"August 30th, 1895."
"My Dear Love:--Midnight has just blown across the sky, and here is the thirtieth,--the day for which I always stay awake so that I may send you a birthday greeting on the very first minute of time that has a right to carry it. I am throwing a kiss in your direction now, and if you are not conscious of it this minute, you will know when you receive this missive that although your devoted husband was traveling (and dead tired) he waited awake for the express purpose of saying 'Happy Birthday' to you into space.
"I left Houston an hour ago on my way to St. Louis, and we have just passed Lester, a little way station and our first stop. Whom do you think I saw there, of all persons in the world? Kenneth Clyde! I didn't know that he was in this part of the country, and I can't imagine what he could want of Lester, which, to judge from what I saw of it, consists of a platform, a freight shed, and three houses. He evidently had come up from Houston on my train, though I didn't know it until I saw him jump off at Lester and rush for the station agent, who was lounging by the shed. Whatever he wanted he didn't get it, for he was rowing the agent so hard that he didn't see or hear me, though I hallooed to him. I suspect that he found he had got on the wrong train by mistake and wanted to get back. If so, he will have to wait until morning, when the local comes along,--long enough to cool his fit of temper. I like Kenneth and believe he has the makings of a man in him, for all that he is somewhat unbroken. If I ever have a chance to hold out a helping hand to the boy, I'll certainly do it.
"I'll be home in a fortnight, and I count the days until I shall see you, my own. Kiss the two ingenious Gene-iuses for their dad. JOE."
I caught Clyde's hand and wrung it. "It's a miracle! That is, it is the new evidence which will give us a chance to re-open the case. And it is conclusive. Man, there could never have been anything more complete. And to come now, at this moment!"
"It is the helping hand that he offered," Clyde said, with an unsteady laugh. "And little Jean sent it to me, you say?"
"Yes. She had been looking over some old mementoes of her father, and she merely thought this letter might interest you because you were mentioned in it."
The officer apparently thought we were taking too much time mooning over old family letters. "If you are ready, Mr. Clyde,--" he suggested courteously.
"Yes, all right. I'm ready. You will take the necessary steps, Hilton?"
"Of course. I can't at this moment think of anything that would give me more pleasure. I'll go down with you at once."
But I didn't. As we stepped into the hall, a boy with a telegram came toward me. It was a forwarded message from Oakdale, where they had failed to find me:
"Come back to onct. There is a trouble on the girl. BARNEY."
"He means Jean," I exclaimed, handing the slip to Clyde. "I know he means Jean. Confound him for not being more explicit. What can have happened?"
"You'll go at once, of course?" said Clyde promptly.
"I can't go till a train starts." And then I remembered how my going would affect Clyde. "I'll have time to lay this letter of yours before the court before I go, in any event. And I shouldn't want to take any chances of a train wreck with that document in my pocket."
But you can imagine the fever I was in till I could get off. I saw the proper officials and took the necessary steps to secure judicial recognition of the important paper which was to restore Clyde's life, liberty, and happiness, and though he could not, of course, be released at a moment's notice, I had the satisfaction of seeing the procedure started that would enable him in a short time to face the world a free man, with the secret terror that had shadowed his life for fifteen years forever laid. But I went through it all like a man in a dream. Through all that was said and done I was hearing every moment, like a persistent cry,--
"Come back at once! Jeans needs you,--Jean needs you!"
After leaving the court house I still had hours--ages!--to wait at the station, and the pictures my imagination conjured up were not soothing company. I had telegraphed Barney that I was coming, but after that I could do nothing but fret myself to a fever waiting. I got off, finally, but all through the night and all the next day the singing wheels of the train were beating out the refrain,--
"Sheneedsme! Sheneedsme!"
I had rather expected that when I reached Saintsbury, Barney would be on hand to give an explanation of his urgent message, but no Barney was to be seen. I took a taxi to my office, which was across the street from Barney's stand. For the first time within my memory, Barney's stand was shut up and the owner gone. I told the chauffeur to wait and went up to my office. Perhaps Fellows could throw some light on things,--unless he too had disappeared.
Someone was there. I heard talking before I entered,--the loud and unfamiliar tones of a man's voice. I went in without knocking. Fellows was there, at my desk. His start of surprise turned into unmistakable confusion as he saw me. His own chair was occupied by a pretty girl, whom I recognized at once as Minnie Doty, the houseworker at Mr. Ellison's, and the girl whom I had seen with Fellows in the park. The third person in the room was a tall man who stood before the window, hat in hand. Evidently he was the man whose voice I had heard.
"Well, I must be going," he said now after a moment's awkward pause, and moved toward the door. As he turned from the window the light fell upon his shaven jaw, blue-black under the skin, and I recognized him. He was the man Barker had addressed with a taunting question about his marriage.
"Don't leave the room," I said quietly, keeping my position before the door. "Fellows, introduce me."
A gleam of amusement crossed Fellows' sardonic countenance. Leaning against the edge of my desk, he indicated the seated girl with a slight gesture. "Mr. Hilton, allow me to present you to Mrs. Alfred Barker!"
"How do you do?" the girl said nervously, trying to rise to the social requirements of the occasion.
"How long have you known this fact, Fellows?" I asked, watching him closely.
"For some time," he said easily. "Miss Doty--Mary Doherty her name was originally, but she changed it to Minnie Doty when she ran away from her husband and got a position as houseworker at Mr. Ellison's--she answered our advertisement for Mary Doherty, to learn something to her advantage. I talked with her,--she didn't want to be known as Barker's wife or in any way connected with the inquest, so I agreed to keep her secret for a short time, because--"
"Because she was afraid this man, whose name I don't know,--"
"It's Timothy Royce, and I'm in the fire department. Anything else you would like to know?" the tall man threw in defiantly.
"Yes. I'd like to know if it was you who telephoned to Miss Doty, early in the morning after Barker was killed, 'Barker is dead and now you must marry me.' Was that you?"
"Oh, Tim!" cried Miss Doty,--or whatever she preferred to be called. "Oh, Tim, I knew they would find it out!"
"What of it?" said Royce doggedly. "Anybody is welcome to know that I want to marry you."
"I see. And when Barker asked you in the hall that day if you were married yet, and you drew back to hit him,--"
"It was his devilishness," said Royce concisely. "He had just spotted Min and me, and he knew well enough I couldn't marry while he was above ground, and he was rubbing it in. That night that he was killed, Min and I had gone out to talk things over. I wanted her to run away with me, but she said she couldn't while he was alive, and the next morning, when the patrolman on our beat told me Barker was dead, I tried to telephone Min. I couldn't go to her, because I was on duty. I knew it would break her up, being a woman, even though he was ugly as sin to her. Women are that way, I suppose. She even saw about getting him buried. But she was scairt to death of having to come forward and tell things and be talked about and have to appear at the inquest and all that, and letting it be known about her and me,--
"Where were you the night that Barker was killed?" I asked abruptly. The man looked honest, there was an honest ring in his voice,--but suppose that after all I had the real murderer here in my office, covering his trail with palaver? Fellows' eyes were on the floor.
"We went out to Lake Park on the electric, Min and me," he answered promptly. And then he added unnecessarily, "We went out on the seven o'clock car and stayed there all evening."
"Now I know you are lying," I said coolly. "Minnie was at home a few minutes before seven. I saw her let Miss Benbow in."
"There's a lie somewhere, but I'm not fathering it," Royce retorted hotly. "Miss Benbow was waiting in the back entry to be let in when we got there, and it was nearer three than two, because the power gave out and we were tied up for over two hours half way between here and the Park, waiting every minute to go on."
"Good heavens! Was Miss Benbow waiting outside till three in the morning?"
"Not outside,--in the back entry. It seems that she came home unexpected, and finding the house shut up, she waited, thinking of course Min would come home some time. And so she did. You see, everybody was away from home that evening, so Minnie was free. But Miss Benbow is a good sort all right. When Min said she'd lose her place if Mrs. Crosswell found out about her going off, Miss Benbow said right off that she wouldn't tell."
I held down any adequate expression of my feelings. I merely asked, "What sort of a place is the back entry?"
"Oh, it was quite clean and nice," Minnie spoke up from the depths of her handkerchief. "There's an old rocking chair that I sit in to peel potatoes and things like that. She went to sleep in the old chair and didn't come to no harm. We leave the entry unlocked so that the iceman can get at the refrigerator in the morning."
The thought of Jean cooped up in that dark back entry until three in the morning, even admitting the comfort of the old rocking chair, was sufficiently disturbing, but aside from that there was something perplexing about the story. Somehow it did not fit in with my previous idea of the events of that night. I struggled to fix the discrepancy.
"How about Mr. Benbow?" I asked Minnie suddenly. "You told me you saw him leave the house."
"I did!"
"When? If you were away from the house before seven,--"
"It was just as I was taking Min back home,--a little before three," Royce interrupted. "Just as we were going along the side of the house, past the room Min said was the library, the door opened, and Mr. Benbow came out and ran down the steps. Min didn't want him to see her, so we stood still in the shadow till he was in the street. Then we went on to the back of the house."
"You gave me to understand that it was earlier in the evening," I said reproachfully.
"I didn't say when," she murmured miserably. "And I couldn't tell you it was at three o'clock, or it would all have come out! And it is nobody's business, anyhow. I wish I had never answered that advertisement of yours!"
Fellows stirred slightly and his eye met mine. I caught his hint not to frighten the timid Minnie if I wanted to get any information from her.
"Did you tell Miss Benbow that you had seen her brother leave the house at three?" I asked, to fill time.
"Not then," she said meekly. "I didn't think about it. I told her the other day."
"Well, now you know the whole story, and I guess Min and I will go," said Royce,--and this time I did not try to prevent his departure. "Min wanted me to come, because that young man was hanging around to make her tell about things, and she didn't know what she had ought to tell and what not. But there ain't nothing we need to be afraid of coming out, only Min hates to be in the papers."
"Good day," I said. "And thank you for coming." As the door closed behind them, I turned to Fellows.
"Follow them. Don't lose sight of him. I don't feel sure yet that he has told the truth. We may need him."
"All right," said Fellows. "I've been having her watched for weeks to find out who her young man was. I just worked it out yesterday, and got them here five minutes before you came in."
"Well, make sure that we can locate him if necessary," I said. This was not the time to discuss his method of handling things.
The door had hardly swung shut behind him when it opened again and Barney stumped in,--an anxious-looking Barney.
"You're here! I missed you," he said.
"Barney, what is it?" I cried. To wait for him to put what he had to say into words seemed suddenly next to impossible.
"I don't know wot it is, sir, but it's trouble," he said doggedly. "She guv me a letter for ye, and here it is."
I tore it open, and behind the incoherent words I seemed to hear Jean's serious, appealing voice:
"DEAR MR. HILTON:--I just must write to you, because I couldn't bear it if you should ever think back and feel hurt because I hadn't. I can't tell you all about it, but I want you to remember that I have a reason, a very important reason, for what I am going to do. I can't explain, but it is on account of Gene. You will know afterwards what I mean.
"But there is one other thing I want to tell you. I have just found out that Minnie told you she saw Gene leave the house that night, as she was coming in. That is a mistake,--I didn't tell her so, because I didn't know what difference it might make. But Gene was fast asleep on the couch in the library when Minnie and I came into the house (and that was three o'clock) so if she saw someone going off by the side door just before, it wasn't Gene. You see, it was this way. When I ran back to speak to the girl I thought was Minnie, I found it wasn't Minnie but a friend of hers who works in the next house, and she said Minnie had gone out but would be right back, so I went into the back entry and waited for her, because I wouldn't go to Mrs. Whyte's when she was having a party. And Minnie didn't come till three. When we got in I saw a light in the library, and I went in, and there was Gene asleep. I kissed him very softly but I didn't wake him up, because you know how boys are, wanting their sisters to be so awfully dignified. And though I was perfectly safe and comfortable waiting beside the refrigerator, it wasn't exactly dignified, and Minnie was scared to death about being found out. So I didn't wake Gene. And it has been a great comfort ever since to me to remember how peaceful he looked, because that shows he felt innocent in his mind and not with a guilty conscience to keep him awake like Lady Macbeth.
"I can't say anything more, because I have promised over and over again not to say a thing about the plan to save Gene, but I will just say this,--If you should happen to hear that I was married, will you please,pleaseunderstand and believe that it was to help Gene, and that of course I must do anything for him.
"Yours faithfully" (a blot made it look like "tearfully"),
"Jean Benbow."
It was incoherent enough (except for the part about Gene, which I put aside in my mind to think out later,) but one thing seemed clear,--that she was married or about to be married, and that she had been lured into this madness by some delusion that in this way she was going to be able to help her brother. I glanced at the envelope. It had not been through the mails.
"When and where did you get this, Barney?"
"Yisterday, yer honor. She brought it to me herself. An' she wanted to bind me by great oaths out of a book that I wouldn't give it to you till afther to-day had gone by. Sez I, How can I give it to him till he comes here, an' his office man sez he won't be here for a week yet,--for I had been to find out on my own account,--God forgive me for deceivin' the innocent."
"It wasn't her letter, then, that made you telegraph, if you only got it yesterday. Was there anything else?"
His eyes fell, and he shifted his weight on his crutch uneasily.
"I saw her cryin' and I knew she was carryin' sorrow," he said at last, defiantly.
"When? Where? Tell me everything, can't you? Did you know anything of her plan to be married? Do you know where she is?"
"I know only what I see,--an' that was that she was unhappy. It was this way. She came by my stand many a time, asking this about you and that about you, an' when would you be back, an' I cud see that there was more on her heart than a gurrul like her should be carryin'. Then one night I saw her cryin',--"
"Where?"
"'Twas in her own home, sure. Her head was down on the windy-sill, an' it was dark, and she never mistrusted there was anybody about the place watchin',--an' no more there was, seein' I wouldn't count an old codger like meself anybody. She was sobbin' and talkin' aloud to herself,--" He broke off and looked at me with fierce reproach. "I telegraphed for ye then, sor."
"And I came at once. Then this letter,--she brought you this yesterday?"
"That was it. An' if you hadn't come by this train, sor, I would have opened it meself." He looked at me defiantly.
"She says here--at least, I think she means to say, that she is going to be married,--and in mad foolishness. Wait till I see what I can learn by telephone."
I got Mr. Ellison's house first. Mrs. Crosswell, who answered, was sure that Miss Benbow was not at home, but did not have any idea where she was. Did not know whether she had taken anything with her when she left the house or not. I then called up Mrs. Whyte, explained that a letter from Jean suggested a possible elopement, and begged her to go over and see if she could find out where Jean went, when she left the house, and whether she had taken any things that would indicate a contemplated permanent departure. I then took my head in my hands and thought, holding down the terror that surged up every other moment and almost made thinking impossible. "If you hear that I am married," she had said. Was it Garney? Never mind. Garney or anyone else, people could not be married without certain preliminaries, without leaving certain records. There must have been a license. I took Barney with me in the cab, and we whirled up to the court house.
"Have you any record of issuing a marriage license for Jean Benbow within the last few days?" I demanded of the clerk.
Why has the Lord made so many stupid people? My question had to be handed on from one clerk to another and record after record after record examined,--and here every wasted minute was wearing away this "day," this critical day, over which Jean had wished her secret to be kept. I held my watch in my hand while they searched. At last they found it.
"Looks like Jack put this memorandum where it wouldn't be found too easy," the successful searcher said significantly to his fuming superior.
It was quite possible,--for the memorandum showed the issue of a license for the marriage of Allen King Garney and Jean Benbow, and it was dated the day before. She had stipulated with Barney that I should not receive her letter till after to-day, which meant that this wastheday. And here it was drawing toward five o'clock.
Then, out of the intense anxiety which fused all thought and feeling into one passionate will to save her, came the inspiration. She had said, on that drive when I took her and old William Jordan out into the country, that if ever she were married it would bethere, in the vine-covered church of the old suburb where her mother had stood a bride. The recollection was almost like a voice,--"Don't you remember?" I did,--oh, I did! Every word, every look. My hand was shaking as I turned the pages of the city directory, trying to identify the church which I knew only by its location, and to discover the name of its minister. Then I turned again to the telephone. There was no connection with the church, but I succeeded at last in getting the minister's house.
"No, Mr. Arnold is not at home," a gentle feminine voice answered. "He has gone to the church to perform a marriage ceremony."
"Can you catch him?--stop him? Is it too late?" I cried desperately over the wire.
"Oh, the wedding was at four o'clock," the shocked voice answered. "Oh, is there anything wrong? I am sure Henry didn't know,--we thought it so romantic, a secret wedding,--" I hung up the receiver regardless of her emotions and went back to my cab on the run, while the listening office force enjoyed the sensation.
"Go to the little church at the corner of Olympia and Hazel Streets," I said to the chauffeur, "and get there as soon as you can without being arrested.Getthere."
Then I told Barney what I had discovered. There was no reasonable ground for supposing that I would be in time to prevent disaster, yet I must go on, even against reason. And surely Providence would interfere to save her! I could so easily understand how she had been misled. Garney had made her believe that he could help Gene. Perhaps he had suggested that I was not giving the case proper attention. He had offered some impossible assistance if she would marry him, and she, with her romantic, schoolgirlish, unreal ideas of the way things were done in the world, had consented all the more readily because it involved a sacrifice on her part.
The cab swung up to the curb, I jumped up the church steps, and pushed my way through the swinging baize doors. The room was dim, but I could see a group of three before the altar,--Garney, yes; and the minister; and Jean. They turned to look as I stormed down the aisle, and moved slightly apart. I caught Jean's hands in mine and looked into her eyes.
"Jean! Are you married?"
A mist of tears dimmed the brightness of her eyes. "Oh, I'mgladyou've come," she said, quiveringly.
Still holding her hands I turned to the minister. "Have you married these two, sir?"
"Not yet. The young lady appears to have been detained,--"
"I took the wrong car! I was just explaining,--"
For a moment the room swam before my eyes. I was in time!
"It was just an accident," Jean was saying. "Then when I found I was wrong, I came back as soon as possible and--now I am ready!"
"Ready!" I crushed her hands until she drew them away with a little gasp. I turned impatiently to Garney, who stood motionless, white-faced, watching her. Of course he knew the game was up, but he did not move.
"Go!" I said. "I'll settle with you later."
I don't know whether he heard me. His eyes were fixed upon Jean with mingled anger, longing, and despair.
"You waited till he should come! You left word for him to follow you!" he said pantingly. "In spite of your promises, you never meant to keep your word. You do not care about your brother. You thought you could trick me--"
"Oh, no, no!" she cried, breaking from me and going to him with hands extended. "I am here! I am ready. I will marry you now,--"
"Jean!" I cried.
"You don't understand," she said, turning breathlessly to me. "He is going to help us save Gene. He knows something,--he said he would tell me if we were married,--"
"Nonsense. It was a trick. If Mr. Garney has any information that will benefit your brother,--"
"He might hand it over to you, I suppose!" Garney said with a sneer. "Very well, I will. Investigate that ex-convict that you keep in your office. You may find something that will be of interest. But if you hadn't come--" He moistened his dry lips, then turned abruptly and walked up the aisle. I saw that he tried to hurry, but he walked unsteadily and steadied himself by the pews. I once saw a gambler who had staked everything on a desperate game, and lost, stagger like that from the room.
"What did he mean about an ex-convict?" Jean asked in a shocked voice. "Not Mr. Fellows? And what would he have to do with it?"
"Nothing," I said promptly, putting certain uncomfortable recollections out of my mind. "Don't you see that Mr. Garney was merely deceiving you? He had nothing to tell, no help to give you. He merely wanted to marry you. Jean, Jean! How could you do so mad a thing?"
"For Gene!" she said reproachfully. "Why, I'd do anything. And Mr. Garney said he surely would tell me when we were married, and if I cared for Gene I would do it. He wouldn't tell me beforehand, because he--he doesn't like you!" She dropped her eyes in delicious confusion. "You see, he is--jealousof you! He didn't want me to wear this!" She touched the locket she wore on a chain about her neck,--the locket I had given her just before leaving Saintsbury.
"How did he know I had given you the locket?" I asked.
"I don't know. He just guessed." She looked shy and conscious--and charming. But something puzzled me.
"You didn't tell him? You are sure of that?"
"Why, yes," she said, looking surprised. "I never told anybody. Not anybody at all. It was a kind of a--secret."
How do ideas come to us? I thought I was wholly absorbed in Jean, and was conscious merely of a desire to soothe and calm her by taking things naturally, but now something seemed to nudge my attention and to urge, "Don't you see what that means? Don't you see? Don't you see?"
I did see--in a flash. That locket! It had not been out of my locked desk until I gave it to Jean, except once,--the night of Barker's murder. I had taken it to Mrs. Whyte's that evening, and had shown the portrait to Miss Thurston for a minute. I was sure she had not even seen the outside of the case, which was out of my hand but a moment. But later that evening, while I sat in Barker's office waiting, I had taken the locket from my pocket and had sat under the gaslight examining it--in full view of the concealed murderer who had watched me from the dark inner room, and who, a few minutes later, shot Barker from that same concealment. The whole thing flashed before my mind.
"Wait here," I said, and dashed for the door by which Garney had left. He was a block away, evidently waiting for a street car which I could see approaching.
"Take me down to that car," I said to the chauffeur, and we were off at the word. Barney was still in the cab. "You go back with the cab, Barney, and take Miss Benbow home. I must see Garney before he gets away."
We reached the street just as the car, which had halted to take on Garney, started up again. I sprang from the step of the cab to the rear platform of the car. Garney turned and looked at me with surprise that changed quickly to anger.
"Are you following me?" he demanded under his breath.
"I told you we should have to have a settlement."
"Settle what? You've won," he said, with a shrug. He went inside, while I remained on the platform, thinking out a plan of action. When the conductor came for my fare I said a few words to him. He looked amazed.
"When we pass a policeman, slow up a bit," I continued. "If the man tries to get off before we pick up an officer, help me stop him. That's all."
We swung around a corner, saw a policeman standing outside the curb,--and the car stopped without signal. I jumped off and explained the situation to him in a word. He at once boarded the waiting car with me and approached the unconscious Garney.
"You're wanted," he said quietly.
Garney rose, furious but also frightened. He looked at me.
"What damn foolishness is this?" he said, trying to bluster. "I haven't time for any nonsense. I have to catch a train. I'm going away."
"Come on, and don't make a disturbance," the officer said.
"But I tell you it is a mistake. You'll suffer for it. It is not a criminal offense to try to get married."
"Perhaps not," I said, taking the word from the police officer without warrant. "You are under arrest because I charge you with the murder of Alfred Barker."
I never saw a man faint before. He crumpled up like a collapsed balloon. We lifted him to the sidewalk so that the car could go on, and the patrolman called up the wagon. But before Garney came back to consciousness, I had lifted the moustached lip that masked his narrow jaw. The crowded teeth were pushed out on each side to form a V, exactly like the model made from the apple bitten in Barker's office.
The crowd dispersed as the patrol wagon took Garney and the officer away, but one man lingered and fell into step with me as I turned away. It was Mr. Ellison. I had not noticed him in the crowd.
"What's all this?" he asked, twisting his head to look up at me, bird-fashion.
"Walk with me, and I'll tell you," I said. "I am going down to see Benbow."
And as we walked I told him of the surprising developments of the last few hours,--that Garney, the Latin tutor, and Gene's friend, was the man with crooked teeth who had been eating apples in Barker's inner office while waiting for his victim, who had observed and recognized my locket; and that Garney was Diavolo the hypnotist who had threatened to kill his partner, Barker, if his identity were disclosed. (I may say here, to anticipate events which befell later, that this identity was absolutely established by Dr. Shaw, the dentist who had extracted a tooth for Diavolo,--the first case in the law reports, I believe, where identity was established by the teeth. By that time every link was so clear that Garney's confession was hardly needed,--though he did break down in the end and make a plea of "Guilty.")
Ellison listened with his peculiar interest,--an interest in events rather than in persons, and in ideas more than either. At the end he nodded his alert head rapidly.
"Yes, I knew Garney had practised hypnotism but I thought it was years ago. Barker told me, in strict confidence."
"Barker!"
He nodded. "Yes. I didn't say anything about it, because people seemed to think it wasn't good form for me to have any civil relations with the man who had killed my second cousin, but as a matter of fact, I knew him fairly well. Gene would turn white at the mention of his name, so I didn't mention it. That check for $250--you remember?"
"Yes."
"Well, that was to pay for a course of lessons in hypnotism. He promised to get me a practical teacher who had been a public performer,--Garney, in fact. He hadn't made the arrangements yet, but he was confident that he could bring it about. And I was eager to have the opportunity to investigate the matter, scientifically, you understand. If he could teach me how to do it, I would understand the thing,--the rationale of it, I mean. But it was strictly confidential, because of Garney's position in the university."
"Did he know you knew?"
"No. Barker was killed before he could arrange it. I went to his room the next day, to see if I could by chance recover that check, which hadn't been presented at the bank, but his dragon landlady gave me no chance,--and then you told me that you saw it in his pocket the next day. So I let things take their own course."
"Somebody did break into his rooms that night," I said. "That has never been cleared up."
"Garney!" said Ellison, shrewdly. "He has in his possession certain books which I know Barker had in his room the day before. He undoubtedly removed them, with any papers or other matters that might have connected him with Barker or revealed his practices."
"How do you know he has them?" I asked, amazed.
"Oh, I have made a point of seeing a good deal of Garney lately. You see, I am interested in the occult, scientifically. And since Barker couldn't act as go-between, I have been cultivating Garney on my own account."
"Yes, and given him a chance to work on Miss Benbow's feelings," I groaned.
"Why, it never occurred to me that he was interested in her," he said blandly.
"That was too obvious to attract your attention, doubtless," I could not refrain from saying. "Well, you have cleared up a good many points, Mr. Ellison, but I'd like to ask another question. Did you send a thousand dollars to William Jordan, and if so, why?"
For the first time he looked embarrassed.
"Why yes," he said, nodding his head deliberately. "Jean told me about him and his loss. It struck me that it was an unnecessary piece of hard luck that he should suffer as an individual for an advancement of knowledge which will benefit the race. He didn't care anything about hypnotism scientifically. I did. I had fostered its development, so far as lay within my power. So, in a manner, I was responsible for his loss. Not immediately, of course, and yet not so remotely, either, since I was encouraging Barker. At any rate, I felt that I should be more comfortable if I made it up to the old farmer. When hypnotism is no longer a mystery but an understood science, such things won't happen!" He beamed with enthusiasm, and I saw that I had never understood the man. He was an idealist.
"I hope they won't," I said doubtfully. "But hypnotism seems to me devil's work, both for the hypnotizer and the victim. Think of Jordan, and look at Garney. Aside from his crimes, the man is somehow abnormal. He has the look of a haunted man. He faints like a woman when he is discovered. No, no hypnotism for me, thank you. But in any event, your action in reimbursing poor old Jordan does you credit."
He waved that aside. "What I should like to know," he said, changing the subject, "is how Gene became involved in this affair. If Garney shot Barker, why did Gene say he did? He isn't as fond of Garney as all that. You don't suppose--" He stopped suddenly and looked at me hard. "You don't suppose that Garney hypnotized him,and sent him to shoot Barker?That would be neat! Damnable, of course, but damnably neat!"
"I don't know," I said slowly. I had been afraid to face that idea myself. "I am going to see him now. Perhaps, with the news of Garney's arrest for a lever, I may get the truth from him. If you don't mind, I want to see him alone."
"All right. I'll leave you here."
But as he turned away, Fellows came up from behind and fell into step with me. I think he had been watching for the chance.
"Royce's story is all right, Mr. Hilton," he said. "The carsweretied up on the Park line the night that Barker was shot. And I have seen the conductor. He knows Royce, who is a fireman at Engine House No. 6, and he remembers seeing him on the stalled car, with a girl."
"A good alibi, but he won't need to prove it now," I said. "We have found Barker's murderer. It is a man named Allen Garney."
"Oh, ho!" Fellows exclaimed, in obvious surprise.
"Do you know him?" I asked, recalling the damaging charge which Garney had made against Fellows.
"I know who he is, and I know that there was something between him and Barker in the old days,--on the quiet. Garney didn't care to be seen with him, but in a way they were pals. In fact, I went to see him the other day to make some inquiries about Barker's past. He was rather rude in getting rid of me."
"You frightened him. He didn't want to be identified as having any connection with Barker. I see. That's why he used your name as a scapegoat to turn my attention from himself. He suggested that you might have shot Barker yourself, Fellows!"
"Did he?" said Fellows, grimly. "Well, if I had, it would only have been the execution of justice. Barker was a murderer."
"You mean in killing Senator Benbow?"
"More than that. Do you remember the story that the Samovar printed about Mr. Clyde?"
"Well, rather!"
"It brought to my mind a story that Barker once told me. When I was a fresh kid from the country and he was teaching me the ways of the world and of the race-track, he told me that he had once stabbed a man in a Texas hotel for cheating at cards. He said that he and three other men were playing in the room of one of them, and that was the one that was killed. He told me that another man was arrested, tried and convicted, while he sat in the court room and watched the proceedings."
"What a monster!"
"He told the story merely to point out that every man had to take his chances,--good luck or bad,--just as it came. He was a great believer in luck. It was his luck to escape and the other man's luck to be convicted by mistake. But he said that the man escaped and was not hung. The Clyde story was so much like Barker's story that I wondered whether it might not be the same, and I went to Garney to ask if he knew whether Barker was the man who killed Henley. He would not admit knowing anything, but he let slip a word in his first anger that he could not take back. ItwasBarker."
"The villain! And he claimed to be merely a spectator in the court room, and that that was how he came to recognize Clyde! He probably studied his face pretty carefully during the days when he was watching Clyde in the dock where he knew he should have been himself! I don't wonder he recognized him. What a man!"
"I wonder if we can prove it," exclaimed Fellows.
"We have just discovered an old letter which will completely establish an alibi for Clyde,--I'll tell you the details later. But whether we can get your story before the court or not, it is undoubtedly the inner truth of the matter and it rounds out the story of Barker's villainy very completely. And he met the treachery he dealt out to others. He was slain by the hand of the false friend he trusted and whom he probably had never wronged."
"But if Garney killed him, what about Benbow?"
"I am going to see him now, and see if I can find out what it is that he is concealing. I'm glad I don't have to swear out a warrant against you, Fellows!"
Fellows smiled quite humanly as he turned away.
I found Benbow thinner, more nervous, and less self-possessed than I had ever seen him before. I was glad to see these signs of disintegration in his baffling reserve.
"I have had a strenuous afternoon," I said, as we shook hands. "Since four o'clock I have discovered Barker's widow, spoiled an elopement, and had your Latin tutor, Garney, arrested."
He looked surprised, naturally, but nothing more. "What for?" he asked.
"For complicity in a murder," I said, watching him closely.
"Oh, impossible!" he exclaimed. "Not Mr. Garney!" His natural manner, his genuine look of surprise and inquiry, were disconcerting. I saw I must work my way carefully.
"Did you know that Mr. Garney had hypnotic powers?" I asked.
Ah, there my probe went home! His tell-tale face flushed and his eyes evaded mine.
"I can tell you nothing about that," he said, with dignified reserve.
"Perhaps I may be able to tell you something that will be news to you, even though you knew of his practices. He is known on the vaudeville stage as Diavolo, and he has toured, giving exhibitions in hypnotism."
"I didn't know that," he said,--and I could not doubt his sincerity. "It must have been a long time ago."
"No longer ago than last summer. He kept his own name from the public. But I infer that you did know something of his practices in private?"
"Yes," he said, hesitatingly.
"Did you ever allow him to hypnotize you?" I asked abruptly.
He was obviously discomposed, but he tried to cover his embarrassment by assuming an air of careless frankness. "Oh, yes. I believe I was a good subject. Mr. Garney was trying to develop my mental powers by hypnotism. He told me some remarkable accounts of idiots who had been mentally stimulated by hypnotic suggestion to do creditable work in their classes."
"Was that the direction in which his suggestions were made?" I asked, as casually as possible. I must try to get from him, without disturbing his sensibilities, as clear an account as he could give me, or would give me, of his peculiar relations with Garney.
"Oh, yes. It was just to help me with my Latin. And it did help," he added, defensively. I could see that he was not entirely at ease over the admission.
"How often did you put yourself under his influence?"
"Oh, I don't remember. Half a dozen times, perhaps."
"Did you remember afterwards what he had said or done to you while you were hypnotized?"
"Not a thing! I just went to sleep, and woke up. It isn't different from any other kind of sleep," he explained, with a youthful air of wisdom, "only that a part of you stays awake inside and takes lessons from your teacher while you don't know it."
"So I understand," I said gently. His assumption of superior knowledge touched me. "Was it hard to go to sleep?"
"The first time it wasn't easy. Something inside of my brain seemed to snap awake just as I was going off,--over and over again. But at last I went off. After that it was easier each time. Once he hypnotized me in class and I found I had been making a brilliant recitation, though I didn't remember anything about it myself. And once he hypnotized me while I was asleep, and I never knew it at all until he told me afterwards and showed me some things I had written while asleep."
"Did Mr. Garney ever speak to you of Alfred Barker?"
"No." His manner froze, as it always did at any mention of Barker.
"You did not know, then, that there was enmity between the two men?"
"No. I didn't know that Mr. Garney knew--him--at all." He swerved from pronouncing the name.
"Yes, Barker had acted as his business manager in the vaudeville business, and they had quarreled. Now tell me something else. Did Garney hypnotize you the day that you hunted up Barker to shoot him?"
"No." A look of dawning uneasiness and indignation crossed his face.
"Did you see him that evening at all?"
"No," he said, with obvious relief.
"Now will you tell me again just what happened that evening,--the order of the events?" (My object really was to see whether he would change his story. I had no need to refresh my own memory, as his former account was entirely clear in my mind.)
"Beginning with the banquet?" he asked.
"Yes, begin there."
"Well, everything went smoothly until Jim Gregory mentioned seeing Barker on the street. That spoiled the evening for me. I got away as soon as I could."
"Alone?"
"Yes."
"Just where did you go?--what streets?"
"Oh, I don't know. I didn't notice. I went home and threw myself down on the couch in the library and read Cicero to get my mind quiet. Things were whirling so in my brain!"
This was new! Evidently his memory was clearer than when he made his first statement to me. "Do you remember what you were reading?" I asked, to pin his recollection definitely.
"Yes, it was De Senectute,--an English version Mr. Garney had lent me."
I stopped to think. That was the book young Chapman had had in his hand the day I hunted him up,--the day after the murder.
"Are you certain it was that book and no other you read?" I asked. I felt that I had a thread in my fingers,--a filmy thread that might break if I did not work carefully.
"Quite sure. I picked it up at first just to read anything, because it was lying there. Mr. Garney had left it that afternoon. And then I became interested in it. It was quieting. It made me feel that after all life is short and what was the use of cherishing ill-will and bitterness towards--well, even a rascal like Barker. It would all be over so soon."
"And with that thought in your mind, you went off and shot him, did you?" I asked with a smile.
He looked perplexed, and did not answer.
"You didn't have another copy of De Senectute about? I want to be sure."
"I am sure. Mr. Garney left it with me that afternoon and asked me to pass it on to Chapman when I had looked it over."
"And you did?"
"No. I--I haven't been back to the house, you know, since--since that morning."
"But Chapman had it the next day. He said Mr. Garney had given it to him."
Gene looked puzzled and thoughtful. "I don't see--"
"As I understand it, the servants were away that evening. Mr. Garney could not have come in unless you yourself admitted him, could he?"
"Oh, for that matter, he had my latchkey for the side door,--directly into the library. He used to drop in--" He hesitated, and his momentary embarrassment gave me the clue.
"When he came to try his hypnotic stunts?" I asked lightly.
"Yes," Gene nodded, looking relieved at my manner.
"But he didn't come that evening?"
"No. I dropped asleep. I slept awfully hard. When I woke up the gas was on full blaze." He caught himself up and looked startled.
"It was morning, then?" I said, quickly.
"Yes," he said slowly, evidently trying to puzzle something out. "I must have gone to sleep--again."
"But you don't remember that, do you?" I asked. "You think you must have,--but do yourememberit, as you do the first?"
The perspiration sprang out on his white forehead. "I remembered when I woke up that I had killed Barker in the night."
"You remember that you thought in the morning that you had killed Barker in the night," I said sharply, "but do you remember killing him? Do you remember, as a matter of fact, going to his office? Tell me something you saw or did, to prove that you actually remember the events of the night."
His face was pitiable. "I can't! I remember going to sleep over the De Senectute and I remember waking up in the morning with the gas burning in the sunshine,--and I know, of course, that I went out in the night and killed Barker,--but I can't remember it!Do you suppose I am losing my mind?"
"I think you are just recovering possession of it," I said, unsteadily. "By the way, I told you a few minutes ago that Garney had been arrested for complicity in a murder. You don't ask whose."
"Whose?" he demanded, startled.
"Alfred Barker's."
"I don't understand--at all," he faltered.
"Garney was in Barker's inner office the night Barker was shot. If you were there, you saw him."
He shook his head. "I did not see him."
"Did you see me?"
"Where?"
"In Barker's outer office."
"No."
"Yet I was there. I was the strange man who came in and waited. Do you remember you told me you saw a stranger come in?"
"I--remember that I told you."
"But you don't remember what the man looked like? You didn't recognize me as the man?"
He put his hands up suddenly and clutched his head. "Do you think I was out of my head that night? Was I--was I--under his influence? Do you mean that I was hypnotized when I shot Barker?"
"That is what I have thought possible, but I have changed my mind on that point. Benbow, I don't believe that you were out of your room that night after you returned from the Frat supper."
He was shaking so that he could not speak, but I saw the piteous questioning of his eyes.
"I'll tell you briefly the points that have made the matter at last clear, in spite of yourself," I said, reassuringly. "Tell me this, first,--when you came into the house that evening, after you left the boys at the banquet, was the house lit up or dark?"
"Dark. I lit the gas in the library. I did not go into the rest of the house."
"Exactly. Well, I saw the gas lit in the library that evening, and it was just a few minutes before ten. I had supposed that your sister and at least one servant were in the house, but I have learned they were not. Therefore, when I saw the light flare up just before ten in the library, you were there."
"Yes," he said, trying to follow.
"You threw yourself down on the couch and read Cicero from a book which the next day was in the hands of Chapman. You don't know how long you were reading, but you were sound asleep on that couch at three o'clock the next morning, for your sister came in and saw you."
"Jean?" he murmured, perplexedly.
"Yes, Jean. Never mind the details. Now it is not humanly possible that after reading yourself quiet at ten you could have reached Barker's office by foot before I reached there in a taxicab so as to secrete yourself in the inner room before I came. Neither is it humanly possible that after shooting him at eleven, you could have fled for your life down the fire-escape, skulked through the streets, and then come home and gone composedly to sleep by three, only to wake at six and remember for the first time that a gentleman who has had the misfortune to shoot a man is in honor bound to give himself up to the law."
He drew his hand over his eyes in a dazed fashion.
I went on. "Minnie, the maid, and her escort, came home at three that night and saw a man leaving the house by the library door. She took for granted that it was you. But your sister came into the room a few minutes later and saw you asleep on the couch. The man who left the house was not you."
"Who was it?" he asked, very low.
"It was the man who had your latchkey to the library door. It was the man who picked up the De Senectute which you had been reading and passed it on to Chapman the next day. It was the man who knew how to hypnotize you in your sleep and make your brain believe what he wished it to believe.It was the man who had just shot Barker from his inner office and who impressed upon your dormant brain the scene he had just been through and made you believe you had acted his part in it. It was Allen Garney."
Benbow looked too paralyzed to really understand the situation. That didn't matter. All the missing pieces of the puzzle were now in my hands and I saw that I could prove my case and clear Gene in spite of his false confession and his traitorous memory. I thought of Jean! It was another and the most convincing indication of Garney's abnormality that he should have desired to wed the sister of his victim. That was strangely revolting. But his passion had carried him beyond his judgment.
"The chances are that hypnotizing you was not a part of his original plan," I said thoughtfully, going over the links in my own mind. "He shot Barker because Barker knew too much about his past, and was not to be trusted to keep it a secret. And his suspicion was justified. Barker had already given his secret away to Mr. Ellison. Whether he knew that instance of bad faith or not, he evidently felt that there was no real safety for him until Barker was dead. So he laid a careful plan to kill him, and carried it out. But an unsolved murder mystery never ceases to be a menace to the murderer. The police would make investigations, and his past connection with Barker might possibly come out. The fact that he searched Barker's rooms the next night shows that he was not easy on that point, even then. There might have been papers in Barker's possession which would turn inquiry upon him. So,--you offered him the opportunity of making him secure."
"I? How?"
"He saw the light burning in your study. He came in,--perhaps to establish an alibi, perhaps merely to get away from himself. He found you asleep,--a condition in which he had already hypnotized you. He saw his opportunity. By making you believe that you had shot Barker, by making you confess, he would forever turn the possibility of inquiry from himself. There would be no mystery to provoke backward inquiries along the past. And, if I may say so, you had made it easier for him to fix that idea in your mind because, as a matter of fact, you had harbored ideas of vengeance against Barker. The thought of killing him was not wholly alien to you. You had prepared the way for the impression Garney wanted you to have,--and he knew that fact. You had revealed that side of your mind to him. He used the bitterness which was already there as the foundation for the idea of revenge. Therefore, when you awoke, and came back to your senses, the idea that you had shot Barker did not strike you as an impossibility. You remembered it dimly, but there was no intrinsic impossibility in it. Do you see that?"
"Yes," he said, in a low voice. "I never could understand why some points were so clear and positive in my mind, and yet I could not remember the connecting links. It was like remembering spots in a dream."
"Those spots were the points Garney had emphasized to you, undoubtedly. He took you with him, mentally, step by step, but things he failed to touch upon would be blank in your mind. How about your revolver, Gene? Did he know where you kept it?"
"Yes. I showed it to him that afternoon."
"Then undoubtedly he took it away when he left. And he remembered to impress upon you the thought that you had thrown it away. He was careful,--yet he betrayed himself unconsciously. Those apples which he ate without thought were a stronger witness against him than his careful tissue of lies. But it's all right now. Take my word for it. It was the cleverest scheme a criminal brain ever worked out, but the righteousness on which the world is built would not permit it to triumph. As soon as we can get the matter before the court, you will be free."
"Mr. Hilton, there is a telephone call for you at the office," interrupted an attendant.
I shook hands with Gene and went to the office, where I found the receiver down, waiting for me. I hardly recognized Katherine Thurston's voice at first.
"Is that you, Mr. Hilton? Oh, thank goodness I have found you! Jean has gone away. I'm terribly worried--"
"What makes you think she is gone? Didn't Barney bring her home in a cab an hour ago? I told him to."
"He did. I was waiting at Mr. Ellison's for news when she came. She told me everything,--the poor child had been terribly imposed on. That man made her believe that he could clear Gene,--"
"So he could have done, if he had wanted to!"
"Well, that is what she believed, and so she consented to marry him. But of course she was dreadfully worked up over it all, and when she came home with Barney and told me about your coming and saving her at the last moment, she was so excited that she was hardly coherent. So I made her lie down and try to rest, and I left her in her room. Just now I went back to see her, and she was gone. Minnie says she went away, with a handbag, immediately after I left, and said that she was not coming back. When I remember the nervous and excited state she was in, I am dreadfully worried."
"How long ago did she leave the house, according to Minnie?"
"Nearly an hour ago. Do you think she could possibly have gone to that man?"
"Not at all," I said promptly. "He is in custody."
"But he might have some agents--"
"I think not. And Jean is a wise child in her own way. The chances are that she is safe somewhere. But I'll let the police know, and I'll go down to the railway station myself. I'll call you up from time to time to see if you have any news."
I reported the matter to police headquarters, and while I could see that they were not greatly impressed with the urgency of discovering a young woman of twenty who had been lost sight of for less than an hour, I confess that I felt more apprehensive than I had admitted to Miss Thurston. You see, Jean wasn't a reasonable young woman. She was--Jean.