THE TRUTH AT LAST
It was nearly two weeks after my little dinner that I sat late one
afternoon alone in my office. The rain without pattered dismally against
the single window that looked into a deserted court and within the room
was dimly lighted by the fading daylight and the fire that flickered on
the hearth. The gloom of the close of a rainy winter's day was over
everything and my thoughts and heart seemed full of the vague shadows
that haunted the room. I was awaiting the coming of Miles, who that
morning had sent me word that he had something to report. During the
past fortnight he had been persistently engaged in working on his new
theory of the case, but with what results I did not know, for he had
told me nothing.
I also had at first made an effort to accomplish something along the
same lines, for I had found inaction almost unbearable, but it proved
to no purpose. The time had passed for analyses of conditions; what was
now needed was expert detective work, and this I could not do, and so I
had to give it up and in despair resign myself to idly waiting on Miles.
I might have sought the companionship of Van Bult and Davis, for they
were about as usual, doing the same old things in the same old way, but
I was not disposed to engage in their amusements and I doubt much if
they were anxious for the society of a man in a condition of mind such
as mine. From Littell I had only heard once since his departure and that
letter recently received from Florida was but to tell me that he was
about starting for home. He was coming back, he wrote, to again conduct
the defence of Winters; if it were so, it would prove but a wasted
errand, I feared, for there seemed little likelihood of Winters needing
our services again. He was very ill, and no longer confined in a cell,
but in the hospital ward of the prison to which he had been removed by
the physician's orders after the trial. His strength was gone, and it
did not need the professional eye to see that he was dying.
As soon as I had learned of his condition I had gone to him, not once
but almost daily, and each time I had spent long hours at his bedside.
No one was ever with him but his jailors and nurses; they were
attentive, considerate, but to them he was only a criminal whom they had
in charge and they performed their duties and no more. I was his only
visitor, his only friend; even the hysterical women whose habit it is to
shower their attentions and tears on hardened criminals found nothing
heroic enough by the silent bedside of this dying man to call for their
ministrations. His case, now become but a nine day's wonder, forgotten
or neglected by the press and public, furnished no longer a gallery to
be played to. Poor fellow! he must have spent many weary hours alone on
that prison bed with only his wasted life and his wrong-doings and his
wrongs to think of, but when I visited him he had always a smile and a
pleasant word with which to greet me,--there was never a complaint.
Sometimes he would talk of himself and of his early life when he and I
had been at college together, and he would ask about his old friends and
the outside world, and all in the manner of a man who had done with it,
but he seldom referred to the charge against him or to the death of
White. Once he asked me about Littell and Miles and when I assured him
of their continued interest in his behalf he shook his head and bade me
tell them to think no more of it--"they have been very kind," he
said--and I knew he meant he would not live for a second trial, and I
could not contradict him.
Sometimes during these days I would doubt, too, if it were worth
while--this task I had set myself--of hunting down the murderer, for it
could no longer avail to help Winters and must only bring more trouble
in its trail. The authorities would be content to let it pass with the
death of Winters into the long category of undetermined crimes and why
should not I also? and I would be tempted to call Miles from his work,
but always something--a vague fear I wanted quieted, held me back. I
would recall many things that had happened and that had made little
impression on me at the time, but which seemed now in the hours of my
solitude and depression to be fraught with some strange significance.
That speech of Littell's to the jury in which he had described the
murderer as a friend of White's, and his strange words of admonition to
me at our dinner, and the refusal of Miles to let me longer share in his
work, and the presence of the detective, lurking near our club when my
friends took their leave, what did it all mean? Was there something in
the background which I did not know and which they did not wish me to
learn? I feared for that which I knew not and which was coming with a
fear that gripped my heart, yet I would not lift a hand to stay it, but
waited for it with passive submission.
Such thoughts, such feelings as these possessed me as I sat alone in my
office this gloomy afternoon waiting for Miles. After a silence that
seemed ages he had at last sought me and I knew he had succeeded in his
task and was coming to tell me of it. As the hour drew near for his
arrival my vague fears grew stronger and would not be shaken off. I had
a premonition of evil--I tried and tried again to convince myself that
I was morbid and fanciful, but the thoughts and the fears would return
and each time with deeper and more sinister meaning. They crowded on me
as I sat bowed over my desk till I could bear them no longer and I got
up and walked to the window and, pressing my head against the cool
glass, stood looking with unconscious eyes through the rain into the
darkening court. How long I stood thus I don't know; every faculty was
absorbed in the one dreadful thought: "What if Miles has discovered the
murderer and is coming to tell me he is some one I know, a friend"--I
could get no further, just that train of thought, never finished, but
repeated and repeated, till cold and trembling I turned at last from the
window. As I did so I faced the detective; the hour had come. There was
just a moment of hesitation, and then I steadied myself.
"Well," I said, "what news."
"Let us sit down," he replied, "it is a long story."
I walked to my desk and resumed my chair, and he seated himself opposite
to me. By this time the room was in darkness, except for the flickering
light of the fire, and though I tried to study his face I could not do
so for the shadows.
"Well!" I repeated,--for he had not answered me,--"what news?" He leaned
forward and put his hand on my arm, but I shook it off and straightened
myself--"What news?" I said again sharply, though my voice was hoarse
and my words hardly articulate.
"I have discovered the murderer," he replied.
I tried to ask the name, but could not, and turned away to look into the
fire and watch with abstracted gaze the little yellow tongues of flame
as they darted here and there over the dark surface of the coal. They
seemed to me to be like tiny serpents at play and I smiled at their
antics, but underneath in the dull glow of the deep fire I found a
silent sympathy with my mood and there my gaze lingered while I thought.
The secret I had worked so long and hard to know was mine for the asking
and I was silent. I could feel Miles was looking at me and could read my
thoughts and thought me a coward, but what did it matter to me then? I
must think if I could think. A man may stop and wait and still not be a
coward--and so we sat in silence. At last something, perhaps it was
pity, made him offer a last chance of escape.
"I alone know the name of that man," he said; "and I need never tell
it."
I listened and I knew then that my struggle was over and won, and I
turned back to him and leaning across the desk looked him in the eyes:
"No," I said; "tell me his name."
"Littell," he answered.
I sank back in my chair; it had come at last and I knew now what it was
that I had feared and that, unacknowledged to myself, that fear had been
with me ever since,--well, no matter when, for I hardly know, but I had
guessed it, and it was not a secret that I had feared to hear, but the
sound of a name.
So for a long time we sat there while the hissing of the fire alone
broke the silence and the shadows deepened in the room. My thoughts were
travelling back over the years through which I had known and looked up
to the man who was now charged with crime. He had been my friend and
guide, and he had fallen. He was a murderer, and I must denounce him. My
nature recoiled from the dreadful thought.
"There must be some mistake," I said, "it cannot be"; and I looked at
the detective for some sign of wavering or uncertainty, and he
understood me, for his eyes fell pityingly, but the grave face gave no
hope. "I must have proof, then," I said. For answer he extended a roll
of paper he had been holding. I took it mechanically and unrolled it,
and, smoothing it out before me, sat staring blankly at it in the
darkness till he got up and lighted the gas and then I saw it was his
report.
"Read it," he said, and I obeyed, and read it deliberately,
dispassionately, each word. There was no need for question or comment,
it was all too plain, and when I handed it back to him I knew Littell
was guilty. This is what I read:
THE REPORT OF MILES
"This report relative to the case of the death of Arthur White covers
the period of my work from the time of the trial of Henry Winters to
date. The facts discovered before the trial were presented in the
evidence and need not be re-stated.
"They pointed to Winters as the criminal, but I did not believe him
guilty. If Winters was not guilty, theft was not the object for which
the crime was committed, for all the money missing not traced to him was
otherwise accounted for. This made it likely that the crime was
committed by a higher order of criminal, some one who had a personal
motive for wishing White out of the way. Such a man should be looked for
among White's associates. Mr. Littell had taken this line in his
defence, and it seemed sound. I was satisfied that the facts would not
lead me to the criminal: that course I had tried, and it had failed. I
therefore determined to try and find the criminal and trace him to the
crime. The method, though not generally approved, is not so haphazard as
it might seem to be, and I have tried it successfully before when only
circumstantial evidence was available.
"White's closest associates were Van Bult, Littell, and Davis, and they
had all been with him the night of his death. I therefore immediately
put detectives on each of them and began my work on the case of Van
Bult. I went to his rooms and interviewed his servant. Van Bult left his
rooms about seven o'clock on the evening of the murder. His servant, who
slept elsewhere, did not see him again till the following morning about
half-past six, when he went again to the rooms and found Van Bult there
and assisted him in his preparations for a journey, served his
breakfast, and saw him off by the eight o'clock train from the New York
Central Depot for Buffalo. He had been told by Van Bult the evening
before of his intended trip to Buffalo, and had come early that morning
by his order. He had not seen Van Bult again till the next succeeding
evening, when he had met him at the depot, in obedience to a telegram
sent from Buffalo in the name of Van Bult.
"Van Bult's actions on the night of the murder still remained to be
accounted for, and I sought information of them elsewhere. The rooms
adjoining Van Bult's are occupied by a gentleman named Dean, who is a
friend of his. I interviewed Dean. He recalled the night of the murder
and stated that on that night Van Bult had returned to his rooms about
one o'clock. He recalled the hour because he had been up and Van Bult
had come to his room and they had remained together talking for nearly
an hour and afterwards he had heard Van Bult for some time moving about
in his own rooms.
"In the meanwhile I had sent a man to Buffalo to trace his actions while
there. He reported that Van Bult had arrived there on the afternoon
after the murder, stopped at the Wilson House till the following
morning, and had then taken a train for New York. While in Buffalo he
remained most of the time in the hotel, but made a visit to a private
insane asylum, of which his wife had for two years been an inmate.
"Van Bult's actions were thus accounted for fully and I was satisfied of
his innocence.
"Next I took up the case of Littell. He parted from Mr. Dallas a little
before one o'clock on the night of the murder in Madison Square and
apparently continued up Fifth Avenue. He testified at the Coroner's
inquest that he walked directly to his hotel, The Terrace, near the Park
entrance. It was first important that I should determine about this
fact. For that purpose I went to the hotel and interviewed the desk
clerks. There are two of them who divide the night work, one relieving
the other at 1.30 A.M. Littell, on that night, had not reached the hotel
during the hours of the first clerk; he did come in about fifteen or
twenty minutes after the second one had taken the desk; therefore he
arrived about ten or fifteen minutes before two o'clock. There was no
trouble in fixing the occasion with the witnesses I interviewed.
Littell's association with so sensational a case had made all his
actions of that night a matter to be remembered by those who had seen
him. I had thus established the fact that nearly an hour had elapsed
between the time Littell left Mr. Dallas and that at which he arrived at
his hotel. It was altogether improbable under these circumstances that
he had gone directly home as he said he had done, but this was still
unimportant unless I could track him to the neighborhood of White's
house. It was evident that I could not expect to actually locate him
there, but I had another means available of establishing his probable
presence on the scene if such were a fact. The hour that intervened
between his parting with Mr. Dallas and his arrival at the hotel was too
much time to have been consumed in a direct walk there, but it was
insufficient to admit of his returning to White's house unless he later
used some quicker means of reaching the hotel than by walking. In such
event he must either have taken the elevated road or a cab. The former
seemed the more probable and the easier to determine, so I tried it. I
found that at about half-past one o'clock on the night of the murder, a
man wearing a long light coat and a soft gray hat, such as Littell had
on, took a north-bound train at the Eighteenth Street station. This I
learned from the night-guard, whose attention had been especially
directed to the passenger because of the necessity of changing a
five-dollar bill to make the fare. By itself this was not sufficient to
establish the identification but I had a further means at hand. If that
man was Littell he must have gotten off at some station near his hotel.
At the Fifty-eighth Street station on the same night about ten minutes
later Littell got off a north-bound train. The night-guard at this
station knew him and spoke to him, for he had been using the station
almost daily for several years. I had thus located him at four points
within an hour, that is Madison Square, a little before one o'clock;
Eighteenth Street elevated station about half after one; Fifty-eighth
Street, about ten minutes later, and at the hotel about a quarter before
two. I then accounted for his movements in the following way: he had
consumed about half an hour from the time he left Madison Square till
the time he took the train at Eighteenth Street. Of this period, he was
about five minutes returning to White's house; he was there about ten
minutes; the remaining fifteen minutes were divided between a journey to
Belle Stanton's and thence to the station.
"This all required action, but Littell is a man of quick action. Note
that I allowed time for him to have gone to Stanton's. I did this
because I have always believed that it was the murderer who left the
ulster there.
"The man the night-officer saw leave White's house about a quarter after
one o'clock was not White as he supposed, but the murderer wearing his
ulster and cap as a disguise. Note again the hour, a quarter past one
o'clock; the same at which my calculations place Littell there. There
remained another point to be determined.
"If my theory was correct and Littell the man who left White's house,
disguised in the ulster, and if he disposed of it at Stanton's house,
some explanation had to be found of his means of access to the house. If
he had such access it was most likely he secured it through Stanton,
with whom he was acquainted.
"From her I learned that Littell probably possessed a key to the front
door of the house where she lived; she told me that shortly before the
murder Littell had taken her home from a supper somewhere and that she
had given him her key to let her in and that he had failed to return it
to her. With this key in his possession his means of access to the
house is explained. With these facts brought out I had accomplished all
I could expect to from the events of that night.
"I could not actually fix the crime on any one because no one saw it
committed,--but I had demonstrated:
"1st. That Littell had testified falsely as to his movements on that
night.
"2d. That he had been in the neighborhood of the scene of the crime and
the place where the ulster was found, because he must have passed that
way to get from Madison Square to the corner of Sixth Avenue and
Eighteenth Street.
"3d. That he occupied over half an hour in covering the distance, which
is but six blocks, and therefore must have delayed in some way.
"There are also many peculiar circumstances in the case all explainable
on the theory of Littell's guilt:
"1st. The criminal secured admission to White's rooms, although the
doors were generally locked. Littell was there that night and had
opportunity to fix the catches so as to permit of the doors being
opened from the outside.
"2d. If White did not leave the ulster at Belle Stanton's house the
criminal did, and his object in so doing was plainly to convey the
impression that White had done so, and such purpose suggests a man
intimate with White and having knowledge of his personal affairs.
"3d. If White did not wear the ulster and the cap out that night the
criminal did, but the cap was back in White's room in the morning. The
criminal therefore must have found some opportunity of returning the
cap. Littell was on the scene and by the divan where the cap was found
before it was discovered the following morning.
"A strong circumstantial case was thus made out against Littell, but the
necessary motive was still lacking.
"For this motive in the case of a man like Littell, it was necessary to
look into White's life and actions, for the motive would not be of an
ordinary kind. The evidence had disclosed the fact that White had some
trouble of some kind and that another was involved in it; it had also
disclosed the fact that White felt under some great obligation to his
cousin Winters and the language used in the will, that he left his
estate to Winters as 'the reparation of a wrong,' pointed to the
disposition of his uncle's estate as the possible explanation of it all.
It was extraordinary under any circumstances that a father should leave
practically all of a large fortune to a nephew and cut off his only
child with almost nothing. I therefore investigated the circumstances
under which the will of Winters, Sr., was made. The will was witnessed
by the butler and a trained nurse who was in the house at the time, and
was made on the testator's death-bed. I found the butler and the nurse
and from them learned the following facts:
"On the morning of his death the testator in the presence of the nurse
told White he meant to leave him a bequest of ten thousand dollars and
asked him to go for his lawyers, who were Dickson & Brown. White
departed on the errand and returned in about an hour with Littell.
"The butler let them in and knew the latter.
"The nurse heard the testator ask White why he had not brought his
lawyers, to which White replied that they were both out of town. The
testator then instructed Littell as to the provisions of the will; his
voice was very weak and the nurse could not distinguish what they were.
Littell then left the room with White, and they went to the library,
where the butler provided them with materials for drawing the will. They
returned to the room of the testator and Littell read the will to him.
The nurse was standing in the embrasure of a window near the bed and
heard the will read. She remembered distinctly that as read by Littell
it gave to White the ten thousand dollars the testator had promised. The
testator did not read the will himself, he was not able to do so. The
will was thereupon duly executed by the testator and the witnesses, and
the former directed that it be given into the custody of Dickson &
Brown, who, as afterwards appeared, were named as executors. The
testator died that afternoon. I did not in any way suggest anything to
the nurse about the provisions of the will,--merely asked her if she
remembered them and she volunteered the statement about the bequest of
ten thousand to White. She did not even know that the will actually gave
to him a hundred thousand, for she had never given it further thought or
heard of it again. I visited the law firm of Dickson & Brown, and from
them learned that after the death of the testator but on the same day
White had delivered the will to them and also that they were neither of
them out of town on that day.
"Six months after the death of the testator they distributed the estate.
White received from them his bequest of one hundred thousand dollars and
deposited it in the bank as I on inquiry learned; within a week he
withdrew fifty thousand dollars and the succeeding day Littell deposited
that amount in a bank in Jersey City, subsequently withdrawing it and
depositing most of it--forty-odd thousand--in his own bank in this city.
This latter fact I learned from his New York bankers and through them I
was enabled to trace the deposit in the Jersey City bank, from which
bank the transfer had been made direct.
"The witnesses necessary to substantiate the foregoing facts are all at
hand and can be produced at any time.
"Respectfully submitted,
"C. Miles.
"New York, March --, 1883."