I
n the commotion which followed, I noted two things. First, that at sight of this violence from one brother to the other, Leighton drew back without offering assistance to the one or rebuke to the other. Secondly, that Alfred's show of anger ceased as soon as it had thus expended itself, and that his next thought was for Hope.
But he was not allowed to approach her. The coroner now interfered with his authority, and all words were forbidden between these members of a disrupted household, till the police had finished an investigation, which had now become as serious as the crime which had called it forth.
The search was for the little phial which had held the acid, and when it was generally understood that the investigation would not cease till this was found, Miss Meredith, who had clung to me as her one stay in this overturning of every other natural support, asked me in agitated tones if I thought her cousins would be subjected to personal search. As no other course was open to the police after the direct accusation which had just been made by the infuriated Alfred, I answered in the affirmative; whereupon she attempted to flee the place, saying she could not endure to see them subjected to such humiliation.
But here Alfred, as if divining her thoughts, offered his person to Mr. Gryce with the remark:
"I have nothing to conceal. Look through my pockets, if you wish. You will find nothing to reward your pains.Iam not the villain."
A growl of anger, bridled but concentrated, came from the other side of the room, and I caught a sudden glimpse of George, quivering under the restraining hands of Dr. Bennett and Sweetwater, in a mad attempt to reach his brother, whom he seemed to curse between his teeth.
"If you search him, you must do the same to me," were the words with which he seasoned this struggle. "You will find nothing more incriminating on me than on him; probably less, for my pockets are always open—while his——" A gnash of his teeth finished these almost inarticulate phrases. He was not as easily roused as his brother, but more tenacious in his passions, and less readily appeased.
"Peace, there! You shall both be satisfied," interposed a businesslike voice. In face of these open accusations, the coroner felt himself relieved from the embarrassment which had hitherto restrained him, and made no further effort to hide his suspicions.
Miss Meredith, who unconsciously to herself had drawn me as far as the drawing-room door in her efforts to escape the disquieting scene she had herself precipitated, paused as these words left the coroner's lips, and, yielding to the terrible fascination of the moment, caught my arm, and clinging thus with both hands, turned her eyes again upon the men under whose roof she had eaten, slept, and loved; ay,loved, as I knew by the tension of her body, communicated to me by the pressure of her hands.
Suddenly that pressure was removed. Her hands had flown to her eyes, shutting out the spectacle she could no longer confront. Nor was it easy for me to look on unmoved, or view with even an appearance of equanimity the scene before me.
I have not mentioned Leighton. He had not come forward with the other two, but he allowed his pockets to be searched without a protest when his turn came, though it was very evident that the proceeding caused him more suffering and a keener sensation of disgrace than it did the other two. Was this on account of the superior sensitiveness of his nature, or because he shrunk with a proud man's shame from the publicity entailed upon the anomalous articles which were drawn from his inner pockets? When some few minutes later my eyes fell on these objects lying piled on the library table, I marvelled over the character of a man who could gather and retain in one place a small prayer-book, a lock of woman's hair, the programme of some common music hall, and a photograph which after one glance I instinctively turned face downwards, lest it should fall under the eye of his cousin, whose delicacy could not fail to be hurt by it.
The phial had not been found on any of the young gentlemen.
When Miss Meredith became aware that the ordeal was over, she let her hands drop, and stepped hastily into the drawing-room. I did not follow her, but remained in the doorway watching the detectives asthey moved from room to room in the search which was now being extended to all parts of the house. As I saw these men pass so quietly but with such an air of authority into rooms where a few hours before they would have hesitated to put foot even upon the genial owner's express invitation, I experienced such a realisation of the abyss into which this hitherto well-reputed family had fallen that I lost for a little while that sense of personal bitterness which the predictions evinced by Miss Meredith had so selfishly awakened.
But to continue the summary of events.
Seeing Leighton withdraw upstairs, followed by an officer in plain clothes, who had appeared on the scene as if by magic, I could not refrain from asking why he was allowed to separate himself from the others, and was much moved at being informed that he had gone up to sit by his child's bed, that child who of all in the house had found her wonted rest.
That he could calm himself down to such a task under the eye of one who could have little sympathy with his feelings, whether they were those of outraged innocence or self-accusing guilt, struck me as the most pathetic exhibition of self-control I had ever known; and more than once during the busy hour that followed, I was visited by fleeting visions of this silent man, sitting out the night under the watchful eye of one who moved if he so much as lowered his head to kiss the only cheek likely to smile upon him on the morrow as it had smiled upon him to-day.
That the search for the missing phial was likely tobe a long-continued one soon became apparent to everyone. Two men who had carried the investigation into the room where the servants had been shut up since early evening, came back with the report that nothing had come to light in that quarter. At the same time two more returned from above with a similar report in regard to the sleeping-rooms of the three brothers. Sweetwater and Gryce, who had spent the last half-hour in the dining-room, appeared to have an equally unsatisfactory tale to tell, and I was wondering what move would now be made, when I intercepted a glance from the coroner cast in the direction of the drawing-room, and realised that the law was no respecter of persons and that she, she too, might be called upon to give proof of not having this tell-tale article upon her person.
The prospect of such an indignity offered to one I regarded with more than passing admiration unnerved me to such an extent that I was hardly myself when Dr. Frisbie advanced upon me with this remark:
"I regret the necessity, Mr. Outhwaite; but the emergencies of the case demand the same compliance on your part as on that of the other gentlemen found upon this scene of crime. It is needless to say that we have the utmost confidence in your integrity, but you were here when Mr. Gillespie died, and have been close to a certain member of this family many times since—and, in short, it is a form which you as a lawyer will recognise and——"
"No apologies," I prayed, recalling the one son of Mr. Gillespie who had not been on the scene of crime at the time of his father's death.
An intelligent glance from the coroner convinced me that he was thinking of him too. Indeed, he seemed to be more than willing to have me understand that he exacted this thorough search in order to fix the crime on Leighton. For if the phial was not to be found anywhere in the house, the necessary conclusion must be that it had been carried out of it by the one person known to have left it during the critical half-hour preceding Mr. Gillespie's death.
"I understand your thoughts," quoth the coroner, who seemed to read my face like an open book. "The phial may have been smashed on the sidewalk or thrown into some refuse barrel. But that would be the unwisest thing a guilty man could do. For its odour is unmistakable, and once it is found by the men I will set looking for it at daybreak—Well, what now?"
Sweetwater was whispering in his ear.
"The child? Do I remember that the father suggested she should be put to bed undressed? Oh, I cannot have you disturb the child. Used as I am to the subterfuges of criminals I find it impossible to believe that a father could make use of his child as a medium for his own safety."
"Or Miss Meredith?" the insidious whisperer went on.
"Or Miss Meredith. She may have the bottle on her own person, but she would never pass it over to the child. No, no! curb your extravagances and confine your attention to Mr. Outhwaite, who is kind enough to allow us to inspect his pockets——"
Here the curtain at the drawing-room door was disturbed and a pallid face looked forth.
"I pray you," came in entreaty from Hope's set lips, "spare this stranger, whose only crime has been to show kindness to a man he did not know, in an extremity he did not understand. Search me; search Claire; but do not subject this gentleman to an act so injurious. I swear that the phial is not on him! I swear——"
She hardly knew what she was saying. The heaped-up excitements of the last two hours were fast unsettling her reason.
She held out her hands imploringly. "I don't know why I care so much," she murmured in fresh expostulation, "but I feel as if I could not bear it."
From that moment I loved her, though I knew this interposition in my behalf sprang from her womanly instinct rather than from the spontaneous impulse of a freshly awakened heart. I must have shown how deeply I was moved, for the coroner looked distressed, though he gave no signs of modifying his intention, and I was beginning to empty my pockets before his eyes, when Sweetwater's expressive countenance showed a sudden change, and he rushed again to the rear. Here he stood a moment before the dining-room door, striking his forehead in wrathful indecision; then he disappeared within, only to shout aloud in another instant:
"Fool! fool! And I noticed when I first came in that the clock had stopped. See! see!"
We were at his side in an instant. He was standing by the mantelpiece, with the heavy French clocktilted up before our eyes. Under it, tucked away in the space allowed to the pendulum, we saw a small homœopathic bottle. There was one drop of liquid at the bottom, which even before Mr. Gryce lifted the bottle to his nose we recognised by its smell to be prussic acid.
The phial which had held the deadly dose was found.
U
nder Sweetwater's careful guidance, the clock fell slowly back into place. It was one of those solid time-pieces which seem to form part of the shelf on which they stand. When it was again quite level, he pointed to its face. The hands stood at half-past nine, just ten minutes previous to the time of my entering the house.
"At what hour did Mr. Leighton Gillespie go out to-night?" he asked.
No one answered.
"Before half-past nine or after it?" urged the coroner, consulting the faces about him for the answer he probably had no expectation of receiving from anyone's lips.
"Leighton's all right," cried out a voice from the library. "I hate his puritanical ways, but there's no harm in him."
It sounded like Alfred, but the impression made by this interruption was not good.
"Will you allow me to state a fact," ventured Miss Meredith, coming impulsively forward. "If you hope to establish the guilt or innocence of anyone by the time marked by these hands, you will make a mistake. The clock has been out of order for some days. Yesterdayit ran down. I heard my uncle say that it would have to go back to Tiffany's for repairs."
"Fetch in the butler or whoever has charge of this room," ordered Dr. Frisbie. "Let none of you attempt to speak while he is present. I wish to interrogate him myself and will have no interruptions."
We all drew back, and silence reigned in the spacious apartment which, lit up as for a dinner party, was yet in such a state of disorder that the orderly old butler groaned as his eyes fell upon the heaped-up rugs, the overturned chairs, and the great table stacked with fine china and cut-glass taken from the buffet and closets.
"Oh, what shall I do here?" he grumbled. "What would master——"
He did not finish; but we all understood him. The coroner pointed to the clock.
"When was this wound last?"
The old man stared at the time-piece, mumbled, and shook his head. Then his eyes fell on Miss Meredith.
"I don't remember," he protested. "It has not been running for days; has it, Miss? I have had to use my watch in order to be on time with the meals. Why do you ask, sir?"
He was not answered. This repeated closing up of every avenue of inquiry was beginning to tell upon the police.
"Mr. Gillespie looked very sober, very sober indeed, when he found he had to drink his wine alone," continued the butler, with a melancholy emphasis calculated to draw our attention back to the scene whichhad manifestly made such an impression upon him. "He lifted up his glass and held it out a long while before he drank it. I think he looked at each one of the young gentlemen in turn, but I didn't care to watch him too closely, for there was something solemn about him which made me feel queer, living so long as I have in the family and with every one of these young gentlemen babies in arms when I came here. He drank it finally, standing. But there was no harm in that glass, sirs, for I finished the bottle myself afterwards, and I am well, as you see. More's the pity!"
"Shut up!" shouted an angry voice from across the hall. "You are making a —— mess of the whole affair with your confounded drivel."
The coroner motioned the butler away.
The atmosphere of the house had now become oppressive even to me, and for the first time I experienced a desire to be quit of it, and would certainly have made some movement towards departure had it not been for my dread of leaving Miss Meredith alone with her own thoughts.
Meanwhile the coroner was issuing his orders.
"Dakin, request the gentlemen upstairs to come down again for a few minutes. Dr. Bennett, the body of your patient can now be moved."
"Ah, here we are again," he exclaimed, as Leighton was heard descending the stairs.
"Now, if the two other sons of the deceased will attend to my words for a moment I will state that under the existing circumstances I feel it my duty to call a jury and hold an inquest over Mr. Gillespie'sremains. The phial smelling of prussic acid having been found in the dining-room, I shall only require restraint put upon the movements of the two sons of Mr. Gillespie who are known to have entered this room during the hour when this fatal dose was administered. The one called Alfred, having remained above, is for the present free from suspicion. I would be glad to show the same consideration to the others; but the facts demand a severity which I hope future developments will allow us to confine to the guilty party. Mr. Outhwaite, I must request you to hold yourself subject to my summons. Miss Meredith, I advise you to hold no communication with your cousins till this matter shows a clearer aspect."
He was moving off, when Alfred, who had been shifting uneasily under George's eye, stepped up to him and said:
"I don't want any discrimination made between my brothers and myself. I may be quite conscious of my own innocence, but I cannot accept any show of favours founded on a misconception. If George and Leighton are to be subjected to surveillance on account of entering the dining-room this evening, then I want to be put under surveillance too. For I was in that room as well as they, searching for a small gold pencil which I had dropped from my pocket at dinner-time."
This acknowledgment made under such circumstances and against such odds was calculated to enlist sympathy, and my heart warmed towards the man who in the heat of anger could strike a brother to the ground, but scorned at a less angry moment to takerefuge in a misunderstanding which left that brother at a disadvantage.
But the imperturbability of the elderly detective, who at that moment found something to interest him in the chasing on a Chinese gong hanging from a bracket in the hall, warned me not to be too quick with my sympathies. Kindly as he beamed upon this favoured object of his attention, I saw that he took little stock in the generous attitude assumed by Mr. Gillespie's youngest son; and my attention being attracted to his movements, I was happily glancing his way when he suddenly approached Alfred with what looked like an empty tumbler in his hand.
"Is this the article you refer to?" he asked.
And then we saw that the tumbler was not empty,—that it held a small object standing upright in it, and that this object was a gold pencil.
"Yes, that is my pencil," Alfred acknowledged. "But——"
"Oh, I am accountable for putting it into the tumbler," the old man admitted. "The tumbler was a clean one, Mr. Gillespie. I assure you I examined it closely before making it a receptacle for this pencil. But the pencil itself—Let me ask you to put your nose to it, Mr. Gillespie."
It was a suggestion capable of but one interpretation. Alfred started back, his eyes staring, his features convulsed. Then he bent impulsively forward and put his nose to the object Mr. Gryce held out. With what result was evident from the sudden damp which broke out on his forehead.
F
atality!" exclaimed Alfred. And, raising his head, he strode impetuously towards Miss Meredith. "You have enjoined a confession of guilt and forbidden us to assert our innocence," he cried. "But I shall assert mine now and always, whatever happens and whoever suffers. I should not be worthy of the happiness I aim at, if I did not declare my guiltlessness in the face of facts which seem to militate against me."
"I believe you—" she began, her hand trembling towards his. But the confiding impulse was stayed—by what thought? by what dread? and her hand fell and her lips closed before she had completed the sentence.
"I am innocent," he repeated, drawing himself up in proud assertion, nobly borne out by the clear regard of the eye which now turned alternately on George and Leighton, who were standing upon either side of him.
"What is the use of repeating a phrase you cannot back up with proof?" called out George, who was still gnawing his own special grievance. "I am as innocent as you are, but I scorn to take advantage of each and every opportunity to assert it."
Leighton neither spoke nor moved. The melancholy in which he was now completely lost repelled all attempt to break it. Nor did this expression of complete wretchedness alter during the hubbub that followed. When it did—but I must make clear the circumstances of this change. I was engaged in making my adieux to Miss Meredith, when Sweetwater, after a marked effort to meet my eye, motioned me to join him in the doorway of the den where Mr. Gillespie's body still lay. Not enjoying the summons, yet feeling it impossible to slight them, I ventured, for the last time, or so I hoped, down the hall.
The young detective was looking into the room which had already played so conspicuous a part in the events of the night, and as I drew up beside him, I perceived that his eyes were fixed not upon the out-stretched figure of its late occupant, but on the face and form of Leighton Gillespie, who was bending above it.
For all the humiliation I felt at thus sharing the professional surveillance entered into by this able young detective, I could not resist following his glance, which seemed to find something remarkable in the attitude or expression of the man before me.
The result was a similar interest on my part and a score of new surmises. The melancholy which up till now had been the predominating characteristic of this inscrutable face had yielded to what could not be called a smile and yet was strangely like one; and this smile or shadow of a smile, had in it just that tinge of sarcasm which made it the one look of all others least to be expected from a son who in commonwith his brothers laboured under a suspicion of having been the direct cause of his father's death.
With the memory of it fixed indelibly in my mind, I moved away, and in another moment was quit of the house in which I had spent four hours of extraordinary suspense and exciting adventure. As I passed down the stoop, I met a young man coming up. He was the first of the army of reporters destined to besiege that house before daybreak.
N
ext morning I routed up Sam Underhill at an early hour. Sam Underhill is my special friend; he is also my nearest neighbour, his apartment being directly under my own.
He is a lazy chap and I found him abed, and none too well pleased at being disturbed.
"What the dickens brings you here at this unearthly hour?" was the amiable greeting I received.
I waited till he had made himself comfortable again; then I boldly stated:
"You are a club-man, Sam, and consequently well up in the so-called gossip of the day. What can you tell me about the Gillespies?—the three young men I mean, sons of Archibald Gillespie."
"George, Alfred, and Leighton? What possible interest can you have in them? Rich fellows, spendthrifts, every one of them. What have they been up to that you should rout me up at this hour——"
For reply I opened out the morning paper which I had been careful to bring along.
"See here!" I cried: "'Archibald Gillespie, the well-known broker, died suddenly last night, from the effects of some drug mysteriously administered.'" I was reading rapidly, anxious to see what kind of a story the reporters had made of it. "'He had been ill for someweeks back, but seemed perfectly restored up to half-past nine o'clock last evening, when he fell and died without warning, in the small room known as his den. A bottle of chloral was found on the mantel but there is no proof that he took any of it. Indeed, his symptoms were such that the action of a much more violent drug is suspected. His little grandchild was a witness to his last moments.'George, Leighton, and Alfred are now more than rich fellows. They are rich men," I suggested, relieved that my name had not appeared in the headlines.
"They need to be," was the short reply. "One of them at least stood in great need of money."
"Which?" I asked, with an odd sensation of choking in my throat.
"George. He's about played out, as I take it. To my certain knowledge he has lost in unfortunate bets thirty thousand dollars since summer set in. He has a mania for betting and card-playing, and as his father had little patience with vices of this nature, their relations of late have been more than strained. But he's a mighty big-hearted fellow for all that, and a great favourite with the men who don't play with him. I heard he was going to be married. That and this sudden windfall may set him straight again. He's a handsome fellow; did you ever meet him?"
"Once," I acknowledged. Then with an effort of which I was more or less ashamed, I asked the name of the girl who was willing to take such a well-known spendthrift for a husband.
Sam did not seem to be as well posted on this point as on some others.
"I have heard her name," he admitted. "Some cousin, who lives in the same house with him. The old gentleman fancied her so much, he promised to give a big fortune to the son who married her. It seems that George is likely to be the lucky one. Strange, what odd things come up in families."
"There is another brother—Alfred, I think they call him."
"Oh, Alph! He's a deuced handsome chap, too, but not such a universal favourite as George. More moral though. I think his sole vice is an inordinate love of doing nothing. I have known him to lie out half the night on a club-divan, saying nothing, doing nothing, not even smoking. I have sometimes wondered if he ate opium on the sly. Life would be stupid as he spends it, if dreams did not take the place of the pleasant realities he scorns."
I must have shown my amazement. This was not the Alfred Gillespie I had met the night before.
"I have heard that everything was not quite smooth with him. I know I haven't seen him around lately, crushing pillows and making us all look vulgar in contrast to his calm and almost insulting impassibility. I wonder what he will do with the three or four millions which will fall to his share."
"Marry," I suggested, fillipping a fly from my coat-sleeve.
"He? Alph? I don't believe he could hold himself erect long enough to go through the ceremony. Besides, it would be such a bore. That's my idea of Alph."
It was not mine. Either he had greatly changed,or Sam Underhill's knowledge of him was of the most superficial character. As I wavered between these two conclusions I began to experience a vague sensation of dread. If love could effect such a transformation in so unlikely a subject as the man we were discussing, what might it not effect in an ardent nature like my own?
I hastened to change the subject.
"The third brother is already married, I believe."
"Leighton? Oh, he's a widower; has been a widower for years. He was unfortunate in the marriage he made. After the first year no one ever saw young Mrs. Gillespie in public. I don't think the old gentleman ever forgave him that match."
"What was the trouble? He seems to have a dear little girl. I saw her when I saw her uncle."
"Oh, the child. She's well enough, but the mother was—well, we will be charitable and say erratic. Common stock, I've heard. No mate at all for a man like him. Not that he's any too good either for all his hypocritical ways. I have no use for Leighton. I cannot abide so-called philanthropic men whose noses are always in the gutter. He's a sneak, is Leighton, and so inconsistent. One day you hear of him presiding at some charity meeting; the next night you find him behind the scenes at a variety theatre. And as for money—not one of Mr. Gillespie's sons spends so much. He has just drained the old man's purse, or so I've heard; and when asked to give an account of himself mentions his charities and many schemes of benevolence—as if the old man himself didn't spend thousands in just such lines."
"He doesn't look like a prig," I ventured.
"Oh, he looks well enough. But there's something wrong about the man. His own folks acknowledge it; something shameful, furtive; something which will not bear the light. None of those boys are chips of the old block. Let's see the paper. What are you holding it off for? Anything more about Mr. Gillespie's death? Do they call it suicide? That would be a sad ending to such a successful life."
"One question first. Was Mr. Gillespie a good man?"
"He was rich; yet had few if any calumniators."
I handed him the paper. There were some startling lines below those I had read out so glibly.
"They do not stop at suicide," I remarked; "murder is suggested. The drug was not administered by himself."
"Oh!" protested Sam, running his eye over the lines that were destined to startle all New York that morning. "This won't do! None of those boys are bad enough for that, not even Leighton."
"You dislike Leighton," I remarked.
He did not reply; he had just come upon my name in the article he was reading.
"Look here!" he cried, "you're a close one. How came you to be mixed up with the affair? I see your name here."
"Read!"
He complied with an eagerness which I suppose but faintly mirrored that of half theTribune'sreaders that morning. What he read, I leave to your imagination, merely premising that no new facts had cometo light since my departure from the house and the printing of the paper. When he had finished, he bestowed upon me a long and scrutinising look. "This knocks me out," said he, with more force than elegance. "I would never have believed it, never, of any of these men." Then with a sudden change quite characteristic, he ejaculated, "It was a rum chance for you, Arthur. How did you like it?"
I refused to discuss this side of the question. I was afraid of disclosing what had become the inner-most secret of my heart.
He did not notice my reticence—this, too, was like him—but remarked with visible reluctance:
"The weight of evidence seems to be against Alph. Poor Alph! So this is the result of those long, unbroken hours of silent dreaming! I shall never trust a lazy man again. When they do bestir themselves——"
"He has not been arrested yet," I interjected dryly. "Till the police show absolute belief in his guilt, I for one shall hold my tongue."
"Poor Alph!" was all the reply I received.
T
hese concluding words of Sam Underhill show the trend of public opinion at this time. But I was not swayed by the general prejudice, nor, to all appearance, were the police. Though enough poison was found in Mr. Gillespie's remains to have caused the death of any ordinary man in fifteen minutes, no arrests were made, nor was Mr. Gillespie's favourite son subjected to any closer surveillance than the other members of this once highly respected family.
Meanwhile, the papers were filled with gossip about the case, which was now openly regarded as one of murder. In one column I read a semi-humorous, semi-serious account of how George Gillespie actually once won a bet in face of all odds and to the confounding of those who trusted in his invariable ill-luck; and in another how Leighton had worn out his father's patience by a most persistent association with the most degraded classes, an association which led him into all sorts of extravagances. As a sample of these, and to show how entirely his follies differed from those of his elder brother, he has been known to order breakfast at a restaurant and disappear in the wake of a Salvation Army procession before the meal couldbe served. They never knew at home when to expect him in, or at what moment he might leave the family circle. He was so restless, he rarely sat an evening out in any one place. Without any apparent reason, he would often leave in the midst of concert, sermon, or lecture, and has been known more than once to dash away from a theatrical performance as if his life depended upon his reaching the open air. And he never expected to be criticised or questioned. If he were, he found some apology to suit the occasion; but the apology was forced, and the person who called it forth rarely repeated the offence.
Only a small paragraph was devoted to Alfred. In it his temporary engagement to Miss Saxton of Baltimore was mentioned, and a somewhat cruel account given of the way he jilted this young lady on his return to the city. As this was coincident with the arrival of Hope at her uncle's house, I needed no further explanation of his fickleness.
All this gossip about people in whom I had come to take so deep an interest both worried and unsettled me; and I found myself looking forward with mingled dread and expectation to the public inquiry, which I had every reason to hope would separate some of these threads, in the network of which my own heart had become so unfortunately entangled.
It had been called for Thursday, and when that day came I was one of the first to appear upon the scene. Not a word of what passed escaped me; not a look nor a sign. Miss Meredith, who entered on the arm of Leighton, wore a veil thick enough to conceal her features. But I did not need to pierce thatveil to imagine the expression of anxiety and distress she thus concealed from the crowd. George, who had resumed his usual manner, sat, conspicuous in height and good looks, among a group of witnesses, some of whom I knew and some not. Dr. Bennett sat at my side, and had so little to say that I did not attempt to disturb him, having respect for the grief with which he regarded the untimely end of his life-long friend and patient.
The first witness was myself.
As my testimony contained nothing which has not been already very fully related in these pages, I will pass over this portion of the scene, with the single remark that in the course of my whole examination, which was a lengthy and exhaustive one, I allowed no expression to escape me likely to prejudice the minds of those about me against any one of Mr. Gillespie's sons. For it was apparent, before I had been upon the stand ten minutes, that an effort was being made to fix the crime on Alfred; and what surety could I have that this result would not plunge a barbed arrow into the breast of her about whom my fancy had drawn its magic circle? As I sat down, I glanced her way, and it seemed to me there was meaning in the slight acknowledgment she made me with her ungloved hand. But what meaning?
The inquiry thus being opened, and curiosity roused as to the motive which led Mr. Gillespie to summon a stranger to his side at a moment so vital and under circumstances seemingly calling for the ministrations of those nearest and dearest to him, various experts and physicians were called to prove that his deathhad not been caused by disease, but by the action of prussic acid on a sufficiently healthy system. With the establishment of this fact the morning's inquiry closed.
As Miss Meredith was likely to be the first witness called at the afternoon session, I felt it my duty as her lawyer to approach her at this time with the following question, quite customary under the circumstances:
"Miss Meredith," said I, "you will probably soon be subjected to a searching inquiry by the coroner. May I ask if there is any special point or topic concerning which you would prefer to keep silence? If so, I can insist upon your privilege."
The look of mingled surprise and indignation with which she regarded me was a sufficient answer in itself. Yet she chose to say, and say coldly, after a moment of reflection:
"I have nothing to conceal. He can ask no question I shall not be perfectly willing to answer."
Abashed by the construction she had put upon my words, as well as greatly hurt by her manner, I bowed and drew off. Evidently she had felt her candour impugned and her innocence questioned, and, in her ignorance of legal proceedings, thought she had only to speak the truth to sustain herself in my eyes and in those of the crowd assembled to hear her.
This sort of self-confidence is common in witnesses, especially in such as are more conscious of their integrity than of the pitfalls underlying the simplest inquiry; and however much I might deplore her short-sightedness and wish that she had better understoodboth myself and her own position, it was plain that, in the light of what had just passed between us, all interference on my part would be regarded by her as an insult, and that I would be expected to keep silence under all circumstances, let the consequences be what they would.
It was an outlook far from agreeable either for the lawyer or lover, and the recess which now ensued was passed by me in a state of dread of which she in her inexperience had little idea.
Upon the reseating of the jury, her name, just as I had anticipated, was the first one called.
The emotions with which I saw her rise and throw aside her veil under the concentrated gaze of the unsympathetic crowd convened to hear her testimony, first revealed to me the absoluteness of her hold upon me; and when I heard the buzz of admiration which followed the disclosure of her features, I was conscious of colouring so deeply that I feared my secret would become the common property of the crowd. But the spell created by her beauty still held, and all regards remained fixed upon her countenance, now eloquent with feelings which for the moment were shared by all who looked upon her.
Her voice when she spoke deepened the effect of her presence. It was of that fine and resonant quality which awakens an echo in all sensitive hearts and carries conviction with it even to the most callous and prejudiced. It lost some of its power perhaps as the ear became accustomed to it; but to the very end of her testimony, I noted here and there persons who looked up every time she spoke, as if some innerchord responded to her tones—tones which, more than her face, conveyed the impression of a nature exceedingly deep and exquisitely sensitive.
She, meantime, failed to realise the effect which her appearance had produced. She had been questioned, and was striving earnestly and conscientiously to do justice to her oath, and relate as circumstantially as possible what she knew of her uncle's sudden death.
This is what I heard her say:
"I was my uncle's typewriter. I assisted him often with his correspondence and was accustomed to go in and out of his study as if it were my own room. On this night, I had written several letters for him, and being tired had gone upstairs for a little rest. But I was too anxious to be of assistance to him—his mail that evening was unusually large—to retire without one more effort to relieve him; so I went down again a little after ten. I had heard steps in the hall a few minutes before, and little Claire's voice somewhere about the house, but I did not encounter anyone in going down, perhaps because I went by the way of the rear stairs, as I often do when I am in a hurry. Little, little did I imagine what was before me. When I reached my uncle's door,—but you know what a terrible sight met me. There lay my kind—my good——"
We all waited, our hearts in our mouths, but in a moment more she choked down her emotion and was ready to go on.
"He was dead. I knew it at first glance, yet I raised no cry. I could not. I seemed in an instant to have become marble. I saw him lying at my feetand did not weep a tear. I did not even touch him. I merely staggered to the table at the side of which he had fallen, and mechanically, but with a stoppage of my heart's action which made the instant one of untold horror to me, lifted the carriage of the typewriter which he had evidently been using when struck with death, and looked to see what his last words had been. I had reason for believing that they would convey some warning to me or at least an explanation of his sudden death. And they did, or so I interpreted the isolated phrase I came upon at the end of the unfinished letter I found there. God knows I may have been mistaken as to what those five words meant, but I was so impressed with the belief that they were added there for my personal enlightenment that I reeled under the responsibility thus forced upon me, and, hardly conscious of what I was doing, tore off, with almost criminal haste, the portion containing these words, and fled with them out of the sight and reach of everyone in the house. It was a mad thing to do, and I speedily regretted the insane impulse which had actuated me, for I was very soon discovered in the remote spot to which I had fled, and the piece of paper was found, and—and——"
How could she be expected to go on?
"Have we that piece of paper here?" asked the coroner.
It was produced, identified, and passed down to the jury.
It was my opinion at the time, and is still, that she told her story thus fully in order to elude the questions which any apparent reticence on her part wouldassuredly have evoked. But, having reached this point, it seemed impossible for her to go farther. She drooped, not under the eyes of the crowd, but under the fixed gaze of her three cousins. Had she hoped for some signs of sympathy from them which she failed to receive, or, at least a partial recognition, on their part, of the suffering she was undergoing in the cause of truth and justice? If so, no such recognition came. George's fine face showed anger and anger only; Leighton's, a cold impassibility which might have passed for the stolidity of an utterly unfeeling man if his hands had not betrayed his inner restlessness and torment; while Alfred's flashing eye and set lips made plain the fact that his emotions clung to his own position rather than to hers—as was natural, perhaps, with that slip of paper going the rounds of the jury, and calling up from that respectable body startled, uneasy, or menacing looks, according to the nature of the man examining it.
You remember that slip; a business communication broken into by these totally irrelevant words, "one of my sons He". Is it any wonder that these twelve commonplace men keenly felt their position in face of what looked like a direct accusation from the father's hand?
Yet as these five words, simple in themselves and gaining meaning only from the effort which this young girl had made to suppress them, were capable of being construed in a hundred different ways, the faces which at first blush mirrored but one thought gradually assumed a non-committal aspect, which would have been more encouraging to the men thus compromised,if the facts still to be brought out in explanation of Miss Meredith's conduct towards them had not been of so damaging a character.
Hope, who surmised, if she did not know, the contents of the letter she now heard rustling in the coroner's hand, awaited his next question with evident perturbation. Alfred, who may have hoped that this letter would not appear so early in the examination, forgot himself for a moment and cast a look at his brothers, which they took pains to ignore, perhaps because of the effort it cost them to preserve their own countenances in face of the impending ordeal.
I was witness both to this appeal and its rebuff, but to all appearance Dr. Frisbie saw neither. He was deciding with what form of words to introduce his new subject.
"Miss Meredith," he said at last, "you will now take this letter in your own hand. Have you ever seen it before?"
"Yes, sir, it was a letter which was entrusted to me by my uncle, and which I was told to preserve in secrecy so long as he retained his health and life."
"It is addressed, as all may see:To my three sons, George, Leighton, and Alfred Gillespie.Miss Meredith, did you understand by these words that the enclosed was intended equally for your three cousins?"
"Yes, sir. My uncle Archibald told me so. He expressly said, in giving it into my charge, that in the event of his sudden or unexplainable death, his three sons were to read this letter together."
"It has been opened, I see. Is that a sign it has been so delivered and read?"
"Yes, sir. When on the night I made that inconsiderate attempt to suppress the slip of paper on which my uncle had transcribed the five words you have just shown to the jury, one of my cousins reproached me with having drawn erroneous and unwarrantable conclusions from what was there written. I justified myself by handing over this letter. Though I was never shown its contents, I was well aware of the circumstances under which it was written and—and I was certain it would prove my best excuse for what would otherwise have seemed monstrous in one—who——"
She was too disturbed to proceed.
The coroner looked at her kindly, but it was no part of his duty to allow any sympathy he might feel for the witness to interfere with his endeavour to reach the truth. He therefore urged her to relate the circumstances to which she alluded; in other words, to explain how this letter addressed collectively to her three cousins came to be written.
She grew still more distressed.
"Does not the letter explain itself?" she remonstrated. "Spare me, I pray. My uncle's sons have been brothers to me. Do not make me repeat what passed between my uncle and myself on that unhappy morning when he first unburdened himself of his intolerable grief."
"I fear that I cannot spare you," replied the coroner; "but I will grant you a short respite while this letter, or such portions of it as bear upon Mr. Gillespie's death, is being read to the jury. Gentlemen, it is written in Mr. Gillespie's own hand, and it is datedjust a month prior to his unhappy demise. Miss Meredith, you may sit."
She fell rather than sank into the chair offered her, and for a moment I felt myself the prey of a boundless indignation as I witnessed the callousness shown towards her by the three men who up to this time had presumably regarded her with more or less affection. To me her position called for their especial sympathy. The heroism she evinced was the heroism of a loving woman who sacrifices herself, and what is dearest to her, to her idea of justice and law. And while such action may be easy for a man, it is hard beyond expression for a woman, who, as we know, is much more apt to listen to the voice of her heart than to any abstract appeal of right and justice. Yet these same relatives of hers sat still and scarcely looked her way, though she glanced repeatedly and with heartrending appeal in their direction.
I am quite ready to admit that I was too prejudiced a witness to be just to these men. Had I not myself been under the influence of a sudden and violent passion, I would have seen that Alfred needed sympathy as well as she; for Alfred was the man most menaced by the contents of the letter now on the point of being read; and he knew this as certainly as she did.
As this letter is better known to you than it was to me up to this hour, I leave you to judge of its effect upon the jury and the excited crowd of spectators thronging the room at every point. Heads which had wagged in doubt now drooped in heaviest depression; and while all eyes seemed to shrink from an attempt to read the three white faces on the witnesses'bench, the attention of all was concentrated there, and it was with quite a sense of shock that Dr. Frisbie's voice was heard rising again in renewed examination of the young lady whose precipitate action had brought to public notice this touching letter of a heartbroken father.
His first question was a leading one. Had Mr. Gillespie followed up his former confidences by any further allusions to the attempt which had been made upon his life?
Her answer was a direct negative. Though she had detected in her uncle signs of great unhappiness, he had held no further conversation with her on this topic, and life had gone on as usual in the great house.
"But he talked of poisons, and refused to take any more of the medicine which came so near killing him?"
"Uncle Archibald took no more of this medicine, certainly. That is, I saw no more of it in the house. But he never talked of poisons, that is, publicly or in my presence."
"Not at the table?"
"Not after that night, sir."
"He had before?"
"Only incidentally. He had laughed at some of Dr. Bennett's remarks, and once I heard him mention the danger of taking an overdose of the remedy that was doing him so much good. It was while jesting with me upon my refusal to allow anyone else to portion it out for him."
"That was your duty, then?"
"Assuredly."
"Were you in the habit of preparing his glass when alone or in the presence of his sons?"
"As it happened, sir. I had but one dread; that of miscounting the drops."
"And he took no more of this medicine after that especial night?"
"No, sir. He asked Dr. Bennett for a narcotic of less dangerous properties, and was given chloral."
"Did you hear any remarks made on this change?"
"None."
"What became of the phial which held the remainder of this medicine marked 'Poison'?"
"I emptied it out at my uncle's request."
"You were your uncle's nurse, then, typewriter, and friend?"
"He trusted me, sir, in all these capacities."
"Did he trust you with his business concerns?"
"Not at all. I merely wrote letters to his dictation."
"Did you know, or have you ever heard, the value of his estate?"
"I have never even asked myself whether he counted his fortune by thousands or millions."
The dignity, the simplicity, with which this was said made it an impressive termination to a very painful examination. As I noted the effect it produced, I was in hopes that she would be allowed to retire for the day. But the coroner had other views. With a hesitancy that more or less prepared us for what was to come, he addressed her again, saying quietly:
"I have spared you a public reading of certain portionsof your uncle's letter, referring to yourself and the wishes he openly cherished in your behalf. In return, will you inform me if you are engaged to marry any one of these young men?"
The thrill, the start given to the witnesses' bench by this pointed question, communicated itself to officer and spectator. In George's fiery flush and Alfred's sudden paleness, emotions could be seen at work of sufficient significance to draw every eye; though few present, I dare say, ascribed these emotions to their rightful sources. To myself, divided as I was in feeling between the anxiety I could not but feel as her lawyer to see her parry a question too personal not to be humiliating, and the interest with which, as her lover, I awaited a response which would solve my own doubts and make clear my own position, there was something in the attitude of both these men strongly suggestive of a like uncertainty. Were her feelings, then, as much of a mystery to them as they were to me? Did George fear to hear her say she was engaged to Alfred, and Alfred dread to hear her admit that she was irrevocably pledged to George? If so, what a situation had been evolved by this question publicly put by a city functionary! No wonder the young girl dropped her eyes before venturing a reply.
But the spirit of self-protection, always greater in woman than in man where heart secrets are involved, gave her strength to meet this crisis with a baffling serenity. Raising her patient eyes, she replied with a sweet composure which acted like a tonic upon the agitated hearts about her:
"There is no such engagement. I have lived intheir house like a sister. Their father was my mother's brother."
Another man than Coroner Frisbie would have let her go, but this honest, if kindly, official was strangely tenacious when he had a point to gain. Flushing himself, for her look was directed quite steadily upon him, he gravely repeated:
"Do you mean to say that no words of love ever passed between you and any of these gentlemen?"
This was too much. Expecting to see her recoil, possibly break down, I eagerly looked her way for the permission to interfere, which she might now be ready to give me. But with a proud lift of her head she showed herself equal to the emergency, and her answer, given simply and with no attempt at subterfuge, restored her at once to the dignified position we all dreaded to see her lose.
"I mean to say nothing but the truth. Mr. George Gillespie has more than once honoured me by making me an offer of his hand. But I did not consider myself in a position to accept it."
Dr. Frisbie showed her no quarter.
"And your cousin Alfred?"
"Alfred?" Her eyes no longer met those of the coroner or anyone else in that cruel crowd. "He," she stammered proudly, "has never interfered with whatever claims his brother may have been supposed to have upon my favour."
It was a statement to awaken turmoil in more than one of the uneasy hearts behind her. George bounded to his feet, though he quickly subsided again into his seat, ashamed of this betrayal, or fearful of the effectit might have upon his brother. Alfred, on the contrary, sat still, but the bitterness visible in his smile spoke volumes, and, seeing it, the whole crowd recognised what had long been apparent to myself, that these two brothers were rivals in the love they bore this woman, and that it was through her desire to shield the one she favoured, that she made the first false move which had drawn the attention of the police to the doubtful position held by Mr. Gillespie's sons.
That her choice had fallen upon the man who had not interfered with his brother's rights seemed only too probable, and I expected the coroner to force this acknowledgment from her lips, but he grew considerate all at once and inquired instead if Mr. Gillespie had been made aware of his elder son's wishes. She replied to this by saying:
"They were no secret in the house"; and, with a look, begged him to spare her.
But this man was inexorable.
"And did he approve of the match?"
"He did."
"Yet you failed to engage yourself?"
This she deemed already answered.
"If the younger brother had pressed his suit for your hand, do you think that under the circumstances your uncle would have sanctioned such rivalry?"
This, perhaps, she could not answer. At all events she was as silent as before.
"Miss Meredith," proceeded her tormentor, utterly oblivious or entirely careless of the suffering he caused her, "do you know whether your uncle and his youngest son ever had any words on this subject?"
Her hands involuntarily flew out in piteous entreaty.
"Ask this question of the only person who can answer it," she cried. "I only know that I have been treated with great respect in the house of my uncle."
With that, the proceedings closed for the day.