of
+good-humour on his part. Arthur's attitude and Arthur's manner had
+drawn all eyes to himself. As the last words I have recorded left his
+lips, he had raised his head and confronted the jury with a
+straightforward gaze. The sturdiness and immobility of his aspect were
+impressive, in spite of his plain features and the still unmistakable
+signs of long cherished discontent and habitual dissipation. He had
+struck bottom with his feet, and there he would stand,--or so I
+thought as I levelled my own glances at him.
+
+But I had not fully sounded all of Alonzo Moffat's resources. That
+inscrutable lawyer and not-easily-to-be-understood man seemed determined
+to mar every good impression his unfortunate client managed to make.
+
+Ignoring the new facts just given, undoubtedly thinking that they would
+be amply sifted in the coming cross-examination, he drew the attention of
+the prisoner to himself by the following question:
+
+"Will you tell us again how many bottles of wine you took from the
+club-house?"
+
+"One. No--I'm not sure about that--I'm not sure of anything. I had only
+one when at the inn in Cuthbert Road."
+
+"You remember but one?"
+
+"I had but one. One was enough. I had trouble in carrying that."
+
+"Was the ground slippery?"
+
+"It was snowy and it was uneven. I stumbled more than once in crossing
+the links."
+
+"Mr. Cumberland, is there anything you would like to say in your own
+defence before I close this examination?"
+
+The prisoner thus appealed to, let his eye rest for a moment on the
+judge, then on the jury, and finally on one little white face lifted from
+the crowd before him as if to meet and absorb his look. Then he
+straightened himself, and in a quiet and perfectly natural voice, uttered
+these simple words:
+
+"Nothing but this: I am innocent."
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+THE SYLLABLE OF DOOM
+
+I alit
+On a great ship lightning-split,
+And speeded hither on the sigh
+Of one who gave an enemy
+His plank, then plunged aside to die.
+
+_Prometheus Unbound_.
+
+
+Recess followed. Clifton and I had the opportunity of exchanging a few
+words. He was voluble; I was reticent. I felt obliged to hide from him
+the true cause of the deep agitation under which I was labouring.
+Attached as he was to me, keenly as he must have felt my anomalous
+position, he was too full of Moffat's unwarrantable introduction of
+testimony damaging to his client, to think or talk of anything else.
+
+"He has laid him open to attack on every side. Fox has but to follow his
+lead, and the thing is done. Poor Arthur may be guilty, but he certainly
+should have every chance a careful lawyer could give him. You can see--he
+makes it very evident--that he has no further use for Moffat. I wonder
+under whose advice he chose him for his counsel. I have never thought
+much of Moffat, myself. He wins his cases but--"
+
+"He will win this," I muttered.
+
+Clifton started; looked at me very closely for a minute, paled a
+little--I fear that I was very pale myself--but did not ask the question
+rising to his lips.
+
+"There is method in the madness of a man like that," I pursued with a
+gloom I could not entirely conceal. "He has come upon some evidence which
+he has not even communicated to his client. At least, I fear so. We must
+be prepared for any untoward event." Then, noticing Clifton's alarm and
+wishing to confine it within safe bounds, I added: "I feel that I am
+almost as much on trial as Arthur himself. Naturally I am anxious at the
+appearance of anything I do not understand."
+
+Clifton frowned. We were quite alone. Leaning forward, he touched my arm.
+
+"Elwood," said he, "you've not been quite open with me."
+
+I smiled. If half the bitterness and sorrow in my heart went into that
+smile, it must have been a sad and bitter one indeed.
+
+"You have a right to reproach me," said I, "but not wholly. I did not
+deceive you in essentials. You may still believe me as guiltless of
+Adelaide's violent death as a man can be who drove her and hers into
+misery which death alone could end."
+
+"I will believe it," he muttered, "I must." And he dropped the subject,
+as he made me see, forever.
+
+I drew a deep breath of relief. I had come very near to revealing
+my secret.
+
+When we returned to the court-room, we found it already packed with a
+very subdued and breathless crowd. It differed somewhat from the one
+which had faced us in the morning; but Ella and her parents were
+there and many others of the acknowledged friends of the accused and
+of his family.
+
+He, himself, wore the heavy and dogged air which became him least.
+Physically refreshed, he carried himself boldly, but it was a boldness
+which convinced me that any talk he may have had with his lawyer, had
+been no more productive of comfort than the one I had held with mine.
+
+As he took the witness chair, and prepared to meet the cross-examination
+of the district attorney, a solemn hush settled upon the room. Would the
+coming ordeal rob his brow of its present effrontery, or would he
+continue to bear himself with the same surly dignity, which,
+misunderstood as it was, produced its own effect, and at certain moments
+seemed to shake even the confidence of Mr. Fox, settled as he seemed to
+be in his belief in the integrity of his cause and the rights of the
+prosecution.
+
+Shaken or not, his attack was stern, swift, and to the point.
+
+"Was the visit you made to the wine-vault on the evening of the second of
+December, the first one you had ever paid there?"
+
+"No; I had been there once before. But I always paid for my
+depredations," he added, proudly.
+
+"The categorical answer, Mr. Cumberland. Anything else is superfluous."
+
+Arthur's lip curled, but only for an instant; and nothing could have
+exceeded the impassiveness of his manner as Mr. Fox went on.
+
+"Then you knew the way?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"And the lock?"
+
+"Sufficiently well to open it without difficulty."
+
+"How long do you think you were in entering the house and procuring
+these bottles?"
+
+"I cannot say. I have no means of knowing; I never thought of looking at
+my watch."
+
+"Not when you started? Not when you left Cuthbert Road?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"But you know when you left the club-house to go back?"
+
+"Only by this--it had not yet begun to snow. I'm told that the first
+flakes fell that night at ten minutes to eleven. I was on the golf-links
+when this happened. You can fix the time yourself. Pardon me," he added,
+with decided ill-grace as he met Mr. Fox's frown. "I forgot your
+injunction."
+
+Mr. Fox smiled an acrid smile, as he asked: "Whereabouts on the
+golf-links? They extend for some distance, you remember."
+
+"They are six hundred yards across from first tee to the third hole,
+which is the nearest one to Cuthbert Road," Arthur particularised. "I
+was--no, I can't tell you just where I was at that moment. It was a good
+ways from the house. The snow came on very fiercely. For a little while I
+could not see my way."
+
+"How, not see your way?"
+
+"The snow flew into my eyes."
+
+"Crossing the links?"
+
+"Yes, sir, crossing the links."
+
+"But the storm came from the west. It should have beaten against
+your back."
+
+"Back or front, it bothered me. I could not get on as fast as I wished."
+
+Mr. Fox cast a look at the jury. Did they remember the testimony of the
+landlord that Mr. Cumberland's coat was as thickly plastered with snow on
+the front as it had been on the back. He seemed to gather that they did,
+for he went on at once to say:
+
+"You are accustomed to the links? You have crossed them often?"
+
+"Yes, I play golf there all summer."
+
+"I'm not alluding to the times when you play. I mean to ask whether or
+not you had ever before crossed them directly to Cuthbert Road?"
+
+"Yes, I had."
+
+"In a storm?"
+
+"No, not in a storm."
+
+"How long did it take you that time to reach Cuthbert Road from The
+Whispering Pines?"
+
+Mr. Moffat bounded to his feet, but the prisoner had answered before he
+could speak.
+
+"Just fifteen minutes."
+
+"How came you to know the time so exactly?"
+
+"Because that day I did look at my watch. I had an engagement in
+the lower town, and had only twenty minutes in which to keep it. I
+was on time."
+
+Honest at the core. This boy was growing rapidly in my favour. But this
+frank but unwise answer was not pleasing to his counsel, who would have
+advised, no doubt, a more general and less precise reply. However, it
+had been made and Moffat was not a man to cry over spilled milk. He did
+not even wince when the district attorney proceeded to elicit from the
+prisoner that he was a good walker, not afraid in the least of
+snow-storms and had often walked, in the teeth of the gale twice that
+distance in less than half an hour. Now, as the storm that night had
+been at his back, and he was in a hurry to reach his destination, it
+was evidently incumbent upon him to explain how he had managed to use
+up the intervening time of forty minutes before entering the hotel at
+half-past eleven.
+
+"Did you stop in the midst of the storm to take a drink?" asked the
+district attorney.
+
+As the testimony of the landlord in Cuthbert Road had been explicit as
+to the fact of his having himself uncorked the bottle which the prisoner
+had brought into the hotel, Arthur could not plead yes. He must say no,
+and he did.
+
+"I drank nothing; I was too busy thinking. I was so busy thinking I
+wandered all over those links."
+
+"In the blinding snow?"
+
+"Yes, in the snow. What did I care for the snow? I did not understand my
+sister being in the club-house. I did not like it; I was tempted at times
+to go back."
+
+"And why didn't you?"
+
+"Because I was more of a brute than a brother--because Cuthbert Road drew
+me in spite of myself--because--" He stopped with the first hint of
+emotion we had seen in him since the morning. "I did not know what was
+going on there or I should have gone back," he flashed out, with a
+defiant look at his counsel.
+
+Again sympathy was with him. Mr. Fox had won but little in this first
+attempt. He seemed to realise this, and shifted his attack to a point
+more vulnerable.
+
+"When you heard your sister's voice in the club-house, how did you think
+she had got into the building?"
+
+"By means of the keys Ranelagh had left at the house."
+
+"When, instead of taking the whole bunch, you took the one key you wanted
+from the ring, did you do so with any idea she might want to make use of
+the rest?"
+
+"No, I never thought of it. I never thought of her at all."
+
+"You took your one key, and let the rest lie?"
+
+"You've said it."
+
+"Was this before or after you put on your overcoat?"
+
+"I'm not sure; after, I think. Yes, it was after; for I remember that I
+had a deuce of a time unbuttoning my coat to get at my trousers' pocket."
+
+"You dropped this key into your trousers' pocket?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"Mr. Cumberland, let me ask you to fix your memory on the moments you
+spent in the hall. Did you put on your hat before you pocketed the key,
+or afterwards?"
+
+"My hat? How can I tell? My mind wasn't on my hat. I don't know when I
+put it on."
+
+"You absolutely do not remember?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Nor where you took it from?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Whether you saw the keys first, and then went for your hat; or having
+pocketed the key, waited--"
+
+"I did not wait."
+
+"Did not stand by the table thinking?"
+
+"No, I was in too much of a hurry."
+
+"So that you went straight out?"
+
+"Yes, as quickly as I could."
+
+The district attorney paused, to be sure of the attention of the jury.
+When he saw that every eye of that now thoroughly aroused body was on
+him, he proceeded to ask: "Does that mean immediately, or as soon as you
+could after you had made certain preparations, or held certain talk with
+some one you called, or who called to you?"
+
+"I called to nobody. I--I went out immediately."
+
+It was evident that he lied; evident, too, that he had little hope from
+his lie. Uneasiness was taking the place of confidence in his youthful,
+untried, undisciplined mind. Carmel had spoken to him in the hall--I
+guessed it then, I knew it afterward--and he thought to deceive this
+court and blindfold a jury, whose attention had been drawn to this point
+by his own counsel.
+
+District Attorney Fox smiled. "How then did you get into the stable?"
+
+"The stable! Oh, I had no trouble in getting into the stable."
+
+"Was it unlocked?"
+
+A slow flush broke over the prisoner's whole face. He saw where he had
+been landed and took a minute to pull himself together before he replied:
+"I had the key to that door, too. I got it out of the kitchen."
+
+"You have not spoken of going into the kitchen."
+
+"I have not spoken of coming downstairs."
+
+"You went into the kitchen?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"When?"
+
+"When I first came down."
+
+"That is not in accordance with your direct testimony. On the contrary,
+you said that on coming downstairs you went straight to the rack for your
+overcoat. Stenographer read what the prisoner said on this topic."
+
+A rustling of leaves, distinctly to be heard in the deathlike silence of
+the room, was followed by the reading of this reply and answer:
+
+"_Yet you cannot say which of these two overcoats you put on when you
+left your home an hour or so after finishing your dinner?_"
+
+"_I cannot. I was in no condition to notice. I was bent on going into
+town and, on coming downstairs, I went straight to the rack and pulled on
+the first things that offered._"
+
+The prisoner stood immobile but with a deepening line gathering on
+his brow until the last word fell. Then he said: "I forgot. I went
+for the key before I put on my overcoat. I wanted to see how the sick
+horse looked."
+
+"Did you drop this key into your pocket, too?"
+
+"No, I carried it into the hall."
+
+"What did you do with it there?"
+
+"I don't know. Put it on the table, I suppose."
+
+"Don't you remember? There were other keys lying on this table. Don't you
+remember what you did with the one in your hand while you took the
+club-house key from the midst of Mr. Ranelagh's bunch?"
+
+"I laid it on the table. I must have--there was no other place to put
+it."
+
+"Laid it down by itself?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And took it up when you went out?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Carrying it straight to the stable?"
+
+"Naturally."
+
+"What did you do with it when you came out?"
+
+"I left it in the stable-door."
+
+"You did? What excuse have you to give for that?"
+
+"None. I was reckless, and didn't care for anything--that's all."
+
+"Yet you took several minutes, for all your hurry and your indifference,
+to get the stable key and look in at a horse that wasn't sick enough to
+keep your coachman home from a dance."
+
+The prisoner was silent.
+
+"You have no further explanation to give on this subject?"
+
+"No. All fellows who love horses will understand."
+
+The district attorney shrugged this answer away before he went on to say:
+"You have listened to Zadok Brown's testimony. When he returned at three,
+he found the stable-door locked, and the key hanging up on its usual nail
+in the kitchen. How do you account for this?"
+
+"There are two ways."
+
+"Mention them, if you please."
+
+"Zadok had been to a dance, and may not have been quite clear as to what
+he saw. Or, finding the stable door open, may have blamed himself for the
+fact and sought to cover up his fault with a lie."
+
+"Have you ever caught him in a lie?"
+
+"No; but there's always a first time."
+
+"You would impeach his testimony then?"
+
+"No. You asked me how this discrepancy could be explained, and I have
+tried to show you."
+
+"Mr. Cumberland, the grey mare was out that night; this has been
+amply proved."
+
+"If you believe Zadok, yes."
+
+"You have heard other testimony corroborative of this fact. She was seen
+on the club-house road that night, by a person amply qualified to
+identify her."
+
+"So I've been told."
+
+"The person driving this horse wore a hat, identified as an old one of
+yours, which hat was afterwards found at your house on a remote peg in a
+seldom-used closet. If you were not this person, how can you explain the
+use of your horse, the use of your clothes, the locking of the
+stable-door--which you declare yourself to have left open--and the
+hanging up of the key on its own nail?"
+
+It was a crucial question--how crucial no one knew but our two selves. If
+he answered at all, he must compromise Carmel. I had no fear of his doing
+this, but I had great fear of what Ella might do if he let this
+implication stand and made no effort to exonerate himself by denying his
+presence in the cutter, and consequent return to the Cumberland home. The
+quick side glances I here observed cast in her direction by both father
+and mother, showed that she had made some impulsive demonstration visible
+to them, if not to others and fearful of the consequences if I did not
+make some effort to hold her in check, I kept my eyes in her direction,
+and so lost Arthur's look and the look of his counsel as he answered,
+with just the word I had expected--a short and dogged:
+
+"I cannot explain."
+
+It was my death warrant. I realised this even while I held Ella's eye
+with mine and smoothed my countenance to meet the anguish in hers, in the
+effort to hold her back for a few minutes longer till I could quite
+satisfy myself that Arthur's case was really lost and that I must speak
+or feel myself his murderer.
+
+The gloom which followed this recognition of his inability, real or
+fancied, to explain away the most damning feature of the case against
+him, taken with his own contradictions and growing despondency, could not
+escape my eye, accustomed as I was to the habitual expression of most
+every person there. But it was not yet the impenetrable gloom presaging
+conviction; and directing Ella's gaze towards Mr. Moffat, who seemed but
+little disturbed either by Mr. Fox's satisfaction or the prisoner's open
+despair, I took heart of grace and waited for the district attorney's
+next move. It was a fatal one. I began to recognise this very soon,
+simple as was the subject he now introduced.
+
+"When you went into the kitchen, Mr. Cumberland, to get the stable-door
+key, was the gas lit, or did you have to light it?"
+
+"It--it was lit, I think."
+
+"Don't you know?"
+
+"It was lit, but turned low. I could see well enough."
+
+"Why, then, didn't you take both keys?"
+
+"Both keys?"
+
+"You have said you went down town by the short cut through your
+neighbour's yard. That cut is guarded by a door, which was locked that
+night. You needed the key to that door more than the one to the stable.
+Why didn't you take it?"
+
+"I--I did."
+
+"You haven't said so."
+
+"I--I took it when I took the other."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Yes; they both hung on one nail. I grabbed them both at the same time."
+
+"It does not appear so in your testimony. You mentioned a key, not keys,
+in all your answers to my questions."
+
+"There were two; I didn't weigh my words. I needed both and I took both."
+
+"Which of the two hung foremost?"
+
+"I didn't notice."
+
+"You took both?"
+
+"Yes, I took both."
+
+"And went straight out with them?"
+
+"Yes, to the stable."
+
+"And then where?"
+
+"Through the adjoining grounds downtown."
+
+"You are sure you went through Mr. Fulton's grounds at this early hour in
+the evening?"
+
+"I am positive."
+
+"Was it not at a later hour, much later, a little before eleven instead
+of a little before nine?"
+
+"No, sir. I was on the golf-links then."
+
+"But some one drove into the stable."
+
+"So you say."
+
+"Unharnessed the horse, drew up the cutter, locked the stable-door, and,
+entering the house, hung up the key where it belonged."
+
+No answer this time.
+
+"Mr. Cumberland, you admitted in your direct examination that you took
+with you out of the clubhouse only one bottle of the especial brand you
+favoured, although you carried up two into the kitchen?"
+
+"No, I said that I only had one when I got to Cuthbert Road. I don't
+remember anything about the other."
+
+"But you know where the other--or rather remnants of the other,
+was found?"
+
+"In my own stable, taken there by my man Zadok Brown, who says he picked
+it out of one of our waste barrels."
+
+"This is the part of bottle referred to. Do you recognise the label still
+adhering to it as similar to the one to be found on the bottle you
+emptied in Cuthbert Road?"
+
+"It is like that one."
+
+"Had you carried that other bottle off, and had it been broken as this
+has been broken would it not have presented an exactly similar
+appearance to this?"
+
+"Possibly."
+
+"Only possibly?"
+
+"It would have looked the same. I cannot deny it. What's the use
+fooling?"
+
+"Mr. Cumberland, the only two bottles known to contain this especial
+brand of wine were in the clubhouse at ten o'clock that night. How came
+one of them to get into the barrel outside your stable before your return
+the next day?"
+
+"I cannot say."
+
+"This barrel stood where?"
+
+"In the passage behind the stable."
+
+"The passage you pass through on your way to the door leading into your
+neighbour's grounds?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The dreaded moment had come. This "Yes" had no sooner left Arthur's lips
+than I saw Ella throw out her innocent arms, and leap impetuously to her
+feet, with a loud "No, no, I can tell--"
+
+She did not say what, for at the hubbub roused by this outbreak in open
+court, she fainted dead away and was carried out in her dismayed
+father's arms.
+
+This necessarily caused a break in the proceedings. Mr. Fox suspended his
+cross-examination and in a few minutes more, the judge adjourned the
+court. As the prisoner rose and turned to pass out, I cast him a hurried
+glance to see what effect had been made upon him by this ingenuous
+outburst from one he had possibly just a little depreciated. A great one,
+evidently. His features were transformed, and he seemed almost as
+oblivious of the countless eyes upon him as she had been when she rose to
+testify for him in her self-forgetful enthusiasm. As I observed this and
+the satisfaction with which Mr. Moffat scented this new witness,--a
+satisfaction which promised little consideration for her if she ever came
+upon the stand--I surrendered to fate.
+
+Inwardly committing Carmel's future to the God who made her and who knew
+better than we the story of her life and what her fiery temper had cost
+her, I drew a piece of paper from my pocket, and, while the courtroom was
+slowly emptying, hastily addressed the following lines to Mr. Moffat who
+had lingered to have a few words with his colleague:
+
+"There is a witness in this building who can testify more clearly and
+definitely than Miss Fulton, that Arthur Cumberland, for all we have
+heard in seeming contradiction to the same, might have been on the
+golf-links at the time he swears to. That witness is myself.
+
+"ELWOOD RANELAGH."
+
+The time which elapsed between my passing over this note and his
+receiving and reading it, was to me like the last few moments of a
+condemned criminal. How gladly would I have changed places with Arthur,
+and with what sensations of despair I saw flitting before me in my mind's
+eye, the various visions of Carmel's loveliness which had charmed me out
+of myself. But the die had been cast, and I was ready to meet the
+surprised lawyer's look when his eve rose from the words I had written
+and settled steadily on my face. Next minute he was writing busily and in
+a second later I was reading these words:
+
+"Do you absolutely wish to be recalled as a witness, and by the
+defence? M."
+
+My answer was brief:
+
+"I do. Not to make a confession of crime. I have no such confession to
+make. But I know who drove that horse. R."
+
+I had sacrificed Carmel to my sense of right. Never had I loved her as I
+did at that moment.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+EXPECTANCY
+
+I see your end,
+'T is my undoing.
+
+_King Henry VIII_.
+
+
+A turning-point had been reached in the defence. That every one knew
+after the first glance at Mr. Moffat, on the opening of the next
+morning's session. As I noted the excitement which this occasioned even
+in quarters where self-control is usually most marked and such emotions
+suppressed, I marvelled at the subtle influence of one man's expectancy,
+and the powerful effect which can be produced on a feverish crowd by a
+well-ordered silence suggestive of coming action.
+
+I, who knew the basis of this expectancy and the nature of the action
+with which Mr. Moffat anticipated startling the court, was the quietest
+person present. Since it was my hand and none other which must give this
+fresh turn to the wheel of justice, it were well for me to do it calmly
+and without any of the old maddening throb of heart. But the time seemed
+long before Arthur was released from further cross-examination, and the
+opportunity given Mr. Moffat to call his next witness.
+
+Something in the attitude he now took, something in the way he bent over
+his client and whispered a few admonitory words, and still more the
+emotion with which these words were received and answered by some
+extraordinary protest, aroused expectation to a still greater pitch, and
+made my course seem even more painful to myself than I had foreseen when
+dreaming over and weighing the possibilities of this hour. With something
+like terror, I awaited the calling of my name; and, when it was delayed,
+it was with emotions inexplicable to myself that I looked up and saw Mr.
+Moffat holding open a door at the left of the judge, with that attitude
+of respect, which a man only assumes in the presence and under the
+dominating influence of woman.
+
+"Ella!" thought I. "Instead of saving her by my contemplated sacrifice of
+Carmel, I have only added one sacrifice to another."
+
+But when the timid faltering step we could faintly hear crossing the room
+beyond, had brought its possessor within sight, and I perceived the tall,
+black-robed, heavily veiled woman who reached for Mr. Moffat's sustaining
+arm, I did not need the startling picture of the prisoner, standing
+upright, with outheld and repellant hands, to realise that the impossible
+had happened, and that all which he, as well as I, had done and left
+undone, suffered and suppressed, had been in vain.
+
+Mr. Moffat, with no eye for him or for me, conducted his witness to a
+chair; then, as she loosened her veil and let it drop in her lap, he
+cried in tones which rang from end to end of the court-room: "I summon
+Carmel Cumberland to the stand, to witness in her brother's defence."
+
+The surprise was complete. It was a great moment for Mr. Moffat; but for
+me all was confusion, dread, a veil of misty darkness, through which
+shone her face, marred by its ineffaceable scar, but calm as I had never
+expected to see it again in this life, and beautiful with a smile under
+which her deeply shaken and hardly conscious brother sank slowly back
+into his seat, amid a silence as profound as the hold she had immediately
+taken upon all hearts.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+"WHERE IS MY BROTHER?"
+
+Let me see the writing.
+My lord, 't is nothing.
+No matter, then, who sees it;
+I will be satisfied, let me see the writing.
+
+_Richard II_.
+
+
+What is the explanation of Carmel's reappearance in town and of this
+sensational introduction of her into the court-room, in a restored
+state of health of which no one, so far as known, had had any
+intimation save the man who was responsible for her appearance? The
+particulars are due you.
+
+She had passed some weeks at Lakewood, under the eye of the nurse who was
+detailed to watch, as well as tend her. During these weeks she gave no
+sign of improvement mentally, though she constantly gained strength
+otherwise, and impressed everybody with the clear light in her eye and
+the absence of everything suggestive of gloom in her expression and
+language. There was the same complete loss of memory up to the time of
+the tragic occurrence which had desolated her home; the same harping at
+odd moments on Adelaide's happiness and her own prospect of seeing this
+dear sister very soon which had marked the opening days of her
+convalescence. But beyond and back of all this was some secret joy,
+unintelligible to the nurse, which helped rather than retarded the sick
+girl's recovery, and made Carmel appear at times as if she walked on air
+and breathed the very breath of Paradise--an anomaly which not only
+roused Miss Unwin's curiosity, but led her to regard with something like
+apprehension, any change in her patient's state of mind which would rob
+her of the strange and unseen delights which fed her secret soul and made
+her oblivious of the awful facts awaiting a restored memory.
+
+Meanwhile Carmel was allowed such liberty as her condition required; but
+was never left alone for a moment after a certain day when her eye
+suddenly took on a strange look of confused inquiry, totally dissociated
+with anything she saw or heard. A stir had taken place in her brain, and
+her nurse wanted to take her back home. But this awakening--if such it
+could be called, was so short in its duration and was followed so
+immediately by a string of innocent questions about Adelaide, that Nurse
+Unwin concluded to remain a few days longer before risking this
+delicately balanced mind amid old scenes and the curious glances of her
+townspeople.
+
+Alas! the awakening was to take place in Lakewood and under
+circumstances of the most ordinary nature. Carmel had been out and was
+just crossing the hall of her hotel to the elevator, when she stopped
+with a violent start and clutching the air, was caught by her nurse who
+had hurried up at the first intimation of anything unusual in the
+condition of her patient.
+
+The cause of this agitation was immediately apparent. Near them sat two
+ladies, each with a small wine-glass in her hand. One was drinking, the
+other waiting and watching, but with every apparent intention of drinking
+when the other had ceased. A common sight enough, but it worked a
+revolution in Carmel's darkened mind. The light of youthful joyousness
+fled from her face; and the cheek, just pulsing softly with new life,
+blanched to the death-like hue of mortal suffering. Dropping her eyes
+from the women, who saw nothing and continued to sip their wine in happy
+ignorance of the soul-tragedy going on within ten feet of them, she
+looked down at her dress, then up at the walls about her; and then
+slowly, anxiously, and with unmistakable terror, at the woman in whose
+arms she felt herself supported.
+
+"Explain," she murmured. "Where am I?"
+
+"At Lakewood, in a hotel. You have been ill, and are only just
+recovering."
+
+Her hand went up to her cheek, the one that had been burned, and still
+showed the deep traces of that accident.
+
+"I remember," said she. Then with another glance at her dress, which had
+studiously been kept cheerful, she remarked, with deep reproach: "My
+sister is dead; why am I not in black?"
+
+The nurse, realising her responsibility (she said afterwards that it was
+the most serious moment of her life), subdued her own astonishment at
+this proof of her young patient's knowledge of a crime of which she was
+universally supposed to be entirely ignorant, and, bestowing a reassuring
+smile on the agitated girl, observed softly:
+
+"You wore too ill to be burdened with black. You are better now and may
+assume it if you will. I will help you buy your mourning."
+
+"Yes, you look like a kind woman. What is your name, please, and are we
+here alone in this great hotel?"
+
+Now, as a matter of expediency--to save Carmel from the unendurable
+curiosity of the crowd, and herself from the importunities of the New
+York reporters, Miss Unwin had registered herself and her charge under
+assumed names. She was, therefore, forced to reply:
+
+"My name is Huckins, and we are here alone. But that need not worry you.
+I have watched over you night and day for many weeks."
+
+"You have? Because of this slight burn?" Again Carmel's hand went to
+her cheek.
+
+"Not on account of that only. You have had a serious illness quite apart
+from that injury. But you are better; you are almost well--well enough to
+go home, if you will."
+
+"I cannot go home--not just yet. I'm--I'm not strong enough. But we
+shouldn't be here alone without some man to look after us. Miss Huckins,
+_where is my brother_?"
+
+At this question, uttered with emphasis, with anxiety--with indignation
+even--Miss Unwin felt the emotion she had so successfully subdued up to
+this moment, betray itself in her voice as she answered, with a quiet
+motion towards the elevator: "Let us go up to our room. There I will
+answer all your questions."
+
+But Carmel, with the waywardness of her years--or perhaps, with deeper
+reasoning powers than the other would be apt to attribute to her--broke
+softly away from Miss Unwin's detaining hand, and walking directly into
+the office, looked about for the newspaper stand. Miss Unwin,
+over-anxious not to make a scene, followed, but did not seek to deter
+her, until they were once again by themselves in the centre of the room.
+Then she ventured to speak again:
+
+"We have all the papers in our room. Come up, and let me read them to
+you."
+
+But Fate was making ready its great stroke. Just as Carmel seemed about
+to yield to this persuasion, some lingering doubt drew her eyes again to
+the stand, just at the very moment a boy stepped into view with the
+evening bulletin, on which had just been written these words:
+
+The Last Juror Obtained in the Trial of Arthur Cumberland for the Murder
+of His Sister, Adelaide.
+
+Carmel saw, and stood--a breathless image of horror. A couple of
+gentlemen came running; but the nurse waved them back, and herself caught
+Carmel and upheld her, in momentary dread of another mental, if not
+physical, collapse.
+
+But Carmel had come back into the world of consciousness to stay.
+Accepting her nurse's support, but giving no sign of waning faculties or
+imperfect understanding of what she had seen, she spoke quite clearly and
+with her eyes fixed upon Miss Unwin:
+
+"So that is why I am here, away from all my friends. Was I too ill to be
+told? Couldn't you make me know what was happening? You or the doctors
+or--or anybody?"
+
+"You were much too ill," protested the nurse, leading her towards the
+elevator and so by degrees to her room. "I tried to arouse you after the
+crisis of your illness had passed; but you seemed to have forgotten
+everything which took place that night and the doctors warned me not to
+press you."
+
+"And Arthur--poor Arthur, has been the sufferer! Tell me the whole story.
+I can bear it," she pleaded. "I can bear anything but not knowing. Why
+should he have fallen under suspicion? He was not even there. I must go
+to him! Pack up our clothing, Miss Huckins. I must go to him at once."
+
+They were in their own room now, and Carmel was standing quite by herself
+in the full light of the setting sun. With the utterance of this
+determination, she had turned upon her companion; and that astute and
+experienced woman had every opportunity for observing her face. There was
+a woman's resolution in it. With the sudden rending of the clouds which
+had obscured her intellect, strange powers had awakened in this young
+girl, giving her a force of expression which, in connection with her
+inextinguishable beauty, formed a spectacle before which this older
+woman, in spite of her long experience, hesitated in doubt.
+
+"You shall go--" began the nurse, and stopped.
+
+Carmel was not listening. Another change of thought had come, and her
+features, as keenly alive now to every passing emotion as they had
+formerly been set in a dull placidity, mirrored doubts of her own, which
+had a deeper source than any which had disturbed the nurse, even in
+these moments of serious perplexity.
+
+"How can I?" fell in unconscious betrayal from her lips. "How can I!"
+Then she stood silent, ghastly with lack of colour one minute, and rosy
+red with its excess the next, until it was hard to tell in which extreme
+her feeling spoke most truly.
+
+What was the feeling? Nurse Unwin felt it imperative to know. Relying on
+the confidence shown her by this unfortunate girl, in her lonely position
+and unbearable distress, she approached Carmel, with renewed offers of
+help and such expressions of sympathy as she thought might lure her into
+open speech.
+
+But discretion had come with fear, and Carmel, while not disdaining the
+other's kindness, instantly made it apparent that, whatever her burden,
+and however unsuited it was to her present weak condition, it was not one
+she felt willing to share.
+
+"I must think," she murmured, as she finally followed the nurse's lead
+and seated herself on a lounge. "Arthur on trial for his life! _Arthur on
+trial for his life!_ And Adelaide was not even murdered!"
+
+"No?" gasped the nurse, intent on every word this long-silenced
+witness let fall.
+
+"Had he no friend? Was there not some one to understand? Adelaide--" here
+her head fell till her face was lost to sight--"had--a--lover--"
+
+"Yes. Mr. Elwood Ranelagh. He was the first to be arrested for the
+crime."
+
+The soul in Carmel seemed to vanish at this word. The eyes, which had
+been so far-seeing the moment before, grew blank, and the lithe young
+body stiff with that death in life which is almost worse to look upon
+than death itself. She did not speak; but presently she arose, as an
+automaton might arise at the touch of some invisible spring, and so
+stood, staring, until the nurse, frightened at the result of her words
+and the complete overthrow which might follow them, sprang for a
+newspaper and thrust it into her patient's unwilling hand.
+
+Was it too late? For a minute it seemed to be so; then the stony eyes
+softened and fell, the rigidity of her frame relaxed, and Carmel sank
+back again on the sofa and tried to read the headlines on the open sheet
+before her. But her eyes were unequal to the task. With a sob she dropped
+the paper and entreated the nurse to relate to her from her own
+knowledge, all that had passed, sparing her nothing that would make the
+situation perfectly clear to one who had been asleep during the worst
+crisis of her life.
+
+Miss Unwin complied, but with reservations. She told of Adelaide having
+been found dead at The Whispering Pines by the police, whom she had
+evidently summoned during a moment of struggle or fear; of Ranelagh's
+presence there, and of the suspicions to which it gave rise; of his
+denial of the crime; of his strange reticence on certain points, which
+served to keep him incarcerated till a New York detective got to work and
+found so much evidence against her brother that Mr. Ranelagh was
+subsequently released and Arthur Cumberland indicted. But she said
+nothing about the marks on Adelaide's throat, or of the special reason
+which the police had for arresting Mr. Ranelagh. She did not dare.
+Strangulation was a horrible death to contemplate; and if this factor in
+the crime--she was not deceived by Carmel's exclamation that there had
+been no murder--was unknown as yet to her patient, as it must be from
+what she had said, and the absolute impossibility, as she thought, of her
+having known what went on in The Whispering Pines, then it had better
+remain unknown to her until circumstances forced it on her knowledge, or
+she had gotten sufficient strength to bear it.
+
+Carmel received the account well. She started when she heard of the
+discovery of Ranelagh in the club-house on the entrance of the police,
+and seemed disposed to ask some questions. But though the nurse gave her
+an opportunity to do so, she appeared to hunt in vain for the necessary
+words, and the narrative proceeded without further interruption. When all
+was done, she sat quite still; then carefully, and with a show of more
+judgment than might be expected from one of her years, she propounded
+certain inquiries which brought out the main causes for her brother's
+arraignment. When she had these fully in mind, she looked up into the
+nurse's face again and repeated, quite calmly, but with immovable
+decision, the order of an hour before:
+
+"We must return at once. You will pack up immediately."
+
+Miss Unwin nodded, and began to open the trunks.
+
+This, however, was a ruse. She did not intend to take her patient back
+that night. She was afraid to risk it. The next day would be soon enough.
+But she would calm her by making ready, and when the proper moment came,
+would find some complication of trains which would interfere with their
+immediate departure.
+
+Meanwhile, she would communicate at the earliest moment with Mr. Fox. She
+had been in the habit of sending him frequent telegrams as to her
+patient's condition. They had been invariable so far: "No difference;
+mind still a blank," or some code word significant of the same. But a new
+word was necessary now. She must look it up, and formulate her telegram
+before she did anything else.
+
+The code-book was in her top tray. She hunted and hunted for it, without
+being able to lay her hands on it. She grew very nervous. She was only
+human; she was in a very trying position, and she realised it. Where
+could that book be? Suddenly she espied it and, falling on her knees
+before the trunk, with her back still to Carmel, studied out the words
+she wanted. She was leaning over the tray to write these words in her
+note-book, when--no one ever knew how it happened--the lid of the heavy
+trunk fell forward and its iron edge struck her on the nape of the neck,
+with a keen blow which laid her senseless. When Carmel reached her side,
+she found herself the strong one and her stalwart nurse the patient.
+
+When help had been summoned, the accident explained, and everything done
+for the unconscious woman which medical skill could suggest, Carmel,
+finding a moment to herself, stole to the trunk, and, lifting up the lid,
+looked in. She had been watchful of her nurse from the first, and was
+suspicious of the actions which had led to this untoward accident. Seeing
+the two little books, she took them out. The note-book lay open and on
+the page thus disclosed, she beheld written:
+
+Ap Lox Fidestum Truhum
+
+Ridiculous nonsense--until she consulted the code. Then these detached
+and meaningless words took on a significance which she could not afford
+to ignore:
+
+Ap         A change.
+Lox        Makes remarkable statements.
+Fidestum   Shall we return?
+Trubum     Not tractable.
+
+Carmel endeavoured to find out for whom this telegram was intended. There
+was nothing to inform her. A moment of indecision was followed by quick
+action. She had noticed that she had been invariably addressed as Miss
+Campbell by every one who had come into the room. Whether this was a
+proof of the care with which she had been guarded from the curiosity of
+strangers, or whether it was part of a system of deception springing from
+quite different causes, she felt that in the present emergency it was a
+fact to be thankful for and to be utilised.
+
+Regaining her own room, which was on the other side of their common
+sitting-room, she collected a few necessary articles, and placed them in
+a bag which she thrust under her bed. Hunting for money, she found quite
+an adequate amount in her own purse, which was attached to her person.
+Satisfied thus far, she chose her most inconspicuous hat and coat, and
+putting them on, went out by her own door into the corridor.
+
+The time--it was the dinner-hour--favoured her attempt. She found her
+way to the office unobserved, and, going frankly up to the clerk,
+informed him that she had some telegrams to send and that she would be
+out for some little time. Would he see that Miss Huckins was not
+neglected in her absence?
+
+The clerk, startled at these evidences of sense and self-reliance in one
+he had been accustomed to see under the special protection of the very
+woman she was now confiding to his care, surveyed her eloquent features
+beaming with quiet resolve, and for a moment seemed at a loss how to take
+this change and control the strange situation. Perhaps she understood
+him, perhaps she only followed the impulses natural to her sex. She never
+knew; she only remembers that she smiled, and that his hesitation
+vanished at that smile.
+
+"I will see to it," said he. Then, as she turned to go, he ventured to
+add, "It is quite dark now. If you would like one of the boys to go with
+you--". But he received no encouragement, and allowed his suggestion to
+remain unfinished.
+
+She looked grateful for this, and was pulling down her veil when she
+perceived two or three men on the other side of the room, watching her in
+evident wonder. Stepping back to the desk, she addressed the clerk again,
+this time with a marked distinctness:
+
+"I have been very ill, I know, and not always quite myself. But the
+shock of this accident to my nurse has cleared my brain and made me
+capable again of attending to my own affairs. You can trust me; I can
+do my errands all right; but perhaps I had better have one of the boys
+go with me."
+
+The clerk, greatly relieved, rang his bell, and the gentlemen at the
+other end of the room sauntered elsewhere to exchange their impressions
+of an incident which was remarkable enough in itself, without the
+accentuation put upon it by the extreme beauty of the girl and the one
+conspicuous blemish to that beauty--her unfortunate scar. With what
+additional wonder would they have regarded the occurrence, had they known
+that the object of their interest was not an unknown Miss Campbell, but
+the much pitied, much talked-of Carmel Cumberland, sister of the man then
+on trial for his life in a New York town.
+
+With her first step into the street, Carmel's freshly freed mind began
+its work. She knew she was in a place called Lakewood, but she knew
+little of its location, save that it was somewhere in New Jersey. Another
+strange thing! she did not recognise the streets. They were new to her.
+She did not remember ever having been in them before.
+
+"Where is the railroad station?" she inquired of the boy who was trotting
+along at her side.
+
+"Over there," he answered, vaguely.
+
+"Take me to it."
+
+He obeyed, and they threaded several streets whose lighted shops pleased
+her, notwithstanding her cares; such a joy it was to be alive to things
+once more, and capable of remembrance, even though remembrance brought
+visions at which she shuddered, and turned away, appalled.
+
+The sight of the station, from which a train was just leaving,
+frightened her for a moment with its bustle and many lights; but she
+rallied under the stress of her purpose, and, entering, found the
+telegraph office, from which she sent this message, directed to her
+physician, at home, Dr. Carpenter:
+
+"Look for me on early train. All is clear to me now, and I must return.
+Preserve silence till we meet."
+
+This she signed with a pet name, known only to themselves, and dating
+back to her childish days.
+
+Then she bought a ticket, and studied the time-table. When quite
+satisfied, she returned to the hotel. She was met in the doorway by the
+physician who was attending the so-called Miss Huckins. He paused when
+he saw her, and asked a few questions which she was penetrating enough
+to perceive were more for the purpose of testing her own condition than
+to express interest in his patient. She answered quietly, and was met
+by a surprise and curiosity which evinced that he was greatly drawn
+towards her case. This alarmed her. She did not wish to be the object
+of any one's notice. On the contrary, she desired to obliterate
+herself; to be counted out so far as all these people were concerned.
+But above all, she was anxious not to rouse suspicion. So she stopped
+and talked as naturally as she could about Miss Huckins's accident and
+what the prospects were for the night. These were favourable, or so the
+doctor declared, but the injured woman's condition called for great
+care and he would send over a capable nurse at-once. Meanwhile, the
+maid who was with her would do very well. She, herself, need have no
+worry. He would advise against worry, and suggested that she should
+have a good and nourishing dinner sent to her room, after which she
+should immediately retire and get what sleep she could by means of an
+anodyne he would send her.
+
+Carmel exerted herself.
+
+"You are very good," said she, "I need no anodyne. I _am_ tired and when
+I once get to bed shall certainly sleep. I shall give orders not to be
+disturbed. Isn't that right?"
+
+"Quite right. I will myself tell the nurse."
+
+He was going, but turned to look at her again.
+
+"Shall I accompany you to the door of your room?" he asked.
+
+She shook her head, with a smile. This delay was a torment to her, but it
+must be endured.
+
+"I am quite capable of finding my room. I hope Miss Huckins will be as
+well in a week from now as I am at this moment. But, doctor--" she had
+been struck by a strange possibility--"I should like to settle one little
+matter before we part. The money I have may not be quite safe in my
+hands. My memory might leave me again, and then Miss Huckins might
+suffer. If you will take charge of some of it on her account, I shall
+feel relieved."
+
+"It would be a wise precaution," he admitted. "But you could just as well
+leave it at the desk."
+
+"So I can," she smiled. Then, as his eye remained fixed on her: "You are
+wondering if I have friends. We both have and I have just come from
+telegraphing to one of them. You can leave us, with an easy mind. All
+that I dread is that Miss Huckins will worry about me if her
+consciousness should return during the night."
+
+"It will not return so soon. Next week we may look for it. Then you can
+be by to reassure her if she asks for you."
+
+Carmers eyes fell.
+
+"I would not be a cause of distress to her for the world. She has been
+very good to me." Bowing, she turned in the direction of the office.
+
+The doctor, lifting his hat, took his departure. The interview might have
+lasted five minutes. She felt as though it had lasted an hour.
+
+She followed the doctor's advice and left half the money she had, in
+charge of the clerk. Then she went upstairs. She was not seen to come
+down again; but when the eight-forty-five train started out of the
+station that night, it had for a passenger, a young, heavily veiled girl,
+who went straight to her section. A balcony running by her window had
+favoured her escape. It led to a hall window at the head of a side
+staircase. She met no one on the staircase, and, once out of the door at
+its foot, her difficulties were over, and her escape effected.
+
+She was missed the next morning, and an account of her erratic flight
+reached the papers, and was published far and wide. But the name of Miss
+Caroline Campbell conveyed nothing to the public, and the great trial
+went on without a soul suspecting the significance of this midnight
+flitting of an unknown and partially demented girl.
+
+At the house of Dr. Carpenter she met Mr. Moffat. What she told him
+heartened him greatly for the struggle he saw before him. Indeed, it
+altered the whole tone of the defence. Perceiving from her story, and
+from what the doctor could tell him of their meeting at the station that
+her return to town was as yet a secret to every one but themselves, he
+begged that the secret should continue to be kept, in order that the
+_coup d'etat_ which he meditated might lose none of its force by
+anticipation. Carmel, whose mind was full of her coming ordeal, was
+willing enough to hide her head until it came; while Dr. Carpenter,
+alarmed at all this excitement, would have insisted on it in any event.
+
+Carmel wished her brother informed of her return, but the wily lawyer
+persuaded her to excuse him from taking Arthur into his confidence until
+the last moment. He knew that he would receive only opposition from his
+young and stubborn client; that Carmel's presence and Carmel's
+determination would have to be sprung upon Arthur even more than upon the
+prosecution; that the prisoner at the bar would struggle to the very last
+against Carmel's appearance in court, and make an infinite lot of
+trouble, if he did not actually endanger his own cause. One of the
+stipulations which he had made in securing Mr. Moffat for his counsel was
+that Carmel's name was to be kept as much as possible out of the
+proceedings; and to this Mr. Moffat had subscribed, notwithstanding his
+conviction that the crime laid to the defendant's charge was a result of
+Ranelagh's passion for Carmel, and, consequently, distinctly the work of
+Ranelagh's own hand.
+
+He had thought that he could win his case by the powers of oratory and a
+somewhat free use of innuendo; but his view changed under the fresh
+enlightenment which he received in his conversation with Carmel. He saw
+unfolding before him a defence of unparalleled interest. True, it
+involved this interesting witness in a way that would be unpleasant to
+the brother; but he was not the man to sacrifice a client to any
+sentimental scruple--certainly not this client, whose worth he was just
+beginning to realise. Professional pride, as well as an inherent love of
+justice, led him to this conclusion. Nothing in God's world appealed to
+him, or ever had appealed to him, like a prisoner in the dock facing a
+fate from which only legal address, added to an orator's eloquence, could
+save him. His sympathies went out to a man so placed, even when he was a
+brute and his guilt far from doubtful. How much more, then, must he feel
+the claims of this surly but chivalrous-hearted boy, son of a good father
+and pious mother, who had been made the butt of circumstances, and of
+whose innocence he was hourly becoming more and more convinced.
+
+Could he have probed the whole matter, examined and re-examined this new
+witness until every detail was his and the whole story of that night
+stood bare before him, he might have hesitated a little longer and asked
+himself some very serious questions. But Carmel was not strong enough for
+much talk. Dr. Carpenter would not allow it, and the continued clearness
+of her mind was too invaluable to his case for this far-seeing advocate
+to take any risk. She had told him enough to assure him that
+circumstances and not guilt had put Arthur where he was, and had added to
+the assurance, details of an unexpected nature--so unexpected, indeed,
+that the lawyer was led away by the prospect they offered of confounding
+the prosecution by a line of defence to which no clew had been given by
+anything that had appeared.
+
+He planned then and there a dramatic climax which should take the breath
+away from his opponent, and change the whole feeling of the court towards
+the prisoner. It was a glorious prospect, and if the girl remained
+well--the bare possibility of her not doing so, drove him prematurely
+from her presence; and so it happened that, for the second time, the
+subject of Adelaide's death was discussed in her hearing without any
+mention being made of strangulation as its immediate cause. Would her
+action have been different had she known that this was a conceded fact?
+
+Mr. Moffat did not repeat this visit. He was not willing to risk his
+secret by being seen too often at the doctor's house; but telephonic
+communication was kept up between him and her present guardian, and he
+was able to bear himself quietly and with confidence until the time drew
+near for the introduction of her testimony. Then he grew nervous, fearing
+that Nurse Unwin would come to herself and telegraph Carmel's escape, and
+so prepare the prosecution for his great stroke. But nothing of the kind
+happened; and, when the great day came, he had only to consider how he
+should prepare Arthur for the surprise awaiting him, and finally decided
+not to prepare him at all, but simply to state at the proper moment, and
+in the face of the whole court-room, that his sister had recovered and
+would soon take her place upon the stand. The restraint of the place
+would thus act as a guard between them, and Carmel's immediate entrance
+put an end to the reproaches of whose bitterness he could well judge from
+his former experience of them.
+
+With all these anxieties and his deeply planned _coup d'etat_ awaiting
+the moment of action, Ella's simple outburst and even Ranelagh's
+unexpected and somewhat startling suggestion lost much of their
+significance. All his mind and heart were on his next move. It was to be
+made with the queen, and must threaten checkmate. Yet he did not forget
+the two pawns, silent in their places--but guarding certain squares which
+the queen, for all her royal prerogatives, might not be able to reach.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FOUR
+
+WHAT THE PINES WHISPERED
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+"I REMEMBERED THE ROOM"
+
+MERCURY.--If thou mightst dwell among the Gods the while
+          Lapped in voluptuous joy?
+
+PROMETHEUS.--I would not quit
+             This bleak ravine, these unrepentant pains.
+
+_Prometheus Unbound_.
+
+
+Great moments, whether of pain, surprise, or terror, awaken in the
+startled breast very different emotions from those we are led to
+anticipate from the agitation caused by lesser experiences. As Carmel
+disclosed her features to the court, my one absorbing thought was: Would
+she look at me? Could I hope for a glance of her eye? Did I wish it? My
+question was answered before Mr. Moffat had regained his place and turned
+to address the court.
+
+As her gaze passed from her brother's face, it travelled slowly and with
+growing hesitation over the countenances of those near her, on and on
+past the judge, past the jury, until they reached the spot where I sat.
+There they seemed to falter, and the beating of my heart became so loud
+that I instinctively shrank away from my neighbour. By so doing, I drew
+her eye, which fell full upon mine for one overwhelming minute; then she
+shrank and looked away, but not before the colour had risen in a flood to
+her cheek.
+
+The hope which had sprung to life under her first beautiful aspect,
+vanished in despair at sight of this flush. For it was not one of joy, or
+surprise, or even of unconscious sympathy. It was the banner of a deep,
+unendurable shame. Versed in her every expression, I could not mistake
+the language of her dismayed soul, at this, the most critical instant of
+her life. She had hoped to find me absent; she was overwhelmed to find me
+there. Could she, with a look, have transported me a thousand miles from
+this scene of personal humiliation and unknown, unimaginable outcome, she
+would have bestowed that look and ignored the consequences.
+
+Nor was I behind her in the reckless passion of the moment. Could I, by
+means of a wish, have been transported those thousand miles, I should
+even now have been far from a spot where, in the face of a curious crowd,
+busy in associating us together, I must submit to the terror of hearing
+her speak and betray herself to these watchful lawyers, and to the just
+and impartial mind of the presiding judge.
+
+But the days of magic had passed. I could not escape the spot; I could
+not escape her eye. The ordeal to which she was thus committed, I must
+share. As she advanced step by step upon her uncertain road, it would be
+my unhappy fate to advance with her, in terror of the same pitfalls, with
+our faces set towards the same precipice--slipping, fainting,
+experiencing agonies together. She knew my secret, and I, alas! knew
+hers. So I interpreted this intolerable, overwhelming blush.
+
+Recoiling from the prospect, I buried my face in my hands, and so missed
+the surprising sight of this young girl, still in her teens, conquering a
+dismay which might well unnerve one of established years and untold
+experiences. In a few minutes, as I was afterward told by my friends, her
+features had settled into a strange placidity, undisturbed by the
+levelled gaze of a hundred eyes. Her whole attention was concentrated on
+her brother, and wavered only, when the duties of the occasion demanded a
+recognition of the various gentlemen concerned in the trial.
+
+Mr. Moffat prefaced his examination by the following words:
+
+"May it please your Honour, I wish to ask the indulgence of the court in
+my examination of this witness. She is just recovering from a long and
+dangerous illness; and while I shall endeavour to keep within the rules
+of examination, I shall be grateful for any consideration which may be
+shown her by your Honour and by the counsel on the other side."
+
+Mr. Fox at once rose. He had by this time recovered from his astonishment
+at seeing before him, and in a fair state of health, the young girl whom
+he had every reason to believe to be still in a condition of partial
+forgetfulness at Lakewood, and under the care of a woman entirely in his
+confidence and under his express orders. He had also mastered his chagrin
+at the triumph which her presence here, and under these dramatic
+circumstances, had given his adversary. Moved, perhaps, by Miss
+Cumberland's beauty, which he saw for the first time--or, perhaps, by the
+spectacle of this beauty devoting its first hours of health to an attempt
+to save a brother, of whose precarious position before the law she had
+been ignorant up to this time--or more possibly yet, by a fear that it
+might be bad tactics to show harshness to so interesting a personality
+before she had uttered a word of testimony, he expressed in warmer tones
+than usual, his deep desire to extend every possible indulgence.
+
+Mr. Moffat bowed his acknowledgments, and waited for his witness to take
+the oath, which she did with a simple grace which touched all hearts,
+even that of her constrained and unreconciled brother. Compelled by the
+silence and my own bounding pulses to look at her in my own despite, I
+caught the sweet and elevated look with which she laid her hand on the
+Book, and asked myself if her presence here was not a self-accusation,
+which would bring satisfaction to nobody--which would sink her and hers
+into an ignominy worse than the conviction of the brother whom she was
+supposedly there to save.
+
+Tortured by this fear, I awaited events in indescribable agitation.
+
+The cool voice of Mr. Moffat broke in upon my gloom. Carmel had
+reseated herself, after taking the oath, and the customary question
+could be heard:
+
+"Your name, if you please."
+
+"Carmel Cumberland."
+
+"Do you recognise the prisoner, Miss Cumberland?"
+
+"Yes; he is my brother."
+
+A thrill ran through the room. The lingering tone, the tender accent,
+told. Some of the feeling she thus expressed seemed to pass into every
+heart which contemplated the two. From this moment on, he was looked upon
+with less harshness; people showed a disposition to discern innocence,
+where, perhaps, they had secretly desired, until now, to discover guilt.
+
+"Miss Cumberland, will you be good enough to tell us where you were, at
+or near the hour of ten, on the evening of your sister's death?"
+
+"I was in the club-house--in the house you call The Whispering Pines."
+
+At this astounding reply, unexpected by every one present save myself and
+the unhappy prisoner, incredulity, seasoned with amazement, marked every
+countenance. Carmel Cumberland in the club-house that night--she who had
+been found at a late hour, in her own home, injured and unconscious! It
+was not to be believed--or it would not have been, if Arthur with less
+self-control than he had hitherto maintained, had not shown by his morose
+air and the silent drooping of his head that he accepted this statement,
+wild and improbable as it seemed. Mr. Fox, whose mind without doubt had
+been engaged in a debate from the first, as to the desirability of
+challenging the testimony of this young girl, whose faculties had so
+lately recovered from a condition of great shock and avowed forgetfulness
+that no word as yet had come to him of her restored health, started to
+arise at her words; but noting the prisoner's attitude, he hastily
+reseated himself, realising, perhaps, that evidence of which he had never
+dreamed lay at the bottom of the client's manner and the counsel's
+complacency. If so, then his own air of mingled disbelief and
+compassionate forbearance might strike the jury unfavourably; while, on
+the contrary, if his doubts were sound, and the witness were confounding
+the fancies of her late delirium with the actual incidents of this fatal
+night, then would he gain rather than lose by allowing her to proceed
+until her testimony fell of its own weight, or succumbed before the fire
+of his cross-examination.
+
+Modifying his manner, he steadied himself for either exigency, and, in
+steadying himself, steadied his colleagues also.
+
+Mr. Moffat, who saw everything, smiled slightly as he spoke encouragingly
+to his witness, and propounded his next question:
+
+"Miss Cumberland, was your sister with you when you went to the
+club-house?"
+
+"No; we went separately"
+
+"How? Will you explain?"
+
+"I drove there. I don't know how Adelaide went."
+
+"You drove there?"
+
+"Yes. I had Arthur harness up his horse for me and I drove there."
+
+A moment of silence; then a slow awakening--on the part of judge, jury,
+and prosecution--to the fact that the case was taking a turn for which
+they were ill-prepared. To Mr. Moffat, it was a moment of intense
+self-congratulation, and something of the gratification he felt crept
+into his voice as he said:
+
+"Miss Cumberland, will you describe this horse?"
+
+"It was a grey horse. It has a large black spot on its left shoulder."
+
+"To what vehicle was it attached?"
+
+"To a cutter--my brother's cutter."
+
+"Was that brother with you? Did he accompany you in your ride to The
+Whispering Pines?"
+
+"No, I went quite alone."
+
+Entrancement had now seized upon every mind. Even if her testimony were
+not true, but merely the wanderings of a mind not fully restored, the
+interest of it was intense. Mr. Fox, glancing at the jury, saw there
+would be small use in questioning at this time the mental capacity of the
+witness. This was a story which all wished to hear. Perhaps he wished to
+hear it, too.
+
+Mr. Moffat rose to more than his accustomed height. The light which
+sometimes visited his face when feeling, or a sense of power, was
+strongest in him, shone from his eye and irradiated his whole aspect as
+he inquired tellingly:
+
+"And how did you return? With whom, and by what means, did you regain
+your own house?"
+
+The answer came, with simple directness:
+
+"In the same way I went. I drove back in my brother's cutter and being
+all alone just as before, I put the horse away myself, and went into my
+empty home and up to Adelaide's room, where I lost consciousness."
+
+The excitement, which had been seething, broke out as she ceased; but
+the judge did not need to use his gavel, or the officers of the court
+exert their authority. At Mr. Moffat's lifted hand, the turmoil ceased
+as if by magic.
+
+"Miss Cumberland, do you often ride out alone on nights like that?"
+
+"I never did before. I would not have dared to do it then, if I had not
+taken a certain precaution."
+
+"And what was this precaution?"
+
+"I wore an old coat of my brother's over my dress, and one of his hats
+on my head."
+
+It was out--the fact for the suppression of which I had suffered arrest
+without a word; because of which Arthur had gone even further, and
+submitted to trial with the same constancy. Instinctively, his eyes and
+mine met, and, at that moment, there was established between us an
+understanding that was in strong contrast to the surrounding turmoil,
+which now exceeded all limits, as the highly wrought up spectators
+realised that these statements, if corroborated, destroyed one of the
+strongest points which had been made by the prosecution. This caused a
+stay in the proceedings until order was partially restored, and the
+judge's voice could be heard in a warning that the court-room would be
+cleared of all spectators if this break of decorum was repeated.
+
+Meanwhile, my own mind had been busy. I had watched Arthur; I had watched
+Mr. Moffat. The discouragement of the former, the ill-concealed elation
+of the latter, proved the folly of any hope, on my part, that Carmel
+would be spared a full explanation of what I would have given worlds to
+leave in the darkness and ignorance of the present moment. To save
+Arthur, unwilling as he was, she was to be allowed to consummate the
+sacrifice which the real generosity of her heart drove her into making.
+Before these doors opened again and sent forth the crowd now pulsating
+under a preamble of whose terrible sequel none as yet dreamed, I should
+have to hear those sweet lips give utterance to the revelation which
+would consign her to opprobrium, and break, not only my heart, but her
+brother's.
+
+Was there no way to stop it? The district attorney gave no evidence of
+suspecting any issue of this sort, nor did the friendly and humane judge.
+Only the scheming Moffat knew to what all this was tending, and Moffat
+could not be trusted. The case was his and he would gain it if he could.
+Tender and obliging as he was in his treatment of the witness, there was
+iron under the velvet of his glove. This was his reputation; and this I
+must now see exemplified before me, without the power to stop it. The
+consideration with which he approached his subject did not deceive me.
+
+"Miss Cumberland, will you now give the jury the full particulars of that
+evening's occurrences, as witnessed by yourself. Begin your relation, if
+you please, with an account of the last meal you had together."
+
+Carmel hesitated. Her youth--her conscience, perhaps--shrank in manifest
+distress from this inquisition.
+
+"Ask me a question," she prayed. "I do not know how to begin."
+
+"Very well. Who were seated at the dinner-table that night?"
+
+"My sister, my brother, Mr. Ranelagh, and myself."
+
+"Did anything uncommon happen during the meal?"
+
+"Yes, my sister ordered wine, and had our glasses all filled. She never
+drank wine herself, but she had her glass filled also. Then she dismissed
+Helen, the waitress; and when the girl was gone, she rose and held up
+her glass, and invited us to do the same. 'We will drink to my coming
+marriage,' said she; but when we had done this, she turned upon Arthur,
+with bitter words about his habits, and, declaring that another bottle of
+wine should never be opened again in the house, unclosed her fingers and
+let her glass drop on the table where it broke. Arthur then let his fall,
+and I mine. We all three let our glasses fall and break."
+
+"And Mr. Ranelagh?"
+
+"He did not let his fall. He set it down on the cloth. He had not
+drank from it."
+
+Clear, perfectly clear--tallying with what we had heard from other
+sources. As this fact forced itself in upon the minds of the jury,
+new light shone in every eye and each and all waited eagerly for the
+next question.
+
+It came with a quiet, if not insinuating, intonation.
+
+"Miss Cumberland, where were you looking when you let your glass fall?"
+
+My heart gave a bound. I remembered that moment well. So did she, as
+could be seen from the tremulous flush and the determination with which
+she forced herself to speak.
+
+"At Mr. Ranelagh," she answered, finally.
+
+"Not at your brother?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And at whom was Mr. Ranelagh looking?"
+
+"At--at me."
+
+"Not at your sister?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Was anything said?"
+
+"Not then. With the dropping of the glasses, we all drew back from the
+table, and walked towards a little room where we sometimes sat before
+going into the library. Arthur went first, and Mr. Ranelagh and I
+followed, Adelaide coming last. We--we went this way into the little room
+and--what other question do you wish to ask?" she finished, with a
+burning blush.
+
+Mr. Moffat was equal to the appeal.
+
+"Did anything happen? Did Mr. Ranelagh speak to you or you to him, or did
+your sister Adelaide speak?"
+
+"No one spoke; but Mr. Ranelagh put a little slip of paper into my
+hand--a--a note. As he did this, my brother looked round. I don't know
+whether he saw the note or not; but his eye caught mine, and I may have
+blushed. Next moment he was looking past me; and presently he had flung
+himself out of the room, and I heard him going upstairs. Adelaide had
+joined me by this time, and Mr. Ranelagh turned to speak to her, and--and
+I went over to the book-shelves to read my note."
+
+"And did you read it then?"
+
+"No, I was afraid. I waited till Mr. Ranelagh was gone; then I went up to
+my room and read it. It was not a--a note to be glad of. I mean, proud
+of. I'm afraid I was a little glad of it at first. I was a wicked girl."
+
+Mr. Moffat glanced at Mr. Fox; but that gentleman, passing over this
+artless expression of feeling, as unworthy an objection, he went
+steadily on:
+
+"Miss Cumberland, before you tell us about this note, will you be good
+enough to inform us whether any words passed between you and your sister
+before you went upstairs?"
+
+"Oh, yes; we talked. We all three talked, but it was about indifferent
+matters. The servants were going to a ball, and we spoke of that. Mr.
+Ranelagh did not stay long. Very soon he remarked that he had a busy
+evening before him, and took his leave. I was not in the room with them
+when he did this. I was in the adjoining one, but I heard his remark and
+saw him go. I did not wait to talk to Adelaide."
+
+"Now, about the note?"
+
+"I read it as soon as I reached my room. Then I sat still for a
+long time."
+
+"Miss Cumberland, pardon my request, but will you tell us what was in
+that note?"
+
+She lifted her patient eyes, and looked straight at her brother. He did
+not meet her gaze; but the dull flush which lit up the dead-white of his
+cheek showed how he suffered under this ordeal. At me she never glanced;
+this was the only mercy shown me that dreadful morning. I grew to be
+thankful for it as she went on.
+
+"I do not remember the words," she said, finally, as her eyes fell again
+to her lap. "But I remember its meaning. It was an invitation for me to
+leave town with him that very evening and be married at some place he
+mentioned. He said it would be the best way to--to end--matters."
+
+This brought Mr. Fox to his feet. For all his self-command, he had
+been perceptibly growing more and more nervous as the examination
+proceeded; and he found himself still in the dark as to his opponent's
+purpose and the character of the revelations he had to fear. Turning
+to the judge, he cried:
+
+"This testimony is irrelevant and incompetent, and I ask to have it
+stricken out."
+
+Mr. Moffat's voice, as he arose to answer this, was like honey poured
+upon gall.
+
+"It is neither irrelevant nor incompetent, and, if it were, the objection
+comes too late. My friend should have objected to the question."
+
+"The whole course of counsel has been very unusual," began Mr. Fox.
+
+"Yes, but so is the case. I beg your Honour to believe that, in some of
+its features, this case is not only unusual, but almost without a
+precedent. That it may be lightly understood, and justice shown my
+client, a full knowledge of the whole family's experiences during those
+fatal hours is not only desirable, but absolutely essential. I beg,
+therefore, that my witness may be allowed to proceed and tell her story
+in all its details. Nothing will be introduced which will not ultimately
+be seen to have a direct bearing upon the attitude of my client towards
+the crime for which he stands here arraigned."
+
+"The motion is denied," declared the judge.
+
+Mr. Fox sat down, to the universal relief of all but the two persons most
+interested--Arthur and myself.
+
+Mr. Moffat, generous enough or discreet enough to take no note of his
+opponent's discomfiture, lifted a paper from the table and held it
+towards the witness.
+
+"Do you recognise these lines?" he asked, placing the remnants of my
+half-burned communication in her hands.
+
+She started at sight of them. Evidently she had never expected to see
+them again.
+
+"Yes," she answered, after a moment. "This is a portion of the note I
+have mentioned."
+
+"You recognise it as such?"
+
+"I do."
+
+Her eyes lingered on the scrap, and followed it as it was passed back and
+marked as an exhibit.
+
+Mr. Moffat recalled her to the matter in hand.
+
+"What did you do next, Miss Cumberland?"
+
+"I answered the note."
+
+"May I ask to what effect?"
+
+"I refused Mr. Ranelagh's request. I said that I could not do what he
+asked, and told him to wait till the next day, and he would see how I
+felt towards him and towards Adelaide. That was all. I could not write
+much. I was suffering greatly."
+
+"Suffering in mind, or suffering in body?"
+
+"Suffering in my mind. I was terrified, but that feeling did not last
+very long. Soon I grew happy, happier than I had been in weeks, happier
+than I had ever been in all my life before. I found that I loved Adelaide
+better than I did myself. This made everything easy, even the sending of
+the answer I have told you about to Mr. Ranelagh."
+
+"Miss Cumberland, how did you get this answer to Mr. Ranelagh?"
+
+"By means of a gentleman who was going away on the very train I had
+been asked to leave on. He was a guest next door, and I carried the
+note in to him."
+
+"Did you do this openly?"
+
+"No. I'm afraid not; I slipped out by the side door, in as careful a way
+as I could."
+
+"Did this attempt at secrecy succeed? Were you able to go and come
+without meeting any one?"
+
+"No. Adelaide was at the head of the stairs when I came back, standing
+there, very stiff and quiet."
+
+"Did she speak to you?"
+
+"No. She just looked at me; but it wasn't a common look. I shall never
+forget it."
+
+"And what did you do then?"
+
+"I went to my room."
+
+"Miss Cumberland, did you sec anybody else when you came in at
+this time?"
+
+"Yes, our maid Helen. She was just laying down a bunch of keys on the
+table in the lower hall. I stopped and looked at the keys. I had
+recognised them as the ones I had seen in Mr. Ranelagh's hands many
+times. He had gone, yet there were his keys. One of them unlocked the
+club-house. I noticed it among the others, but I didn't touch it then.
+Helen was still in the hall, and I ran straight upstairs, where I met my
+sister, as I have just told you."
+
+"Miss Cumberland, continue the story. What did you do after re-entering
+your room?"
+
+"I don't know what I did first. I was very excited--elated one minute,
+deeply wretched and very frightened the next. I must have sat down; for I
+was shaking very much, and felt a little sick. The sight of that key had
+brought up pictures of the club-house; and I thought and thought how
+quiet it was, and how far away and--how cold it was too, and how secret.
+I would go there for what I had to do; _there_! And then I saw in my
+fancy one of its rooms, with the moon in it, and--but I soon shut my eyes
+to that. I heard Arthur moving about his room, and this made me start up
+and go out into the hall again."
+
+During all this Mr. Fox had sat by, understanding his right to object to
+the witness's mixed statements of fact and of feelings, and quite
+confident that his objections would be sustained. But he had determined
+long since that he would not interrupt the witness in her relation. The
+air of patience he assumed was sufficiently indicative of his
+displeasure, and he confined himself to this. Mr. Moffat understood, and
+testified his appreciation by a slight bow.
+
+Carmel, who saw nothing, resumed her story.
+
+"Arthur's room is near, and Adelaide's far off; but I went to Adelaide's
+first. Her door was shut and when I went to open it I found it locked.
+Calling her name, I said that I was tired and would be glad to say good
+night. She did not answer at once. When she did, her voice was strange,
+though what she said was very simple. I was to please myself; she was
+going to retire, too. And then she tried to say good night, but she only
+half said it, like one who is choked with tears or some other dreadful
+emotion. I cannot tell you how this made me feel--but you don't care for
+that. You want to know what I did--what Adelaide did. I will tell you,
+but I cannot hurry. Every act of the evening was so crowded with purpose;
+all meant so much. I can see the end, but the steps leading to it are not
+so clear."
+
+"Take your time, Miss Cumberland; we have no wish to hurry you."
+
+"I can go on now. The next thing I did was to knock at Arthur's door. I
+heard him getting ready to go out, and I wanted to speak to him before
+he went. When he heard me, he opened the door and let me in. He began at
+once on his grievances, but I could not listen to them. I wanted him to
+harness the grey mare for me and leave it standing in the stable. I
+explained the request by saying that it was necessary for me to see a
+certain friend of mine immediately, and that no one would notice me in
+the cutter under the bear-skins. He didn't approve, but I persuaded him.
+I even persuaded him to wait till Zadok was gone, so that Adelaide would
+know nothing about it. He looked glum, but he promised.
+
+"He was going away when I heard Adelaide's steps in the adjoining room.
+This frightened me. The partition is very thin between these two rooms,
+and I was afraid she had heard me ask Arthur for the grey mare and
+cutter. I could hear her rattling the bottles in the medicine cabinet
+hanging on this very wall. Looking back at Arthur, I asked him how long
+Adelaide had been there. He said, 'For some time.' This sent me flying
+from the room. I would join her, and find out if she had heard. But I
+was too late. As I stepped into the hall I saw her disappearing round
+the corner leading to her own room. This convinced me that she had heard
+nothing, and, light of heart once more, I went back to my own room,
+where I collected such little articles as I needed for the expedition
+before me.
+
+"I had hardly done this when I heard the servants on the walk outside,
+then Arthur going down. The impulse to see and speak to him again was
+irresistible. I flew after him and caught him in the lower hall.
+'Arthur,' I cried, 'look at me, look at me well, and then--kiss me!' And
+he did kiss me--I'm glad when I think of it, though he did say, next
+minute: 'What is the matter with you? What are you going to do? To meet
+that villain?'
+
+"I looked straight into his face. I waited till I saw I had his whole
+attention; then I said, as slowly and emphatically as I could: 'If you
+mean Elwood--no! I shall never meet him again, except in Adelaide's
+presence. He will not want to meet me. You may be at ease about that.
+To-morrow all will be well, and Adelaide very happy,'
+
+"He shrugged his shoulders, and reached for his coat and hat. As he was
+putting them on, I said, 'Don't forget to harness up Jenny.' Jenny is the
+grey mare. 'And leave off the bells,' I urged. 'I don't want Adelaide to
+hear me go out.'
+
+"He swung about at this. 'You and Adelaide are not very good friends it
+seems.' 'As good as you and she are,' I answered. Then I flung my arms
+about him. 'Don't go down street to-night,' I prayed. 'Stay home for this
+one night. Stay in the house with Adelaide; stay till I come home.' He
+stared, and I saw his colour change. Then he flung me off, but not
+rudely. 'Why don't _you_ stay?' he asked. Then he laughed, and added,
+'I'll go harness the mare.'
+
+"'The key's in the kitchen,' I said. 'I'll go get it for you. I heard
+Zadok bring it in.' He did not answer, and I went for the key. I found
+two on the nail, and I brought them both; but I only handed him one, the
+key to the stable-door. 'Which way are you going?' I asked, as he looked
+at the key, then back towards the kitchen. 'The short way, of course,'
+'Then here's the key to the Fulton grounds,'
+
+"As he took the key, I prayed again, 'Don't do what's in your mind,
+Arthur. Don't drink to-night. He only laughed, and I said my last word:
+'If you do, it will be for the last time. You'll never drink again after
+to-morrow.'
+
+"He made no answer to this, and I went slowly upstairs. Everything was
+quiet--quiet as death--in the whole house. If Adelaide had heard us, she
+made no sign. Going to my own room, I waited until I heard Arthur come
+out of the stable and go away by the door in the rear wall. Then I stole
+out again. I carried a small bag with me, but no coat or hat.
+
+"Pausing and listening again and again, I crept downstairs and halted at
+the table under the rack. The keys were still there. Putting them in my
+bag, I searched the rack for one of my brother's warm coats. But I took
+none I saw. I remembered an old one which Adelaide had put away in the
+closet under the stairs. Getting this, I put it on, and, finding a hat
+there too, I took that also; and when I had pulled it over my forehead
+and drawn up the collar of the coat, I was quite unrecognisable. I was
+going out, when I remembered there would be no light in the club-house. I
+had put a box of matches in my bag while I was upstairs, but I needed a
+candle. Slipping back, I took a candlestick and candle from the
+dining-room mantel, and finding that the bag would not hold them, thrust
+them into the pocket of the coat I wore, and quickly left the house.
+Jenny was in the stable, all harnessed; and hesitating no longer, I got
+in among the bear-skins and drove swiftly away."
+
+There was a moment's silence. Carmel had paused, and was sitting with her
+hand on her heart, looking past judge, past jury, upon the lonely and
+desolate scene in which she at this moment moved and suffered. An
+inexpressible fatality had entered into her tones, always rich and
+resonant with feeling. No one who listened could fail to share the dread
+by which she was moved.
+
+District Attorney Fox fumbled with his papers, and endeavoured to
+maintain his equanimity and show an indifference which his stern but
+fascinated glances at the youthful witness amply belied. He was biding
+his time, but biding it in decided perturbation of mind. Neither he nor
+any one else, unless it were Moffat, could tell whither this tale tended.
+While she held the straight course which had probably been laid out for
+her, he failed to object; but he could not prevent the subtle influence
+of her voice, her manner, and her supreme beauty on the entranced jury.
+Nevertheless, his pencil was busy; he was still sufficiently master of
+himself for that.
+
+Mr. Moffat, quite aware of the effect which was being produced on every
+side, but equally careful to make no show of it, put in a commonplace
+question at this point, possibly to rouse the witness from her own
+abstraction, possibly to restore the judicial tone of the inquiry.
+
+"How did you leave the stable-door?"
+
+"Open."
+
+"Can you tell us what time it was when you started?"
+
+"No. I did not look. Time meant nothing to me. I drove as fast as I
+could, straight down the hill, and out towards The Whispering Pines. I
+had seen Adelaide in her window as I went flying by the house, but not a
+soul on the road, nor a sign of life, near or far. The whistle of a train
+blew as I stopped in the thicket near the club-house door. If it was the
+express train, you can tell--"
+
+"Never mind the _if_" said Mr. Moffat. "It is enough that you heard the
+whistle. Go on with what you did."
+
+"I tied up my horse; then I went into the house. I had used Mr.
+Ranelagh's key to open the door and for some reason I took it out of the
+lock when I got in, and put the whole bunch back into my satchel. But I
+did not lock the door. Then I lit my candle and then--I went upstairs."
+
+Fainter and fainter the words fell, and slower and slower heaved the
+youthful breast under her heavily pressing palm. Mr. Moffat made a sign
+across the court-room, and I saw Dr. Carpenter get up and move nearer to
+the witness stand. But she stood in no need of his help. In an instant
+her cheek flushed; the eye I watched with such intensity of wonder that
+apprehension unconsciously left me, rose, glowed, and fixed itself at
+last--not on the judge, not on the prisoner, not even on that prisoner's
+counsel--but on _me_; and as the soft light filled my soul and awoke awe,
+where it had hitherto awakened passion, she quietly said:
+
+"There is a room upstairs, in the club-house, where I have often been
+with Adelaide. It has a fireplace in it, and I had seen a box there,
+half filled with wood the day before. This is the room I went to, and
+here I built a fire. When it was quite bright, I took out something I
+had brought in my satchel, and thrust it into the flame. Then I got up
+and walked away. I--I did not feel very strong, and sank on my knees
+when I got to the couch, and buried my face in my arms. But I felt
+better when I came back to the fire again, and very brave till I caught
+a glimpse of my face in the mirror over the mantelpiece. That--that
+unnerved me, and I think I screamed. Some one screamed, and I think it
+was I. I know my hands went out--I saw them in the glass; then they fell
+straight down at my side, and I looked and looked at myself till I saw
+all the terror go out of my face, and when it was quite calm again, I
+stooped down and pulled out the little tongs I had been heating in the
+fire, and laid them quick--quick, before I could be sorry again--right
+across my cheek, and then--"
+
+Uproar in the court. If she had screamed when she said she did, so some
+one cried out loudly now. I think that pitiful person was myself. They
+say I had been standing straight up in my place for the last two minutes.
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+"CHOOSE"
+
+Let me have
+A dram of poison; such soon speeding geer
+As will disperse itself through all the veins,
+That the life-weary taker may fall dead.
+
+Come, bitter conduct, come unsavoury guide!
+Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
+The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark.
+
+_Romeo and Juliet_
+
+
+"I have not finished," were the first words we heard, when order was
+restored, and we were all in a condition to listen again.
+
+"I had to relate what you have just heard, that you might understand what
+happened next. I was not used to pain, and I could never have kept on
+pressing those irons to my cheek if I had not had the strength given me
+by my own reflection in the glass. When I thought the burn was quite deep
+enough, I tore the tongs away, and was lifting them to the other cheek
+when I saw the door behind me open, inch by inch, as thought pushed by
+hesitating touches.
+
+"Instantly, I forgot my pain, almost my purpose, watching that door. I
+saw it slowly swing to its full width, and disclose my sister standing in
+the gap, with a look and in an attitude which terrified me more than the
+fire had done. Dropping the tongs, I turned and faced her, covering my
+cheek instinctively with my hand.
+
+"I saw her eyes run over my elaborate dinner dress--my little hand-bag,
+and the candle burning in a room made warm with a fire on the hearth.
+This, before she spoke a single word. Then, with a deep labouring breath,
+she looked me in the eye again, with the simple question:
+
+"'And where is he?'"
+
+Carmel's head had drooped at this, but she raised it almost instantly.
+Mine did not rise so readily.
+
+"'Do you mean Elwood?' I asked. 'You know!' said she. 'The veil is down
+between us, Carmel; we will speak plainly now. I saw him give you the
+letter. I heard you ask Arthur to harness up the horse. I have demeaned
+myself to follow you, and we will have no subterfuges now. You expect
+him here?'
+
+"'No,' I cried. 'I am not so bad as that, Adelaide--nor is he. Here is
+the note. You will see by it what he expects, and at what place I should
+have joined him, if I had been the selfish creature you think,' I had the
+note hidden in my breast. I took it out, and held it towards her. I did
+not feel the burn at all, but I kept it covered. She glanced down at the
+words; and I felt like falling at her feet, she looked so miserable. I am
+told that I must keep to fact, and must not express my feelings, or those
+of others. I will try to remember this; but it is hard for a sister,
+relating such a frightful scene.
+
+"She glanced down at the paper and let it drop, almost immediately, from
+her hand, 'I cannot read his words!' she cried; 'I do not need to; we
+both know which of us he loves best. You cannot say that it is I, his
+engaged wife.' I was silent, and her face took on an awful pallor.
+'Carmel,' said she, 'do you know what this man's love has been to me? You
+are a child, a warm-hearted and passionate child; but you do not know a
+woman's heart. Certainly, you do not know mine. I doubt if any one
+does--even he. Cares have warped my life. I do not quarrel with these
+cares; I only say that they have robbed me of what makes girlhood lovely.
+Duty is a stern task-master; and sternness, coming early into one's life,
+hardens its edges, but does not sap passion from the soul or devotion
+from the heart. I was ready for joy when it came, but I was no longer
+capable of bestowing it. I thought I was, but I soon saw my mistake. You
+showed it to me--you with your beauty, your freshness, your warm and
+untried heart. I have no charms to rival these; I have only love, such
+love as you cannot dream of at your age. And _this_ is no longer
+desirable to him!'
+
+"You see that I remember every word she spoke. They burned more fiercely
+than the iron. That did not burn at all, just then. I was cold
+instead--bitterly, awfully cold. My very heart seemed frozen, and the
+silence was dreadful. But I could not speak, I could not answer her.
+
+"'You have everything,' she now went on. 'Why did you rob me of my one
+happiness? And you have robbed me. I have seen your smile when his head
+turned your way. It was the smile which runs before a promise. I know it;
+I have had that smile in my heart a long, long time--but it never
+reached my lips. Carmel, do you know why I am here?' I shook my head. Was
+it her teeth that were chattering or mine? 'I am here to end it all,'
+said she. 'With my hope gone, my heart laid waste, life has no prospect
+for me. I believe in God, and I know that my act is sinful; but I can no
+more live than can a tree stricken at the root. To-morrow he will not
+need to write notes; he can come and comfort you in our home. But never
+let him look at me. As we are sisters, and I almost a mother to you, shut
+my face away from his eyes--or I shall rise in my casket and the tangle
+of our lives will be renewed.'
+
+"I tell you this--I bare my sister's broken heart to you, giving you her
+very words, sacred as they are to me and--and to others, who are
+present, and must listen to all I say--because it is right that you
+should understand her frenzy, and know all that passed between us in
+that awful hour."
+
+This was irregular, highly irregular--but District Attorney Fox sat on,
+unmoved. Possibly he feared to prejudice the jury; possibly he recognised
+the danger of an interruption now, not only to the continuity of her
+testimony, but to the witness herself; or--what is just as
+likely--possibly he cherished a hope that, in giving her a free rein and
+allowing her to tell her story thus artlessly, she would herself supply
+the clew he needed to reconstruct his case on the new lines upon which it
+was being slowly forced by these unexpected revelations. Whatever the
+cause, he let these expressions of feeling pass.
+
+At a gesture from Mr. Moffat, Carmel proceeded:
+
+"I tottered at this threat; and she, a mother to me from my cradle,
+started instinctively to catch me; but the feeling left her before she
+had taken two steps, and she stopped still. 'Drop your hand,' she cried.
+'I want to see your whole face while I ask you one last question. I could
+not read the note. Why did you come _here?_ I dropped my hand, and she
+stood staring; then she uttered a cry and ran quickly towards me. 'What
+is it?' she cried. 'What has happened to you? Is it the shadow or--'
+
+"I caught her by the hand. I could speak now. 'Adelaide,' said I, 'you
+are not the only one to love to the point of hurt. I love _you_. Let this
+little scar be witness,' Then, as her eyes opened and she staggered, I
+caught her to my breast and hid my face on her shoulder. 'You say that
+to-morrow I shall be free to receive notes. He will not wish to write
+them, tomorrow. The beauty he liked is gone. If it weighed overmuch with
+him, then you and I are on a plane again--or I am on an inferior one.
+Your joy will be sweeter for this break!'
+
+"She started, raised my head from her shoulder, looked at me and
+shuddered--but no longer with hate. 'Carmel!' she whispered, 'the
+story--the story I read you of Francis the First and--'
+
+"'Yes,' I agreed, 'that made me think,' Her knees bent under her; she
+sank at my feet, but her eyes never left my face. 'And--and Elwood?' 'He
+knows nothing. I did not make up my mind till to-night. Adelaide, it had
+to be. I hadn't the strength to--to leave you all, or--or to say no, if
+he ever asked me to my face what he asked me in that note,'
+
+"And then I tried to lift her; but she was kissing my feet, kissing my
+dress, sobbing out her life on my hands. Oh, I was happy! My future
+looked very simple to me. But my cheek began to burn, and instinctively I
+put up my hand. This brought her to her feet. 'You are suffering,' she
+cried. 'You must go home, at once, at once, while I telephone to Dr.
+Carpenter,' 'We will go together,' I said. 'We can telephone from there.'
+But at this, the awful look came back into her face, and seeing her
+forget my hurt, I forgot it, too, in dread of what she would say when she
+found strength to speak.
+
+"It was worse than anything I had imagined; she refused absolutely to go
+back home. 'Carmel,' said she, 'I have done injustice to your youth. You
+love him, too--not like a child but a woman. The tangle is worse than I
+thought; your heart is caught in it, as well as mine, and you shall have
+your chance. My death will give it to you.' I shook my head, pointing to
+my cheek. She shook hers, and quietly, calmly said, 'You have never
+looked so beautiful. Should we go back together and take up the old life,
+the struggle which has undermined my conscience and my whole existence
+would only begin again. I cannot face that ordeal, Carmel. The morning
+light would bring me daily torture, the evening dusk a night of blasting
+dreams. We three cannot live in this world together. I am the least loved
+and so I should be the one to die. I am determined, Carmel. Life, with
+me, has come to this.'
+
+"I tried to dissuade her. I urged every plea, even that of my own
+sacrifice. But she was no more her natural self. She had taken up the
+note and read it during my entreaties, and my words fell on deaf
+ears. 'Why, these words have killed me,' she cried crumpling the note
+in her hand. 'What will a little poison do? It can only finish what he
+has begun.'
+
+"Poison! I remembered how I had heard her pushing about bottles in the
+medicine cabinet, and felt my legs grow weak and my head swim. 'You will
+not!' I cried, watching her hand, in terror of seeing it rise to her
+breast. 'You are crazed to-night; to-morrow you will feel differently.'
+
+"But the fixed set look of her bleak face gave me no hope. 'I shall never
+feel differently. If I do not end it to-night, I shall do so soon. When a
+heart like mine goes down, it goes down forever,' I could only shudder. I
+did not know what to do, or which way to turn. She stood between me and
+the door, and her presence was terrible. 'When I came here,' she said, 'I
+brought a bottle of cordial with me and three glasses. I brought a little
+phial of poison too, once ordered for sickness. I expected to find Elwood
+here. If I had, I meant to drop the poison into one glass, and then fill
+them all up with the cordial. We should have drunk, each one of us his
+glass, and one of us would have fallen. I did not care which, you or
+Elwood or myself. But he is not here, and the cast of the die is between
+us two, unless you wish a certainty, Carmel,--in which case I will pour
+out but one glass and drink that myself.'
+
+"She was in a fever, now, and desperate. Death was in the room; I felt it
+in my lifted hair, and in her strangely drawn face. If I screamed, who
+would hear me? I never thought of the telephone, and I doubt if she would
+have let me use it then. The power she had always exerted over me was
+very strong in her at this moment; and not till afterwards did it cross
+my mind that I had never asked her how she got to the house, or whether
+we were as much alone in the building as I believed.
+
+"'Shall I drink alone?' she repeated, and I cried out 'No'; at which her
+hand went to her breast, as I had so long expected, and I saw the glitter
+of a little phial as she drew it forth.
+
+"'Oh, Adelaide!' I began; but she heeded me no more than the dead.
+
+"On leaving home, she had put on a long coat with pockets and this coat
+was still on her, and the pockets gaping. Thrusting her other hand into
+one of these, she drew out a little flask covered with wicker, and set it
+on a stand beside her. Then she pulled out two small glasses, and set
+them down also, and then she turned her back. I could hear the drop, drop
+of the liquor; and, dark as the room was, it seemed to turn darker, till
+I put out my hands like one groping in a sudden night. But everything
+cleared before me when she turned around again. Features set like hers
+force themselves to be seen.
+
+"She advanced, a glass in either hand. As she came, the floor swayed,
+and the walls seemed to bow together; but they did not sway her. Step
+by step, she drew near, and when she reached my side she smiled in my
+face once. Then she said: 'Choose aright, dear heart. Leave the
+poisoned one for me.'
+
+"Fascinated, I stared at one glass, then at the other. Had either of her
+hands trembled, I should have grasped at the glass it held; but not a
+tremor shook those icy fingers, nor did her eyes wander to the right
+hand or to the left. 'Adelaide!' I shrieked out. 'Toss them behind you.
+Let us live--live!' But she only reiterated that awful word: 'Choose!'
+and I dare not hesitate longer, lest I lose my chance to save her.
+Groping, I touched a glass--I never knew which one--and drawing it from
+her fingers, I lifted it to my mouth. Instantly her other hand rose. 'I
+don't know which is which, myself,' she said, and drank. That made me
+drink, also.
+
+"The two glasses sent out a clicking sound as we set them back on the
+stand. Then we waited, looking at each other. 'Which?' her lips seemed
+to say. 'Which?' In another moment we knew. 'Your choice was the right
+one,' said she, and she sank back into a chair. 'Don't leave me!' she
+called out, for I was about to run shrieking out into the night. 'I--I
+am happy now that it is all settled; but I do not want to die alone. Oh,
+how hot I am!' And leaping up, she flung off her coat, and went gasping
+about the room for air. When she sank down again, it was on the lounge;
+and again I tried to fly for help, and again she would not let me.
+Suddenly she started up, and I saw a great change in her. The heavy,
+leaden look was gone; tenderness had come back to her eyes, and a human
+anxious expression to her whole face. 'I have been mad!' she cried.
+'Carmel, Carmel, what have I done to you, my more than sister--my child,
+my child!'
+
+"I tried to soothe her--to keep down my awful fear and soothe her. But
+the nearness of death had calmed her poor heart into its old love and
+habitual thoughtfulness. She was terrified at my position. She recalled
+our mother, and the oath she had taken at that mother's death-bed to
+protect me and care for me and my brother. 'And I have failed to do
+either,' she cried. 'Arthur, I have alienated, and you I am leaving to
+unknown trouble and danger,'
+
+"She was not to be comforted. I saw her life ebbing and could do nothing.
+She clung to me while she called up all her powers, and made plans for me
+and showed me a way of escape. I was to burn the note, fling two of the
+glasses from the window and leave the other and the deadly phial near her
+hand. This, before I left the room. Then I was to call up the police and
+say there was something wrong at the club-house, but I was not to give my
+name or ever acknowledge I was there. 'Nothing can save trouble,' she
+said, 'but that trouble must not come near you. Swear that you will heed
+my words--swear that you will do what I say,'
+
+"I swore. All that she asked I promised. I was almost dying, too; and had
+the light gone out and the rafters of the house fallen in and buried us
+both, it would have been better. But the light burned on, and the life in
+her eyes faded out, and the hands grasping mine relaxed. I heard one
+little gasp; then a low prayer: 'Tell Arthur never--never--again to--'
+Then--silence!"
+
+Sobs--cries--veiled faces--then silence in the courtroom, too. It was
+broken but by one sound, a heartrending sigh from the prisoner. But
+nobody looked at him, and thank God!--nobody looked at me. Every eye was
+on the face of this young girl, whose story bore such an impress of
+truth, and yet was so contradictory of all former evidence. What
+revelations were yet to follow. It would seem that she was speaking of
+her sister's death.
+
+But her sister had not died that way; her sister had been strangled.
+Could this dainty creature, with beauty scarred and yet powerfully
+triumphant, be the victim of an hallucination as to the cause of that
+scar and the awesome circumstances which attended its infliction? Or,
+harder still to believe, were these soul-compelling tones, these
+evidences of grief, this pathetic yielding to the rights of the law in
+face of the heart's natural shrinking from disclosures sacred as they
+were tragic--were these the medium by which she sought to mislead justice
+and to conceal truth?
+
+Even I, with my memory of her looks as she faltered down the staircase on
+that memorable night--pale, staring, her left hand to her cheek and
+rocking from side to side in pain or terror--could not but ask if this
+heart-rending story did not involve a still more terrible sequel. I
+searched her face, and racked my very soul, in my effort to discern what
+lay beneath this angelic surface--beneath this recital which if it were
+true and the whole truth, would call not only for the devotion of a
+lifetime, but a respect transcending love and elevating it to worship.
+
+But, in her cold and quiet features, I could detect nothing beyond the
+melancholy of grief; and the suspense from which all suffered, kept me
+also on the rack, until at a question from Mr. Moffat she spoke again,
+and we heard her say:
+
+"Yes, she died that way, with her hands in mine. There was no one else
+by; we were quite alone."
+
+That settled it, and for a moment the revulsion of feeling threatened
+to throw the court into tumult. But one thing restrained them. Not the
+look of astonishment on her face, not the startled uplift of Arthur's
+head, not the quiet complacency which in an instant replaced the
+defeated aspect of the district attorney; but the gesture and attitude
+of Mr. Moffat, the man who had put her on the stand, and who now from
+the very force of his personality, kept the storm in abeyance, and by
+his own composure, forced back attention to his witness and to his own
+confidence in his case. This result reached, he turned again towards
+Carmel, with renewed respect in his manner and a marked softening in his
+aspect and voice.
+
+"Can you fix the hour of this occurrence?" he asked. "In any way can you
+locate the time?"
+
+"No; for I did not move at once. I felt tied to that couch; I am very
+young, and I had never seen death before. When I did get up, I hobbled
+like an old woman and almost went distracted; but came to myself as I
+saw the note on the floor--the note I was told to burn. Lifting it, I
+moved towards the fireplace, but got a fright on the way, and stopped
+in the middle of the floor and looked back. I thought I had heard my
+sister speak!
+
+"But the fancy passed as I saw how still she lay, and I went on, after a
+while, and threw the note into the one small flame which was all that was
+left of the fire. I saw it caught by a draught from the door behind me,
+and go flaming up the chimney.
+
+"Some of my trouble seemed to go with it, but a great one yet remained. I
+didn't know how I could ever turn around again and see my sister lying
+there behind me, with her face fixed in death, for which I was, in a
+way, responsible. I was abjectly frightened, and knelt there a long time,
+praying and shuddering, before I could rise again to my feet and move
+about as I had to, since God had not stricken me and I must live my life
+and do what my sister had bidden me. Courage--such courage as I had
+had--was all gone from me now; and while I knew there was something else
+for me to do before I left the room, I could not remember what it was,
+and stood hesitating, dreading to lift my eyes and yet feeling that I
+ought to, if only to aid my memory by a look at my sister's face.
+
+"Suddenly I did look up, but it did not aid my memory; and, realising
+that I could never think with that lifeless figure before me, I lifted a
+pillow from the window-seat near by and covered her face. I must have
+done more; I must have covered the whole lounge with pillows and
+cushions; for, presently my mind cleared again, and I recollected that
+it was something about the poison. I was to put the phial in her
+hand--or was I to throw it from the window? Something was to be thrown
+from the window--it must be the phial. But I couldn't lift the window,
+so having found the phial standing on the table beside the little flask,
+I carried it into the closet where there was a window opening inward,
+and I dropped it out of that, and thought I had done all. But when I
+came back and saw Adelaide's coat lying in a heap where she had thrown
+it, I recalled that she had said something about this but what, I didn't
+know. So I lifted it and put it in the closet--why, I cannot say. Then I
+set my mind on going home.
+
+"But there was something to do first--something not in that room. It was
+a long time before it came to me; then the sight of the empty hall
+recalled it. The door by which Adelaide had come in had never been
+closed, and as I went towards it I remembered the telephone, and that I
+was to call up the police. Lifting the candle, I went creeping towards
+the front hall. Adelaide had commanded me, or I could never have
+accomplished this task. I had to open a door; and when it swung to behind
+me and latched, I turned around and looked at it, as if I never expected
+it to open again. I almost think I fainted, if one can faint standing,
+for when I knew anything, after the appalling latching of that door, I
+was in quite another part of the room and the candle which I still held,
+looked to my dazed eyes shorter than when I started with it from the
+place where my sister lay.
+
+"I was wasting time. The thought drove me to the table. I caught up the
+receiver and when central answered, I said something about The Whispering
+Pines and wanting help. This is all I remember about that.
+
+"Some time afterward--I don't know when--I was stumbling down the stairs
+on my way out. I had gone to--to the room again for my little bag; for
+the keys were in it, and I dared not leave them. But I didn't stay a
+minute, and I cast but one glance at the lounge. What happened afterward
+is like a dream to me. I found the horse; the horse found the road; and
+some time later I reached home. As I came within sight of the house I
+grew suddenly strong again. The open stable door reminded me of my duty,
+and driving in, I quickly unharnessed Jenny and put her away. Then I
+dragged the cutter into place, and hung up the harness. Lastly, I locked
+the door and carried the key with me into the house and hung it up on its
+usual nail in the kitchen. I had obeyed Adelaide, and now I would go to
+my room. That is what she would wish; but I don't know whether I did this
+or not. My mind was full of Adelaide till confusion came--then
+darkness--and then a perfect blank."
+
+She had finished; she had done as she had been asked; she had told the
+story of that evening as she knew it, from the family dinner till her
+return home after midnight--and the mystery of Adelaide's death was as
+great as ever. Did she realise this? Had I wronged this lovely,
+tempestuous nature by suspicions which this story put to blush? I was
+happy to think so--madly, unreasonably happy. Whatever happened, whatever
+the future threatening Arthur or myself, it was rapture to be restored to
+right thinking as regards this captivating and youthful spirit, who had
+suffered and must suffer always--and all through me, who thought it a
+pleasant pastime to play with hearts, and awoke to find I was playing
+with souls, and those of the two noblest women I had ever known!
+
+The cutting in of some half dozen questions from Mr. Moffat, which I
+scarcely heard and which did not at all affect the status of the case as
+it now stood, served to cool down the emotional element, which had almost
+superseded the judicial, in more minds than those of the jury; and having
+thus prepared his witness for an examination at other and less careful
+hands, he testified his satisfaction at her replies, and turned her over
+to the prosecution, with the time-worn phrase:
+
+"Mr. District Attorney, the witness is yours."
+
+Mr. Fox at once arose; the moment was ripe for conquest. He put his most
+vital question first:
+
+"In all this interview with your sister, did you remark any discoloration
+on her throat?"
+
+The witness's lips opened; surprise spoke from her every feature.
+"Discoloration?" she repeated. "I do not know what you mean."
+
+"Any marks darker than the rest of her skin on her throat or neck?"
+
+"No. Adelaide had a spotless skin. It looked like marble as she lay
+there. No, I saw no marks."
+
+"Miss Cumberland, have you heard or read a full account of this trial?"
+
+She was trembling, now. Was it from fear of the truth, or under that
+terror of the unknown embodied in this question.
+
+"I do not know," said she. "What I heard was from my nurse and Mr.
+Moffat. I read very little, and that was only about the first days of
+the trial and the swearing in of jurors. This is the first time I have
+heard any mention made of marks, and I do not understand yet what you
+allude to."
+
+District Attorney Fox cast at Mr. Moffat an eloquent glance, which that
+gentleman bore unmoved; then turning back to the witness, he addressed
+her in milder and more considerate tones than were usually heard from him
+in cross-examination, and asked: "Did you hold your sister's hands all
+the time she lay dying, as you thought, on the lounge?"
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+"And did not see her raise them once?"
+
+"No, no."
+
+"How was it when you let go of them? Where did they fall then?"
+
+"On her breast. I laid them down softly and crossed them. I did not leave
+her till I had done this and closed her eyes."
+
+"And what did you do then?"
+
+"I went for the note, to burn it."
+
+"Miss Cumberland, in your direct examination, you said that you stopped
+still as you crossed the floor at the time, thinking that your sister
+called, and that you looked back at her to see."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Were her hands crossed then?"
+
+"Yes, sir, just the same."
+
+"And afterward, when you came from the fire after waiting some little
+time for courage?"
+
+"Yes, yes. There were no signs of movement. Oh, she was
+dead--quite dead."
+
+"No statements, Miss Cumberland. She looked the same, and you saw no
+change in the position of her hands?"
+
+"None; they were just as I left them."
+
+"Miss Cumberland, you have told us how, immediately after taking the
+poison, she staggered about the room, and sank first on a chair and then
+on the lounge. Were you watching her then?"
+
+"Oh, yes--every moment."
+
+"Her hands as well as her face?"
+
+"I don't know about her hands. I should have observed it if she had done
+anything strange with them."
+
+"Can you say she did not clutch or grip her throat during any of
+this time?"
+
+"Yes, yes. I couldn't have forgotten it, if she had done that. I remember
+every move she made so well. She didn't do that."
+
+Mr. Fox's eye stole towards the jury. To a man, they were alert, anxious
+for the next question, and serious, as the arbitrators of a man's life
+ought to be.
+
+Satisfied, he put the question: "When, after telephoning, you returned to
+the room where your sister lay, you glanced at the lounge?"
+
+"Yes, I could not help it."
+
+"Was it in the same condition as when you left--the pillows, I mean?"
+
+"I--I think so. I cannot say; I only half looked; I was terrified by it."
+
+"Can you say they had not been disturbed?"
+
+"No. I can say nothing. But what does--"
+
+"Only the answer, Miss Cumberland. Can you tell us how those pillows were
+arranged?"
+
+"I'm afraid not. I threw them down quickly, madly, just as I collected
+them. I only know that I put the window cushion down first. The rest fell
+anyhow; but they quite covered her--quite."
+
+"Hands and face?"
+
+"Her whole body."
+
+"And did they cover her quite when you came back?"
+
+"They must have--Wait--wait! I know I have no right to say that, but I
+cannot swear that I saw any change."
+
+"Can you swear that there was no change--that the pillows and the window
+cushion lay just as they did when you left the room?"
+
+She did not answer. Horror seemed to have seized hold of her. Her eyes,
+fixed on the attorney's face, wavered and, had they followed their
+natural impulse, would have turned towards her brother, but her
+fear--possibly her love--was her counsellor and she brought them back to
+Mr. Fox. Resolutely, but with a shuddering insight of the importance of
+her reply, she answered with that one weighty monosyllable which can
+crush so many hopes, and even wreck a life:
+
+"No."
+
+At the next moment she was in Dr. Carpenter's arms. Her strength had
+given way for the time, and the court was hastily adjourned, to give her
+opportunity for rest and recuperation.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+"WERE HER HANDS CROSSED THEN?"
+
+Threescore and ten I can remember well:
+Within the volume of which time, I have seen
+Hours dreadful, and things strange; but this sore night
+Hath trifled former knowledge.
+
+_Macbeth_.
+
+
+I shall say nothing about myself at this juncture. That will come later.
+I have something of quite different purport to relate.
+
+When I left the court-room with the other witnesses, I noticed a man
+standing near the district attorney. He was a very plain man--with no
+especial claims to attention, that I could see, yet I looked at him
+longer than I did at any one else, and turned and looked at him again as
+I passed through the doorway.
+
+Afterward I heard that he was Sweetwater, the detective from New York who
+had had so much to do in unearthing the testimony against
+Arthur,--testimony which in the light of this morning's revelations, had
+taken on quite a new aspect, as he was doubtless the first to
+acknowledge. It was the curious blending of professional disappointment
+and a personal and characteristic appreciation of the surprising
+situation, which made me observe him, I suppose. Certainly my heart and
+mind were full enough not to waste looks on a commonplace stranger
+unless there had been some such overpowering reason.
+
+I left him still talking to Mr. Fox, and later received this account of
+the interview which followed between them and Dr. Perry.
+
+"Is this girl telling the truth?" asked District Attorney Fox, as soon as
+the three were closeted and each could speak his own mind. "Doctor, what
+do you think?"
+
+"I do not question her veracity in the least. A woman who for purely
+moral reasons could defy pain and risk the loss of a beauty universally
+acknowledged as transcendent, would never stoop to falsehood even in her
+desire to save a brother's life. I have every confidence in her. Fox, and
+I think you may safely have the same."
+
+"You believe that she burnt herself--intentionally?"
+
+"I wouldn't disbelieve it--you may think me sentimental; I knew and loved
+her father--for any fortune you might name."
+
+"Say that you never knew her father; say that you had no more interest in
+the girl or the case, than the jurors have? What then---?
+
+"I should believe her for humanity's sake; for the sake of the happiness
+it gives one to find something true and strong in this sordid work-a-day
+world--a jewel in a dust-heap. Oh, I'm a sentimentalist, I acknowledge."
+
+Mr. Fox turned to Sweetwater. "And you?"
+
+"Mr. Fox, have you those tongs?"
+
+"Yes, I forgot; they were brought to my office, with the other exhibits.
+I attached no importance to them, and you will probably find them just
+where I thrust them into the box marked 'Cumb.'"
+
+They were in the district attorney's office, and Sweetwater at once rose
+and brought forward the tongs.
+
+"There is my answer," he said pointing significantly at one of the legs.
+
+The district attorney turned pale, and motioned Sweetwater to carry them
+back. He sat silent for a moment, and then showed that he was a man.
+
+"Miss Cumberland has my respect," said he.
+
+Sweetwater came back to his place.
+
+Dr. Perry waited.
+
+Finally Mr. Fox turned to him and put the anticipated question:
+
+"You are satisfied with your autopsy? Miss Cumberland's death was due to
+strangulation and not to the poison she took?"
+
+"That was what I swore to, and what I should have to swear to again if
+you placed me back on the stand. The poison, taken with her great
+excitement, robbed her of consciousness, but there was too little of it,
+or it was too old and weakened to cause death. She would probably have
+revived, in time; possibly did revive. But the clutch of those fingers
+was fatal; she could not survive it. It costs me more than you can ever
+understand to say this, but questions like yours must be answered. I
+should not be an honest man otherwise."
+
+Sweetwater made a movement. Mr. Fox turned and looked at him critically.
+
+"Speak out," said he.
+
+But Sweetwater had nothing to say.
+
+Neither had Dr. Perry. The oppression of an unsolved problem, involving
+lives of whose value each formed a different estimate, was upon them all;
+possibly heaviest upon the district attorney, the most serious portion of
+whose work lay still before him.
+
+To the relief of all, Carmel was physically stronger than we expected
+when she came to retake the stand in the afternoon. But she had lost a
+little of her courage. Her expectation of clearing her brother at a word
+had left her, and with it the excitation of hope. Yet she made a noble
+picture as she sat there, meeting, without a blush, but with an air of
+sweet humility impossible to describe, the curious, all-devouring glances
+of the multitude, some of them anxious to repeat the experience of the
+morning; some of them new to the court, to her, and the cause for which
+she stood.
+
+Mr. Fox kept nobody waiting. With a gentleness such as he seldom showed
+to any witness for the defence, he resumed his cross-examination by
+propounding the following question:
+
+"Miss Cumberland, in your account of the final interview you had with
+your sister, you alluded to a story you had once read together. Will you
+tell us the name of this story?"
+
+"It was called 'A Legend of Francis the First.' It was not a novel, but a
+little tale she found in some old magazine. It had a great effect upon
+us; I have never forgotten it."
+
+"Can you relate this tale to us in a few words?"
+
+"I will try. It was very simple; it merely told how a young girl marred
+her beauty to escape the attentions of the great king, and what respect
+he always showed her after that, even calling her sister."
+
+Was the thrill in her voice or in my own heart, or in the
+story--emphasised as it was by her undeniable attempt upon her own
+beauty? As that last word fell so softly, yet with such tender
+suggestion, a sensation of sympathy passed between us for the first time;
+and I knew, from the purity of her look and the fearlessness of this
+covert appeal to one she could not address openly, that the doubts I had
+cherished of her up to this very moment were an outrage and that were it
+possible or seemly, I should be bowed down in the dust at her feet--in
+reality, as I was in spirit.
+
+Others may have shared my feeling; for the glances which flew from her
+face to mine were laden with an appreciation of the situation, which for
+the moment drove the prisoner from the minds of all, and centred
+attention on this tragedy of souls, bared in so cruel a way to the
+curiosity of the crowd. I could not bear it. The triumph of my heart
+battled with the shame of my fault, and I might have been tempted into
+some act of manifest imprudence, if Mr. Fox had not cut my misery short
+by recalling attention to the witness, with a question of the most vital
+importance.
+
+"While you were holding your sister's hands in what you supposed to be
+her final moments, did you observe whether or not she still wore on her
+finger the curious ring given her by Mr. Ranelagh, and known as her
+engagement ring?"
+
+"Yes--I not only saw it, but felt it. It was the only one she wore on her
+left hand."
+
+The district attorney paused. This was an admission unexpected, perhaps,
+by himself, which it was desirable to have sink into the minds of the
+jury. The ring had not been removed by Adelaide herself; it was still on
+her finger as the last hour drew nigh. An awful fact, if
+established--telling seriously against Arthur. Involuntarily I glanced
+his way. He was looking at me. The mutual glance struck fire. What I
+thought, he thought--but possibly with a difference. The moment was
+surcharged with emotion for all but the witness herself. She was calm;
+perhaps she did not understand the significance of the occasion.
+
+Mr. Fox pressed his advantage.
+
+"And when you rose from the lounge and crossed your sister's hands?"
+
+"It was still there; I put that hand uppermost."
+
+"And left the ring on?"
+
+"Oh, yes--oh, yes." Her whole attitude and face were full of protest.
+
+"So that, to the best of your belief, it was still on your sister's
+finger when you left the room?"
+
+"Certainly, sir, certainly."
+
+There was alarm in her tone now, she was beginning to see that her
+testimony was not as entirely helpful to Arthur as she had been led to
+expect. In her helplessness, she cast a glance of entreaty at her
+brother's counsel. But he was busily occupied with pencil and paper, and
+she received no encouragement unless it was from his studiously composed
+manner and general air of unconcern. She did not know--nor did I know
+then--what uneasiness such an air may cover.
+
+Mr. Fox had followed her glances, and perhaps understood his adversary
+better than she did; for he drew himself up with an appearance of
+satisfaction as he asked very quietly:
+
+"What material did you use in lighting the fire on the club-house
+hearth?"
+
+"Wood from the box, and a little kindling I found there."
+
+"How large was this kindling?"
+
+"Not very large; some few stray pieces of finer wood I picked out from
+she rest."
+
+"And how did you light these?"
+
+"With some scraps of paper I brought in my bag?"
+
+"Oh--you brought scraps?"
+
+"Yes. I had seen the box, seen the wood, but knew the wood would not
+kindle without paper. So I brought some."
+
+"Did the fire light quickly?"
+
+"Not very quickly."
+
+"You had trouble with it?"
+
+"Yes, sir. But I made it burn at last."
+
+"Are you in the habit of kindling fires in your own home?"
+
+"Yes, on the hearth."
+
+"You understand them?"
+
+"I have always found it a very simple matter, if you have paper and
+enough kindling."
+
+"And the draught is good."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Wasn't the draught good at the club-house?"
+
+"Not at first."
+
+"Oh--not at first. When did you see a change?"
+
+"When the note I was trying to burn flew up the chimney."
+
+"I see. Was that after or before the door opened?"
+
+"After."
+
+"Did the opening of this door alter the temperature of the room?"
+
+"I cannot say; I felt neither heat nor cold at any time."
+
+"Didn't you feel the icy cold when you opened the dressing-closet window
+to throw out the phial?"
+
+"I don't remember."
+
+"Wouldn't you remember if you had?"
+
+"I cannot say."
+
+Can you say whether you noticed any especial chill in the hall when you
+went out to telephone?"
+
+"My teeth were chattering but--"
+
+"Had they chattered before?"
+
+"They may have. I only noticed it then; but--"
+
+"The facts, Miss Cumberland. Your teeth chattered while you were passing
+through the hall. Did this keep up after you entered the room where you
+found the telephone?"
+
+"I don't remember; I was almost insensible."
+
+"You don't remember that they did?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"But you do remember having shut the door behind you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+An open window in the hall! That was what he was trying to prove--open at
+this time. From the expression of such faces of the jury as I could see,
+I think he had proved it. The next point he made was in the same line.
+Had she, in all the time she was in the building, heard any noises she
+could not account for?
+
+"Yes, many times."
+
+"Can you describe these noises?"
+
+"No; they were of all kinds. The pines sighed continually; I knew it was
+the pines, but I had to listen. Once I heard a rushing sound--it was when
+the pines stopped swaying for an instant--but I don't know what it was.
+It was all very dreadful."
+
+"Was this rushing sound such as a window might make on being opened?"
+
+"Possibly. I didn't think of it at the time, but it might have been."
+
+"From what direction did it come?"
+
+"Back of me, for I turned my head about."
+
+"Where were you at the time?"
+
+"At the hearth. It was before Adelaide came in."
+
+"A near sound, or a far?"
+
+"Far, but I cannot locate it--indeed, I cannot. I forgot it in a moment."
+
+"But you remember it now?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And cannot you remember _now_ any other noises than those you speak of?
+That time you stepped into the hall--when your teeth chattered, you
+know--did you hear nothing then but the sighing of the pines?"
+
+She looked startled. Her hands went up and one of them clutched at her
+throat, then they fell, and slowly--carefully--like one feeling his
+way--she answered:
+
+"I had forgotten. I did hear something--a sound in one of the doorways.
+It was very faint--a sigh--a--a--I don't know what. It conveyed nothing
+to me then, and not much now. But you asked, and I have answered."
+
+"You have done right, Miss Cumberland. The jury ought to know these
+facts. Was it a human sigh?"
+
+"It wasn't the sigh of the pines."
+
+"And you heard it in one of the doorways? Which doorway?"
+
+"The one opposite the room in which I left my sister."
+
+"The doorway to the large hall?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Oh, the sinister memories! The moments which I myself had spent
+there--after this time of her passing through the hall, thank God!--but
+not long after. And some one had been there before me! Was it Arthur? I
+hardly had the courage to interrogate his face, but when I did, I, like
+every one else who looked that way, met nothing but the quietude of a
+fully composed man. There was nothing to be learned from him now; the
+hour for self-betrayal was past. I began to have a hideous doubt.
+
+Carmel being innocent, who could be guilty but he. I knew of no one.
+The misery under which I had suffered was only lightened, not removed.
+We were still to see evil days. The prosecution would prove its case,
+and--But there was Mr. Moffat. I must not reckon without Moffat. He
+had sprung one surprise. Was he not capable of springing another?
+Relieved, I fixed my mind again upon the proceedings. What was Mr. Fox
+asking her now?
+
+"Miss Cumberland, are you ready to swear that you did not hear a step at
+that time?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Or see a face?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"That you only heard a sigh?"
+
+"A sigh, or something like one."
+
+"Which made you stop--"
+
+"No, I did not stop."
+
+"You went right on?"
+
+"Immediately."
+
+"Entering the telephone room?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"The door of which you shut?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Intentionally?"
+
+"No, not intentionally."
+
+"Did you shut that door yourself?"
+
+"I do not know. I must have but I--"
+
+"Never mind explanations. You do not know whether you shut it, or whether
+some one else shut it?"
+
+"I do not."
+
+The words fell weightily. They seemed to strike every heart.
+
+"Miss Cumberland, you have said that you telephoned for the police."
+
+"I telephoned to central."
+
+"For help?"
+
+"Yes, for help."
+
+"You were some minutes doing this, you say?"
+
+"I have reason to think so, but I don't know definitely. The candle
+seemed shorter when I went out than when I came in."
+
+"Are you sure you telephoned for help?"
+
+"Help was what I wanted--help for my sister. I do not remember my
+words."
+
+"And then you left the building?"
+
+"After going for my little bag."
+
+"Did you see any one then?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Hear any one?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Did you see your sister again?"
+
+"I have said that I just glanced at the couch."
+
+"Were the pillows there?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Just as you had left them?"
+
+"I have said that I could not tell."
+
+"Wouldn't you know if they had been disturbed?"
+
+"No, sir--not from the look I gave them."
+
+"Then they might have been disturbed--might even have been
+rearranged---without your knowing it?"
+
+"They might."
+
+"Miss Cumberland, when you left the building, did you leave it alone?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"Was the moon shining?"
+
+"No, it was snowing."
+
+"Did the moon shine when you went to throw the phial out of the window?"
+
+"Yes, very brightly."
+
+"Bright enough for you to see the links?"
+
+"I didn't look at the links."
+
+"Where were you looking?"
+
+"Behind me."
+
+"When you threw the phial out?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What was there behind you?"
+
+"A dead sister." Oh, the indescribable tone!
+
+"Nothing else?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Forgive me, Miss Cumberland, I do not want to trouble you, but was there
+not something or some one in the adjoining room besides your dead sister,
+to make you look back?"
+
+"I saw no one. But I looked back--I do not know why."
+
+"And didn't you turn at all?"
+
+"I do not think so."
+
+"You threw the phial out without looking?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How do you know you threw it out?"
+
+"I felt it slip from my hand."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Over the window ledge. I had pulled the window open before I turned my
+head. I had only to feel for the sill. When I touched its edge, I opened
+my fingers."
+
+Triumph for the defence. Cross-examination on this point had only served
+to elucidate a mysterious fact. The position of the phial, caught in the
+vines, was accounted for in a very natural manner.
+
+Mr. Fox shifted his inquiries.
+
+"You have said that you wore a hat and coat of your brother's in coming
+to the club-house? Did you keep these articles on?"
+
+"No; I left them in the lower hall."
+
+"Where in the lower hall?"
+
+"On the rack there."
+
+"Was your candle lit?"
+
+"Not then, sir."
+
+"Yet you found the rack?"
+
+"I felt for it. I knew where it was."
+
+"When did you light the candle?"
+
+"After I hung up the coat."
+
+"And when you came down? Did you have the candle then?"
+
+"Yes, for a while. But I didn't have any light when I went for the coat
+and hat. I remember feeling all along the wall. I don't know what I did
+with the candlestick or the candle. I had them on the stairs; I didn't
+have them when I put on the coat and hat."
+
+I knew what she did with them. She flung them out of her hand upon the
+marble floor. Should I ever forget the darkness swallowing up that face
+of mental horror and physical suffering.
+
+"Miss Cumberland, you are sure about having telephoned for help, and that
+you mentioned The Whispering Pines in doing so?"
+
+"Quite sure." Oh, what weariness was creeping into her voice!
+
+"Then, of course, you left the door unlocked when you went out of the
+building?"
+
+"No--no, I didn't. I had the key and I locked it. But I didn't realise
+this till I went to untie my horse; then I found the keys in my hand. But
+I didn't go back."
+
+"Do you mean that you didn't know you locked the door?"
+
+"I don't remember whether I knew or not at the time. I do remember
+being surprised and a little frightened when I saw the keys. But I
+didn't go back."
+
+"Yet you had telephoned for the police?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And then locked them out?"
+
+"I didn't care--I didn't care."
+
+An infinite number of questions followed. The poor child was near
+fainting, but bore up wonderfully notwithstanding, contradicting herself
+but seldom; and then only from lack of understanding the question, or
+from sheer fatigue. Mr. Fox was considerate, and Mr. Moffat interrupted
+but seldom. All could see that this noble-hearted girl, this heroine of
+all hearts was trying to tell the truth, and sympathy was with her, even
+that of the prosecution. But certain facts had to be brought out, among
+them the blowing off of her hat on that hurried drive home through the
+ever thickening snow-storm--a fact easily accounted for, when one
+considered the thick coils of hair over which it had been drawn.
+
+The circumstances connected with her arrival at the house were all
+carefully sifted, but nothing new came up, nor was her credibility as a
+witness shaken. The prosecution had lost much by this witness, but it had
+also gained. No doubt now remained that the ring was still on the
+victim's hand when she succumbed to the effects of the poison; and the
+possibility of another presence in the house during the fateful interview
+just recorded, had been strengthened, rather than lessened, by Carmel' s
+hesitating admissions. And so the question hung poised, and I was
+expecting to see her dismissed from the stand, when the district
+attorney settled himself again into his accustomed attitude of inquiry,
+and launched this new question:
+
+"When you went into the stable to unharness your horse, what did you do
+with the little bag you carried?"
+
+"I took it out of the cutter."
+
+"What, then?"
+
+"Set it down somewhere."
+
+"Was there anything in the bag?"
+
+"Not now. I had left the tongs at the club-house, and the paper I had
+burned. I took nothing else."
+
+"How about the candlestick?"
+
+"That I carried in one of the pockets of my coat. That I left, too."
+
+"Was that all you carried in your pockets?"
+
+"Yes--the candlestick and the candle. The candlestick on one side and the
+candle on the other."
+
+"And these you did not have on your return?"
+
+"No, I left both."
+
+"So that your pockets were empty--entirely empty--when you drove into
+your own gate?"
+
+"Yes, sir, so far as I know. I never looked into them."
+
+"And felt nothing there?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Took nothing out?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Then or when you unharnessed your horse, or afterward, as you passed
+back to the house?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"What path did you take in returning to the house?"
+
+"There is only one."
+
+"Did you walk straight through it?"
+
+"As straight as I could. It was snowing heavily, and I was dizzy and felt
+strange, I may have zigzagged a little."
+
+"Did you zigzag enough to go back of the stable?"
+
+"Oh, no."
+
+"You are sure that you did not wander in back of the stable?"
+
+"As sure as I can be of anything."
+
+"Miss Cumberland, I have but a few more questions to ask. Will you look
+at this portion of a broken bottle?"
+
+"I see it, sir."
+
+"Will you take it in your hand and examine it carefully?"
+
+She reached out her hand; it was trembling visibly and her face expressed
+a deep distress, but she took the piece of broken bottle and looked at it
+before passing it back.
+
+"Miss Cumberland, did you ever see that bit of broken glass before?"
+
+She shook her head. Then she cast a quick look at her brother, and seemed
+to gain an instantaneous courage.
+
+"No," said she. "I may have seen a whole bottle like that, at some time
+in the club-house, but I have no memory of this broken end--none at all."
+
+"I am obliged to you, Miss Cumberland. I will trouble you no more
+to-day."
+
+Then he threw up his head and smiled a slow, sarcastic smile at
+Mr. Moffat.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+AND I HAD SAID NOTHING!
+
+O my soul's joy!
+If after every tempest come such calms
+May the winds blow till they have wakened death!
+
+_Othello_.
+
+
+I had always loved her; that I knew even in the hour of my darkest
+suspicion--but now I felt free to worship her. As the thought penetrated
+my whole being, it made the night gladsome. Whatever awaited her,
+whatever awaited Arthur, whatever awaited me, she had regenerated me. A
+change took place that night in my whole nature, in my aspect of life and
+my view of women. One fact rode triumphant above all other considerations
+and possible distresses. Fate--I was more inclined now to call it
+Providence--had shown me the heart of a great and true woman; and I was
+free to expend all my best impulses in honouring her and loving her,
+whether she ever looked my way again, received or even acknowledged a
+homage growing out of such wrong as I had done her and her unfortunate
+sister. It set a star in my firmament. It turned down all the ill-written
+and besmirched leaves in my book of life and opened up a new page on
+which her name, written in letters of gold, demanded clean work in the
+future and a record which should not shame the aura surrounding that pure
+name. Sorrow for the past, dread of the future--both were lost in the
+glad rebound of my distracted soul. The night was dedicated to joy, and
+to joy alone.
+
+The next day being Sunday, I had ample time for the reaction bound to
+follow hours of such exaltation. I had no wish for company. I even denied
+myself to Clifton. The sight of a human face was more than I could bear
+unless it were the one face; and that I could not hope for. But the
+desire to see her, to hear from her--if only to learn how she had endured
+the bitter ordeal of the day before--soon became unbearable. I must know
+this much at any cost to her feelings or to mine.
+
+After many a struggle with myself, I called up Dr. Carpenter on the
+telephone. From him I learned that she was physically prostrated, but
+still clear in mind and satisfied of her brother's innocence. This latter
+statement might mean anything; but imparted by him to me, it seemed to be
+capable of but one interpretation. I must be prepared for whatever
+distrust of myself this confidence carried with it.
+
+This was intolerable. I had to speak; I had to inquire if she had yet
+heard the real reason why I was the first to be arrested.
+
+A decided "No," cut short that agony. I could breathe again and proffer a
+humble request.
+
+"Doctor, I cannot approach her; I cannot even write,--it would seem too
+presumptuous. But tell her, as you find the opportunity, how I honour
+her. Do not let her remain under the impression that I am not capable of
+truly feeling what she has borne and must still bear."
+
+"I will do what I can," was his reply, and he mercifully cut short the
+conversation.
+
+This was the event of the morning.
+
+In the afternoon I sat in my window thinking. My powers of reasoning had
+returned, and the insoluble problem of Adelaide's murder occupied my
+whole mind. With Carmel innocent, who was there left to suspect? Not
+Arthur. His fingers were as guiltless as my own of those marks on her
+throat. Of this I was convinced, difficult as it made my future. My mind
+refused to see guilt in a man who could meet my eye with just the look he
+gave me on leaving the courtroom, at the conclusion of his sister's
+triumphant examination. It was a momentary glance, but I read it, I am
+sure, quite truthfully.
+
+"You are the man," it said; but not in the old, bitter, and revengeful
+way voiced by his tongue before we came together in the one effort to
+save Carmel from what, in our short-sightedness and misunderstanding of
+her character, we had looked upon as the worst of humiliations and the
+most desperate of perils. There was sadness in his conviction and an
+honest man's regret--which, if noted by those about us--was far more
+dangerous to my good name than the loudest of denunciations or the most
+acrimonious of assaults. It put me in the worst of positions. But one
+chance remained for me now.
+
+The secret man of guilt might yet come to light; but how or through whose
+agency, I found myself unable to conceive. I had neither the wit nor the
+experience to untangle this confused web. Should I find the law in shape
+to deal with it? A few days would show. With the termination of Arthur's
+trial, the story of my future would begin. Meanwhile, I must have
+patience and such strength as could be got from the present.
+
+And so the afternoon passed.
+
+With the coming on of night, my mood changed. I wanted air, movement. The
+closeness of my rooms had become unbearable. As soon as the lamps were
+lit in the street, I started out and I went--toward the cemetery.
+
+I had no motive in choosing this direction for my walk. The road was an
+open one, and I should neither avoid people nor escape the chilly blast
+blowing directly in my face from the northeast. Whim, or shall I not say,
+true feeling, carried me there though I was quite conscious, all the
+time, of a strong desire to see Ella Fulton and learn from her the
+condition of affairs--whether she was at peace, or in utter disgrace,
+with her parents.
+
+It was a cold night, as I have said, and there were but few people in the
+streets. On the boulevard I met nobody. As I neared the cemetery, I
+passed one man; otherwise I was, to all appearance, alone on this remote
+avenue. The effect was sinister, or my mood made it so; yet I did not
+hasten my steps; the hours till midnight had to be lived through in some
+way, and why not in this? No companion would have been welcome, and had
+the solitude been less perfect, I should have murmured at the prospect of
+intrusion.
+
+The cemetery gates were shut. This I had expected, but I did not need to
+enter the grounds to have a view of Adelaide's grave. The Cumberland lot
+occupied a knoll in close proximity to the fence, and my only intention
+had been to pass this spot and cast one look within, in memory of
+Adelaide. To reach the place, however, I had to turn a corner, and on
+doing so I saw good reason, as I thought, for not carrying out my
+intention at this especial time.
+
+Some man--I could not recognise him from where I stood--had forestalled
+me. Though the night was a dark one, sufficient light shone from the
+scattered lamps on the opposite side of the way for me to discern his
+intent figure, crouching against the iron bars and gazing, with an
+intentness which made him entirely oblivious of my presence, at the very
+plot--and on the very grave--which had been the end of my own pilgrimage.
+So motionless he stood, and so motionless I myself became at this
+unexpected and significant sight, that I presently imagined I could hear
+his sighs in the dread quiet into which the whole scene had sunk.
+
+Grief, deeper than mine, spoke in those labouring breaths. Adelaide was
+mourned by some one as I, for all my remorse, could never mourn her.
+
+_And I did not know the man_.
+
+Was not this strange enough to rouse my wonder?
+
+I thought so, and was on the point of satisfying this wonder by a quick
+advance upon this stranger, when there happened an uncanny thing, which
+held me in check from sheer astonishment. I was so placed, in reference
+to one of the street lamps I have already mentioned, that my shadow fell
+before me plainly along the snow. This had not attracted my attention
+until, at the point of moving, I cast my eyes down and saw two shadows
+where only one should be.
+
+As I had heard no one behind me, and had supposed myself entirely alone
+with the man absorbed in contemplation of Adelaide's grave, I experienced
+a curious sensation which, without being fear, held me still for a
+moment, with my eyes on this second shadow. It did not move, any more
+than mine did. This was significant, and I turned.
+
+A man stood at my back--not looking at me but at the fellow in front of
+us. A quiet "hush!" sounded in my ear, and again I stood still. But only
+for an instant.
+
+The man at the fence--aroused by my movement, perhaps--had turned, and,
+seeing our two figures, started to fly in the opposite direction.
+Instinctively I darted forward in pursuit, but was soon passed by the man
+behind me. This caused me to slacken; for I had recognised this latter,
+as he flew by, as Sweetwater, the detective, and knew that he would do
+this work better than myself.
+
+But I reckoned without my host. He went only as far as the spot where the
+man had been standing. When, in my astonishment, I advanced upon him
+there, he wheeled about quite naturally in my direction and, accosting me
+by name, remarked, in his genial off-hand manner:
+
+"There is no need for us to tire our legs in a chase after that man. I
+know him well enough."
+
+"And who--" I began.
+
+A quizzical smile answered me. The light was now in our faces, and I had
+a perfect view of his. Its expression quite disarmed me; but I knew, as
+well as if he had spoken, that I should receive no other reply to my
+half-formed question.
+
+"Are you going back into town?" he asked, as I paused and looked down at
+the umbrella swinging in his hand. I was sure that he had not held this
+umbrella when he started by me on the run. "If so, will you allow me to
+walk beside you for a little way?"
+
+I could not refuse him; besides, I was not sure that I wanted to. Homely
+as any man I had ever seen, there was a magnetic quality in his voice and
+manner that affected even one so fastidious as myself. I felt that I had
+rather talk to him, at that moment, than to any other person I knew. Of
+course, curiosity had something to do with it, and that community of
+interest which is the strongest bond that can link two people together.
+
+"You are quite welcome," said I; and again cast my eye at the umbrella.
+
+"You are wondering where I got this," he remarked, looking down at it in
+his turn. "I found it leaning against the fence. It gives me all the clue
+I need to our fleet-footed friend. Mr. Ranelagh, will you credit me with
+good intentions if I ask a question or two which you may or may not be
+willing to answer?"
+
+"You may ask what you will," said I. "I have nothing to conceal, since
+hearing Miss Cumberland's explanation of her presence at The
+Whispering Pines."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+The ejaculation was eloquent. So was the silence which followed it.
+Without good reason, perhaps, I felt the strain upon my heart loosen a
+little. Was it possible that I should find a friend in this man?
+
+"The question I am going to ask," he continued presently, "is one which
+you may consider unpardonable. Let me first express an opinion. You have
+not told all that you know of that evening's doings."
+
+This called for no reply and I made none.
+
+"I can understand your reticence, if your knowledge included the fact of
+Miss Cumberland's heroic act and her sister's manner of death at the
+club-house."
+
+"But it did not," I asserted, with deliberate emphasis. "I knew nothing
+of either. My arrival happened later. Miss Cumberland's testimony gave me
+my first enlightenment on these points. But I did know that the two
+sisters were there together, for I had a glimpse of the younger as she
+was leaving the house."
+
+"You had. And are willing to state it now?"
+
+"Assuredly. But any testimony of that kind is for the defence, and your
+interests are all with the prosecution. Mr. Moffat is the man who should
+talk to me."
+
+"Does he know it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Who told him?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"You?"
+
+"Yes, it was my duty."
+
+"You are interested then in seeing young Cumberland freed?"
+
+"I must be; he is innocent."
+
+The man at my side turned, shot at me one glance which I met quite
+calmly, then, regulating his step by mine, moved on silently for a
+moment--thinking, as it appeared to me, some very serious thoughts. It
+was not until we had traversed a whole block in this way that he finally
+put his question. Whether it was the one he had first had in mind, I
+cannot say.
+
+"Mr. Ranelagh, will you tell me why, when you found yourself in such a
+dire extremity as to be arrested for this crime, on evidence as startling
+as to call for all and every possible testimony to your innocence, you
+preserved silence in regard to a fact which you must have then felt would
+have secured you a most invaluable witness? I can understand why Mr.
+Cumberland has been loth to speak of his younger sister's presence in the
+club-house on that night; but his reason was not your reason. Yet you
+have been as hard to move on this point as he."
+
+Then it was I regretted my thoughtless promise to be candid with this
+man. To answer were impossible, yet silence has its confidences, too. In
+my dilemma, I turned towards him and just then we stepped within the
+glare of an electric light pouring from some open doorway. I caught his
+eye, and was astonished at the change which took place in him.
+
+"Don't answer," he muttered, volubly. "It isn't necessary. I understand
+the situation, now, and you shall never regret that you met Caleb
+Sweetwater on your walk this evening. Will you trust me, sir? A detective
+who loves his profession is no gabbler. Your secret is as safe with me as
+if you had buried it in the grave."
+
+And I had said nothing!
+
+He started to go, then he stopped suddenly and observed, with one of his
+wise smiles:
+
+"I once spent several minutes in Miss Carmel Cumberland's room, and I saw
+a cabinet there which I found it very hard to understand. But its meaning
+came to me later. I could not rest till it did."
+
+At the next moment he was half way around a corner, and in another,
+out of sight.
+
+This was the evening's event.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+THE ARROW OF DEATH
+
+O if you rear this house against this house,
+It will the wofulest division prove
+That ever fell upon this cursed earth.
+
+_Prometheus Unbound_.
+
+
+In my first glance around the court-room the next morning, I sought first
+for Carmel and then for the detective Sweetwater. Neither was visible.
+But this was not true of Ella. She had come in on her father's arm,
+closely followed by the erect figure of her domineering mother. As I
+scrutinised the latter's bearing, I seemed to penetrate the mystery of
+her nature. Whatever humiliation she may have felt at the public
+revelation of her daughter's weakness, it had been absorbed by her love
+for that daughter, or had been forced, through the agency of her
+indomitable will, to become a ministrant to her pride which was
+unassailable. She had accepted the position exacted from her by the
+situation, and she looked for no loss of prestige, either on her
+daughter's or her own account. Such was the language of her eyes; and it
+was a language which should have assured Ella that she had a better
+friend in her mother than she had ever dreamed of. The entrance of the
+defendant cut short my contemplation of any mere spectator. The change
+in him was so marked that I was conscious of it before I really saw him.
+Every eye had reflected it, and it was no surprise to me when I noted the
+relieved, almost cheerful aspect of his countenance as he took his place
+and met his counsel's greeting with a smile--the first, I believe, which
+had been seen on his face since his sister's death. That counsel I had
+already noted. He was cheerful also, but with a restrained cheerfulness.
+His task was not yet over, and the grimness of Mr. Fox, and the
+non-committal aspect of the jurymen, proved that it was not to be made
+too easy for him.
+
+The crier announced the opening of the court, and the defence proceeded
+by the calling of Ella Fulton to the witness stand.
+
+I need not linger over her testimony. It was very short and contained but
+one surprise. She had stated under direct examination that she had waited
+and watched for Arthur's return that whole night, and was positive that
+he had not passed through their grounds again after that first time in
+the early evening. This was just what I had expected from her. But the
+prosecution remembered the snowfall, and in her cross-examination on this
+point, she acknowledged that it was very thick, much too thick for her to
+see her own gate distinctly; but added, that this only made her surer of
+the fact she had stated; for finding that she could not see, she had
+dressed herself for the storm and gone out into the driveway to watch
+there, and had so watched until the town clock struck three.
+
+This did not help the prosecution. Sympathy could not fail to be with
+this young and tremulous girl, heroic in her love, if weak in other
+respects, and when on her departure from the stand, she cast one
+deprecatory glance at the man for whom she had thus sacrificed her pride,
+and, meeting his eye fixed upon her with anything but ingratitude,
+flushed and faltered till she with difficulty found her way, the
+sentiments of the onlookers became so apparent that the judge's gavel was
+called into requisition before order could be restored and the next
+witness summoned to testify.
+
+This witness was no less a person than Arthur himself. Recalled by his
+counsel, he was reminded of his former statement that he had left the
+club-house in a hurry because he heard his sister Adelaide's voice, and
+was now asked if hers was the only voice he had heard.
+
+His answer revealed much of his mind.
+
+"No, I heard Carmel's answering her."
+
+This satisfying Mr. Moffat, he was passed over to Mr. Fox, and a short
+cross-examination ensued on this point.
+
+"You heard both your sisters speaking?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Any of their words, or only their voices?"
+
+"I heard one word."
+
+"What word?"
+
+"The word, 'Elwood.'"
+
+"In which voice?"
+
+"In that of my sister Adelaide."
+
+"And you fled?"
+
+"Immediately."
+
+"Leaving your two sisters alone in this cold and out-of-the-way house?"
+
+"I did not think they were alone."
+
+"Who did you think was with them?"
+
+"I have already mentioned the name."
+
+"Yet you left them?"
+
+"Yes, I've already explained that. I was engaged in a mean act. I was
+ashamed to be caught at it by Adelaide. I preferred flight. I had no
+premonition of tragedy--any such tragedy as afterwards occurred. I
+understood neither of my sisters and my thoughts were only for myself."
+
+"Didn't you so much as try to account for their both being there?"
+
+"Not then."
+
+"Had you expected Adelaide to accompany your younger sister when you
+harnessed the horse for her?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Had not this younger sister even enjoined secrecy upon you in asking you
+to harness the horse?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Yet you heard the two together in this remote building without
+surprise?"
+
+"No, I must have felt surprise, but I didn't stop to analyse my feelings.
+Afterward, I turned it over in my mind and tried to make something out of
+the whole thing. But that was when I was far out on the links."
+
+A losing game thus far. This the district attorney seemed to feel; but he
+was not an ungenerous man though cursed (perhaps, I should say blessed,
+considering the position he held) by a tenacity which never let him lose
+his hold until the jury gave their verdict.
+
+"You have a right to explain yourself fully," said he, after a momentary
+struggle in which his generosity triumphed over his pride. "When you did
+think of your sisters, what explanation did you give yourself of the
+facts we have just been considering?"
+
+"I could not imagine the truth, so I just satisfied myself that Adelaide
+had discovered Carmel's intentions to ride into town and had insisted on
+accompanying her. They were having it out, I thought, in the presence of
+the man who had made all this trouble between them."
+
+"And you left them to the task?"
+
+"Yes, sir, but not without a struggle. I was minded several times to
+return. This I have testified to before."
+
+"Did this struggle consume forty minutes?"
+
+"It must have and more, if I entered the hold in Cuthbert Road at the
+hour they state."
+
+Mr. Fox gave up the game, and I looked to be the next person called. But
+it was not a part of Mr. Moffat's plan to weaken the effect of Carmel's
+testimony by offering any weak corroboration of facts which nobody showed
+the least inclination to dispute. Satisfied with having given the jury an
+opportunity to contrast his client's present cheerfulness and manly
+aspect with the sullenness he had maintained while in doubt of Carmel's
+real connection with this crime, Mr. Moffat rested his case.
+
+There was no testimony offered in rebuttal and the court took a recess.
+
+When it reassembled I cast another anxious glance around. Still no
+Carmel, nor any signs of Sweetwater. I could understand her absence, but
+not his, and it was in a confusion of feeling which was fast getting the
+upper hand of me, that I turned my attention to Mr. Moffat and the plea
+he was about to make for his youthful client.
+
+I do not wish to obtrude myself too much into this trial of another man
+for the murder of my betrothed. But when, after a wait during which the
+prisoner had a chance to show his mettle under the concentrated gaze of
+an expectant crowd, the senior counsel for the defence slowly rose, and,
+lifting his ungainly length till his shoulders lost their stoop and his
+whole presence acquired a dignity which had been entirely absent from it
+up to this decisive moment, I felt a sudden slow and creeping chill seize
+and shake me, as I have heard people say they experienced when uttering
+the common expression, "Some one is walking over my grave."
+
+It was not that he glanced my way, for this he did not do; yet I received
+a subtle message from him, by some telepathic means I could neither
+understand nor respond to--a message of warning, or, possibly of simple
+preparation for what his coming speech might convey.
+
+It laid my spirits low for a moment; then they rose as those of a better
+man might rise at the scent of danger. If he could warn, he could also
+withhold. I would trust him, or I would, at least, trust my fate. And so,
+good-bye to self. Arthur's life and Carmel's future peace were trembling
+in the balance. Surely these were worth the full attention of the man who
+loved the woman, who pitied the man.
+
+At the next moment I heard these words, delivered in the slow and but
+slightly raised tones with which Mr. Moffat invariably began his address:
+
+"May it please the court and gentlemen of the jury, my learned friend of
+the prosecution has shown great discretion in that, so far as appears
+from the trend of his examinations, he is planning no attempt to explain
+the many silences and the often forbidding attitude of my young client by
+any theory save the obvious one--the natural desire of a brother to hide
+his only remaining sister's connection with a tragedy of whose details he
+was ignorant, and concerning which he had formed a theory derogatory to
+her position as a young and well-bred woman.
+
+"I am, therefore, spared the task of pressing upon your consideration
+these very natural and, I may add, laudable grounds for my client's many
+hesitations and suppressions--which, under other circumstances, would
+militate so deeply against him in the eyes of an upright and impartial
+jury. Any man with a heart in his breast, and a sense of honour in his
+soul, can understand why this man--whatever his record, and however
+impervious he may have seemed in the days of his prosperity and the
+wilfulness of his youth--should recoil from revelations which would
+attack the honour, if not the life, of a young and beautiful sister, sole
+remnant of a family eminent in station, and in all those moral and civic
+attributes which make for the honour of a town and lend distinction to
+its history.
+
+"Fear for a loved one, even in one whom you will probably hear described
+as a dissipated man, of selfish tendencies and hitherto unbrotherly
+qualities, is a great miracle-worker. No sacrifice seems impossible which
+serves as a guard for one so situated and so threatened.
+
+"Let us review his history. Let us disentangle, if we can, our knowledge
+of what occurred in the clubhouse, from his knowledge of it at the time
+he showed these unexpected traits of self-control and brotherly anxiety,
+which you will yet hear so severely scored by my able opponent. His was a
+nature in which honourable instincts had forever battled with the secret
+predilections of youth for independence and free living. He rebelled at
+all monition; but this did not make him altogether insensible to the
+secret ties of kinship, or the claims upon his protection of two highly
+gifted sisters. Consciously or unconsciously, he kept watch upon the two;
+and when he saw that an extraneous influence was undermining their mutual
+confidence, he rebelled in his heart, whatever restraint he may have put
+upon his tongue and actions. Then came an evening, when, with heart
+already rasped by a personal humiliation, he saw a letter passed. You
+have heard the letter and listened to its answer; but he knew nothing
+beyond the fact--a fact which soon received a terrible significance from
+the events which so speedily followed."
+
+Here Mr. Moffat recapitulated those events, but always from the
+standpoint of the defendant--a standpoint which necessarily brought
+before the jury the many excellent reasons which his client had for
+supposing this crime to have resulted solely from the conflicting
+interests represented by that furtively passed note, and the visit of two
+girls instead of one to The Whispering Pines. It was very convincing,
+especially his picture of Arthur's impulsive flight from the club-house
+at the first sound of his sisters' voices.
+
+"The learned counsel for the people may call this unnatural," he cried.
+"He may say that no brother would leave the place under such
+circumstances, whether sober or not sober, alive to duty or dead to
+it--that curiosity would hold him there, if nothing else. But he forgets,
+if thus he thinks and thus would have you think, that the man who now
+confronts you from the bar is separated by an immense experience from the
+boy he was at that hour of surprise and selfish preoccupation.
+
+"You who have heard the defendant tell how he could not remember if he
+carried up one or two bottles from the kitchen, can imagine the blank
+condition of this untutored mind at the moment when those voices fell
+upon his ear, calling him to responsibilities he had never before
+shouldered, and which he saw no way of shouldering now. In that first
+instant of inconsiderate escape, he was alarmed for himself,--afraid of
+the discovery of the sneaking act of which he had just been guilty--not
+fearful for his sisters. _You_ would have done differently; but you are
+all men disciplined to forget yourselves and think first of others,
+taught, in the school of life to face responsibility rather than shirk
+it. But discipline had not yet reached this unhappy boy--the slave, so
+far, of his unfortunate habits. It began its work later; yet not much
+later. Before he had half crossed the golf-links, the sense of what he
+had done stopped him in middle course, and, reckless of the oncoming
+storm, he turned his back upon the place he was making for, only to
+switch around again, as craving got the better of his curiosity, or of
+that deeper feeling to which my experienced opponent will, no doubt,
+touchingly allude when he comes to survey this situation with you.
+
+"The storm, continuing, obliterated his steps as fast as the ever
+whitening spaces beneath received them; but if it had stopped then and
+there, leaving those wandering imprints to tell their story, what a tale
+we might have read of the first secret conflict in this awakening soul! I
+leave you to imagine this history, and pass to the bitter hour when,
+racked by a night of dissipation, he was aroused, indeed, to the
+magnitude of his fault and the awful consequences of his self-indulgence,
+by the news of his elder sister's violent death and the hardly less
+pitiful condition of the younger.
+
+"The younger!" The pause he here made was more eloquent than any words.
+"Is it for me to laud her virtues, or to seek to impress upon you in this
+connection, the overwhelming nature of the events which in reality had
+laid her mind and body low? You have seen her; you have heard her; and
+the memory of the tale she has here told will never leave you, or lose
+its hold upon your sympathies or your admiration. If everything else
+connected with this case is forgotten, the recollection of that will
+remain. You, and I, and all who wait upon your verdict, will in due time
+pass from among the living, and leave small print behind us on the sands
+of time. But her act will not die, and to it I now offer the homage of
+silence, since that would best please her heroic soul, which broke the
+bonds of womanly reserve only to save from an unmerited charge a falsely
+arraigned brother."
+
+The restraint and yet the fire with which Mr. Moffat uttered these simple
+words, lifted all hearts and surcharged the atmosphere with an emotion
+rarely awakened in a court of law. Not in my pulses alone was started the
+electric current of renewed life. The jury, to a man, glowed with
+enthusiasm, and from the audience rose one long and suppressed sigh of
+answering feeling, which was all the tribute he needed for his
+eloquence--or Carmel for her uncalculating, self-sacrificing deed. I
+could have called upon the mountains to cover _me_; but--God be
+praised--no one thought of me in that hour. Every throb, every thought
+was for her.
+
+At the proper moment of subsiding feeling, Mr. Moffat again raised
+his voice:
+
+"Gentlemen of the jury, you have seen point after point of the
+prosecution's case demolished before your eyes by testimony which no one
+has had the temerity to attempt to controvert. What is left? Mr. Fox will
+tell you--three strong and unassailable facts. The ring found in the
+murdered woman's casket, the remnants of the tell-tale bottle discovered
+in the Cumberland stable, and the opportunity for crime given by the
+acknowledged presence of the defendant on or near the scene of death. He
+will harp on these facts; he will make much of them; and he will be
+justified in doing so, for they are the only links remaining of the
+strong chain forged so carefully against my client.
+
+"But are these points so vital as they seem? Let us consider them, and
+see. My client has denied that he dropped anything into his sister's
+casket, much less the ring missing from that sister's finger. Dare you,
+then, convict on this point when, according to count, ten other persons
+were seen to drop flowers into this very place--any one of which might
+have carried this object with it?
+
+"And the bit of broken bottle found in or near the defendant's own
+stable! Is he to be convicted on the similarity it offers to the one
+known to have come from the club-house wine-vault, while a reasonable
+doubt remains of his having been the hand which carried it there? No!
+Where there is a reasonable doubt, no high-minded jury will convict;
+and I claim that my client has made it plain that there is such a
+reasonable doubt."
+
+All this and more did Mr. Moffat dilate upon. But I could no longer fix
+my mind on details, and much of this portion of his address escaped me.
+
+But I do remember the startling picture with which he closed. His
+argument so far, had been based on the assumption of Arthur's ignorance
+of Carmers purpose in visiting the club-house, or of Adelaide's attempt
+at suicide. His client had left the building when he said he did, and
+knew no more of what happened there afterward than circumstances showed,
+or his own imagination conceived. But now the advocate took a sudden
+turn, and calmly asked the jury to consider with him the alternative
+outlined by the prosecution in the evidence set before them.
+
+"My distinguished opponent," said he, "would have you believe that the
+defendant did not fly at the moment declared, but that he waited to
+fulfil the foul deed which is the only serious matter in dispute in his
+so nearly destroyed case. I hear as though he were now speaking, the
+attack which he will make upon my client when he comes to review this
+matter with you. Let me see if I cannot make you hear those words, too."
+And with a daring smile at his discomforted adversary, Alonzo Moffat
+launched forth into the following sarcasm:
+
+"Arthur Cumberland, coming up the kitchen stairs, hears voices where he
+had expected total silence--sees light where he had left total darkness.
+He has two bottles in his hands, or in his large coat-pockets. If they
+are in his hands, he sets them down and steals forward to listen. He has
+recognised the voices. They are those of his two sisters, one of whom had
+ordered him to hitch up the cutter for her to escape, as he had every
+reason to believe, the other. Curiosity--or is it some nobler
+feeling--causes him to draw nearer and nearer to the room in which they
+have taken up their stand. He can hear their words now and what are the
+words he hears? Words that would thrill the most impervious heart, call
+for the interference of the most indifferent. But _he_ is made of ice,
+welded together with steel. He sees--for no place save one from which he
+can watch and see, _viz_.: the dark dancing hall, would satisfy any man
+of such gigantic curiosity--Adelaide fall at Carmel's feet, in
+recognition of the great sacrifice she has made for her. But he does not
+move; he falls at no one's feet; he recognises no nobility, responds to
+no higher appeal. Stony and unmoved, he crouches there, and watches and
+watches--still curious, or still feeding his hate on the sufferings of
+the elder, the forbearance of the younger.
+
+"And on what does he look? You have already heard, but consider it.
+Adelaide, despairing of happiness, decides on death for herself or
+sister. Both loving one man, one of the two must give way to the other.
+Carmel has done her part; she must now do hers. She has brought poison;
+she has brought glasses--three glasses, for three persons, but only two
+are on the scene, and so she fills but two. One has only cordial in it,
+but the other is, as she believes, deadly. Carmel is to have her choice;
+but who believes that Adelaide would ever have let her drink the
+poisoned glass?
+
+"And this man looks on, as the two faces confront each other--one white
+with the overthrow of every earthly hope, the other under the stress of
+suffering and a fascination of horror sufficient to have laid her dead,
+without poison, at the other one's feet. This is what he sees--_a
+brother!_--and he makes no move, then or afterwards, when, the die cast,
+Adelaide succumbs to her fear and falls into a seemingly dying state on
+the couch.
+
+"Does he go now? Is his hate or his cupidity satisfied? No! He remains
+and listens to the tender interchange of final words, and all the late
+precautions of the elder to guard the younger woman's good name. Still he
+is not softened; and when, the critical moment passed, Carmel rises and
+totters about the room in her endeavour to fulfil the tasks enjoined upon
+her by her sister, he gloats over a death which will give him
+independence and gluts himself with every evil thought which could blind
+him to the pitiful aspects of a tragedy such as few men in this world
+could see unmoved. _A brother_!
+
+"But this is not the worst. The awful cup of human greed and hatred is
+but filled to the brim; it has not yet overflowed. Carmel leaves the
+room; she has a telephonic message to deliver. She may be gone a minute;
+she may be gone many. Little does he care which; he must see the dead,
+look down on the woman who has been like a mother to him, and see if her
+influence is forever removed, if his wealth is his, and his independence
+forever assured.
+
+"Safe in the darkness of the gloomy recesses of the dancing hall, he
+steals slowly forward. Drawn as by a magnet, he enters the room of
+seeming death, draws up to the pillow-laden couch, pulls off first one
+cushion, and then another, till face and hands are bare and--
+
+"Ah!--there is a movement! death has not, then, done its work. She
+lives--the hated one--_lives_! And he is no longer rich, no longer
+independent. With a clutch, he seizes her at the feeble seat of life; and
+as the breath ceases and her whole body becomes again inert, he stoops to
+pull off the ring, which can have no especial value or meaning for
+him--and then, repiling the cushions over her, creeps forth again, takes
+up the bottles, and disappears from the house.
+
+"Gentlemen of the jury, this is what my opponent would have you believe.
+This will be his explanation of this extraordinary murder. But when his
+eloquence meets your ears--when you hear this arraignment, and the
+emphasis he will place upon the few points remaining to his broken case,
+then ask yourself if you see such a monster in the prisoner now
+confronting you from the bar. I do not believe it. I do not believe that
+such a monster lives.
+
+"But you say, _some one_ entered that room--_some one_ stilled the
+fluttering life still remaining in that feeble breast. Some one may have,
+but that some one was not my client, and it is his guilt or innocence we
+are considering now, and it is his life and freedom for which you are
+responsible. No brother did that deed; no witness of the scene which
+hallowed this tragedy ever lifted hand against the fainting Adelaide, or
+choked back a life which kindly fate had spared.
+
+"Go further for the guilty perpetrator of this most inhuman act; he
+stands not in the dock. Guilt shows no such relief as you see in him
+to-day. Guilt would remember that his sister's testimony, under the
+cross-examination of the people's prosecutor, left the charge of murder
+still hanging over the defendant's head. But the brother has forgotten
+this. His restored confidence in one who now represents to him father,
+mother, and sister has thrown his own fate into the background. Will you
+dim that joy--sustain this charge of murder?
+
+"If in your sense of justice you do so, you forever place this degenerate
+son of a noble father, on the list of the most unimaginative and
+hate-driven criminals of all time. Is he such a demon? Is he such a
+madman? Look in his face to-day, and decide. I am willing to leave his
+cause in your hands. It could be placed in no better.
+
+"May it please your Honour, and gentlemen of the jury, I am done."
+
+If any one at that moment felt the arrow of death descending into his
+heart, it was not Arthur Cumberland.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+"STEADY!"
+
+I am a tainted wether of the flock,
+Meetest for death; the weakest kind of fruit
+Drops earliest to the ground, and so let me.
+You cannot better be employ'd, Bassanio,
+Than to live still, and write my epitaph.
+
+_Merchant of Venice_.
+
+
+Why linger over the result. Arthur Cumberland's case was won before Mr.
+Fox arose to his feet. The usual routine was gone through. The district
+attorney made the most of the three facts which he declared inconsistent
+with the prisoner's innocence, just as Mr. Moffat said he would; but the
+life was gone from his work, and the result was necessarily
+unsatisfactory.
+
+The judge's charge was short, but studiously impartial. When the jury
+filed out, I said to myself, "They will return in fifteen minutes." They
+returned in ten, with a verdict of acquittal.
+
+The demonstrations of joy which followed filled my ears, and doubtless
+left their impression upon my other senses; but my mind took in nothing
+but the apparition of my own form taking his place at the bar, under
+circumstances less favourable to acquittal than those which had
+exonerated him. It was a picture which set my brain whirling. A phantom
+judge, a phantom jury, a phantom circle of faces, lacking the
+consideration and confidence of those I saw before me; but not a phantom
+prisoner, or any mere dream of outrageous shame and suffering.
+
+That shame and that suffering had already seized hold of me. With the
+relief of young Arthur's acquittal my faculties had cleared to the
+desperate position in which this very acquittal had placed me.
+
+I saw, as never before, how the testimony which had reinstated Carmel in
+my heart and won for her and through her the sympathies of the whole
+people, had overthrown every specious reason which I and those interested
+in me had been able to advance in contradiction of the natural conclusion
+to be drawn from the damning fact of my having been seen with my fingers
+on Adelaide's throat.
+
+Mr. Moffat's words rang in my ears: "Some one entered that room; some one
+stilled the fluttering life still remaining in that feeble breast; but
+that some one was not her brother. You must look further for the guilty
+perpetrator of this most inhuman act; some one who had not been a witness
+to the scene preceding this tragedy, some one--" he had not said this but
+every mind had supplied the omission,--"some one who had come in later,
+who came in after Carmel had gone, some one who knew nothing of the
+telephone message which was even then hastening the police to the spot;
+some one who had every reason for lifting those cushions and, on meeting
+_life_--"
+
+The horror stifled me; I was reeling in my place on the edge of the
+crowd, when I heard a quiet voice in my ear:
+
+"Steady! Their eyes will soon be off of Arthur, and then they will
+look at you."
+
+It was Clifton, and his word came none too soon. I stiffened under its
+quiet force, and, taking his arm, let him lead me out of a side door,
+where the crowd was smaller and its attention even more absorbed.
+
+I soon saw its cause--Carmel was entering the doorway from the street.
+She had come to greet her brother; and her face, quite unveiled, was
+beaming with beauty and joy. In an instant I forgot myself, forgot
+everything but her and the effect she produced upon those about her. No
+noisy demonstration here; admiration and love were shown in looks and the
+low-breathed prayer for her welfare which escaped from more than one pair
+of lips. She smiled and their hearts were hers; she essayed to move
+forward and the people crowded back as if at a queen's passage; but there
+was no noise.
+
+When she reappeared, it was on Arthur's arm. I had not been able to move
+from the place in which we were hemmed; nor had I wished to. I was hungry
+for a glance of her eye. Would it turn my way, and, if it did, would it
+leave a curse or a blessing behind it? In anxiety for the blessing, I was
+willing to risk the curse; and I followed her every step with hungry
+glances, until she reached the doorway and turned to give another shake
+of the hand to Mr. Moffat, who had followed them. But she did not see me.
+
+"I cannot miss it! I must catch her eye!" I whispered to Clifton. "Get me
+out of this; it will be several minutes before they can reach the sleigh.
+Let me see her, for one instant, face to face."
+
+Clifton disapproved, and made me aware of it; but he did my bidding,
+nevertheless. In a few moments we were on the sidewalk, and quite by
+ourselves; so that, if she turned again she could not fail to observe me.
+I had small hope, however, that she would so turn. She and Arthur were
+within a few feet of the curb and their own sleigh.
+
+I had just time to see this sleigh, and note the rejoicing face of Zadok
+leaning sideways from the box, when I beheld her pause and slowly turn
+her head around and peer eagerly--and with what divine anxiety in her
+eyes--back over the heads of those thronging about her, until her gaze
+rested fully and sweetly on mine. My heart leaped, then sank down, down
+into unutterable depths; for in that instant her face changed, horror
+seized upon her beauty, and shook her frantic hold on Arthur's arm.
+
+I heard words uttered very near me, but I did not catch them. I did feel,
+however, the hand which was laid strongly and with authority upon my
+shoulder; and, tearing my eyes from her face only long enough to perceive
+that it was Sweetwater who had thus arrested me, I looked back at her, in
+time to see the questions leap from her lips to Arthur, whose answers I
+could well understand from the pitying movement in the crowd and the low
+hum of restrained voices which ran between her sinking figure and the
+spot where I stood apart, with the detective's hand on my shoulder.
+
+She had never been told of the incriminating position in which I had been
+seen in the club-house. It had been carefully kept from her, and she had
+supposed that my acquittal in the public mind was as certain as Arthur's.
+Now she saw herself undeceived, and the reaction into doubt and misery
+was too much for her, and I saw her sinking under my eyes.
+
+"Let me go to her!" I shrieked, utterly unconcerned with anything in the
+world but this tottering, fainting girl.
+
+But Sweetwater's hand only tightened on my shoulder, while Arthur, with
+an awful look at me, caught his sister in his arms, just as she fell to
+the ground before the swaying multitude.
+
+But he was not the only one to kneel there. With a sound of love and
+misery impossible to describe, Zadok had leaped from the box and had
+grovelled at those dear feet, kissing the insensible hands and praying
+for those shut eyes to open. Even after Arthur had lifted her into the
+sleigh, the man remained crouching where she had fallen, with his eyes
+roaming back and forth in a sightless stare from her to myself, muttering
+and groaning, and totally unheedful of Arthur's commands to mount the box
+and drive home. Finally some one else stepped from the crowd and
+mercifully took the reins. I caught one more glimpse of her face, with
+Arthur's bent tenderly over it; then the sleigh slipped away.
+
+An officer shook Zadok by the arm and he got up and began to move
+aside. Then I had mind to face my own fate, and, looking up, I met
+Sweetwater's eye.
+
+It was quietly apologetic.
+
+"I only wished to congratulate you," said he, "on the conclusion of a
+case in which I know you are highly interested." Lifting his hat, he
+nodded affably and was gone before I could recover from my stupor.
+
+It was for Clifton to show his indignation. I was past all feeling.
+Farce as an after-piece never appealed to me.
+
+Would I have considered it farce if I could have heard the words which
+this detective was at that moment whispering into the district
+attorney's ears:
+
+"Do you want to know who throttled Adelaide Cumberland? It was not her
+brother; it was not her lover; it was her old and trusted coachman."
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+"AS IF IT WERE A MECCA"
+
+--I have within my mind
+A thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks
+Which I will practise.
+
+_Merchant of Venice_.
+
+
+"Give me your reasons. They must be excellent ones, Sweetwater, or you
+would not risk making a second mistake in a case of this magnitude and
+publicity."
+
+"Mr. Fox, they are excellent. But you shall judge of them. From the
+moment Miss Carmel Cumberland overthrew the very foundations of our case
+by her remarkable testimony, I have felt that my work was only half done.
+It was a strain on credulity to believe Arthur guilty of a crime so
+prefaced, and the alternative which Mr. Moffat believed in, which you
+were beginning to believe in, and perhaps are allowing yourself to
+believe in even now, never appealed to me.
+
+"I allude to the very natural suspicion that the act beheld by your man
+Clarke was a criminal act, and that Ranelagh is the man really
+responsible for Miss Cumberland's death. Some instinct held me back from
+this conclusion, as well as the incontrovertible fact that he could have
+had no hand in carrying that piece of broken bottle into the Cumberland
+stable, or of dropping his engagement ring in the suggestive place where
+it was found. Where, then, should I look for the unknown, the
+unsuspected third party? Among the ten other persons who dropped
+something into that casket.
+
+"Most of these were children, but I made the acquaintance of every one. I
+spent most of my Sunday that way; then, finding no clouded eye among
+them, I began a study of the Cumberland servants, naturally starting with
+Zadok. For two hours I sat at his stable fire, talking and turning him
+inside out, as only we detectives know how. I found him actually
+overwhelmed with grief; not the grief of a sane man, but of one in whom
+the very springs of life are poisoned by some dreadful remorse.
+
+"He did not know he revealed this; he expressed himself as full of hope
+that his young master would be acquitted the next day; but I could see
+that this prospect could never still the worm working at his heart, and
+resolved to understand why. I left him ostensibly alone, but in reality
+shadowed him. The consequence was that, in the evening dusk, he led me to
+the cemetery, where he took up his watch at Miss Cumberland's grave, as
+if it were a Mecca and he a passionate devotee. I could hear his groans
+as he hung to the fence and spoke softly to the dead; and though I was
+too far away to catch a single word, I felt confident that I had at last
+struck the right track, and should soon see my way more clearly than at
+any time since this baffling case opened.
+
+"But before I allowed my fancy to run away with me, I put in an evening
+of inquiry. If this man had an absolute alibi, what was the use of
+wasting effort upon him. But I could not find that he had, Mr. Fox. He
+went with the rest of the servants to the ball--which, you know, was held
+in Tibbitt's Hall, on Ford Street and he was seen there later, dancing
+and making merry in a way not usual to him. But there was a space of time
+dangerously tallying with that of the tragic scene at the club-house,
+when he was not seen by any one there, so far as I can make out; and this
+fact gave me courage to consider a certain point which had struck me, and
+of which I thought something might be made.
+
+"Mr. Fox, after the fiasco I have made of this affair, it costs me
+something to go into petty details which must suggest my former failures
+and may not strike you with the force they did me. That broken bottle--
+or rather, that piece of broken bottle! Where was the rest of it? Sought
+for almost immediately after the tragedy, it had not been found at the
+Cumberland place or on the golf-links. It had been looked for carefully
+when the first thaw came; but, though glass was picked up, it was not the
+same glass. The task had become hopeless and ere long was abandoned.
+
+"But with this idea of Zadok being the means of its transfer from The
+Whispering Pines to the house on the Hill, I felt the desire to look once
+more, and while court was in session this morning, I started a fresh
+search--this time not on the golf-links. Tibbitt's Hall communicates more
+quickly with The Whispering Pines by the club-house road than by the
+market one. So I directed my attention to the ground in front, and on
+the further side of the driveways. _And I found the neck of that bottle_!
+
+"Yes, sir, I will show it to you later. I picked it up at some distance
+from the northern driveway, under a small tree, against the trunk of
+which it had evidently been struck off. This meant that the lower part
+had been carried away, broken.
+
+"Now, who would do this but Zadok, who saw in it, he has said, a
+receptacle for some varnish which he had; and if Zadok, how had he
+carried it, if not in some pocket of his greatcoat. But glass edges make
+quick work with pockets; and if this piece of bottle had gone from The
+Whispering Pines to Tibbitt's Hall, and from there to the Hill, there
+should be some token of its work in Zadok's overcoat pocket.
+
+"This led me to look for those tokens; and as I had by this time
+insinuated my way into his confidence by a free and cheerful manner which
+gave him a rest from his gloomy thoughts, I soon had a chance to see for
+myself the condition of those pockets. The result was quite satisfactory.
+In one of them I found a frayed lining, easily explainable on the theory
+I had advanced. That pocket can be seen by you.
+
+"But Mr. Fox, I wanted some real proof. I wasn't willing to embarrass
+another man, or to risk my own reputation on a hazard so blind as
+this, without something really definite. A confession was what I
+wanted, or such a breakdown of the man as would warrant police action.
+How could I get this?
+
+"I am a pupil of Mr. Gryce, and I remembered some of his methods.
+
+"This man, guilty though he might be, loved this family, and was
+broken-hearted over the trouble in which he saw it plunged. Excused
+to-day from attendance at court, he was in constant telephonic
+communication with some friend of his, who kept him posted as to the
+conduct of the trial and the probabilities of a favourable verdict.
+
+"If the case had gone against Arthur, we should have heard from his
+coachman--that I verily believe, but when we all saw that he was likely
+to be acquitted, I realised that some other course must be taken to shake
+Zadok from his new won complacency, and I chose the most obvious one.
+
+"Just when everything looked most favourable to their restored peace and
+happiness, I shocked Miss Carmel and, through her, this Zadok, into the
+belief that the whole agony was to be gone over again, in the rearrest
+and consequent trial of the man she still loves, in spite of all that has
+happened to separate them.
+
+"He was not proof against this new responsibility. As she fainted, he
+leaped from the box; and, could I have heard the words he muttered in her
+ear, I am sure that I should have that to give you which would settle
+this matter for all time. As it is, I can only say that my own
+convictions are absolute; the rest remains with you."
+
+"We will go see the man," said District Attorney Fox.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI
+
+THE SURCHARGED MOMENT
+
+For Justice, when triumphant, will weep down
+Pity, not punishment, on her own wrongs,
+Too much avenged by those who err. I wait,
+Enduring thus, the retributive hour
+Which since we spake is even nearer now.
+
+_Prometheus Unbound_.
+
+
+The moment I felt Sweetwater's hand lifted from my shoulder I sprang into
+the first hack I could find, and bade the driver follow the Cumberland
+sleigh post-haste. I was determined to see Carmel and have Carmel see me.
+Whatever cold judgment might say against the meeting, I could not live in
+my present anxiety. If the thunderbolt which had struck her had spared
+her life and reason she must know from my own lips that I was not only a
+free man, but as innocent of the awful charge conveyed in Sweetwater's
+action as was the brother, who had just been acquitted of it by the
+verdict of his peers.
+
+I must declare this, and she must believe me. Nothing else
+mattered--nothing else in all the world. That Arthur might stop me, that
+anything could stop me, did not disturb my mind for a minute. All that I
+dreaded was that I might find myself too late; that this second blow
+might have proved to be too much for her, and that I should find my
+darling dead or passed from me into that living death which were the
+harder punishment of the two. But I was spared this killing grief. When
+our two conveyances stopped, it was in the driveway of her old home; and
+as I bounded upon the walk, it was to see her again in Arthur's arms, but
+this time with open eyes and horror-drawn features.
+
+"Carmel!" rushed in a cry from my lips. "Don't believe what they say. I
+cannot bear it--I cannot bear it!"
+
+She roused; she looked my way, and struggling to her feet, held back
+Arthur with one hand while she searched my face--and possibly searched
+her own soul--for answer to my plea. Never was moment more surcharged.
+Further word I could not speak; I could only meet her eyes with the
+steady, demanding look of a despairing heart, while Arthur moved in every
+fibre of his awakened manhood, waited--thinking, perhaps, how few minutes
+had passed since he hung upon the words of a fellow being for his
+condemnation to death, or release to the freedom which he now enjoyed.
+
+A moment! But what an eternity before I saw the rigid lines of her white,
+set face relax--before I marked the play of human, if not womanly,
+emotion break up the misery of her look and soften her youthful lips into
+some semblance of their old expression. Love might be dead--friendship,
+even, be a thing of the far past--but consideration was still alive and
+in another instant it spoke in these trembling sentences, uttered across
+a threshold made sacred by a tragedy involving our three lives:
+
+"Come in and explain yourself. No man should go unheard. I know you will
+not come where Adelaide's spirit yet lingers, if you cannot bring hands
+clean from all actual violence."
+
+I motioned my driver away, and as Carmel drew back out of sight, I caught
+at Arthur's arm and faced him with the query:
+
+"Are you willing that I should enter? I only wish to declare to her, and
+to you, an innocence I have no means of proving, but which you cannot
+disbelieve if I swear it, here and now, by your sister Carmel's sacred
+disfigurement. Such depravity could not exist, as such a vow from the
+lips guilty of the crime you charge me with. Look at me, Arthur. I
+considered you--now consider me."
+
+Quickly he stepped back. "Enter," said he.
+
+It was some minutes later--I cannot say how many--that one of the
+servants disturbed us by asking if we knew anything about Zadok.
+
+"He has not come home," said he, "and here is a man who wants him."
+
+"What man?" asked Arthur.
+
+"Oh, that detective chap. He never will leave us alone."
+
+I arose. In an instant enlightenment had come to me. "It's nothing," said
+I with my eyes on Carmel; but the gesture I furtively made Arthur, said
+otherwise.
+
+A few minutes later we were both in the driveway. "We are on the brink of
+a surprise," I whispered. "I think I understand this Sweetwater now."
+
+Arthur looked bewildered, but he took the lead in the interview which
+followed with the man who had made him so much trouble and was now doing
+his best to make us all amends.
+
+Zadok could not be found; he was wanted by the district attorney, who
+wished to put some questions to him. Were there any objections to his
+searching the stable-loft for indications of his whereabouts?
+
+Arthur made none; and the detective, after sending the Cumberlands'
+second man before him to light up the stable, disappeared beneath the
+great door, whither we more slowly followed him.
+
+"Not here!" came in a shout from above, as we stepped in from the night
+air; and in a few minutes the detective came running down the stairs,
+baffled and very ill at ease. Suddenly he encountered my eye. "Oh--I
+know!" he cried, and started for the gate.
+
+"I am going to follow him," I confided to Arthur. "Look for me again
+to-night; or, at least, expect a message. If fortune favours us, as I now
+expect, we two shall sleep to-night as we have not slept for months." And
+waiting for no answer, not even to see if he comprehended my meaning, I
+made a run for the gate, and soon came up with Sweetwater.
+
+"To the cemetery?" I asked.
+
+"Yes, to the cemetery."
+
+And there we found him, in the same place where we had seen him before,
+but not in the same position. He was sunken now to the ground; but his
+face was pressed against the rails, and in his stiff, cold hand was
+clutched a letter which afterwards we read.
+
+Let it be read by you here. It will explain the mystery which came near
+destroying the lives of more than Adelaide.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+No more unhappy wretch than I goes to his account. I killed her who had
+shown me only goodness, and will be the death of others if I do not
+confess my dreadful, my unsuspected secret. This is how it happened. I
+cannot give reasons; I cannot even ask for pardon.
+
+That night, just as I was preparing to leave the stable to join the other
+servants on their ride to Tibbitt's Hall, the telephone rang and I heard
+Miss Cumberland's voice. "Zadok," she said--and at first I could hardly
+understand her,--"I am in trouble; I want help, and you are the only one
+who can aid me. Answer; do you hear me and are you quite alone in the
+stable?" I told her yes, and that I was listening to all she said. I
+suspected her trouble, and was ready to stand by her, if a man like me
+could do anything.
+
+I had been with her many years, and I loved her as well as I could love
+anybody; though you won't think it when I tell you my whole story. What
+she wanted was this: I was to go to the ball just as if nothing had
+happened, but I was not to stay there. As soon as I could, I was to slip
+out, get a carriage from some near-by stable, and hurry back up the road
+to meet her and take her where she would tell me; or, if I did not meet
+her, to wait two houses below hers, till she came along. She would not
+want me long, and very soon I could go back and have as good a time as I
+pleased. But she would like me to be secret, for her errand was not one
+for gossip, even among her own servants.
+
+It was the first time she had ever asked me to do anything for her
+which any one else might not have done, and I was proud of her
+confidence, and happy to do just what she asked. I even tried to do
+better, and be even more secret about it than she expected. Instead of
+going to a stable, I took one of the rigs which I found fastened up in
+the big shed alongside the hall; and being so fortunate as not to
+attract anybody's attention by this business, I was out on the road and
+half way to The Whispering Pines, before Helen and Maggie could wonder
+why I had not asked them to dance.
+
+A few minutes later I was on the Hill, for the horse I had chosen was a
+fast one; and I was just turning into our street when I was passed by Mr.
+Arthur's grey mare and cutter. This made me pull up for a minute, for I
+hadn't expected this; but on looking ahead and seeing Miss Cumberland
+peering from our own gateway, I drove quickly on and took her up.
+
+I was not so much astonished as you would think, to be ordered to follow
+fast after the mare and cutter, and to stop where it stopped. That was
+all she wanted--to follow that cutter, and to stop where it stopped.
+Well, it stopped at the club-house; and when she saw it turn in there, I
+heard her give a little gasp.
+
+"Wait," she whispered. "Wait till she has had time to get out and go
+in; then drive in, too, and help me to find my way into the building
+after her."
+
+And then I knew it was Miss Carmel we had been following. Before, I
+thought it was Mr. Arthur.
+
+Presently, she pulled me by the sleeve. "I heard the door shut," said
+she--and I was a little frightened at her voice, but I was full of my
+importance, and went on doing just as she bade me. Driving in after the
+cutter, I drew up into the shadows where the grey mare was hid, and then,
+reaching out my hand to Miss Cumberland, I helped her out, and went with
+her as far as the door. "You may go back now," said she. "If I survive
+the night, I shall never forget this service, my good Zadok." And I saw
+her lift her hand to the door, then fall back white and trembling in the
+moonlight. "I can't," she whispered, over and over; "I can't--I can't."
+
+"Shall I knock?" I asked.
+
+"No, no," she whispered back. "I want to go in quietly; let's see if
+there's no other way. Run about the house, Zadok; I will submit to any
+humiliation; only find me some entrance other than this." She was shaking
+so and her face looked so ghastly in the moonlight that I was afraid to
+leave her; but she made me a gesture of such command that I ran quickly
+down the steps, and so round the house till I came to a shed over the top
+of which I saw a window partly open.
+
+Could I get her up on to the shed? I thought I could, and went hurrying
+back to the big entrance where I had left her. She was still there,
+shivering with the cold, but just as determined as ever. "Come," I
+whispered; "I have found a way."
+
+She gave me her hand and I led her around to the shed. She was like a
+snow woman and her touch was ice itself. "Wait till I get a box or board
+or something," I said. Hunting about, I found a box leaning against the
+kitchen side, and, bringing it, I helped her up and soon had her on a
+level with the window.
+
+As she made her way in, she turned and whispered to me: "Go back
+now. Carmel has a horse, and will see me home. You have served me
+well, Zadok."
+
+I nodded, and she vanished into the darkness. Then I should have gone;
+but my curiosity was too great. I wanted to know just a little more. Two
+women in this desolate and bitterly cold club-house! What did it mean?
+
+I could not restrain myself from following her in and listening, for a
+few minutes, to what they had to say. But I did not catch much of it; and
+when I heard other sounds from some place below, and recognised these
+sounds as a man's heavy footsteps coming up the rear stairs, I got a
+fright at being where I should not be, and slipped into the first door I
+found, expecting this man to come out and join the ladies.
+
+But he did not; he just lingered for a moment in the hall I had left,
+then I heard him clamber out of the window and go. I now know that this
+was Mr. Arthur. But I did not know it then, and I was frightened for
+the horse I had run off with, and so got out of the building as quickly
+as I could.
+
+And all might yet have been well if I had not found, lying on the snow at
+the foot of the shed, a bottle of whiskey such as I had never drunk and
+did not know how to resist. Catching it up, I ran about the house to
+where I had left my rig. It was safe, and in my relief at finding it, I
+knocked off the head of the bottle and took a long drink.
+
+Then I drank again; then I sat down in the snow and drank again. In
+short, I nearly finished it; then I became confused; I looked at the
+piece of broken bottle in my hand, took a fancy to its shape, and
+breaking off a bit more, thrust it into one of my big pockets. Then I
+staggered up to the horse; but I did not untie him.
+
+Curiosity seized me again, and I thought I would take another look at the
+ladies--perhaps they might want me--perhaps--I was pretty well confused,
+but I went back and crawled once more into the window.
+
+This time the place was silent--not a sound, not a breath,--but I
+could see a faint glimmer of light. I followed this glimmer. Still
+there was no sound.
+
+I came to an open door. A couch was before me, heaped with cushions. A
+long ray of moonlight had shot in through a communicating door, and I
+could see everything by it. This was where the ladies had been when I
+listened before, but they were not here now.
+
+Weren't they? Why did I tremble so, then, and stare and stare at those
+cushions? Why did I feel I must pull them away, as I presently did? I was
+mad with liquor and might easily have imagined what I there saw; but I
+did not think of this then. I believed what I saw instantly. Miss
+Cumberland was dead, and I had discovered the crime. She had killed
+herself--no, she had been killed!
+
+Should I yell out murder? No, no; I could be sorry without that. I would
+not yell--mistresses were plenty. I had liked her, but I need not yell.
+There was something else I could do.
+
+She had a ring on her finger--a ring that for months I had gloated over
+and watched, as I had never watched and gloated over any other beautiful
+thing in my life. I wanted it--I had always wanted it. It was before me,
+for the taking now--I should be a fool to leave it there for some other
+wretch to pilfer. I had loved her--I would love the ring.
+
+Reaching down, I took it. I drew it from her finger; I put it in my
+pocket; I--God in heaven! The eyes I had seen glassed in death were
+looking at me.
+
+She was not dead--she had been witness of the theft. Without a thought of
+what I was doing, my hands closed round her throat. It was
+drink--fright--terror at the look she gave me--which made me kill her;
+not my real self. My real self could have shrieked when, in another
+instant, I saw my work.
+
+But shrieking would not bring her back and it would quite ruin me. Miss
+Carmel was somewhere near. I heard her now at the telephone; in another
+minute she would come out and meet me. I dared not linger.
+
+Tossing back the pillows, I stumbled from the place. Why I was not heard
+by my young mistress, I do not know; her ears were deaf, just as my eyes
+were half-blind. In a half hour I was dancing with the maids, telling
+them of the pretty stranger with whom I had been sitting out an hour of
+fun in a quiet corner. They believed me, and not a particle of suspicion
+has any man ever had of me since.
+
+But others have had to suffer, and that has made hell of my nights. I
+restored the ring to my poor mistress; but even that brought harm to one
+I had no quarrel with. But he has escaped conviction; and if I thought
+Mr. Ranelagh would also escape, I might have courage to live out my
+miserable life, and seek to make amends in the way she would have me.
+
+But I fear for him; I fear for Miss Carmel. Never could I testify in
+another trial which threatened her peace of mind. I see that, instead of
+being the selfish stealer of her sister's happiness, as I had thought,
+she is an angel from whom all future suffering should be kept.
+
+This is my way of sparing her. Perhaps it will help her sister to forgive
+me when we meet in the world to which I am now going.
+
+
+
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