THE DEATH OF WINTERS
Let me now pass quickly on with my tale over the few succeeding hours
which witnessed its final scenes. What remains to be told is as well
told shortly and I have no wish to linger over it.
It was the next morning, and I again sat in my office, when the shrill
voice of the office boy interrupted my bitter reflections.
"Mr. Littell to see you, sir," it said.
"Show him in," I answered mechanically. I had been thinking of him and
accepted the announcement as a matter of course, though I had no reason
to expect him at that moment. Less than a day had elapsed since I had
read the report of Miles and I had now to confront Littell. There had
been no opportunity to take counsel with myself upon my course. I had
hardly yet grasped the full import of the situation and I must at once
at this very moment meet him--talk to him. I could not do it. I needed
more time, and desperately pulling some papers in front of me, I buried
myself in what I meant to appear a mass of work.
The door opened and he stood upon the threshold. I pretended neither to
see nor hear his entrance, but I stole a glance at him without lifting
my head. It was the same Littell; perfectly dressed, graceful,
insouciant, the well remembered, attractive personality.
"Well, Dick," he said, "I am with you again you see!" and in his voice
was a note of genuine feeling as he stood there smiling a greeting to
me.
It was impossible to pretend unconsciousness longer and with an effort I
looked up and met his open glance with my conscious, faltering one, and
tried to respond as cordially as I could, but I kept my seat for I could
not take his hand. It was not that I would not take the hand of a
criminal, but that I could not give mine to a man I meant to destroy; so
to cover up the omission and to avoid the questions that I feared he
would put to me, I asked him to be seated while I finished my work. He
looked at me inquiringly, but I avoided his eyes.
"Well, go on with your work," he said quietly, "I am not in a hurry";
and he sat down and waited and watched me.
I struggled to fix my attention on the matters before me and to maintain
my composure, but it was more than I was equal to; I could not do it,
and crushing my arms over the books and papers, I squared myself and
faced him to meet the worst--anything was better than this suspense.
"You are not inclined to work after all, it seems," he remarked, on
observing my action.
"No," I said, "I cannot."
"What is the matter?" he asked, and what I should have answered I don't
know, for at that moment there was a knock at the door and in response
to my eager, "Come in!" Miles entered. No one knows the relief the
interruption brought to me, for it meant at least some moral support--if
not a respite. Miles looked at Littell and bowed, receiving a nod in
response, and then glanced inquiringly at me, and I understood the
question and shook my head. Littell may have observed us, but if so,
there was no evidence of it, for he continued as imperturbable as ever.
"Do you wish to speak to me privately?" I asked Miles.
"No, I think not," he replied; "what I have to say will interest Mr.
Littell as well"; and without waiting to be questioned, he added,
"Winters is dying!"
I rose. "I shall go to him at once," I said, and I asked the detective
to accompany me, but I said nothing to Littell, for it hardly seemed the
place for him.
"I think I shall go too," he announced, and then as if by way of
explanation, for he must have seen my hesitation, he added, "I am his
counsel, you know."
To this I had nothing to say. If he wished to go he had a right to do
so, and with a short nod of acquiescence I led the way from the room.
"I have a carriage at the door; there is no time to lose," Miles said,
and we entered it and were driven rapidly towards our destination.
After we were well on our way, Littell turned casually to Miles.
"Well," he said, "have you made any progress?"
The detective hesitated, then he answered simply, "Yes."
"Hardly found your man, though?" Littell continued in the same tone:
Again the detective hesitated and answered, "Yes."
I clutched the sill of the window and sank shivering back into my seat,
and then as Littell started to speak again, I grasped his arm. In
response he turned and looked at me for a second with something almost
like pity in his eyes, and then addressed himself again to Miles.
"Who is he?" he asked.
"Not now! not now!" I gasped, appealing to Miles. "I must tell him;
leave it to me."
"Very well," Miles answered, and Littell after a single inquiring
glance turned from us and for the remainder of the journey looked calmly
out the open window beside him. If he felt either fear or remorse it was
not apparent. He was inscrutable.
On arriving at the hospital we were conducted directly to the room of
Winters. It was not different from other prison hospital quarters--neat
and clean, but bare and hard, it was unspeakably dreary. A single barred
window before which a yellow shade was drawn let in a half-light that
was reflected from the whitewashed walls and showed at the farther end
of the room a narrow cot and upon it the wasted form of Winters. It was
motionless and the face was pallid and the eyes closed and I feared we
had not come in time. I crossed the room and stood by the side of the
bed and Littell followed me. By the window the doctor and a nurse were
conversing in low tones, but when I looked towards them inquiringly they
discontinued their conversation and the doctor came over to me.
"If you have anything you wish to say to him," he said, "you had better
do it at once; he will not last long." But I had nothing to say that
made it worth while to rouse the dying man and I was waiting the end in
silence when Winters opened his eyes and after a vague wandering look
about him, fixed them upon me. I leaned over him.
"Do you know me?" I asked, and in a voice scarcely audible, he whispered
"Yes."
"Is there anything I can do for you?" I asked next. His lips moved and I
thought I distinguished the name "Littell." I looked towards Littell. He
was standing at the foot of the bed, and his attitude was tense and his
face was white and drawn in the way that indicates suffering in a strong
man. He was not looking at me; his eyes were rivetted upon the bed: in
that room for him there was only Winters. I touched his arm.
"He wishes to speak to you," I said.
He seemed not to comprehend my words until I had repeated them and then
he moved close to the side of Winters and said very slowly and
distinctly:
"I am Littell; do you wish to speak to me?" At the sound of his voice
Winters looked up into his face and, recognizing him, smiled, and with
an effort spoke:
"I want to thank you for defending me," he said, "and to tell you I am
not guilty."
"I know you are not," Littell answered hoarsely; "I have always known
it." And then, after a moment's struggle with himself, he added, in a
voice as gentle and as tender as a woman's, "You have been wronged and
you have suffered, but you have borne it bravely, and it is over now."
As he listened to these words the face of Winters lighted up and he half
raised himself on his pillow and, turning to the speaker, reached out
his hands in a feeble gesture of gratitude. Littell took them in his and
sank down till his face was hidden beside the dying man. I bowed my head
and thus we awaited the end. After a while, Littell arose and gently
releasing the hands that had been clasping his, laid them tenderly down
and then with a little gesture of infinite appeal he touched the fair
hair that was clinging to the damp forehead and stood looking down at
the still form. Winters was dead, but on the boyish face at last was an
expression of happiness and of peace, and to Littell it had been granted
to bring it there.
I turned away--there was nothing more that I could do--and left Littell
for the moment with the dead and his thoughts. As I passed Miles on my
way out he stopped me.
"What am I to do now, sir?" he asked.
"Nothing," I said, "leave it to me." He hesitated before he asked:
"Do you mean to tell him?"
"Yes," I said.
"When?" he asked.
"At once," I said, "and I will not need you." He touched his hat and
left me.
I looked around. Littell was still by the bedside.
"We will take the carriage and drive to the club," I said, "when you are
ready."
In response to my almost peremptory tone he lifted his head haughtily:
"I am ready now," he said, coldly, and followed me with firm steps to
the carriage.
On arriving at the club I led the way within and, selecting an
unoccupied room, motioned him to enter and following closed the door;
without looking around or showing any surprise he walked to a table and,
having rung for a waiter, dropped into a chair. It was his usual club
habit. I saw no change.
"I want a drink," he said. "Will you join me?"
"No," I answered shortly.
"As you choose," he responded, and then from the waiter, who had
meanwhile appeared, ordered brandy.
While he waited for his drink he drummed idly on the table and I leaned
on the mantel striving to imitate his imperturbability. My sympathy, my
affection for Littell for the time were gone, and it was a hard and
unyielding man who faced him waiting for the moment to speak.
When the brandy was brought, Littell swallowed a glass of it and, having
done so, himself deliberately closed the door again behind the waiter,
so that we should be alone. Then standing with his back to it, he looked
at me and I at him. We understood each other.
"What have you to say to me?" he asked.
There were no signs of flinching on his part. I walked over to him.
"That you killed Arthur White," I said.
He took a step towards me and I steadied myself for what might be
coming, but he changed his purpose, whatever it was, and turned away
with a laugh.
"You are mad," he said.
"I have spoken the truth," I answered sternly, "and you know it."
"Your proof!" he demanded.
"It is here," I said, and I held out to him Miles's report; "you may
have it; it will show you that you have no chance."
He seemed to deliberate and then slowly, hesitatingly, like a man making
up his mind to something, he reached out and took the report from me,
and in the act our hands met and at the touch his face flushed, but mine
grew pale and I wavered. Suddenly he extended his hand to me and I took
it.
"It is all right, Dick," he said, but my head was bent and I did not
answer, and when I looked up he was gone.
I never saw him again, but the next morning's mail brought me this
letter from him:
THE LAST LETTER
"You are right; your dogged persistence has at last accomplished its
purpose and my end, and to what good? White is dead, Winters is dead,
and I shall be within a few hours. The tragedy has worked itself out. I
do not know that I am sorry the game is played,--life's game it has
proven with me; neither do I reproach you for your part in it. I might
have lived a few years longer, but I am not sure that I wish to. My life
has lasted sixty years, and they have not been so free from trouble that
I should crave a few more waning ones. The world owes me little, and I
owe it less; let us separate while we are at peace.
"I should wish, if you can find it consistent with that importunate
conscience of yours, that you would leave my memory as it now abides
with my friends, pleasantly, likely, and not overburdensome. I would not
ask even this, but all I take with me, or leave behind, is the
good-will of a few men, and I would as soon as it were not too rudely
ended.
"To you I am a murderer: not a pleasant word for a man to use about
himself; but the truth, nevertheless. I have not always agreed with
other men, and I do not in this, but such would be their verdict and I
recognize it.
"I was the instrument that brought about the death of White, just as I
shall be the instrument of my own death, but it was the original act
conceived in the mind of White that started the train of events that led
successively to both consequences. Had he been different in temperament,
or had I, it might have been otherwise, but with the conditions as they
existed, it was inevitable, and, after the initial step was once taken,
it was better so. He was less unhappy when we saw him that morning after
than he was when we left him the night before, and I shall be at peace
when you see me again, as I have not been in many days.
"No! I have never harbored remorse over White's death, and I indulge in
no regrets now for my own. We have worked out, each of us, our own
destiny, that is all; but with Winters, it was different. Poor fellow!
he had a hard time, and though he was a worthless drunkard, he had no
responsibility for the act which, in its consequences, shortened his
life. He suffered innocently, and I might have spared him, and I did
not. I was a coward in that and I despise a coward, but let that be. I
might tell you that I had intended, should it have come to that, to have
saved him from the gallows, but it is a weakness and an imposition to
ask credit for what one claims one might have done, and it is a plea as
available to a liar as to a truthful man.
"Whatever I might have done, I was saved the occasion by Winters's
death. With that my obligation ended. To have given my life for a
reputation that was well buried with the man, would have been quixotic.
It could have done him no good, and the world would not have cared.
"I hardly know why I have written you all of this. Perhaps it may be
because there comes to each of us, even the strongest, a wish at the end
to extenuate, to explain. No man can entirely separate himself in his
moral life from his fellows. No matter how vigorous his individuality,
he can never escape the consciousness of their standard and their
judgment, and he must be swayed by it more or less, even though he
denies it for awhile to himself.
"Such has been my case. Unknown to them, I have battled with my
fellow-men; the struggle has been all with me and yet they have won, and
at this last hour I cannot give up my place among them, even though it
be for oblivion, without a wish to live unsullied in their memories. I
have repudiated their laws and have established a law for myself, but in
the end mine has failed me and theirs controls. It is not that my law is
illogical or unethical, it is only that they will not accept it, and I
cannot escape from theirs.
"Am I inconsequent, I wonder, or incoherent? If so, it may be because
the presence of death makes man's mind wander or distorts his mental
vision, but I do not think it is thus with me. Such may be the case when
death comes slowly and the mental faculties are impaired, but when one
contemplates it, as I do now, in the full possession of all my
faculties, it is rather, I think, that a prescience of the unknown, a
touch of omniscience comes to a man and he knows more than other men
know.
"As I sit here with death beside me, waiting for me, I seem to see
things as I never saw them till now, and had I the chance I might wish
to live on, but it is too late; to-morrow would bring me ruin and
disgrace. Better death than that. It has been my philosophy that death
was not an evil, but a solution for evils, and I will abide by it.
"It grows late and this letter must catch the mail. Let me then tell you
quickly what I did that night, and how I came to do it, and so end all.
"I drew the Winters will and at the suggestion of White, who sought me
for the purpose, I made his bequest one hundred thousand dollars instead
of ten thousand dollars, and for doing so, I received a share. I needed
money, and when a man at my age needs money it is hard. The matter would
have ended there had White been less remorseful, but he grew daily more
morbid over it, till I knew that in spite of all I could do, he would
some day confess. Still I had no thought of killing him, and when I left
his house that night and fixed the catches on the doors so that I could
re-enter, and when I parted with you and retraced my steps, I had still
no thought of killing him. I meant only to reason with him and dissuade
him as I had done a dozen times before, but when I entered his room and
found myself alone in the safety of the night and saw him asleep with
the heaviness of drunken stupor and the means ready to my hand, the
thought came to me and it was the easier and the surer way.
"Then I put on the cap and ulster and gathered up the bills that were on
the table and went out. I left the ulster at Stanton's house, but forgot
the cap, and then, seeking the nearest elevated station, went home. In
the morning when I returned to White's rooms, I took the opportunity
while I was by the body to drop the cap unseen behind the divan. I knew
that it, as the other circumstances I had created, would but serve to
further involve the case when it should be investigated. That is all.
"I might tell more of the impulses that swayed me, and of my feelings on
that night and since, but it could serve no purpose and I am tired.
"I have rung for a servant to mail this; when he shall have taken it and
shall be out of hearing----
"Think kindly of me if you can, Dick! for I have loved you."
THE END