‘One would not, sure, be frightful when one’s deadAnd, Betty, give this cheek a little red!’
‘One would not, sure, be frightful when one’s deadAnd, Betty, give this cheek a little red!’
‘One would not, sure, be frightful when one’s deadAnd, Betty, give this cheek a little red!’
“Now these men died in each instance without the slightest regard for theconvenancesof life ordeath, if I may be permitted to speak deprecatingly of the dead. They had not an atom of regard for after appearances, and glaringly belied human experience. But, unfortunate men, that was no fault of theirs. They were in fact surprised in the seclusion of their own rooms, where all busy and wearied men, thinking themselves secure from intrusion, avail themselves to the utmost of the few opportunities they have of being comfortablyen deshabille.
“Moreover, they died without leaving behind them the faintest trace of any preparation beyond these formal letters announcing their intentions; such letters as, by the way, are rarely written by intending suicides.
“There is probably not one man amongst the millions on this globe who, if calmly contemplating suicide, would not leave behind him some evidence of preparation for the event; some last duty done, some last message of love or upbraiding to be delivered; yet I have been informed on good authority that there was, in every instance, an absolute omission of any such farewell message, as well as of all sign of preparation.
“On the contrary, there is considerable confusionin the business and also in the domestic affairs of the dead men, such as, from their well-known methodical habits, they would have been certain to provide against had they foreseen their end even thirty minutes.
“So looking to the utter absence in this case of that studied decorum in death observed by all men who do not slay themselves in the heat of passion, and also to the total lack of arrangement in the deceaseds’ affairs, these facts alone would go far to prove that the dead men did not kill themselves, but, taking them in conjunction with the revealed forgeries, why, then, I say that the verdict of suicide is not to be maintained for a moment.
“But even that is not yet all”—and as my friend resumed he rose to his feet with a fire and force in his whole aspect which, together with his marvelous theory, affected me so powerfully that I, too, rose in sympathy, and we faced each other pale as death on the hearthrug. “No!” and the words came almost hissing from his lips, “these men were notkilledby the wounds in their throats; they were killed—or at least the last one was killed—by the previous perforation of the base of the skull by a powerful needle or bodkin! I found a small bluishcolored puncture at that point on the head of the last victim, and, on following it up by my directions, the surgeon discovered embedded in the brain, and penetrating half way through its entire depth, the needle-like blade of a small dagger.
“Stay!” protested my friend as I was about to speak, “that is not all! The blade had not been broken off; it had been released or discharged from its handle by a powerful spring at the moment of the stab with the intent that it should remain in the skull just beneath the surface and so stop all hemorrhage, and every trace of it be removed by the closing of the skin over it and by the natural covering of the hair.
“And even if the wound should bleed a little, the result would naturally be attributed to the greater wound in the throat.
“And now, my friend, can you conceive a more hideous plot, or one more fiendish in its ingenuity?”
When Pasquale had finished I felt benumbed with the force and fervor of his presentment of the case. To me he was no longer the gay, and brilliant friend, but the fierce and beautiful avenging angel of the murdered men, and repelled though I was by the horror which surrounded the series ofcrimes, I felt eager to aid him in his work of discovery.
“Have you taken any steps to find out whether the previous deaths were caused in the same way?”
As I put this question there was a knock at the door and Pasquale’s austere valet handed his master a letter which had just arrived, and which being marked “immediate,” he explained, he had taken the liberty of delivering at once.
In silence Pasquale handed me the letter, which stated briefly that in deference to his request an order had been obtained to exhume the bodies of the supposed suicides, with the result that in each case the same needle or dagger point had been found in the skulls of the deceased.
The writer, in conclusion, intimated that the bodies would be held until noon the following day in case Mr. Pasquale should wish to make any further inspection himself.
As I handed back the letter Pasquale dashed off a few lines by way of courteous acknowledgment, and stating that he would avail himself of the offer and call and examine the bodies the following day.
That night was one of the most agitated andunrestful in my hitherto placid life. For hours after Pasquale left I paced the floor of my room possessed with a fever of unrest and a frenzy of excitement which tore through my soul as a cyclone sweeps unresistingly through a bed of reeds. By the morning every thought and aspiration of my life lay prostrate before the one consuming desire to bring the murderer to justice.
At nine o’clock I arrived at my office pale and haggard, and a few minutes later I left to accompany my friend, excused from duty on the plea of urgent business.
When Pasquale and I entered the Mortuary Chamber, where the bodies awaited us, I shuddered for a moment and drew back. I had never seen a dead body and my whole soul shrunk from the sight of a murderer’s victims, in the various stages of decay. But after a time my courage returned; or it were, perhaps, more correct to say, a new impulse possessed me, and I went through the ordeal of the morning without further display of weakness.
There was little additional evidence gleaned; but when the four dagger points, which had been the means used to kill the murdered men, lay sideby side on the table, they were found to be exact in size and shape, thereby proving beyond all doubt that the same hand had wrought all the murders.
My friend, who was examining the weapons carefully under the microscope, murmured to himself, “Antonio Seratzzi, Venice,” and in response to the inquiry of my eyes he replied, “As nearly as I can decipher it for the rust, that is the name of the maker of these daggers. It seems to me that I have heard of them before, though for my life I can’t recollect where or in what connection,” and he put his hand to his forehead as if he were trying to recollect.
THEpublication of the discovery that the supposed suicides were, in reality, murders committed by the same individual, filled London with horror, which was intensified a hundred-fold by the knowledge that the murderer was still at large.
The Metropolitan police, even when put upon the right track, failed to discover any clue of the murderer, and at the end of a fortnight all they could say in the way of elucidation was, that an aged man with long white hair had been seen near the scene of each of the murders at the time of the occurrence and prior to it.
There was nothing especially suspicious in his actions or appearance, and the fact that he was in the neighborhood at the time might simply be a coincidence, or the various testimony might not even refer to the same individual, for white-haired elderly men are not at all uncommon in London.
That the police should attach any importance to so faint a clue was perhaps the best evidence of their admission how completely they were baffled; so at least the public considered and the newspapers jeered the officials for their inefficiency.
Meantime my friend continued his investigation with unabated ardor, and, night after night, in the quiet of my bachelor rooms, we discussed each point of evidence, however slight, and classified or dismissed it according to its value.
Pasquale surrendered everything to the discovery of the dreadful mystery, and he grew thin and anxious-looking as the days passed by without throwing any further light upon it.
These were days ill-suited to hilarity, and much of the gaiety of Pasquale’s sunny ways faded before their chilling influences; still if the efflorescence of his light-hearted disposition seemed shed for the time, the fact only served to reveal the true beauty of soul which was the foundation of all I loved so much.
Save when crossed by the sight of suffering uselessly inflicted upon the lower animals, I think he was the sweetest, gentlest creature God ever made; and the most lovable.
“And yet so inexorable in hunting down the assassin!” the reader will say—and I answer yes. Of the secret of that involved mechanism which formed Pasquale’s soul I had no key; I only know that to me my friend was like the fascinating page of some dearly-loved book—blurred and unintelligible here and maybe there, but still sweeter in its occasional illegibility than all the other volumes on earth combined.
At the end of the third week of search Pasquale’s valet called to explain that his master had suddenly been summoned abroad to a family council, but that his absence would probably not extend beyond a week.
If I could ever have found it in my heart to be vexed with Pasquale it would have been over his habit of obeying those calls so promptly as not even to allow himself time to bid me good-bye.
“Did your master leave no message, Jacques?” I inquired, puzzled to account for the absence of any further explanation.
“No, sir; he left in haste and ordered me to present his apologies to you for his omission to call and say good-bye.”
I looked at the speaker and endeavored to readhis expression, but the deep-set eyes dropped the moment they encountered my gaze, and the clear-cut cruel lips and formidable jaw, together with the down-cast eyes made one of the most unpleasing masks it had ever been my evil fortune to gaze upon.
I thought of the masks of murderers in Madame Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors, and began to regard my visitor with a curious interest.
“Will you have a glass of brandy, Jacques?” I inquired, piqued by the man’s impenetrability, and trusting to the liquor to thaw it.
“Thank you, sir.”
But the potent liquor served only to harden the deep lines which guarded the reticent lips, and after I had measured the implacable face and found no encouragement there, I said, “Jacques, that is all,” and, with a low bow the inscrutable valet, or detective, left.
After he had closed the door, I amused myself by sketching his head in profile upon the blotting pad. As the sketch lay before me it certainly did not represent, according to either phrenologists or physiognomists, a bad or wicked head. It was simply the side face of a self-contained, determinedman, and one possessed of considerable possibility of lofty purpose.
I tossed the paper from me—disappointed in the sketch even more than I had been in the original.
On the fourth day after my friend had left, I was aroused at an early hour by the valet, who, after apologizing for the intrusion, handed me the morning paper, and pointed to the announcement of another suicide by a public functionary, and under circumstances precisely similar to the cases which had preceded it.
As in the other instances, the victim’s hand grasped a razor, to account for the deep wound in his throat, while his death was in reality due to the puncture of the brain by the concealed dagger point.
My instant impulse was to telegraph for my friend to enable him to take up the scent while it was fresh. I accordingly framed a message for the valet to send in his own name, and this I—still in bed—requested him to dispatch.
At four in the afternoon I received a note from the valet to the effect that he had heard from his master, and that the latter would be with me the following morning.
“Let me see the cablegram you received, Jacques.” “Sorry that I have destroyed it,” replied that irritating individual. I thought that in a gentle and careless way I would hint to my friend that however faithful a valet or detective Jacques might be, something less like a cast-iron sphinx would better meet the exigencies of ordinary life. I was undergoing a childish fit of annoyance.
The evening papers gave full details of the so-called suicide and also announced the fact that a white-bearded individual—such as the police had connected with the previous crimes—had been seen in the vicinity of the suicide, and had been traced.
Such was the condition of affairs when my friend, covered with the dust of travel, entered my room the following morning.
At his urgent and indeed impassioned request, I obtained leave of absence from the office that day, in order to aid him in following the clues left by the murderer while they were still fresh.
As I left my apartments with my friend, I caught sight of his valet standing at the entrance to the adjoining house. His usually stolid face seemed to be expressive of anxiety, and once or twice he moved as if about to speak. He had, however, allhis life long cultivated a habit of silence, and in his present spasm of uncertainty it prevailed. I saw or appeared to see, a struggle going on in his mind, but I had no clue to his apprehensions, and the symptoms of his distress were too indefinite and too fleeting to justify action on my part; and, unwarned, unchecked by the hand which still, even at the eleventh hour, might have changed it, my friend Pasquale and I went forward to fulfil our destinies.
I would fain draw a curtain over the events of the following twenty-four hours. They have darkened my life, and they will shorten my days. Pasquale and I examined each detail of the murder, but without throwing further light upon it. The police, on their part, followed up step by step the retreat of the white-haired murderer, only, however, to lose him at King’s Cross. He had been too astute to hail a cab, and the numerous exits afforded by that teeming centre gave him all the facilities for escape which he needed.
When we parted for the night it was in disheartened silence. True, Pasquale looked bright and cheery as usual, but I knew by my own feelings that he must be as low in spirits as could well be.In vain I strove to bury myself in an agreeable book; I could not read and I could not rest.
At length, worn out by the day’s fierce though fruitless emotions, I threw myself, tired and worn out, on my bed, and after a while I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
Presently I awoke—suddenly and keenly conscious of the near happening of some event of stupendous importance. The fire in the grate was still burning brightly, so that I had not slept long. Why had I awoke so soon and in such a startled and expectant state?
There was no apparent reason within my room—but, hark! what was that? Clearly and distinctly, as if there were no obstructing walls, I could hear the noise made by the tenant of the neighboring rooms as he prepared himself to retire for the night. The sound of each movement fell on my ear, in my then state of tension, with all the clearness of a bell. I could even hear his muttered conversation. The latter seemed to be of so strange and disjointed a character that, my curiosity overcoming me, I stooped and applied my ear to the keyhole of the oaken door which divided our rooms, believingthat some demented person had gained wrongful access to the adjoining rooms.
My view was limited to a few seconds, at the end of which the other door which fronted the one in my own wall was abruptly closed. But in that limited time my eye had garnered a terrible harvest, for in the muttering inmate of the adjoining room I had identified—or imagined I had identified—the white-bearded murderer as described by all who had seen him; not indeed identified to me by the whiteness of his hair and his age only, but by the blood-stained hands which he removed from his gloves and by the weapon which he laid upon his table.
What to do I knew not, and, horrified beyond measure, I lay in my bed, petrified with apprehension, waiting for the dawn.
With the first glimmer of dawn I sent next door for my friend, and explained to him my midnight experiences.
“It is very strange,” he murmured. “Very strange. Who do you think lives opposite to you?” From the glance he gave me it was evident that my friend thought I had taken leave of my senses. “Only the old Frenchman you told me of,” I replied. “Old Frenchman?” he returned withan air of puzzled surprise and interrogation. “Did I say an old Frenchman lived over against you? You misunderstood me, I think; he occupies the rooms to the rear.” “Well, it was there that I heard the noise and saw the man,” I replied.
A look of pain and perplexity had come into my friend’s face, and for a few minutes he sat in silence, apparently lost in thought. Then he rose to his feet and turned towards the door, adding as he opened it, “As soon as you have breakfasted I would like you to accompany me to the police station. I think you ought to tell the officers what you saw.”
There was still the same look of puzzled uncertainty in my friend’s face, as well as an anxious glance, as if for my welfare, but there was also a look of unutterable resolution as he said, as if to himself, “There must be no hesitation; this thing has to be gone through.”
An hour later Pasquale and I arrived at the police station, and half an hour afterwards two police officers, two detectives, Pasquale and myself left for my friend’s house.
On the way thither Pasquale stepped aside to make a small purchase. “Go straight on; I willfollow you in a minute. I have left my pass-key in another pocket, so you must knock for admittance.”
“Show these gentlemen up to the third floor.” Such was the landlady’s orders to the servant when we requested to be shown to Mr. Pasquale’s rooms, where we were to mature our plans.
When the servant reached the second floor she threw open the front sitting-room door and stood aside to allow us to enter.
“This is not the third floor, my good girl,” exclaimed the senior constable; “this is the second floor.”
“Well, sir! mistress calls it the third floor,” the servant replied.
At this moment Pasquale, who had joined us, remarked pleasantly, “The girl is right; her mistress is an American and counts the ground-floor as the first floor; these are the rooms which I occupy.”
“Yes, sir,” exclaimed the reassured servant, “these are Mr. Pasquale’s rooms.”
My brain was in a perfect whirl—these my friend’s rooms! I had always imagined that he lived on the floor above, misled by the American landlady’s method of reckoning the floors. Iglanced at Pasquale, but he was unconscious of my look.
Turning to the servant he said, “Tell your mistress that the police wish to inspect M. Goddecourt’s rooms, and bring us the key of his door.”
“M. Leon Goddecourt is the elderly French gentleman I spoke to you about as occupying the rooms at the rear.” This was Pasquale’s explanation to me.
When the servant returned with the key Pasquale led the way into the passage communicating with the rooms at the back.
The occupant of the rooms was absent, and there was no hindrance to an exhaustive examination. There was no door connecting with the rooms of the house in which I lived. Nothing was discovered. The police were turning to go, impressed, I believe, with the idea that I had been hoaxing them, or else that the excitement of the murder had driven me crazy for the time, when Pasquale, addressing me, inquired whether I was certain that these were the rooms into which I was looking when I saw the supposed murderer. “You can see for yourself, Wyndham,” he remarked, “that your rooms and mine are not of the same length, and it was veryeasy for you to make a mistake by concluding that the dimensions were the same.”
“I cannot tell with any certainty,” I added falteringly, “for without thinking very closely about it, I had assumed that the rooms on both sides the partition were the same depth, but the door on my side is at the extremity of my bedroom, and when you said that the Frenchman lived at the rear, I concluded from the appearance of the man I saw that I was looking into his rooms.”
“Well the matter can be settled very promptly,” remarked Pasquale. “If you will go with one of these gentlemen, Wyndham, and show him the doorway through which you saw the old man, we can easily connect with you here.”
This seemed the most natural thing to do, and we prepared to carry out Pasquale’s suggestion. As I was leaving the room the police sergeant inquired whether Pasquale had the key of the door connecting my rooms with his through the wall dividing the two houses, and before I passed out of hearing I heard Pasquale explain that he had never had a key of that door, and did not believe that there was one in existence.
When the policeman and I entered my apartments the former remarked that he thought that the door which I pointed out to him would, if opened, be found to lead into Mr. Pasquale’s rooms—“at least I judge so from the relative length of the rooms,” he added.
Our loud knockings at the door through which I had seen the midnight spectacle produced no result for a minute; evidently our friends were still in the rear rooms. Then we could hear voices indistinctly, and presently the sound of blows opposite to us showed that our friends had at last “located” us.
After a short interval of heavy blows on the opposite door the latter was burst open—that much we could hear by the volume of sound which reached us—there was a shout of excitement, and presently the door which had been forced was shut, and we could see and hear no more.
Something very amazing had happened; what was it?
How can I relate the story of the events which followed? Even now, at this lapse of time, the recital of them chills my inmost soul. When we returned to the other house, we found Pasquale, my friend andmore than brother, in the custody of the police. The space between the double doors dividing his room and mine had revealed all the paraphernalia of the supposed murderer, and that it belonged to Pasquale was apparently beyond doubt.
The wig and beard; the clothes, the boots, the blood-stained gloves; and even the hare’s-foot with which the face had been painted to the semblance of age, all belonged to him and all were there; and worse and still more damning evidence was found in an oblong ivory box of antique pattern. Within this lay a stiletto handle, the ivory of which was yellow with extreme age. The weapon had no blade, but imbedded in the faded velvet of the lid were seven dagger points identical in every respect with those found in the heads of the dead men.
As we came forward the police sergeant removed a handkerchief from the pocket of the coat found in the recess.
It, too, was slightly stained with blood, and on the corner it bore the embroidered monogram of my ill-fated friend.
Horror-stricken, I stared at the face of Pasquale, who was now securely held by the police. Still the same puzzled expression in it; that and nothingmore. He was evidently unable to understand the situation. After a time he heaved a deep sigh, and, stretching out his manacled hands, he took up the ivory dagger, as if casually and disinterestedly.
“Yes, that must have been what he used,” he murmured; “I have read of such stilettos.”
At that moment I caught the gaze of the valet, Jacques, who had silently stolen into the room. I had, up to this time, well-nigh hated his homely, reticent face for the way it resisted me, but now and henceforward I loved it for the expression it bore on that fateful morning.
It was the appeal of a hero prepared to sacrifice his life on the mere fraction of a chance, and what his glance entreated was that I should create a diversion so that he should carry out his intentions. The hard lines on his inflexible face seemed to shiver and break in his terrible anxiety, and his fears, although they added to my own dread, inspired me.
“Stay!” I said to the officer, “I have a confession to make. This gentleman,” pointing to Pasquale, “has done nothing; a child could see by his face that he is innocent. I am the guilty person; my room also opens on to that cupboard; Iplaced all the material of my make-up there, and raised the alarm to disguise my own guilt,” and I held out my wrists as if to feel the clasp of the handcuffs.
At the conclusion of my remarks Jacques sprang forward like a tiger, hurled one detective to the floor, thrust the policemen swiftly on one side, and, seizing his master by the arm, was hurrying him away when a violent blow from the powerful and cool-headed sergeant disabled him.
“Arrest him,” the sergeant said briefly, to his subordinates, indicating poor Jacques; then turning to myself, he pointed with his hand to the door opening into my room, of which the bolts were still shot in their sockets.
“I admire your efforts, sir, but you could not have entered that space between the two doors from your room, for it was bolted against you!”
Meantime, Pasquale appeared unconscious of the turmoil. He seemed still to be examining the stilettos.
Only once did he look up—when he heard me endeavoring to incriminate myself—then a soft beautiful smile crept over his face, but he nevertheless shook his head with inflexible determination.
“You must accompany me, sir,” said the sergeant to Pasquale.
“To jail?” inquired the other. “A Pasquale to jail!” and he laughed softly, as if the thought amused him.
“Good-bye, Wyndham, dear old friend, faithful to the last; Heaven send you the best of luck,” and he kissed me fondly and even passionately on both cheeks. “God bless you twice over, once for yourself and once for me, who never had a blessing;” and as he spoke a tremor shook his frame and he was barely able to steady himself.
“And, Jacques, my faithful friend and guardian, God bless you too—pray for me.”
Then his gaze grew dim with tears and he turned again to the strange weapon still lying on the table.
“Who would have thought that these little bodkins could have wrought such fearful havoc?” As he spoke he took up one of the steel points and fitted it mechanically into its socket.
It was all over in a moment. With a rapid movement Pasquale directed the point towards himself, his wrist turned slightly, the hand tightened fiercely and then opened, and the ivory handle of the stiletto rolled on the floor as Pasquale reeledand fell into the arms of those behind him. His eyes opened wide, smiled the old smile into mine just for one brief instant, then the darkness of death blotted out their light, and the lids drooped slowly as if from overwhelming fatigue. Pasquale had entered into the rest which knows no waking.
They thought that he had fainted, but I knew differently. The deadly stiletto had done its last work faithfully and fatally. The quick turn of the wrist and the fierce grasp of the weapon had released the powerful spring concealed in the ivory handle, and the dagger point was now imbedded in Pasquale’s heart.
A week later two visitors entered my rooms. They were my dead friend’s father and the valet, Jacques. From the former I learned that his son had, for some years, been subject to fits of dementia. These usually occurred during the full moon. Mr. Pasquale’s reason for sending his son to London was a hope expressed by the family doctor that an entire change of scene might strengthen his mind and his body, and be the means of creating a break in those periodic attacks.
Jacques, the valet, was in reality a faithful servant of the family, employed from the first to take care of his young master. He had occupied the adjoining room with Pasquale from the date of his first arrival, but he kept himself very much in the background, as Pasquale was extremely sensitive lest his condition should become known; a fact which explained his, to me, unaccountable objection to receiving me in his rooms.
After the return from Paris, Jacques, as the reader is aware, took a more prominent part in his master’s daily life, for it was then that I saw him for the first time. This greater prominence was due to the fact that Jacques had reported to Mr. Amidio Pasquale, senior, that the attacks instead of becoming more feeble, were growing more marked month by month.
Jacques explained that the sudden alleged departure of his young master was due to the fact, that, feeling the approach of the mental disorder, he would without delay place himself in his valet’s hands. He was in nowise a prisoner, for from the first to the last there had not been, on the part either of his family or of his so-called valet, the faintest suspicion of a homicidal mania; the only objects of the secrecy being a general watchfulness in case of fresh developments, and to keep his infirmity from the knowledge of his friends.
There were days when Pasquale felt out of sorts and indisposed, and since it was the orders of his medical man that he should be soothed and not opposed at such periods, the valet made no intrusion on his privacy then.
It was undoubtedly at such periods that my friend’s most serious attacks had culminated in the atrocities already recorded, for of his connection with these, subsequent investigations removed every shadow of doubt.
As for the apparent difficulty in crossing the Channel to England, and committing a murder, without his absence being discovered by his friends that was readily explained. He had never while in Paris been under strict surveillance, and he was frequently absent for a few days at a time at a friend’s house.
It was evident that plans conceived during one period of lunacy were perfected during the next, or following periods. This was especially evident in connection with the dead man’s efforts to obtain specimens of the hand-writing of the men whom he had resolved to kill, and had afterwards killed.
In the closet where the disguise was found—in which I had seen my friend arrayed, in that awful midnight glance,—were discovered letters from six well-known justices of the peace, five of whom, including the chief of the police, had undoubtedly died by Pasquale’s hand. These letters were evidently in reply to cunningly worded inquiries, such as would be likely to induce the recipients to answer with their own hands. This had been done in every case but one (the sixth letter had been dictated); and the lengthy epistles which the unsuspecting justices had written afforded Pasquale, then in the fulness of his madness, ample opportunity of making himself acquainted with their handwritings, and so enabled him to forge the farewell letters by each supposed suicide, without fear of detection.
If further proof of my demented friend’s guilt had been wanted, it was readily forthcoming in the drafts of the letters to the justices found in his handwriting in the same recess.
The horrible feeling, akin to remorse, which I experienced on recognizing that it was my evidence as to the aged figure which I had seen at midnight in the adjoining room, that had resultedin my friend’s arrest and suicide, was somewhat mitigated when I learned that on the morning of the discovery the superintendent of police at Scotland Yard had received by the first post a communication from the expert employed by my dead friend to examine the letters left by the supposed suicides, to the effect that having detected a certain resemblance in the handwriting in Pasquale’s letter to that in the forgeries, he had made a crucial examination, with the result of satisfying himself that the two were identical.
On the strength of that evidence a warrant would have been obtained against Pasquale that day had not events rendered it unnecessary.
Nor was that all. On the superintendent’s desk I saw the five letters which had elicited the replies found in the recess. These a keen detective had discovered among the papers of the dead man, when in search of some trace as to the methods employed to obtain specimens of their handwriting. These letters requested a reply to Amidio Pasquale, P. O. Box No. 2034, presumably to avoid their delivery at the house at unseasonable times, and indicating that Pasquale, mad, was on his guard against Pasquale, sane. Sothat on all sides the net had been closing in around my dear demented friend.
Why, then, did Fate so gratuitously add to my lot the painful reflection that I had, by my ill-timed discovery, precipitated my friend’s death? These additional links proved how boundless the resources of Destiny are when her time has arrived; surely, then, she might have spared me that last bitter drop which she had added to my brimming cup.
My task is done. With Pasquale’s tragic ending a shadow settled upon me, and it has never wholly lifted. Our friendship lives in my memory as the one green and sunny oasis in my desert life, and here, far away from the home of my youth, I sit and muse on the gladsome hours we spent together—my only grounds for belief that there is a happier world beyond.
The man I knew—the friend I loved so passionately, the gentle-hearted creature to whom the pain of any creature which God had made was torture—was unconscious of the acts and ignorant of the identity of Pasquale the insane murderer.That much, wise physicians, versed in the mysteries of the human brain, have told me; and that I at least never for an instant doubted.
It may be that Pasquale’s disorder was mentally contagious, and that my open and receptive mind imbibed some of the fatal theories which at times overbalanced his brilliant intellect. I almost hope that it is so, for it will extenuate the wicked rebellious thoughts which still surge through my brain when I recall the steps, one by one, which led to the final ending.
The thought of the loving and gentle Pasquale, fierce only in the pursuit of wrong, bringing all the marvelous resources of his wonderful brain to the discovery of that terrible London mystery, and unraveling it thread by thread only to weave it anew into a noose for himself, paralyzes my brain. Did ever human being before lead justice step by step through such a labyrinth of crime, and so unweariedly, until he brought her to the very threshold of murder, and face to face with himself the unconscious murderer!
I left my rooms hastily, and in disorder, as if invaded by the plague. Once only I unintentionally passed the house, and through the doorway of my cab I saw the dull, dusty windows of an empty residence, with the legend “To be let” placarded on the ill-fated No. 13.
“Do you think it unlucky, then, to take off one’s wedding-ring?”
The inquiry sprang with a half-startled air of surprise and alarm from a pair of pretty half-parted lips, and still more eagerly from two heavily-fringed and expressive gray eyes.
“Yes, dear, very unlucky; you ought to leave it where your husband placed it; it is like undoing the ceremony to take it off.”
This most depressing reply was made with an air of conviction which greatly disturbed the fair questioner—the bride of a month—who had in a childish fit of restlessness removed her wedding-ring and was engaged testing the stupendousnessof its avoirdupois on the coral tips of her dainty fingers.
Slowly, and as if it were something uncanny, the truant hoop was slipped back to its place, as the delicate flush on the young wife’s cheek deepened with the dawning consciousness of a hitherto unknown crime.
“I wish you would tell me why you think so, grandma,” was the somewhat timid rejoinder.
The elder lady’s busy hands had dropped on her knees, and her face wore the absent-minded expression which told that “her eyes were with her heart, and that was far away.”
The question was evidently unheard, and it was presently amended.
“Grandma, dear, has your wedding-ring never been off your finger since grandpa placed it there?”
The second question recalled the old lady’s wandering thoughts, and she replied with a falter in her voice which heightened the look of alarm on her grand-daughter’s face.
“Yes, dear, once.”
“Oh! did anything happen?”
“Yes, love, something which I will never forget as long as I live.”
As the elder lady spoke, the color faded slowly from the cheeks of the youthful bride, leaving the glowing eyes doubly dark by contrast with their pallor.
“Don’t you think that it is growing cold, grandma?”
This was said with a little shiver, and looking up, the latter recognized for the first time that her remarks had startled and alarmed her grand-daughter.
“Mind you, Alice,” she added hastily, “I do not mean to say that misfortunealwaysfollows, for of course a very great many people take off their wedding-rings sooner or later, apparently without any serious consequences, and I don’t think that anything really threatens the happiness of a married couple unless the ring is actually lost; still, my dear——”
The sound of a rapid, manly tread advancing on the arbor where the two were seated caused the bride to spring to her feet with a glad cry.
For a moment the husband caught a glimpse of a pair of swimming gray eyes with a world of woe reflected in their shadowy depths; the next a trembling pliant figure was nestling in his arms,and trying to explain amid tearful sobs about the bad luck coming to them both through the removal of the wedding-ring.
As soon as the astonished husband could frame an intelligible meaning out of the story, told with many interruptions of sobs and kisses and passionate hugs, he burst into a merry laugh.
“Why, you little silly!” he began, but his voice melted to a tenderness inarticulate in words, although mutually intelligible in love’s rich vocabulary.
“Dear,dear,dear! to think what a sweet little goose it is after all,” commenced the husband, after love’s exactions had been religiously complied with. “Why, I know ladies who are continually losing their wedding-rings. There is Mrs. North for instance——”
“O, George!!”
“Well,” resumed the husband a little confusedly, “I know, of course, that she and her husband do not get on very well together, but there are others. There is—let me see—but never mind—I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I will take the ring off your finger myself and put it on again,thenthat will make everything just as it was,” and with this pleasinglittle sophistry both bride and groom were made happy once more.
As the youthful pair left the arbor, the old lady, whose loving heart was wont to grow young again as she contemplated the happiness of the others, softly rubbed the mists from her glasses as she said with a sigh, “O, I wish Alice had not taken off her wedding-ring!”
THATthe shadows of anxiety had not been altogether dispelled from the breast of the young bride, Alice Montgomery, was rendered apparent to her grandmamma the following morning, when the exactions of business had emptied the house of its male population.
The two ladies were seated on a broad piazza, whose columns and roof were richly festooned with a wealth of luxuriant creeper which the gentle breeze, creeping up from the meadows and laden with the smell of the hay-field, just stirred and no more.
For awhile the two sat in silence, their busy fingers and the placid movement of their rocking-chairs keeping up a kind of rhythmical flow of action as soothing as the “creen” of the tidal ebb and flow on a pebbly shore.
“Grandma,” said Alice somewhat suddenly, letting her work fall on her lap, “I can’t get out ofmy head what you said about the ill-luck in removing one’s wedding-ring. George says that it is all an old superstition, and one quite exploded now; but when he leaves me to myself I get quite frightened about it—so, if you don’t mind, dear, I wish you would tell me just what happened after you took off your ring.”
“Alice, dearest, I wish you would forget all about it; your husband is quite right, it is just an old superstition.”
But Alice was not to be turned from her inquiry, and with gentle feminine persistency she shook her pretty head, implying that life would be a burden to her until this terrible affair was cleared up.
“Please, grannie,” was the extent of her audible entreaty, but her eyes contained a fervor of appeal which was entirely irresistible, and the old lady, who had by long experience learned the wisdom of an early capitulation to the “little gray eyes,” as she called her grandchild, surrendered with a sigh of protest.
As she removed her spectacles from her face she became aware of a strangely intent look suddenly visible on the face of her grand-daughter, who was looking at a clump of trees in the distance.
“What do you see, dear?” she inquired.
“I saw a figure in the copse yonder, which I fancied I recognized, but I must have been mistaken, and the person, whoever he was, has gone away?”
“Was he looking this way?”
“Yes, grandma, and I imagined for a moment that he was beckoning to me, but of course that could not be.”
“Do you know, darling,” exclaimed the elder lady in a tone of concern, “you must really not be so nervous; you will be fancying all kinds of things if you give way to such hallucinations. I am afraid that trouble of your brother’s has affected your health. George must take you for a change of air.”
The heightened color on the face of the youthful bride, which had aroused the other’s anxiety, slowly faded from her face, leaving it pale and wan.
By way of reply, Alice stole to her grandmother’s side, and brushing away the silvery hair with which the rising breeze was playing, imprinted a loving kiss on the time-furrowed brow.
“Never mind my fads, dear, tell me your story,” she whispered in the other’s ear, but there was a wistfulness in the tone which impressed her aged relation painfully, and she murmured, as the other sank to her seat, “I wish you would not insist, Alice.”
“O, indeed I do, grandma,” promptly replied the other.
“When I married your grandpa, dear,” began the old lady, I was in delicate health. My mother had only recently died, and the fever to which she had succumbed had wasted my strength also. What with the weakness resulting from my illness and grief at the death of my mother, who had been my only remaining relative, and to whom I was naturally passionately attached, my health was completely broken down, and it was only the urgent wishes of your grandpapa, to whom I had been engaged to be married for more than a year, that I consented to the ceremony at such a time. I felt that I must have change of air, and quickly too, to avoid a complete collapse, and alone in the world as I was, I could not bear to go away and leave behind me the only being that I loved and that loved me.
“Henry too, ‘urged me sair,’ as the old Scottish ballad says, and told me that he could readily make arrangements for a six months’ leave of absence, so that we could spend the winter-months, which were approaching, in the South.
“After the wedding we sailed for Florida, which was at that time enduring one of its occasional, but short-lived, bursts of prosperity. In the old days, long before the war, the State was making money, and the Florida planter as a potentate ranked side by side with the wealthy slave-owner of Mississippi and Louisiana.
“A friend of my husband’s family had a plantation on the Gulf coast of Florida, below Cedar Keys. We had received a pressing invitation to spend our honeymoon on that plantation, and there we finally arrived early in the month of December, after a most delightful voyage.
“At Cedar Keys we had changed our ocean-going ship for a smaller coasting vessel, and as we sailed in our new craft up the waters of the Homosassa River, I thought that not even in my dreams had I pictured, ‘a world so fair.’ The broad, swelling bosom of the river, the luminous transparency of the atmosphere, the banks covered with a wealth and majesty of tropical trees, and the numerous coral islands dotting the centre of the river and crowned with a perfect glory of foliage,—all these thrilled my soul with a sense almost of religious devotion, just as some rare anthem, pealing fromsome old-world organ, will move the soul to an ecstasy of religious feeling.
“The planter and his family gave us a hearty welcome when at length our vessel cast anchor off the plantation landing.
“Their house was a large, rambling, frame building, with the negro quarters situated at some distance in the rear, and hidden from view by a heavy belt of orange and banana trees.
“The land was what is termed hard-wood, hammock land, which is considered to possess the richest soil in Florida. The Seminole Indians, of which there were several thousand still left in the State, always lived in the hammocks, and the plantation had formerly been the home of the celebrated chief, Osceola, of whom you have read so much.
“Colonel Andrews, who owned the plantation, had always been on excellent terms with the Indians, and among his frequent visitors was Tallahassee, the hereditary Grand Mico of the Seminoles, the brave and handsome young warrior-chief of the tribe.
“Shortly after we arrived at the plantation, Tallahassee made one of his customary visits, bringing with him an old warrior of his tribe and three younger chiefs.
“Colonel Andrews had allowed the Seminoles to build a few wigwams in an old hammock near his house, and in these the Indians lived during their visits.
“Our host was a widower, with two sons, and his house was managed by the usual retinue of colored servants. There was no white woman about the place, and I was probably one of the first of that color which the celebrated chief had ever seen.
“Tallahassee, although grave and silent like the rest of his race, and dignified as became the supreme authority in a still powerful tribe, manifested considerable interest in our excursions, and as he knew every foot of the vast forests, and every landing-place on the great rivers which were close at hand, his unobtrusive presence was always very welcome.
“Gradually a warm friendship, though for the most part undemonstrative, so far as he was concerned, grew up between us, and my husband was wont to declare, with much quiet amusement, that I had made a great conquest, and that the renowned warrior-king, Tallahassee, was in love with me.
“Of course, that was only his silly nonsense, andthe expressive glances of the Indian’s dark eyes were only the result of a certain taciturnity of habit enforced by the danger of talking when it might be that concealed enemies were near. With the Indians the eyes are wont to conduct the necessary conversation more readily than the slower and more dangerous tongue.
“On one occasion the Indian chief, our host, my husband and myself, started in a boat to examine the marvelous source of the Homosassa River, a few miles distant.
“This wonderful river springs a full-fledged flood from the ground, and is already a hundred yards in width within that distance of its spring, and so deep as to be navigable to moderate-sized craft.
“When our boat entered the cove where the river took its origin, it was with a feeling of fearful awe that I experienced the sensation of floating between heaven and earth. Above us was the pure ether, walled in on three sides by giant palms; beneath us lay a stupendous well of water, clear as the atmosphere above us, and calm and silent as the grave.
“Far down in its transparent depths we could distinctly see every tint and every movement of thesmallest fish, just as clearly, in fact, as we could see the movement and brilliant hues of the birds and insects flitting to and fro between the trees overhead.
“To me, unaccustomed to such wonders, the scene verged on the supernatural, and I felt as if there was something uncanny in it,—a feeling destined soon to be intensified a thousand-fold. In order to illustrate the transparency of the water, which was there some forty feet in depth to the peddled bottom, my husband threw some small silver coins, one after another, into the spring, in which, contrary to expectation, there were no air bubbles to distract the view. As we watched them falling down through the water, slowly, as a feather falls through the air, it seemed almost as if they would never reach the bottom. At last, one of these coins fell between two great rocks, directly under us, which the shadow of our boat had prevented us from seeing sooner.
“ ‘Let the Water-Lily look,’ exclaimed the Indian, pointing to the coin falling, and calling me by the poetic name with which he was accustomed to designate me.
“As the small silver piece glanced between thedark rocks it seemed to illuminate the gray blackness in which their narrow walls plunged the space between them, until finally the shadow hid it while still falling from sight.
“ ‘Great Heavens!’ I exclaimed shudderingly, ‘how deep is the water between those rocks?’
“ ‘Ah! who knows,’ replied my husband.
“For a while a spell of silence fell upon us as we lay in the welcome shadow of the fringed palms, so deliciously cool after the heat of the exposed river.
“All at once the accident you wish to hear about happened. In order to cool my fevered hands I had been trailing my fingers to and fro through the cold spring water of the well. The downward position of my fingers, and the shrinking of the flesh in the cold water, consummated the catastrophe, and as I straightened my fingers to point to a strange variety of fish, my wedding-ring—already somewhat large for my hand, emaciated by long sickness—slipped from my finger, and slid into the water beneath us.
“The scream which burst from my lips directed my companions to the accident, and throwing offhis hat and shoes my husband plunged headlong after the fallen ring.
“The Indian had risen hastily to his feet in the attempt to prevent my husband, but before he could get past me in the frail boat it was too late.
“My husband was as visible to us as if he had been in the air above instead of the water underneath. I knew him to be a strong swimmer, so although his plunge had somewhat unnerved me, I did not feel alarmed for his safety.
“Butwhata time it took him to get to the bottom! It seemed as if, struggle as he might, he would never reach it. The fact is, the powerful though unseen current of the giant spring was pressing him upwards with an almost irresistible force.
“At last, grasping with one firm hand the point of a rock in order to enable him to retain his position, he stooped to seize the ring. But it had fallen between two pieces of broken coral, and for a while which seemed long to us, but which was probably five or six seconds, it evaded his grasp. At last his fingers closed upon it, and he was about to turn in order to ascend to the surface when a hoarse cry from the Indian caused us to follow the direction of his pointed hand.
“Oh! Alice, child, to this day it chills my soul to tell you what I saw there.
“Out from those ghostly, ill-fated rocks I told you of, a gigantic alligator had floated up like some horrible creature from the nether world, and I could see the lurid fire of its red eyes and the gleam of its wide open jaws, as, with a mighty swish of its great tail, it rushed at my husband, its great body shrouding him from view as with a gruesome mantle.
“I saw Tallahassee, knife in hand, and with his long, and hitherto pliant hair bristling like a mane, spring headlong from the boat, and I felt the frail craft rock beneath me from the shock, and then I think I must have become unconscious for a few seconds.
“When my senses returned and I opened my eyes, I saw Colonel Andrews staring, rifle in hand, and with horrified, helpless gaze, into the waters which were now red with blood and boiling with some awful invisible conflict. What, in God’s great name, was going on in the now hidden depths? I felt as if my brain was giving way, and in my frenzy I strove to throw myself into the water to die with my dear husband if I could not save him. Withgentle but firm hand Colonel Andrews restrained me.
“ ‘Hold that, and if you see anythingshoot,’ he exclaimed, giving me his rifle, ‘I am going to help my friends.’
“But before he had finished speaking, the violent lashing of the waters ceased, and almost instantly the dark head of the Indian appeared above the crimsoned waters. ‘Alone?’ Ah no, God be praised, not alone. Across his shoulder lay the blood-stained and insensible body of my dear husband, whom he had snatched from the jaws of death, and worse than death; and, child, from that instant I have loved the whole Indian race.
“With a few vigorous strokes the Indian reached the shore where he gently deposited the insensible form of my husband. After a lapse of time, which seemed an eternity to me, the efforts of Tallahassee and Colonel Andrews were successful, and my poor husband began to breathe once more. With ready knife the Indian cut the shirt sleeve from his right arm and shoulder which were terribly torn and disfigured by the alligator’s cruel teeth. The shoulder-blade was fractured and the arm broken by the bite.
“As my husband’s eyes opened and rested on mywoe-begone face, a faint, wan smile crept over his features. He was unable to articulate, but his eyes glanced expressively towards his right arm. I thought he was indicating his injury and showed my distress, but he gently shook his head and whispered faintly, ‘My hand.’
“He could not move his wounded arm but I took his rigidly clenched hand in mine and gently strove to open it; but the fingers were set in their grasp, and I was afraid to use any force. A look of disappointment crept over his face, and he murmured weakly, ‘Open it.’
“I did so; and oh, child, what do you think I saw? There, embedded in his palm, with the fury of his grasp when he found death setting in, was my poor wedding-ring, come back from the depths to me.
“My feelings overwhelmed me, and I well-nigh sobbed my life out on my husband’s breast.
“The huge alligator had seized my husband by the arm, and in spite of his efforts had dragged him to the edge of the deep cleft. In another instant rescue would have been hopeless, but in that instant the Indian’s knife had been driven up to the hilt in the eyes of the great saurian, with lightning-like rapidity. The blows blinded the alligator, and thepain caused him to loosen his hold. His frantic struggles were the result of the continued contest with the Indian. My husband became insensible from long submersion by the time he was released from the alligator.”
When the elder lady finished her tragic story the younger one crept softly to her side, and the tears stole down her cheeks as she buried her face on the other’s shoulder murmuring, “Oh poor, poor grannie, what a terrible ordeal it must have been to go through.”
After the acute feelings naturally called up by the narration of so painful an incident had subsided, the young wife inquired why she had never been told of the terrible affair before.
“Because, dear, I have shuddered even to think of the thing, it left such a horrible impression on my mind.”
“Dear grannie,” murmured the other sympathetically. “Oh, if one tenth of the misery which you endured happens to me through the removal ofmyring, I know I shall die, I could never stand any great strain; people were stronger then than they are now.
“I wonder, grannie, what you were like whenyou were my age,” resumed the speaker; “have you no old miniatures among your collections of relics?”
“No, my dear, but I have an old scrap-book which contains a drawing of myself, sketched during my honeymoon by my husband, who was quite a famous etcher before that accident to his arm. There is also, I think, an etching of Tallahassee, and one of the old plantation.”
Very naturally, nothing would content the youthful bride until she had seen the drawings, and her grandmamma left the piazza to fetch the album.
When left alone, an anxious expression crept over the former’s face, and the point of her tiny boot tapped the boarded floor, nervously and somewhat impatiently.
“I wonder if thatwasTom whom I saw beckoning to me in the thicket, and if so, what trouble has he been getting into now?”
At that moment a low voice called her softly by name, and suppressing the scream of alarm which rose to her lips, she turned to find the person of whom she was thinking, her scapegrace brother Tom, half hidden in the shrubbery which separated the main building from some outhouses.
Before she could frame any greeting, a letter fluttered to her feet, and the alarming visitor disappeared as her grandmamma returned, album in hand.
All that the letter said, when surreptitiously opened, was, “Imustmeet you at the end of the peach walk at eight to-night; don’t fail to be there; my safety concerned.”
Meantime, with spectacles adjusted, the old lady with gentle fingers turned over the leaves of the antiquated album, now yellowed with its half century of age.
“There, Alice,” she at last exclaimed, “there is my likeness, and really, dear, it is as like you as it can be, or else my old eyes are deceiving me.”
“Oh, grannie, itisa beauty—like me, is it? Ah! you are flattering me, and yet, really, truly, I almost seem to be gazing at myself when I look at it. I hope, dearest, I shall be as beautiful as you are when I am old; but I think only a good life can make a handsome old age.”
By way of reply the other stroked the beautiful dark brown hair which frowned over the fair Grecian features, and murmured, “You willalwaysbe beautiful, my darling; God has given you not onlya beautiful face, but a beautiful and unselfish disposition to match it.”
“Oh, grandma! is that splendid-looking Indian Tallahassee?” inquired Alice, pointing to a well-executed etching of an Indian chief, evidently of the Seminole tribe, from the turbaned head and long-waving locks.
“Yes, dear, that is our noble friend, Tallahassee.”
Long the young wife’s eyes gazed on the spirited etching, which revealed an Indian warrior or buck in his youthful prime, his luminous eyes and handsome aquiline features dignified with all the Seminole pride of race, but wearing, as well, a certain refinement of expression rarely seen except in very highly civilized society.
But it is very doubtful if the young wife’s attention was riveted on the Indian’s likeness, for when she raised her head, there was an air of troubled perplexity visible on her face which the inspection of the portrait could not account for. Was she thinking of her ill-starred brother?
“What you must have suffered,deargrannie. I wonder you could ever bear to hear the name of Florida again.”
“No, dear, I have none of that feeling. Someof the happiest moments of my life were spent there, and I am hopeful that I may visit it once again, now that it is so easy of access.
“I wonder whether our old friend, Tallahassee, has forgotten us yet.”
“Why, surely he is not living yet!” exclaimed the grand-daughter in an astonished voice.
“Yes, dear, I believe he is; he certainly was alive a year ago, although he is now an old and heartbroken man. The settlement of the State by emigrants has driven him from his old haunts and from every new home as fast as he has made it, and the tribe has dwindled down to a mere handful of followers and himself; the very tender mercies of the pale face are cruel to the red man.”
“But did he own no land?”
“His tribe thought they owned it all, but the white man came and wrested it from them, and although our own Government always promised to give Tallahassee a Reservation of his own, it was never done, and now the old warrior has not even land of his own sufficient to be buried in.”
“What a shame! Is it the fault of the Government?”
“I think it is the fault of the Indian Department.I don’t think the officials had any bad intentions towards Tallahassee and his Seminoles, who have always been entirely friendly to the whites, but there was no one to urge the red man’s claim, and so the thing drifted from session to session while matters grew worse for the Indians every year. Ah! it is very true that ‘evil is wrought by want of thought as well as want of heart.’ ”
“I wish George was a Senator; I would get him to press poor dear old Tallahassee’s claim,” murmured the young wife in half soliloquy, for which tender-hearted little speech the old lady kissed her affectionately as they passed indoors together.
NOTWITHSTANDINGthe day’s outward sense of joyousness and rest, in the brilliant sun, softened breeze, and lovely landscape, there was trouble brewing for the peaceful New England home, and one, at least, of its inmates seemed conscious of the fact.
“I wonder,” exclaimed Alice, as she stood before the cheval glass in her dressing-room, attending to those delicate personal adornments with which youthful brides are wont to prepare to receive their lords and masters, “I wonder whether grandma would have told me that terrible story about her wedding-ring if she had known that I had really lost mine?”
This momentous question was asked of hervis-à-vis, her own brilliant reflection in the swinging mirror before her. As the young bride turned with a look of inquiry to her image in the glass, we may be permitted a passing glance at the reflection which met her gaze.
A tall and lissom figure, with all the graceful lines of the stately Grecian form, combined with the warmer and more womanly outlines of the Norman maiden, the youthful matron stood a vision of loveliness which Praxiteles himself might have despaired to reproduce.
As she tossed the burden of brown tresses from her forehead, her pure Grecian profile stood out clear and delicate as a cameo against the curtain of dark hair which fell, a rippling sombre cascade, almost to her feet. The dark eyes smiled back a sympathetic glance from the mirror, and then a weary sigh of anxiety clouded the beautiful eyes with trouble. Why?
The conversation about the removed ring had been resumed in the morning, and in compliance with the husband’s request, the young bride had again taken off her wedding-ring, in order that he might himself replace it on her fair finger; this unfortunately happened on the upper piazza, and in the usual loving conflict with which youthful couples adjust all matters between themselves, the ring had fallen into the garden and mysteriously disappeared.
Search had been made high and low, but unavailingly,and with a feeling of alarm which each concealed from the other, but which, nevertheless, almost bordered on despair, the subject was dropped with mutual consent.
“It is just as well,” said the husband, with simulated cheerfulness; “I will bring you a fresh ring to-night, and I will put that on your finger myself—once for all.”
“Ah, pet, but it won’t beourring,” the bride had exclaimed with a tremor in her voice, and although the husband had ridiculed the idea that it made any difference, he was painfully conscious of the look of gentle reproach in the outraged eyes of his young wife and of the justice of it.
Punctually at five o’clock the coachman brought around the carriage in which his young mistress was accustomed to drive to the station to meet her husband. The train arrived punctually, but it brought no husband to the waiting wife. It was her first disappointment, trivial in character though it might be, and to the youthful bride it was painful almost beyond expression. As the coachman drove home it required a brave effort to still the quivering lip and to press back the too ready tear.
“Oh, I hope,” she murmured fearfully, “that this is not the beginning of any trouble through the loss of my wedding-ring.” For a moment the thought appalled her, and then a smile of wonderful relief flashed across her face.
“Oh! how silly I am,” she exclaimed, chiding herself, “of course George is late because he has to buy me a new ring.”
This explanation was entirely sufficient, and the once more radiant bride ascended to her room humming a dainty little operatic air, as happy as the mocking-bird which flooded the sunny stairway with melody.
But the shadow returned to the young wife’s face with ever-deepening gloom when the six o’clock and seven o’clock trains arrived and brought no husband with them.
“He is detained on business, dear,” explained her grandma.
“Why couldn’t he telegraph then?”
“There is no office within five miles, love, and no doubt he thought he would get here before his message.”
But another trouble weighed—and heavily—upon the young bride’s mind. The last train wasdue at eight o’clock, the hour so urgently appointed by her brother for their interview. Howcouldshe possibly meet both her husband and her brother at the same time?
This brother was a sad scapegrace, and it had been the one mistake of the bride’s married life not to mention his existence to her husband.
“Why don’t you tell your husband about Tom?” had urged the old lady.
“O, I can’t bear George to know that I have anybody disgraceful so nearly related to me; if ever he misunderstood any of my actions, or if I was not at hand to explain them, he would be certain to think that I was going wrong, like poor Tom, and it would break my heart. Don’t you remember, dear, that night when we were talking about the Wollanders, how scornfully he said: ‘Oh, they couldn’t run straight to save their lives—it is in the blood—the strain is bad.’ That sentence of George’s determined me not to tell him anything.”
“Believe me, dearest,” replied the other, “it was a mistake, and one which grows more serious the longer it is kept up.”
“O, Icould nottell him,” returned Alice witha little air of determination; “but, grannie, dear, don’t-ee scare me like that.”
And so the matter had ended for that time, and fair Alice’s opportunity was lost forevermore.
When Mr. Montgomery arrived by the eight o’clock train and found no one to meet him, a dull feeling of apprehension crept into his heart. His first thought was, “Can my darling be sick? She is in very delicate health.”
With hasty steps he sped on his homeward way, denouncing the special business which on that particular day had detained him.
“I’m glad I thought to buy the ring during the day and did not leave it till after business, or I should either have lost the last train or had to come home without the ring.”
Entering the house unseen, by the side door, he glanced through the empty reception rooms, noted the vacant dining-room, and then hastened upstairs to his wife’s apartments, only, however, to find these silent and deserted.
A feeling of uneasiness and oppression took possession of him. “Where can everybody be?” he muttered. “Ah! there are grandpa and grandma coming across the fields, but where is Alice?”
Hastily glancing across the grounds from the window of his wife’s boudoir, he caught a glimpse in the gathering dusk of feminine apparel at the end of the long peach walk. The light was too uncertain, the distance too great, and the foliage too thick for accurate observation, but it appeared to him that some member of the household, probably one of the maids, was keeping a somewhat late appointment out of doors, for, with the aid of a pair of opera-glasses taken from the adjoining table, he could discern the dark outline of a man’s dress in close proximity to the other and more flowing garment.