"By no means," said he. "Let the girl know that her lover is suspected and she will be sure to get word to him somehow and he'll be off. Not a word about it to anybody. Leave me to work it out my own way, and my name isn't Richard Turner if I don't soon lay my hand on the shoulder of Dorman Hackett."
"The Whaler's Haven" was in those days a place of no small pretensions and of no mean fame among the sailormen of New London, which was then quite an important shipping town, especially for the whaling interest.
Railroad tracks now cover the ground it then occupied, and the cutting away of the bluff in that vicinity, to give place for some heavy industries that require to be near the water and the iron road, has completely changed the appearance of all the surroundings, even, of that once favorite resort of the marine element of the population of the town, so that not one trace of it remains, save in memory. But it is not of the present we have to treat, or the many changes—some of them very sad ones—that have been wrought in the maritime interests of our coast. Our story dates back to a time when a big American flag floated above a long and wide two-story frame building where those railroad tracks now lie; a building that was further adorned, as to its peak, by a carved and painted wooden statue ofthe goddess of liberty, that seemed to have been the figurehead of some vessel; and as to its front, by a very widely-spread and gayly-gilded American eagle, holding in its beak, over the door, a huge and brilliantly red scroll, upon the flaming convolutions of which, in brightest blue, one might read the legend "The Whaler's Haven."
By day, there was little, except its size, to distinguish the Haven, to the eye of the casual observer, from several other establishments of kindred character in the vicinity; but at night, in the figurative language of Jonathan Schoolcraft, its proprietor, "the eagle screamed." Then, until hours that were at once late and early—late for revel and early for labor—the fiddle squeaked out jigs and reels; the thumps and shuffles of dancing feet made the walls vibrate and the windows jingle; glasses clinked merrily; noisy laughter, cheers, and sometimes—but not often—sounds of quarrel, broke upon the night. It was Schoolcraft's boast "that a sailor never was robbed in this house;" and, truth to tell, he made the claim good, farther than most men do who keep such establishments and make like affirmations. Over the little bar, near the front door was a sign in letters so prominent that they might have been regarded as a sort of painted shout, commanding patrons of the house: "Have your fun in a decent way;" and Jonathan was never weary of repeating that counsel to his guests. He would not let a sailor in his house get too drunk—that is, too drunk to be able to find his money, when the liquor was to be paid for—and he was sternly opposed to fights in the Haven; for, as he said, "they break the peace, and break heads, and sometimes break glasses, which is worst of all."
One sultry evening in July, when it was too hot to dance and almost too warm to drink rum, a cloud of dullness seemed to settle down upon the Whaler's Haven. Jonathan himself went out for a walk, to get cool; the barkeeper languidly leaned over the bar and yawned; only four or five sailors—boarders in the Haven when on shore—lounged between the door and the bar, "swapping yarns" concerning their seagoing experiences, and all feeling so depressed and spiritless, through the heat, that they almost stuck to the truth in their narrations; and two or three of them were talking of going to bed, when a stranger, who was evidently not a sailor, entered, called for a drink, and invited all present to join him. A stranger who was not a sailor was always the object of a little suspicion in the Haven; still none present cared about offending one who introduced himself so courteously, and the waiting sailors took their rum just as naturally as if liking, and not simply complaisance, gave it its relish. Then one of them returned the stranger's treat and soon another; and another, so that in a little while the heat was forgotten, tongues began to wag freely, the yarns became much more spirited, and the impression gained ground that the stranger was a right good fellow.
And so it was that, without his ever being able to tell exactly how it came about, Billy Prangle, a stout old sailor, found himself in almost confidential conversation with the pleasant stranger—a smooth-shaven, gray-eyed, ruddy man of forty or forty-five years—upon the subject of his friend and ex-shipmate, Dorn Hackett.
"A nobler, braver lad never signed articles," said he, "nor a better sailorman. We messed together for three years; and take him by and large, alow and aloft, I make bold to say that of the sixteen men in the fo'cas'le,—and all good men, too, mind you—he was the best."
"I'm delighted to hear you speak so highly of him," replied the stranger, with apparent heartiness, "How long is it since you sailed with him?"
"Only a little better than four months ago. We came off the cruise together, fishing in the North Pacific."
"Fishing? I thought you said he was in a whaling vessel?"
"Well, so I did, my hearty. We calls whales fishes. When we speak of taking a whale we always says taking a fish."
"Ah, excuse me. I didn't understand. And where is your friend now?"
At this moment one of the old sailors called him aside and said to him in an undertone:
"Mind your eye, Billy. I've been a listenin' to you and that lubber that doesn't know a whale's a fish, and it looks squally to me. As I make him out, he's been a leadin' you on to talk about Dorn Hackett, and maybe it ain't for Dorn's good he means it."
"If I thought he meant the boy any harm he'd get his nose rove foul in the shake of a fluke."
"Well, just keep your weather eye skinned on him."
"But, shipmate, it's as good as saying that Dorn may be in some sort of a scrape to be afraid to talk about him."
"And so he may; and small blame to him, either, bein' a likely young fellow as he is. Shore is a mighty dangersome place for a good-looking young fellow like him."
"Right you are, shipmate," assented Billy, solemnly shaking hands before returning to his conversation with the stranger. From that time he did watch carefully; and having a little natural cunning of his own, managed to evade the numerous and artfully-put inquiries with which he was plied, and still to draw the stranger on, with hope of information, until he satisfied himself that his comrade's warning was not uncalled for.
While this was going on the drinks were call on freely, and the stranger unconsciously was falling a victim to the fiery potency of the rum—a beverage to which he was not accustomed. He had tried to evade anything more than a mere show of drinking it, but believed that this was looked upon with such suspicion by all about him, that it was better for him to drink and trust to the hardness of his head to carry the liquor off safely. Little he knew how much he lacked of being a match for that tough old tar, Billy Prangle, in the consumption of that seductive but treacherous fluid. Gradually he lost his customary caution; and finding himself baffled in all his attempts to "pump" the old sailor, conceived that it would be a good idea to offer Billy a hundred dollars if he would conduct him to and point out Dorn Hackett. "That sum," he thought to himself, "would tempt a man like him to do almost anything to gain it." So he made the proffer. Billy heard the proposition gravely, and even feigned to view it favorably; but manifested a great deal of curiosity as to why his ex-shipmate was in such demand.
The stranger felt that he had gone too far for any reticence to be of service, now, and that perhaps a confidence might make him more secure of this valuable ally; so he replied: "I'll tell you; but mind you're not to say a word about it to any living soul until we have captured him."
"Would I be likely to throw away a chance to make a hundred dollars?" exclaimed Billy.
That answer, critically considered, could hardly have been deemed a promise; but the stranger took it for one, and continued in a confidential tone:
"He's wanted for murder and robbery."
"Murder and robbery! Dorn Hackett?"
"Yes, the murder and robbery of an old man near Easthampton, Long Island, where he has been going to see his sweetheart, a girl named Mary Wallace."
"And you tell me that Dorn Hackett is suspected of a thing like that?"
"Yes, indeed, he is. He was in the neighborhood on the night of the murder, and everything points to him; and I bet my head—"
"That you are a lying, landlubberly—" broke out Billy Prangle, in a torrent of quite unreportable expletives, the unregenerate lingo of the fo'cas'le; and before the stranger recovered from his astonishment, the indignant tar had commenced to make good that threat with reference to his nose.
Mr. Turner—for the stranger, now rolling on the floor with Billy, was no other than that experienced professional detective—was a sturdy fellow, well able, ordinarily, to take care of himself, and made as good a fight as he could; but even had he been entirely sober he would hardly have been able to cope with this sinewy son of the sea who smote him so suddenly. While they struggled on the floor, Billy's friends looked on with placid interest; interfering not, nor questioning, and seemingly cheerfully confident of the result. The barkeeper—Schoolcraft being away—seemed to enjoy the excitement, and leaned over the bar to get a better view, while he shouted encouragingly: "Go in, Billy! Wade in, old man!"
And Billy followed the advice so well that it was not long until the detective cried "enough," and was allowed to get up; when Billy led him to the door and dismissed him with a parting kick.
Self-reproachfully, and much humbled in spirit by his defeat, Richard Turner left the Haven. But it was not in his nature to give up a chase for one defeat. If he had not genius, he at least had that which is sometimes almost as good—persistence. He did not even waste time in thinking about the whipping and the kicking he had received, but he did reflect that it was something singular that a poor old chap like that sailor should have thrown a chance away whereby he might have gained one hundred dollars so easily—merely by selling a friend, perhaps to the gallows. Would he, Richard Turner, have been so stupid? "Hardly," he said to himself. But he had to accept facts as he found them, however strange they might seem, and the two most prominent ones claiming his attention were: first, that he had made a blunder; second, that he must work all the more rapidly to forestall the possible chances of his indiscretion leading to the escape of the man he hunted. Fortunately, the whipping had sobered him completely; and having repaired as well as he could the damages he had sustained in person and raiment, he continued until late at night, in other sailor's haunts, his pursuit of information, but took care to give a wide berth to the "Whaler's Haven." Before daylight he left the place in a fast sloop and with a fair wind, bound for New Haven. There fickle fortune made him amends for her unkind humor at New London, and facts that seemed to go far toward establishing Dorn Hackett's guilt came readily to his knowledge. The most important were these:
On the afternoon preceding the murder of Jacob Van Deust the young man went over to Long Island on Mr. Hollis's sloop. Nobody but himself knew why he went. The men on the sloop expected him to return to New Haven with them that night, but he did not do so. They left the Long Island shore about the hour that it was supposed the murder was perpetrated and, presumably, before he could have run from Van Deusts' to the cove where the sloop laid. When he re-appeared in New Haven the next morning his clothing was dabbled with blood; and his hands, though hehad evidently tried to wash them, still showed sanguinary stains. He said that the blood was his own; that he had a severe fall while running through the woods on Long Island. That he had fallen seemed probable, since he had a bad cut on his head and one ankle was lame; but that the blood was all his own, at least admitted of question. Why he had been running through the woods he did not say; but it was natural to suppose that he had been trying to reach the sloop and get to New Haven as quickly as possible, to make ground for claiming an alibi in case he should be suspected of the murder.
The other significant discoveries that the detective made, and what he did in New Haven, will be noted in their proper place. Suffice it here to say, that the agent of justice felt that he had reason to congratulate himself upon a triumph.
Billy Prangle, when he had kicked out the tempter, lost no time in fully imparting to his comrades the excellent cause he had for his suddenly violent conduct, and was heartily censured by all for not hammering the stranger twice as much.
"What?—Dorn Hackett guilty of murder and robbery?"
They who had known him for years; sailed with him; messed with him; faced death by his side in the tempest and the perilous chase of the monsters of the deep, knew how absurd such a charge must be. Every man of them had belonged to the same crew with Dorn for three years, and there was not one of them who did not groan to think that he had not had Billy's chance at the stranger. In consultation among them, it was unanimously resolved that it was plainly their duty to take the matter in hand.
"Jerry Slate has got a fast little sloop," said Billy Prangle, "that I can borrow to take me over to Napeague. I'll go there and see that girl of Dorn's that he spoke of—Mary Wallace, he called her. Here, you barkeep', log that on a bit of paper for me, so that I won't let it go adrift. You, Sam, go down by Wainright's packet in the morning to New Haven, which it was the last place I heard of Dorn hailing from, and see that you find him and tell him all about it."
Thus the jolly tars arranged it among themselves to serve their friend as best they could. And so it was that, on the afternoon of the succeeding day, a weather-beaten old sailor—Billy Prangle himself—after various inquiries in the neighborhood, "ranged alongside" of Uncle Thatcher's house, asking for "a gal by the name of Mary Wallace."
"What do you want?" demanded Aunt Thatcher, who happened to "answer his hail."
"Be you Mary Wallace?" asked Billy, with an affectation of profound astonishment.
"No, I ain't. But I'm her aunt, and you can tell me your business."
"Right you are, old gal, I can; but I'll see you furder, first," replied the unabashed veteran, who had already been told by some neighbor that she was a "snorter."
"What do you mean, you impudent fellow?"
"I always does my business with the principals, mum."
Mrs. Thatcher slammed the door in his face and retired. But half an hour afterward, when she happened to be out in the yard, she saw that the sailor had lighted his pipe, seated himself on the stone step at the door, and literally laid siege to the house. She reflected that Uncle Thatcher would soon be home to his supper; and in view of the strange way he had acted of late, did not know how he might take it into his head to look upon her treatment of the visitor. Tartar as she was, she had a wholesomerespect for him when he chose to assert himself, and deemed it most prudent to avoid an encounter.
With an ill-grace she went to Mary, who was sewing in her room, and said snarlingly:
"There's an old vagabond at the door who wants to see you."
Mary went out and found Billy calmly puffing his pipe and waiting. He looked up at the sound of the opening of the door, and seeing the tall handsome girl who stood there, sprang to his feet, with a beaming smile and outstretched hand, saying:
"Ah! You're the right one. I thought I'd fetch you."
Mary gave him her hand, smilingly asking:
"Did you wish to see me, sir?"
"Yes; the mate has been out here trying to rig the pump on me, but it wouldn't draw. What I'm here for concerns nobody but you and Dorn. Come out to the gate, for she's a listening beside that window. I just see the curtain shake."
Mary started at mention of her lover's name by this stranger, and unhesitatingly accompanied him as he requested; while Aunt Thatcher, who was indeed listening by the window, could almost have torn her sun-bonnet strings with vexation and rage when they passed beyond range of her hearing.
Billy, like many other maladroits, flattered himself that he had no little skill in conducting a delicate mission, and thought it was rather a neat way of sparing the girl's feelings to affect to be very busy refilling his pipe, without looking at her, as he put the blunt question:
"Be you Dorn Hackett's sweetheart?"
Mary blushed and stammered, not knowing what to reply.
"'Cause," continued Billy, "he's maybe in some trouble."
Trouble! Trouble for Dorn! That thought swept away in an instant her timidity and maiden bashfulness, and anxiously she replied:
"Yes, yes; he is very dear to me. What is it? What has happened to him? Tell me quickly!"
"Don't get excited. It ain't no great matter. But they are looking for him to arrest him."
"Arrest Dorn? For what?"
"Murder and robbery."
Mary gave a little cry and would have fallen, had not Billy caught her; and holding her against the fence, awkwardly enough, but firmly, adjured her:
"Steady, steady! Brace up! Hold hard!"
In a few moments she regained sufficient control over herself to listen while the old sailor related to her, with characteristic circumstantiality of detail, all the events of the preceding evening leading up to his visit to her. She did not for an instant imagine that Dorn could possibly have been guilty of such crimes, but the mere idea of his being suspected of them so horrified her as almost to deprive her of the power of reasoning. How could he have fallen under suspicion? How could it come to be known that he was in the neighborhood on that fatal night? There was but one person, she believed, besides herself who knew of his visit, and that was Ruth Lenox. Ah, yes! There was her aunt, who suspected it at least, and who had questioned her so sharply about him. Ruth Lenox would never have breathed such a foul calumny against Dorn. But her aunt? "Yes, it would be just like her," thought Mary.
Billy had no further information to impart, no advice to give, and noconsolations to offer. The latter would have been especially out of his line. It seemed to him enough to give a person warning to look out for him or herself, as the case might be; which, he reasoned, would be all he would require under any circumstances; and so, having discharged his errand to the best of his ability in the manner we have seen, he relighted his pipe and "got under way," with a clear conscience as to having done his duty by a shipmate.
Ruth Lenox was, just at this time, on a brief visit to the house of a married brother, who lived near Babylon; so that Mary was not able to consult with her only confidante until the second day after Billy Prangle's visit. Who could tell the agony of mind she felt during that time as the leaden hours dragged slowly by? It seemed to her fearful and excited imagination as if at any moment she was liable to hear of her lover's capture and imprisonment, and she was powerless to do aught to save him. One hope only suggested itself to her mind: that he might have sailed away from New Haven before his pursuers could reach him, and that by the time of his return from the West Indies the real murderer might be discovered, and the foul suspicion against Dorn entirely dissipated. But she was not left to cherish in peace even that small germ of comfort, for Aunt Thatcher, with the astuteness and malice of a feminine fiend—and if there is a distinction of sex among the devils, the female ones must surely be far the worst—divined that the sailor who visited Mary had come from Dorn, or in his interest, and embittered every hour of the poor girl's life by the wagging of her venomous tongue. As soon as Billy had gone away she demanded to know what his business was; and receiving no reply—for Mary felt that she would rather have died than give her aunt the satisfaction of knowing the hideous intelligence he brought—proceeded to treat the subject in her own lively fashion.
"Oho! So you don't want to tell! Well, I don't wonder at it. I'd be ashamed, too, if I was in your place. But I can guess without your telling me. It's some word from Dorn Hackett, I'll be bound. Wants you to go and take up with him while he's in port, maybe. If you do, you needn't think to come back here with your disgrace. I s'pose he thinks he's got a heap of money now. Did he let you know how much he got by killing old Jake Van Deust?"
"Oh, aunt!" exclaimed Mary. "You know that is a wicked falsehood! You know Dorn never would have done such a thing!"
"Don't tell me I lie, you impudent, deceitful, good-for-nothing hussy! Don't you dare to talk back to me! I know what I know! Oh, I'll have the satisfaction of seeing him hanged yet!"
Mary burst into tears and left the house. That bit of dialogue was a sample of what the heart-sick miserable girl had to endure constantly when Uncle Thatcher was not present. When he was by, the vixen did not dare to torment her victim, and Mary might have had a stop put to the woman's malignant attacks had she appealed to him; but from that extreme measure she revolted.
When Ruth returned home Mary hastened to her with her load of troubles, and was not disappointed in her expectation of sympathy and consolation.
"Don't you be afraid, dear," said little Ruth, in a very confident and protecting tone. "It will be all right. You'll see that it will. I'll make Lem fix it."
"Lem?"
"Yes. He shall go and find out who did kill Mr. Van Deust, and then I'm sure there can't be any more talk about Dorn. And I know, just as well as anything, that it was all started by that spiteful, wicked old aunt of yours. Lem told me, the night before I went away, that he saw her go into the Squire's office the evening of the inquest, after everybody else was gone but a strange man, and she stayed a long time; and I'd just risk my neck on it that that was the time she put him up to the notion of Dorn doing it. And I think he might have had more sense—a man like him, who has known him from he was a boy, and no stranger to what she is. But don't be afraid, dear. I'll start Lem right out to catch the real murderer, and I'll tell him I won't marry him until he finds him; and that'll bring him to his senses, I guess, for he's getting in an awful hurry about it."
Ruth was very earnest and emphatic, and her friend understood and was comforted by her, although it was not always easy to comprehend the breathless torrent of words that the energetic little maid poured forth, with reckless disregard alike of punctuation and of pronouns, when she became excited, as she now was.
Lem was very reluctant to undertake the task that Ruth sought to impose upon him.
"It ain't my business," he protested, "and I don't know anything about it. I wouldn't even know how to begin. How would I look going around the country asking people, 'who killed Jake Van Deust?' And I swon I don't know any other way to tackle the job. Squire Bodley told me he's got a real sharp fellow from New York at work—a chap that makes a business of catching thieves and murderers, and knows all about it. And I might do no end of mischief if I went to meddling."
"Now don't talk to me that way, Lem Pawlett. I won't have it. You've got a heap more sense than you give yourself credit for, and more than most people would think, to look at you, I must say. Wasn't it you that found the marks on the window, and tracked the murderer out to the lane? Of course it was. None of them gawks standing around saw anything until you showed it to them. And as for that smart chap from New York—why, he's the very one that went and bleated out his business to a lot of sailors in New London,—Dorn's friends all of them,—and they thrashed him, and served him right, too. And that's how we come to know about his being after Dorn, which, if he had any sense, he wouldn't be. And you've got to find some way to clear Dorn for Mary's sake, or I'll never forgive you, and I won't marry you until Dorn and Mary can stand up with us, and—so there, now."
Lem started home that evening, after his interview with Ruth, in a very despondent mood, and at a much earlier hour than usual, almost inclined to rebel against her authority, yet feeling that he must eventually succumb to her will. As he strolled moodily down the village street, wondering "what on earth" he should do, and thinking, as he subsequently confessed, that perhaps it might be as well to amuse Ruth by letting her imagine him very busy in Dorn's affairs, while he simply left matters to take their own course, confiding in Dorn coming out all right somehow, at last, his attention was attracted to the presence of an unwonted number of persons in the principal store, and the prevalence among them of some unusual excitement. Entering to learn what was going on he was justin time to hear the mail-rider, who had arrived but a little before, conclude a sentence with the words "and so he's in Sag Harbor jail already."
"Who's in jail?" Lem demanded, with a sinking at the heart, for he well knew that no idle putting off would do for Ruth if her friend's lover were really locked up.
"Dorn Hackett," replied the mail-rider, proud of his news, and glad to have the opportunity of repetition to a new auditor,—"for the murder and robbery of Jacob Van Deust."
"Nonsense!" exclaimed Lem.
"It's so, I tell you. They caught him in New Haven last night. If they'd missed him until to-day, he'd have been off for the West Indies; but a New York officer, who got on his track in New London, caught him. And they say he fought like a tiger. Both the officer's eyes are blacked; but one of 'em is a little staler color than the other, and I guess he must have been in two musses lately. Anyhow, he had two New Haven constables to help him to put handcuffs on Dorn, and then they brought him over in a sloop; and so he's in Sag Harbor jail already."
"Him that sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. The Lord wouldn't let him escape," snuffled Deacon Harkins from his perch on the sugar barrel.
"That's what comes of young men leaving their homes where they were brought up, and going off to the big cities to make their fortunes and get into evil ways," sagely observed the store-keeper, reflectively, chipping off a bit of cheese for himself.
"Yes." "That's so." "Just what a body might have expected," murmured several voices.
"How do they know he did it?" asked Lem, in an aggressive tone, resenting the willing acceptance of Dorn's probable guilt, which was manifestly the disposition of the group about him.
"Ain't he arrested? What more d'ye want?" retorted Deacon Harkins.
"Oh! That's reason enough for you, is it? That's the sort of a Christian you are! Condemn a man before he's tried! Hang him on suspicion! As if the law never got hold of the wrong person! Well, I don't believe Dorn Hackett was the chap that ever would have done such a deed, and I don't care if he was arrested a hundred times, I'd bet my life no jury but a jury of Deacon Harkins's would ever find him guilty."
"There goes another young man I don't never expect any good of," remarked Deacon Harkins, in a self-satisfied tone, as though his condemnation quite settled the here and the hereafter of Lem Pawlett, as that young man, having "said his say," strode out angrily, and went on his way.
But Lem heard him not, and would have cared little if he had, for just then his mind was busy with a new and firm resolve.
"I'll do it," he muttered to himself, "to spite that consarned old deacon, who never was known to have a good word for anybody, as much as to please Ruth! I'll save Dorn Hackett; by the great horn spoon, I will!"
Dorn Hackett sat moodily upon his low bed in a little cell of Sag Harbor jail. His elbows rested upon his knees, and his aching brow was supported by his palms pressed against his temples. He might, had he wishedto do so, have caught a glimpse of sunshine through the narrow window high up in the wall; might have seen the green branches of the venerable elm that, swayed by the wind, swept its foliage from time to time across that little space of sky; might have heard the blithe carols of the song-birds that flitted among the old tree's boughs, and even perched and sang upon the stone window ledge; but he had no heart to look anywhere but on the ground; no thought for aught but his own misery and shame. It seemed to him a terrible thing that he should be locked in a jail. What would Mary say when she learned of it, as she inevitably must? Ah! She would not believe that he could be guilty, certainly not; but the shame of him would break her heart.
His life had hitherto been one singularly free from reproach, and of the many things to which even passably good men become accustomed and hardened, by contact with the world, he was almost as innocent as his sweetheart herself. He had not gone off to a big city to make his fortune and fall into evil ways, as the Easthampton storekeeper had said. Out of the three years and some months since he quitted the village, he had spent, altogether, but a few weeks on shore. He had been out at sea, doing bravely and well the manly work to which he had dedicated himself, and from even the ruder and, to some natures, demoralizing influences by which he was there surrounded, he had been protected by the purifying charm of his ever-faithful love. A retrospective view of his whole life brought to his memory no thought of regret or shame for aught that he had done, no remembrance of anything he would have wished to hide from the knowledge of her he loved best, and in whose regard he had most desire to stand well.
But there was one thing that, were it to do over again, he would not have repeated. He would not have knocked down the officer who came to arrest him, as he did in his first natural heat of indignation at hearing himself charged with being an assassin and a thief. No, he would not do that over again, for after he was ironed he had heard men say that he did it in a desperate hope of escape, and that he would not have done it if he had not been guilty. And yet it seemed to him the most natural thing for an innocent man to do under the circumstances. Could he have imagined that such a construction would be put upon it? And now what had he to look forward to? He knew nothing, absolutely, of the murder, of the inquest, or of the grounds upon which he was suspected, save that he had a vague remembrance of hearing it said, amid the excitement attendant upon his arrest, that he had been in the vicinity of where Mr. Van Deust was murdered, on the night that the old man was killed. Yes, that was probably true; and how could he prove, or even state, the innocent purpose of his presence there. Could he ask Mary to come into court and testify to their love-meeting in the woods? No. Not even to save his life.
His reflections were broken by the sound of footsteps in the corridor without, and the sound of the jailor's voice saying:
"This is his cell."
The prisoner looked up and met the frank, kindly face and outstretched hand of Lem Pawlett.
"Well, Dorn, old fellow, I'm mightily sorry to see you here," he said cordially, as the jailor walked away, leaving him standing in front of the grated iron door of the cell, through which his hand was thrust to grasp that of Mary's lover.
"Does—do they know of it?" stammered Dorn.
"Does Mary, you mean. Well, yes, I guess she does. Uncle Thatcherwas at the store last night when the mail-rider brought the news, and he has most probably mentioned it at home. But, Lord bless you man! she don't think anything of it. Cheer up. Don't get down in the mouth. She won't believe a word against you, you may be sure. And it don't come on her like a shock, as it were, because she has been expecting it."
"She expected it?"
"Yes. She has known for two or three days that they were after you, but had no way of getting any word to you."
"But how did they come to be after me?"
"That was Aunt Thatcher's doings, I believe; but I'll tell you all about it, as far as I know."
Thereupon the good fellow proceeded to give as full and correct an account, as his information enabled, of the facts already better known to the reader, beginning his narrative with the discovery of the murder and concluding it with an expression of his determination of the night before, to "try to straighten out the tangle."
"God bless you, old fellow," responded Dorn, with tears of gratitude in his eyes. "I can't tell you how it warms my heart to have one friend stand by me in a time like this. But little did I ever think, when we were boys playing together, that you would ever have to do such a thing for me."
"That's all right, Dorn. Don't say any more about it. I'll be glad if I can do anything, and so will Ruth and Mary. And now, let's see what is to be done. The first thing is for you to tell me, as clearly and exactly as you can, every incident you can remember of where you were and what you did that night."
"Everything is as clear in my mind as the occurrences of yesterday. Let me begin at the beginning. I reached New Haven in the forenoon of that day, and, having made a much quicker voyage than was expected, found that I would have several days at my disposal. Of course my first thought was of going to see Mary. I left the schooner in charge of the mate, to see to the taking out of her cargo while I was gone, and got a man named Hollis to bring me over to Napeague in a little fishing smack. He had to come, any way, to get a couple of pipes of rum that had rolled off a trader's deck one night. I left him at the beach, telling him that if I did not meet him there at half past nine o'clock that evening he need not wait for me, as I might have to remain over a day, or even two; for you know, as Mary would not be expecting me, I did not know whether I should meet her at the usual place that evening or not, and I couldn't go to her uncle's to see her."
"No. I know all about that."
"Well, I was fortunate enough to meet her, walking with Ruth, and naturally remained with her as long as I could. It was nine o'clock, as near as I could judge by the rise of the moon, when we parted, and I set out for the beach to meet Hollis. I was a little afraid of being late, and took a short cut through the woods that I thought I knew just as well as when we used to go huckleberrying in them when we were boys. But there had been at least one change that I knew nothing of—a new road."
"Ah, yes. The new one across from Amagansett."
"I suppose so. Whatever it is, I found it very suddenly. I was running at the time, along a little path that I knew well, and all at once went plunging down, head foremost, nine or ten feet into a cut. It's a wonder—and, as I then thought, a mercy—that I didn't break my neck. LatelyI've had my doubts as to whether it wouldn't have been better for me if I had."
"Stow that, and pay out your yarn."
"When I could collect my scattered senses, I found that I had cut two ugly gashes in my head, upon sharp pointed roots or stubs of some sort, and had sprained my left ankle so that it was exceedingly painful for me to attempt to walk. While I sat there, thinking what I should do, a little elderly gentleman, on horseback, came along upon the new road into which I had fallen. I told him I was hurt, and he very kindly assisted me, first to fix up my head—giving me his handkerchief to use with my own for the purpose,—and then to get over to the beach. Hollis was gone. The accident had delayed me far beyond my time, and he, of course, supposed that I was not coming. When I got my ankle in the cool sea-water it felt better, but still I could not walk any distance on it. Just then a small smack came along, with an old man and a boy in it—strangers to me—probably out on some smuggling errand, and I offered the old man ten dollars to take me over to New Haven, which he accepted gladly. The kind little gentleman helped me into the boat and bade me good-night, saying that he had yet to ride to Sag Harbor. We had very little wind, and it was daylight when the old man landed me in New Haven. I had lost a good deal of blood from the cuts on my head, and felt half sick and drowsy from it, so that I slept nearly all the time I was in the boat. And that's all I can tell you about that night."
"Well, man alive, that's enough. All we've got to do is to find the little gentleman and the old man to prove that you left the island before eleven o'clock, for it was after that hour that Jacob Van Deust was murdered. That will show clearly enough that whoever did kill him, at all events, you didn't; and that's all we care about just at present."
"Ah! If I had the slightest idea of who they were. But I never thought to ask their names, and indeed didn't take much notice of anything; for, as I said, I was dizzy, and half-sick, and drowsy, with the loss of blood; so that even if they had told me who they were, I don't know that I should have been able to remember. If the old man was, as I suppose, a smuggler, he would hardly be likely to willingly expose himself to inconvenient questioning in court. Old men are cautious about taking such chances, especially for people who are nothing to them."
"Can you give me a description of the little gentleman on horseback? or tell me anything about him that might lead to his identification?"
"No. Only I remember he said he was a stranger, and knew nobody in the neighborhood except the Van Deusts. The way he came to mention that was in talking of taking me somewhere."
"Well, as he mentioned the Van Deusts, old Peter doubtless knows who he is. Ah! Come to think about it, he said at the inquest that his lawyer from New York had called on him that evening. Why, it's all plain sailing now. I'll go to the old man right away and ask him, and he'll tell me who his lawyer is, and I'll go and see him, and we'll have you out in a jiffy."
"Lem, I can't tell you how I appreciate your kindness and the trouble you are taking in my behalf."
"Don't try to. It's all right, I tell you. You'd do the same for me; I know you would. And I rather think I begin to like the job, knowing how it will spite that old cuss, Deacon Harkins."
The remainder of the young men's chat at the cell door had no especial significance or bearing upon the progress of the events of our story, and may as well, therefore, be omitted. Suffice it to say, that when they separated,Dorn felt infinitely more hopeful and cheerful than he had before since his arrest, and Lem had far greater confidence in the result of his novel undertaking of detective work. Of course Lem carried away with him many loving messages to Mary, which were, in due time, faithfully delivered through Ruth.
It was too late that evening when the young man reached his home for him to call upon Peter Van Deust, but he went up to the homestead under the elms the next morning, at as early an hour as he dared hoped to find anybody astir. He found the lonely old man, already seated upon the long bench on the porch, in his accustomed place, with his pipe in his mouth, and his gaze turned toward the sea; but the pipe had gone out unnoticed, and the eyes saw nothing of the glory of the dawn upon the ocean, for they were blinded by tears that unconsciously filled them. Lem stood silently looking at him for some moments, hesitating to speak, and hoping to be noticed; but the old man did not seem to know that he was not alone, until Lem's voice, bidding him "Good-morning," awoke him with a start from his reverie. Then the start, with which he had been recalled, extended itself in a long fit of nervous trembling, and it was with a weak and quavering voice that he responded to his visitor's salutation. It was painful to see how the unhappy man had broken down in the little time that had passed since the death of his brother. It seemed to have added at least ten years to his age.
"I suppose, Mr. Van Deust, that you have heard of Dorn Hackett's arrest," began the young man, after a failure to find any other way than a direct plunge to arrive at his subject.
"Yes, yes, I was told of it yesterday. Dorn Hackett? Dorn Hackett? They say he used to live around here, but I don't remember him. I suppose I used to know him, though. And he was raised in the neighborhood? It seems strange that any one who was raised near him, and knew him, could ever have had the heart to kill Jacob, don't it?"
"But, Mr. Van Deust, maybe he didn't do it at all."
"Somebody did it; somebody climbed into his window and murdered him for the sake of a little money. Beat in his skull and cut short his little remnant of life, just to get a few dollars. Oh! it was a cruel thing to do, to kill that poor, harmless, gentle, good old man. I wish we had never heard of that cursed fortune. Jacob would be alive to-day, if we hadn't."
His agitation while he spoke was extreme. He trembled like a leaf in the wind; tears ran down his withered cheeks; his voice was broken by sobs, and at length his emotion so obstructed his utterance that Lem could not understand him as he went rambling on about his brother's untimely end. After a little time, during which Lem silently waited for him to regain a little calm, his mood seemed to change to one of suspicion and fear for himself.
"I suppose they'll come to kill me next," he exclaimed. "They'll think there's more money; but there isn't—there isn't a dollar in the house. I'll never have a dollar in the house again; and I'll get a dog, a savage big dog, and I'll load the gun. Oh, I've got a gun, though it hasn't been loaded in forty years."
"Mr. Van Deust, a little elderly gentleman on horseback was in this neighborhood the night your brother was murdered, and he said he knew you. Who was he?"
"Why, he's my lawyer, the man who brought us the intelligence of—But what do you want to know for? What right have you to come here asking me questions about my private affairs—about my lawyer? Do youthink he brings money here? No, he don't! he don't! there isn't a dollar in the house. It's none of your business! Go away from here. I won't answer any more of your questions. I was a fool to tell you so much! Begone! begone! Betsy! Betsy! Help! help!"
The old man's excitement seemed to have crazed him, temporarily, at least. He continued raving, and Lem, finding it impossible to get in a word of explanation, went away, no little disgusted with the rebuff he had encountered at the very commencement of his task of hunting up analibifor Dorn. Returning to Sag Harbor, he succeeded in finding the man who had hired a horse to the little elderly gentleman on several occasions, but could learn nothing from him beyond that fact. The gentleman, according to the man's statement, always arrived by boat from New York, got the horse, rode away, came back, paid, and disappeared, probably by boat again. And that was all that the owner of the horse knew about him.
Then Lem went to New York, saying to himself that he "would ask every little elderly lawyer in New York if he was the man," before he would give up the pursuit. Little did the unsophisticated young fellow, who had never before been away from home, imagine the magnitude of the job he had cut out for himself.
The closing of the inquest upon the body of Jacob Van Deust was a mere formality. It was generally understood that there was within reach, if not in actual possession, some evidence that would go far to connect Dorn Hackett with the crime, and Squire Bodley even hinted as much in a few remarks that he made to the jury; but it was deemed injudicious to make it known at this juncture, and the jury, by the Squire's direction, returned a verdict of "death by violence at the hands of some person unknown."
Mary Wallace, ignorant of the slow, serpentine, and deadly ways of the thing men amuse themselves by calling "justice," when the finding of the jury was told to her that night found it difficult to understand why Dorn should be kept in jail, when there seemed to be no evidence which the coroner's jury has found sufficient to connect him with the crime.
"Uncle," said she, timidly approaching grim Mr. Thatcher, as he sat on the stone door-step, surrounded by a litter of fine shavings that he had scraped from a whale-lance handle that he was finishing by the last light of day, "why is it that, if the jury gave their verdict that the murder was done by some unknown person, they don't let Mr. Hackett out of jail?"
"Did you ever see a cat playing with a live mouse that she had caught?"
"Yes, uncle."
"How she lets it go a little way off, making it think it is going to escape, and then pounces on it again? How she pretends she isn't paying any attention to it, and has no notion of hurting it, and then suddenly tears it to pieces?"
"Yes, uncle," repeated Mary with a shudder.
"Well, that's the way the law does with a man."
Mary covered her face with her hands, and wept softly, while he went on:
"If they still hold on to Dorn Hackett, it is because they hope to get proof enough against him to make him out guilty. I have heard lawyerssay that the law presumes every man to be innocent until he is proved guilty; and when I was a younger man, I actually believed that; but as I have got older, I have learned that practically, in the administration of the law, when a crime is committed somebody has got to suffer for it, for the sake of the moral effect on the community; and it don't really make much difference who it is, so long as the poor devil who is caught cannot prove himself innocent, which is sometimes a mighty hard thing to do. He may not be guilty, but they will try to make him out so. Better hang him than admit having made a blunder in his arrest."
"Oh, but uncle! you don't believe Dorn could be guilty, do you?"
He looked at her pale anxious face with a feeling of deep pity,—for his eyes were keen enough to see that it was of her lover she spoke,—and replied with unwonted tenderness:
"No, my poor child. No, I don't; and I wouldn't if I knew nothing more about him than your trust in him."
Two low sounds mingled softly, and were doubtless duly noted by the recording angel on duty: a sigh from Uncle Thatcher, and a sniff of disgust from his lean and rancorous wife in the dark room behind him. He sighed to think, as he looked at Mary, and appreciated the worth of her full and perfect love, what a treasure his profligate son had lost in her, among all the good he had recklessly cast from him. Aunt Thatcher sniffed because she did not dare to express openly her contempt for his weakness in manifesting sympathy for the poor orphan who had won her hearty and unextinguishable hatred by rejection of Silas's advances.
"And if Dorn cannot, as you say it is difficult to do, prove himself innocent, what will they do with him?"
"They'll hang him," exclaimed Aunt Thatcher, in a tone of malicious triumph, unable longer to contain herself, and now appearing in the door to enjoy Mary's horror.
Uncle Thatcher turned upon her with a look of disgust and retorted:
"Sallie Thatcher, if the devil himself ain't ashamed of you, he's meaner than I take him for."
"Oh, indeed! I'm so bad, am I? Thank you, Mr. Thatcher. Just because I don't choose to take up for a murderer and a thief. I'm sure any body might have known what he'd come to when he commenced by nearly killing my poor boy."
"Your 'poor boy' deserved all he got, and more, too; and I've good reasons of my own for thinking that we'll both see the day we'll have to regret that Dorn Hackett didn't finish him then."
Aunt Thatcher's surprise and rage at hearing those words deprived her for a moment of the power of articulation, and she could only give vent to her feelings by a sort of wild beast howl of fury. But very soon her ready tongue loosened itself again, and she poured forth a torrent of reproach, vituperation, and malediction directed at random against her husband, against Mary, against Dorn, against the world, indeed, excepting only her "poor injured boy."
When Uncle Thatcher had had enough of this, he straightened himself up before her, and she, as if fearing the weight of his heavy hand, retreated into the dark room. But he did not seem to have any intention of personal violence. He simply pulled the door to, locked it on the outside, and sat down again. A moment afterward the door was tried and rattled from the inside.
"Stay in there and keep quiet, if you know what's good for you," growled Uncle Thatcher.
The rattling ceased, and all was again quiet.
"Uncle," said Mary, after a little pause, "I want to go and see Dorn."
"In jail?"
"Yes."
"Well," he replied, a little doubtfully, "people might talk."
"Let them, if they will. I don't care—or, at least, I don't care enough to prevent my going to him when he is in trouble. What can they say, but that we are lovers. Well, yes, we are, and it is no time for me to seek to hide it when others look coldly and cruelly on him. He loves me—I know he does; and I love him—with all my heart. And we were going to be married very soon, uncle. I would have told you before, but I was afraid. Now you are so kind to me that I'm not afraid to tell you any more. And oh, Uncle, Imustgo to him!"
"Forgive me, little Mary—and may God forgive me for having made poor Lottie's orphan child afraid to put confidence in me. You say you want to go and see him. You shall. I'll hitch up early to-morrow morning and take you over to Sag Harbor myself."
Long before daylight the next morning Mary, who had not closed her eyes during the seemingly interminable night, was up and had breakfast prepared. Whether Aunt Thatcher was still under the influence of the sullen fury that possessed her when the door was closed upon her the night before, or had fresh fuel added to the fire of her temper by overhearing the arrangement between her husband and niece, did not appear. At all events she spoke no word of question or remark, and was still abed when they took their departure.
The sun was not risen above the sea when Uncle Thatcher's old carryall creaked through the one long rambling street of the little village, and entered upon the Sag Harbor road; but his upward glinting beams already spread with gold and crimson the lower edges of the fleecy clouds on the eastern horizon. Diamonds of dew still clung to the long grass blades, and the points of the forest leaves and the morning breeze, heavy with the salt smell of the sea, was fresh and bracing. Robins flitted across the road with sharp notes, as of query why folks should be abroad so early, and a belated rabbit, homeward bound to his burrow in the brush, sat up-reared upon his haunches and seemed paralyzed by astonishment until the horses were almost upon him, when he bounded swiftly away. Higher and higher rose the sun, and as his ardent rays licked up the dew, light clouds of yellow dust swirled and spread behind the rapidly-moving wheels. Past orchards, where red winter apples glowed in the sunshine like balls of blood amid the foliage of the trees; past fields still golden with the stubble of the early ripened grain; past fallow lands, where the blue-bird carolled gayly on the hollow stump in which he and his mate had reared their springtime brood; past leafy woods, where nuts were ripening, the wheels rolled fast until they reached the quaint old town—their journey's end—and halted beneath the old-time tavern's venerable elms.
Leaving the horses hitched, after having carefully watered them, Uncle Thatcher accompanied his niece to the jail and asked permission for her to see Dorn Hackett, which the jailor, having no orders to the contrary, readily accorded. Mr. Thatcher did not enter. Though far from being a nervous man, he felt as if the close clammy atmosphere of that stone warehouse of sin and sorrow sent a chill to his heart. Besides, he had no business with Dorn Hackett. With a great breath of relief he turned his back upon the jail and wandered off down to the wharf to look at the shipping—for Sag Harbor had shipping in those days—to learn if therewas any change in the oil and whalebone markets, and perhaps to ascertain what was coming to his share of that schooner in which he was part owner.
Dorn was just bidding adieu to his lawyer, when Mary appeared in the corridor.
"By jove! Here's a pretty girl come to see some prisoner!" exclaimed the lawyer at sight of her.
Dorn paid no attention to the remark. There was but one pretty girl in the world about whom he cared to think, and he did not expect her to come there. What, then, was his surprise when, the lawyer having stepped aside to give place to the visitor at his cell-door, he looked out and beheld the beautiful face of his own true-love, Mary. With a cry of surprise and joy he thrust his arms through between the bars, catching her in an embrace, and their lips met in a long and ardent kiss. The lawyer, who was a young man, and possessed of a very lively appreciation of feminine beauty, lingered a few moments and then quietly took his departure.
"I hardly know whether I am most glad or ashamed to see you here, darling," said Dorn, looking tenderly at his beloved.
"Glad, I hope, dearest. Should you feel ashamed of being unfortunate? It is only guilt of which one need be ashamed; and that, I well know, my dear Dorn has not."
"True. But it is very hard to wash the prison taint off, even from an innocent man."
"Do not think so, my love. Everybody will know yet how true and good you are, and will be all the kinder to you for the mistake that has given us so much pain and trouble."
"Ah, my dear girl, it is your love and not your reason that tells me so. Even people who have no other reason for hating the man who has been the victim of such a mistake, will find sufficient the consciousness that they have erred in supposing him guilty, and will always profess to view him with suspicion, whether they feel it or not. There is nothing that people generally abhor so much as a confession of fallibility. But, no matter. I have your love and confidence, dear Mary; I'm sure I have, or you would not be here; and for all beyond that I'd ask small odds from the world if I were free again."
"And you will be, dearest, I am sure of it. It can never be possible that a man should be punished by law for that of which he is not guilty."
"Ah, you think so? Then you have not read much about people who have been convicted upon circumstantial evidence. I have read a whole book about such cases, and I tell you it takes very little real proof to hang a man sometimes."
"Oh, Dorn! Don't talk so! You make me wild with horror and fear!"
"Well, there,—there,—darling. I won't say any more about it. I shouldn't have said so much, but somehow I have got into a bad way of talking back since I have had to make the acquaintance of a lawyer."
And kissing her tenderly, he sought to remove the terror that he had unthinkingly given her, making light even of what he had just said, and forcing himself to speak much more hopefully than he dared to feel.
"Lem, you know," he said, "has gone to New York to find a witness who will certainly clear me if we can bring him into court."
"Ruth told me that he had gone, and the object of his going, as far as she knew, but he did not give her any particulars."
"No? Then I'll tell you all about it."
Thereupon he proceeded to inform her of all the untoward events thathad happened to him after his leaving her on the last night they were together; his running through the woods and falling into the new road; the aid given him by the little elderly gentleman; the missing of the boat he had hoped to catch; the opportune arrival of the old man, probably a smuggler, etc., etc., just as has already been narrated in his interview with Lem, but much more slowly, as this time the story was much broken by affectionate condolences and consequent digressions to love-making. He told her also of Lem's unsuccessful attempt to learn from Peter Van Deust who the little gentleman was.
"What a pity it is," she said, "that you did not think to ask him his name! Was there nothing about him that you can remember that might help to his identification—no personal peculiarity of look, or dress, or manner of speech?"
He shook his head regretfully, saying, "I was not much in the humor to notice peculiarities just then. But yes, come to think about it, there was one little incident that rather amused me at the time, badly as I felt; but I have not thought of it since until now. The little gentleman had a very slow, cautious, and precise way of speaking. I asked him what time it was, when we were down at the beach. He pulled out his watch and replied very deliberately: 'Without desiring to be understood as committing myself to an affirmation of the absolute accuracy of my time-piece, I may say that, to the best of my information and belief, it is now eleven minutes past ten o'clock.'"
"Ah, I have seen him! I recognize his phrase, 'information and belief'!" exclaimed Mary, "and know just how he said it. Ruth and I met him the first time he came into the neighborhood, looking for the Van Deusts, 'supposed to be brothers' as he then said. Ruth imitates him, sometimes, and does it very well. When we come to match together our remembrances of him, I am sure we will be able to give Lem some information that will help him to find the man."
"I certainly hope you may," answered Dorn, "for I can do nothing more. I have got to resign myself to play the passive part of a football for other people to bounce about, without being able to help myself, whether I am going into the goal or the ditch. I have a lawyer, but he seems to look rather blue over the prospect."
"Then get another."
"And have two of them looking blue? No, no. That would be more than I could stand. One is enough. Sailors don't take very kindly to lawyers, any way, you know."
At the end of an hour—a very short time as it seemed to them, but the limit set by the jailor, who now appeared, looking in at the corridor door from time to time, with an air of expectation—Mary said she would have to be going.
"How did you come over?" asked Dorn.
"Uncle Thatcher brought me."
"The—mischief he did! And did he know you were coming to see me?"
"Yes, he brought me for the purpose. Oh, Dorn, he has turned to be ever so kind and good to me! I told him I loved you—"
"God bless you, my darling!" exclaimed her lover, interrupting her with a kiss.
"—and that we were going to be married. And he did not say one word against it. He even said that he did not believe you were guilty; andwhen I told him I wanted to come and see you, he answered that he would hitch up early this morning and bring me; and so he did."
"Mary, if I've ever said a word against Uncle Thatcher I want to take it all back. A man who does me as good a turn as he has this day, I can never after hold any grudge against."
Mary went home that night with a much lightened heart, and looked so nearly happy that Aunt Thatcher would have liked to have bitten her, for sheer vexation and spite.
Dorn Hackett's preliminary examination by a committing magistrate took place before Squire Bodley, and was even a more important event, for all the country around, than the inquest had been. As upon the former occasion, the Squire's little office was crowded densely, and apparently by exactly the same persons who filled it then,—with the exception that the small space within the railing was somewhat more jammed by the addition of five more persons than were there at the time of the inquest; the prisoner, Dorn Hackett; his lawyer, Mr. Dunn; the prosecuting attorney; the officer who brought Dorn from Sag Harbor jail, and a reporter from New York. Peter Van Deust was seated where he sat before, looking fearfully worn and old, as was remarked by all who knew him and viewed with surprise the great change that had been wrought in him within the few weeks since his brother's murder. He had more command over himself now, however, than he showed on the first day of the inquest; and instead of bowing his head and weeping, leaned upon the end of the table and fixed his eyes with a hungrily keen gaze upon the witnesses and the prisoner, as if he would fain have penetrated their hearts to know the truth.
Lem Pawlett was called, but did not respond, and in his absence another witness formally testified as to the facts of the discovery of the murder. Peter Van Deust repeated his former testimony. Then the prosecuting attorney called the name of Mary Wallace.
"Stop a moment," interposed the prisoner's counsel. "I desire to know the object of the prosecution in calling this witness?"
"It is neither customary nor requisite," responded the prosecutor, "for the State to give such information. At the same time, I have no objection, under the existing circumstances, to inform the counsel that we intend to prove, by this witness, that the prisoner was in the vicinity of where this murder was perpetrated upon the night of its perpetration; keeping himself in the woods, evading the sight of former friends and neighbors, though he had not re-visited them or made himself known among them for three years or more, and that he parted from the person we have just called as a witness a little while before the hour at which the murder, as we have reason to believe, was committed."
"We are ready to admit," replied Mr. Dunn, "that the prisoner was in the woods within a half, or possibly a quarter, of a mile of the Van Deust homestead on the night of the murder; that for what seemed to him good and sufficient reasons, yet very innocent ones—which the younger portion of my hearers will possibly imagine and appreciate more readily than the old ones—hedidseek to avoid meeting any inquisitive and gossiping friends; and that he parted from the person whom the State has just called before the hour at which the murder was committed. I believethose admissions cover all the State desires to show by this witness, and consequently, I do not see that there can be any necessity, at this time, for placing her on the stand."
"None at all. We are satisfied with the admissions," assented the prosecutor cheerfully, not at all dissatisfied with expediting business in the close and heated quarters in which he found himself.
A look of relief, almost of pleasure, passed over Dorn's face. He had his Mary spared the embarrassment and unhappiness of appearing as a witness against him, for that time at least.
A man named Schooly, from New Haven, testified that he saw Dorn in his boarding-house in that city two days after the date of the murder, and he was then suffering from some cuts, bruises, and sprains which he claimed to have received while running through the Long Island woods at night.
Detective Turner bore witness to the finding in the prisoner's room in New Haven of a pair of pantaloons and a jacket stained with blood, and a shirt which, though it had been washed, still bore blood stains. He further narrated that the prisoner had stoutly resisted arrest; had, indeed, fought hard to effect an escape; and upon being overcome and searched, had been found to have, in a belt about his body, some three hundred dollars in gold coins—which the witness here produced for inspection by the magistrate, and possible identification by Mr. Peter Van Deust.
The old man looked them over a little, and then pushed them away with a weary sigh, saying simply:
"Jacob had gold in his bag; I don't know how much. Minted coins are all alike."
The case looked very weak for the prosecution. There was really nothing beyond mere suspicion to connect the prisoner with the crime. The prosecuting attorney, with a discontented look, whispered to the detective,—who was evidently uneasy,—and shuffled over again the pages of the testimony taken at the inquest, with a faint hope that he might find there some previously overlooked clue to be of service now. But there was nothing.
The prisoner's counsel leaned back to his client and whispered exultantly: "I defy any jury, or magistrate, to find on that evidence anything worse than the Scotch verdict of 'Not Proven.'"
"'Not Proven'?" exclaimed Dorn, "I don't want such a verdict as that. Cast a cloud of suspicion and doubt over my whole life! No, I'd rather be hanged at once and done with it. What I demand is a verdict of 'Not Guilty.'"
"Better be satisfied with what you can get. 'Not Proven' would be just as good."
"Not for me. I want to tell the Squire, and everybody, just what happened to me that night. I'm sure that they will see I am telling the truth, and I'll clear away this suspicion."
An older and shrewder practitioner than Mr. Dunn would have positively refused to permit his client to imperil, by a word, the present promising condition of his case; but he could not help entering into the feeling of the brave, handsome and earnest young fellow who pleaded so hard to be permitted to defend himself with the truth, and yielded.
"If your honor pleases," he said simply, "my client requests to be permitted to make his own statement of the events of the night in question affecting him, or in which he had a part."
"I shall be happy to hear him," answered Squire Bodley, who was consciousof feeling prepossessed in Dorn's favor, and desirous of seeing him clear himself from suspicion.
The prosecuting attorney looked up with a new light of hope in his eyes. Well he knew how even innocent persons sometimes tangle themselves up in trying to tell a straight story, and how their unpractised and unguarded utterances can be garbled, warped, and misconstrued. But Dorn's manner gave him very little encouragement. In a plain, straight-forward way, that went home with the force of truth to the hearts of all who heard him, the young man told his brief tale of mal-adventure on that luckless night.
Why he had come to Long Island that evening and tried to avoid being seen by anybody but the person he came to see was, he said, his own business—had no bearing on this affair—and he did not propose to make any statement about that. He did not need to. Already it had in some way become matter of public knowledge all over that end of Long Island that he had come to see Mary Wallace, his sweetheart, who stuck to him so well in his trouble that she had been to see him in jail. And nobody thought the worse of him for that, certainly.
Having disposed of that matter so simply, he retold his story, from the time of his starting to run through the woods to catch Mr. Hollis's sloop up to his final arrival at his home in New Haven the next morning. "Deeply I regret," he said, in concluding the narrative, "that I do not know the two persons who assisted me; the gentleman on horseback and the old man in the smack; and beyond measure grateful I would be to them if they, learning of the trouble into which I have innocently fallen, would come forward to corroborate my statement of what happened that night."
"And you know of absolutely nothing," said the prosecuting attorney, after a little whispering with old Peter Van Deust, who was seen to violently shake his head, "which might lead to the discovery of the real existence of either of those persons who, according to your very romantic story, came so opportunely to give you their aid?" He spoke with an affectation of incredulity, which in his heart he was very far from feeling.
"Nothing whatever, sir," replied Dorn. "The only trace I have left of either of them, except the memory of their kindness to me, is the handkerchief which the little gentleman bound around my head. It has been washed, with the rest of my clothing over which the blood flowed from my scalp wounds, and was sent to me yesterday in the valise which was forwarded to me from my boarding house in New Haven. I have it with me. Here it is."
So saying he drew from one of his pockets a large white linen handkerchief, clean and neatly folded, which he handed to the prosecuting attorney. That official took it in an absent-minded way, looked at it negligently, and—his mind busy with some trap he was minded to set for the young man—then tossed the light fabric carelessly from him upon the table. It fell before old Peter Van Deust, who snatched it up and, after turning it from one corner to another for close examination, suddenly startled everybody by a loud cry and the exclamations:
"It was his! It was Jacob's! I can swear to it!"
The old man was immediately recalled to the witness-stand, and testified with much demonstration of excitement:
"I felt that it was his as soon as I saw it, and when I examined it I was sure of it. Jacob had some harmless, womanish ways about him. He could sew, and knit, and embroider a little. He marked all his clothing himself—every article of it I believe—in a very modest way; hardly discernibleat a casual glance, but very plain when you come to look for it, as you can see on that handkerchief. Look in that corner and you'll see his initials 'J. V. D.' worked with a single white thread. You can hardly see it without you hold it so that the light will show the lines of the letters lying across the threads of the fabric. There! That way it shows plainly."