"Did you see the prisoners?" asked Durgan.
He assumed that Alden would visit Adam as a blind.
"Ah—I saw the doctor. It occurred to me to see him first."
"How long will 'Dolphus live?" asked Durgan, eagerly. Again he felt that he could not let this man die without extracting whatever clue he held.
"Impossible to make any forecast. The doctor has had the glass removed from his window—in short, the proper steps are being taken. Absolute quiet is ordered."
"Then youcouldnot see him?"
"No."
After a minute Alden sat down wearily on a fallen tree. The wood was close upon them on all sides. The crescent moon, like a golden boat sailing westward, was seen through chinks in the leafy roof.
"I sent him a message to say that if there was anything he wished done, he might trust me to do it. I made sure that the doctor, honest man, would impress on him the fact that I, too, am honest."
"That doctorisa man to be relied on. It's wonderful how one comes across an honest man once in a while."
"Mr. Durgan, when I first related to you my clients' unfortunate story, you were kind enough to express your faith and reverence for such a woman as Miss Claxton, and your willingness to serve her. I felt very grateful to you. I should like to speak to you in confidence, and take counsel with you now."
Durgan sat still, suspecting that he might be subjected to the subtle cross-questioning for which Alden was celebrated.
Alden continued: "I naturally asked the clerk to read Miss Claxton's telegrams to see if he understood them. There are so often errors of transcription."
"There were two, then?"
"One was, as I had supposed, about the supplies. I did not send the other. It is about that I wish to consult you. The address of Mrs. Durgan is——?"
Durgan gave a number on Fifth Avenue.
"I supposed as much. The message was addressed quite openly to Charlton Beardsley at that address. It said, 'Lost article being traced. Reward likely to be claimed.' It was not signed. Why is this man kept under your wife's roof?"
"As a sort of adviser in occult matters—as one might say, a spiritual director."
"There is only one reward with which the Claxtons have any interest. That is offered for information concerning the murderer."
"I thought it was offered for the missing boy."
"It's all the same. Whoever can be proved to have been in the house at the time, having hidden himself afterwards, must have been in some way concerned with the murder. The laws of chance preclude the idea of there being two mysteries in one house at one time. I now ask you, would you have advised me to send this telegram without further information? It goes to a house over which you have at least some legal control."
Durgan perceived that it was any information he might possess, rather than advice, that Alden really sought; but determined only to give advice. His thoughts and passions had been wavering this way and that for twenty-four hours; now he knew his mind, and answered Alden's question. "It lies in a nutshell," said he. "Are you able to trustMiss Claxton's goodness against all evidence to the contrary, or are you not? You have assured me that no one who knew her could mistrust her; and you, of all people, not only know her best, but, pardon me, love her. If you trust her you should have sent the telegram and asked no questions. If not, set your detectives to work, for I don't believe you will learn anything further from Miss Claxton."
Alden turned on him fiercely. "You know more than you say in this matter. You are trying to shield your wife."
"As far as I know, my wife has done nothing wrong. As to Miss Claxton, I have known her only a few months, and that slightly. I see clearly, as you do, that facts point to some underhand dealing on her part. Further, I have been taught from my childhood to distrust anyone who uses hackneyed religious phrases as she does. In spite of all this I believe in her. I cannot conceive of any circumstance that could justify her secrecy and double-dealing; but I believe there is a justification. Is not that about what you feel, too?"
"You speak somewhat evasively, Mr. Durgan. You can surely tell me more about your wife than about Miss Claxton. It was not until I read this message that I knew—what I never could havesupposed—that any member of your household could be guilty of any connection with that crime. You must see that it now becomes my positive duty to make the strictest inquiry."
"Why—if Miss Claxton does not wish it? If she was, through your exertions, acquitted, she has, as you know, suffered the penalty of the crime ten times over. If she prefers to continue that pain and ignominy rather than allow you to again open the inquiry, what right have you, as her friend and agent, to reopen it?"
"I owe a higher allegiance—to the law of my country, and the law of my God."
"And when these laws conflict, I presume you would wish to obey the latter? My notion is that Miss Claxton's conduct indicates such a conflict." Durgan's voice was still hard and cold.
"I should need to be assured of such contradiction."
"Are you not willing to give her the benefit of the presumption?"
There is not a man on earth who is content to be alone. Durgan, recently horror-stricken at the thought of the part his wife might have played, realized how little reason he had to feel such blind confidence in anyone whom he had the right to love, and envied Alden his opportunity for faith.Nothing like starvation to give a man a clear sight of another's luxuries and corresponding duties.
"In the war," he added, "we Southerners had to learn to trust out and out whom we trusted at all."
"That Miss Claxton is doing what she conceives to be right, I have no doubt," said Alden, stiffly.
Even in the dim light there was a visible improvement of attitude; some heart for life appeared to return to him with this declaration, which a moment before would have been a lie. Durgan could almost have laughed out in irony.
"What she supposes to be right," repeated the reviving lover, "but I cannot approve."
"She is a reasonable woman; you ought to trust her reason. As you don't know what she is doing, you don't know whether you approve or not."
"Youknow what she is doing, Mr. Durgan. You have information from Mrs. Durgan or Beardsley that I have not."
"No; if my wife is in it, I have been as completely hoodwinked as you. I cannot even yet imagine how my wife could be inculpated in any way. And this Beardsley—I know nothing more of him than I told you; and the only explanation I can suggest as to the message you hold is merely the crudest imagination: supposing him to be the guiltyperson, Miss Claxton must have been in love with him to shield him as she did—as she does. You cannot wish that made public."
Alden rose up, his back stiff with indignation. "Sir! that is at least a contingency which is entirely impossible. Are you aware that, before her father's death, Hermione Claxton had consented to marry me? We were about to make the engagement public. I had asked Mr. Claxton to accord me an interview. He was a confirmed hypochondriac; it was difficult to see him. I was waiting his pleasure when the tragedy——. Ah! it is impossible to explain how this tragedy has wrecked our lives, for, with an unparalleled strength of will and sensitive honor, Miss Claxton at once, and ever since, has refused to link her name with mine. But one thing, at least, this relation gives me reason to assure you: before this crime Miss Claxton had not a serious thought that she did not confide to me. There was no one on earth that she would wish to shield in the way you suggest; I know there was not. Her father, and her anxiety concerning the state of irreligion in which he lived; her sister, whom she loved with a mother's love; her mission work, which with her was done as under a direct command from our Lord—these, and the friendship she felt for myunworthy self, made up her life. I am certain of that, sir. As for this Beardsley, she not only despised him as a common impostor, but she abhorred him for the hold he had over her father."
"Your view, then, coincides with that of her sister," Durgan pondered, as he spoke.
The lawyer's eyelids flickered at this use of Bertha's name.
"So," continued Durgan, "to come to the point; what do you suppose this intercepted message means?"
"The mulatto, you tell me, expected a large sum of money to be expended on his defence. Our first supposition to account for this was that he might be one of a gang, and his fellows would buy him off. I judge now, rather, that he must have information that would enable him to claim the reward in the Claxton case. It must have been the possession of this information that brought him round this neighborhood. This telegram seems to show that what you told Miss Claxton yesterday led her to believe he was about to claim it. As I read it, she wishes, through Beardsley, to warn someone on whom she believes the suspicion likely to fall."
"But you say there can be no one whom Miss Claxton would wish to shield."
The lawyer's whole manner faltered. "I could not have believed it," he said. "I may say I cannot believe it now."
"My suspicions center on Beardsley himself," Durgan said, "and I cannot understand why, at the time of the trial, the clue afforded by the note brought by the missing boy was not closely followed up. Beardsley, I happen to know, was seriously ill shortly after the crime, for he was at my wife's house; but, as he sent the boy, he must have been able to give some suggestion as to where he came from or went to. I cannot understand when you sought for the boy why he was not cross-questioned."
Alden got up, and they began to ascend the road.
"I am interested in the result of any mature reflection of yours, Mr. Durgan. I notice that your observations are astute." He walked, his head slightly bent, in an attitude of attention.
"I can't understand," said Durgan, "why it was assumed at the trial that this note was merely a begging letter. My belief is that it gave a warning of someone's visit."
Alden put in: "It is true Miss Claxton said at the inquest that she had not seen its contents."
Durgan spoke with increasing eagerness. "But she said at the same time that she knew it camefrom Charlton Beardsley. Her very words were, 'From that impostor Beardsley.'"
"Your memory is evidently good. And this might have suggested to you, at any rate, that she could have no affection for Beardsley. But I have been thinking that perhaps you are right; the clue of the note was not followed up as it ought to have been."
"You must have seen Beardsley. How did he convince you that he could throw no light on the whereabouts of the missing boy? What did he say was in the note?" Durgan turned upon his companion almost angrily, and saw the little gray-haired man walking steadily on with abstracted mien. But there was a peculiar aspect of attention about his shoulders, his neck; it seemed to alter the very shape of his ears. Durgan felt himself warned of some unseen pitfall. "You must consider my crude way of dealing with a problem to which you have brought your highly trained mind somewhat absurd," he said.
"By no means. I am only surprised at your able handling of the matter, and—ah—a little surprised, perhaps, at some omissions which seem to have occurred in my conduct of the case. May I ask you, Mr. Durgan, if you have had any corroboration of the idea that this note camefrom Beardsley, either from him or from your wife?"
"No. Certainly not. I only know what Miss Claxton said before the coroner."
"Miss Claxton never gave that evidence. Until you told me a moment ago I never heard the note came from Beardsley. I am shocked and surprised."
Durgan started. "Surely I am quoting the verbatim report."
"I can see, Mr. Durgan, that you believe Miss Claxton did say this; and as it was not given publicly, someone must have told you in private. I will not ask you again the source of your information, which I now suppose to have been Miss Bertha."
"I have made a mistake," said Durgan.
"But only in telling me what you would have withheld, and what, it would appear, those for whom I have done everything have long withheld—the one thing that it most behooved me to know." The lawyer stopped in his walk, and spoke, shaken with distress. "I will admit to you, Mr. Durgan, that for years I have been aware that my clients withheld something from me; I may say 'bitterly aware,' for, the trial being over, I could not with delicacy renew my questions. But I believed intheir integrity, and have assured myself that their secret must be unimportant. You can estimate how acute is my present distress when I perceive that this concealment has covered what was the vital point, the clue to the murderer."
"I had no intention of telling you anything they did not tell you, Mr. Alden. At the same time, no one would be more glad than myself if they could emerge from the shadow of this mystery. But I think, as I said to you at the beginning, that unless you obtain Miss Claxton's permission to act further, you ought to leave the matter in her hands. You must trust to her good sense and good feeling."
Durgan had paused at his own turning; Alden went a few steps further and faced round, hat in hand. Under the trees, in the glimmer of the summer night, his jaded attitude and unkempt hair were just seen and no more. He looked, indeed, like a storm-tossed soul, already in the shades of some nether world. Even then he summoned up all that he might of his precise manner:
"My dear sir—my dear sir! I have had more experience of such matters than you, and much more knowledge of this most distressing and mysterious case. I thank you for your advice. I thank you. I must act according to my own conscience."
It was that season in the summer when, in regions remote from fields of harvest, time itself stands still. Nothing is doing in the wild wood. Each young thing is fledged and flown, or, strong in its coat of fur, is off and away; the flower of the season is passed, the berry hangs green on the bush. The panting trees of the valleys speak to the trees of the mountains, telling them, in hot, dry whispers, to look out for the autumn that comes from afar. Only sometimes, in the morning on the hilltops, a courier comes from the season that tarries. With feet that trip on the nodding weeds, and a voice singing in the fluttering trees, and a smile that speaks in a bluer sky, the unseen courier of autumn comes and goes. The hearts of men and beasts are excited, they know not why, and the berry and the grape and the tender leaf turn red.
Such was the weather in which the time of waiting passed.
Within two days Bertha passed down the road twice on village errands. Her horse each time loitered as it passed the mine until Durgan at last went out and walked a few steps by her bridle. He was afraid to talk with her lest he should say more, or less, or something quite different from what he would wish to say. But Bertha would speak.
"Mr. Durgan, are you still quite sure? I cannot tell you how you have lightened my heart, but I must hear it again. It came to you freshly the other night; after thinking it over, are you still quite sure?"
"Of what?" he asked. He could not think of anything connected with Bertha's misfortunes of which he was sure at all.
"That it could not have been as I thought—that my dear sister——"
"Your sister has no mental weakness; and she did not commit that crime," he said almost sharply. "If that is what you mean, I am as sure of it as that I stand here."
"Don't be angry with me. You speak so severely. But I can't tell you how I like to hear you say it."
"It was a bugbear of your own imagination, and I feel angry with you when I think of it. And if you take my advice you will never, never, underany circumstances, let her, or anyone else, know that you thought such a thing."
"I would rather tell her all about it sometime. She would forgive it."
"I dare say she would." Durgan spoke bitterly. "I don't know what forgiveness in such a case is; but no doubt, whatever it is, it would cost her more than you can conceive. She would give it to you; but you are a child if you think that she would ever recover from the wound of such knowledge. God may put such things right in the next life, but never in this. That, at least, is my opinion."
"I am offended with you," she said. She was looking very well that day. Her blue cotton riding-dress and blue sun-bonnet well displayed the warm color and youthful contour of her face. There was a peace in her eyes, too, that he had never seen there before. "I wanted to tell you something else, but you have made me angry."
"Forgive me, then. It is so easy." There was sarcasm in his voice.
She thought for a few minutes, and seemed to forget her quarrel.
"Mr. Alden went to Hilyard, and he has come back without finding out anything about 'Dolphus. I was so much afraid. I have asked Hermie if we might not tell him just about 'Dolphus; butshe spoke to me so solemnly, so sadly, that now I only regret that I toldyou. I want to beg you never to repeat it. I don't understand Hermie's motives, but I can't side against her."
"What has Alden been doing?"
"He has been attending to business letters and papers. He is making this his holiday, but of course he has always a great deal of business on hand. He thinks a great deal over his writing. This morning he spent hours pacing in the pasture and sitting on the stile."
"Ah!" said Durgan.
"He actually came in with his necktie crooked, he was thinking so hard," continued Bertha. "He is good, but I can't think why Hermie cares for him so; he usually looks so like a doll."
In a few minutes Durgan dropped the bridle and turned back. His mind was uneasy.
But the next afternoon Bertha descended in a different mood. She had evidently been watching to see his negro laborers depart, for she stood on the rock ledge before they were out of sight.
"You told him my secret. How could you? You promised at least not to tell until you had spoken to me. You never explained yesterday that you had told. Oh, how he has turned against us!And you! There is no one in the world we can trust."
Durgan stood in awkward distress before her. His intention not to tell could not balance his stupidity in having betrayed anything.
"I told you because you said you must know my story on Adam's account, but you found Adam's safety provided for; you said you must know lest you should do injustice to 'Dolphus, but he will likely die before the trial comes on; and yet you have babbled to Mr. Alden, not being able to keep faith with a most unhappy woman for a few days. I was foolish, I was wrong, to tell you our secret; but you forced me to speak. Oh, how could you call yourself a gentleman and betray me so?"
She was very imperious, very handsome; but she was far too sad and frightened to be really angry.
As he stood before her without a word, contrition written on his face, she took shelter in the threshold of his hut and, sitting by the open door, began to cry piteously, not with abandonment, but with the quietude of a real sorrow.
She spoke again. "Mr. Alden is a hound, with his keen nose on a scent. He will not lift it off till his victim is at bay. When I said to Hermiethat Mr. Alden would not rest now till whoever did it was hanged, she fainted. She was so ill upstairs in our room that I was terrified, but she would not let Mr. Alden know."
"Yes, butwhois the victim?"
She looked up suddenly. "He said you told him who it is; and that I had told you. Hermie never betrayed any feeling when he told her—it was afterwards—but I know her heart is breaking."
"I am at my wit's end," said Durgan sadly.
"He says Hermie, my own Hermie, has made every sacrifice to protect this Charlton Beardsley. It is not true. There was no one she despised and disliked so much. Whatever else is or is not true, that is. Do I not know? Did I not see her even quarrel with our dear father about this man because he had pretended to give messages from mother?" At this recollection she wept again, her head in her hands. "My dear, dear father," she whispered. "Oh, if he could come back to us! If he could only come back!"
Durgan stood helpless. That faculty by which words arise unbidden in the mind kept obstinately repeating in Durgan's the name Charlton Beardsley, in that tone of almost tender compassion given to it by Miss Claxton when he last spoke to her.
At last Bertha rose to go. "There is no such thing as truth," she cried. "I was false to Hermie in telling you what I did; you were false to me. Mr. Alden is a false friend to us all. There is no truth."
Durgan laid a detaining hand on her arm. "Look up," he said.
She looked up at the dogwood tree whose spring blossom had first cheered that rocky spot for Durgan. Across the unutterable brightness of the sky the tree held its horizontal sprays of golden leaves. The bluebird of the South, dashed with gloss of crimson and green, pecked at the scarlet berries. The tree glistened in the light of evening. Above and beyond it the sky was radiant with the level light.
"Very probably there is no such thing as the truth you seek in this world," he said; "but there must be truth somewhere, or why should we all try to approximate to it, and feel so like whipped dogs when we have failed?"
For two or three days after that Durgan heard nothing, but Alden came and went on the mountain road, and once again made the journey to Hilyard.
At last, one evening after dark, Durgan received a message demanding his presence at the summithouse. He went, and found the little family in some formal condition of distress—the elder lady sitting calm, but very sad, her usually busy hands idle in her lap; Bertha, her face swollen with tears, sitting beside her sister in an attitude of defiant protection; Alden moving restlessly about, his face blanched and haggard. The weather over all the mountain was still tense and dry. The cold had come without rain—a highly nervous condition for the human frame.
It was only Miss Claxton who tried to make Durgan's arrival more agreeable to him by a few words of ordinary conversation.
Then Alden spoke. "I believe now that yours was the right suspicion, Mr. Durgan. Miss Claxton having declined to help me at all, I resolved to ask you to be present while I tell her exactly what I suspect with regard to Charlton Beardsley. I would not have Miss Claxton without a protector while I am obliged to say and do what she tells me will make me her worst enemy. If so, it must be so. I cannot be silent. I cannot be inactive. I cannot be responsible for a murderer's freedom. But I will do no more without giving you all fair warning. I believe your wife to be implicated. We are here agreed in desiring your presence."
Durgan looked at the women. How often hadhe seen them here in the mellow lamplight, at peace in this beautiful retreat.
Bertha looked up at him. "Stay with us," said she. "You have done us an injury by betraying my confidence; now ward off the consequences if you can."
Miss Claxton's gentle face was also upturned. "It is right that you should stay to know what accusation will be brought against your wife; but I do not need your protection."
She looked towards Alden when she had spoken, and Durgan saw the little man quiver with distress.
Durgan sat down beside the sisters.
Alden began with a stiff, quaint bow to his little audience. It was easy to see that he had fallen into the mannerism of a court. "In making my statement it is not necessary for me to tell from what source I obtained any part of my information, or what is inference from information. I will say exactly what I now suppose to have happened upon the morning of the day on which Mr. Claxton was killed with unparalleled brutality, and his wife shot."
Durgan felt rebellion in its keenest form at this beginning, but sat in silence.
When Alden had once begun it was obvious that he felt the relief of open speech. He told in detail how he believed 'Dolphus to have been sent to Mr. Claxton's with a note announcing Beardsley's visit, which caused Miss Hermione to send the maids and Miss Bertha out of the house.
"But how," asked Alden, "did Beardsley cometo the house without observation? I have found again and again that the thing that is hardest to detect has been done in the simplest and most obvious way. Negative evidence is often no evidence at all; and the thing done most openly more often escapes remark than an attempt at secrecy. In this case two neighbors saw the maids go out on their errand; one saw the dark-faced boy enter. She swore he was an Italian music boy, while in fact he was a mulatto. The servant of a neighbor said she saw the boy leave the house again. They both agreed that he was long and lanky. Everyone else in the neighborhood, with a chance of seeing, testified that no boy came or went. I believe that Beardsley came, as the boy came, in an open way, and was admitted by Miss Hermione. Again, one neighbor swears that she saw the two maids go down the street together; another, that only one went down alone while she was looking. Cross-examined, she could not be sure whether the one maid she saw was the cook, or housemaid, or charwoman, but only that she came out of the Claxton house. The other neighbors had not seen any woman leave the house. This shows what such evidence is worth. I believe Beardsley left the house disguised in the clothes of the boy. The boy was almost grown, Beardsley not large. Nodoubt, being in the habit of personating spirits and juggling, escape would be no difficulty to him. I am still unable to suggest any motive for the crime." Alden paused.
"Go on." The words were spoken breathlessly by Bertha.
Alden went on solemnly. "I think, Hermione, you knew the boy's message to be from Beardsley. You must have admitted Beardsley to the house, Hermione! In the night you helped the boy to escape. It is not possible that you did not know that Beardsley had committed the crime. I am convinced that you helped him also to escape. One possible explanation of your action, and the subsequent concealment, is that he extracted some oath of secrecy which you wrongly considered binding."
There was a breathless silence.
"But I think you have too much good sense to consider such a compulsory promise binding. You have had another reason."
There was still silence.
"The fact that you did not denounce him points to the fact that you helped Beardsley's escape. The fact that you sent the mulatto to Mrs. Durgan's address proves that you knew where Beardsley had taken refuge. Beardsley went to Mrs. Durgan's house, not to his former lodgings. She must haveknown that some disaster had happened if he returned in disguise; she must quickly have known from the papers the extent of his guilt. She certainly had him in her house ill a week after—really very ill, for Mr. Durgan, on one of his rare visits, found two hospital nurses attending him. It was said to be a severe case of pleurisy with complications; and he has been, or has pretended to be, more or less of an invalid ever since. But before his illness he acted his part well. He certainly held his séances regularly for a number of evenings after the crime. I made very strict inquiry at the time of several members of this circle as to its nature, because of the connection Mr. Claxton had with it. Beardsley went into his trances, and spoke with strange tongues, and what not, during that week. I knew this because several of his disciples, who believed in his dealings with the unseen world, tried to call up the spirits of Mr. and Mrs. Claxton, so unhappily departed, and entreated for some information as to their murderer. The villain had not the hardihood to personate his own victims."
Alden paused suddenly, and demanded of the sisters: "You remember hearing of the incident?"
Bertha, her face flushed and excited, gave a hasty "Yes." Miss Claxton made an indifferentmotion of assent. She preserved a uniform expression of great sadness. She seemed to take hardly any special interest in anything said.
"This boy, 'Dolphus, went also straight to Mrs. Durgan's house. He has been sheltered by Beardsley and Mrs. Durgan; he has been Beardsley's valet ever since. Mrs. Durgan may have hid them both in the first instance out of pity; or she, too, may have had another reason. She would fear to send them away later lest her connivance in their hiding should become known."
"Consider," said Durgan. "Do you think my wife, or any other woman, would voluntarily live in daily terror of being killed by such a madman as you describe?"
"Is there no adequate motive that you can suggest?" Alden returned.
"Love," said he. "But I am certain that my wife has not been in love."
Hermione Claxton looked at Durgan for a moment; a tinge of color and an abatement of her sorrow were evident. Then she relapsed into her former attitude.
Alden stood in front of her, watching her changing expression with impassioned eagerness. "In the name of God, Hermione," he cried solemnly, "why do you shield this man? Why do you stillwish to shield him? Why are you glad that Mr. Durgan should believe that love does not exist between him and Mrs. Durgan?"
His sudden manner of agonized affection, and words that came like a cry from the heart, brought a hush of trembling expectation. Bertha gazed intently at her sister, unconscious of the tears of excitement that were running over her own eyes. Durgan, who had never thought to see Alden so moved, felt the utmost wonder. But the fragile, faded woman, to whom the passionate question had been addressed, faced her questioner with no other change in the calm front she bore than an added degree of sadness.
"Hermione," cried Alden again, "why did you conceal this man's guilt from me at the time, and why do you still wish to conceal it?"
"Herbert," she replied very gently, "you have no evidence of his guilt."
"I have," he replied.
Durgan felt himself start nervously. Such a statement from this keen legal mind was like a declaration of proof.
The effect of the words upon Miss Hermione was a visible shudder which ran through her frame.
"Evidence?" she said, as if still doubting; but terror was written on her face.
"Two days ago I went to Hilyard at the summons of the doctor and constable. The colored prisoner, called Adolphus Courthope, was supposed to be dying, and desired to see me. When I went, he asked me to take down a confession and a statement, parts of which supplied links in the story I have told you. The doctor was witness to the interview. Courthope swore that Beardsley was the criminal."
Miss Claxton looked at him steadily. "What reason have you to assume that what he said is true?"
"In all those parts where I can test its truth it appears to be true. He referred me to Bertha for the fact that she aided his escape at night."
"Birdie will not corroborate that. She will tell you nothing."
"He would hardly have asked her to corroborate a lie," said Alden. "He told me that when in New York he knew he was dying, his conscience caused him to bring some documents which he believed to incriminate Beardsley; that he gave them to you by appointment on the night of Eve's death; that after giving them he discovered that Adam's wife had been spying on the interview and had followed you up the hill. She showed him a certain place where she saw you hide these letters. Headded, in the most matter-of-fact way, that he then killed Eve for her treachery to you, and because she would only make mischief."
Bertha stood up in great wrath. "How can you say that my sister did such things as this? No word of this is true. How can you believe a man who is a murderer?"
Alden went on looking at Hermione. "I went to the tree of which he gave me a rough drawing."
He took from his coat two packets of old letters, with their wrapping of oil-silk, which he had unfastened.
"I have read them," he said. "I did not wish to do so without your permission and that of Mr. Durgan, as they chiefly belong to his wife; but it was necessary, and the fact that I found them there, and also their contents, prove the most unlikely part of his tale to be true—that you have trafficked secretly with such a man as he, and crept out at night to meet him and hide documents which——" He paused half-way through the sentence; his voice broke, and the tremor coming at so strong a moment, brought all the little gracious ways of his long friendship and service for Hermione to their minds. The strange scene vibrated with a throb of sorrow.
"Herbert," she said falteringly, "you haveindeed become my enemy, concerting with this poor wretch to outwit me, spying upon my most private actions."
"Nay, Hermione; I did not even ask the man for his evidence. I was forced, in the name of common justice, and above all, of justice to you, to hear it; and I am justified in what I have done since, because I have done it to save you from yourself."
"I beg your pardon," said she. "For a moment I spoke unjustly; but, whatever your motives, you have become my enemy. Those letters were stolen by a servant to injure a master who, whatever else his faults, had treated him with unvarying kindness. They were given to me under the mistaken idea that I could use them for my own advantage. I cannot; nor can you."
"I read them, Hermione, because, without suspicion and by mere accident, I had read your telegram to Charlton Beardsley the other day."
She rose up now. There was a movement of her small clasped hands, as tho she wrung them together.
"When I read it at the post-office, merely to aid in its transmission, I saw its significance only too plainly. I withheld it for a day. Then I had it sent by an agent whom I could trust, and whomI instructed to watch the house of the recipient. I could not have connived at the man's escape. Had he tried to get away after receiving your wire, I should have been justified in his arrest."
"Did you have my message sent from Hilyard?" she asked suddenly.
"No. From New York. But it was the exact message."
She was white to the lips. "It had no significance coming from New York." She lifted both hands with a gesture of despair.
Instinctively he chose quick words to comfort her. "No, you wanted to warn him against coming here! But Beardsley had gone. I suppose he had got some other warning. He had fled three days before. My men could gain no information."
She was comforted. Some color returned to her face.
Alden spoke out once more. "In Heaven's name, what motive have you for seeking this man's freedom? Why hide these letters? They are written between Beardsley and Mrs. Durgan. What secret of yours can they contain?"
She looked at him with unutterable pain in her face, but gave no word or sound.
"Hermione!" he cried; "this trickster had only been a few months upon this continent when thiscrime was committed; and during those few months you gave me to understand that I was your dearest and only intimate friend. We were together constantly; we were looking forward to marriage. It cannot be possible that, at that same time, you contracted a friendship—shall I say an affection?—for this man? You spoke of him to me as a person whose pretensions you despised, whose slight acquaintance with your father you deplored; and, beyond this, you told me that you had never seen him. Am I to believe that, in spite of all this, he was your lover?"
"My lover!" She repeated the word with white lips, and remained gazing at him for some minutes as if paralyzed with surprise. Then with a gesture of that dignity which only a mind innocent in thought and act can command, she rose and turned away, with no further word, toward the staircase that led from the room.
"You know that is not true," cried Bertha to Alden fiercely. She stood up as a man would who was ready to make good the word with a blow. Then she called: "Hermione! Hermione! Come back. Don't you see that Mr. Alden has no choice but to give this Beardsley up to justice, and hand over all the evidence he has in these letters to the police?"
Hermione turned to Alden again. "Is that true? Do not deceive me in the hope of making me confess anything; but tell me truly, do not say you have no choice."
But he could not abandon the point which gave him such unbounded astonishment. "What motive have you for protecting him? Why do you love him?—for you do love him, Hermione."
"I am asking you whether it is no longer in my power to protect him, should I wish to do so."
"Oh, my dear; give me some notion why you want to save him."
The term of affection, if not used between them for the first time, was certainly now first used before others. A slow flush mantled her faded, sensitive face.
"Alas! Herbert, is it not clear now why I should have kept my secret from you, if your conscience is such that you can concede no mercy to a criminal? You may be right. You may have no choice but to wield the law, and the law only. But if I had a choice, you cannot blame me for not telling you, who admit you have none. Do you not know that I have loved you—you only? Do you think I could have endured to be separated from you for a slight or a low motive, for a whim, or for a duty about which I felt the slightest doubt? Andnothing has taken away the need for my silence. I cannot tell you my motive, or give you any indication whether the clue you now hold is true or false, or whether these letters will help you to do justice or lead you astray, or why I went out to get them at night, or why I put them where Bertha would not have found them in the event of my death. I put these letters where I could find them should a certain contingency arise in my life, and where, failing that, they would be lost. I will not tell you more, or give you leave to use them."
"Hermione!" cried Bertha, the energy of a long distress in her tone, "for my sake, can you not help us to understand? I have tried to be brave; and if you will not tell, I will stand by you in anything; but my courage is all gone now. I cannot bear this mystery and disgrace."
The elder sister looked at her with tenderness and pity. It was a lingering look that a mother might cast on a child doomed to a crippled life. But she gave no answer, and went up the stairs.
Alden looked at Bertha. "Mr. Durgan must read these letters," he said, "because they belong to his wife. You must choose whether you will be a witness to the reading. Yours is a filial as well as a sisterly part. It is in the effort to bring your father's enemy to justice that I take this step. On the other hand, you may think that your sister has also acted with that filial duty in view, and that, in taking a course in opposition to her wishes, you would be casting a reflection upon her conduct which is disloyal. I cannot advise you, you must judge for yourself."
Bertha did not speak.
"The course which your sister has pursued appears to me suicidal," continued Alden. "I cannot, if I would, endorse her action further; but you must judge for yourself."
"Whatever duty to my dear father I leaveunperformed, his happiness cannot now be marred. I only wish to serve my sister now."
Then she followed her sister upstairs.
When Alden was relieved from constraint, his face and figure settled into lines even more haggard and weary than before.
"I will give you the letters in the order of their dates," said he to Durgan.
The letters were carefully arranged. He had made notes concerning each on a slip of paper.
The first was written upon cheap notepaper in a cramped hand. Durgan, as he read, characterized the writer as a half-educated person, unaccustomed to social usage. It was dated from New York, and on a day about a month before the Claxton tragedy. It ran thus:
"Mrs. Durgan:"Madame—I find the boarding-house to which you have been so good as to recommend me very comfortable. The parcel of comforts has reached and been duly received by me, for which also kindly receive my thanks. But I cannot forbear from reminding you that he who would seek spiritual knowledge and communion with those in a finer state of being than our own, must eschew such unnecessarygratification of the flesh. Again thanking you, dear madame,"I remain, your obedient servant,"John Charlton Beardsley."
"Mrs. Durgan:
"Madame—I find the boarding-house to which you have been so good as to recommend me very comfortable. The parcel of comforts has reached and been duly received by me, for which also kindly receive my thanks. But I cannot forbear from reminding you that he who would seek spiritual knowledge and communion with those in a finer state of being than our own, must eschew such unnecessarygratification of the flesh. Again thanking you, dear madame,
"I remain, your obedient servant,"John Charlton Beardsley."
Durgan turned this over and over. There was no postmark or stamp on the envelope. It had perhaps been returned by the bearer of the parcel referred to. The paper was not soiled, and the fragrance of his wife's own stationery adhered to it. She had evidently kept this paltry note among her own papers until recently—why? A fashionable woman must receive hundreds of such notes. Then, too, to keep what was of no use was not in accordance with his wife's business habits.
After this followed three more notes on the same paper. They also were brief and formal, giving thanks for favors, making or cancelling engagements to teach spiritual lore.
Then came one dated the day before the Claxton murder. Durgan felt a strange thrill as he read it:
"Madame: I feel compelled to visit Mr. Claxton at his own residence to-morrow. I feel that it is my duty to declare to him in the presence of Mrs. Claxton—or if he will notconsent to this to warn Mr. Claxton of the risk to his soul which he encounters in his present meetings with——"
"Madame: I feel compelled to visit Mr. Claxton at his own residence to-morrow. I feel that it is my duty to declare to him in the presence of Mrs. Claxton—or if he will notconsent to this to warn Mr. Claxton of the risk to his soul which he encounters in his present meetings with——"
Here a line had been carefully erased. The next line began in the middle of a sentence.
"——not think that I have any other than an honorable intention. For again I say that if we seek to know the spirit world we must purge ourselves of all dross."I am, your obedient servant,"John Charlton Beardsley."
"——not think that I have any other than an honorable intention. For again I say that if we seek to know the spirit world we must purge ourselves of all dross.
"I am, your obedient servant,"John Charlton Beardsley."
"This is of importance", said Durgan. "He intended to go to the house on the fatal day, and there is suggestion of material for a quarrel over some unknown person—a woman, probably, as Mrs. Claxton's presence is required."
"Is there reason to assume this third person unknown? It may have been a name that is erased, or it may have been a pronoun in the second person. Shall we read on?"
The next letter was dated the day after the crime. It ran:
"Mrs. Durgan:"Madame—I am sensible of kindness in your inquiries about my health. I have, as you are aware, received a great shock inhearing of the terrible fate of our friend, Mr. Claxton. Alas! In the midst of life we are in death. I had, as you know, held the intention of paying him a call upon that very day, but, instead, fell into a trance soon after my simple breakfast of bread and milk. In that trance I saw the dark deed committed, but could not see the actor. The terror of the hour has preyed upon my health. If I can keep my evening engagements this week it will be all that I can do. I will not see you again at present, except in public. Your obedient servant,J. C. B."
"Mrs. Durgan:
"Madame—I am sensible of kindness in your inquiries about my health. I have, as you are aware, received a great shock inhearing of the terrible fate of our friend, Mr. Claxton. Alas! In the midst of life we are in death. I had, as you know, held the intention of paying him a call upon that very day, but, instead, fell into a trance soon after my simple breakfast of bread and milk. In that trance I saw the dark deed committed, but could not see the actor. The terror of the hour has preyed upon my health. If I can keep my evening engagements this week it will be all that I can do. I will not see you again at present, except in public. Your obedient servant,
J. C. B."
"Do you think he could possibly have gone out and done it in his trance, and never known his own guilt?" asked Durgan.
"Observe that that letter appears to be written from Beardsley's, while 'Dolphus swears that he was then in Mrs. Durgan's house."
The next was a reply from Mrs. Durgan, upon the costly, scented paper her husband knew so well—crest and monogram and address embossed in several delicate colors. It was dated the same day.
"Dear Mr. Charlton Beardsley: I am sorry indeed to hear that your health has been too greatly strained by spiritual exercisesand (may I not say?) by too great abstinence. I regret this on my own account, for I am deprived of the valuable instruction you have been giving me in spiritual matters. I confess I cannot glean so much wisdom from you when I meet you only in the more public séance. But on no account risk any danger to your health. Yours cordially,"Anna Durgan."P.S.—I was so absorbed in my personal disappointment that I have forgotten to express my horror and sympathy at the terrible news (which is now in all the papers) concerning your friend, Mr. Claxton, and his family."
"Dear Mr. Charlton Beardsley: I am sorry indeed to hear that your health has been too greatly strained by spiritual exercisesand (may I not say?) by too great abstinence. I regret this on my own account, for I am deprived of the valuable instruction you have been giving me in spiritual matters. I confess I cannot glean so much wisdom from you when I meet you only in the more public séance. But on no account risk any danger to your health. Yours cordially,
"Anna Durgan.
"P.S.—I was so absorbed in my personal disappointment that I have forgotten to express my horror and sympathy at the terrible news (which is now in all the papers) concerning your friend, Mr. Claxton, and his family."
Next, with the same date, came another note from Mrs. Durgan, briefly inviting the medium to pay a week's visit at her house, and stating that an old nurse of her own would wait on him if he preferred to keep his room.
The next letter was dated two months later, and was from Beardsley at Atlantic City. In it the patient recounted with gratitude all the attention he had received during a long illness suffered in Mrs. Durgan's house. He also spoke of much pleasure in a further friendship with her, and thehope of spending his life not far from her. More elegance of thought and language was now displayed.
After this there were several other letters, written at intervals during the next year, alternately by Beardsley and Mrs. Durgan, and filled only with matters of ordinary friendship—discussions on spiritualism, and of a plan that Beardsley should avail himself permanently of Mrs. Durgan's hospitality. Beardsley stated that he had no longer the health to continue his work as a medium.
When the reading was finished, and Alden was waiting, Durgan was loth to speak. He felt a curious sense of helplessness. Why had these particular letters been kept? Was it to incriminate Charlton Beardsley or to exculpate him? The period of the letters was well chosen with reference to the crime, but how had his wife been able to foresee a month before the murder that she might want to produce the notes of that date? Then arose a question of much greater interest to Durgan. The Beardsley revealed in these letters was, as he had always believed, the last man to attract Mrs. Durgan. If innocent, he appeared to be a simple-minded, uneducated enthusiast in bad health and liable to fits. If guilty, there was still less reason why a woman whose motive was alwaysselfish, and whose aim was ambitious, should compromise herself by befriending him.
"What do you think of these letters?" asked Durgan impatiently.
Alden gave a little genteel snort of anger and annoyance. He looked towards the stairs and spoke in a low voice. "I confide in you, Mr. Durgan. In confidence, I may say I am confounded. The world has said that this was an extraordinary case, and that without knowing this latest and most baffling development. I confess I am confounded."
"But you will have some theory about them?"
"The only thing they prove is that someone has thought it worth while to try to deceive someone else; and I should think—pardon me—that the agent in the matter is Mrs. Durgan. This is her writing, is it not?"
"Yes."
"Beardsley's letters are all forgeries except one."
Durgan took back the letters to seek evidence of forgery. His hand trembled.
"Don't you see which is the genuine one?" asked Alden.
Durgan did not see until it was pointed out to him that the letter which contained the erasure differed from the rest in displaying somepeculiarities of crude handwriting which were more or less successfully copied, but exaggerated, in the others which bore his supposed signature.
"Do you agree with me that my wife's are genuine?" asked Durgan haughtily.
"I have no reason to suppose otherwise. They are all in the same hand, but I think——"
"Go on," said Durgan.
"I think they were not written at the dates given, but were composed to make up this series."
"Do you suppose, then, that my wife is the author of these Beardsley forgeries?"
"I cannot tell. If they were written in Beardsley's interest, why did he not write them himself? But if not in his interest, whoever forged them must have done it at her bidding."
As Durgan kept silence, Alden spoke again. "I ought to explain to you, perhaps with an apology, why I suggested that the person referred to in the erased line may have been Mrs. Durgan. By mere accident I heard, a year after the trial, a piece of gossip which first made me pitch on that one letter as probably genuine. I am loth to mention it to you, for it appeared to be trivial talk about a mere mistake. A man who had belonged to that somewhat secret circle of Beardsley's was telling me that Beardsley knew nothing of society, and was, likeall lower-class men, at first quite unaccustomed to the idea of mere friendship between men and women, and, as an illustration of this, he went on to say what I am referring to. Mrs. Durgan and Claxton seemed to have discovered some spiritual affinity. The spirits, I understood, sometimes spoke through Mrs. Durgan and sent messages to him——"
"She said they did?"
"Personally, of course, I don't believe in such communications, but we may believe that Mrs. Durgan believed——"
"I was not entering into that question. I merely wish to be clear as to what occurred."
"Yes; I understood that Mrs. Durgan said they sent messages of an agreeable and flattering nature; and Beardsley suspected that they were not genuine, and, being a person of primitive ideas, showed disapproval. He thought they indicated undue interest in Claxton on Mrs. Durgan's part. The man told me that all who knew of the incident laughed at Beardsley's lack of knowledge of the world. He gave me to understand no one thought the incident of any importance, and all had the good feeling not to speak of it after poor Claxton's death."
"Did they suppose Beardsley to be jealous?"
"Not at all. My informant, a man of the world, represented him as having the idea that a high moral tone was necessary to insure the success of his entertainments, and that these flattering messages were not in harmony with such a tone."
"You heard this a year ago and no suspicion of Beardsley entered your mind?"
"No. How should it? My informant ended his chat by remarking how well Mrs. Durgan knew how to disarm criticism, for, instead of being offended, she had most charitably supported the simple moralist during years of ill health."
"It is easy to be wise after the event," said Durgan; and then he asked: "What are you going to do now?"
"The chief thing we have got to consider is that, although these letters, and above all, those I have not yet shown you, confirm the mulatto's tale that Beardsley was at the house, we have as yet no explanation whatever of the crime, and no reason whatever to accuse Beardsley of it beyond the fact that he was there. I do not see how to get further except by discovering a clue to Miss Claxton's conduct. The kernel of the secret lies there."
"I see quite clearly," rejoined Durgan, "that we are, as you say, far from any explanation of the mystery; but as far as my wife is concerned, theseletters appear to me to show that she knew that she was protecting this man at the risk of danger to herself. She has prepared this series to save herself if he is found out. The one letter which you suppose to be his is evidence that he had the intention of visiting the Claxtons that morning; the rest of the letters only imply that she believed he had never gone. If, as we now suppose, the cause of quarrel between Beardsley and poor Claxton was this misapprehension of his regarding my wife's feeling for Claxton, she may have sheltered him at first to save scandal involving herself."
"Yet," said Alden, "we must admit that this does not appear to be any sufficient motive for Mrs. Durgan's conduct. We agree that only some important fact, as yet unknown to us, can explain the action of these two women."
Alden put down his notes on the small table. They sat in silence. The smouldering birch log in the stove chimney emitted only an occasional spit of flame. The dogs slumbered in front of it. The shaded lamp, which Durgan had often regarded as the symbol of domestic felicity, threw the same soft light around the graceful room as on the first evening of his introduction to it. Upstairs there was an occasional sound made by the movements of the sisters, which gave a soft reminder of theirpresence in the house, and no more. Through the low, uncurtained windows the mountain trees and the meadows were seen outlined in the starlight, as on the night of his arrival.
"What of these other letters you still have in your hand?" said Durgan at last.
"There are three that were tied up and hidden, evidently before the stolen packet came into her possession; and three that were with the rest that you have seen. These last three I cannot let you see. They are the saddest letters I have ever read. They are written to Beardsley, and altho without date or signature, undoubtedly in Miss Claxton's writing. They implore him by every sacred feeling of love and duty to turn to God in repentance and accept the Christian salvation. Mr. Durgan, nothing but love and the most earnest sense of duty could have prompted these letters, and I wish, in your presence, to put them in the fire. They have been rejected and spurned by the cur to whom they were sent, and altho they are undoubted proofs that for him she has felt the madness—I can call it by no other word—the madness of love, they shall never be used as evidence against her."
The little man stepped forward and laid them on the fire. The tears, unfelt, fell from his eyes as he did so. The flame shot up from the glowinglog, and the dark, uncurtained windows of the room repeated the quivering light.
The sorrow of it drowned Durgan's curiosity. He forgot to wonder what letters Miss Claxton had previously hidden in the tree till Alden roused himself to speak again.
"The three letters still left, which apparently came months ago, at intervals, in response to those just burned, are addressed to Miss Claxton at my office. I judge from this that Beardsley never knew of the alias 'Smith' or of this retreat. Indeed, Adolphus told me he does not know." Alden paused absently.
"And these letters?" Durgan reminded.
"These letters are no doubt from that beast. They are in feigned hand and anonymous; and the subject is money—no religion, no duty, no affection, is to be believed as long as money is withheld. Thousands of dollars are demanded. I've no means of knowing whether this money was given or not."
Durgan went over the notes, which Alden had described accurately.
"The negro is really dying, I suppose?" he asked. "He can help us no further?"
"Yes; he may be dead by this time; but, curiously enough, to the end of my interview he waschuckling, and saying that he would pay the villain and right the lady yet. But he would not give me, or the doctor, any indication of what he meant. He adjured me to——"
"Listen." Durgan went to the window as he spoke, and the dogs pricked their ears.
"I hear nothing," said Alden.
"I ought to be going home," said Durgan. "What were you saying?"
"Only that the fellow told me to keep my wits about me, and tell you to do the same. There is something to be subtracted from all the evidence he gave, for he was certainly, if rational at all, in a very fantastic humor."
The lawyer's tones were low and weary. Durgan was not even listening. He had opened the window a little.
"I think there is a horse, or horses, on the road from the Cove," he said. His thought glanced back to the last time he heard horsemen approach in the night, to arrest Adam. No errand of less baneful import seemed to fit the circumstances now.
The French clock on the mantel-shelf rang out twelve musical strokes.