One of My Sons
by Anna Katharine Green · English · Gutenberg #34710 · 553,351 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of One of My Sons
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: One of My Sons
Author: Anna Katharine Green
Release date: December 21, 2010 [eBook #34710]
Most recently updated: January 7, 2021
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34710
Credits: Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Suzanne Shell, and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
(This file was produced from images generously made
available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ONE OF MY SONS ***
Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Suzanne Shell, and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
(This file was produced from images generously made
available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
[Illustration: "THAT OF A HAND HOLDING A BOTTLE"]
ONE OF MY SONS
BY
ANNA KATHARINE GREEN
(MRS. CHARLES ROHLFS)
AUTHOR OF "THE LEAVENWORTH CASE," "HAND AND RING,"
"MARKED 'PERSONAL,'" "THAT AFFAIR NEXT DOOR," ETC.
[Illustration]
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
THE KNICKERBOCKER PRESS
1901
COPYRIGHT, 1901
BY
ANNA KATHARINE ROHLFS
* * * * *
CONTENTS
BOOK I
THE SHADOW
PAGE
I.--THE CHILD, AND WHAT SHE LED ME INTO 1
II.--THE YOUNG DOCTOR AND THE OLD 6
III.--WHAT A DOOR HID 21
IV.--"HE DRANK IT ALONE" 32
V.--HOPE 38
VI.--A HAPPY INSPIRATION 50
VII.--THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN BY THE NEWEL-POST 54
VIII.--THE MAN BEHIND THE SCREEN 71
IX.--THE CLOCK THAT HAD RUN DOWN 88
X.--THE PENCIL 96
XI.--SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT 101
XII.--GOSSIP 104
XIII.--INDICATIONS 110
XIV.--A SUDDEN TURN 127
XV.--THE MISSING POCKET 139
XVI.--IN THE PARLOUR AT MRS. PENRHYN'S 147
BOOK II
THE MAN
PAGE
XVII.--THE MONOGRAM 157
XVIII.--THE PHIAL 176
XIX.--I MAKE MY FIRST MOVE 187
XX.--THE LITTLE HOUSE IN NEW JERSEY 192
XXI.--MILLE-FLEURS 201
XXII.--A DISAGREEABLE HOUR WITH A DISAGREEABLE MAN 212
XXIII.--IN MY OFFICE 224
XXIV.--AN OLD CATASTROPHE IS RECALLED 239
XXV.--A SUMMONS 255
XXVI.--FERRY LIGHTS 262
XXVII.--RAIN 272
XXVIII.--BY THE LIGHT OF A GUTTERING CANDLE 282
XXIX.--THE QUIET HOUR 313
XXX.--AN UNEXPECTED ALLY 320
XXXI.--SWEETWATER HAS AN IDEA 327
XXXII.--WITH THE SHADE DOWN 336
XXXIII.--IN WHICH WE CAN PARDON MR. GRYCE HIS
UNFORTUNATE ILLNESS 344
XXXIV.--"IT WAS THE SHOCK!" 352
XXXV.--ROSES 363
* * * * *
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
"_That of a hand holding a bottle_" Frontispiece
"_One hand was pressed against his heart_" 4
"_Crouched against the farther wall, with
wide-extended eyes fixed full upon
us_" 30
"_I saw her wild figure jump out and
plunge away in the direction of the
river_" 186
"_In two minutes I was under that open
window_" 276
"_She glided into our presence in one rapturous
whirl_" 296
* * * * *
ONE OF MY SONS
BOOK I
THE SHADOW
I
THE CHILD, AND WHAT SHE LED ME INTO
I was walking at a rapid pace up the avenue one raw, fall evening,
when somewhere near the corner of Fifty----Street I was brought to a
sudden stand-still by the sound of a child's voice accosting me from
the stoop of one of the handsome houses I was then passing.
"O sir!" it cried, "please come in. Please come to grandpa. He's sick
and wants you."
Surprised, for I knew no one on the block, I glanced up and saw
bending from the open doorway the trembling figure of a little girl,
with a wealth of curly hair blowing about her sweet, excited face.
"You have made a mistake," I called up to her. "I am not the person
you suppose. I am a stranger. Tell me whom you know about here and I
will see that someone comes to your grandpa."
But this did not satisfy her. Running down the stoop, she seized me by
the arm with childish impetuosity, crying: "No, no. There isn't time.
Grandpa told me to bring in the first man I saw going by. You are the
first man. Come!"
There was urgency in her tones, and unconsciously I began to yield to
her insistence, and allow myself to be drawn towards the stoop.
"Who is your grandpa?" I asked, satisfied from the imposing look of
the house that he must be a man of some prominence. "If he is sick
there are the servants"--But here her little foot came down in
infantile impatience.
"Grandpa never waits!" she cried, dragging me with her small hands up
the stoop and into the open door. "If you don't hurry he'll think I
didn't do as he told me."
What man would not have yielded? The hall, as seen from the entrance,
was wide and unusually rich. Indeed, an air of the highest
respectability, as well as of unbounded wealth, characterised the
whole establishment; and however odd the adventure appeared, it
certainly offered nothing calculated to awaken distrust. Entering with
her, I shut the door behind me. In an instant she was half-way down
the hall.
"Here! here!" she cried, pausing before a door near its end.
The confidence with which she summoned me (I sometimes wonder if my
countenance conveys more than the ordinary amount of good nature) and
the pretty picture she made, standing in the flood of light which
poured from the unseen apartment toward which she beckoned me, lured
me on till I reached her side, and stood in full view of a scene which
certainly justified her fear if not the demand she made upon a passing
stranger.
In the midst of a small room, plain as any office, I saw an elderly
gentleman standing who, even to my unaccustomed eyes, seemed to be not
simply ill, but in the throes of actual dissolution.
Greatly disturbed, for I had anticipated nothing so serious, I turned
to fly for assistance, when the little child, rushing by me, caught
her grandfather by the knees and gave me such a look, I had not the
heart to leave her.
Indeed it would have been cruel to do so. The appearance and attitude
of the sick man were startling even to me. Though in a state bordering
on death, he was, as I have said, standing, not lying, and his tall
figure swaying against the large table to which he clung, formed a
picture of mental and physical suffering such as I had never before
seen, and can never in all my life to come, forget. One hand was
pressed against his heart, but the other, outspread in a desperate
attempt to support his weight, had fallen on some half-dozen sheets or
so of typewritten paper, which, slipping under the pressure put upon
them, kept him tottering, though he did not fall. He was looking my
way, and as I advanced into the room, his collapsing frame shook with
sudden feeling, and the hand which he held clenched over his heart
opened slightly, revealing a scrap of paper crushed between his
fingers.
Struck with compassion, for the contrast was pitiful between his
naturally imposing appearance and his present helplessness, I murmured
some words of sympathy and encouragement, and then supposing him to be
alone in the house with his grandchild, inquired what I could do to
serve him.
He cast a meaning glance down at his hand, then seeing that I did not
understand him, made a super-human effort and held that member out,
uttering some inarticulate words which I was able to construe into a
prayer to take from him the paper which his stiffening clutch made it
difficult for him to release.
Touched by his extremity, and anxious to afford him all the solace his
desperate case demanded, I drew the paper from between his fingers. As
I did so I noted, first, that it was a portion of one of the sheets I
saw scattered about on every side, and, secondly, that it was folded
together as if intended for someone's private perusal.
"What shall I do with this?" I asked, consulting his eye over which a
glaze was fast forming.
He let his own glance wander eagerly till it fell upon some envelopes,
then it became fixed, and I understood.
Drawing out one, I placed the slip in it, and fastening the envelope,
consulted his face with a smile.
He answered with a look so full of thanks, appreciation, and
confidence that I felt abashed. Something of more than ordinary
significance was conveyed by that look, and I was about to ask what
name I should write on the envelope, when the faint sounds with which
he had been trying to express his secret wishes became articulate, and
I heard these words:
[Illustration: "ONE HAND WAS PRESSED AGAINST HIS HEART"]
"To no one--no one else! To--to----"
Alas! at this critical moment and just as the name was faltering on
his lips, his utterance failed. He strove for expression, but no words
would come.
In a desperation, which was but the faint reflection of his own, I
tried to help him.
"Is it for your lawyer?" I suggested; then, as he made no sign, I
hastily added: "For your doctor? For your wife? For anyone in the
house?"
He gave me one supreme look, raised his eyes, and for an instant stood
in an attitude so expressive of joy and indefinable expectancy that I
was astonished beyond words and forgot that I was in the presence of
death. But only for a moment. While I was still marvelling at this
sudden change in him, the child who was clinging to him uttered a
terrified scream and unloosed her arms. Then I saw him sink, gasp, and
fall forward, and, springing, caught him in my arms before his head
could touch the floor. Alas! it was the last service I could render
him. By the time I had laid him down he had expired, and I found
myself, in no other company than that of a trembling child, bending
above the dead body of a man who with his last breath had charged me
with a commission of whose purport I understood nothing, save that
under no circumstances and upon no pretext was I to deliver the letter
he had entrusted to me, to anyone but the person for whom it was
intended.
But who was this person? Ah, that was the question! Certainly my
position in this house of strangers was a most extraordinary one.
II
THE YOUNG DOCTOR AND THE OLD
Meanwhile the child had started down the hall, and up the stairs,
calling:
"Papa! Papa!"
Startled by this intimation of another person's presence in a house I
had supposed to hold no one but ourselves, I hastily followed her till
she reached the floor above and paused before a shut door. Here
something seemed to restrain her.
"Papa's inside," she whispered.
If this was so, he was not alone. Laughter, quick exclamations, and
the clink of glasses could plainly be heard through the door; and
shocked at the contrast offered by this scene of mirth to the solemn
occurrence which had just taken place below, I hesitated to enter, and
looked about for some means of communicating with the servants who I
now felt must be below. But here the terrified child, who was clinging
to my knee, interposed:
"I do not think papa is there. Papa does not like cards. Uncle George
does. Come, let's look for papa."
She dragged me toward the front of the house, entered another room,
and seemed surprised to find the light turned down and her papa gone.
"Perhaps he is with Uncle Alph," she faltered, and, bounding up
another flight of stairs, turned around to see if I was behind her.
There seemed no alternative left but to follow her till I came upon
someone; so I hastened up this second staircase. She had already
entered a room.
"O Uncle Alph!" I heard her cry. "Grandpa's lying on the floor
downstairs. I cannot find papa. I'm so frightened," and she ran
sobbing towards the young man, who rose to receive her in an
abstraction which even these startling words failed to break.
For this and other reasons I noticed him particularly notwithstanding
the embarrassment of my own position. He was a handsome man of the
luxury-loving type, whose characteristics it would be useless to
describe, since they were of a nature to suggest, rather than explain
the extent of his attractions. I afterwards heard from such of my
friends as were in the habit of walking the avenue with him, that he
never failed to draw the attention of passers-by; something in his
features, his carriage, or the turn of his head and shoulders stamping
him as a man worth looking at, not only once, but twice. At this
moment, however, I was not so much impressed by his good looks, as by
his uneasy and feverish expression.
He had caught up a letter which he had been engaged in writing at our
entrance, and as the child's appeal rang out, he crumpled it nervously
in his hand, and dropped it into the waste-paper basket. As a certain
furtive haste characterised this action, my attention was caught by
it, and I found myself wondering whether it was a letter or
memorandum he thus sacrificed to his surprise.
Meanwhile he seemed to be trying to take in what the little one
wanted. Evidently he had not as yet noticed me standing in the
doorway, and I thought it best to introduce myself.
"I beg your pardon," said I, "I am Arthur Outhwaite of the firm of
Robinson & Outhwaite, lawyers. I was passing by the house when this
child called me in to the assistance of her grandfather whom, I am
sorry to say, I found in a very precarious condition in his study
downstairs. If he is your father, you have my sympathy for his sudden
demise. He died in my arms a moment ago; and having been the witness
of his last moments, I could not leave the house without explaining my
position to his relatives."
"Dead! Father?"
It was not grief, it was hardly astonishment which gave force to this
brief and involuntary exclamation. It was something quite different,
something which it shocked me to hear in his tones and see sparkle in
his eye. But this expression, whatever it betokened, lasted but a
moment. Catching up the child in his arms, he hid his face behind her
and rushed towards the door. Me he hardly noticed.
"Where is he?" he asked, ignoring or forgetting what I had told him.
It was the child who answered.
"In the den, Uncle Alph. Don't take me there; I'm afraid. Set me down;
I want to find Hope."
He hastily obeyed her, and the child ran away. Then, and only then, he
seemed to take in my presence.
"You were called in from the street?" he wonderingly observed; "I
don't understand it. Where were my brothers? They were near enough to
render him assistance. Why should a stranger be called in?"
This was a question for which I had no answer, so I made none. He did
not seem to be struck by the omission.
"Let us go down," said he.
I opened the door which the little one had closed behind her, and
proceeded toward the stair-head. From certain indistinct noises which
I had heard during the foregoing short interchange of words, I
expected to find the house in a state of alarm and everyone alert. But
the card-players were still at their game on the floor below, and I
was not surprised to see my companion pause and give an admonitory
kick to the door through which such incongruous noises issued.
"Father's ill!" he shouted in a voice hoarse with many passions; and
waiting for no reply, he rushed ahead of me downstairs, followed by
some half-dozen partially sobered men.
Among these latter I noticed one whom I took to be the elder brother
of him whom the little one had addressed as Uncle Alph. He had the
same commanding appearance, the same abstracted air, and woke, when he
did wake, to the same curious condition of conflicting emotions. But I
did not have time to dwell long upon this feature of the extraordinary
affair in which I had become thus curiously involved.
The alarm which had been so slow in spreading above, had passed like
wildfire through the lower part of the house, and we found some
half-dozen servants standing in and about the small room where the
master of the house lay stretched. Some were wringing their hands,
some were crying, and some, rigid with terror, stared at the face they
had so lately seen with the hue of health upon it.
At our approach they naturally withdrew to the hall, and I presently
found myself standing between the group thus formed and the three or
four young gentlemen visitors who had not followed the brothers into
the room. Amongst the latter I saw one whose face was not altogether
unfamiliar, and it was from him that I gained my first information
concerning the man to whose dying passion I had been witness, and from
whom I had received the strange commission which, unknown to those
about me, made my continued presence in this house a necessity from
which the embarrassment of the occasion could not release me.
The dead man was Archibald Gillespie, the well-known stockbroker and
railroad magnate, whose name, as well as those of his three
spendthrift sons, was in every man's mouth since that big deal by
which he had made two millions in less than two months.
Meanwhile one of the gentlemen who had accompanied the two Gillespies
into the room where their father lay, came out looking very pale. He
was a doctor, though to all appearance not the family physician.
"Will one of you go for Dr. Bennett?" he asked. "Bring him at once
and at any cost; Mr. Gillespie cannot be moved till he comes."
Dr. Bennett evidently was the family physician.
"Why can't he be moved?" called out a voice near me. "Is there
anything wrong? Mr. Gillespie was violently sick a month ago. I
suppose he got around too quickly."
But the young doctor, without replying, stepped back into the room,
leaving us all agog, though few of us ventured upon open remonstrance.
In another minute one of the men near me slipped out in obedience to
the request just made.
"Is Mrs. Gillespie living?" I asked, after a moment spent in more or
less indecision.
"Where have you come from?" was the answer given, seasoned by a stare
I bore with what equanimity I could. "Mrs. Gillespie has been dead
these fifteen years."
So! the letter was not meant for his wife.
Here I caught an eye fixed on mine. It was that of one of the servants
who stood huddled about the doorway of what appeared to be a large
dining-room on the opposite side of the hall. When this man, for it
was a male servant, saw that he had attracted my attention, he made me
an imperceptible sign. As he was old and grey-haired, I heeded the
sign he made and stepped towards him. Instantly he greeted me with the
whisper:
"You seem to be the only sober man here. Don't let them do anything
till Mr. Leighton comes in. He is the saint of the family, sir."
"Is he the little girl's father?" I asked.
The man nodded. "And a good man, too," he insisted. "A very good man."
Was this honest judgment or sarcasm? I had heard that each of Mr.
Gillespie's sons had given his father no end of trouble.
Meantime a silence deeper than that of awe had spread throughout the
house. Feeling myself out of place and yet strangely in place, I drew
aside into as inconspicuous a corner as I could find, and waited as
all the others did, for the family physician.
While doing so I caught stray glimpses of my first acquaintance,
Alfred Gillespie, who, fretted by some anxiety he could not altogether
conceal, came more than once into the hall and threw furtive glances
up the stairway. Was it the little girl he was concerned about? If so,
I shared his anxiety.
At last the bell rang. Instantly, so great was the strain upon us, we
all moved, and one or two bounded towards the door. But it was opened
by the butler with that mechanical habitude such old servants acquire,
and, though nothing could shake the calm deference of this trained
domestic, there was something in the bow with which he greeted the
newcomer which assured us that the man we so anxiously expected had
arrived.
I had seen Dr. Bennett more than once, but never before showing so
much anxiety. Whether from shock or some secret cause not to be
communicated to us, this old and capable physician seemed to be in a
condition of as much agitation as ourselves, and obeyed the summons of
the young doctor who stood beckoning to him from the threshold of the
little den, with an appearance of alacrity that nevertheless had an
odd element of hesitation in it. I might not have noticed this under
other circumstances, and am quite sure that no one else detected any
peculiarity in his manner, but to me, everything was important which
offered anything like a clue to the proper understanding of a
situation in which I found myself so deeply, yet so secretly involved.
Mr. Gillespie's physician remained for some minutes closeted with the
sons of the deceased and their young medical friend; then he came out.
Instantly I saw from his expression that our fears or rather, those of
the young doctor, were not without foundation. Yet he was careful not
to raise an alarm, and in addressing us, spoke in strictly
professional tones:
"A sad case, gentlemen! Mr. Gillespie has taken an overdose of
chloral. We will have to leave him where he is till the coroner can be
called."
A gasp followed by the clink of breaking glass came from the
dining-room behind me. The old butler had dropped a glass he had just
lifted off the mantel-shelf of the dining-room.
The doctor was at his side in a moment.
"What is that?" he demanded.
The butler stooped for the pieces.
"Only the glass Mr. Gillespie drank out of. He asked for wine a half
hour ago. Your words frightened me, sir."
He did not look frightened; but old servants of his stamp possess a
strange immobility.
"I will pick up these pieces," said the doctor, stooping beside the
man.
The butler drew back. Dr. Bennett picked up the pieces. They were all
dry. Evidently the glass had been drained.
As he came out he cast a keen but not unkindly glance at the group of
young men drawn up in the doorway.
"Which of you was the witness of Mr. Gillespie's death?" he asked.
I bowed. I dreaded his questions, yet saw no way of evading them. If
only Mr. Gillespie had been able to articulate the one word which
would have relieved me of all further responsibility in this matter!
"You are the person who was called into the house by Mr. Gillespie's
grandchild?" the doctor now asked, meeting my eye with the same
expression of instantaneous and complete confidence I had seen on the
features of his unhappy patient.
"I am," I replied; and proceeded to relate the circumstances with all
the simplicity the occasion required. Only I said nothing about the
letter which had been entrusted to me for delivery to some unknown
person. How could I? There had been no encouragement in Mr.
Gillespie's expression when I asked him if the note I had taken from
him was meant for his doctor.
The account I was able to give of the deceased broker's last moments
seemed to deepen the impression which had been made upon the physician
by the condition in which he found him. Taking up the pieces of glass
he had collected from the dining-room hearth, he sniffed them
carefully, during which act the two sons of Mr. Gillespie watched him
with starting eyes. When he laid them down again, we could none of
us conceal our curiosity.
"You have something dreadful to communicate," murmured the elder son.
The doctor hesitated; then he glanced from one to the other of the two
handsome faces before him, and remarked:
"Your brother is not here. Do you know if he is likely to return
soon?"
"Where is Mr. Leighton?" inquired Alfred, turning towards the
servants. "I thought he meant to remain home to-night."
The butler respectfully advanced.
"Mr. Leighton went out an hour ago," said he. "He and Mr. Gillespie
had a few words in the den, sir, after which he put on his hat and
coat and went out."
"Did you see your master at that time?"
"No, sir, I only heard his voice."
"Did that sound natural?"
The old servant seemed loath to reply, but feeling the doctor's eye
resting imperatively upon him, he hesitatingly admitted:
"It wasn't quiet, sir, if you mean that. Mr. Gillespie seemed to be
angry or very much displeased. He spoke quite loud."
"Where were you?"
"In the dining-room, sir, putting away the last of the dinner dishes."
"Did you hear what your master said?"
"No, sir; it was something about religion; too much religion."
"My brother attends too many mission services to please my father,"
explained Alfred in a low tone.
The doctor heard, but did not take his eye from the old servant.
"Was this before he took the glass of wine you have just told us he
asked for?"
"Yes, sir, just before. It was Mr. Leighton who came for it. He said
his father looked tired."
"Ah, and how came the glass to be back then on the dining-room
mantel-shelf?"
"I don't know, sir. Perhaps Mr. Gillespie put it there himself. He
never liked any litter on his study table, sir."
At this statement the older brother opened his lips, but I noticed he
did not speak. There were no traces of intoxication about him now.
"I wish you would show me the bottle from which you poured the wine."
The butler, whose name I afterwards learned to be Hewson, led the way
to a large buffet extending half across the dining-room wall. From
where I stood in the hall-way I could see him pointing out a bottle of
what looked like sherry. Suddenly he gave a start.
"That isn't the one," he cried, loud enough for me to hear. "The
bottle I took out for Mr. Leighton was half-empty. This is quite
full."
Again I saw the lips of the elder brother move, and again he refrained
from speaking.
"I should like to have that bottle found," said the physician; "but no
one need look for it now. Indeed, it would be better for us to wait
for Leighton's return before making any further movement. George,
Alfred, may I ask you to leave me alone with your father for a few
minutes. And let the dining-room be cleared. I don't want to have to
make any excuses to the coroner when he arrives. Your father has not
died a natural death."
It was an announcement for which we had been in a measure prepared by
the serious manner of the young doctor, yet it seemed to me it ought
to have occasioned a greater, or at least a different display of
feeling on the part of the two most intimately concerned. I looked for
an exchange of glances between them or at least some hurried words of
sorrow or dismay. But though all evinced strong emotion, no looks
passed between them, nor did they make the least attempt at mutual
sympathy or encouragement. Were they not on confidential terms? The
moment certainly was one to call out whatever brotherly feeling they
possessed.
"I shall have to make use of the telephone," Dr. Bennett now
announced. "You must pardon my seeming disrespect to the dead. The
occasion demands it."
And with one hurried look to see that his commands had been obeyed,
and that the dining-room had been cleared of the huddling servants, he
stepped back into the so-called den and closed the door behind him.
Next moment we heard his voice rise in the inevitable "Hallo!"
"I don't understand Dr. Bennett's strange demeanour," I now heard
uttered in remark near me. It was George speaking in a low tone to his
brother.
But that brother, with one of his anxious looks up the stairs, failed
to answer.
"Father was in the habit of taking chloral, but I thought he always
waited until he got to his own room. I never knew him to take it
downstairs before," George went on in a low tone between a whisper and
a grumble.
This time Alfred answered.
"He made an exception to-night," said he. "When I ran down to your
door at half-past eight, I met Claire coming out of father's room with
a bottle in her hand. She had been sent up after the chloral, and was
taking it down to him."
George gave his brother a suspicious look.
"Did she say so?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Poor child! She will miss her grandfather. I wonder if she knows?"
I felt that I had no right to listen. But I was standing where the
doctor had left me, and hardly knew how to withdraw till I had
received my dismissal from someone in authority. Yet I was thinking of
going farther front when the doctor came out again and, approaching
me, remarked:
"This delay is probably causing you great inconvenience. But I must
ask you to remain a short time longer. I presume you can find a seat
in the drawing-room."
With a glance at the young gentlemen, I expressed my obligations for
his courtesy, but did not make a move towards the room he had
indicated.
Instantly, and with an understanding of my feelings which surprised
me, George took the hint I had given him, and stepping forward, raised
a heavy plush curtain at the left and begged me to be seated in the
richly appointed room within. But I had hardly taken a step towards it
when a diversion was created by the entrance into the house of a
gentleman whom I at once took to be the third brother for whose
presence all waited with more or less suspense.
He was sufficiently prepossessing in appearance to awaken admiration,
but he bore no resemblance to his brothers. He seemed to have more
character and less--well, I find it difficult to say just what
impression he made upon me at this moment. Enough that with my first
glimpse of him I felt confident that no ordinary person had entered
upon the scene, though just what special characteristic of his
personality or disposition would prove the emphatic one it was not
easy to judge, at a moment's notice.
He had a downcast air, and to my eyes looked weary to the point of
collapse, but he roused at the sight of a stranger, and cast an
inquiring look at the doctor and then at the servants crowding in the
passage beyond.
He evidently took me for one of his brothers' boon companions.
"What's amiss?" he demanded in some irritation--an irritation I was
fain to construe into a total lack of preparation for the fatal news
awaiting him. "What's the matter, George? What's the matter, Alph?"
"The worst!" came in simultaneous reply.
"Father is dead!" cried George.
"Took too much chloral," added Alfred.
Leighton Gillespie stood stock-still for a moment, then threw off his
hat and rushed down the hall. But at the door of what now might be
called the chamber of death, he found the doctor standing in an
attitude which compelled him to come to a sudden stop.
"Wait a moment," said that gentleman. "I have to correct an
impression. Your father has not died from an overdose of chloral as I
had at first supposed, but from a deadly dose of prussic acid. You
have only to smell his lips to be certain of this fact. Now, Leighton,
you may enter."
III
WHAT A DOOR HID
It was a startling declaration, and the horror it called up was
visible on every face. But the surprise which should have accompanied
it was lacking, and however quickly the three nearest the deceased
man's heart strove to cover up their first instinctive acceptance of a
fact so suggestive of hidden troubles, I could not but see that the
prosperous stockbroker had had griefs, anxieties, or hopes to which
this sudden end seemed to those who knew him best, a natural sequence.
I began to regret the chance which had brought me into such close
relations with this family, and felt the closed envelope in my pocket
weighing on my breast like lead.
Meanwhile, he whom they called Leighton was saying in a highly
strained tone, which he vainly endeavoured to make natural:
"May not Dr. Bennett be mistaken? There is the chloral bottle on the
shelf over the fireplace. We are not in the habit of seeing it here.
Does not its presence in this room argue that father felt the need of
it. Prussic acid can only be obtained through a doctor, and I am
confident you never prescribed him such a dangerous drug, Dr.
Bennett."
"No, for it is totally inapplicable to his case. But you will find
that he died from taking it, Leighton; all his symptoms show it, and
we have only to determine now whether he took it in the chloral, in
the glass of wine he drank, or by means of some other agency not yet
discovered. I regret to speak so unequivocally, but I never mince
matters where my profession is concerned. And, besides, the coroner
would not show you this consideration even if I did. The fact is too
patent."
They were now inside the study and I did not hear Leighton's reply,
but when they all came out again, I saw that the latter had not only
accepted the situation, but that he had been informed of the part I
had been called upon to play in this matter. This was apparent from
the way he greeted me, and the questions he put concerning his child's
conduct during the last terrible moments of her grandfather's life.
As he did this I had a fuller opportunity for studying his face. It
was the most melancholy one I had ever seen, and what struck me as
being worthy of remark was that this melancholy seemed a settled one
and quite apart from the present grief and disturbance. Yet he had
been heavily shaken by his father's sudden if not inexplicable death,
or appeared to be, which possibly is not quite the same thing.
"I do not understand why my father should have called anyone in from
the street to witness his sufferings while he had sons in the house,"
he courteously remarked; "but having felt this necessity and having
succeeded in obtaining such help, I am glad that chance favoured him
and us with a person of such apparent good feeling as yourself."
I scarcely heeded him. I was pondering over the letter and whether I
should pass it over to this man. But instinct withheld me, or rather
my lawyer-like habits which happily acted as a restraint upon my
natural impulse. I had received no intimation as yet that it was
intended for any of Mr. Gillespie's sons.
"You will oblige us by waiting for the coroner?" he now went on. "He
has telephoned that he will be here immediately."
"I shall wait," I said. And it was by his invitation I now stepped
into the parlour.
A quarter of an hour, a half-hour, passed before the front door bell
rang again. From the hubbub which ensued, I knew that the man we
wished for had arrived, but it was a long while before he entered the
room in which I sat, during which tedious interim I had to possess my
soul in patience. But at last I heard his step on the threshold, and
looking up, I beheld a spare, earnest man who approached me with great
seriousness, and sat down near enough to indulge in confidential talk
without running the risk of being heard by anyone.
"You are Mr. Outhwaite," he began. "I have heard of your firm and have
more than once seen Mr. Robinson. Had you any acquaintance with Mr.
Gillespie or his family before to-night?"
"No, sir; Mr. Gillespie was known to me only by reputation."
"Then it was pure chance which led you to be a witness of his final
moments?"
"Pure chance, if we do not believe in Providence," I returned.
He surveyed me quite intently.
"Relate what passed."
Now here was a dilemma. Did my duty exact a revelation of the facts
which I had hitherto felt obliged to keep even from the deceased man's
sons? It was a question not to be decided in a moment, so I made up my
mind to be guided by developments, and confined my narration to a
recapitulation of my former plain account of Mr. Gillespie's last
moments. This narrative I made as simple as I could. When I had
finished he asked if Mr. Gillespie's grandchild had been present at
the moment her grandfather expired.
I answered that she had been clinging to him all the time he remained
erect, but shrank back and ran out of the room the moment he gave
signs of falling to the floor.
"Did he speak to her?"
"Not that I heard."
"Did he say anything?"
"A few inarticulate words, no names."
"He did not ask for his sons?"
"No."
"For none of them?"
"No."
"How came the alarm to be spread?"
"I went up with the child and called the young men down."
Coroner Frisbie stroked his chin, still looking at me intently.
"Was there an empty phial or a piece of paper lying about on the
study-table or on the floor when you went in?"
I started.
"Paper?" I repeated. "What kind of paper?"
"Such as is used by druggists and physicians in rolling up their
prescriptions. The prussic acid which Mr. Gillespie has evidently
taken must have been bought in liquid form. The bottle which held it
should be lying about and possibly the paper in which it was wrapped.
That is, if this poison was swallowed intentionally by Mr. Gillespie."
I recalled the exact look of the scrap of paper I had put into an
envelope at this gentleman's request. It was not such a one as is used
by druggists in wrapping up parcels, and I felt my breast grow lighter
by a degree.
"I did not see any such paper."
"Where is the little girl?" he now queried. "I must see her."
I had made up my mind to one thing. If the child said that I had been
given a paper by her grandfather I would acknowledge it and produce
the envelope. But if she had forgotten the fact or had been too
frightened to notice it, I would preserve silence in regard to it a
little longer, in the hope of being shown a way out of my difficulty.
I was therefore not sorry to hear him ask for the little girl.
"I take it that you are not anxious to remain here," he now remarked.
"If you will give me your address and hold yourself in readiness to
obey my summons, I can excuse you for the night."
For answer I held out my card, and seeing that I had no further excuse
for lingering, was moving toward the door, when Dr. Bennett came
hurriedly in.
"I have found something--" he began, and then paused with a quick
glance in my direction, as if questioning the propriety of proceeding
further with his discovery in my presence.
The coroner showed no such hesitation. Hastening to meet the old
family physician, he said:
"You have found the bottle or only the paper in which the bottle was
wrapped?"
Dr. Bennett drew him aside, and I saw what looked like a small cork
pass between them.
"Was it in Mr. Gillespie's study you found this?" queried the coroner.
"I thought I had thoroughly searched the study."
The answer was uttered in the lowest of low tones, but I had no
difficulty in catching the gist of what he said.
"It was on the dining-room floor, under the edge of the rug. A very
suspicious fact, don't you think so? Mr. Gillespie would never have
thrust it there. Some other person--don't know who--not say anything
yet--shrink from seeing the police in this house."
The two doctors interchanged a look which I surprised in the large
mirror opposite. But I gave no sign of having seen anything
extraordinary. I felt too keenly the delicacy of my own position. Next
minute we were all walking towards the hall.
"Silence!" came in admonitory tones from the coroner as we paused for
a moment on the threshold. "Let us not disturb the young men any
further than is necessary to-night."
At that moment we heard the cry:
"Where is Miss Meredith? Has anyone seen Miss Meredith? I cannot find
her in any of the rooms upstairs."
"Hope! Hope! Where are you, Hope?" called out another voice, charged
with feeling.
Hope! Did my heart beat faster as this name, destined to play such a
part in my future life, was sounded in my ears? I cannot say. That
heart has beat often enough since at the utterance of this sweet
monosyllable, but at that time--well, I think I was too interested in
the alarm which this cry instantly raised, to note my personal
sensations. From one end of the house to the other, men and women
rushed from room to room, and I heard not only this name called out,
but that of the child, which it seems was Claire.
"Cannot the child be found either?" I inquired impetuously of the
coroner who still lingered in the lower hall.
"It seems not. Who is Miss Meredith?"
It was the old butler who answered him.
"She is the young gentlemen's cousin," said he. "She was a great
favourite with Mr. Gillespie, and lived here like a daughter. They
will find her somewhere upstairs."
But the prophecy proved to be a false one. Slowly the servants came
creeping down whispering among themselves and looking very much
frightened. Then we saw George descend shaking his head impatiently,
and then Leighton, wild with an anxiety for which he had no name.
"She must be here!" he cried, thinking only of his child. "Claire!
Claire!" And he began running through the great drawing-room where we
knew she could not be.
Alfred had remained above.
Suddenly I recalled a fact connected with my own visit upstairs.
"Have they been up to the fourth floor?" I inquired of Dr. Bennett.
"When I was in Mr. Alfred Gillespie's room on the third floor, I
remember hearing someone rush through the hall. I supposed at that
time it was someone going below. But it may have been someone going
higher up."
"Let us go see!" the doctor suggested.
I followed him without a thought. As we passed Alfred's door, we could
see him standing in the middle of the room in a state of rage which
made him oblivious of our approach. He was tearing into morsels a
piece of paper which had the same appearance as the one he had
formerly thrust into the waste-paper basket, and as he tore, he
muttered words amongst which I caught the following:
"Why should I write? If she loved me she would wait. She would not run
away now, unless he----"
Dr. Bennett, with his finger on his lip, slid by. I hastened after
him, and together we mounted the last flight.
We were now in a portion of the building as new to the doctor as to
myself. When we reached the top of the stairs we found the whole place
dark save for a little glimmer towards the front which proved to be a
gas-jet burning low in one of the attic rooms.
Turning this up we looked around, opened a closet-door or two, then
walked into the back, where the doctor struck a match. Two closed
doors met our eyes. One of these upon being opened disclosed a
well-furnished room, similar in appearance to those in front, the
other an unfinished garret half filled with trunks and boxes.
"Well!" he ejaculated, as the match went out upon this scene. "This is
a mystery."
"Hark!" I urged; "our ears rather than our eyes must do service in
this emergency."
He took the hint, and together we listened till some sound--was it the
breathing of a person concealed near us?--caused us both to start and
the doctor to light another match.
This time we saw something, but the match went out before we could
determine what.
Annoyed by these momentary flashes of light, I dashed back into one of
the rooms we had left, and catching up a candle I had previously noted
there, lit it at the gas-jet, and proceeded back with it to this
garret room.
Instantly a sight full of the strangest interest revealed itself.
Crouched against the farther wall, with wide-extended eyes fixed full
upon us, we perceived a woman, upon whose pallid face and risen locks
terror or some other equally emphatic passion had so fixed its impress
that she looked like some affrighted creature balked in flight by some
dreadful, some unprecedented sight which held her spell-bound. That
she was beautiful, in that touching, feminine way which goes to the
heart, did not lessen the effect of her appearance, nor were we
unmoved by the fact that the child for whom the house had just been
ransacked lay curled up and asleep at her feet.
"Who is it?" I asked. "Miss Meredith?"
The doctor pressed my hand. "We must be careful," he whispered. "She
seems on the verge of delirium."
"The child shows no fear," I murmured.
Meanwhile the doctor was approaching the new object of his care.
"Why choose so cold a place?" he asked, smiling on the young girl who
still clung, as if fastened, to the wall against which she had drawn
herself. "Claire will catch cold; had you not better come downstairs?"
With a start she looked down at the little one resting at her feet,
and her eyes showed a sudden intelligence.
"How did she come here?" she asked. "I did not call her."
"And how came you to be here?" he smiled. "Your white dress looks out
of place in this garret."
She lifted herself straight up, with her back to the wall. Claire, who
was thus dislodged from the place at her feet woke, and began to cry.
"I heard that Mr. Gillespie was dead," came from lips so stiff with
fright or some other deep emotion that I wondered they could form the
words. "I loved Mr. Gillespie, and I brought my grief here."
[Illustration: "CROUCHED AGAINST THE FARTHER WALL, WITH WIDE-EXTENDED
EYES FIXED FULL UPON US"]
She was still standing pressed against the wall, her hands behind her;
and disguise the fact as I would, I could see that her teeth were
chattering with something more than cold, or even such fear as might
follow the sudden death of a near friend and benefactor.
"Will you not come below?" urged the doctor, taking up Claire to his
fatherly breast.
"Never!" her lips seemed to cry; but I heard no sound, and when the
doctor, giving me the child, threw his arm about her and drew her
away, she yielded pliantly enough, though with a steady look into his
face I did not understand then nor for a long time afterwards.
At the stair-head we met Alfred. Perhaps he had heard us go up,
perhaps he had simply thought of searching the attic himself. His
recoil and the exclamation he made were simultaneous.
"You have found her!" was his cry, a cry which did not refer to the
child. Then in reproachful tones: "Hope, why should you give us such a
scare? Had we not enough to face without having our hearts wrung with
terror for you?"
Her answer was a murmur. With the first moment of encounter with this
man her face had become a mask.
IV
"HE DRANK IT _ALONE_"
In making this statement it is not my wish to create any special
prejudice against Alfred. Indeed, I have no right to do so, for when a
few minutes later his brother Leighton came running up the stairs at
sound of his child's voice, I noticed the same recoil on her part,
followed by the same impassibility. Nor did she show a different
feeling when in the hall below George came forward with the inquiries
her surprising absence had naturally provoked. From one and all she
involuntarily shrank, but not without suffering to herself and an
obvious attempt to hide this natural impulse under a demeanour more in
accordance with her near relationship to these three men. In Alfred
this chilling conduct awakened emotions only too easy to read; in
Leighton, surprise, and in George, a distrust bordering upon a passion
so fierce that he turned from white to red and from red to white in an
instant. Evanescent expressions all of them, but important as showing
the feelings entertained towards her by these men among whom she had
been living for more or less time as a sister.
But of my personal sensations you have already heard too much,
especially at this period of my story. Happily, I was able to hide
them from other eyes, and simply showed a natural curiosity when Dr.
Bennett, with a sly look in her direction, whispered in my ear:
"How came she to know of her uncle's death so soon after its
occurrence? You say you heard her rush upstairs while you were in
Alfred's room. That was very soon after you laid the old gentleman out
of your arms. Is it possible that you had already met Miss Meredith?
Did she share that first alarm with you?"
"Not to my knowledge," I returned. "My first view of her was in the
attic with you. Yet she may have been somewhere in this great hall, or
in some of the many rooms I see about us."
Meanwhile I was taking in her beauty, or what I must call beauty from
the lack of any other adequate word. I believe she was not what people
call beautiful. She did not need to be; her charm was incontestable
without it; too incontestable, I fear, for the peace of mind of more
men than Alfred and George Gillespie.
She was standing by the newel-post, in a position startlingly like
that she had maintained above; and while I shrank from the doubts thus
called up, I could not but perceive in the straightforward look of her
eyes, and the fierce clutch of her hands behind her, that some
determination was absorbing all her energies; a determination little
in accord, I fear, with the attitude of simple grief she made such an
effort to maintain. Leighton appeared to see this also, for he set
down the child he had been straining to his breast, and approaching
his cousin, plied her with a few hurried questions.
But the coroner, who had shown some embarrassment at the appearance on
the scene of so young and charming a lady, advanced at this juncture
and prevented the answer which was slowly forming on her lips.
"If you are Miss Meredith, Mr. Gillespie's niece and assistant, you
are justified in your grief. Mr. Gillespie has passed away under very
extraordinary circumstances."
Her hands which had been behind her, came suddenly together in front,
but she did not shift her eyes from the point where she had fixed
them. Perhaps she dreaded to encounter the gaze of the three young men
grouped behind the man addressing her.
"Have those circumstances been related to you?" resumed Dr. Frisbie
with the encouragement in his tone which her loveliness and sorrow
naturally called forth.
"No."
The answer came quickly, and with a sharp accentuation which showed
her to be a woman of force, notwithstanding the condition in which we
had first found her.
"Then this little one had said nothing," he continued with a glance at
Claire who had nestled again at her cousin's feet.
"Claire?" she exclaimed in evident surprise. "Claire?" and her eyes
followed his till they fell inquiringly upon the child whose presence
up to this moment she had probably not noticed. "No, she has said
nothing; at least nothing that I have heard." And her hand went out as
if she would urge the child away. But she did not complete the
gesture, and I doubt if anyone understood her movement unless it was
myself.
The coroner seemed anxious to spare her feelings. "Dr. Bennett will
communicate to you our conclusions in this matter," said he. "I simply
want to ask you when you last saw Mr. Gillespie."
"Alive?" she asked, her eyes stealing towards the door of the little
den.
"Yes, miss; you surely have not seen him dead."
"I was with him at supper," she returned. "We were all there"; and for
the first time she let her gaze fall on each one of her cousins in
succession. "My uncle seemed as well then as at any time since his
illness. He ate a good meal and drank----"
"And drank," repeated the coroner with a stern look behind him at the
young men who had all moved at this.
"His usual glass of wine at dessert. He drank it _alone_!" she
suddenly emphasised, her tone rising in sudden excitement. "I can
never forget that he drank it alone."
A sigh or a suspicion of a sigh answered her. It came from one of her
cousins, but I never knew from which. At its sound she shrank as if
heart-pierced, and put up her hands--those tell-tale hands--and
covered her ears; then she as quickly dropped them, and regarded the
young men before her slowly, separately, and with a heartrending
significance.
"I would so gladly have joined him in this attempt at old-time
sociability had I but known it would have been his last," she said,
and dropped her head again with a sob.
At this look and simple action a burden rolled from my heart. But upon
the coroner and the physician lingering near my side, both look and
words fell with a weight which made this investigation, if
investigation it could be called, halt a moment.
"I do not understand you," observed the former after a momentary
interval surcharged with deep emotion. "Was Mr. Gillespie in the habit
of sharing his wine with those who sat at his board, that you feel the
pathos of that lonely glass so keenly?"
"Yes. I never knew the dinner to close before without some sort of
toast from one of his sons. It is the coincidence that affects me. But
I should not have mentioned it. No one could have known that this was
destined to be our last meal together."
She was looking straight before her now. Though it seems more or less
incredible, she was evidently unconscious of having raised the black
banner of suspicion over the heads of her three cousins. But the blank
silence which followed her words appeared to give her some idea of
what she had done, for with a sudden start and a change in her
appearance which startled us all, she threw out her arms with the cry:
"You are keeping something from me. How did my uncle die? Tell me!
tell me at once!"
Leighton sprang for his child, caught her up and fled with her into a
farther room. George tottered, then drew himself proudly erect.
Alfred, who had been gnawing his finger-ends in restrained passion,
alone stepped forward to her aid, though in a deprecatory way which
robbed him of a large part of his natural grace. But she appeared
insensible to them all. Her attention was fixed upon the doctor, whom
she followed with an agonising gaze, which warned him to be brief if
she was to hear his words at all.
"Your uncle is the victim of _poison_," said he. "But we have reason
to think he took it some time later than at the evening meal. Prussic
acid makes quick work."
The latter explanation fell unheeded. She had fallen at the word
_poison_.
V
HOPE
This was the proper moment for me to leave, or rather it would have
been had it not been for the communication in my pocket which remained
to be delivered. To go without fulfilling my duty in this regard or at
least without stating to the coroner that I held in charge a paper of
so much importance, seemed an improper if not criminal proceeding,
while to speak, and thus give up to public perusal an enclosure upon
the right delivery of which the dying man laid such stress, struck me
as an equal breach of trust only to be justified by my total inability
to carry out the wish of the deceased as expressed to me in his last
intelligible appeal.
That this inability was an assured fact I was not yet convinced. An
idea had come to me in the last few minutes which, if properly acted
upon, might open a way for me out of this dilemma. But before making
use of it I felt it necessary to know more of this family and the ties
which bound them. To gain this knowledge was, therefore, of not only
great but immediate importance; and where could I hope to gain it so
soon or so well as here.
I consequently lingered, and the young medical friend of George,
having for some reason shown the same disregard as myself to the open
hint thrown out by the coroner, we drew together near the front door,
and fell immediately into conversation. As he seemed on fire to speak,
I left it for him to make the opening remark.
"Fine girl!" he exclaimed. "Very fond of her uncle. Used to help him
with his correspondence. I hate to see women faint. Though I have been
in practice now two years I have never got used to it."
Anxious as I was to understand the very relationship he hinted at, it
was so obnoxious to me to discuss Miss Meredith with this man whom I
had first seen in a condition little calculated to prejudice me in his
favour, that somewhat inconsistently, I own, I turned the conversation
upon Mr. Gillespie.
"Mr. Gillespie was then a very busy man," I observed. "I judged so
from the look of his den or study. Overwork often drives men to
suicide."
The glance this called out from the now thoroughly sobered young
doctor was a sharp one.
"Yes," he acquiesced; but it was an acquiescence which, from the tone
in which it was uttered, had a most suspicious ring.
My position had now become an embarrassing one. I looked around for
the coroner, and saw him talking earnestly with the old and enfeebled
butler, who seemed ready to sink with distress. At the same instant,
the rattling of two keys could be heard in their several locks. The
dining-room was being closed against intrusion, and it was to the
coroner the keys were brought.
Miss Meredith, who had been carried into an adjoining room, was
slowly recovering. This was evident from the countenance and attitude
of Alfred Gillespie, who stood half in and half out of the room, with
his eyes fixed upon her face. This left the hall clear, and, as my
companion chose to preserve silence, I presently could hear the story
the old butler was endeavouring to relate.
"I was waiting on the table as usual, sir, and it was my hand which
uncorked the bottle and set it down before Mr. Gillespie. The young
gentlemen had nothing to do with that bottle; they did not even touch
it, for none of them seemed inclined to drink. Mr. George said he had
a headache, and Mr. Leighton, well, he makes a point of not touching
port; while Mr. Alfred gave no excuse; simply waved it away when I
passed it, so that the old gentleman drank alone. He didn't seem to
feel quite happy, sir, and that was why Miss Meredith got so excited.
She never could bear to see her uncle displeased with her cousins."
"And where is that bottle of port and the glass out of which Mr.
Gillespie drank at the table?"
"O, sir, you must excuse me, sir, but--but--I drank what was left in
that bottle. I often do when there is only a little left. Master
didn't mind. He often said, if he was in the mood to remember me, 'You
may finish that, Hewson,' and though he did not say it to-night, I
made so bold as to remember the times he had. You see I have lived for
twenty years in the family. I was a young man when Mr. Gillespie took
me into his service first, and we had become used to each other's
ways. As for the glass, that was washed, sir, long ago. He was well
enough up to nine o'clock, you see, sir."
"Or until after he had taken the sherry?"
"Yes, sir."
"Which you also brought him?"
"No, sir; I took it out of the buffet, sir; but it was Mr. Leighton
who carried it into the den. He rang for me from the dining-room, and
when I came up he asked for his father's bottle of sherry, and I gave
it to him. Then I went downstairs again."
"And _that_ bottle has not been found?"
"I have not seen it, sir. Perhaps someone else has. It was not a full
one. He had had a glass or two out of it before."
"You have not said where the glass came from, from which Mr. Gillespie
drank the sherry?"
"From the buffet also. We always keep a supply in one of the lower
cupboards, sir."
"Did you take it out?"
"I think so, sir."
"Did you take the first one you came to and hand it directly to Mr.
Leighton?"
"I believe so."
"Was the room light or dark? Could you see plainly where to lay your
hand, or did you have to feel about for a glass?"
"I don't remember it as being any too light. There was only one
gas-jet turned on, and the room is a big one. But I saw the glasses
plainly enough. I know just where to find them, you see, sir."
"Very good. Then you probably noticed whether the one you took out was
clean."
"They are always clean. I wear my spectacles when I wash them." The
old butler seemed quite indignant.
"Yes, yes; then you have to wear spectacles?"
"When I wipe the glasses? Yes, sir."
The coroner pushed the matter no further. I think he feared it would
seem like an attempt to fix the guilt on Leighton. Besides, he had no
time to do so, for at this moment Miss Meredith appeared on the
threshold of the room into which she had been carried, and, pausing
there, stood looking up and down the hall with an ardent and
disquieted gaze which Alfred, who had started aside at her approach,
tried in vain to draw upon himself.
"Claire? Where is Claire?" she asked. "I want to put her to bed."
"Here she is," answered Leighton, coming from the drawing-room with
the child fast asleep on his shoulder. "Take her, Hope, and be careful
not to wake her. Better lay her down as she is than have her
frightened again."
Hope held out her arms. I was startled at her aspect. "Miss Meredith
is not able as yet to carry the child upstairs," spoke up the doctor;
but the child was already nestled against her breast.
"I can carry her," she assured him, drawing her head back as the
father stooped to kiss the child.
"Are you sure?" asked Alfred.
"Quite." Her arms had closed spasmodically over the child.
"Let me go with you," he prayed. But catching the coroner's eye, he
quickly added, "that is, if you feel the need of any assistance."
Apparently she did not, for next minute I saw her faltering figure
proceeding up alone, while the scowl which had begun to form on
George's forehead had smoothed out, and only Alfred showed
discomfiture.
The next minute the coroner had concentrated the attention of us all
by saying gravely to the three young men before him:
"You, as sons of Mr. Gillespie, will surely see the justice of my
making an immediate attempt to find out how and when your father took
the poison, which, to all appearance, has ended his invaluable life."
Then, as no one replied, he added quietly:
"A bottle is missing; the bottle of sherry from which he drank a glass
since supper. Will you grant me leave to search the house till I find
it? So little time has passed, it must assuredly be somewhere within
reach."
"I can tell you where it is," rejoined one of the brothers. "I wanted
a drink. I had friends upstairs, and I came down and carried off the
first bottle I saw. You will find it in my room above. We all drank
our share, so there can have been no harm in it."
It was George who spoke, and I now saw why his lips had moved when
this bottle was first mentioned.
The coroner showed relief, yet made a movement singularly like a
signal towards the rear hall which I had supposed vacant since the
servants had been sent out of it. That he was speaking in the meantime
did not detract from the suggestiveness of the gesture.
"You and your friends drank of it?" he repeated. "Very good. That
settles one doubt." And he waited, or appeared to wait, for some event
connected, as I felt sure, with the step we all could now hear moving
in that hall.
Suddenly these steps grew louder, and a young man, evidently as much
of a stranger to the occupants of the house as to myself, approached
from the servants' staircase with a bottle in his hand.
Quietly the coroner took it, quietly he held it up before the last
speaker, without attempting to explain or to apologise in any way for
the presence of the man of whom he had just made such dramatic use.
"Is this the bottle you mean?"
That young gentleman nodded.
The coroner held the bottle up to the light. Only a few drops remained
in it. These he both smelled and tasted.
"You are right," said he, "the contents of this bottle seem pure." And
he handed it back to the man, who immediately carried it out of sight.
Leighton looked as if he would like to demand who this fellow was, but
he did not. Indeed it seemed hardly necessary. His confident manner,
his alert eye which took us all in at a glance, satisfied us that the
event we had all dreaded had transpired, and that a detective had
entered the house.
Noticing, but not heeding, the effect which this unwelcome intruder
had produced upon the proud trio he held under his eye, Dr. Frisbie
proceeded with the questions naturally called forth by the
acknowledgment made by George.
"You were on this floor, then, previous to your father's death,
possibly previous to his taking the draught which has so unfortunately
ended his life?"
"I was on this floor an hour or so ago; yes, sir."
"Did you see your father or anyone else at that time?"
"No. To tell you the truth, I was a little ashamed of my errand. It
was early in the evening for the social glass, so I just took the
bottle off the buffet and went back."
"And the glasses?"
"Oh, I always have enough of them in my room."
The coroner's hand went in characteristic action to his chin.
Evidently he found his position difficult.
"No poison in this bottle," he declared. "None in the one your old
butler drained, and, so far as we are able to judge, none in the phial
of chloral found standing on the study mantelpiece! Yet your father
died from taking prussic acid. Cannot one of you assist me in saying
how this came about? It will save us unnecessary trouble and the house
some scandal."
It was an appeal which the sons of Mr. Gillespie could little afford
to ignore. Yet while each and all of them paled under the searching
gaze which accompanied it, none of them spoke till the silence
becoming unendurable, Leighton made an extraordinary effort and
remarked:
"My father was a proud man. If he chose--I say, if he chose to end his
troubles in this unfortunate way, he would plan to leave behind him no
sign of an act calculated to bring such opprobrium upon his
household. He would have acted under the hope that his death would be
taken as the result of his late sickness. That is doubtless why you
fail to find the phial from which the poison was poured."
"Hum! Yes! I see. Your father had troubles, then?"
The answer was unexpected.
"My father had three sons, none of whom gave him unalloyed comfort. Is
not this true, George? Is not this true, Alfred?"
Startled by the sudden appeal which, coming as it did from a man of
great personal pride, produced an effect thrilling to the spectators
as well as to the men addressed, the brothers flushed deeply, but
ventured upon no protest.
"You and father have always been on good enough terms," growled
George, with an attempt at fairness which gained point from the dogged
air with which it was given.
This brought a shadow over the face which a moment before had shone
with something like lofty feeling.
"I cannot forget that we quarrelled an hour before he died," murmured
Leighton, moving off with an air of great depression.
Meantime I had taken a resolution. Advancing from the remote end of
the hall where I had been standing with their young medical friend, I
spoke up firmly, calmly, but with decision:
"Gentlemen, I have been waiting to see what my duty was. I have reason
to think, notwithstanding my position as a stranger among you, that
the clue to your father's strange act is to be found in my hands. Will
you allow me, before explaining myself further, to request your answer
to a single question?"
The surprise which this evoked, was shared by the coroner, who
probably thought he had exhausted my testimony at our first interview.
"It is a question which will strike you as strange and out of place at
a time so serious. But I pray you to show your confidence in me by
giving me a straightforward reply. Was Mr. Gillespie a man of dramatic
instincts? Had he any special powers of mimicry, or, if I may speak
plainly, had he what you might call marked facial expression?"
In the astonishment this called out I saw no dissent.
"Father was a man of talent," Alfred grudgingly allowed. "I have often
heard Claire laugh at his stories, which she said were like little
plays. But this is a peculiar if not inappropriate question to put to
us at a time of such distress, Mr. Outhwaite."
"So I forewarned you," I rejoined, turning to the coroner. "Dr.
Frisbie, I must throw myself upon your clemency. When I entered this
house in response to an appeal from Mr. Gillespie's grandchild, I
found that gentleman labouring under great mental as well as physical
distress. He was anxious, more than anxious, to have some special wish
carried out; and being tongue-tied, found great difficulty in
indicating what this was. But after many efforts, he made me
understand that I was to take from him a paper which he held in his
clenched hand; and when I had done so, that I was to enclose it,
folded as it was, in one of the envelopes lying on the table before
us. Not seeing any reason then for non-compliance with his wishes, I
accomplished this under his eye, and then asked him for the name and
address of the person for whom this communication was intended; but by
this time his faculties had failed to such an extent, he could not
pronounce the name. He could only ejaculate: 'To no one else--only
to--to--' Alas! he could not finish the sentence. But, gentlemen,
while waiting here I have been enabled to complete in my own mind this
final attempt at speech on the part of your father. Anxious to make no
mistake (for the impression made by his dying adjuration not to
deliver this letter into the wrong hands, was no ordinary one), I have
not allowed myself to be moved by any hurried or inconsiderate
impulse, to part with this communication even to those whose claims
upon it might be considered paramount to those of a mere stranger like
myself. But since seeing Miss Meredith, above all since hearing you
address her by her name of Hope, I cannot help feeling justified in
believing that this final communication from Mr. Gillespie's hand was
meant for her. For when in my perplexity I pressed him to give me some
sign by which I could make out whether it was intended for his doctor,
his lawyer, or his household, he roused and his face showed an
elevated look which I now feel compelled to regard as a dramatic
attempt to express in action the name he could no longer utter.
Gentlemen, I have described his action. What name among those you are
accustomed to speak best fits it?"
"Hope," was the simultaneous reply.
"So I have presumed to think." And turning to Dr. Frisbie, I added: "I
have been told that this young lady was in her uncle's confidence.
Will you allow me to deliver this envelope to Miss Meredith, in
accordance with the injunction I firmly believe myself to have
received from Mr. Gillespie?"
There was a silence during which no movement was made. Then the
coroner replied:
"Yes, if it is done in my presence."
I turned again to the young gentlemen.
"Commiserate my position and send for Miss Meredith," I prayed. "I
feel bound to place this in her hands myself. If I make a mistake in
thus interpreting the look given me by your father, it will at least
be made under your eye and from unquestionable motives. With my
limited knowledge of the family, I know of no one who has a better
claim to this communication than she. Do you?"
None of them attempted a reply.
Dr. Bennett had already gone up for Miss Meredith.
VI
A HAPPY INSPIRATION
While waiting for this young lady, I surveyed the three Gillespies
with a more critical attention than I had hitherto had the opportunity
of giving them. As a result, George struck me as being the most
candid, Leighton the most intellectual, and Alfred the most turbulent
and ungovernable in his loves and animosities. All were under the same
mental tension and in all I beheld evidence of deep humiliation and
distrust, but this similarity of feeling did not draw them together
even outwardly, but rather seemed to provoke a self-concentration
which kept them widely apart. As I looked longer, Leighton impressed
himself upon me as an interesting study--possibly because he was
difficult to understand; Alfred as a good lover but dangerous hater;
and George as the best of good fellows when his rights were not
assailed or his kindly disposition imposed upon. None of them seemed
to take any interest in _me_. To them I was simply a connecting link
between their dead father and the letter I held in charge for Miss
Meredith.
Meanwhile the coroner showed but one anxiety, and that was for the
lady's speedy appearance and the consequent reading of the letter upon
which all minds were fixed.
She came sooner than we expected. As her soft footfall descended the
stairs a visible change took place in us all. Drooping figures started
erect and furrowed brows grew smooth. Some of us even assumed that
appearance of reserve which men unconsciously take on when their
deeper feelings are stirred. Only Leighton acted in a perfectly
natural manner; consequently it was in his direction her frightened
glances flew when she realised that she had been summoned for some
definite purpose.
"I don't know what more you can want of me to-night," she protested in
a tone little short of a frightened gasp. "I am hardly fit to talk.
But the doctor said I must come down. Why couldn't you have left me
with Claire?"
"Because, dear Hope, this gentleman you see here, and who, as you
know, was with my father when he died, says he has a letter, or some
communication from your uncle, which he is sure was meant for your eye
only. Do you think my father would be likely to leave you such a
message? Have you any reason for expecting his last thoughts would be
for you, rather than for his sons? Answer; we are quite prepared to
hear you say Yes."
She had been trying to steady herself without laying hold of his arm.
But she found this impossible. With an expression of deepest anguish
she caught at his wrist, and then facing us, murmured in failing
tones:
"He might. I have helped him lately a great deal with his
letter-writing. Must I read it _here_?"
In this last question and her manner of uttering it there was an
appeal which almost took the form of prayer. But it failed to produce
any effect upon the coroner, favourably as he seemed disposed to
regard her. With some bluntness, I had almost said harshness, he
answered her with a peremptory:
"Yes, miss, _here_."
She was not prepared for this refusal, and her eyes, full of entreaty,
flashed from one face to another till they settled again on the
coroner.
"I cannot," she protested. "Spare me! I do not seem to have full use
of my faculties. My head swims--I cannot see--let me take it to the
light over there--I am a nervous girl."
She had gradually drawn herself away from Leighton. The envelope which
had been given her was trembling in her hand, and her eyes, wandering
from George to Alfred, seemed to pray for some encouragement they were
powerless to give. "I ought to be allowed the right to read the last
words of one so dearly loved without feeling myself under the eyes
of--of strangers," she finally declared with a certain pitiful access
of hauteur certainly not natural to one of her manifestly generous
temperament.
Was the shaft meant for me? I did not think so, but, in recognition of
the hint conveyed, I stepped back and had almost reached the door when
I heard the coroner say:
"If the words you find there have reference solely to your own
interests, Miss Meredith, you will be allowed to read them in privacy.
But if they refer in any way to the interests of the man who wrote it,
you will yourself desire to read his words aloud, as the manner and
meaning of his death is a mystery which you as well as all the other
members of his household must desire to see immediately cleared up."
"Open it!" she cried, thrusting it into the hands of the physician,
who by this time had rejoined the group. "And may God----"
She did not finish. The sacred name seemed to act as a restraint upon
the passion in whose cause it had been invoked. With her back to them
all she waited for the doctor to read the lines to which she seemed to
attach so apprehensive an interest.
It was impossible for me to leave at a moment so critical. Watching
the doctor, I saw him draw out the paper I had so carefully enclosed
in an envelope, and after looking at it, turn it over and over in such
astonishment and perplexity that we all caught the alarm and crowded
about him for explanation. Alas, it was a simple one! The paper
concerning which I had endured so many qualms of conscience, and from
the reading of which the young girl had shrunk with every appearance
of intolerable dread, proved upon opening it to be an absolutely blank
one.
There was not upon its smooth surface so much as the faintest trace of
words.
VII
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN BY THE NEWEL-POST
"This is surprising. Do you understand this, Miss Meredith? There is
nothing written here. The sheet is perfectly blank."
She turned, stared, and laughed convulsively.
"Blank, do you say? What a fuss about nothing! No words, no words at
all? Let me see. I certainly expected you to find some final message
in it."
What a change of manner! The moment before she had confronted us, a
silent agonised woman; now her words rattled forth with such feverish
volubility we scarcely knew her. The coroner, not noticing, or
purposely blind to the relief she showed, handed her the slip without
a word. The brothers had all drawn off, and for the first time began
to whisper among themselves. As for myself, I did not know what to do
or think. My position, if anything, had changed for the worse. I
seemed to have played some trick. I wanted to beg her pardon and
theirs, and seeing her finally let the paper fall to the floor with an
incredulous shake of the head, I began to stammer out some words of
explanation, which sounded weak enough under the tension of suppressed
excitement called forth in every breast by this unexpected incident.
"I feel--I am persuaded--you will not give me credit either for good
sense or for the sincerity of my desire to be of service to you," I
made out to say. "I certainly thought from Mr. Gillespie's actions,
above all from the expressions which accompanied them, that he had
entrusted me with a communication of no little importance, and that
this communication was meant for Miss Meredith."
To my chagrin, my plea went unheeded: she was too absorbed in hiding
her own satisfaction at the turn affairs had taken, and her cousins in
deciding to what extent their position had been improved by the
discovery of a blank sheet of paper where all had expected to find
words, and very important words, too. Consequently it fell to Dr.
Bennett to answer me.
"No one can doubt your intentions, Mr. Outhwaite. Miss Meredith will
be the first to acknowledge her indebtedness to you when she comes to
herself. You have fulfilled your commission according to the dictates
of your own conscience. That you have failed to effect all you hoped
for is not your fault. As a lawyer you will rate the matter at its
worth, and as a man of heart excuse the exaggerated effect it has to
all appearance produced upon those about you."
It was a palpable dismissal, and I took it for such, or would have if
Miss Meredith, whose attention the word lawyer had seemingly caught,
had not honoured me with a look which held me rooted to the spot.
"Wait!" she cried, "I want to speak to that young man. Do not let him
go yet." And advancing, she stood before me in an attitude at once
womanly and confiding.
"Come back, Hope!" I heard uttered in the peremptory tones of him they
called Leighton.
But though the spasm which passed over her face denoted what it cost
her to disobey the voice of so near a relative, she stood her ground.
"I need a friend," she said to me. "Someone who will stand by me and
support me in a task I may find myself too weak to accomplish unaided.
I cannot have recourse to my cousins. They are too closely connected
with the sorrows brought upon us all by this event. Besides, I find it
easier to depend on a stranger,--one who does not care for me, as Dr.
Bennett does; a lawyer, too; I may need a lawyer--sir, will you aid me
with your counsels? I should find it hard to come upon another man of
such evident sincerity as yourself."
"Hope! Hope!"
Entreaty had now become command; Leighton even took a step towards
her. She faltered, but managed to murmur:
"You will not go till I have seen you again. You will not!"
"I will not," I rejoined, putting down the hat I had caught up.
The next minute she, as well as myself, perceived why she had been
thus peremptorily called back.
The group around the newel-post had changed. A large, elderly man,
with a world of experience in his time-worn but kindly visage, was
standing in the place occupied by the coroner a moment before. He was
bowing in the direction of Miss Meredith, and he held some half-dozen
letters in his hand.
As her eyes fell on these letters he regarded her with an encouraging
smile, and said:
"I am Detective Gryce, miss. I ask pardon for disturbing you, and I
don't want you to lay too much stress upon my presence here or upon
the few questions I have to put on behalf of the coroner who has just
been called to the telephone. A few explanations are all I want, and
some of these you are in a position to give me. You have been in the
habit of using the typewriter for your uncle, I am told."
"Yes, sir."
"Did you use it for the writing of these five letters found upon his
desk?"
"Yes, sir."
"To-night?"
"Yes, sir."
"At what hour?"
"Between dinner time and half-past eight."
This was the first time she had acknowledged having seen her uncle
after dinner.
"So you were with him until half-past eight?"
"Yes, or thereabouts."
"And left him in the enjoyment of his usual health?"
"To all appearance, yes."
"Before or after your cousin Leighton came into the study?"
"Before."
"Why did you leave? Was Mr. Gillespie through with his work for the
night?"
"I don't know; I don't think so, but I was tired, and he begged me to
go upstairs."
"In his usual manner?"
"Yes."
"Not like a man anxious to have you go?"
"No."
"And when did the child come down?"
"Later."
"Not immediately?"
"No; a quarter of an hour or so later."
"Humph! The child was with him then a quarter of an hour before his
death?"
"I suppose so; I do not know."
The detective waited a moment, then his hand closed over the letters.
"Miss, it is very important to know whether Mr. Gillespie anticipated
death. This correspondence--you know it--a letter to Simpson & Beals,
Attorneys, Dubuque, Iowa; another to Howard MacCartney, St. Augustine,
Florida; this to the president of the Santa Fe Railroad; and this to
Clarke, Beales & Co., Nassau Street, City. All business letters, I
presume?"
"Entirely so, sir."
"And none of them, I judge, such as a man would write who expected to
close all accounts with the world in less than an hour?"
"None."
How laconic she was for a girl scarcely out of her teens!
"From this correspondence, then, as you know it, he showed no
intention of suicide?"
"On the contrary. In one of those letters, the one to Clarke, Beales &
Co., I think, he made an appointment for to-morrow. My uncle was very
exact in business matters. He would never have made this appointment
if he had not hoped to keep it."
"Are you two in league?" the angry voice of George broke in. "Are you
trying to make out that father died from violence?"
"In league?"
Did she say it or only look it? I felt my heart swell at her piteous,
her agonised expression. Mr. Gryce, as he called himself, may have
seen it, but he appeared to be looking at the slip of paper he now
drew from his pocket, and which we all recognised as that which she
had shortly before let drop.
"You see this," he said, "it looks like a piece of perfectly blank
paper."
"And it is," she declared. "Why he should send it to me I do not know.
It was given me in an envelope by the gentleman at the door, who says
he got it from my uncle before he died. Everyone here knows that."
"Very good. Now let me ask from what sheet your uncle tore this scrap
of paper? You recognise it as paper you have seen before?"
"O, yes, it is part of what is used in the typewriter. At least I
suppose it to be. It looks like it."
"Sweetwater, bring me the typewriter!"
Sweetwater was the young man who had before shown himself in
attendance on the coroner.
"O, what does this mean?" asked Hope, shrinking back.
An oath answered her. George had reached the end of his patience.
The placidity of the old man remained undisturbed.
Meanwhile the young detective called Sweetwater had returned with the
typewriter in his arms. Setting it down on the library table, towards
which they all immediately moved, he composedly strolled my way. We
were now grouped as follows: the family and some others in the
library, Sweetwater and myself at the front door.
[Illustration]
Naturally, from the point I have just indicated, I could not look into
the library; but my hearing being good and that of the young detective
still better, we both managed to get the drift of what was being said,
though we could not note the speakers.
I had seen a slip of paper protruding from the machine when it was
carried past me, and it was to this piece of paper Mr. Gryce first
called Miss Meredith's attention.
"There's an unfinished letter here, as you see. Did you have a hand in
writing it?"
She did not answer very promptly, but when she did, it was with a "No"
which was startlingly abrupt.
"Ah! then there's someone else in the house who uses the typewriter."
"Mr. Gillespie. He often used it when he was in a hurry and I not by."
"Mr. Gillespie? Do you think it was he who wrote these lines?"
"I do. There was no one else to do it."
Was my imagination too active, or had her voice a choked sound which
spoke of some latent emotion she strove to conceal?
"Then," suavely responded the detective, "we need no other proof of
Mr. Gillespie's condition up to the time he worked off this last line.
I doubt if you ever made a better copy yourself, Miss Meredith. But
why is it torn across in this manner? Half of the sheet is missing,
and some portion at least of the letter is gone."
A sudden gasp which could have come from no other lips than hers was
followed by certain short exclamations from the others indicative of
interest if not surprise.
"Shall I take it out? Or will one of you read it as it lies here? I
prefer one of you to read it."
We heard a few stammering sentences uttered by George or Alfred, then
Leighton's voice broke in with the calm remark:
"It is about some shares lately purchased in Denver. If you think it
necessary to hear what my father had to say concerning them, this is a
facsimile of what he wrote a half-hour or so before he died:
[Illustration:]
New York, N. Y., Oct. 17, 1899.
James C. Taylor, Esq.,
18 State St.,
Boston, Mass.
Dear Sir:---
In regard to the financing of the $10,000,000, mentioned in
our conversation on the 12th inst., it is of the utmost
importance that I am placed as soon as possible in full
possession of the facts regarding the propert
The rest is torn off, as you say. Do you consider this letter
important?"
"Not at all, except as showing the sound condition of your father's
mind immediately prior to his collapse at ten o'clock. It is not the
letter itself which should engage your attention, but the fact that
this portion of it which has been wrenched off cannot be found. I
know," he went on, before a rejoinder could be made by anyone in the
startled group about him, "that a strip seemingly of this same paper
was received by Miss Meredith in an envelope a few minutes ago.
Indeed, I have it here. But though it was evidently stripped from this
same sheet--from the bottom part of it, as you can see from its one
straight edge--it does not fit the portion left in the machine. Some
two inches or so of the sheet is lacking. Now where are these two
inches? Not in the room from which we brought the typewriter, nor yet
on Mr. Gillespie's person, for we have looked."
Silence.
"No one seems to answer," breathed a voice in my ear.
Had this shrewd and seemingly able detective expected a reply? I had
not. Silence had too often followed inquiry in this house.
"It is a loss open to explanation," mildly resumed the aged detective.
"It is also one which the police deems important. We shall have to
search for that connecting slip of paper unless, as I sincerely hope,
someone here present can produce it."
"Search!" a commanding voice broke in--that of Leighton. "We know
nothing about it."
"It is a pity," rejoined the old man, with a mildness unusual in one
of his class. "Such a measure should not be necessary. Someone here
ought to be able to direct us where to find this missing portion of a
letter interrupted by so stern a fact as the writer's death."
Still no answer.
"Had there been a fire in the room--but there was no fire. Or had Mr.
Gillespie left the room----"
"Speak out!" the stern tones again enjoined. "You think some of us
took it?"
"I do not say so," was the conciliatory reply. "But this scrap must be
found. Its remarkable disappearance shows that it has more or less
bearing on the mystery of your father's death."
"Then we must entreat you to use your power and find it if you can."
It was still Leighton who was speaking. "George, Alfred, let us accept
the situation with good grace; we will gain nothing by antagonising
the police."
Two muffled oaths answered him; their natures were more passionate
than his, or possibly less under control. But they offered no
objections, and the next minute the old detective appeared in the
hall.
One look passed between him and the young man loitering at my side.
Then the latter turned to me:
"This is to be my task," he whispered. "I don't know the house at all.
I hear that you have been up."
From whom could he have heard this? From Dr. Bennett? It was possible.
Such fellows worm themselves into the confidence of warier persons
than this amiable old physician.
"I have passed through the halls," I admitted, none too encouragingly.
"But I don't see how that can help you."
"It's a four-story building, I suppose. All the houses along here
are."
"Yes, it's a four-story house."
He rubbed one hand awkwardly against the other; indeed, his whole
manner was awkward; then he walked slowly down the hall. When he
reached the library door he stopped and looked in with a shy and
deprecating air. Suddenly he began to back away. Someone was coming
out. It was Miss Meredith. When she was in full sight and he brought
to a stand-still by the wall against which he had retreated, he spoke,
but not to her, though his eyes were fixed upon her in a sort of blank
stare she may have attributed to the power of her beauty, but which I
felt was of a character to make her careful.
"Four stories!" he muttered. "Parlour floor, first bedroom floor,
second bedroom floor, and the attic! Where shall I begin? Ha! I think
I know," he smiled, and passed quickly down the hall.
She had given an involuntary pressure to her hands when he mentioned
the word attic.
I thought of the position in which I had found her there; of the
doubts expressed by the doctor as to how she could have received an
intimation of her uncle's death before an alarm had been raised or her
cousins fully aroused, and felt forced to acknowledge that the police
were justified in their action, great as was the spell cast over me by
her loveliness.
That, justified or not, they meant to do their work, I soon saw. With
a steady eye the coroner held us all to our places, while the young
detective disappeared above, followed only by Leighton, who had asked
the privilege of accompanying him for fear of some alarm being given
to his little child who was upstairs alone. From the way Miss
Meredith's eyes followed them, I knew there was something to be
feared from this quest which she alone had the power of measuring.
What was I to think of this young girl who chose to be reticent on a
subject involving questions of life and death! I would not probe my
doubts too closely. I steeled myself against her look, resolving to be
the lawyer--her lawyer--if required, but nothing more, at least till
these shadows were cleared up.
Her two cousins remained in the library, to which Mr. Gryce had
returned after making the signal to his man Sweetwater. We were all
under great restraint with the exception of the doctor, who was
chatting confidentially with the coroner. What he said I could in a
measure gather from the expression of Miss Meredith's face, who was
nearer him than I. That it served to intensify rather than relieve the
situation was apparent from the gravity with which the coroner
listened. Later, some stray words reached me.
"Had the greatest dread of poison--" This I distinctly heard--"Never
took any medicine without asking--" I could not catch the rest. "Tell
him symptoms--all the poisons--like a child--he _never_ poisoned
himself." This last rung in my ears with persistent iteration. It rang
so loud I thought everyone on that floor must have heard it. But I saw
no change in Alfred's restless figure hovering on the threshold of the
library door a few feet behind Miss Meredith; while George, conversing
feverishly with Mr. Gryce, raised his voice rather than dropped it as
these fatal words fell from the lips of one who certainly had the
best of reasons for believing himself in the confidence of his
patient.
Miss Meredith, who was listening to something besides this
conversation, fateful as it was, was meanwhile schooling herself for
Sweetwater's return. I could discern this by the change that passed
over her face just when his steps began to be heard; and was conscious
of quite a personal shock when I saw her hand fall involuntarily on
her bosom as if the thing he sought was _there_ and not in the rooms
above.
Cursing myself for the infatuation which would not let my eyes leave
her face, I turned with sudden impulse into the reception room opening
on my right. But I speedily stepped back again. Miss Meredith, who
seemed to have gained some confidence by my presence, had feebly
uttered my name. It seemed that the child had been heard to cry above,
and that the coroner had refused to let her go up.
I made my way to her side, and, despite Alfred's scowls, entered into
conversation with her, urging her to be calm and wait patiently for
the detective's return.
"The child has its father," I suggested.
But this did not seem to afford her much comfort. She wrung her hands
in her anxiety, and showed no relief till her cousin, followed by the
watchful detective, was again seen on the stairs.
Then she took my arm. She needed it, for life and death were in the
gaze she fixed upon the latter. And he--well, I had never seen the man
before that night; yet I felt as certain from the way his feet fell on
the stairs he so slowly descended that he had been successful in his
search, and that the piece of paper which rustled so gently in his
hand was the one Mr. Gryce had declared to be of such importance, and
which she--but what man can complete a thought suggestive of distrust,
while the hand of its lovely object presses warmly on his arm, and the
eyes whose glance he both fears and loves rest upon his in a
confidence which in itself is a rebuke?
I gave up speculation and devoted myself to sustaining Miss Meredith
in her present ordeal. As Sweetwater reached the last step she
murmured these words:
"I tried; but fate has rebuked me. Now I see my duty."
Her eyes had not followed Leighton's figure as he joined his brothers
in the library, but mine did, and it did not make my heart any lighter
to see from the glance he tossed her on entering that he was prepared
for some event serious enough to warrant all this emotion.
"You have found what you have sought!" she cried, intercepting the
young detective in her anxiety to end the suspense it took all her
strength to sustain.
His smile was dubious, but it was a smile. Meantime the paper he held
had found its way into the coroner's hands.
"Call Gryce!" shouted out that functionary, with a doubtful look at
the slip in his hand; "I shall need his experience in deciphering
this."
The detective was at his side in an instant, and together they bent
over the scrap. The suspense was great, and the moment well-nigh
intolerable. Then we saw the detective's finger rest on a certain
portion of the paper they were mutually consulting, and remain there.
The coroner read the words thus indicated, and his face showed both
strong and sudden feeling.
"Ah!" he ejaculated. "What do you make out of that?"
The detective uttered a few low words, and taking the piece which had
been in the envelope he fitted it to the one held by the coroner. We
could all see that they were part of the same sheet.
"I should like to see if it also fits the portion that was left in the
typewriter," suggested the other, ignoring the anxious looks bent upon
him from every side. Passing by us all, he laid the three pieces
together on the library table with a glance at the young Gillespies
which was not without its element of compassion.
"Let us see it. What's on it?" urged Alfred. "Why, this is worse than
father's death."
"If Miss Meredith will tell me how this central portion came to be on
the attic floor, I will presently oblige you," rejoined the coroner.
She who of all present showed no interest in the completed sheet
answered instantly, and without any further attempt at subterfuge or
denial:
"I carried it there. I had come upon my uncle lying dead in his study,
and thinking, fearing, that he had been struck while at the
typewriter, I flew to the latter, and, lifting up the carriage,
consulted the letter attached to it for some indication of this, and
saw--George, Leighton, Alfred," she vehemently cried, facing them with
a look before which each proud and spirited head sank in turn, "I do
not know upon which of your three souls the weight of this crime
rests. But one of you, one, I say, lies under the ban of your father's
denunciation. Read!" And her trembling finger crossed that of the
detective and fell upon a line terminating the half-finished letter
which they had already partially read.
This was the appearance of that letter as now presented:
[Illustration:]
New York, N. Y., Oct. 17, 1899.
James C. Taylor, Esq.,
18 State St.,
Boston, Mass.,
Dear Sir:--
In regard to the financing of the $10,000,000, mentioned in
our conversation on the 12th inst., it is of the utmost
importance that I am placed as soon as possible in full
possession of the important facts regarding the property
covered by these bonds.
First, the actual cost per mile, and if such cost covers the
necessary equipment for same both for freight and passenger
service; also if these bonds are the first lien one of my
sons he
"Those last words were written after he felt himself sinking under the
poison," rang out in instinctive emphasis from her lips. "Contradict
me, George! Contradict me, Leighton! or you, Alfred, if you can! It
would give me new life. It would restore me----"
She was sinking, fainting, almost at the point of death herself, but
not a voice was lifted, not a hand raised. This suggestion of crime
had robbed them, one and all, of breath, almost of life.
VIII
THE MAN BEHIND THE SCREEN
Suddenly one voice rang out in passionate protest. "Hope! Hope! It was
not I! It was not I!" And Alfred, leaving his brothers, stood before
his young cousin, with self-forgetful gestures expressing a denial
which was half-prayer.
George flushed, and his fist rose; Leighton drooped his head in
shame--or was it sorrow; but the next minute he had that rebellious
fist in his own clutch. Miss Meredith kept her eyes turned sedulously
away from them all.
"I only want one of you to speak; the man who can exonerate his
brothers by confessing his own guilt. Do not touch me!"
This to Alfred, whose hand had caught hold of her dress.
With an air of pride, the first I had seen in him, the youngest son of
Mr. Gillespie withdrew from her side and took up his stand on the
farther side of the hall.
"You are quick with your suspicions," he flashed out. "What sort of
men do you think us, that you should allow an incoherent phrase like
this at the end of a letter begun in health but finished in agony,
prejudice you to the death against persons of your own blood? It would
take more than that to make me think evil of you, Hope."
It was a natural reproach, and it told not only upon her, but upon us
all. The words which had precipitated this situation might mean much
and might mean little. Had the reputation of these young men been of a
more stable character, or had no attempt been made to suppress this
portion of the letter, suspicion would never have followed the
discovery of this incongruous addition to the half-finished business
letter found in the typewriter; "one of my sons he"--was that an
accusation of crime? George and Leighton were on the point of
asserting not, and Alfred had just begun to swagger with an air of
injured pride, when Miss Meredith, recovering herself, laid her hand
upon her bosom in repetition of her former action, and slowly drew
forth a letter, the appearance of which evidently produced a new and
still greater shock in the breasts of the three young men.
"I shall not try to vindicate myself," said she. "I have lived like a
sister in this house, and you would have a right to reproach me if it
were not for what I hold here. Alfred, you have complained that the
few words left in the typewriter by your dying father were incoherent
and unsatisfactory. Will you regard as equally meaningless this letter
written four weeks ago? Sir,"--here she turned to the coroner,--"my
uncle was ill a month ago. It was not a dangerous illness, but the
remedies given--Oh! Dr. Bennett help me to say it--were remedies we
all knew to be dangerous if taken in too great quantities. One
night--I cannot go on--he had reason to think his glass was tampered
with, and after that, he wrote this letter, and charged me with its
delivery in case he--he--Ah! I need not say in case of what. You
have seen his dear head lying low in the room over there. Only,--as
this letter is addressed to my cousins conjointly, will you allow them
to read it without witnesses if they will swear to respect it and
restore it in an un-mutilated condition to your hands? It is the only
favour I ask you to show them, and this I humbly entreat you to grant,
if only in recognition of what I have suffered at having precipitated
this horror when I only meant to--to----"
She was sinking--falling--nay, almost at the point of death herself.
But she reached out the letter, and the coroner, giving it one glance,
handed it over to Leighton as the one least shaken by the calamity
which had just overwhelmed the house.
"God forbid that I should deny to sons the privilege of being the
first to read the last letter addressed them by their father."
But he made no move towards drawing the curtain between himself and
the room from which he was retreating, nor could he be said to have
really taken his eye off any of them during the reading of this long
letter.
"You see I had need of a friend," murmured Miss Meredith, swaying
towards me.
I gave her a commiserating look. Was ever a girl more unfortunately
situated? Two at least of the men against whom she had felt forced to
utter this denunciation of crime, loved her (or so I believed), Alfred
passionately, George with less show of feeling, but possibly with
fully as much depth and fervour.
"You might have held the letter back," I whispered.
But she met me with a noble look.
"You mean if I have not drawn suspicion upon them by my first
subterfuge. But with so much in their disfavour, how could I calculate
upon another opportunity of seeing them all together. And they must
read it together. So my uncle told me. But he never thought it would
be with police-officers in the house."
Here the coroner advanced to question her, and I am happy to say that
my presence gave her courage to bear up under the ordeal. This was
what he elicited from her.
She did not know what was in the letter. It had been written by her
uncle while still on his sick bed and after an experience which I will
not relate here, as it will be found more fully stated in the letter
itself. This letter I will reproduce for you at once, though it was
weeks before I knew its whole contents:
GEORGE, LEIGHTON, AND ALFRED:
I may not have been a good father, but I have at least been
a just one. Though each and all of you since coming to man's
estate have given me great cause for complaint, I have never
been harsh towards you, nor have I ever denied you anything
from mere caprice or from an egotistic desire to save myself
trouble. Yet to one of you my life is of so little value
that he is willing to resort to crime to rid himself of me.
Does this shock you, Leighton, George, Alfred? We are a
Christian family, members of an honourable community,
trained each and all in religious principles, you, by the
best, the sweetest of mothers--does it move you to think
that one of you could contemplate parricide and even attempt
it? It moves me; and in two of you must awaken a horror,
the anticipation of which affords me the sole comfort now
remaining to my doomed and miserable life. For nothing will
ever make me believe that this act was a concerted one or
that the attempt which has just been made upon my life had
its birth in more than one dark breast. One guilty soul
there is among you, but only one; and lest to the remaining
two the accusation I have just made may seem fanciful,
unreal, the result of nightmare or the effect of fever, I
will relate what happened in this room last night, just as I
related it to Hope when she asked me this morning why I
seemed so loath to see you before you went out to your
several lounging places.
I was dozing. The lamp which since my illness has never been
turned out in my room, threw great shadows on wall and
ceiling. I seemed conscious of these shadows, though I was
half asleep, but not so conscious that I was not aware of
the light shining through the transom from the gas jet near
the top of the stairs. This light has always been company
for me, especially in wakeful nights or when I found myself
troubled by dreams or any physical distress. It seemed to
connect me with the rest of the house, and simple as it may
seem to you, accounts for the cheerfulness with which I have
declined the offers of my sons to sit with me during these
last painful nights. I had no need of their company while
this light shone; and as for pain--why, that is an evil
which all men are called upon sooner or later to endure.
I was resting then, in this mild reflected light, when
suddenly it went out. This woke me, for the orders are
strict that this jet be left burning till the servants come
downstairs in the morning. But I did not stir in my bed; I
simply listened. Though aroused and somewhat disturbed by
this palpable disregard of my wishes, I exerted all of my
faculties to detect the step I now heard loitering about my
door. But it was studiously cautious and made no distinct
sound in my ear. I did not like this, and listened still
more intently, whereupon I heard the door open and someone
come in, softly, and with long pauses such as were not wont
to accompany the entrance of any member of my household. I
was deciding whether to raise an alarm or lie still and let
myself be robbed of the money which I had just received from
the bank, when I heard the whispered "Father" with which one
and all of you approach me at night when you wish to
ascertain if I am asleep or awake.
Why did I hear myself called and yet make no reply? What was
in my heart, or what have I seen of late in your natures or
conduct, that I should remain quiet under this appeal and
lie there shut-eyed and watchful? I had no definite reason
for doubting any of you. I knew you were in debt and that
two of you at least were in crying need of money, but I
hardly think I dreaded the rifling of my desk by the hands
of one of my sons. Yet that approach so gentle and so
measured! the drawn-in breath! the shadow that grew and grew
upon the wall!--all these spoke of something quite different
from the anxiety of a son keeping watch over a sick father's
slumbers.
The desk was near the window towards which my eyes were
turned in open watchfulness, and I hoped by lying still to
catch sight of the intruder's figure at the moment of his
passing between me and the faint illumination made on the
curtains by the street lamp opposite. But the intruder did
not advance in that direction. He passed instead to the
little cupboard over the wash-stand, where, as you all know,
my medicines are kept. This I was made aware of by the faint
click made by one bottle striking another. "George has come
home ill, or Leighton has one of his terrible headaches,"
was the soothing thought which then came to me, and I found
it difficult not to speak out and ask who was sick and what
bottle was wanted. But the something which from the first
had acted in the way of restraint upon me, held me still,
and I remained dumb while that sneaking hand continued to
fumble among the phials and glasses. Suddenly a fear struck
me, a fear so far removed from any which I had ever before
known, that my whole attitude of thought towards my sons
must have undergone an instantaneous change--a gulf opening
where an instant before was confidence and love. The
medicine was kept there from which my nightly dose was
prepared; a medicine which you have all heard declared by my
physician to be a deadly poison, which must be measured most
carefully and given in only such doses as he had prescribed.
Could it be that my son was feeling about for this? Had
George bet once too often on that mare which will be his
ruin, or Leighton found his religion an insufficient cloak
for indiscretions which ever shunned the light of day; or
Alfred--the child of my heart, he whom his dying mother
placed as a last trust in my arms--confounded the _ennui_ of
inaction with that weariness of life which is the bane of
rich men's sons? I know the despairs that come in youth, and
I quaked where I lay; but it was not upon self-destruction
that this man at the cupboard was bent. I felt my whole
frame tremble and my heart sink in unutterable despair as he
advanced, still quietly and with great pauses, up to the
foot-board of my bed, then around to the side, protected, as
you know, by a screen, till he crouched out of sight, but
within reach of the small table where my glass stands with
the spoon beside it, ready for my use if I grow restless and
weary.
To have turned, to have intercepted the creeping figure in
its work, and thus have known definitely and forever which
one of you had thus furtively visited my medicine cabinet
before proceeding to my bedside, might have been the natural
course with some; but it was not my course. I was not
content just to interrupt. I wanted to know the full extent
of what I had to fear. A remark which Dr. Bennett had once
let fall recurred to me, transfixing me to my bed. "If you
were not a careful man," he had said in diagnosing my
present illness, "I should say that you had taken something
foreign into your system; something which has no business
there; something which under other circumstances and in
another man's case I should denominate _poison_." It had
seemed nonsense to me at the time, and I laughed at what I
considered a fatuous remark, uttered with unnecessary
gravity; but now that there was really poison in the house,
and one of my own blood stood hiding behind the screen
within a foot of my medicine glass, I could not but choke
down the cry which this thought caused to rise in my throat
and listen for what might come. Alas! I was destined to
behold with my eyes as well as hear with my ears the next
move made by my unknown visitant. By the grace of God or
through some coincidence equally providential, the gas at
this momentous instant was relit in the hall, and I
perceived, amid the old shadows thus called out upon the
wall, a new one--that of a hand holding a bottle, which,
projecting itself beyond the straight line cast by the
screen, was now stealing slowly but surely in the direction
of the table on which stood my glass of medicine. I did not
gasp or cry. Thought, feeling, consciousness even of my own
unfathomable misery seemed lost in the one instinct--to
watch that hand. Would it falter? Should I see it tremble or
hesitate in its short passage across the faintly illumined
space upon which my eyes were fixed? Yes, some monition of
conscience, some secret fear or filial remembrance made it
pause for an instant; but even as my heart bounded in glad
relief and human feelings began to re-awake in my frozen
breast, it steadied and passed on, and though I could no
longer see aught but a shadowy arm, I could hear
one--two--three--a dozen drops falling into my drink--a
sound which, faint as it was, made the guilty heart behind
the screen quake; for the hand shook as it retreated, and I
beheld distinctly outlined on the illumined space before me
the end of the semi-detached label which marked the special
bottle on which the word _poison_ is printed in large
letters.
No further doubt was possible. The medicine in my glass had
been strengthened and by the hand of one of my sons.
Which one?
In the misery of the moment I felt as if I did not care.
That any of you should seek my death was an overwhelming
grief to me. But as thought and reason returned, the wild
desire to know just what and whom I had to fear seized me in
the midst of my horror, mixed with another sentiment harder
to explain, and which I can best characterise as a feeling
of dread lest I should betray my suspicions and so raise
between my children and myself an insurmountable barrier.
Subduing my emotion and summoning to my aid all the powers
of acting with which I have been by nature endowed, I moved
restlessly under the clothes, calling out in a sort of
sleepy alarm:
"Who's there? Is it you, George? If so, reach me my
medicine."
But no George stepped forth.
"Leighton?" I cried petulantly. "Surely I hear one of you in
the room." But my son Leighton did not reply.
I did not call for Alfred. I could not! He was the last son
of his mother.
Did I wrong the others in not uttering his name also?
Meantime all was quiet behind the screen. Then I heard a
quick movement, followed by the shutting of a door, and I
realised that an escape had been effected from the room in a
way I had not calculated on--that is, by means of the
dressing-room opening out of the alcove in which my bed
stands.
I had thought myself a weak man up to that hour; but when I
heard that door close, I bounded to my feet and attempted to
reach the hall before the man who had thus escaped me could
find refuge in any of the adjoining rooms. But I must have
fallen insensible almost immediately, for when I came to
myself I found the foot-board of the bed within reach of my
hand, and the clock on the point of striking two.
I dragged myself up and staggered back to bed. I had neither
the courage nor the strength to push the matter further at
that time. Indeed, I felt a sort of physical fear, probably
the result of illness, which made it quite impossible for me
to traverse the halls and creep from room to room seeking
for guilt in eyes whose expression up to this unhallowed
hour had betrayed nothing worse than a reckless disregard of
my wishes.
Yet it was torment unspeakable to lie there in an
uncertainty which threw a cloud over all my sons. For hours
my thoughts ran the one gamut, George, Leighton, Alfred,
clinging agonisedly to each beloved name in turn, only to
drop into a dreadful uncertainty as I remembered the
temptations besetting each one of you, and the readiness
with which you all, from the oldest to the youngest, have
ever succumbed to them. There was no determining point in
the character of any of you which made me able to say in
this solitary and awful communion with my own fears, "This
one at least is innocent!" If I dwelt on George's generous
good nature, I also recalled his wild extravagance and the
debts he so recklessly heaps up at every turn he makes in
this God-forsaken city; if some recollection of Leighton's
strict ways in open matters of conscience came to soothe me,
there instantly came with it the remembrance of the various
tales which had reached my ears of certain secret
attachments which drew him into circles where crime is more
than a suggestion, and murder a possible attendant upon
every feast. Then Alfred--youngest of all but the least
youthful in his attitude towards the world and his
fellow-men--what honourable ambition had he ever shown
calculated to give me solace at this awful time, and make
the association of his name with a damnable crime an
impossibility and an outrage?
Meanwhile, my whole mental vision was clouded with the
pictured remembrances of your faces as seen in childhood, in
early youth, or at any other time, indeed, than the
intolerable present. George's, when he brought home his
first school medal; Leighton's, when he denied himself a new
pair of skates that he might give the money to a crying
street urchin; Alfred's, when the fever left him and his
cheeks grew rosy again with renewed health. All these young
and innocent faces crowded about me, awakening poignant
suggestions of the change which a few short, short years had
wrought in relations which once seemed warm and alive with
promise. Then, a group of frank-eyed boys; now,--this awful
question: _which?_
It was not till an hour had passed that I remembered that
the phial had not been returned to the cabinet. In whose
possession would it be found? Should I have a search made
for it? I turned cold in bed at the debasing, the
intolerable prospect of acting as detective in my own house.
Then the poisoned glass! it still stood beside me; if I left
it untouched it would show suspicion on my part, and
suspicion might precipitate my doom. How could I avoid
taking it without raising doubts as to my discovery of the
trick which had been played so near me? In the feverish
condition of my mind but one plan suggested itself. Throwing
out my arm, I precipitated the glass to the floor, over
which I heard it roll, with extraordinary sensations. Then I
waited for daybreak, in much the same condition of mind in
which a man awaits his last hour; for my heart yearned over
my sons even while panting under the consciousness that one
of them was a monster of ingratitude and innate depravity.
When Hewson and the girls came down, and I heard the stir of
life in the house, I rang my bell and asked for Hope. She
came in with beaming face and a smile full of happiness. She
had risen from a beauty sleep and, possibly because my
thoughts had been so dark, I had never seen her look so
bright and lovely. But her cheeks paled as she approached my
bedside and noticed my miserable appearance; and it was with
sudden anxiety she cried:
"What a wretched night you must have had, uncle! You look
poorly this morning. You should have sent for me before."
Again I summoned up all my powers of acting.
"I knocked over my medicine in the night. Perhaps that is
why I look so wretched. I did not sleep after four. You can
say so, if any of the boys ask after me at the breakfast
table."
With a woman's solicitude she moved around to my side, where
the screen stood.
"Why, what's this?" she exclaimed, stooping as her foot
encountered some small object.
I expected her to lift the glass. Instead of that she lifted
the bottle. It had been left there on the floor and not
carried out of the room, as I had naturally supposed.
I endeavoured to look undisturbed and as if this bottle had
been thrown over with the glass, but I failed pitiably. At
the sight of her dear, womanly face and the affection
beaming in every look, I broke down and raised my arms
imploringly towards her.
"Come to my arms!" I prayed. "Let me feel one true head on
my breast."
The next minute I was conscious of having said a word too
much. Her look, which you all know and love, changed, and,
while she submitted to my caresses and even warmly returned
them, it was with an appearance of doubt which I almost
cursed myself for having roused in that innocent breast.
"Why one true heart?" she repeated. "Are there not others in
this house? George and Alfred love you devotedly; and little
Claire--what child could show more fondness for a
grandfather than she?"
Why had she not included Leighton?
I endeavoured to right myself with some mechanical phrase or
other, but the attempt was not very successful, and she was
leaving the room in great disturbance when I called her
hurriedly back.
"I want you to smile as usual," I gravely enjoined.
"George's extravagances and Alfred's caprices are no new
story to you. I have been thinking about them, that is all,
but I had rather they did not know it."
I could not mention Leighton's name, either.
Meantime she was standing there with the poison bottle in
her hand. I could not bear to look at it, and motioned her
to restore it to the cabinet. As she did so, I perceived her
turn with half-open lips, as if about to ask some question.
But she either lacked the courage or the will to do so, for
she proceeded to the cabinet with the bottle, which she
placed quietly on the shelf. But almost instantly she took
it up again.
"Why, uncle," she cried, "there is not as much here as there
ought to be! I am sure the bottle was half full last night."
And then I remembered it was she who prepared my medicine
for me.
"And I left it on the shelf," she went on. "Uncle, how came
it to be lying by the side of your bed? Did you try to
strengthen the dose? You know you ought not to; Dr. Bennett
said that three drops in half a glass of water were all you
could take with safety."
I had not a word to say. My mind seemed a blank, and no
excuse presented itself. The wish which I had openly
cherished of seeing Hope married to one of my sons clogged
my faculties. My protest confined itself to a slow shake of
the head and a dubious smile she was far from understanding.
"I think I will stay with you," she gently suggested.
"Nellie will bring my breakfast up with yours, and we can
have a _tete-a-tete_ meal at your bedside."
But this did not chime in with my plans.
"No," said I. "Nellie can stay with me if you wish, but I
want you to go down. Your cousins will miss you if you are
not there to pour the coffee for them. Alfred shows an
astonishing punctuality of late, and George quite emulates
his younger brother's precision and haste. Leighton was
never late."
Her cheek grew the colour of a rose. Never before had I so
much as suggested to her the secret wish you have one and
all entertained ever since her beauty and affectionate
nature brought sunshine into this cold dwelling.
I was glad to see this colour; at the same time I was made
poignantly wretched by what it suggested. If Hope loved one
of my sons, and he should be the one who had--I felt more
than ever called upon to act warily. Here was someone
besides myself to think of. Your mother is dead and in
Paradise, but Hope is young and the crushing weight under
which I staggered could not well be borne by her. For her
sake if not for my own, I must locate the plague-spot that
to my mind spread defilement over all my sons. I must know
which of you to trust and which to fear; and that no mistake
should follow my attempt at this, I made haste to insure
that no warning should reach you through any change in
Hope's manner. So I reiterated my old command.
"Let me see you smile," said I, "or I shall think you regard
me as being in worse condition than I really am. Indeed, I
am almost well, Hope. My disease has yielded to Dr.
Bennett's treatment, and when I can rise above these sickly
fancies, which are the effect, no doubt, of the powerful
remedies I have taken, I shall be quite like my old self.
After breakfast let me see you here again. I may have some
letters requiring an immediate answer."
My natural tones reassured her. The force of my feelings had
brought some colour into my cheeks, and I probably looked
less ghastly. She turned away with a smile. Alas! her face
renewed its brightness and shone with sweet expectancy as
she approached the door.
Nellie brought me my breakfast and I forced myself to eat
it. My mind was regaining its equilibrium and my will its
power. Just as I was folding my napkin, Hewson came in. He
had brought me an especial tid-bit, prepared in the chafing
dish by Hope's own hands. But I could not eat it. The
thought would rise that she had seen far enough into my mind
to imagine I would dread eating anything she had not cooked
for me herself. As Hewson was withdrawing, I asked if you
were all well. His answer was an astonished Yes. At which I
ventured to remark that I had heard someone up in the night.
"That was Miss Meredith," he explained. "I heard her tell
Mr. George at the breakfast table that she came down to your
door about one in the morning to listen if you were quiet.
She said she found the gas blown out in the hall, and that
she lit it again. I had left the sky-light open; it don't do
these windy nights, sir."
I was disturbed by this discovery. That she should have been
at the door at a moment so fraught with danger and misery to
myself was a thrilling thought; besides, might she not have
been so happy or so unhappy as to have caught a glimpse of
the man who crept out of my dressing-closet a moment later!
Overcome by a possibility which might settle the whole
question for me, I let Hewson go in silence; and when Hope
came back, drew her gently but resolutely down on the bed at
my side and said to her with a smile:
"I have just learned how my dear girl watches over her
uncle's slumbers. You are too careful of me; I had rather
have you sleep. George's room is on this floor; let him come
and see how I am in the night, if you are so uneasy."
"George would never wake up without assistance," said she.
"I could not trust you to his tender care, well meaning as
he is."
"Leighton, then. He's a light sleeper. I have often heard
you say that you have heard him pacing the floor of his room
as late as three in the morning."
"But he sleeps better now. Alfred might stop on his way in;
but Alfred does not stay out as late as he used to. He comes
in quite regularly since you have been ill."
Were her eyes quite true? Yes, they were as true as the sky
they mirror. I grasped her hand and ventured upon a vital
question.
"Who was up at the same time you were last night? I am sure
I heard a man's step in the hall, just about the time you
relighted the gas."
"Did you know about the gas?" she asked. "I found it
smelling dreadfully. But I didn't encounter anyone in the
hall. I guess you imagined that, uncle."
"Perhaps!" was my muttered reply, as I wondered how I was to
ask the next question. "When did you go upstairs?" I finally
inquired.
"Oh, right away. I didn't wait a minute after I found you
quiet. It was cold in the halls--Hewson had left the
sky-light open, and my trip after a match chilled me."
"Was your cousin Leighton's door open?" I instantly
inquired. "Or did you hear any door shut after you went up?"
She leaned over me and looked anxiously into my face.
"Why do you ask so many questions, uncle, and in so hard a
voice? Would there have been any harm in my cousins being
up, or in my running across one of them in the hall?"
"Not ordinarily. But last night----"
Here my weakness found vent. I must share my secret, if only
as a safeguard; I could not breathe under the dreadful
weight imposed upon me by this uncertainty. And she knew I
had some dreadful tale to tell; this I was assured of by the
white line creeping into view about her lips, and by the
convulsive clasp with which she answered my clutch.
Forgetting her youth, ignoring all the resolves I had made
in the secret watches of the night, I drew her ear down to
my mouth and gasped into it the few tell-tale sentences
which revealed the dishonour of our house. I caught the
thrill of anguish which went through her as I made plain
the attempt which had been made upon my life, and never
shall I forget her eyes as she slowly drew back at the
completion of my tale, and surveyed me in the silent
suspense which seemed to mirror forth my own deep
heart-question: _Which?_
Sons, I could not answer the demand made by that look, nor
can I answer it now. You all came in soon after, and each
and all of you had something to say about the mischance of
the night which had so visibly affected me. And I did not
dare to read your eyes. Brought face to face with you, I
seemed to shrink from, rather than seek for, the settling of
this dreadful question. Perhaps because I regard you with
equal affection. Perhaps because your mother's picture was
visible over your heads, and it seemed like sacrilege to her
memory to consider such a question under her loving and
trusting eyes. At all events you left me with my mind still
in doubt, to confront Hope again, and with her the wretched
future which the night's experience had unfolded before us
both. I found her filled with a confidence I could not
easily share. She believed in the integrity of the man she
held dearest, but she would not tell me which of you she
thus loved. And I could only guess. But even this belief
weakened a little as we talked together, and I soon saw by
the arguments she used that peace and certainty would never
be hers again as long as a doubt remained as to which of her
cousins had conceived and perpetrated this criminal act. As
for me, the future holds no comfort. I shall give each of
you a thousand dollars to-night in celebration of my
anniversary of marriage, and perhaps this will awaken the
conscience of the one who loves my money better than my
life. Then, though I shall not change my will, I shall
publish abroad that I have had losses which only a fortunate
speculation can make good, and see if by these means the
cupidity which came near costing me my life may not serve to
insure me a sufficiently prolonged existence for me to
separate in my own mind the one black sheep from the white.
But if these measures fail, if I am doomed to fall a victim
to the unknown hand which I must henceforth see lifted over
my life, if Hope's watchfulness and my own vigilance cannot
prevent the repetition of an act which, if once determined
upon, cannot fail of fulfilment in a house like this, then
this letter read by you all in concert must prove the
punishment of the guilty one. And since none of you will
read these lines except under these circumstances of death
and crime, I hereby charge that guilty one to speak, and as
he hopes to escape my curse and the wrath of an outraged
Deity, to avow his crime in her presence and in that of the
two brothers he will thus exonerate.
Having done this, he may take or leave his portion of the
estate. I shall be satisfied, and the God whose commandments
he has doubly defied may forget to avenge a crime forgiven
by its object.
To my two sons whose filial instincts have never been thus
disturbed, I leave my blessing. May all happiness be theirs,
whether this does or does not include the love of the dear
girl whose future I have thus endeavoured to clear.
ARCHIBALD GILLESPIE.
I have inserted this letter here that you may understand the situation
which ensued upon its perusal by the three brothers.
We, who had not read it, were simply startled to note the way in which
these three young men drew back as from a common centre, as the last
words fell from Leighton's well-nigh paralysed lips.
Then Alfred, in a rush of ferocious passion, bounded forward again,
and striding up to George, shouted out in an awful voice, "_You_ are
the man!" and struck him without mercy to the floor.
IX
THE CLOCK THAT HAD RUN DOWN
In the commotion which followed, I noted two things. First, that at
sight of this violence from one brother to the other, Leighton drew
back without offering assistance to the one or rebuke to the other.
Secondly, that Alfred's show of anger ceased as soon as it had thus
expended itself, and that his next thought was for Hope.
But he was not allowed to approach her. The coroner now interfered
with his authority, and all words were forbidden between these members
of a disrupted household, till the police had finished an
investigation, which had now become as serious as the crime which had
called it forth.
The search was for the little phial which had held the acid, and when
it was generally understood that the investigation would not cease
till this was found, Miss Meredith, who had clung to me as her one
stay in this overturning of every other natural support, asked me in
agitated tones if I thought her cousins would be subjected to personal
search. As no other course was open to the police after the direct
accusation which had just been made by the infuriated Alfred, I
answered in the affirmative; whereupon she attempted to flee the
place, saying she could not endure to see them subjected to such
humiliation.
But here Alfred, as if divining her thoughts, offered his person to
Mr. Gryce with the remark:
"I have nothing to conceal. Look through my pockets, if you wish. You
will find nothing to reward your pains. _I_ am not the villain."
A growl of anger, bridled but concentrated, came from the other side
of the room, and I caught a sudden glimpse of George, quivering under
the restraining hands of Dr. Bennett and Sweetwater, in a mad attempt
to reach his brother, whom he seemed to curse between his teeth.
"If you search him, you must do the same to me," were the words with
which he seasoned this struggle. "You will find nothing more
incriminating on me than on him; probably less, for my pockets are
always open--while his----" A gnash of his teeth finished these almost
inarticulate phrases. He was not as easily roused as his brother, but
more tenacious in his passions, and less readily appeased.
"Peace, there! You shall both be satisfied," interposed a businesslike
voice. In face of these open accusations, the coroner felt himself
relieved from the embarrassment which had hitherto restrained him, and
made no further effort to hide his suspicions.
Miss Meredith, who unconsciously to herself had drawn me as far as the
drawing-room door in her efforts to escape the disquieting scene she
had herself precipitated, paused as these words left the coroner's
lips, and, yielding to the terrible fascination of the moment, caught
my arm, and clinging thus with both hands, turned her eyes again upon
the men under whose roof she had eaten, slept, and loved; ay, loved,
as I knew by the tension of her body, communicated to me by the
pressure of her hands.
Suddenly that pressure was removed. Her hands had flown to her eyes,
shutting out the spectacle she could no longer confront. Nor was it
easy for me to look on unmoved, or view with even an appearance of
equanimity the scene before me.
I have not mentioned Leighton. He had not come forward with the other
two, but he allowed his pockets to be searched without a protest when
his turn came, though it was very evident that the proceeding caused
him more suffering and a keener sensation of disgrace than it did the
other two. Was this on account of the superior sensitiveness of his
nature, or because he shrunk with a proud man's shame from the
publicity entailed upon the anomalous articles which were drawn from
his inner pockets? When some few minutes later my eyes fell on these
objects lying piled on the library table, I marvelled over the
character of a man who could gather and retain in one place a small
prayer-book, a lock of woman's hair, the programme of some common
music hall, and a photograph which after one glance I instinctively
turned face downwards, lest it should fall under the eye of his
cousin, whose delicacy could not fail to be hurt by it.
The phial had not been found on any of the young gentlemen.
When Miss Meredith became aware that the ordeal was over, she let her
hands drop, and stepped hastily into the drawing-room. I did not
follow her, but remained in the doorway watching the detectives as
they moved from room to room in the search which was now being
extended to all parts of the house. As I saw these men pass so quietly
but with such an air of authority into rooms where a few hours before
they would have hesitated to put foot even upon the genial owner's
express invitation, I experienced such a realisation of the abyss into
which this hitherto well-reputed family had fallen that I lost for a
little while that sense of personal bitterness which the predictions
evinced by Miss Meredith had so selfishly awakened.
But to continue the summary of events.
Seeing Leighton withdraw upstairs, followed by an officer in plain
clothes, who had appeared on the scene as if by magic, I could not
refrain from asking why he was allowed to separate himself from the
others, and was much moved at being informed that he had gone up to
sit by his child's bed, that child who of all in the house had found
her wonted rest.
That he could calm himself down to such a task under the eye of one
who could have little sympathy with his feelings, whether they were
those of outraged innocence or self-accusing guilt, struck me as the
most pathetic exhibition of self-control I had ever known; and more
than once during the busy hour that followed, I was visited by
fleeting visions of this silent man, sitting out the night under the
watchful eye of one who moved if he so much as lowered his head to
kiss the only cheek likely to smile upon him on the morrow as it had
smiled upon him to-day.
That the search for the missing phial was likely to be a
long-continued one soon became apparent to everyone. Two men who had
carried the investigation into the room where the servants had been
shut up since early evening, came back with the report that nothing
had come to light in that quarter. At the same time two more returned
from above with a similar report in regard to the sleeping-rooms of
the three brothers. Sweetwater and Gryce, who had spent the last
half-hour in the dining-room, appeared to have an equally
unsatisfactory tale to tell, and I was wondering what move would now
be made, when I intercepted a glance from the coroner cast in the
direction of the drawing-room, and realised that the law was no
respecter of persons and that she, she too, might be called upon to
give proof of not having this tell-tale article upon her person.
The prospect of such an indignity offered to one I regarded with more
than passing admiration unnerved me to such an extent that I was
hardly myself when Dr. Frisbie advanced upon me with this remark:
"I regret the necessity, Mr. Outhwaite; but the emergencies of the
case demand the same compliance on your part as on that of the other
gentlemen found upon this scene of crime. It is needless to say that
we have the utmost confidence in your integrity, but you were here
when Mr. Gillespie died, and have been close to a certain member of
this family many times since--and, in short, it is a form which you as
a lawyer will recognise and----"
"No apologies," I prayed, recalling the one son of Mr. Gillespie who
had not been on the scene of crime at the time of his father's death.
An intelligent glance from the coroner convinced me that he was
thinking of him too. Indeed, he seemed to be more than willing to have
me understand that he exacted this thorough search in order to fix the
crime on Leighton. For if the phial was not to be found anywhere in
the house, the necessary conclusion must be that it had been carried
out of it by the one person known to have left it during the critical
half-hour preceding Mr. Gillespie's death.
"I understand your thoughts," quoth the coroner, who seemed to read my
face like an open book. "The phial may have been smashed on the
sidewalk or thrown into some refuse barrel. But that would be the
unwisest thing a guilty man could do. For its odour is unmistakable,
and once it is found by the men I will set looking for it at
daybreak--Well, what now?"
Sweetwater was whispering in his ear.
"The child? Do I remember that the father suggested she should be put
to bed undressed? Oh, I cannot have you disturb the child. Used as I
am to the subterfuges of criminals I find it impossible to believe
that a father could make use of his child as a medium for his own
safety."
"Or Miss Meredith?" the insidious whisperer went on.
"Or Miss Meredith. She may have the bottle on her own person, but she
would never pass it over to the child. No, no! curb your extravagances
and confine your attention to Mr. Outhwaite, who is kind enough to
allow us to inspect his pockets----"
Here the curtain at the drawing-room door was disturbed and a pallid
face looked forth.
"I pray you," came in entreaty from Hope's set lips, "spare this
stranger, whose only crime has been to show kindness to a man he did
not know, in an extremity he did not understand. Search me; search
Claire; but do not subject this gentleman to an act so injurious. I
swear that the phial is not on him! I swear----"
She hardly knew what she was saying. The heaped-up excitements of the
last two hours were fast unsettling her reason.
She held out her hands imploringly. "I don't know why I care so much,"
she murmured in fresh expostulation, "but I feel as if I could not
bear it."
From that moment I loved her, though I knew this interposition in my
behalf sprang from her womanly instinct rather than from the
spontaneous impulse of a freshly awakened heart. I must have shown how
deeply I was moved, for the coroner looked distressed, though he gave
no signs of modifying his intention, and I was beginning to empty my
pockets before his eyes, when Sweetwater's expressive countenance
showed a sudden change, and he rushed again to the rear. Here he stood
a moment before the dining-room door, striking his forehead in
wrathful indecision; then he disappeared within, only to shout aloud
in another instant:
"Fool! fool! And I noticed when I first came in that the clock had
stopped. See! see!"
We were at his side in an instant. He was standing by the mantelpiece,
with the heavy French clock tilted up before our eyes. Under it,
tucked away in the space allowed to the pendulum, we saw a small
homoeopathic bottle. There was one drop of liquid at the bottom,
which even before Mr. Gryce lifted the bottle to his nose we
recognised by its smell to be prussic acid.
The phial which had held the deadly dose was found.
X
THE PENCIL
Under Sweetwater's careful guidance, the clock fell slowly back into
place. It was one of those solid time-pieces which seem to form part
of the shelf on which they stand. When it was again quite level, he
pointed to its face. The hands stood at half-past nine, just ten
minutes previous to the time of my entering the house.
"At what hour did Mr. Leighton Gillespie go out to-night?" he asked.
No one answered.
"Before half-past nine or after it?" urged the coroner, consulting the
faces about him for the answer he probably had no expectation of
receiving from anyone's lips.
"Leighton's all right," cried out a voice from the library. "I hate
his puritanical ways, but there's no harm in him."
It sounded like Alfred, but the impression made by this interruption
was not good.
"Will you allow me to state a fact," ventured Miss Meredith, coming
impulsively forward. "If you hope to establish the guilt or innocence
of anyone by the time marked by these hands, you will make a mistake.
The clock has been out of order for some days. Yesterday it ran down.
I heard my uncle say that it would have to go back to Tiffany's for
repairs."
"Fetch in the butler or whoever has charge of this room," ordered Dr.
Frisbie. "Let none of you attempt to speak while he is present. I wish
to interrogate him myself and will have no interruptions."
We all drew back, and silence reigned in the spacious apartment which,
lit up as for a dinner party, was yet in such a state of disorder that
the orderly old butler groaned as his eyes fell upon the heaped-up
rugs, the overturned chairs, and the great table stacked with fine
china and cut-glass taken from the buffet and closets.
"Oh, what shall I do here?" he grumbled. "What would master----"
He did not finish; but we all understood him. The coroner pointed to
the clock.
"When was this wound last?"
The old man stared at the time-piece, mumbled, and shook his head.
Then his eyes fell on Miss Meredith.
"I don't remember," he protested. "It has not been running for days;
has it, Miss? I have had to use my watch in order to be on time with
the meals. Why do you ask, sir?"
He was not answered. This repeated closing up of every avenue of
inquiry was beginning to tell upon the police.
"Mr. Gillespie looked very sober, very sober indeed, when he found he
had to drink his wine alone," continued the butler, with a melancholy
emphasis calculated to draw our attention back to the scene which had
manifestly made such an impression upon him. "He lifted up his glass
and held it out a long while before he drank it. I think he looked at
each one of the young gentlemen in turn, but I didn't care to watch
him too closely, for there was something solemn about him which made
me feel queer, living so long as I have in the family and with every
one of these young gentlemen babies in arms when I came here. He drank
it finally, standing. But there was no harm in that glass, sirs, for I
finished the bottle myself afterwards, and I am well, as you see.
More's the pity!"
"Shut up!" shouted an angry voice from across the hall. "You are
making a ---- mess of the whole affair with your confounded drivel."
The coroner motioned the butler away.
The atmosphere of the house had now become oppressive even to me, and
for the first time I experienced a desire to be quit of it, and would
certainly have made some movement towards departure had it not been
for my dread of leaving Miss Meredith alone with her own thoughts.
Meanwhile the coroner was issuing his orders.
"Dakin, request the gentlemen upstairs to come down again for a few
minutes. Dr. Bennett, the body of your patient can now be moved."
"Ah, here we are again," he exclaimed, as Leighton was heard
descending the stairs.
"Now, if the two other sons of the deceased will attend to my words
for a moment I will state that under the existing circumstances I feel
it my duty to call a jury and hold an inquest over Mr. Gillespie's
remains. The phial smelling of prussic acid having been found in the
dining-room, I shall only require restraint put upon the movements of
the two sons of Mr. Gillespie who are known to have entered this room
during the hour when this fatal dose was administered. The one called
Alfred, having remained above, is for the present free from suspicion.
I would be glad to show the same consideration to the others; but the
facts demand a severity which I hope future developments will allow us
to confine to the guilty party. Mr. Outhwaite, I must request you to
hold yourself subject to my summons. Miss Meredith, I advise you to
hold no communication with your cousins till this matter shows a
clearer aspect."
He was moving off, when Alfred, who had been shifting uneasily under
George's eye, stepped up to him and said:
"I don't want any discrimination made between my brothers and myself.
I may be quite conscious of my own innocence, but I cannot accept any
show of favours founded on a misconception. If George and Leighton are
to be subjected to surveillance on account of entering the dining-room
this evening, then I want to be put under surveillance too. For I was
in that room as well as they, searching for a small gold pencil which
I had dropped from my pocket at dinner-time."
This acknowledgment made under such circumstances and against such odds
was calculated to enlist sympathy, and my heart warmed towards the man who
in the heat of anger could strike a brother to the ground, but scorned at
a less angry moment to take refuge in a misunderstanding which left that
brother at a disadvantage.
But the imperturbability of the elderly detective, who at that moment
found something to interest him in the chasing on a Chinese gong
hanging from a bracket in the hall, warned me not to be too quick with
my sympathies. Kindly as he beamed upon this favoured object of his
attention, I saw that he took little stock in the generous attitude
assumed by Mr. Gillespie's youngest son; and my attention being
attracted to his movements, I was happily glancing his way when he
suddenly approached Alfred with what looked like an empty tumbler in
his hand.
"Is this the article you refer to?" he asked.
And then we saw that the tumbler was not empty,--that it held a small
object standing upright in it, and that this object was a gold pencil.
"Yes, that is my pencil," Alfred acknowledged. "But----"
"Oh, I am accountable for putting it into the tumbler," the old man
admitted. "The tumbler was a clean one, Mr. Gillespie. I assure you I
examined it closely before making it a receptacle for this pencil. But
the pencil itself--Let me ask you to put your nose to it, Mr.
Gillespie."
It was a suggestion capable of but one interpretation. Alfred started
back, his eyes staring, his features convulsed. Then he bent
impulsively forward and put his nose to the object Mr. Gryce held out.
With what result was evident from the sudden damp which broke out on
his forehead.
XI
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
"Fatality!" exclaimed Alfred. And, raising his head, he strode
impetuously towards Miss Meredith. "You have enjoined a confession of
guilt and forbidden us to assert our innocence," he cried. "But I
shall assert mine now and always, whatever happens and whoever
suffers. I should not be worthy of the happiness I aim at, if I did
not declare my guiltlessness in the face of facts which seem to
militate against me."
"I believe you--" she began, her hand trembling towards his. But the
confiding impulse was stayed--by what thought? by what dread? and her
hand fell and her lips closed before she had completed the sentence.
"I am innocent," he repeated, drawing himself up in proud assertion,
nobly borne out by the clear regard of the eye which now turned
alternately on George and Leighton, who were standing upon either side
of him.
"What is the use of repeating a phrase you cannot back up with proof?"
called out George, who was still gnawing his own special grievance. "I
am as innocent as you are, but I scorn to take advantage of each and
every opportunity to assert it."
Leighton neither spoke nor moved. The melancholy in which he was now
completely lost repelled all attempt to break it. Nor did this
expression of complete wretchedness alter during the hubbub that
followed. When it did--but I must make clear the circumstances of this
change. I was engaged in making my adieux to Miss Meredith, when
Sweetwater, after a marked effort to meet my eye, motioned me to join
him in the doorway of the den where Mr. Gillespie's body still lay.
Not enjoying the summons, yet feeling it impossible to slight them, I
ventured, for the last time, or so I hoped, down the hall.
The young detective was looking into the room which had already played
so conspicuous a part in the events of the night, and as I drew up
beside him, I perceived that his eyes were fixed not upon the
out-stretched figure of its late occupant, but on the face and form of
Leighton Gillespie, who was bending above it.
For all the humiliation I felt at thus sharing the professional
surveillance entered into by this able young detective, I could not
resist following his glance, which seemed to find something remarkable
in the attitude or expression of the man before me.
The result was a similar interest on my part and a score of new
surmises. The melancholy which up till now had been the predominating
characteristic of this inscrutable face had yielded to what could not
be called a smile and yet was strangely like one; and this smile or
shadow of a smile, had in it just that tinge of sarcasm which made it
the one look of all others least to be expected from a son who in
common with his brothers laboured under a suspicion of having been
the direct cause of his father's death.
With the memory of it fixed indelibly in my mind, I moved away, and in
another moment was quit of the house in which I had spent four hours
of extraordinary suspense and exciting adventure. As I passed down the
stoop, I met a young man coming up. He was the first of the army of
reporters destined to besiege that house before daybreak.
XII
GOSSIP
Next morning I routed up Sam Underhill at an early hour. Sam Underhill
is my special friend; he is also my nearest neighbour, his apartment
being directly under my own.
He is a lazy chap and I found him abed, and none too well pleased at
being disturbed.
"What the dickens brings you here at this unearthly hour?" was the
amiable greeting I received.
I waited till he had made himself comfortable again; then I boldly
stated:
"You are a club-man, Sam, and consequently well up in the so-called
gossip of the day. What can you tell me about the Gillespies?--the
three young men I mean, sons of Archibald Gillespie."
"George, Alfred, and Leighton? What possible interest can you have in
them? Rich fellows, spendthrifts, every one of them. What have they
been up to that you should rout me up at this hour----"
For reply I opened out the morning paper which I had been careful to
bring along.
"See here!" I cried: "_'Archibald Gillespie, the well-known broker,
died suddenly last night, from the effects of some drug mysteriously
administered.'_" I was reading rapidly, anxious to see what kind of a
story the reporters had made of it. "_'He had been ill for some weeks
back, but seemed perfectly restored up to half-past nine o'clock last
evening, when he fell and died without warning, in the small room
known as his den. A bottle of chloral was found on the mantel but
there is no proof that he took any of it. Indeed, his symptoms were
such that the action of a much more violent drug is suspected. His
little grandchild was a witness to his last moments.'_ George,
Leighton, and Alfred are now more than rich fellows. They are rich
men," I suggested, relieved that my name had not appeared in the
headlines.
"They need to be," was the short reply. "One of them at least stood in
great need of money."
"Which?" I asked, with an odd sensation of choking in my throat.
"George. He's about played out, as I take it. To my certain knowledge
he has lost in unfortunate bets thirty thousand dollars since summer
set in. He has a mania for betting and card-playing, and as his father
had little patience with vices of this nature, their relations of late
have been more than strained. But he's a mighty big-hearted fellow for
all that, and a great favourite with the men who don't play with him.
I heard he was going to be married. That and this sudden windfall may
set him straight again. He's a handsome fellow; did you ever meet
him?"
"Once," I acknowledged. Then with an effort of which I was more or
less ashamed, I asked the name of the girl who was willing to take
such a well-known spendthrift for a husband.
Sam did not seem to be as well posted on this point as on some
others.
"I have heard her name," he admitted. "Some cousin, who lives in the
same house with him. The old gentleman fancied her so much, he
promised to give a big fortune to the son who married her. It seems
that George is likely to be the lucky one. Strange, what odd things
come up in families."
"There is another brother--Alfred, I think they call him."
"Oh, Alph! He's a deuced handsome chap, too, but not such a universal
favourite as George. More moral though. I think his sole vice is an
inordinate love of doing nothing. I have known him to lie out half the
night on a club-divan, saying nothing, doing nothing, not even
smoking. I have sometimes wondered if he ate opium on the sly. Life
would be stupid as he spends it, if dreams did not take the place of
the pleasant realities he scorns."
I must have shown my amazement. This was not the Alfred Gillespie I
had met the night before.
"I have heard that everything was not quite smooth with him. I know I
haven't seen him around lately, crushing pillows and making us all
look vulgar in contrast to his calm and almost insulting
impassibility. I wonder what he will do with the three or four
millions which will fall to his share."
"Marry," I suggested, fillipping a fly from my coat-sleeve.
"He? Alph? I don't believe he could hold himself erect long enough to
go through the ceremony. Besides, it would be such a bore. That's my
idea of Alph."
It was not mine. Either he had greatly changed, or Sam Underhill's
knowledge of him was of the most superficial character. As I wavered
between these two conclusions I began to experience a vague sensation
of dread. If love could effect such a transformation in so unlikely a
subject as the man we were discussing, what might it not effect in an
ardent nature like my own?
I hastened to change the subject.
"The third brother is already married, I believe."
"Leighton? Oh, he's a widower; has been a widower for years. He was
unfortunate in the marriage he made. After the first year no one ever
saw young Mrs. Gillespie in public. I don't think the old gentleman
ever forgave him that match."
"What was the trouble? He seems to have a dear little girl. I saw her
when I saw her uncle."
"Oh, the child. She's well enough, but the mother was--well, we will
be charitable and say erratic. Common stock, I've heard. No mate at
all for a man like him. Not that he's any too good either for all his
hypocritical ways. I have no use for Leighton. I cannot abide
so-called philanthropic men whose noses are always in the gutter. He's
a sneak, is Leighton, and so inconsistent. One day you hear of him
presiding at some charity meeting; the next night you find him behind
the scenes at a variety theatre. And as for money--not one of Mr.
Gillespie's sons spends so much. He has just drained the old man's
purse, or so I've heard; and when asked to give an account of himself
mentions his charities and many schemes of benevolence--as if the old
man himself didn't spend thousands in just such lines."
"He doesn't look like a prig," I ventured.
"Oh, he looks well enough. But there's something wrong about the man.
His own folks acknowledge it; something shameful, furtive; something
which will not bear the light. None of those boys are chips of the old
block. Let's see the paper. What are you holding it off for? Anything
more about Mr. Gillespie's death? Do they call it suicide? That would
be a sad ending to such a successful life."
"One question first. Was Mr. Gillespie a good man?"
"He was rich; yet had few if any calumniators."
I handed him the paper. There were some startling lines below those I
had read out so glibly.
"They do not stop at suicide," I remarked; "murder is suggested. The
drug was not administered by himself."
"Oh!" protested Sam, running his eye over the lines that were destined
to startle all New York that morning. "This won't do! None of those
boys are bad enough for that, not even Leighton."
"You dislike Leighton," I remarked.
He did not reply; he had just come upon my name in the article he was
reading.
"Look here!" he cried, "you're a close one. How came you to be mixed
up with the affair? I see your name here."
"Read!"
He complied with an eagerness which I suppose but faintly mirrored
that of half the _Tribune's_ readers that morning. What he read, I
leave to your imagination, merely premising that no new facts had
come to light since my departure from the house and the printing of
the paper. When he had finished, he bestowed upon me a long and
scrutinising look. "This knocks me out," said he, with more force than
elegance. "I would never have believed it, never, of any of these
men." Then with a sudden change quite characteristic, he ejaculated,
"It was a rum chance for you, Arthur. How did you like it?"
I refused to discuss this side of the question. I was afraid of
disclosing what had become the inner-most secret of my heart.
He did not notice my reticence--this, too, was like him--but remarked
with visible reluctance:
"The weight of evidence seems to be against Alph. Poor Alph! So this
is the result of those long, unbroken hours of silent dreaming! I
shall never trust a lazy man again. When they do bestir
themselves----"
"He has not been arrested yet," I interjected dryly. "Till the police
show absolute belief in his guilt, I for one shall hold my tongue."
"Poor Alph!" was all the reply I received.
XIII
INDICATIONS
These concluding words of Sam Underhill show the trend of public
opinion at this time. But I was not swayed by the general prejudice,
nor, to all appearance, were the police. Though enough poison was
found in Mr. Gillespie's remains to have caused the death of any
ordinary man in fifteen minutes, no arrests were made, nor was Mr.
Gillespie's favourite son subjected to any closer surveillance than
the other members of this once highly respected family.
Meanwhile, the papers were filled with gossip about the case, which
was now openly regarded as one of murder. In one column I read a
semi-humorous, semi-serious account of how George Gillespie actually
once won a bet in face of all odds and to the confounding of those who
trusted in his invariable ill-luck; and in another how Leighton had
worn out his father's patience by a most persistent association with
the most degraded classes, an association which led him into all sorts
of extravagances. As a sample of these, and to show how entirely his
follies differed from those of his elder brother, he has been known to
order breakfast at a restaurant and disappear in the wake of a
Salvation Army procession before the meal could be served. They never
knew at home when to expect him in, or at what moment he might leave
the family circle. He was so restless, he rarely sat an evening out in
any one place. Without any apparent reason, he would often leave in
the midst of concert, sermon, or lecture, and has been known more than
once to dash away from a theatrical performance as if his life
depended upon his reaching the open air. And he never expected to be
criticised or questioned. If he were, he found some apology to suit
the occasion; but the apology was forced, and the person who called it
forth rarely repeated the offence.
Only a small paragraph was devoted to Alfred. In it his temporary
engagement to Miss Saxton of Baltimore was mentioned, and a somewhat
cruel account given of the way he jilted this young lady on his return
to the city. As this was coincident with the arrival of Hope at her
uncle's house, I needed no further explanation of his fickleness.
All this gossip about people in whom I had come to take so deep an
interest both worried and unsettled me; and I found myself looking
forward with mingled dread and expectation to the public inquiry,
which I had every reason to hope would separate some of these threads,
in the network of which my own heart had become so unfortunately
entangled.
It had been called for Thursday, and when that day came I was one of
the first to appear upon the scene. Not a word of what passed escaped
me; not a look nor a sign. Miss Meredith, who entered on the arm of
Leighton, wore a veil thick enough to conceal her features. But I did
not need to pierce that veil to imagine the expression of anxiety and
distress she thus concealed from the crowd. George, who had resumed
his usual manner, sat, conspicuous in height and good looks, among a
group of witnesses, some of whom I knew and some not. Dr. Bennett sat
at my side, and had so little to say that I did not attempt to disturb
him, having respect for the grief with which he regarded the untimely
end of his life-long friend and patient.
The first witness was myself.
As my testimony contained nothing which has not been already very
fully related in these pages, I will pass over this portion of the
scene, with the single remark that in the course of my whole
examination, which was a lengthy and exhaustive one, I allowed no
expression to escape me likely to prejudice the minds of those about
me against any one of Mr. Gillespie's sons. For it was apparent,
before I had been upon the stand ten minutes, that an effort was being
made to fix the crime on Alfred; and what surety could I have that
this result would not plunge a barbed arrow into the breast of her
about whom my fancy had drawn its magic circle? As I sat down, I
glanced her way, and it seemed to me there was meaning in the slight
acknowledgment she made me with her ungloved hand. But what meaning?
The inquiry thus being opened, and curiosity roused as to the motive
which led Mr. Gillespie to summon a stranger to his side at a moment
so vital and under circumstances seemingly calling for the
ministrations of those nearest and dearest to him, various experts and
physicians were called to prove that his death had not been caused by
disease, but by the action of prussic acid on a sufficiently healthy
system. With the establishment of this fact the morning's inquiry
closed.
As Miss Meredith was likely to be the first witness called at the
afternoon session, I felt it my duty as her lawyer to approach her at
this time with the following question, quite customary under the
circumstances:
"Miss Meredith," said I, "you will probably soon be subjected to a
searching inquiry by the coroner. May I ask if there is any special
point or topic concerning which you would prefer to keep silence? If
so, I can insist upon your privilege."
The look of mingled surprise and indignation with which she regarded
me was a sufficient answer in itself. Yet she chose to say, and say
coldly, after a moment of reflection:
"I have nothing to conceal. He can ask no question I shall not be
perfectly willing to answer."
Abashed by the construction she had put upon my words, as well as
greatly hurt by her manner, I bowed and drew off. Evidently she had
felt her candour impugned and her innocence questioned, and, in her
ignorance of legal proceedings, thought she had only to speak the
truth to sustain herself in my eyes and in those of the crowd
assembled to hear her.
This sort of self-confidence is common in witnesses, especially in
such as are more conscious of their integrity than of the pitfalls
underlying the simplest inquiry; and however much I might deplore her
short-sightedness and wish that she had better understood both myself
and her own position, it was plain that, in the light of what had just
passed between us, all interference on my part would be regarded by
her as an insult, and that I would be expected to keep silence under
all circumstances, let the consequences be what they would.
It was an outlook far from agreeable either for the lawyer or lover,
and the recess which now ensued was passed by me in a state of dread
of which she in her inexperience had little idea.
Upon the reseating of the jury, her name, just as I had anticipated,
was the first one called.
The emotions with which I saw her rise and throw aside her veil under
the concentrated gaze of the unsympathetic crowd convened to hear her
testimony, first revealed to me the absoluteness of her hold upon me;
and when I heard the buzz of admiration which followed the disclosure
of her features, I was conscious of colouring so deeply that I feared
my secret would become the common property of the crowd. But the spell
created by her beauty still held, and all regards remained fixed upon
her countenance, now eloquent with feelings which for the moment were
shared by all who looked upon her.
Her voice when she spoke deepened the effect of her presence. It was
of that fine and resonant quality which awakens an echo in all
sensitive hearts and carries conviction with it even to the most
callous and prejudiced. It lost some of its power perhaps as the ear
became accustomed to it; but to the very end of her testimony, I noted
here and there persons who looked up every time she spoke, as if some
inner chord responded to her tones--tones which, more than her face,
conveyed the impression of a nature exceedingly deep and exquisitely
sensitive.
She, meantime, failed to realise the effect which her appearance had
produced. She had been questioned, and was striving earnestly and
conscientiously to do justice to her oath, and relate as
circumstantially as possible what she knew of her uncle's sudden
death.
This is what I heard her say:
"I was my uncle's typewriter. I assisted him often with his
correspondence and was accustomed to go in and out of his study as if
it were my own room. On this night, I had written several letters for
him, and being tired had gone upstairs for a little rest. But I was
too anxious to be of assistance to him--his mail that evening was
unusually large--to retire without one more effort to relieve him; so
I went down again a little after ten. I had heard steps in the hall a
few minutes before, and little Claire's voice somewhere about the
house, but I did not encounter anyone in going down, perhaps because I
went by the way of the rear stairs, as I often do when I am in a
hurry. Little, little did I imagine what was before me. When I reached
my uncle's door,--but you know what a terrible sight met me. There lay
my kind--my good----"
We all waited, our hearts in our mouths, but in a moment more she
choked down her emotion and was ready to go on.
"He was dead. I knew it at first glance, yet I raised no cry. I could
not. I seemed in an instant to have become marble. I saw him lying at
my feet and did not weep a tear. I did not even touch him. I merely
staggered to the table at the side of which he had fallen, and
mechanically, but with a stoppage of my heart's action which made the
instant one of untold horror to me, lifted the carriage of the
typewriter which he had evidently been using when struck with death,
and looked to see what his last words had been. I had reason for
believing that they would convey some warning to me or at least an
explanation of his sudden death. And they did, or so I interpreted the
isolated phrase I came upon at the end of the unfinished letter I
found there. God knows I may have been mistaken as to what those five
words meant, but I was so impressed with the belief that they were
added there for my personal enlightenment that I reeled under the
responsibility thus forced upon me, and, hardly conscious of what I
was doing, tore off, with almost criminal haste, the portion
containing these words, and fled with them out of the sight and reach
of everyone in the house. It was a mad thing to do, and I speedily
regretted the insane impulse which had actuated me, for I was very
soon discovered in the remote spot to which I had fled, and the piece
of paper was found, and--and----"
How could she be expected to go on?
"Have we that piece of paper here?" asked the coroner.
It was produced, identified, and passed down to the jury.
It was my opinion at the time, and is still, that she told her story
thus fully in order to elude the questions which any apparent
reticence on her part would assuredly have evoked. But, having
reached this point, it seemed impossible for her to go farther. She
drooped, not under the eyes of the crowd, but under the fixed gaze of
her three cousins. Had she hoped for some signs of sympathy from them
which she failed to receive, or, at least a partial recognition, on
their part, of the suffering she was undergoing in the cause of truth
and justice? If so, no such recognition came. George's fine face
showed anger and anger only; Leighton's, a cold impassibility which
might have passed for the stolidity of an utterly unfeeling man if his
hands had not betrayed his inner restlessness and torment; while
Alfred's flashing eye and set lips made plain the fact that his
emotions clung to his own position rather than to hers--as was
natural, perhaps, with that slip of paper going the rounds of the
jury, and calling up from that respectable body startled, uneasy, or
menacing looks, according to the nature of the man examining it.
You remember that slip; a business communication broken into by these
totally irrelevant words, "one of my sons He". Is it any wonder that
these twelve commonplace men keenly felt their position in face of
what looked like a direct accusation from the father's hand?
Yet as these five words, simple in themselves and gaining meaning only
from the effort which this young girl had made to suppress them, were
capable of being construed in a hundred different ways, the faces
which at first blush mirrored but one thought gradually assumed a
non-committal aspect, which would have been more encouraging to the
men thus compromised, if the facts still to be brought out in
explanation of Miss Meredith's conduct towards them had not been of so
damaging a character.
Hope, who surmised, if she did not know, the contents of the letter
she now heard rustling in the coroner's hand, awaited his next
question with evident perturbation. Alfred, who may have hoped that
this letter would not appear so early in the examination, forgot
himself for a moment and cast a look at his brothers, which they took
pains to ignore, perhaps because of the effort it cost them to
preserve their own countenances in face of the impending ordeal.
I was witness both to this appeal and its rebuff, but to all
appearance Dr. Frisbie saw neither. He was deciding with what form of
words to introduce his new subject.
"Miss Meredith," he said at last, "you will now take this letter in
your own hand. Have you ever seen it before?"
"Yes, sir, it was a letter which was entrusted to me by my uncle, and
which I was told to preserve in secrecy so long as he retained his
health and life."
"It is addressed, as all may see: _To my three sons, George, Leighton,
and Alfred Gillespie._ Miss Meredith, did you understand by these
words that the enclosed was intended equally for your three cousins?"
"Yes, sir. My uncle Archibald told me so. He expressly said, in giving
it into my charge, that in the event of his sudden or unexplainable
death, his three sons were to read this letter together."
"It has been opened, I see. Is that a sign it has been so delivered
and read?"
"Yes, sir. When on the night I made that inconsiderate attempt to
suppress the slip of paper on which my uncle had transcribed the five
words you have just shown to the jury, one of my cousins reproached me
with having drawn erroneous and unwarrantable conclusions from what
was there written. I justified myself by handing over this letter.
Though I was never shown its contents, I was well aware of the
circumstances under which it was written and--and I was certain it
would prove my best excuse for what would otherwise have seemed
monstrous in one--who----"
She was too disturbed to proceed.
The coroner looked at her kindly, but it was no part of his duty to
allow any sympathy he might feel for the witness to interfere with his
endeavour to reach the truth. He therefore urged her to relate the
circumstances to which she alluded; in other words, to explain how
this letter addressed collectively to her three cousins came to be
written.
She grew still more distressed.
"Does not the letter explain itself?" she remonstrated. "Spare me, I
pray. My uncle's sons have been brothers to me. Do not make me repeat
what passed between my uncle and myself on that unhappy morning when
he first unburdened himself of his intolerable grief."
"I fear that I cannot spare you," replied the coroner; "but I will
grant you a short respite while this letter, or such portions of it as
bear upon Mr. Gillespie's death, is being read to the jury. Gentlemen,
it is written in Mr. Gillespie's own hand, and it is dated just a
month prior to his unhappy demise. Miss Meredith, you may sit."
She fell rather than sank into the chair offered her, and for a moment
I felt myself the prey of a boundless indignation as I witnessed the
callousness shown towards her by the three men who up to this time had
presumably regarded her with more or less affection. To me her
position called for their especial sympathy. The heroism she evinced
was the heroism of a loving woman who sacrifices herself, and what is
dearest to her, to her idea of justice and law. And while such action
may be easy for a man, it is hard beyond expression for a woman, who,
as we know, is much more apt to listen to the voice of her heart than
to any abstract appeal of right and justice. Yet these same relatives
of hers sat still and scarcely looked her way, though she glanced
repeatedly and with heartrending appeal in their direction.
I am quite ready to admit that I was too prejudiced a witness to be
just to these men. Had I not myself been under the influence of a
sudden and violent passion, I would have seen that Alfred needed
sympathy as well as she; for Alfred was the man most menaced by the
contents of the letter now on the point of being read; and he knew
this as certainly as she did.
As this letter is better known to you than it was to me up to this
hour, I leave you to judge of its effect upon the jury and the excited
crowd of spectators thronging the room at every point. Heads which had
wagged in doubt now drooped in heaviest depression; and while all eyes
seemed to shrink from an attempt to read the three white faces on the
witnesses' bench, the attention of all was concentrated there, and it
was with quite a sense of shock that Dr. Frisbie's voice was heard
rising again in renewed examination of the young lady whose
precipitate action had brought to public notice this touching letter
of a heartbroken father.
His first question was a leading one. Had Mr. Gillespie followed up
his former confidences by any further allusions to the attempt which
had been made upon his life?
Her answer was a direct negative. Though she had detected in her uncle
signs of great unhappiness, he had held no further conversation with
her on this topic, and life had gone on as usual in the great house.
"But he talked of poisons, and refused to take any more of the
medicine which came so near killing him?"
"Uncle Archibald took no more of this medicine, certainly. That is, I
saw no more of it in the house. But he never talked of poisons, that
is, publicly or in my presence."
"Not at the table?"
"Not after that night, sir."
"He had before?"
"Only incidentally. He had laughed at some of Dr. Bennett's remarks,
and once I heard him mention the danger of taking an overdose of the
remedy that was doing him so much good. It was while jesting with me
upon my refusal to allow anyone else to portion it out for him."
"That was your duty, then?"
"Assuredly."
"Were you in the habit of preparing his glass when alone or in the
presence of his sons?"
"As it happened, sir. I had but one dread; that of miscounting the
drops."
"And he took no more of this medicine after that especial night?"
"No, sir. He asked Dr. Bennett for a narcotic of less dangerous
properties, and was given chloral."
"Did you hear any remarks made on this change?"
"None."
"What became of the phial which held the remainder of this medicine
marked 'Poison'?"
"I emptied it out at my uncle's request."
"You were your uncle's nurse, then, typewriter, and friend?"
"He trusted me, sir, in all these capacities."
"Did he trust you with his business concerns?"
"Not at all. I merely wrote letters to his dictation."
"Did you know, or have you ever heard, the value of his estate?"
"I have never even asked myself whether he counted his fortune by
thousands or millions."
The dignity, the simplicity, with which this was said made it an
impressive termination to a very painful examination. As I noted the
effect it produced, I was in hopes that she would be allowed to retire
for the day. But the coroner had other views. With a hesitancy that
more or less prepared us for what was to come, he addressed her again,
saying quietly:
"I have spared you a public reading of certain portions of your
uncle's letter, referring to yourself and the wishes he openly
cherished in your behalf. In return, will you inform me if you are
engaged to marry any one of these young men?"
The thrill, the start given to the witnesses' bench by this pointed
question, communicated itself to officer and spectator. In George's
fiery flush and Alfred's sudden paleness, emotions could be seen at
work of sufficient significance to draw every eye; though few present,
I dare say, ascribed these emotions to their rightful sources. To
myself, divided as I was in feeling between the anxiety I could not
but feel as her lawyer to see her parry a question too personal not to
be humiliating, and the interest with which, as her lover, I awaited a
response which would solve my own doubts and make clear my own
position, there was something in the attitude of both these men
strongly suggestive of a like uncertainty. Were her feelings, then, as
much of a mystery to them as they were to me? Did George fear to hear
her say she was engaged to Alfred, and Alfred dread to hear her admit
that she was irrevocably pledged to George? If so, what a situation
had been evolved by this question publicly put by a city functionary!
No wonder the young girl dropped her eyes before venturing a reply.
But the spirit of self-protection, always greater in woman than in man
where heart secrets are involved, gave her strength to meet this
crisis with a baffling serenity. Raising her patient eyes, she replied
with a sweet composure which acted like a tonic upon the agitated
hearts about her:
"There is no such engagement. I have lived in their house like a
sister. Their father was my mother's brother."
Another man than Coroner Frisbie would have let her go, but this
honest, if kindly, official was strangely tenacious when he had a
point to gain. Flushing himself, for her look was directed quite
steadily upon him, he gravely repeated:
"Do you mean to say that no words of love ever passed between you and
any of these gentlemen?"
This was too much. Expecting to see her recoil, possibly break down, I
eagerly looked her way for the permission to interfere, which she
might now be ready to give me. But with a proud lift of her head she
showed herself equal to the emergency, and her answer, given simply
and with no attempt at subterfuge, restored her at once to the
dignified position we all dreaded to see her lose.
"I mean to say nothing but the truth. Mr. George Gillespie has more
than once honoured me by making me an offer of his hand. But I did not
consider myself in a position to accept it."
Dr. Frisbie showed her no quarter.
"And your cousin Alfred?"
"Alfred?" Her eyes no longer met those of the coroner or anyone else
in that cruel crowd. "He," she stammered proudly, "has never
interfered with whatever claims his brother may have been supposed to
have upon my favour."
It was a statement to awaken turmoil in more than one of the uneasy
hearts behind her. George bounded to his feet, though he quickly
subsided again into his seat, ashamed of this betrayal, or fearful of
the effect it might have upon his brother. Alfred, on the contrary,
sat still, but the bitterness visible in his smile spoke volumes, and,
seeing it, the whole crowd recognised what had long been apparent to
myself, that these two brothers were rivals in the love they bore this
woman, and that it was through her desire to shield the one she
favoured, that she made the first false move which had drawn the
attention of the police to the doubtful position held by Mr.
Gillespie's sons.
That her choice had fallen upon the man who had not interfered with
his brother's rights seemed only too probable, and I expected the
coroner to force this acknowledgment from her lips, but he grew
considerate all at once and inquired instead if Mr. Gillespie had been
made aware of his elder son's wishes. She replied to this by saying:
"They were no secret in the house"; and, with a look, begged him to
spare her.
But this man was inexorable.
"And did he approve of the match?"
"He did."
"Yet you failed to engage yourself?"
This she deemed already answered.
"If the younger brother had pressed his suit for your hand, do you
think that under the circumstances your uncle would have sanctioned
such rivalry?"
This, perhaps, she could not answer. At all events she was as silent
as before.
"Miss Meredith," proceeded her tormentor, utterly oblivious or
entirely careless of the suffering he caused her, "do you know whether
your uncle and his youngest son ever had any words on this subject?"
Her hands involuntarily flew out in piteous entreaty.
"Ask this question of the only person who can answer it," she cried.
"I only know that I have been treated with great respect in the house
of my uncle."
With that, the proceedings closed for the day.
XIV
A SUDDEN TURN
Dr. Frisbie's point had been made. As we separated to our several
destinations for the night, it was with the universally expressed
conviction that this young girl, for all her beauty and attractive
qualities, had been an apple of discord in her uncle's house, and that
in this fact, rather than in an impatient desire to enjoy the wealth
of a man who was never close with his sons, the unnatural crime we
were considering had originated.
The evidence elicited from the first witness called to the stand on
the following morning tended to substantiate this conclusion.
Nellie Stryker, an old inmate of the Gillespie house, answered the
coroner's questions with great reluctance. She had been maid to Mrs.
Gillespie, nurse to all the children, and a trusted servant in the
household ever since the latter grew beyond her care. Of the attempts
made upon her master's life, the last of which had been only too
successful, she knew little and that only by hearsay, but she was not
quite so ignorant concerning a certain conversation which had been
held one morning in Mr. Gillespie's room between that gentleman and
his youngest son. She was sitting at her needle in the adjoining
dressing-closet, and, whether her presence there was unsuspected by
her master or simply ignored, they both talked quite freely and she
heard every word.
Urged to repeat this conversation, the good old soul showed a
shamefaced reluctance which bore out her reputation for honesty and
discretion. But she was not allowed to escape the examination set for
her. After repeated questions and a show of extreme patience on the
part of the coroner, she admitted that the topic discussed was the
state of Mr. Alfred's affections. This young gentleman, as was
publicly known, had lately engaged himself to a Southern lady of great
pride and high social distinction; and his present disagreement with
his father arose out of his wish to break this engagement. His father
had no patience with such fickleness, and their words ran high.
Finally, Alfred threatened to follow his own wishes in the matter,
whether it gave satisfaction all round or no; declaring that he had
been a fool to tie himself to a girl he cared nothing about, but that
he would be a still greater one if he let the mistake of a moment mar
his happiness for life. But the old gentleman's sense of honour was
very keen, and he continued to urge the claims of the Southern lady,
till his son impetuously blurted out:
"I thought you wanted one of us to marry Hope?"
This caused a break in the conversation.
"Do you care for Hope?" the old gentleman asked. "I thought it was
well understood in this house that George, not you, was to be given
the first opportunity of winning her."
The oath with which Alfred answered was shocking to Nellie's ears,
and affected her so deeply that she heard nothing more till these
words caught her attention:
"George has everything he wants; unlimited indulgence in each and
every fancy, the liking of all the men, and the love of all the women.
I am not so fortunate; I am neither a favourite with my mates nor the
petted darling of their sisters; I like my ease, but I could give that
up for Hope. She is the only woman I have ever seen capable of
influencing me. I have been quite a different man since she came into
the house. If that is love, it is a very strong love; such love as
makes a man out of a nobody. Father, let me have this darling girl for
my wife. George does not care for her,--not as I do. He would be a
better fellow if he did."
Mr. Gillespie seemed quite upset. He loved this son as the apple of
his eye, and would very possibly have been glad to see the matter so
adjusted, but it did not tally with his idea of what people had a
right to expect from his sons, and he told Alfred so in rather strong
language.
"Can you remember that language?" asked the coroner.
She tried to make him believe, and herself too, no doubt, that her
memory would not serve her to this extent; but her honesty eventually
triumphed over her devotion to the family interests, and she finally
admitted that the old gentleman had said:
"While I live I will not put up with rivalry of any kind between my
sons. George is fond of Hope, and I long ago gave him my permission to
woo and marry her. That you are the child of my heart shall not make
me blind to the rights of one I loved before you ever saw the light.
Were I to permit such shilly-shallying, George would have a right to
reproach me with his wasted life. No; the influence which you call so
great must be exerted in his behalf rather than yours. He needs it,
Alfred, as much, if not more than you do. As to your present
engagement, you may break it or you may keep it, but do not expect me
to uphold you in any love-making with your brother's choice till Hope
has openly signified her absolute refusal of his attentions. This she
is not likely to do; George has too many conspicuous attractions."
"She has refused him once."
"Not because her fancy was caught by his younger brother, but because
she wished to see some reformation in his habits. In this she was
perfectly right. George will have to change his mode of life very
materially before he can be regarded as worthy of such a wife."
"The same might be said of me; but I am no George. I am anxious to
make such a change. Yet you give me no encouragement in my efforts,
and even deny me the opportunity of winning her affections."
"You were not the first to enter the field. Your older brother has the
prior right, and, as I view the matter, the only right, to approach
Hope in the attitude of a lover."
The oaths which this excited turned the poor old listener cold. Alfred
could not see the justice of his brother's course, and stormed away
about fairness being shown to the young girl herself, who possibly
looked upon the matter in another light than he did.
"Then you have been making love to her on the sly!" vociferated Mr.
Gillespie, totally forgetting himself.
But this the young man denied. If he understood her better than others
did, it was because he loved her better. He was positive that she did
not care for his brother, and all but certain she did care for
himself. At all events he flattered himself to this extent. This
called forth a few more bitter words from his father, and Alfred went
out, banging the door behind him.
"And did you see any change in the manner of Mr. Gillespie towards his
sons after this misunderstanding with Alfred?"
The witness appeared to weigh her words; but, when she answered, it
was evident her care arose from a desire to present the subject
fairly.
"I thought Mr. Gillespie talked less and looked about him more. And
the young gentlemen seemed conscious of this change in him, for they
were very careful not to show their feelings too plainly in his
presence."
"Yet there was a manifested distrust between them?"
"I fear so."
"Amounting to animosity?"
"That I cannot say. I never heard them exchange hard words; only
neither of them would leave the field open to the other. If Mr. George
stayed home, Mr. Alfred found some excuse for doing so also; and if
Mr. Alfred showed a disposition to linger in the parlour, Mr. George
brought in his friends and made a social evening of it."
"And is this all you can tell us?"
"On this topic? Yes."
"You never saw Miss Meredith speaking apart to either of these two
men?"
"No, sir; on the contrary, she appeared to avoid all private
conversation with any of them."
"Nor ever heard either of these men swear he would have Miss Meredith
for his wife, no matter who stood in the way, or what means were taken
to stop him?"
"Oh, I once heard Mr. Alfred make use of some violent expressions as I
was passing his door, but I can not be sure he spoke the precise words
you mention. He falls into fits of anger at times and then is liable
to forget himself. But his ill-temper does not last, sir. It is quite
unusual for him to show unkindness for any length of time."
After the close of this examination, so painful to the witnesses and
so humiliating to the three persons whose most cherished feelings were
thus exposed to the public eye, the three sons of Mr. Gillespie were
called up, one after the other, and questioned.
Leighton made the best impression. Not being involved in the delicate
question which had just come up, he had no blushes to conceal nor any
secret animosities to hold in check. George, on the contrary, seemed
to have reached a state of exasperation which made it difficult for
him to preserve any semblance of self-possession. He stammered when
he talked, and looked much more like having it out with his brother in
a hand-to-hand fight than submitting to an examination tending to
incriminate one or both of them on a charge of murder. Alfred showed
less bitterness, possibly because he felt securer in his position
towards the woman whose beauty had occasioned this rivalry. Of the
facts brought out by their accumulated testimony I need say little.
They added nothing to the general knowledge, and the inquiry adjourned
with promise of still more serious work for the morrow.
Hitherto the evidence had been of a nature to show, first, that a
crime had been committed, and, secondly, that the relations between
Alfred and his father had been such as to occasion a desire on the
former's part to be free from the watchful eye of one who stood
between him and any attempt he might make to win the affections of the
woman upon whom he had set his heart. On this morning the testimony
took a turn, and an endeavour was made to show a positive connection
between Alfred Gillespie and the drug which had ended his father's
life,--or so it appeared at the time. The visit he paid to the
dining-room during the fatal hour preceding his father's death was
brought out, and the acknowledgment reached that he went there in
search of his missing pencil.
Then the detectives were called to the stand and requested to relate
the circumstances connected with the finding of a certain cork and
phial, the one under the edge of the dining-room rug, and the other
under the clock on the mantel-shelf. These aforementioned articles
were then produced, and after positive declaration had been made that
they had not been allowed to come in contact since falling into the
hands of the police, they were severally handed down to the jury, who
immediately proceeded to satisfy themselves that the scent of bitter
almonds was nearly as marked in one as the other. This point having
been reached and universal expectation raised, Sweetwater handed up
another article to the coroner, saying:
"In this box, which is as nearly air-tight as I could procure offhand,
I caused to be placed, as soon as possible after finding it, the
pencil which we came upon in our search of the dining-room floor. Like
the phial and the cork, it was kept isolated in a perfectly clean
glass till this box could be procured, and, with this fact in mind,
may I ask you to open the box and hand the pencil round among the
jury?"
Instantly a great stir took place in the whole body of spectators.
Necks were stretched, heads were craned, and a general sigh swept from
end to end of the room as the coroner wrenched the cover from the box,
lifted out the pencil, raised it to his nose, and then passed it down
to the jury. Only one person in sight failed to follow these
significant movements with looks of curious interest; and that was the
unhappy man who thus saw the finger of suspicion, which had been
simply wavering in his direction, settle into immobility and point
inexorably towards him. A white face and a sinking heart were shown by
Alfred Gillespie at that moment; and in the features of Hope,
disclosed for
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/34710