took away. But in a minute I was able to git up again, an’ the first
thing I see was this Dreek man on the path there where I’d seen ’im
afore.”
“What was he doing?”
“He’d stopped where he was an’ let the ladder fall on the ground. But
just as I looked at him he picked it up again an’ set off runnin’.”
“In which direction did he run?”
“The same as ’e was goin’ afore—toward the front o’ the house.”
“And what did you then do, Mrs. Temple?”
“I run as fast as I could toward the back—the kitchen.”
“What was your idea in going there again?”
“Why I—I wanted to get to ’im as quick as I could.”
“To Mr. Haworth?”
The old woman nodded, unable, for a moment, to speak.
“What made you think you could get in? You’d tried it a few moments
before, hadn’t you?”
“Yes sir, but this Dreek man had come out sense then, an’ I didn’t
think he was liable to ’uv locked the door, carryin’ the ladder like he
was.”
“_Had_ he locked the door?”
“No sir, he hadn’t.”
“Which door was it?”
“The basement.”
“So you got in?”
“Yes sir.”
Mr. Forbes indicated that he was through with the witness, and the
district attorney took her, his manner conveying the impression that
he considered her testimony as almost too flimsy to waste time over.
He soon learned, however, that it wasn’t such an easy matter to punch
holes in it. As a sample, without going into it as a whole:—
“I believe you made the statement, Mrs. Temple, as other witnesses have
done, that the night when all this occurred was a dark one. Did you so
testify?”
“Yes sir.”
“Was there a moon?”
“I didn’t see none.”
“But you admit the night was unusually dark?”
“It was dark—I ain’t got no idea how unusual it was.”
“Very well—that’s all I want to know—it was dark. Now Mrs. Temple,
on this very dark night—the blackness being almost impenetrable, as
has been shown by the testimony of others, although you yourself, for
some reason, don’t seem inclined to admit it—in this dense and inky
blackness you claim to have recognized the accused going by on a path
at some distance from you. How do you explain that?”
“I s’pose you warn’t int’rested when I was speakin’ about them roller
shades to the two side winders not reachin’ down to the bottom so’st it
left a crack where the light could git through.”
“You mean to say enough light could pass through a little slit like
that to enable you to recognize a person on a pitch-dark night twenty
feet away?”
“Yes sir.”
“Do you expect me to believe that?”
“No sir.”
“Oh! You _don’t_ expect me to believe it!”
“I ain’t botherin’ one way or the other about what you believe. I’ve
got enough to think of besides that!”
“Well then, let’s get a little light on what _you_ believe, Mrs.
Temple! We have information that you attended a séance last night,
a private séance given by a medium named Henrietta E. Belden, and
that you are here giving evidence in this court because disembodied
spirits—in other words people who have passed away—requested you to do
so. Do you deny that this is the fact?”
“No sir, I don’t deny it.”
“Then am I to understand that you are a believer in the
supernatural—that spirits are about us, speaking to us through mediums,
and that these dead people can be relied on to give assistance and
advice in a case like this? Do you believe that, madam?”
“Well I ain’t certain sure of it, but I’m tendin’ that way, seein’ how
much more the dead ones seem to know about this case than you folks
that’s still walkin’ around.”
A roar of laughter swept over the crowded room, broken by the court
crier’s loud rapping for silence. It might have been observed that the
Court itself bowed its head over as if making notes, so that its face
was hidden for a moment.
And so it went on, every effort to undermine Mrs. Temple’s credibility
as a witness serving the more firmly to establish it. She could not be
confused nor rushed nor intimidated, though all three of these methods
were attempted. Over and above this it was very soon discovered that
she had no idea of going further with her testimony than giving what
related to the innocence of James Dreek. As to that, however, her
evidence was clear, straightforward, and unshakable.
The confession signed by Dreek when he was out of his mind from the
torture of sleeplessness and constant bullying had been riddled by the
Defense, and cut no figure at all, so that when the case went to the
Jury a verdict of “Not guilty” was returned within fifteen minutes
and Jamie Dreek caught the next train home to his old mother, whose
devastating anxiety about him had brought her to within a stone’s throw
of the grave.
* * * * *
You mustn’t get the idea that the Dreek trial came to an end in the
brief time my way of telling about it would seem to indicate. I said
just now, that _when_ the case went to the Jury there was a verdict in
fifteen minutes; but that _when_ took quite some days. In fact there
was a most peculiar delay directly following Mrs. Temple’s testimony.
You’d naturally think that when the entire bottom had dropped out of
the thing they’d have got the Jury out on it as quick as they could.
But they didn’t, for the State was holding it up in every possible
way—recalling witnesses without reason—wrangling over this and that,
and playing for time whenever a chance came up. The Defense was brief
enough, and the Judge occupied only a few minutes in charging, but the
prosecution managed to string it along for four days, and of course
the wise ones began to make remarks about the District Attorney having
something up his sleeve. The singular part of it is that for once “the
wise ones” were right.
On the fifth morning following Mrs. Temple’s appearance on the witness
stand, the not guilty verdict was brought in, and that same afternoon
Hugo Pentecost was arrested for the murder.
It came to pass at headquarters. Pentecost had been sent for by Chief
Inspector McCurran to give further information, and had been answering
such questions as he could—which is to say, as he could with safety.
There were others in the room—a couple of detectives (plain-clothes
men), two or three policemen in uniform, and a stenographer
(plain-clothes).
“By the way,” the Inspector asked, carelessly, after a number of
commonplace questions had been answered, “did you ever happen to wear a
pair of boots that were very much too large for you?”
“Why yes,” (after just enough surprise to go with so odd a question);
“I suppose I have—at one time or another.”
“Ah—you have!... But your recollection doesn’t extend, I presume, to
your having worn such boots recently?”
“Pardon me,” Pentecost returned, “but is this flattering curiosity
as to my wearing apparel merely personal, or are you still seeking
information in the case of Haworth?”
The Inspector’s eyes glittered into Pentecost’s for a second or two.
When he spoke it was pointedly and with deliberation. “I’m still
seeking information in the case of Haworth.”
“That being so,” Pentecost responded in a soft, pleasant voice, “you’ll
excuse me for going no further in the direction indicated.”
The Inspector drew his mouth into a mechanical grin.
“I’m inclined to think, Pentecost, that you’ll find yourself going some
distance further in that direction.”
“It’s inspiring to meet a real optimist, Mr. McCurran—there are so few.”
“Where were you between ten and eleven on the night Charles Haworth was
shot to death?”
Mr. Pentecost appeared to be quite unaware that a question had been
asked.
“We’ve got to hold you Pentecost.” The Inspector made a slight motion,
and one of the patrolmen stepped forward and stood at Pentecost’s side.
“Want anything from the hotel—toilet articles—clothing—that sort of
thing?”
“Many thanks—they’re outside in a grip.”
“Ah!” the Inspector said, after an instant’s pause of surprise. “You
looked for it, did you?”
“Great God!—what _would_ I look for with a couple of your teasers
running circles around me since the day I first came in here!”
“Noticed it, did you?”
The Inspector pulled his lips back into what you might take for a
grin. “But don’t go trying to pass that across,” he added, “as the
reason you brought your grip. There’s a better one than that.”
“Sure there is,” said Pentecost.
“You know damned well the game’s up and we’ve got it on you.”
“I know damned well you _think_ you have.”
“Ah! And would you care to tell the reason I think so?”
“Why certainly ... Pittsburgh.”
There was what you might call an instantaneous pause. The mention of
the name of the smoke-draped city apparently struck fire somewhere
inside of Mr. McCurran.
“What do _you_ know about Pittsburgh?” he demanded in a lowered voice
with anger not entirely excluded from it.
“Sorry to upset you,” murmured Pentecost.
“What do _you_ know about Pittsburgh?” the Inspector repeated.
“Much the same as you,” answered Pentecost.
“Where were you between ten and eleven on the night that Charles
Michael Haworth was shot?”
There was no answer, and almost at once the Inspector went on, his
voice more menacing: “If you’re not the guilty man, tell me your reason
for trying to put over that fake alibi on us—yes, an’ a damned foolish
fake at that, when we had you cold in Roxbury the same night?... So?
Nothing to say about _that_, eh?”
There was a moment of silence, during which the Inspector managed
to subdue any evidences of the fury which the name of the western
Pennsylvania city had aroused. Soon he resumed in a voice cold and
hard: “We find it to be a rule that a man who is unjustly charged with
crime is more than anxious to answer questions and explain his true
position. I observe that you have no such desire.”
“Accept my congratulations, Inspector, on having at last discovered the
missing exception to your rule.”
“Then you have no explanation to make of that manufactured alibi?”
“None—until the necessity arises.”
“Am I to understand that it hasn’t yet arisen?”
“Such an understanding would be according to fact.”
“In that case we may be able to assist it to do so.” And the Inspector
rose and walked away to another part of the room, motioning, as he did
so, to have Pentecost taken away.
The patrolman got the usual safety grip on Pentecost’s twisted coat
sleeves near the wrists, and took him out at a side door, one of the
plain-clothes men slipping out after him, and shortly thereafter he was
safely within the portals of the Charles Street jail.
* * * * *
Inspector McCurran stood at a window revolving a few things in his
mind—and their revolution failed to please him. This was not from any
doubt of their case against Pentecost, for anyone could see they had
the murder buckled to him in every conceivable way—including one that
hadn’t been put down by the Inspector as conceivable up to this time.
But back of the whole thing was some cursed mystery—every now and then
they turned up evidence of it. Could there be, after all, anything in
the spirit business? Seemed absurd, but, by God! they had some pretty
good names to it!—Not in this country—but look at those big ducks in
England who were pushing the game!
And there was the man himself—Pentecost—something about him that made
one feel a shiver of apprehension. You’d put him down as slippery in
some peculiar, slimy sort of way, that would make any grip you could
get on him not worth a tinker’s dam.
The Inspector’s mind came round to Pentecost’s careless reference to
the city of Pittsburgh. It had nearly lost him his self-control—an
unusual happening with Matt McCurran. For this simple geographical
allusion meant that the knowledge of certain spiritistic phenomena
which had occurred in that town a few nights before, and which the
authorities supposed to be successfully suppressed, was now—or soon
would be—public property. If this man Pentecost had knowledge of these
occurrences, others had as well, and without doubt the papers would get
hold of it and there’d be the very devil to pay.
And you may as well know at once that the papers of the following day
_did_ get hold of it, and there _was_ the devil to pay—and he was paid,
too! Throughout the length, breadth, and thickness of the country, and
including as well our friend and near relation across the St. Lawrence,
the press dispatches did the Boston Police Department proud in one
place, and then, without knowing it, jabbed a knife through it in
another.
In every paper the first thing striking the reader’s eye was a
sensational write-up of the arrest of Hugo Pentecost as the murderer,
in the strange and mysterious Haworth case, and the astonishing
detective work accomplished by the Police Department in tracing the
(alleged) guilty man by a pair of old boots left in a cabin of a
Metropolitan Line steamer, and in puncturing one of the most ingenious
fake alibis on record. The dispatches went on to say that Mr. Henry
Harker and his son Alfred, of the firm of Harker & Pentecost, had both
waived extradition and were on their way to Boston with detectives,
and upon arrival would be held as accomplices. The stenographer of the
firm, Miss Dugas, who was wanted as a witness, and who might also be
implicated in the crime, was voluntarily accompanying the Harkers.
The foregoing, written up fully and triumphantly, was agreeable reading
for those connected with the Department; but in the same editions,
and nearly always in an adjoining column, was an A. P. dispatch from
Pittsburgh which simply tore the insides out of the first one.
It was headed, in every case, with these disastrous lines—or something
similar—and in type that came out and smashed a reader right between
the eyes:—
SPIRITS SPEAK AGAIN IN HAWORTH CASE
ADVISE MICROSCOPE IN PENTECOST ALIBI
ASTOUNDING CLUES GIVEN
OPERATOR’S LICENSE 2026
BOOTS LEFT ON “NORTH LAND”
Then it got down to plain reading matter, and described a message
that had come through at a séance held in Allegheny—now a section
of Pittsburgh and popularly referred to as the North Side—five days
before, and instantly telephoned to the Boston chief of police, but
which, for reasons stated below, had only now been given to the press.
The spirit who got “control” of the medium conducting this séance
declined to give his name—in fact allowed that he had too many, his
life while on earth having been not precisely what it should have been.
He merely saw a chance to get even with a cocky screw who’d once—before
he (the spirit speaking) had crossed to the higher realms—put the
low-down play on him good and plenty; and the only thing he asked was
that some one present at the sitting would send word to the Boston
police to go after a big pair of boots that was left in a cabin of the
steamer _North Land_ on arrival in New York the next morning after the
murder; also he’d suggest that they put a microscope on a few other
little items of that beautiful alibi. For instance, it wouldn’t do a
damn bit of harm to dig up Operator’s License 2026. “Tell the bulls,”
he gave out in conclusion, “to take it from me they’ll pull something
out of the fire if they go after it!” And with that he was gone.
The A. P. dispatch on this Pittsburgh occurrence closed with a
paragraph in brackets explaining the five days’ delay in getting the
news. It stated that the spirit message had been telephoned to the
Boston police even while the séance was still in progress with the
medium under other controls. The Boston Department, for diplomatic
reasons, had withheld the news of this message from the Pemberton
Street reporters and had also asked the Pittsburgh police to hush the
matter up until the clues (if there was anything to it) could be worked
out and a clean-up of the guilty parties made before they got warning.
Pittsburgh headquarters found that only eleven persons had been present
at the séance, and got them all, together with the medium and her
assistant or director, before they left the place. These people,
appreciating the importance of keeping it quiet in order to bring the
criminals to justice, agreed to say nothing of the affair, and for five
days no leakage occurred. Then from somewhere (it could not be traced
to any of those concerned in the séance) a full account of the whole
proceeding had suddenly reached the Associated Press, and of course
could no longer be withheld from the public.
“The account of this amazing occurrence in Pittsburgh,” as one of the
Boston papers put it in a bracketed “Ed.” note following the A. P.
dispatch, “which is quite in keeping with former developments in the
Haworth case, can now be published without disturbing the activities
of the police, the ‘clean-up’ referred to having been successfully
accomplished, as may be noted elsewhere in this issue.”
This Allegheny episode might not have been so bad served up by itself,
but coming immediately under or on parallels with the triumphant
write-up of the Department’s detective work, showed that the whole
thing was done on a tip from the spirit world. You mustn’t understand
me as saying—or even intimating—that there wasn’t any good work done by
the police detectives. The trouble was that when they got anywhere they
were stood on their heads and everything they’d worked up dumped into
the discard by one of those ghostly manifestations or whatever they
might be.
Anyway, it isn’t an account of marvelous detective work I’m trying to
give you, but something which, as I look at it, is vastly more unusual.
The papers will give you stuff about “sleuths”—as they call ’em—every
day in the week, including Sundays; and if you want to go into the
field of fiction you’ll find there’s one born there every minute. But
so far as my experience goes, this was the first time people in the
next world ever took a hand in the game.
* * * * *
The public interest in the Pentecost trial came near to being the
record for this class of diversion. You’d have thought the feeling
against him would have been so bitter that they’d have had to fight off
the lynchers. But it’s just as well to go easy on predicting how the
public is going to behave. Something about the man—it wasn’t beauty or
youth or romance—more like hypnotism, perhaps—in conjunction with his
ingenious methods of work so far as they had been made known, and also
his silence under fire (My God! how the public adores a man who keeps
his mouth shut!) got the people with him, notwithstanding the brutal
murder that they could now so plainly see was his doing. Much of the
sympathy may have resulted from the hopelessness of his case, for they
certainly had it all over him. He hadn’t said a word since his arrest,
excepting to state mildly—and even then, only when he was asked about
it—that he wasn’t guilty. And he sat in the cage quiet and unassuming,
never once dropping to the “cheerful act” nor the “bravado act” nor any
act whatever, but only sitting there quietly and hearing witness after
witness testify to things that were like so many nails in his coffin.
He saw his marvelously laid-out defensive system crumble and melt away
before his eyes; his carefully constructed alibi split into a thousand
pieces.
They had the chauffeur (Operator’s License 2026) who took him—dripping
with water—at about nine o’clock on the night of the murder, from a
place near the Soldier’s Monument just north of the Bourne Highway
Bridge over the Cape Cod Canal, and who left him, shortly before
half-past ten, at the corner of Centre and Greenough Streets, Jamaica
Plain. Even the fact of his having walked in a direction away from
Torrington Road when he left the car told against him. Of course he
did—that’s precisely what a man with criminal intent would do.
The Captain, Purser, and other officers of the _North Land_ were called
and testified against him—at least negatively—although they had, up
to this time, been the most important bulwarks of the alibi;—Captain
Snow now recalling the fact that he hadn’t seen the face of the man
on the forward deck whom he took to be Mr. Pentecost, after his ship
passed out of the canal, but only his back; and the other officers
realizing, when they came to think of it, that they hadn’t seen him on
board after the steamer emerged into Buzzards Bay—that is, until he was
disembarking at New York the following morning.
The conductor of the midnight express to New York, and the head end
trainman who’d had such difficulty in arousing him from apparent sleep
in the morning and getting him off at the Grand Central, were put on
the stand and told of his being on their train the night of the murder;
men from the New York Central’s railroad pier next south of the _North
Land’s_ berth, testified to having seen the rowboat come up under
the steamer’s stern as she docked in New York the morning after the
shooting, and put a man aboard her by a rope ladder; a man and his wife
from Buzzards Bay village, who’d been waiting on the highway bridge
over the canal for the “draw” to close at the time the _North Land_
passed through, on the night of the crime, testified to seeing a man in
the semidarkness come up from the low flats at the west of the bridge
approach, and climb into a car near the Soldier’s Monument, though
they couldn’t swear, owing to the darkness, to its being the accused;
these things, and scores of others not less important, put Pentecost
in the position of having faked an alibi by boarding the steamer in
Boston, going overboard from her during her passage through the canal,
returning thence to Roxbury by hired automobile, proceeding to the
rear of the Cripps mansion a few minutes before the shots were fired,
and within half an hour after the murder, staggering, disguised as a
drunken laborer, into the North Station, and there taking the 11:50
express for New York, finally getting aboard the steamer again from a
rowboat the moment she tied up to her dock.
Although no witness to his actually entering the house or to his being
in it at the time the deed was done, could be found, there was surely
sufficient evidence to convict him without it. At the same time the
District Attorney would have given a great deal to be able to cover
those points.
Pentecost’s senior counsel, Harvey Brookfield, had little to offer in
rebuttal, but he was a crack shot when the witnesses were turned over
to him, and many of them were raked raw by the cross fire. His request
that the head end trainman explain his remembering, for such a long
time, what kind of boots a stranger on his train had worn, brought
the reply: “Because every time I went through the car I had to shove
’em off the seat in front of him—they was muddy an’ I didn’t want him
fouling up the seat.”
“Very thoughtful of you, too! But you testified a few minutes ago, that
this man whose boots you noticed, was seated at the extreme forward end
of the car. Didn’t you say that?”
“Why, I said—I—I——”
“Certainly you did! I can have the stenographer read it to you if
you’ve forgotten.—Now I ask you to explain to the Court and the Jury
how this man—if he was, as you stated that he was, sitting at the
extreme forward end of the car, could put his feet on the seat in front
of him? How could there _be_ a seat in front of him if he was in the
very first seat? Now just tell us that—in your own language.”
“Well, he—he was up there at that end—it might ’a’ been one seat more
or less from the end—I didn’t notice. He was——”
“_Ah_—you didn’t notice!” broke in Brookfield, springing on him like
a cat. “That explains it! You didn’t notice! You told us that he was
at the extreme end, but you didn’t notice. Now you tell us about his
boots—perhaps you didn’t notice in that case, either! A man’s life may
depend on it—but you didn’t notice! You’ve rendered your testimony
before this court ridiculous by making a man put his feet on a seat
that wasn’t there!” And so on. But while this sort of thing might
tear a witness to pieces, it couldn’t, to any extent, weaken the
prosecution’s case.
In discussing the situation with Mr. Pentecost at the Charles Street
jail after one of the worst days in court, Mr. Brookfield declared that
there was nothing for it but to fall back on insanity as a plea. But
Pentecost wouldn’t hear of it.
“What’s the idea, then? I don’t need to tell you they’re piling it up
on us pretty thick.”
“They haven’t got me in the house yet. Keep jabbing on that till you
draw blood.”
“It won’t acquit you!”
“No matter—go to it.”
And Brookfield went to it.
It may surprise you to hear of an Attorney taking orders as to the
conduct of a case from his client—especially when said client was
so evidently a criminal of the most desperate character. But the
explanation is simple in the extreme. Pentecost owned Brookfield
through having bought and paid for him, and was virtually conducting
the case himself.
* * * * *
While the Pentecost trial, owing to its extraordinary developments, had
held the interest of the country at large and kept the eastern section
of Massachusetts in something like a ferment of astonishment and
curiosity, it was toward the latter part of it that things really began
to happen.
When the testimony was all in and Mr. Brookfield was about to go on
with his summing up, a message was brought into the court room and
handed to the District Attorney. After a glance at it he was instantly
on his feet, asking to be allowed to bring in another witness whose
presence in court had hitherto been impossible, and whose testimony was
of the utmost importance in its bearing on the case.
Brookfield, of course, objected, but was overruled, and an old woman,
bent and rheumatic, was brought into the court room and assisted
between the rows of spectators, past the jurors, and into the witness
box. As she turned and faced the onlookers, and it was seen that Mrs.
Temple had consented to take the stand for the prosecution, a composite
sound of gasps, subdued exclamations, and quick whisperings issued from
the audience. Many had seen her when she testified in the trial of
James Dreek, and there was hardly one who hadn’t read in the newspapers
that the old woman knew everything about the murder—had, indeed,
actually witnessed it—yet couldn’t be persuaded to say a word excepting
to testify to as much as would clear the young butler of guilt. That
was for the Defense in the case of James Dreek—now the Prosecution in
the case of Pentecost, had her!
After the first surprise, all eyes shifted across to the prisoner’s
cage to see what effect this fearful menace—for that’s what it was—had
on Hugo Pentecost. But so far as could be seen it hadn’t any. The man
was sitting precisely as before, expressionless, waiting.
While Mrs. Temple was being sworn and the formal questioning gone
through, a Court Messenger entered, and threading his way between the
tables, handed a written communication to Chief Inspector McCurran,
who was seated at the Attorneys’ table, and who arose at once and left
the court room, followed by the messenger. Few noticed this, for the
attention of the spectators appeared to be divided between the old
woman on the witness stand and the accused in the prisoners’ cage,
whose death sentence—or what amounted to that—the former was surely
about to pronounce.
When the preliminaries were finished, District Attorney McVeigh in—for
him—an incredibly soft voice and gentle manner, led the old woman to
describe Mr. Pentecost’s behavior while on his several visits to the
Cripps mansion before the commission of the crime,—her suspicions
regarding his intentions; the attempts she made to warn Mr. Haworth
of the danger of dealing with such a man; and following that, her
exclusion from the house—and thereafter her efforts to keep watch from
the outside. From this she was tactfully brought to the events of
that last evening,—the closing of the blinds to the front window; the
coming home of Mr. Haworth followed by Augustus Findlay; her attempts
to see in at the side windows but the darkness within preventing;
her unsuccessful efforts to enter the house at the rear, and then
the sudden brilliant light in the room so that she was able to look
in through the narrow slits below the roller shades; her seeing Mr.
Haworth reading at the table and then filling and lighting his pipe;
her hurrying to the other window and seeing a man at the back of the
room whose face was covered (except for the eyes) with a cloth or
bandage and whose clothing was wet and draggled, pointing some dark
object at Mr. Haworth from behind; her turning to run back to the
window which was nearer to Mr. Haworth so that she could warn him, and
as she did so seeing James Dreek going along the path with a ladder;
her attempt to call out to Mr. Haworth; then the shots and his collapse
to the floor, and she herself so overcome that she sank down beside the
window; her recovering and trying again to get into the house at the
rear, and finally succeeding in doing so.
“How did you get in, Mrs. Temple?” the District Attorney asked.
“Through the basement door.”
“But wasn’t that door locked when you tried it before?”
“Yes—but it warn’t locked this time.”
“How long do you suppose this was after you heard the shots and saw Mr.
Haworth sink to the floor?”
“It must a’ been some few minutes, fur I wasn’t able to git up very
quick from where I’d sunk down.”
“And when you got into the house what did you do?”
“I hurried to him as quick as I could.”
“Do you mean Mr. Haworth?”
There was a pause before she spoke. “Yes,” she said in a lower voice,
with eyes seeking the floor. “You might ’a’ known that, I should think.”
“I did know it Mrs. Temple, but it’s important to have others know
it too. Now tell me this—if you can: did it take you long to get to
him—after you succeeded in entering the house I mean? The time is
important. Very likely you were detained by the house being dark?”
“No, I was used to it.”
“It was very dark, was it?”
“There warn’t no light at all—somebody must ’a’ shut it off while I was
hurryin’ back to get in. But I got to the stairs easy enough and up
into the kitchen; an’ then groped along through the butler’s pantry an’
opened the door of the front room where—where he was.”
“I see. And when you opened that door, Mrs. Temple, could you see
anything in the room?”
“Yes, I could.”
“But I understood you to say that the house was entirely dark?”
“It was. But when I pushed open the swingin’ door o’ that room there
was a faint light shinin’ on Mr. Haworth’s face as he lay there on the
floor, an’ I could see from its not stayin’ still that somebody must
be holdin’ it. Then I could make out the figger of a man—the one that
had the light in his hand—an’ he was bendin’ over lookin’ at the body,
an’ he hadn’t taken no notice o’ my comin’ in. At first I didn’t know
anything at all, but the minute I come to my senses I started to run
an’ git a holt of him; but just then the light he had in his hand must
’a’ slipped some way so’st the beam of it struck right across his face,
an’ he didn’t have no cloth tied around it that time, so I could see
who it was.”
The quiet in the room was intense. Every person there might have been a
wax figure.
“Mrs. Temple, who was that man?”
“It was him there—the one you’re tryin’.”
“Can you give the Court his name?”
“The one he went by was Pentecost.”
“Was there light enough to see him distinctly?”
“There was plenty for me.”
“Did you have any other means of identification?”
“What sir?”
“Was there anything else you’d know him by—hair, clothes, shoes, hands,
teeth—anything at all?”
“Oh!—Well, you see the second after the light struck across his face
it went out an’ I couldn’t see nothin’ at all. But I heered his voice
plain enough if that’s any good to ye.”
“It certainly is, Mrs. Temple. What was he saying?”
“He was shoutin’ out not to touch anythin’—that everythin’ had got to
be left like it was in the name o’ the law, or somethin’ like that.”
“And the voice you heard shouting those things—did you recognize it?”
“Yes sir.”
“Whose voice was it?”
“His—that man there.” (With a motion toward Pentecost.)
“Do you mean the accused—in the prisoners’ cage?”
“That’s who I mean.”
“Had you heard his voice before?”
“Yes—I had.”
“When?”
“He’d spoke to me a number o’ times, an’ then I heered him a-talkin’ to
Mr. Haworth quite frequent.”
“What did you do then, Mrs. Temple?”
“I run toward where I’d seen him an’ felt all around there—but
he’d gone. An’ then—I—I don’t know.... I must ’a’ sunk down there
where—where he was.”
“You mean Mr. Haworth?”
She nodded her head a little, as it slowly bowed down, hiding her face
from view.
Mr. McVeigh waited a moment so that the Jury might get the full effect
of the old woman’s grief, and then indicated to Mr. Brookfield that he
could take the witness.
But it so happened that Mr. Brookfield had caught a signal from
Pentecost, as previously arranged.
“I don’t care to examine, Your Honor,” he said.
* * * * *
Shortly after this, Mr. Brookfield was seen to be addressing the Court,
but in so low a tone that few were able to hear him. For this reason a
sensation was created when the prison guards took Pentecost from the
cage and conducted him to the witness stand.
After the preliminaries there was a pause—whether intentionally so or
not, a most dramatic one. Brookfield on his feet ready to question,
yet stopping silent before the accused. Pentecost standing motionless
as marble in the witness box—the court officer at his side. Reporters
at the press table, pencils poised, eyes fixed on Pentecost’s face,
ready to catch and record his slightest change of expression. Every man
on the Jury regarding him with strained attention. The Judge himself
unusually interested. Stillness of death in the court room.
Brookfield began in a low voice, speaking slowly and distinctly.
“Mr. Pentecost, you have heard the testimony given before this Court by
Mrs. Amelia Temple?”
“Yes.”
“Have you anything to say regarding it?”
“Yes.” (A pause.) “It’s the truth.”
“All of it?”
“All that concerns me.”
“What can you say as to the rest of the testimony submitted before this
Court?”
“The same.”
“By that do you mean that all of it is true as to fact?”
“I do.”
“Now as to this testimony that has been given here, and which you
have stated is the truth—can you say that the inferences which would
naturally be drawn from it are the correct ones?”
“I cannot.”
“Why?”
“Because they make it appear that I have committed a murder.”
“How does it happen, if they are statements of fact, that they are
misleading as to such a conclusion?”
“They describe only a part of my movements and behavior, omitting what
would lead to the correct conclusion.”
“Do you claim that these omissions were purposely made?”
Mr. Pentecost shook his head slightly.
“The witnesses,” he said in a low voice, “were doubtless unaware of
them.”
“Will you—if it pleases the Court—make a brief statement outlining
these omitted facts.”
Mr. Pentecost waited a moment, and then, as the Court made no objection
thereto, began to speak in a subdued voice, faintly suggestive of
hopelessness.
“I have no witnesses,” he said, “except those who have testified
against me. But there are circumstances bearing on my actions which
none of these witnesses could have known; and while their consideration
by this Court is most vital to me, I have only my unsupported word
to offer, and feel that such consideration will almost certainly be
denied me. So I will refer to these things as briefly as possible and
with little hope. Let me speak first of my getting off the steamer at
Buzzards Bay, as that seems the most misleading thing against me. It is
true I did this, but not for the purpose of committing the crime with
which I am charged. Such an inference, indeed, is quite the reverse of
the correct one, for I came back to Boston that night hoping to save
Mr. Haworth from some calamity that I feared was about to overtake
him—and which, in fact, did so before I could prevent it.
“My association with the young man during the time I was negotiating
the purchase of one of his inventions, had awakened in me a most
unusual interest. His quiet and almost childlike sincerity, his
trustfulness and simplicity, appealed to me in a way that I cannot
describe. I am alone, with no family of—of any kind, and the experience
of suddenly being deeply interested in a person was something new to
me.
“The last day of the negotiations—which was at the end of a
fourteen-day option he’d given us—everything was concluded and we paid
over to Mr. Haworth a large sum of money. It was in bills—for he’d
asked to have it that way. As we were making this payment it suddenly
occurred to me that this trustful and helpless young fellow might get
into trouble with it, for in these days there are crackerjacks looking
for money who can smell it in a house, just passing by in the street.
It was a lonely place where he lived and didn’t look good to me, so I
cautioned him about it. But he smiled at me—one of his rare smiles that
seemed to sink right into you—and said he knew a safe place for it; and
anyway he’d have it there only till the next day.
“The three of us—my partner, his son, and myself—took the steamer for
New York that same afternoon, and I tried to get my anxiety about
the young man off my mind. But instead of going off it increased,
and by the time we were well out in the Bay it was like one of these
premonitions you read about. I did everything to rid myself of this
feeling—talked with the officers, ordered dinner, walked in the wind on
the top deck—but it was no use, and by seven o’clock I realized that
something had to be done.
“The steamer was due at the canal in about an hour, and I remembered
they had to slow down to half speed or less for the passage through. So
I got young Harker to make inquiries in a sort of casual way, as if it
was only from curiosity on his part, as to whether they’d stop at some
place along the canal if a person wanted to get off. If they said no,
I told him to throw out feelers to see if money would do it. But there
was no use—the thing was impossible.
“By this time I was in a—a most trying nervous condition. Suddenly
I realized that, without even thinking about it, I’d made up my mind
to jump off the steamer while she was in the canal and in some way
get back to Roxbury. I did this as the boat was passing the village
of Buzzards Bay. It was quite dark at the time, and I waited till the
steamer had passed through the Bourne Highway Bridge, as I knew the
passengers would be watching the great draw come down into place, and
even if the lights along the canal hit me, no one would be looking.
“After I got out of the swirl a few strokes brought me to shore. It
was a sort of low flat along there, and I got across it and up on to
the road embankment that is the north approach to the bridge. There
wasn’t any garage in sight and in a sort of desperation I stopped a car
coming up toward the bridge and asked where the nearest one was. The
man inside asked me what was wrong, for I was soaking wet, and I told
him it was a matter of life and death for me to get to Boston. He said
he’d just come down from there and was only a quarter of a mile from
his destination, so I could take the car he had (it was a hired one) if
the chauffeur wanted to do it, and he’d go on foot the rest of the way.
I suppose my dripping clothes made an impression. I fixed the chauffeur
all right with a couple of watersoaked ten-dollar bills, telling him
I’d double it if he did the trip under eighty minutes. And I want to
say that everything this man has testified to is the truth, for he
couldn’t possibly have known who I was, how I got to Buzzards Bay, or
where I was going in Boston. I’d be sorry indeed to get this innocent
man into trouble.
“My reason for leaving the car at some distance from the house on
Torrington Road was not because I planned to commit a murder—as
the Prosecution would have it translated, but only that I wanted to
approach the place with the utmost caution. Robbers or safe smashers
would have their lookouts posted, and it was up to me to get at the
inside operators before they had warning.
“I crawled in at the gate and worked along behind shrubbery. But I
hadn’t got halfway to the house when I made out the dim forms of two
men moving about. This was a tremendous relief, for I took them for the
lookouts, and their being there showed I was in time: if the job was
done they’d be gone. So I slid in among the bushes and crawled around
to the rear of the house.
“The two doors at the back were locked, but I happened to think of the
basement door, and on trying, found it was open.
“Luckily for me, my pocket flashlight still worked, and with it I was
able to run through the dark basement and up the stairs, across the
kitchen (which was also dark) and through the butler’s pantry. I bunted
open the swing door and ran into the long room where we’d been sitting
that same afternoon, but for a moment couldn’t see anything at all,
there was such a strong light on. It dazzled me, and I suppose I must
have stood with my electric torch pointing toward Mr. Haworth, as the
last witness testified. I really have no idea which way it was pointing
as I stood there blinded by the glare and trying to see. In a moment I
made out Mr. Haworth standing near the table in the middle of the room
lighting his pipe, and instantly started toward him, calling out his
name. But just as I did so two gunshots blazed out from somewhere quite
near—though I couldn’t say exactly where—and the poor fellow went down.
I got to him just as the lights went out, but as my pocket light was
still on I was able to see him, and I found he was dead.
“While I was there on the floor by his side I heard a sound from the
butler’s pantry, and instantly got to my feet. My light was still
on, but I switched it off after some little difficulty with it, and
shouting out that nobody must touch anything—for I had the feeling
there were people about and I knew the police would want everything
left as it was—I hurried out of the house by the way I’d come in. As
I got out into the air it began to dawn on me what trouble I’d be in
if anyone saw me there and they couldn’t find the man who’d committed
the crime. My only safety lay in getting out of Boston without being
recognized, for if my presence there was known it would lead to their
finding out that I’d jumped off the steamer, and that would put me in a
terrible position—always supposing they couldn’t find the guilty man.
“I got around into Boston by way of Brookline, and in a poorly lighted
side street I ran across a tough-looking bum wearing old and grimy
clothing and carrying a considerable load of alcohol. I struck a
bargain with him, and we exchanged clothes in an unlighted alley among
factories closed for the night. He understood in a bleary way, that I’d
fallen in the water and wanted a dry outfit, which, of course, was the
truth—so far as it went.
“While I was hurriedly disguising myself in this way it suddenly came
to me that my absence, when the passengers disembarked from the steamer
_North Land_ in New York, could hardly fail to be noticed. They’d have
to file between the two ticket takers at the gangway, and pass down
the gangplank under the watchful eyes of the ship’s officers—several
of whom I’d come to know quite well. Harker and his son, leaving the
steamer without me, would be more than likely to cause comment.
“It was then that I happened to think of the night expresses, which
hadn’t left Boston yet and were due in New York two hours or more
before the arrival time of the steamer. Why couldn’t I go back on one
of them and manage, without being seen, to slip aboard the _North Land_
from a rowboat the minute she docked? If I was seen doing this it would
look bad, but no worse than if I wasn’t on the steamer at all. This way
I had a chance—and as the testimony given here has shown, I took it.
“I appreciate the forbearance of the Court in permitting this extended
recital—made, I confess, in the face of a realization that it cannot
save me. But perhaps some time, long after this crowning error in the
rather extended series of police blunders has been committed, the fact
that it _was an error_ may come to light—and——”
No more could be heard, for Mr. McVeigh was on his feet shouting
objections. “I object, Your Honor, and I ask that the reference made by
the accused to the police of this city be stricken from the record and
the Jury instructed to disregard it!”
The Judge spoke in a voice that seemed especially low, coming after the
District Attorney’s vociferous demands.
“That may be stricken out,” he said.
“Will the Court permit me to apologize?” Pentecost asked almost in a
whisper and with evident contrition.
“What’s the sense of that?” snapped McVeigh. “It’s off the
record—that’s all I want!”
But a man face to face with a death sentence is usually permitted some
latitude, and the Judge indicated by a slight motion of the head that
he could do so.
“Permit me then, Your Honor, to say that I regret having made use of
the expressions I did, and certainly would not have done so had I been
aware how sensitive the District Attorney is to the mere mention of
the little spiritistic frolics with the Police Department that have
recently taken place.”
Pentecost had finally got in a reference to the mediumistic phenomena
which had played so amazing a part in the case—something he had
been playing for a chance to do since taking the stand. This man’s
statement before the court that was trying him was undoubtedly one
of the most adroit pieces of pure and unadulterated chicane that
he’d ever attempted—at any rate in that line. To fit an innocent and
sympathetic tale like that to the multitude of incriminating facts
established by the testimony against him;—to bring it out with just the
pathetic hopelessness, exactly the sincerity and precisely the manner
and inflection which would make every point tell and thus inspire
confidence and pity, was something near to marvelous.
He knew well enough that it would do him no good in court, but he
knew, too, that it would do him enormous good where he wanted it. The
statement made little short of a sensation, and not alone with those
who heard it, but with the millions who read it in the newspapers.
To most people, of course, it seemed to explain everything. What if
Pentecost couldn’t prove it? Let the Prosecution _disprove_ it—that was
the thing! How noble of him to say that the State’s witnesses told the
truth—and then show exactly how it _was_! Etcetera,—etcetera.
In court, as I’ve indicated, it was another matter. The only thing Mr.
Brookfield (for the Defense) could do, was to review the contradictions
in which he’d skillfully entangled many of the witnesses for the
prosecution, and end with an eloquent plea for the credibility of the
Pentecost statement which agreed with the testimony given before the
court at every point, and to challenge anyone, in court or out to find
a flaw in it.
The District Attorney, of course, tore it all to pieces. He had
declined to cross-examine the accused “after such a ridiculous and
flimsy tale,” and took care of it in his summing up. The fact is—but no
one was aware of it at the time—he had a decided disinclination to give
the accused any further chances with the Jury.
“Here, gentlemen,” he said in his final argument, “we have an
illustration—even in this extraordinary plan by a master mind in
criminality—of the well-known fact that there’ll always be a weak
spot somewhere—a little matter perhaps, but large enough to wreck the
whole structure. This tale of the accused is based on the claim that
the alibi was never planned beforehand, that it was developed on the
impulse of the moment, an innocent person suddenly finding at eleven
o’clock on the night of the murder that he might be brought under
suspicion if it were known he left the steamer—and so he jumped on
a train and managed to get back to it in time to come off with the
passengers. An inspiration of the moment! Remember that, gentlemen! And
now let us see if it’s the truth that he never thought of it before.
Let us consider the behavior of the accused on previous trips, which,
you will observe, were always made by the same steamer, although there
was another on that line, and although there were three other lines
of Boston boats—a choice of four steamers every day, not to speak of
fifteen or twenty express trains, all bound for the same destination!
But on this steamer _North Land_, which was chosen by the accused as
the theatre in which to perform his alibi, we find from the testimony
of eleven of its officers and crew, that he was sociable and talkative
to the last degree, making acquaintance with everybody who might
thereafter be able to testify that he was on board the vessel on
that fatal night. Contrast this with what four witnesses have sworn
to regarding the usual behavior of this same individual—that he was
naturally silent, taciturn, not easily making acquaintances, not a man
given to sociability, reserved, keeping his affairs to himself, never
discussing them with outsiders,—and there you have it, gentlemen.
He was a different being when on the steamer _North Land_ on those
previous trips, when he was planting his alibi; making himself and his
alleged business of buying inventions known to everybody, jollying over
cigars with the Captain and the Purser—and now telling us on the stand
that he never thought of the alibi until after the murder!”
From this the District Attorney went back and recapitulated every point
made by the prosecution during the trial, showing that not one of them
had been disproved and that there wasn’t even a tremor in the finger of
Justice, now extended, and pointing to the accused, Hugo Pentecost, as
the guilty man.
As McVeigh was nearing the latter part of his closing argument, the
Chief Inspector, followed by a messenger, returned to the court room
and resumed his place at the attorneys’ table. At once he took a sheet
of paper and began writing with evident haste. In a moment he bunched
some papers he had brought with him and put them in a large envelope
with the sheet on which he’d been writing. This packet he handed to the
Court Messenger, who delivered it to the Judge.
Before closing his argument the District Attorney took up the
“impertinent reference” made by the accused before this court to a
series of blunders which he attributed to the Police Department of
Boston, and called the attention of the Jury, and of all who had heard
this slanderous implication, to the fact that there never yet was a
murder case where doubt existed as to the guilty party, which was
without false clues, and mistaken arrests.
From this he proceeded to a violent denunciation of Hugo Pentecost.
“And if this insolent, swaggering fiend in human form” (I got the
wording from the newspaper reports) “who coolly, with careful planning
and infinite calculation, takes the life of an innocent—a gentle—a
defenseless man;—this cowardly assassin who sends two bullets into his
victim from behind, and for no other reason than to get a few thousand
dollars away from him;—if he is now looking for another of those
‘spiritistic frolics’ to stand between him and retribution, he will
look in vain; for even the so-called spirits—whatever they are—can’t
help him now! It’s in your hands, gentlemen, to see that the strong
right arm of the Law is stretched forth and this red-handed assassin is
brought to the punishment he so richly deserves.”
At this point there came to pass one of those curious coincidences—a
real and _bona-fide_ one, for it couldn’t have been laid out beforehand
even by a master-criminal mind, though such a mind may have figured
there was an off chance on it.
For a few moments during the latter part of the District Attorney’s
summing up, the faint but strident calls of an “extra” from far down
Washington Street could have been heard in the court room—a babel
of boyish voices coming through the open windows. This increased
in volume, and as the newsboys came running into Scollay Square
and up into Tremont and Court Streets, there was a sudden burst of
high-pitched shouting, so that following right on Mr. McVeigh’s
climactic outburst, “Even the so-called spirits—whatever they
are—can’t help him now!” came the screams of the newsboys below:
“E-x-t-r-e-e! Spirit message!”—“Spirit Message in the Haworth
Case!”—“E-x-t-r-e-e!”—“Haworth’s Spirit Speaks!”—“Message from
Haworth!”—“E-x-t-r-e-e!” and so on until the shouts grew fainter again
as the boys ran down Sudbury and Hanover Streets toward the North
Station, and West and South on Beacon and Tremont.
* * * * *
When the attention of the spectators was again directed to the court
proceedings, they realized that everything had stopped. A consultation
at the Bench was in progress. All the attorneys concerned and the Chief
Inspector were there, evidently having been called up by the Judge.
A peculiar stillness had settled over the place. Charged with
electricity it seemed, the tension increasing every moment. Some
foolish ones wondered if the newsboys, shouting about another spirit
message, could have affected the Court. Once—and not such a time ago
at that—the calling of such a piece of news on the streets would have
excited only derision. None of that now! Even the pooh-poohers had
stopped their pooh-poohing. Too many astounding things!
A sudden straining to see and hear as the Chief Inspector and the
attorneys went back to their places, the Inspector leaving the court
room immediately afterward.
The Judge sat motionless a few moments, apparently in thought. After
that he examined again some of the papers that had been submitted.
Finally he rose and turned to the Jury and the twelve men composing it
came to their feet at the same instant and stood facing him. Then the
Judge, in a voice so subdued that it could scarcely be heard in the
further parts of the room, thanked them for the time and labor they
had contributed to the cause of justice, and proceeded to remind them
that the world we live in is a place of considerable uncertainty, and
that in Courts of Law the unexpected is a frequent—and sometimes a
welcome—visitor.
Everyone could hear him now, which resulted not so much from the
raising of his voice a trifle as from the stillness prevailing. “In the
case before us, gentlemen,” he went on, “the arrival of this visitor,
the unexpected, must be regarded as most opportune, for it is the means
of removing all doubt as to the guilt, or freedom from guilt, of the
accused. Mr. Foreman and Gentlemen: Certain facts have just now been
called to the attention of myself and counsel, which indicate beyond
any question or doubt that this defendant is innocent of the crime with
which he is charged; and I therefore instruct you to bring in a verdict
of Not Guilty.”
A moment later the Clerk of the Court was saying: “Hugo Pentecost,
look upon the Jury; Jurors, look upon the defendant.—Mr. Foreman and
Gentlemen: in the case of the Commonwealth against Hugo Pentecost have
you agreed upon a verdict?”
“We have,” the Foreman answered.
“What say you, Mr. Foreman: is the defendant, Hugo Pentecost, guilty or
not guilty?”
“Not guilty,” answered the Foreman. And after the swearing of the Jury
in the usual form, Hugo Pentecost was informed that he was hereby
discharged and could go “without day” unless held on some other process.
* * * * *
On the evening before these final proceedings, and at a time
approaching the hour of midnight, a private “circle” in West
Philadelphia was about to adjourn. Mr. Ernest Everett Blatchford, well
known among the spiritists of that region as a talented and highly
successful materializationist and trance medium, had brought about
during the evening a number of visits from the other side, and in all
but two the spirit had become visible to human eyes—in a shadowy way.
As the director or assistant (I’m not sure what they call those
people) turned to switch on the lights, there came strange muffled
cries issuing from the darkness in the further part of the room, and
a cold musty current of air breathed across the circle of “sitters.”
At the same instant a whitish cloud appeared, faintly wavering in the
darkness. It rapidly grew in size and seemed to be trying to shape
itself into something resembling the human form. Vague suggestions of
a man’s face began to appear in the misty cloudiness, the features
gradually forming themselves, like the fade-in of a picture; and
when, as it came to be more and more distinct, somebody whispered
the name of Charles Haworth, there were several involuntary gasps
of astonishment and a breathless “Oh!” or two could be heard. The
papers had used his picture so often (taken for that first write-up
in a Boston “Magazine Section”) that there was no difficulty about
the recognition after the whispered name had started it. (No one ever
traced that important whisper to its source.)
In a few moments it was seen that the lips of the apparition were
moving—yet no sound came. The cloudlike human form with a face
resembling Haworth’s, was trying to speak.
A voice from somewhere in the circle—a man’s voice—was heard
asking, “Isn’t this Mr. Haworth?” and the head resembling Haworth’s
nodded slowly in affirmation. Almost at once some sort of a sound
was heard—confused and broken, as though pushed through a barrier
that gave way, and after that the spirit began to speak in a low
voice and with what seemed like a sort of eager breathlessness.
“Machine!—Machine!—Machine!” repeated over and over many times more
than that, was what it said, and between two of them a loud whisper
came from somewhere in or near the circle, “It’s Haworth’s voice!”
and an answering whisper, forceful and penetrating, “Yes—oh yes!—_His
own voice!_” So that everybody knew, though they’d never seen the man
Haworth nor heard him speak, that it was he now appearing before them.
For some time the apparition or spirit—if that’s what it was—seemed
unable to utter anything more than this repetition of the word
“Machine,” and the director and some others, although they asked
encouraging questions, proved unable to get anything further.
But again some sort of obstruction was seemingly overcome, for after
many unsuccessful attempts, the voice suddenly broke out with: “In
the wall!—In the wall!—In the wall!—Why don’t they look? It’s there!
The Machine! Find it!—Find it!—Make the court wait!—That man—that
man—nothing—nothing—nothing to do with it—nothing—nothing! Nobody can
hear me in Boston—I can just reach this one—but not for long! Tell them
the wall—inside the wall—that same room—further end—the machine—papers
on the pendulum!—the pendulum!—Papers!—Oh——I’m going!—” (The voice
becoming faint and far away) “—I can’t hold out—and I want to speak to
someone else—oh, I do—I do——” and nothing more could be heard.
The voice was growing weaker and the features were dissolving back
into mistiness even while he spoke; and in a moment there was only
the whitish floating haze which seemed rapidly drawing itself to a
point, at which it wavered for a moment and then flickered out in the
blackness.
No reporters were present at this séance nor were the Philadelphia
police keeping an eye on mediumistic activities; and as it was already
after two in the morning, no one who’d been there took it upon
himself to communicate with anybody as to what had come through. It
was consequently nearly eleven o’clock the following morning before
news of it reached the Boston newspaper offices; and an effort made
later to find out who sent the news met with no success. Whoever it
was completely ignored the police. Not a word of this astounding
communication from the alleged spirit of Charles Haworth was wired or
telephoned to them. Their first intimation that anything of interest
had taken place in West Philadelphia came from the newspaper “extras”
on the streets.
* * * * *
The Department—as it had in another and similar instance—got
particulars without giving it away that this was the first they’d
heard of it. And so important did the matter seem that the Inspector
was called out of the court room. And so important did it seem to
the Inspector that he proceeded with the utmost speed and a bunch of
detectives to the Cripps mansion. Reporters were kept outside the line
that had been established.
Within twenty minutes after the Inspector’s arrival with his gang, the
rear end of the wall of the room on the left was what you might call
a near ruin, and a most extraordinary mechanical arrangement that had
been constructed within it was exposed to view.
The first, and it might be said the most striking, thing they had come
upon as they were ripping the lath and plaster away and prying off the
heavy paneling, was a 44 Colt revolver bolted to the studding (the
upright timbers within the wall) just behind one of the panels of the
wainscot, and down within eighteen inches of the floor. It was bolted
so securely as to be absolutely immovable, and was aimed straight out
into the room. The husky plain-clothes man who smashed away the panel
in front of it was seen to spring suddenly to one side.
“Careful now!” the Inspector shouted, as he came running. “Keep away
from that!” he yelled to the other men who were coming over to see. And
they were ordered well to one side while the two working there reached
over and ripped away the panels above and on each side of the one that
had concealed the gun.
It took but a few minutes to expose the whole thing: a simple but
ingenious device built in there for firing two revolvers at nearly the
same instant—discharging them about twelve minutes from the time the
mechanism was set in motion. The second gun, a matter of six inches
below the other, was behind the same panel, but hadn’t been noticed at
first as it was so close to the floor—just clearing the panel frame at
the bottom.
They found that this panel—the one concealing the guns—had been made
to slide up and down, the guides holding it on the inside so there
was no evidence of them in sight; when pushed up, the muzzles of the
revolvers were exposed; when dropped down into place, they were hidden.
And so carefully had this sliding panel been handled that no scratch or
abrasion could be found on its surface, nor did it differ in any way,
so far as appearances went, from the other panels in the wainscoting;
neither did it display the slightest evidence of being movable—which,
indeed, it was not, after the discharge of the revolvers; for on
dropping down into place it automatically locked itself by the swinging
across the top of it, of a block of wood on a pivot—all within the
wall, of course. To get it open again it was necessary to push this
block away _from the inside_.
Both guns were immovably aimed to throw bullets directly across the
middle of the room and out through the upper part of the window at the
front; and as they were set so low down, the course of the bullets
would be upward. A man of a certain height standing at a certain spot
near the center of the room would get the bullet from the upper
revolver through the head and from the lower one through the heart—if
he could stand there long enough after the shot from the first
one—hardly more, probably, than half a second.
The mechanism which—twelve minutes from its starting—fired the
revolvers, and at the same time released the movable panel and allowed
it to slide down into place and automatically to lock itself there, was
an escapement device with a pendulum swinging to seconds. About halfway
of the fifteenth revolution of the escape-wheel (a very large one
carrying fifty teeth or jump-cogs) the powerful springs that connected
with the two rods—one to the trigger of each revolver—were released,
which discharged the guns nearly, but not quite, simultaneously, and
on the next jump of the escape-wheel a lever pulled back the catch
that held the sliding panel up, allowing it to drop down and close the
opening. It locked itself there automatically as I’ve explained.
There were many minor arrangements to safeguard and insure the perfect
operation of the device, such as the weighting (on the inside) of the
sliding panel; the carrying of the rope that unwound from a drum on
the main shaft, up through a pulley at the top, so the heavy weight
attached to it would have room to descend in that space—for of course
it couldn’t go below the floor; the setting of the two revolvers at the
place where the wall of the breakfast room joined this rear wall of the
room on the left, so that, as they were too long for the normal wall
thickness, their butts might project back into the transverse wall.
The whole device had been built in through a large aperture from the
basement below, and on completion of the job this opening was closed
up with the very same old grimy boarding, and even fastened in place
with the same ancient and rusted nails driven into their original
holes, that had been taken out of them. Even the rust on the nail
heads where the hammer would strike them was undisturbed; safeguarded
probably by the use of a cushion of leather or blotting-paper.
It was evident that the machine couldn’t have been set going on its
final performance, _from the basement_, for by no possibility could the
opening down there have been closed with all the care required, within
the twelve minutes between the starting and the automatic discharge
of the guns. Undoubtedly the sliding panel was opened from below and
held open (that is, up) by its catch, and the block above adjusted to
swing in when it next slid down; and after that, at whatever time it
was desired to start the pendulum on its last gruesome swing, it would
only be necessary to reach in through the open panel in the room on the
left, and give it a shove. That was all. There would be twelve minutes
left for reading awhile and then lighting a pipe.
Of course all these small details weren’t figured out by the police
until afterward. The Inspector was there to learn what there was, if
anything, to the latest alleged spirit message, and they found it of
such vital import, too, that it required instant action. No time to be
wasted on conjectures as to the method of starting. There it was——The
Machine! And secured to its great pendulum which, you might say, ticked
Charles Haworth to his death, was the envelope of papers.
Quick investigation followed; the Inspector raced back to town; the
newly discovered evidence was brought to the Judge’s attention; his
conference with the attorneys and the Inspector followed, and after
that came the Court’s instructions to the Jury and the Jury’s verdict
in accordance therewith.
* * * * *
The large envelope which they found lashed securely to the great
pendulum contained three instruments or documents—the Last Will and
Testament of Charles Michael Haworth; a Statement made by Charles
Michael Haworth; and an Insurance Policy on the life of Charles Michael
Haworth. The Statement had been sworn to before a Notary Public (of
course without his learning anything of its purport) three days before
Haworth’s death, and was to the effect that he intended within a week
to take his own life and to do it by means of a mechanical contrivance
which he, and he alone, had devised and built for that purpose; that no
one but himself was in any way connected with, or responsible for, this
determination on his part, or involved in its carrying out, for he had
built the device with the utmost secrecy, locking himself into a room
in the basement of the house while at work on it, and allowing no one
to come near. His housekeeper, Mrs. Amelia Temple, had, he stated, been
aware of his labor in this room night and day for nearly two weeks,
though she could have had no knowledge of the character of the work he
was doing; and the butler, James Dreek, could not have been aware that
anything of the kind existed, as he arrived after the completion of the
machine and its sealing up inside the wall.
He then went on to speak of the property he was leaving, mentioning
the eighteen-thousand-dollar Insurance Policy and the thirty-five
thousand dollars which was to be paid him by the firm of Harker &
Pentecost of New York, for one of his inventions which the said firm
had purchased—“a combination gas and compressed-air engine.” Following
that was only a brief paragraph to the effect that a little something
might be realized from the sale of a few pieces of machinery that were
still in his possession—but nothing worth writing down.
The statement ended with that, but he had written a few lines on the
margin three days after it had been signed and sworn to. “This is to
say,” he wrote in a hand without sign of tremor (and it must have been
only a few hours before he reached in and set swinging that pendulum of
death), “that the Messrs. Harker & Pentecost have now paid what was due
me from them ($35,000) which amount (less the sum of $500 that I have
taken from it for a certain present requirement), as it is in bills,
and as Mr. Pentecost has cautioned me that there is danger of robbery,
I have had James Dreek conceal in the stone foundation at the northeast
corner of the barn in the rear of this house.” And to this marginal
memorandum he signed his initials.
The will was simple and brief. After payment of debts, only two
bequests. “To my faithful and beloved friend Amelia Temple” was left
the sum of five thousand dollars—and the statement followed that all
the money in the world could not wipe out the debt he owed her. The
rest of his property went to Edith Carrington Findlay.
* * * * *
By this time you are likely to be aware that Mr. Hugo Pentecost of the
firm of Harker & Pentecost, Promoters, had something to do with the
unusual happenings in what might be a trifle incorrectly spoken of as
the Haworth Homicide Case. I’m inclined to doubt, though, whether you
quite appreciate the extent of his work. To say that he was behind
every move in the whole affair comes near to putting it mildly.
When, on his first visit to the mansion, he went down into the basement
with Charles Haworth and got an idea of what the desperate and
half-crazed young man proposed to do, and the instrument with which
he intended to accomplish it, even he, a person never known to be
disturbed by danger, horror, or dilemma of any description, was near
to the experience of amazement. This, though, didn’t prevent him from
jumping in at once and making an earnest effort to dissuade the young
inventor from carrying out his gruesome enterprise. The realization
that Haworth couldn’t be persuaded out of it—indeed, that he was in a
mad frenzy to carry it through if only for the insurance money—struck
Pentecost at about the same time that there flashed into his mind a
most extraordinary “operation” that could be carried on in connection
with it. A born adventurer and intrepid explorer in the shady mazes of
criminality, keen for danger in unusual forms, to be baffled by unusual
and skillfully contrived defenses, with, of course, the chances of a
good haul to make it financially interesting, he was hardly the man to
throw down an unbelievably attractive proposition when he had it in his
hand.
Mr. Harker added his own protests the first time he was at the house on
Torrington Road. He watched his opportunity and got Haworth aside—for
he didn’t want his partner to know what he was up to—and did his best
to induce the young fellow to abandon the grisly idea that seemed to
have taken possession of him.
In the ordinary run of things, the only course left to the firm was
to turn a person having such unlawful designs on himself, over to the
police. But this happened not to be in the ordinary run of things. It
was distinctly extraordinary. Furthermore the firm alluded to wasn’t
in the business of turning unlawfully behaving citizens over to the
police. Quite and much otherwise. And the reason for this was because
it was composed of two conscienceless crime experts, one of them—the
controlling member—a consummate operator in strategic chicanery if
there ever was one on the earth.
* * * * *
Neither of the methods that Haworth had in mind for profiting by
the tragic act to which he was apparently driven by some desperate
need, had met the approval of Mr. Pentecost. One was based on a
life insurance policy which the young inventor had recently taken out,
having, by inquiry, found a company which was supposed to pay in such
cases; the other depended on the sale of a motion picture which should
be taken of the actual occurrence—showing not only the operation of the
machine, but, as well, depicting its frightful consequence. But this
master crook had declared himself willing to give both these things
a fair try-out and with every advantage he was able to command, if
the young man would consent, in return, to have his own (Pentecost’s)
extraordinary scheme go into operation. He would play Haworth’s ideas
to the limit, even though it involved the taking of the picture
himself—for he wasn’t going to let any of his men in for a job like
that. The ghastly situation might send any one of them up in the air.
Mr. Pentecost’s scheme, which had struck him like a blow while Haworth
was explaining the working of the Machine, concerned and depended upon
the alleged spirits of the dead, as known through and represented by
persons who called themselves mediums; and it took him into a field
he’d long desired to negotiate—one where the hunting, he happened to
know, was exceedingly good. Furthermore, his astounding method of
handling the mediumistic output involved, was beyond anything dreamed
of before.
You are doubtless acquainted with the fact that information concerning
the lives and the families of more or less prominent people who have
made the crossing to the other side—or who, for various undesirable
reasons, are expected soon to make it—is dealt in by a number of
bureaus or clearing houses for that class of goods. High prices are
paid by their customers (the mediums) for information of value,
and if the bureaus haven’t anything in stock as to the life and
characteristics of a person called for, they have facilities for
getting it without delay.
But this thing of Pentecost’s, although of a decidedly spiritistic
nature, was by no means a matter of information about dead people; on
the contrary, it involved the sale to mediums of information which
dead people could get across—through them—about the living, and under
the most unusual circumstances. That’s where the great mercantile
possibilities came in, the operation of his scheme giving these spirit
communications such astonishing advertising value to mediums who passed
them through, that they’d pay almost any price to get them—if they
had it. In addition to this price down (on delivery as you might say)
he’d take—in each case and for a limited time—a slice of the increased
business which was sure to follow.
It would have been entirely possible to sell out his “spirit
information” in a lump to one of the bureaus, but by handling it
personally he could take advantage of the immense increase in
advertising value as the Haworth case attracted more and more attention.
To give these “messages” or “communications” an enormously high market
value was the object of the entire operation. What such value means
to professional mediums is realized by very few outside of spiritist
circles. I’m referring, of course, to those who practise the methods
alluded to. It has been said that there are others in the spirit game
who go perfectly straight and have a great time believing every word
they say; but if such is the case I don’t know where they live.
A regular—or professional—medium will sometimes make a small
fortune on one skillful (and lucky) performance. To attract wealthy
clients, preferably those who have been hypnotized by the loss of
those who are dear to them—that’s the top of the game. And it’s the
unusual—the extraordinary—manifestations that do it. Taking this
into consideration, you will understand why the Pentecost messages,
before he got through with them, had run up into the twenty and thirty
thousands each. From asking three thousand in Montreal, and six of
Mrs. Belden in Boston, the price went up by jumps of five thousand.
This, together with the rake-off on increased business for two years
from every medium in the game, put Harker & Pentecost nicely to the
good—even though quite vast expenses, including the Haworth money, had
to come out of it.
Using his gang of picked sharps (his correspondents you might call them
in the big cities) Pentecost could cull out the mediums who had the
money, and make his cash sales without difficulty; this same gang also
made prompt payment of percentages as near a certainty as such things
ever come. Extraordinary experiences in misfortune would overtake
anyone in any town or in any part of the country who tried to hold back
on him. And they knew it. It was made strikingly evident to them by the
“agents” who, under instructions, engineered the sales and delivered
the “spirit” messages at the precise time required.
As to the vital matter of secrecy, no leakage could possibly occur, for
the very simple reason that there was nothing to leak. Not a medium in
the lot had the faintest idea where “the goods” came from nor what was
the manner of their origination. Even had one of them known, it would
hardly have been cause for alarm; this owing to the fact that the basic
principle in their guild is the keeping of things dark.
Now you have the key to the whole affair. With it—if you haven’t been
picking the locks as we went along—you gentlemen can let yourselves
in on what the man was playing for at any stage of the game; and how
it came to pass that everybody concerned—public, police, witnesses
for the prosecution, reporters, editors, spiritists, jurors, lawyers,
even the District Attorney himself, and the Chief Inspector with his
choice assortment of plain-clothes men, were dancing for Hugo Pentecost
according as he pulled the strings. What was it if not that? Anyway,
you have the facts—call it what you like. And don’t imagine, when I
speak of this man’s scheme, that this consummate operator had a set
and rigid plan to be followed whether or no. On the contrary, his
arrangements were elastic to an extreme degree. If you’ll notice how it
went, he played each part of the thing _as far as it would safely go_,
and then pulled it back to the line with a voice from the tomb, as you
might say. Where one of several things might happen he had substitute
plays for each, every one carried back to the safety point in whatever
direction it went. Had old Mrs. Temple persisted in her refusal to
testify, notwithstanding the appealing spirit messages he’d carefully
planted, he was ready to work in another witness to the murder, to
Dreek’s being outside the house at the time, and to his own presence in
the room aiming the terrible black object (which was, of course, the
movie camera) at Haworth as the poor fellow stood lighting his pipe. If
the head end trainman hadn’t remembered getting him off the day coach
at the Grand Central Terminal in New York, and had failed to recognize
the boots he had shoved off the seat so many times, there was a waiter
at the lunch counter of the restaurant on the lower level who would
answer all purposes, owing to his (Pentecost’s) unusual behavior while
getting a cup of coffee at that place.
The extreme importance of wrecking the alibi at the time required,
caused him to deal it two simultaneous smashes, either one of which
would have done the trick—barring accident. The boots might not have
been kept in the Lost Property Department of the Eastern Steamship
Lines, Inc. On the bare chance of their having been thrown away,
Operator’s License 2026 would bring the chauffeur into the case; up to
then he could have had no idea that his fare to Boston on that fateful
night was Hugo Pentecost. If Augustus Findlay had failed to take his
revolver with him as he plunged madly away from the house, the fight in
Collamore Street almost directly under Mr. Rathbun’s window would have
gone on just the same; the only readjustment being that Pentecost’s
man would have picked up the gun wherever Findlay dropped it—whether
at the mansion or on the road—and brought it along, making it appear
in the struggle that he got it away from the terrified boob; so there
it would be, finger marks and all, ready to shove up in the water
conductor. And if you imagine that it was any kind of an accident when
Mr. Pentecost tipped up his pocket flashlight and gave the old woman a
glimpse of his face as she came toward him in the pitch-dark room just
after the Machine had done its deadly work; or that the roller shades
being not quite down was a matter of chance; or a hundred and one
things like that, call it off and take a new start.
I saw it troubled both you gentlemen when that carefully constructed
alibi began to crumble. The first thing that occurred to you must
have been an inquiry as to why all the trouble and ingenuity expended
on planting it, if an old pair of boots or an operator’s license was
going to throw it down. But your second thought was undoubtedly quite
different, for unless I’m mistaken, you soon realized that not only
was that fake alibi one of the most effective advertising nuts for
the spirits to crack, but vastly more important than that, it was the
veritable backbone that was to hold up the entire Pentecost operation.
Without it they’d have picked him up that same night or early the next
morning, and the mediums—with the possible exception of Mr. Ernest
Everett Blatchford of West Philadelphia—wouldn’t have had any play at
all.
If you’re financially minded, it might seem unbelievable that
two such seasoned sharps as Harker and Pentecost would let a
thirty-five-thousand bundle of bills go out of their hands with the
chance against them that the Machine might not function or that
Haworth wouldn’t stand up to the grisly game he’d set himself to play.
It wouldn’t be at all surprising if the young fellow, when he got right
up against it, were to go mad; indeed, both partners had a notion he
was half there already. But do you notice that this money never did
go out of their hands—that, as the crucial time approached, Pentecost
had Dreek outside the house where he could instantly seize on it at a
signal from inside—and that he himself was inside?
But neither this nor the taking of the motion picture accounted so
much for Pentecost’s presence in the room at the crucial moment
as the absolute necessity of his being seen there by a competent
witness in order to make the case against him have the look of being
incontestable. His trial for murder was the final play, and he’d begun
laying lines for it at his very first interview with the Inspector,
adroitly behaving, on that occasion, in a manner calculated to awaken
the suspicion that he’d been connected in some way with the crime,
even though the alibi—at that time unshaken and to all appearances
unshakable—blocked any idea of his having committed it himself.
I won’t go any further with small details as to Pentecost’s methods
of operation. But I’ll ask you to take it from me that from the time
he staggered—to all appearances a semi-intoxicated coal heaver or
something like that—into telephone booth 19 at the South Station in
Boston, just before boarding the night train for New York, and calling
up Pemberton Square (that is to say, headquarters) told the official in
charge that a man named Pentecost who was supposed to have embarked for
New York that afternoon on the Steamer _North Land_ had been seen near
the Haworth house just before the murder that evening, and suggested
that it might be a good idea to have the New York police verify this
on arrival of the steamer there (thus, as you’ll see, making his alibi
official in a certain sense by bringing in the New York detectives
as witnesses to it), to the moment of his having himself put on the
witness stand and reciting his fake statement before the court, his
hand never for one instant left the throttle.
Notwithstanding all this, he found time, during that stressful period,
without personally appearing in the matter or indeed ever meeting
her, to have everything possible attended to for Edith Findlay. All
things tending to her comfort and well-being were arranged for: a nurse
brought from the hospital to take care of her and manage everything
about the house; Augustus Findlay permanently eliminated by having such
a fright thrown into him that the entire continent of North America was
thenceforth relieved of his weight upon it, with South America standing
a good chance of equal immunity; and finally (it was some weeks before
the Pentecost trial came on) her departure, with little Mildred and two
nurses, to one of the most highly recommended places in the Austrian
Alps.
* * * * *
At once after his acquittal Mr. Pentecost did his best—as he’d promised
Haworth he would—with the $18,000 life insurance and the more than
gruesome “movie”—which he had himself taken. The former he succeeded
in collecting after a campaign of sharp practice devoted to it; the
latter—as he’d figured from the start—stood no chance with censors
and the inter-state people. He got a few thousand for it from the
“bootleggers” of padlocked films who smuggle them across state lines
and put them in the “private show” programs. These things, with the
$51,000, and odd which was Haworth’s share on his percentage of profits
on the game, more than doubled the total of deposits to the credit of
Edith Findlay in the bank which had been designated to take care of her
property. While no mention of this percentage was made in the contract
between Haworth and the firm, it was one of those things that Pentecost
would have paid though it reduced him to penury.
When you say—as you’re more or less liable to if I give you the
chance—that this man was a surprising combination of characteristics,
you will have spoken the truth. Not quite so surprising, though, when
you come to reflect that every man is that—more or less—if he has any
characteristics worth considering.
And while we’re speaking of it, it’s just as well for you to know that
the man was taking all this care of Edith Findlay’s interests—as well
as of Edith Findlay herself, solely and entirely because of Haworth.
Something about the fellow had appealed to him in a peculiar way.
As the matter stood there was no possibility of Edith’s ever knowing
that the money coming to her—aside from the insurance—was other than
the amounts realized from the sale of one of Haworth’s mechanical
inventions. This was shown by Haworth’s contract with the firm and by
the receipt he gave for the cash payment, as well as implied in his
statement and will. The tragic truth of the matter, which might have
affected her disastrously both mentally and physically, as well as
undoubtedly preventing her from touching a penny of the inheritance,
was safely locked up with the firm of Harker & Pentecost.
For several months all went well. According to the doctors there,
Edith’s condition was improving. Then a cable that was rather
disquieting. A slight turn for the worse. Probably only temporary. Must
expect ups and downs.
This talk about temporary ups and downs was nothing to Pentecost. He
found, after some drastic searching, a high-up specialist who would
go over. He felt that an American patient ought to have an American
doctor. Whatever you say, races are different and need different
treatment.
He met the doctor at the steamer on his return and they had a talk in
the latter’s cabin while the baggage was coming off. The gist of the
physician’s report was that while Mrs. Findlay was in a much better
condition as far as the disease itself was concerned, and ought to go
right on improving, her present mental activity was holding her back.
This had not been the case heretofore, as the shock of the affair had,
in a certain sense, stunned her. For several months she seemed hazy
about it all, but recently things were becoming clearer to her, which
was unfortunate. Everything was being done to divert her mind, but it
was an obstinate case—she didn’t want it diverted.
“What does she want?” Pentecost inquired.
“Well—it amounts to this: She’s made up her mind to die and so far
there’s no shaking her determination.”
“I wish I had her here,” said Pentecost.
Two weeks after that a cable reached him signed by Edith Findlay
herself, begging him to come over as soon as he possibly could—utmost
importance that she see him before the end, which was near.
He was on the next steamer going out.
Mr. Pentecost was sitting by the side of her bed. The nurse had told
her his name before he came in, but for quite a time she couldn’t
remember who he was or why he was there. Perceiving this, the nurse
came in from the adjoining room and explained that it was the gentleman
who’d been so kind in attending to everything for her, and that he’d
come all the way from New York because she’d asked to see him.
“Oh, you—you came from America!” Her voice was faint and far away.
He said “Yes” softly.
The nurse had retired again to the next room.
“Did——” Edith glanced about searching for some one—then her eyes came
back to him. “Did he come with you?”
“No.”
“Isn’t that strange!” She spoke hardly above a whisper. “Oh, it _is_ so
strange! But he’s coming! He’s coming just as soon as he sets up the
machine and regulates it—that was in the contract you know!”
“Yes Mrs. Findlay, but it’ll take quite a while yet.”
“Oh, will it? It seems so long! I can’t understand why they keep him so
long!”
“You mustn’t worry yourself about it.”
“Oh no—no, I mustn’t! But it does seem as if they’d be through by
this time!” She lay quiet for a little—her eyes closed. Then suddenly
turning her head on the pillow she looked at him again.
“How long did it take to get here?” she asked.
“Ten days, but I didn’t get a very fast steamer.”
“Yes, I see. Maybe he took a slow one. But I’m expecting him very soon
now—very soon.”
She went on for a little, asking questions about the detention of
the one she expected—the length of time it would take to regulate the
machine he’d sold—whether a fast steamer would be leaving when it
was finished, and other fancies like that, to all of which Pentecost
replied briefly and in a low voice. He was waiting his chance.
She’d been lying back against the pillows, but rather suddenly in the
midst of her questioning she stopped and sat up erect in the bed,
staring at him. “Oh——” she finally breathed. “I thought you—I didn’t
know——Are you Mr. Pentecost?”
“Yes, Mrs. Findlay.”
“They—they said so, but I didn’t seem to——” She glanced about,
thinking; then her eyes were fixed on him again. “You were so good to
come,” she whispered painfully.
He saw that the merciless memories were coming back to her.
“You—you can be such a help to me—if you will—such a help! It’s
something that——” She broke off, and raising her head a little from the
pillow, glanced at the door into the nurse’s room. “Would you shut it,
please?”
Pentecost carefully closed the door—then returned to his chair by her
side.
“I want to ask you to do something for me, Mr. Pentecost—because—you
see—they think I’m going to get well—but it isn’t so—no,” (shaking her
head a little on the pillow) “it isn’t so.”
Pentecost sat looking at her with a peculiar glint in his prominent
eyes, but said nothing.
“I tell you,” she went on after a momentary pause, “because you—you’re
the only one I can trust.”
“Where did you get that idea?”
“_He_ told me. It was in a letter he left. He said you were his friend,
the only friend he had except the old woman who took care of him, and
that I must trust you in everything.”
“In view of this, Mrs. Findlay, tell me in what way I can be of
service?”
“Mr. Pentecost, what will become of my little Mildred?”
“It strikes me” (in a suddenly sharp, penetrating voice) “you’re the
one to answer that.”
She looked at him in amazement.
“I?” she finally asked in a faint voice.
“Who else?” he inquired. “Aren’t you the one who’s proposing to abandon
her?”
“Abandon——!” (With a slight gasp.) “Why——How——You don’t mean——”
“Well what would you call it?”
“No—no—no! Oh, wait! Let me tell you!” (With all her earnestness she
could hardly do more than whisper.) “Oh, I couldn’t stay—I don’t want
to!” She shook her head a little on the pillow. “He’s gone—gone! The
thought of it is killing me. I want to go. I want to be where he is!”
“How do you know where he is?” Pentecost’s voice cut in like a knife.
She stared at him in astonishment.
“My religion tells me that, Mr. Pentecost,” she whispered, reverently.
“And does this religion of yours omit to tell you where your daughter
is?”
“Oh yes—yes!—that’s why I wanted to see you. That’s why I——” She broke
off and glanced distressfully about the room.
“You seem to have made up your mind to leave her,” Pentecost observed.
Edith was silent.
“Aren’t the living of some consequence,” he went on, “or is it only the
dead we have to consider?”
“No no—that’s wrong! I hadn’t forgotten her! Oh, how can you _think_
such a thing, when it was about her that I wanted to see you—just about
her—nothing else!”
“What can _I_ do?”
“I hope—I hope you’ll consent to take her—to take care of her! I don’t
know who else to ask—and he told me to trust in you—about everything.
If I can only know she’ll be with you I shall die happy!”
Pentecost suddenly turned and blazed out upon her—something as he used
to do in the Chicago days when he leaped, tigerlike, on a victim in the
witness stand.
“What is it to me whether you die happy or not! Whatever I can do in
this affair I’m doing on account of someone else—not for you Mrs.
Findlay! You cut no figure with me—why in God’s name should you? I’ve
never laid eyes on you before—and now I come to see you it looks to
me like a cursed low-down play you’re making, that while I’m doing
my best to carry out everything he wanted, you’re lying here doing
_your_ best to block his game! That’s just what you’re doing, Mrs.
Findlay,—pitching the fulfillment of his most vital wish into the
discard!”
“Why I——Why you——” She couldn’t go on.
“Look, then—look at this! The one thing in the world he wanted money
for—the reason he was mad and crazy and demented to sell his machine
and get it, was so he could send you here and do everything on earth to
save your life! He lived for that—nothing else—it was the one thought
that possessed him! He made a will to make it certain that—if anything
happened to him—the money would be used for that and nothing else. And
after all this—which you know as well as I do, I come over here and
find you deliberately throwing away all he worked for and hoped for
and—for all I know—prayed for. Of course if you’re bound to go against
it I’ll do what I can about the child—though God knows the little one
needs you. It all rests with you, Mrs. Findlay. The head medical sharp
that came over, tells me it isn’t the disease that’s killing you—it’s
yourself. He says you’ve made up your mind to die—you’re determined to
do it—and that play’s certainly going to take the trick if you sit in
the game long enough. It’s up to you to quit that if you want to do the
right thing by the dead——and by the living.”
Pentecost rose and took her thin little hand in his. “I’ll say good-by,
Mrs. Findlay,” he said in an altered tone. “They’ll keep me informed”
(motioning toward the nurse’s room) “of which way the cards fall, and
I’ll act accordingly.”
As he reached the door he thought he heard her call to him faintly, and
went back to see if it was so. She was looking up at him as he stood by
the bed, and tried to speak—but only her lips moved. He bent nearer to
catch what she said.
“I’ll try,” she whispered.
He took her hand again.
“There’s some sense to that Mrs. Findlay,” he said; and after looking
down into her eyes a moment he laid her hand back on the coverlet
where he’d found it, and quietly left the room.
It was still early enough to get the afternoon train out—which he did.
* * * * *
A few days short of a month after Mr. Pentecost’s brief visit to the
Austrian Alps, he walked, one wintry afternoon, into the office of the
firm, having come direct from a trans-Atlantic steamer—just docked.
Wasting no more time on salutations than he usually did—which was
precisely none at all, he quickly got Harker into the small inner
office—sometimes referred to by the staff as the dissecting room—and
after pushing him into a chair and drawing one for himself close to it,
began talking to him in tones that were subdued to the limit.
“We’re moving the office to London,” he said, “—and inside of
twenty-one days. I’ve got something I want to put on over there. I’ll
need most of the office force—especially Finch Dugas—and I’m taking
eleven of the boys.” (By which he meant his “trusties.”)
“What’s the matter,” Harker inquired; “can’t you play it with the
natives?”
“You’re dippy! Hasn’t the Yard got their numbers?”
“Sure—the Yard’s got everything. And take it from me if you’re going up
against that layout you’ve got to watch your step and then some!”
“Now, Roxy—you’ve hit on the one thing that’s doing the pull on me. As
I was over on that side I thought I’d come home by way of London and
take a look around. While I was doing it a little something crossed my
mind that looked to me as if it might interest ’em. That being so, we
play it.”
“Don’t say _we_. Maybe _you’ll_ play it, I don’t know; but if this
London scheme you’re pulling off is one of your favorite flirtations
with the undertaker, I declare myself out of it here and now. I can get
myself nicely hung in the U. S. A. without going abroad for it—and I’d
just as soon patronize home industries.”
“Not a killing to it I give you my word,” Pentecost assured him. “We
play a corpse for two or three moves, but it’s handed to us—no chance
of a line across—they’ll have the guy that did it. Now every one of
us comes in from different places—I go round and get across from
Stockholm—you and Dugas make it from Rio—plenty of time as you don’t
play in till near the finish. Kennedy makes it from Holland—” and he
went on laying out the “game” with Harker to the uttermost detail.
Three days later Pentecost (but not _as_ Pentecost) embarked on a
Swedish-American Line steamer. Harker was at the dock getting final
instructions (of course he was going in on it as Pentecost knew he
would), and there was a vast lot of things to do in a limited time.
The two stood talking on the pier, hidden by piled-up crates and boxes,
yet only a short distance from the gangplank so that Pentecost could go
on board at the last moment. When they had about finished up matters
connected with the London “operation,” Harker happened to think of
something.
“Oh—by the way,” he said; “how was that lady you went over to see?”
“Not so well,” Pentecost muttered in a way that suggested aversion to
talking about it.
But Harker, not affected by this, cheerfully pursued the subject.
“Going to die?” he asked.
“Had it all fixed to.” (Speaking very shortly.)
“Who? Who do you mean had it fixed?”
“She did.”
“Oh—I see—she wanted to.”
“Yes, and her wanting was _doing_ it. The doctors were hunting some way
to shake her up, and left it to me. So I went in and gave her a jolt or
two that might change her mind.”
“What did you say?”
“Anything I could grab off the line.”
“Then she’s going to get well, is she?”
“How the hell do I know?”
Pentecost had put an end to the subject with that, but after a silence
of some little time, he went on,—and Harker took notice of a most
unusual softness in his voice.
“D’you know what I’d do, Hark, if I had it to do again—that is, if I
knew what it was that was eating him?”
Harker—surprised at his tone—kept his eyes on him for the answer.
“I’d ’a’ framed that Findlay soak for a twenty-year jack in a nice cool
cell, and then staked those two out in the mountains—or wherever it was
she had to go.”
“I thought you did know.”
“Not till too late. It was in a letter he left for me with Jamie Dreek.”
The two stood looking at one another.
“Well,” said Harker after a brief silence; “what’s the good of post
mortems?”
Pentecost nodded. “What’s the good?” he muttered.
A moment later he was hurrying on board, and with that came the end of
this “Pentecost Episode.”
* * * * *
_I take the liberty of adding a brief statement._
H. McC.
Dudley sat smoking heavily and abstractedly after Mr. Barnes had
finished a few business details with me, and after shaking hands with
both of us, had gone. I was to take a night express for New York, as my
time was up. We’d just got it in on the ten-day limit.
I saw that Duds had something on his mind—puffing away at his pipe and
staring down at the floor—so, as there was plenty of time before my
train I let him alone. He looked up at me after a wink, in the manner
of rousing himself.
“D’you know who that was that just went out?” he asked.
“What?—Oh!—Why Barnes of course!”
“No.” He shook his head. “Not Barnes of course, but some one else of
course. I’ve been keeping a few tabs on the man that’s been telling us
all this stuff, and there’s four things—with a possibility of five—that
no one on earth could know but Hugo Pentecost.”
“Good Lord!... Why ... then you think——”
“That’s it—I think.—But I’m going to make sure. He’s in town yet. I’ll
drop you a line to-morrow.”
The “line” reached me a couple of days later.
“It _was_ Pentecost,” was the statement it began with. And went on:
“That is, I mean it was the man that was—he’s something else now. He’s
in business abroad, and taking a steamer from here. His agent (or
‘trusty’ if you like) is going to get the manuscript from you when you
write it out. Take my advice and put in all this at the end of the
thing. It needs some sort of a finish, and this might do. If he doesn’t
like it he can cut it out when he gets the proof—and you can bet he’ll
get it.
“Couldn’t make him tell the sort of an enterprise he’s on over
there—says maybe he will sometime.
“It seems the girl—Edith Findlay—is making a slow recovery. I asked him
how the book would affect her if she got hold of it, and he said it
wouldn’t do her any harm by then. ‘And by God!’ he went on, ‘it’s just
as well for her to know—now she’s able to stand it—that such a man as
Charles Michael Haworth went happily and eagerly to his death, so that
she might live. You’d think she might run through her life on that, and
ask for nothing more. But probably not.’”
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes
pg 358 Changed: faintly wavering in the darknenss
to: faintly wavering in the darkness