To have turned, to have intercepted the creeping figure in

its work, and thus have known definitely and forever which

one of you had thus furtively visited my medicine cabinet

before proceeding to my bedside, might have been the natural

course with some; but it was not my course. I was not

content just to interrupt. I wanted to know the full extent

of what I had to fear. A remark which Dr. Bennett had once

let fall recurred to me, transfixing me to my bed. "If you

were not a careful man," he had said in diagnosing my

present illness, "I should say that you had taken something

foreign into your system; something which has no business

there; something which under other circumstances and in

another man's case I should denominate _poison_." It had

seemed nonsense to me at the time, and I laughed at what I

considered a fatuous remark, uttered with unnecessary

gravity; but now that there was really poison in the house,

and one of my own blood stood hiding behind the screen

within a foot of my medicine glass, I could not but choke

down the cry which this thought caused to rise in my throat

and listen for what might come. Alas! I was destined to

behold with my eyes as well as hear with my ears the next

move made by my unknown visitant. By the grace of God or

through some coincidence equally providential, the gas at

this momentous instant was relit in the hall, and I

perceived, amid the old shadows thus called out upon the

wall, a new one--that of a hand holding a bottle, which,

projecting itself beyond the straight line cast by the

screen, was now stealing slowly but surely in the direction

of the table on which stood my glass of medicine. I did not

gasp or cry. Thought, feeling, consciousness even of my own

unfathomable misery seemed lost in the one instinct--to

watch that hand. Would it falter? Should I see it tremble or

hesitate in its short passage across the faintly illumined

space upon which my eyes were fixed? Yes, some monition of

conscience, some secret fear or filial remembrance made it

pause for an instant; but even as my heart bounded in glad

relief and human feelings began to re-awake in my frozen

breast, it steadied and passed on, and though I could no

longer see aught but a shadowy arm, I could hear

one--two--three--a dozen drops falling into my drink--a

sound which, faint as it was, made the guilty heart behind

the screen quake; for the hand shook as it retreated, and I

beheld distinctly outlined on the illumined space before me

the end of the semi-detached label which marked the special

bottle on which the word _poison_ is printed in large

letters.

No further doubt was possible. The medicine in my glass had

been strengthened and by the hand of one of my sons.

Which one?

In the misery of the moment I felt as if I did not care.

That any of you should seek my death was an overwhelming

grief to me. But as thought and reason returned, the wild

desire to know just what and whom I had to fear seized me in

the midst of my horror, mixed with another sentiment harder

to explain, and which I can best characterise as a feeling

of dread lest I should betray my suspicions and so raise

between my children and myself an insurmountable barrier.

Subduing my emotion and summoning to my aid all the powers

of acting with which I have been by nature endowed, I moved

restlessly under the clothes, calling out in a sort of

sleepy alarm:

"Who's there? Is it you, George? If so, reach me my

medicine."

But no George stepped forth.

"Leighton?" I cried petulantly. "Surely I hear one of you in

the room." But my son Leighton did not reply.

I did not call for Alfred. I could not! He was the last son

of his mother.

Did I wrong the others in not uttering his name also?

Meantime all was quiet behind the screen. Then I heard a

quick movement, followed by the shutting of a door, and I

realised that an escape had been effected from the room in a

way I had not calculated on--that is, by means of the

dressing-room opening out of the alcove in which my bed

stands.

I had thought myself a weak man up to that hour; but when I

heard that door close, I bounded to my feet and attempted to

reach the hall before the man who had thus escaped me could

find refuge in any of the adjoining rooms. But I must have

fallen insensible almost immediately, for when I came to

myself I found the foot-board of the bed within reach of my

hand, and the clock on the point of striking two.

I dragged myself up and staggered back to bed. I had neither

the courage nor the strength to push the matter further at

that time. Indeed, I felt a sort of physical fear, probably

the result of illness, which made it quite impossible for me

to traverse the halls and creep from room to room seeking

for guilt in eyes whose expression up to this unhallowed

hour had betrayed nothing worse than a reckless disregard of

my wishes.

Yet it was torment unspeakable to lie there in an

uncertainty which threw a cloud over all my sons. For hours

my thoughts ran the one gamut, George, Leighton, Alfred,

clinging agonisedly to each beloved name in turn, only to

drop into a dreadful uncertainty as I remembered the

temptations besetting each one of you, and the readiness

with which you all, from the oldest to the youngest, have

ever succumbed to them. There was no determining point in

the character of any of you which made me able to say in

this solitary and awful communion with my own fears, "This

one at least is innocent!" If I dwelt on George's generous

good nature, I also recalled his wild extravagance and the

debts he so recklessly heaps up at every turn he makes in

this God-forsaken city; if some recollection of Leighton's

strict ways in open matters of conscience came to soothe me,

there instantly came with it the remembrance of the various

tales which had reached my ears of certain secret

attachments which drew him into circles where crime is more

than a suggestion, and murder a possible attendant upon

every feast. Then Alfred--youngest of all but the least

youthful in his attitude towards the world and his

fellow-men--what honourable ambition had he ever shown

calculated to give me solace at this awful time, and make

the association of his name with a damnable crime an

impossibility and an outrage?

Meanwhile, my whole mental vision was clouded with the

pictured remembrances of your faces as seen in childhood, in

early youth, or at any other time, indeed, than the

intolerable present. George's, when he brought home his

first school medal; Leighton's, when he denied himself a new

pair of skates that he might give the money to a crying

street urchin; Alfred's, when the fever left him and his

cheeks grew rosy again with renewed health. All these young

and innocent faces crowded about me, awakening poignant

suggestions of the change which a few short, short years had

wrought in relations which once seemed warm and alive with

promise. Then, a group of frank-eyed boys; now,--this awful

question: _which?_

It was not till an hour had passed that I remembered that

the phial had not been returned to the cabinet. In whose

possession would it be found? Should I have a search made

for it? I turned cold in bed at the debasing, the

intolerable prospect of acting as detective in my own house.

Then the poisoned glass! it still stood beside me; if I left

it untouched it would show suspicion on my part, and

suspicion might precipitate my doom. How could I avoid

taking it without raising doubts as to my discovery of the

trick which had been played so near me? In the feverish

condition of my mind but one plan suggested itself. Throwing

out my arm, I precipitated the glass to the floor, over

which I heard it roll, with extraordinary sensations. Then I

waited for daybreak, in much the same condition of mind in

which a man awaits his last hour; for my heart yearned over

my sons even while panting under the consciousness that one

of them was a monster of ingratitude and innate depravity.

When Hewson and the girls came down, and I heard the stir of

life in the house, I rang my bell and asked for Hope. She

came in with beaming face and a smile full of happiness. She

had risen from a beauty sleep and, possibly because my

thoughts had been so dark, I had never seen her look so

bright and lovely. But her cheeks paled as she approached my

bedside and noticed my miserable appearance; and it was with

sudden anxiety she cried:

"What a wretched night you must have had, uncle! You look

poorly this morning. You should have sent for me before."

Again I summoned up all my powers of acting.

"I knocked over my medicine in the night. Perhaps that is

why I look so wretched. I did not sleep after four. You can

say so, if any of the boys ask after me at the breakfast

table."

With a woman's solicitude she moved around to my side, where

the screen stood.

"Why, what's this?" she exclaimed, stooping as her foot

encountered some small object.

I expected her to lift the glass. Instead of that she lifted

the bottle. It had been left there on the floor and not

carried out of the room, as I had naturally supposed.

I endeavoured to look undisturbed and as if this bottle had

been thrown over with the glass, but I failed pitiably. At

the sight of her dear, womanly face and the affection

beaming in every look, I broke down and raised my arms

imploringly towards her.

"Come to my arms!" I prayed. "Let me feel one true head on

my breast."

The next minute I was conscious of having said a word too

much. Her look, which you all know and love, changed, and,

while she submitted to my caresses and even warmly returned

them, it was with an appearance of doubt which I almost

cursed myself for having roused in that innocent breast.

"Why one true heart?" she repeated. "Are there not others in

this house? George and Alfred love you devotedly; and little

Claire--what child could show more fondness for a

grandfather than she?"

Why had she not included Leighton?

I endeavoured to right myself with some mechanical phrase or

other, but the attempt was not very successful, and she was

leaving the room in great disturbance when I called her

hurriedly back.

"I want you to smile as usual," I gravely enjoined.

"George's extravagances and Alfred's caprices are no new

story to you. I have been thinking about them, that is all,

but I had rather they did not know it."

I could not mention Leighton's name, either.

Meantime she was standing there with the poison bottle in

her hand. I could not bear to look at it, and motioned her

to restore it to the cabinet. As she did so, I perceived her

turn with half-open lips, as if about to ask some question.

But she either lacked the courage or the will to do so, for

she proceeded to the cabinet with the bottle, which she

placed quietly on the shelf. But almost instantly she took

it up again.

"Why, uncle," she cried, "there is not as much here as there

ought to be! I am sure the bottle was half full last night."

And then I remembered it was she who prepared my medicine

for me.

"And I left it on the shelf," she went on. "Uncle, how came

it to be lying by the side of your bed? Did you try to

strengthen the dose? You know you ought not to; Dr. Bennett

said that three drops in half a glass of water were all you

could take with safety."

I had not a word to say. My mind seemed a blank, and no

excuse presented itself. The wish which I had openly

cherished of seeing Hope married to one of my sons clogged

my faculties. My protest confined itself to a slow shake of

the head and a dubious smile she was far from understanding.

"I think I will stay with you," she gently suggested.

"Nellie will bring my breakfast up with yours, and we can

have a _tete-a-tete_ meal at your bedside."

But this did not chime in with my plans.

"No," said I. "Nellie can stay with me if you wish, but I

want you to go down. Your cousins will miss you if you are

not there to pour the coffee for them. Alfred shows an

astonishing punctuality of late, and George quite emulates

his younger brother's precision and haste. Leighton was

never late."

Her cheek grew the colour of a rose. Never before had I so

much as suggested to her the secret wish you have one and

all entertained ever since her beauty and affectionate

nature brought sunshine into this cold dwelling.

I was glad to see this colour; at the same time I was made

poignantly wretched by what it suggested. If Hope loved one

of my sons, and he should be the one who had--I felt more

than ever called upon to act warily. Here was someone

besides myself to think of. Your mother is dead and in

Paradise, but Hope is young and the crushing weight under

which I staggered could not well be borne by her. For her

sake if not for my own, I must locate the plague-spot that

to my mind spread defilement over all my sons. I must know

which of you to trust and which to fear; and that no mistake

should follow my attempt at this, I made haste to insure

that no warning should reach you through any change in

Hope's manner. So I reiterated my old command.

"Let me see you smile," said I, "or I shall think you regard

me as being in worse condition than I really am. Indeed, I

am almost well, Hope. My disease has yielded to Dr.

Bennett's treatment, and when I can rise above these sickly

fancies, which are the effect, no doubt, of the powerful

remedies I have taken, I shall be quite like my old self.

After breakfast let me see you here again. I may have some

letters requiring an immediate answer."

My natural tones reassured her. The force of my feelings had

brought some colour into my cheeks, and I probably looked

less ghastly. She turned away with a smile. Alas! her face

renewed its brightness and shone with sweet expectancy as

she approached the door.

Nellie brought me my breakfast and I forced myself to eat

it. My mind was regaining its equilibrium and my will its

power. Just as I was folding my napkin, Hewson came in. He

had brought me an especial tid-bit, prepared in the chafing

dish by Hope's own hands. But I could not eat it. The

thought would rise that she had seen far enough into my mind

to imagine I would dread eating anything she had not cooked

for me herself. As Hewson was withdrawing, I asked if you

were all well. His answer was an astonished Yes. At which I

ventured to remark that I had heard someone up in the night.

"That was Miss Meredith," he explained. "I heard her tell

Mr. George at the breakfast table that she came down to your

door about one in the morning to listen if you were quiet.

She said she found the gas blown out in the hall, and that

she lit it again. I had left the sky-light open; it don't do

these windy nights, sir."

I was disturbed by this discovery. That she should have been

at the door at a moment so fraught with danger and misery to

myself was a thrilling thought; besides, might she not have

been so happy or so unhappy as to have caught a glimpse of

the man who crept out of my dressing-closet a moment later!

Overcome by a possibility which might settle the whole

question for me, I let Hewson go in silence; and when Hope

came back, drew her gently but resolutely down on the bed at

my side and said to her with a smile:

"I have just learned how my dear girl watches over her

uncle's slumbers. You are too careful of me; I had rather

have you sleep. George's room is on this floor; let him come

and see how I am in the night, if you are so uneasy."

"George would never wake up without assistance," said she.

"I could not trust you to his tender care, well meaning as

he is."

"Leighton, then. He's a light sleeper. I have often heard

you say that you have heard him pacing the floor of his room

as late as three in the morning."

"But he sleeps better now. Alfred might stop on his way in;

but Alfred does not stay out as late as he used to. He comes

in quite regularly since you have been ill."

Were her eyes quite true? Yes, they were as true as the sky

they mirror. I grasped her hand and ventured upon a vital

question.

"Who was up at the same time you were last night? I am sure

I heard a man's step in the hall, just about the time you

relighted the gas."

"Did you know about the gas?" she asked. "I found it

smelling dreadfully. But I didn't encounter anyone in the

hall. I guess you imagined that, uncle."

"Perhaps!" was my muttered reply, as I wondered how I was to

ask the next question. "When did you go upstairs?" I finally

inquired.

"Oh, right away. I didn't wait a minute after I found you

quiet. It was cold in the halls--Hewson had left the

sky-light open, and my trip after a match chilled me."

"Was your cousin Leighton's door open?" I instantly

inquired. "Or did you hear any door shut after you went up?"

She leaned over me and looked anxiously into my face.

"Why do you ask so many questions, uncle, and in so hard a

voice? Would there have been any harm in my cousins being

up, or in my running across one of them in the hall?"

"Not ordinarily. But last night----"

Here my weakness found vent. I must share my secret, if only

as a safeguard; I could not breathe under the dreadful

weight imposed upon me by this uncertainty. And she knew I

had some dreadful tale to tell; this I was assured of by the

white line creeping into view about her lips, and by the

convulsive clasp with which she answered my clutch.

Forgetting her youth, ignoring all the resolves I had made

in the secret watches of the night, I drew her ear down to

my mouth and gasped into it the few tell-tale sentences

which revealed the dishonour of our house. I caught the

thrill of anguish which went through her as I made plain

the attempt which had been made upon my life, and never

shall I forget her eyes as she slowly drew back at the

completion of my tale, and surveyed me in the silent

suspense which seemed to mirror forth my own deep

heart-question: _Which?_

Sons, I could not answer the demand made by that look, nor

can I answer it now. You all came in soon after, and each

and all of you had something to say about the mischance of

the night which had so visibly affected me. And I did not

dare to read your eyes. Brought face to face with you, I

seemed to shrink from, rather than seek for, the settling of

this dreadful question. Perhaps because I regard you with

equal affection. Perhaps because your mother's picture was

visible over your heads, and it seemed like sacrilege to her

memory to consider such a question under her loving and

trusting eyes. At all events you left me with my mind still

in doubt, to confront Hope again, and with her the wretched

future which the night's experience had unfolded before us

both. I found her filled with a confidence I could not

easily share. She believed in the integrity of the man she

held dearest, but she would not tell me which of you she

thus loved. And I could only guess. But even this belief

weakened a little as we talked together, and I soon saw by

the arguments she used that peace and certainty would never

be hers again as long as a doubt remained as to which of her

cousins had conceived and perpetrated this criminal act. As

for me, the future holds no comfort. I shall give each of

you a thousand dollars to-night in celebration of my

anniversary of marriage, and perhaps this will awaken the

conscience of the one who loves my money better than my

life. Then, though I shall not change my will, I shall

publish abroad that I have had losses which only a fortunate

speculation can make good, and see if by these means the

cupidity which came near costing me my life may not serve to

insure me a sufficiently prolonged existence for me to

separate in my own mind the one black sheep from the white.

But if these measures fail, if I am doomed to fall a victim

to the unknown hand which I must henceforth see lifted over

my life, if Hope's watchfulness and my own vigilance cannot

prevent the repetition of an act which, if once determined

upon, cannot fail of fulfilment in a house like this, then

this letter read by you all in concert must prove the

punishment of the guilty one. And since none of you will

read these lines except under these circumstances of death

and crime, I hereby charge that guilty one to speak, and as

he hopes to escape my curse and the wrath of an outraged

Deity, to avow his crime in her presence and in that of the

two brothers he will thus exonerate.

Having done this, he may take or leave his portion of the

estate. I shall be satisfied, and the God whose commandments

he has doubly defied may forget to avenge a crime forgiven

by its object.

To my two sons whose filial instincts have never been thus

disturbed, I leave my blessing. May all happiness be theirs,

whether this does or does not include the love of the dear

girl whose future I have thus endeavoured to clear.

ARCHIBALD GILLESPIE.

I have inserted this letter here that you may understand the situation

which ensued upon its perusal by the three brothers.

We, who had not read it, were simply startled to note the way in which

these three young men drew back as from a common centre, as the last

words fell from Leighton's well-nigh paralysed lips.

Then Alfred, in a rush of ferocious passion, bounded forward again,

and striding up to George, shouted out in an awful voice, "_You_ are

the man!" and struck him without mercy to the floor.

IX

THE CLOCK THAT HAD RUN DOWN

In the commotion which followed, I noted two things. First, that at

sight of this violence from one brother to the other, Leighton drew

back without offering assistance to the one or rebuke to the other.

Secondly, that Alfred's show of anger ceased as soon as it had thus

expended itself, and that his next thought was for Hope.

But he was not allowed to approach her. The coroner now interfered

with his authority, and all words were forbidden between these members

of a disrupted household, till the police had finished an

investigation, which had now become as serious as the crime which had

called it forth.

The search was for the little phial which had held the acid, and when

it was generally understood that the investigation would not cease

till this was found, Miss Meredith, who had clung to me as her one

stay in this overturning of every other natural support, asked me in

agitated tones if I thought her cousins would be subjected to personal

search. As no other course was open to the police after the direct

accusation which had just been made by the infuriated Alfred, I

answered in the affirmative; whereupon she attempted to flee the

place, saying she could not endure to see them subjected to such

humiliation.

But here Alfred, as if divining her thoughts, offered his person to

Mr. Gryce with the remark:

"I have nothing to conceal. Look through my pockets, if you wish. You

will find nothing to reward your pains. _I_ am not the villain."

A growl of anger, bridled but concentrated, came from the other side

of the room, and I caught a sudden glimpse of George, quivering under

the restraining hands of Dr. Bennett and Sweetwater, in a mad attempt

to reach his brother, whom he seemed to curse between his teeth.

"If you search him, you must do the same to me," were the words with

which he seasoned this struggle. "You will find nothing more

incriminating on me than on him; probably less, for my pockets are

always open--while his----" A gnash of his teeth finished these almost

inarticulate phrases. He was not as easily roused as his brother, but

more tenacious in his passions, and less readily appeased.

"Peace, there! You shall both be satisfied," interposed a businesslike

voice. In face of these open accusations, the coroner felt himself

relieved from the embarrassment which had hitherto restrained him, and

made no further effort to hide his suspicions.

Miss Meredith, who unconsciously to herself had drawn me as far as the

drawing-room door in her efforts to escape the disquieting scene she

had herself precipitated, paused as these words left the coroner's

lips, and, yielding to the terrible fascination of the moment, caught

my arm, and clinging thus with both hands, turned her eyes again upon

the men under whose roof she had eaten, slept, and loved; ay, loved,

as I knew by the tension of her body, communicated to me by the

pressure of her hands.

Suddenly that pressure was removed. Her hands had flown to her eyes,

shutting out the spectacle she could no longer confront. Nor was it

easy for me to look on unmoved, or view with even an appearance of

equanimity the scene before me.

I have not mentioned Leighton. He had not come forward with the other

two, but he allowed his pockets to be searched without a protest when

his turn came, though it was very evident that the proceeding caused

him more suffering and a keener sensation of disgrace than it did the

other two. Was this on account of the superior sensitiveness of his

nature, or because he shrunk with a proud man's shame from the

publicity entailed upon the anomalous articles which were drawn from

his inner pockets? When some few minutes later my eyes fell on these

objects lying piled on the library table, I marvelled over the

character of a man who could gather and retain in one place a small

prayer-book, a lock of woman's hair, the programme of some common

music hall, and a photograph which after one glance I instinctively

turned face downwards, lest it should fall under the eye of his

cousin, whose delicacy could not fail to be hurt by it.

The phial had not been found on any of the young gentlemen.

When Miss Meredith became aware that the ordeal was over, she let her

hands drop, and stepped hastily into the drawing-room. I did not

follow her, but remained in the doorway watching the detectives as

they moved from room to room in the search which was now being

extended to all parts of the house. As I saw these men pass so quietly

but with such an air of authority into rooms where a few hours before

they would have hesitated to put foot even upon the genial owner's

express invitation, I experienced such a realisation of the abyss into

which this hitherto well-reputed family had fallen that I lost for a

little while that sense of personal bitterness which the predictions

evinced by Miss Meredith had so selfishly awakened.

But to continue the summary of events.

Seeing Leighton withdraw upstairs, followed by an officer in plain

clothes, who had appeared on the scene as if by magic, I could not

refrain from asking why he was allowed to separate himself from the

others, and was much moved at being informed that he had gone up to

sit by his child's bed, that child who of all in the house had found

her wonted rest.

That he could calm himself down to such a task under the eye of one

who could have little sympathy with his feelings, whether they were

those of outraged innocence or self-accusing guilt, struck me as the

most pathetic exhibition of self-control I had ever known; and more

than once during the busy hour that followed, I was visited by

fleeting visions of this silent man, sitting out the night under the

watchful eye of one who moved if he so much as lowered his head to

kiss the only cheek likely to smile upon him on the morrow as it had

smiled upon him to-day.

That the search for the missing phial was likely to be a

long-continued one soon became apparent to everyone. Two men who had

carried the investigation into the room where the servants had been

shut up since early evening, came back with the report that nothing

had come to light in that quarter. At the same time two more returned

from above with a similar report in regard to the sleeping-rooms of

the three brothers. Sweetwater and Gryce, who had spent the last

half-hour in the dining-room, appeared to have an equally

unsatisfactory tale to tell, and I was wondering what move would now

be made, when I intercepted a glance from the coroner cast in the

direction of the drawing-room, and realised that the law was no

respecter of persons and that she, she too, might be called upon to

give proof of not having this tell-tale article upon her person.

The prospect of such an indignity offered to one I regarded with more

than passing admiration unnerved me to such an extent that I was

hardly myself when Dr. Frisbie advanced upon me with this remark:

"I regret the necessity, Mr. Outhwaite; but the emergencies of the

case demand the same compliance on your part as on that of the other

gentlemen found upon this scene of crime. It is needless to say that

we have the utmost confidence in your integrity, but you were here

when Mr. Gillespie died, and have been close to a certain member of

this family many times since--and, in short, it is a form which you as

a lawyer will recognise and----"

"No apologies," I prayed, recalling the one son of Mr. Gillespie who

had not been on the scene of crime at the time of his father's death.

An intelligent glance from the coroner convinced me that he was

thinking of him too. Indeed, he seemed to be more than willing to have

me understand that he exacted this thorough search in order to fix the

crime on Leighton. For if the phial was not to be found anywhere in

the house, the necessary conclusion must be that it had been carried

out of it by the one person known to have left it during the critical

half-hour preceding Mr. Gillespie's death.

"I understand your thoughts," quoth the coroner, who seemed to read my

face like an open book. "The phial may have been smashed on the

sidewalk or thrown into some refuse barrel. But that would be the

unwisest thing a guilty man could do. For its odour is unmistakable,

and once it is found by the men I will set looking for it at

daybreak--Well, what now?"

Sweetwater was whispering in his ear.

"The child? Do I remember that the father suggested she should be put

to bed undressed? Oh, I cannot have you disturb the child. Used as I

am to the subterfuges of criminals I find it impossible to believe

that a father could make use of his child as a medium for his own

safety."

"Or Miss Meredith?" the insidious whisperer went on.

"Or Miss Meredith. She may have the bottle on her own person, but she

would never pass it over to the child. No, no! curb your extravagances

and confine your attention to Mr. Outhwaite, who is kind enough to

allow us to inspect his pockets----"

Here the curtain at the drawing-room door was disturbed and a pallid

face looked forth.

"I pray you," came in entreaty from Hope's set lips, "spare this

stranger, whose only crime has been to show kindness to a man he did

not know, in an extremity he did not understand. Search me; search

Claire; but do not subject this gentleman to an act so injurious. I

swear that the phial is not on him! I swear----"

She hardly knew what she was saying. The heaped-up excitements of the

last two hours were fast unsettling her reason.

She held out her hands imploringly. "I don't know why I care so much,"

she murmured in fresh expostulation, "but I feel as if I could not

bear it."

From that moment I loved her, though I knew this interposition in my

behalf sprang from her womanly instinct rather than from the

spontaneous impulse of a freshly awakened heart. I must have shown how

deeply I was moved, for the coroner looked distressed, though he gave

no signs of modifying his intention, and I was beginning to empty my

pockets before his eyes, when Sweetwater's expressive countenance

showed a sudden change, and he rushed again to the rear. Here he stood

a moment before the dining-room door, striking his forehead in

wrathful indecision; then he disappeared within, only to shout aloud

in another instant:

"Fool! fool! And I noticed when I first came in that the clock had

stopped. See! see!"

We were at his side in an instant. He was standing by the mantelpiece,

with the heavy French clock tilted up before our eyes. Under it,

tucked away in the space allowed to the pendulum, we saw a small

homoeopathic bottle. There was one drop of liquid at the bottom,

which even before Mr. Gryce lifted the bottle to his nose we

recognised by its smell to be prussic acid.

The phial which had held the deadly dose was found.

X

THE PENCIL

Under Sweetwater's careful guidance, the clock fell slowly back into

place. It was one of those solid time-pieces which seem to form part

of the shelf on which they stand. When it was again quite level, he

pointed to its face. The hands stood at half-past nine, just ten

minutes previous to the time of my entering the house.

"At what hour did Mr. Leighton Gillespie go out to-night?" he asked.

No one answered.

"Before half-past nine or after it?" urged the coroner, consulting the

faces about him for the answer he probably had no expectation of

receiving from anyone's lips.

"Leighton's all right," cried out a voice from the library. "I hate

his puritanical ways, but there's no harm in him."

It sounded like Alfred, but the impression made by this interruption

was not good.

"Will you allow me to state a fact," ventured Miss Meredith, coming

impulsively forward. "If you hope to establish the guilt or innocence

of anyone by the time marked by these hands, you will make a mistake.

The clock has been out of order for some days. Yesterday it ran down.

I heard my uncle say that it would have to go back to Tiffany's for

repairs."

"Fetch in the butler or whoever has charge of this room," ordered Dr.

Frisbie. "Let none of you attempt to speak while he is present. I wish

to interrogate him myself and will have no interruptions."

We all drew back, and silence reigned in the spacious apartment which,

lit up as for a dinner party, was yet in such a state of disorder that

the orderly old butler groaned as his eyes fell upon the heaped-up

rugs, the overturned chairs, and the great table stacked with fine

china and cut-glass taken from the buffet and closets.

"Oh, what shall I do here?" he grumbled. "What would master----"

He did not finish; but we all understood him. The coroner pointed to

the clock.

"When was this wound last?"

The old man stared at the time-piece, mumbled, and shook his head.

Then his eyes fell on Miss Meredith.

"I don't remember," he protested. "It has not been running for days;

has it, Miss? I have had to use my watch in order to be on time with

the meals. Why do you ask, sir?"

He was not answered. This repeated closing up of every avenue of

inquiry was beginning to tell upon the police.

"Mr. Gillespie looked very sober, very sober indeed, when he found he

had to drink his wine alone," continued the butler, with a melancholy

emphasis calculated to draw our attention back to the scene which had

manifestly made such an impression upon him. "He lifted up his glass

and held it out a long while before he drank it. I think he looked at

each one of the young gentlemen in turn, but I didn't care to watch

him too closely, for there was something solemn about him which made

me feel queer, living so long as I have in the family and with every

one of these young gentlemen babies in arms when I came here. He drank

it finally, standing. But there was no harm in that glass, sirs, for I

finished the bottle myself afterwards, and I am well, as you see.

More's the pity!"

"Shut up!" shouted an angry voice from across the hall. "You are

making a ---- mess of the whole affair with your confounded drivel."

The coroner motioned the butler away.

The atmosphere of the house had now become oppressive even to me, and

for the first time I experienced a desire to be quit of it, and would

certainly have made some movement towards departure had it not been

for my dread of leaving Miss Meredith alone with her own thoughts.

Meanwhile the coroner was issuing his orders.

"Dakin, request the gentlemen upstairs to come down again for a few

minutes. Dr. Bennett, the body of your patient can now be moved."

"Ah, here we are again," he exclaimed, as Leighton was heard

descending the stairs.

"Now, if the two other sons of the deceased will attend to my words

for a moment I will state that under the existing circumstances I feel

it my duty to call a jury and hold an inquest over Mr. Gillespie's

remains. The phial smelling of prussic acid having been found in the

dining-room, I shall only require restraint put upon the movements of

the two sons of Mr. Gillespie who are known to have entered this room

during the hour when this fatal dose was administered. The one called

Alfred, having remained above, is for the present free from suspicion.

I would be glad to show the same consideration to the others; but the

facts demand a severity which I hope future developments will allow us

to confine to the guilty party. Mr. Outhwaite, I must request you to

hold yourself subject to my summons. Miss Meredith, I advise you to

hold no communication with your cousins till this matter shows a

clearer aspect."

He was moving off, when Alfred, who had been shifting uneasily under

George's eye, stepped up to him and said:

"I don't want any discrimination made between my brothers and myself.

I may be quite conscious of my own innocence, but I cannot accept any

show of favours founded on a misconception. If George and Leighton are

to be subjected to surveillance on account of entering the dining-room

this evening, then I want to be put under surveillance too. For I was

in that room as well as they, searching for a small gold pencil which

I had dropped from my pocket at dinner-time."

This acknowledgment made under such circumstances and against such odds

was calculated to enlist sympathy, and my heart warmed towards the man who

in the heat of anger could strike a brother to the ground, but scorned at

a less angry moment to take refuge in a misunderstanding which left that

brother at a disadvantage.

But the imperturbability of the elderly detective, who at that moment

found something to interest him in the chasing on a Chinese gong

hanging from a bracket in the hall, warned me not to be too quick with

my sympathies. Kindly as he beamed upon this favoured object of his

attention, I saw that he took little stock in the generous attitude

assumed by Mr. Gillespie's youngest son; and my attention being

attracted to his movements, I was happily glancing his way when he

suddenly approached Alfred with what looked like an empty tumbler in

his hand.

"Is this the article you refer to?" he asked.

And then we saw that the tumbler was not empty,--that it held a small

object standing upright in it, and that this object was a gold pencil.

"Yes, that is my pencil," Alfred acknowledged. "But----"

"Oh, I am accountable for putting it into the tumbler," the old man

admitted. "The tumbler was a clean one, Mr. Gillespie. I assure you I

examined it closely before making it a receptacle for this pencil. But

the pencil itself--Let me ask you to put your nose to it, Mr.

Gillespie."

It was a suggestion capable of but one interpretation. Alfred started

back, his eyes staring, his features convulsed. Then he bent

impulsively forward and put his nose to the object Mr. Gryce held out.

With what result was evident from the sudden damp which broke out on

his forehead.

XI

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT

"Fatality!" exclaimed Alfred. And, raising his head, he strode

impetuously towards Miss Meredith. "You have enjoined a confession of

guilt and forbidden us to assert our innocence," he cried. "But I

shall assert mine now and always, whatever happens and whoever

suffers. I should not be worthy of the happiness I aim at, if I did

not declare my guiltlessness in the face of facts which seem to

militate against me."

"I believe you--" she began, her hand trembling towards his. But the

confiding impulse was stayed--by what thought? by what dread? and her

hand fell and her lips closed before she had completed the sentence.

"I am innocent," he repeated, drawing himself up in proud assertion,

nobly borne out by the clear regard of the eye which now turned

alternately on George and Leighton, who were standing upon either side

of him.

"What is the use of repeating a phrase you cannot back up with proof?"

called out George, who was still gnawing his own special grievance. "I

am as innocent as you are, but I scorn to take advantage of each and

every opportunity to assert it."

Leighton neither spoke nor moved. The melancholy in which he was now

completely lost repelled all attempt to break it. Nor did this

expression of complete wretchedness alter during the hubbub that

followed. When it did--but I must make clear the circumstances of this

change. I was engaged in making my adieux to Miss Meredith, when

Sweetwater, after a marked effort to meet my eye, motioned me to join

him in the doorway of the den where Mr. Gillespie's body still lay.

Not enjoying the summons, yet feeling it impossible to slight them, I

ventured, for the last time, or so I hoped, down the hall.

The young detective was looking into the room which had already played

so conspicuous a part in the events of the night, and as I drew up

beside him, I perceived that his eyes were fixed not upon the

out-stretched figure of its late occupant, but on the face and form of

Leighton Gillespie, who was bending above it.

For all the humiliation I felt at thus sharing the professional

surveillance entered into by this able young detective, I could not

resist following his glance, which seemed to find something remarkable

in the attitude or expression of the man before me.

The result was a similar interest on my part and a score of new

surmises. The melancholy which up till now had been the predominating

characteristic of this inscrutable face had yielded to what could not

be called a smile and yet was strangely like one; and this smile or

shadow of a smile, had in it just that tinge of sarcasm which made it

the one look of all others least to be expected from a son who in

common with his brothers laboured under a suspicion of having been

the direct cause of his father's death.

With the memory of it fixed indelibly in my mind, I moved away, and in

another moment was quit of the house in which I had spent four hours

of extraordinary suspense and exciting adventure. As I passed down the

stoop, I met a young man coming up. He was the first of the army of

reporters destined to besiege that house before daybreak.

XII

GOSSIP

Next morning I routed up Sam Underhill at an early hour. Sam Underhill

is my special friend; he is also my nearest neighbour, his apartment

being directly under my own.

He is a lazy chap and I found him abed, and none too well pleased at

being disturbed.

"What the dickens brings you here at this unearthly hour?" was the

amiable greeting I received.

I waited till he had made himself comfortable again; then I boldly

stated:

"You are a club-man, Sam, and consequently well up in the so-called

gossip of the day. What can you tell me about the Gillespies?--the

three young men I mean, sons of Archibald Gillespie."

"George, Alfred, and Leighton? What possible interest can you have in

them? Rich fellows, spendthrifts, every one of them. What have they

been up to that you should rout me up at this hour----"

For reply I opened out the morning paper which I had been careful to

bring along.

"See here!" I cried: "_'Archibald Gillespie, the well-known broker,

died suddenly last night, from the effects of some drug mysteriously

administered.'_" I was reading rapidly, anxious to see what kind of a

story the reporters had made of it. "_'He had been ill for some weeks

back, but seemed perfectly restored up to half-past nine o'clock last

evening, when he fell and died without warning, in the small room

known as his den. A bottle of chloral was found on the mantel but

there is no proof that he took any of it. Indeed, his symptoms were

such that the action of a much more violent drug is suspected. His

little grandchild was a witness to his last moments.'_ George,

Leighton, and Alfred are now more than rich fellows. They are rich

men," I suggested, relieved that my name had not appeared in the

headlines.

"They need to be," was the short reply. "One of them at least stood in

great need of money."

"Which?" I asked, with an odd sensation of choking in my throat.

"George. He's about played out, as I take it. To my certain knowledge

he has lost in unfortunate bets thirty thousand dollars since summer

set in. He has a mania for betting and card-playing, and as his father

had little patience with vices of this nature, their relations of late

have been more than strained. But he's a mighty big-hearted fellow for

all that, and a great favourite with the men who don't play with him.

I heard he was going to be married. That and this sudden windfall may

set him straight again. He's a handsome fellow; did you ever meet

him?"

"Once," I acknowledged. Then with an effort of which I was more or

less ashamed, I asked the name of the girl who was willing to take

such a well-known spendthrift for a husband.

Sam did not seem to be as well posted on this point as on some

others.

"I have heard her name," he admitted. "Some cousin, who lives in the

same house with him. The old gentleman fancied her so much, he

promised to give a big fortune to the son who married her. It seems

that George is likely to be the lucky one. Strange, what odd things

come up in families."

"There is another brother--Alfred, I think they call him."

"Oh, Alph! He's a deuced handsome chap, too, but not such a universal

favourite as George. More moral though. I think his sole vice is an

inordinate love of doing nothing. I have known him to lie out half the

night on a club-divan, saying nothing, doing nothing, not even

smoking. I have sometimes wondered if he ate opium on the sly. Life

would be stupid as he spends it, if dreams did not take the place of

the pleasant realities he scorns."

I must have shown my amazement. This was not the Alfred Gillespie I

had met the night before.

"I have heard that everything was not quite smooth with him. I know I

haven't seen him around lately, crushing pillows and making us all

look vulgar in contrast to his calm and almost insulting

impassibility. I wonder what he will do with the three or four

millions which will fall to his share."

"Marry," I suggested, fillipping a fly from my coat-sleeve.

"He? Alph? I don't believe he could hold himself erect long enough to

go through the ceremony. Besides, it would be such a bore. That's my

idea of Alph."

It was not mine. Either he had greatly changed, or Sam Underhill's

knowledge of him was of the most superficial character. As I wavered

between these two conclusions I began to experience a vague sensation

of dread. If love could effect such a transformation in so unlikely a

subject as the man we were discussing, what might it not effect in an

ardent nature like my own?

I hastened to change the subject.

"The third brother is already married, I believe."

"Leighton? Oh, he's a widower; has been a widower for years. He was

unfortunate in the marriage he made. After the first year no one ever

saw young Mrs. Gillespie in public. I don't think the old gentleman

ever forgave him that match."

"What was the trouble? He seems to have a dear little girl. I saw her

when I saw her uncle."

"Oh, the child. She's well enough, but the mother was--well, we will

be charitable and say erratic. Common stock, I've heard. No mate at

all for a man like him. Not that he's any too good either for all his

hypocritical ways. I have no use for Leighton. I cannot abide

so-called philanthropic men whose noses are always in the gutter. He's

a sneak, is Leighton, and so inconsistent. One day you hear of him

presiding at some charity meeting; the next night you find him behind

the scenes at a variety theatre. And as for money--not one of Mr.

Gillespie's sons spends so much. He has just drained the old man's

purse, or so I've heard; and when asked to give an account of himself

mentions his charities and many schemes of benevolence--as if the old

man himself didn't spend thousands in just such lines."

"He doesn't look like a prig," I ventured.

"Oh, he looks well enough. But there's something wrong about the man.

His own folks acknowledge it; something shameful, furtive; something

which will not bear the light. None of those boys are chips of the old

block. Let's see the paper. What are you holding it off for? Anything

more about Mr. Gillespie's death? Do they call it suicide? That would

be a sad ending to such a successful life."

"One question first. Was Mr. Gillespie a good man?"

"He was rich; yet had few if any calumniators."

I handed him the paper. There were some startling lines below those I

had read out so glibly.

"They do not stop at suicide," I remarked; "murder is suggested. The

drug was not administered by himself."

"Oh!" protested Sam, running his eye over the lines that were destined

to startle all New York that morning. "This won't do! None of those

boys are bad enough for that, not even Leighton."

"You dislike Leighton," I remarked.

He did not reply; he had just come upon my name in the article he was

reading.

"Look here!" he cried, "you're a close one. How came you to be mixed

up with the affair? I see your name here."

"Read!"

He complied with an eagerness which I suppose but faintly mirrored

that of half the _Tribune's_ readers that morning. What he read, I

leave to your imagination, merely premising that no new facts had

come to light since my departure from the house and the printing of

the paper. When he had finished, he bestowed upon me a long and

scrutinising look. "This knocks me out," said he, with more force than

elegance. "I would never have believed it, never, of any of these

men." Then with a sudden change quite characteristic, he ejaculated,

"It was a rum chance for you, Arthur. How did you like it?"

I refused to discuss this side of the question. I was afraid of

disclosing what had become the inner-most secret of my heart.

He did not notice my reticence--this, too, was like him--but remarked

with visible reluctance:

"The weight of evidence seems to be against Alph. Poor Alph! So this

is the result of those long, unbroken hours of silent dreaming! I

shall never trust a lazy man again. When they do bestir

themselves----"

"He has not been arrested yet," I interjected dryly. "Till the police

show absolute belief in his guilt, I for one shall hold my tongue."

"Poor Alph!" was all the reply I received.

XIII

INDICATIONS

These concluding words of Sam Underhill show the trend of public

opinion at this time. But I was not swayed by the general prejudice,

nor, to all appearance, were the police. Though enough poison was

found in Mr. Gillespie's remains to have caused the death of any

ordinary man in fifteen minutes, no arrests were made, nor was Mr.

Gillespie's favourite son subjected to any closer surveillance than

the other members of this once highly respected family.

Meanwhile, the papers were filled with gossip about the case, which

was now openly regarded as one of murder. In one column I read a

semi-humorous, semi-serious account of how George Gillespie actually

once won a bet in face of all odds and to the confounding of those who

trusted in his invariable ill-luck; and in another how Leighton had

worn out his father's patience by a most persistent association with

the most degraded classes, an association which led him into all sorts

of extravagances. As a sample of these, and to show how entirely his

follies differed from those of his elder brother, he has been known to

order breakfast at a restaurant and disappear in the wake of a

Salvation Army procession before the meal could be served. They never

knew at home when to expect him in, or at what moment he might leave

the family circle. He was so restless, he rarely sat an evening out in

any one place. Without any apparent reason, he would often leave in

the midst of concert, sermon, or lecture, and has been known more than

once to dash away from a theatrical performance as if his life

depended upon his reaching the open air. And he never expected to be

criticised or questioned. If he were, he found some apology to suit

the occasion; but the apology was forced, and the person who called it

forth rarely repeated the offence.

Only a small paragraph was devoted to Alfred. In it his temporary

engagement to Miss Saxton of Baltimore was mentioned, and a somewhat

cruel account given of the way he jilted this young lady on his return

to the city. As this was coincident with the arrival of Hope at her

uncle's house, I needed no further explanation of his fickleness.

All this gossip about people in whom I had come to take so deep an

interest both worried and unsettled me; and I found myself looking

forward with mingled dread and expectation to the public inquiry,

which I had every reason to hope would separate some of these threads,

in the network of which my own heart had become so unfortunately

entangled.

It had been called for Thursday, and when that day came I was one of

the first to appear upon the scene. Not a word of what passed escaped

me; not a look nor a sign. Miss Meredith, who entered on the arm of

Leighton, wore a veil thick enough to conceal her features. But I did

not need to pierce that veil to imagine the expression of anxiety and

distress she thus concealed from the crowd. George, who had resumed

his usual manner, sat, conspicuous in height and good looks, among a

group of witnesses, some of whom I knew and some not. Dr. Bennett sat

at my side, and had so little to say that I did not attempt to disturb

him, having respect for the grief with which he regarded the untimely

end of his life-long friend and patient.

The first witness was myself.

As my testimony contained nothing which has not been already very

fully related in these pages, I will pass over this portion of the

scene, with the single remark that in the course of my whole

examination, which was a lengthy and exhaustive one, I allowed no

expression to escape me likely to prejudice the minds of those about

me against any one of Mr. Gillespie's sons. For it was apparent,

before I had been upon the stand ten minutes, that an effort was being

made to fix the crime on Alfred; and what surety could I have that

this result would not plunge a barbed arrow into the breast of her

about whom my fancy had drawn its magic circle? As I sat down, I

glanced her way, and it seemed to me there was meaning in the slight

acknowledgment she made me with her ungloved hand. But what meaning?

The inquiry thus being opened, and curiosity roused as to the motive

which led Mr. Gillespie to summon a stranger to his side at a moment

so vital and under circumstances seemingly calling for the

ministrations of those nearest and dearest to him, various experts and

physicians were called to prove that his death had not been caused by

disease, but by the action of prussic acid on a sufficiently healthy

system. With the establishment of this fact the morning's inquiry

closed.

As Miss Meredith was likely to be the first witness called at the

afternoon session, I felt it my duty as her lawyer to approach her at

this time with the following question, quite customary under the

circumstances:

"Miss Meredith," said I, "you will probably soon be subjected to a

searching inquiry by the coroner. May I ask if there is any special

point or topic concerning which you would prefer to keep silence? If

so, I can insist upon your privilege."

The look of mingled surprise and indignation with which she regarded

me was a sufficient answer in itself. Yet she chose to say, and say

coldly, after a moment of reflection:

"I have nothing to conceal. He can ask no question I shall not be

perfectly willing to answer."

Abashed by the construction she had put upon my words, as well as

greatly hurt by her manner, I bowed and drew off. Evidently she had

felt her candour impugned and her innocence questioned, and, in her

ignorance of legal proceedings, thought she had only to speak the

truth to sustain herself in my eyes and in those of the crowd

assembled to hear her.

This sort of self-confidence is common in witnesses, especially in

such as are more conscious of their integrity than of the pitfalls

underlying the simplest inquiry; and however much I might deplore her

short-sightedness and wish that she had better understood both myself

and her own position, it was plain that, in the light of what had just

passed between us, all interference on my part would be regarded by

her as an insult, and that I would be expected to keep silence under

all circumstances, let the consequences be what they would.

It was an outlook far from agreeable either for the lawyer or lover,

and the recess which now ensued was passed by me in a state of dread

of which she in her inexperience had little idea.

Upon the reseating of the jury, her name, just as I had anticipated,

was the first one called.

The emotions with which I saw her rise and throw aside her veil under

the concentrated gaze of the unsympathetic crowd convened to hear her

testimony, first revealed to me the absoluteness of her hold upon me;

and when I heard the buzz of admiration which followed the disclosure

of her features, I was conscious of colouring so deeply that I feared

my secret would become the common property of the crowd. But the spell

created by her beauty still held, and all regards remained fixed upon

her countenance, now eloquent with feelings which for the moment were

shared by all who looked upon her.

Her voice when she spoke deepened the effect of her presence. It was

of that fine and resonant quality which awakens an echo in all

sensitive hearts and carries conviction with it even to the most

callous and prejudiced. It lost some of its power perhaps as the ear

became accustomed to it; but to the very end of her testimony, I noted

here and there persons who looked up every time she spoke, as if some

inner chord responded to her tones--tones which, more than her face,

conveyed the impression of a nature exceedingly deep and exquisitely

sensitive.

She, meantime, failed to realise the effect which her appearance had

produced. She had been questioned, and was striving earnestly and

conscientiously to do justice to her oath, and relate as

circumstantially as possible what she knew of her uncle's sudden

death.

This is what I heard her say:

"I was my uncle's typewriter. I assisted him often with his

correspondence and was accustomed to go in and out of his study as if

it were my own room. On this night, I had written several letters for

him, and being tired had gone upstairs for a little rest. But I was

too anxious to be of assistance to him--his mail that evening was

unusually large--to retire without one more effort to relieve him; so

I went down again a little after ten. I had heard steps in the hall a

few minutes before, and little Claire's voice somewhere about the

house, but I did not encounter anyone in going down, perhaps because I

went by the way of the rear stairs, as I often do when I am in a

hurry. Little, little did I imagine what was before me. When I reached

my uncle's door,--but you know what a terrible sight met me. There lay

my kind--my good----"

We all waited, our hearts in our mouths, but in a moment more she

choked down her emotion and was ready to go on.

"He was dead. I knew it at first glance, yet I raised no cry. I could

not. I seemed in an instant to have become marble. I saw him lying at

my feet and did not weep a tear. I did not even touch him. I merely

staggered to the table at the side of which he had fallen, and

mechanically, but with a stoppage of my heart's action which made the

instant one of untold horror to me, lifted the carriage of the

typewriter which he had evidently been using when struck with death,

and looked to see what his last words had been. I had reason for

believing that they would convey some warning to me or at least an

explanation of his sudden death. And they did, or so I interpreted the

isolated phrase I came upon at the end of the unfinished letter I

found there. God knows I may have been mistaken as to what those five

words meant, but I was so impressed with the belief that they were

added there for my personal enlightenment that I reeled under the

responsibility thus forced upon me, and, hardly conscious of what I

was doing, tore off, with almost criminal haste, the portion

containing these words, and fled with them out of the sight and reach

of everyone in the house. It was a mad thing to do, and I speedily

regretted the insane impulse which had actuated me, for I was very

soon discovered in the remote spot to which I had fled, and the piece

of paper was found, and--and----"

How could she be expected to go on?

"Have we that piece of paper here?" asked the coroner.

It was produced, identified, and passed down to the jury.

It was my opinion at the time, and is still, that she told her story

thus fully in order to elude the questions which any apparent

reticence on her part would assuredly have evoked. But, having

reached this point, it seemed impossible for her to go farther. She

drooped, not under the eyes of the crowd, but under the fixed gaze of

her three cousins. Had she hoped for some signs of sympathy from them

which she failed to receive, or, at least a partial recognition, on

their part, of the suffering she was undergoing in the cause of truth

and justice? If so, no such recognition came. George's fine face

showed anger and anger only; Leighton's, a cold impassibility which

might have passed for the stolidity of an utterly unfeeling man if his

hands had not betrayed his inner restlessness and torment; while

Alfred's flashing eye and set lips made plain the fact that his

emotions clung to his own position rather than to hers--as was

natural, perhaps, with that slip of paper going the rounds of the

jury, and calling up from that respectable body startled, uneasy, or

menacing looks, according to the nature of the man examining it.

You remember that slip; a business communication broken into by these

totally irrelevant words, "one of my sons He". Is it any wonder that

these twelve commonplace men keenly felt their position in face of

what looked like a direct accusation from the father's hand?

Yet as these five words, simple in themselves and gaining meaning only

from the effort which this young girl had made to suppress them, were

capable of being construed in a hundred different ways, the faces

which at first blush mirrored but one thought gradually assumed a

non-committal aspect, which would have been more encouraging to the

men thus compromised, if the facts still to be brought out in

explanation of Miss Meredith's conduct towards them had not been of so

damaging a character.

Hope, who surmised, if she did not know, the contents of the letter

she now heard rustling in the coroner's hand, awaited his next

question with evident perturbation. Alfred, who may have hoped that

this letter would not appear so early in the examination, forgot

himself for a moment and cast a look at his brothers, which they took

pains to ignore, perhaps because of the effort it cost them to

preserve their own countenances in face of the impending ordeal.

I was witness both to this appeal and its rebuff, but to all

appearance Dr. Frisbie saw neither. He was deciding with what form of

words to introduce his new subject.

"Miss Meredith," he said at last, "you will now take this letter in

your own hand. Have you ever seen it before?"

"Yes, sir, it was a letter which was entrusted to me by my uncle, and

which I was told to preserve in secrecy so long as he retained his

health and life."

"It is addressed, as all may see: _To my three sons, George, Leighton,

and Alfred Gillespie._ Miss Meredith, did you understand by these

words that the enclosed was intended equally for your three cousins?"

"Yes, sir. My uncle Archibald told me so. He expressly said, in giving

it into my charge, that in the event of his sudden or unexplainable

death, his three sons were to read this letter together."

"It has been opened, I see. Is that a sign it has been so delivered

and read?"

"Yes, sir. When on the night I made that inconsiderate attempt to

suppress the slip of paper on which my uncle had transcribed the five

words you have just shown to the jury, one of my cousins reproached me

with having drawn erroneous and unwarrantable conclusions from what

was there written. I justified myself by handing over this letter.

Though I was never shown its contents, I was well aware of the

circumstances under which it was written and--and I was certain it

would prove my best excuse for what would otherwise have seemed

monstrous in one--who----"

She was too disturbed to proceed.

The coroner looked at her kindly, but it was no part of his duty to

allow any sympathy he might feel for the witness to interfere with his

endeavour to reach the truth. He therefore urged her to relate the

circumstances to which she alluded; in other words, to explain how

this letter addressed collectively to her three cousins came to be

written.

She grew still more distressed.

"Does not the letter explain itself?" she remonstrated. "Spare me, I

pray. My uncle's sons have been brothers to me. Do not make me repeat

what passed between my uncle and myself on that unhappy morning when

he first unburdened himself of his intolerable grief."

"I fear that I cannot spare you," replied the coroner; "but I will

grant you a short respite while this letter, or such portions of it as

bear upon Mr. Gillespie's death, is being read to the jury. Gentlemen,

it is written in Mr. Gillespie's own hand, and it is dated just a

month prior to his unhappy demise. Miss Meredith, you may sit."

She fell rather than sank into the chair offered her, and for a moment

I felt myself the prey of a boundless indignation as I witnessed the

callousness shown towards her by the three men who up to this time had

presumably regarded her with more or less affection. To me her

position called for their especial sympathy. The heroism she evinced

was the heroism of a loving woman who sacrifices herself, and what is

dearest to her, to her idea of justice and law. And while such action

may be easy for a man, it is hard beyond expression for a woman, who,

as we know, is much more apt to listen to the voice of her heart than

to any abstract appeal of right and justice. Yet these same relatives

of hers sat still and scarcely looked her way, though she glanced

repeatedly and with heartrending appeal in their direction.

I am quite ready to admit that I was too prejudiced a witness to be

just to these men. Had I not myself been under the influence of a

sudden and violent passion, I would have seen that Alfred needed

sympathy as well as she; for Alfred was the man most menaced by the

contents of the letter now on the point of being read; and he knew

this as certainly as she did.

As this letter is better known to you than it was to me up to this

hour, I leave you to judge of its effect upon the jury and the excited

crowd of spectators thronging the room at every point. Heads which had

wagged in doubt now drooped in heaviest depression; and while all eyes

seemed to shrink from an attempt to read the three white faces on the

witnesses' bench, the attention of all was concentrated there, and it

was with quite a sense of shock that Dr. Frisbie's voice was heard

rising again in renewed examination of the young lady whose

precipitate action had brought to public notice this touching letter

of a heartbroken father.

His first question was a leading one. Had Mr. Gillespie followed up

his former confidences by any further allusions to the attempt which

had been made upon his life?

Her answer was a direct negative. Though she had detected in her uncle

signs of great unhappiness, he had held no further conversation with

her on this topic, and life had gone on as usual in the great house.

"But he talked of poisons, and refused to take any more of the

medicine which came so near killing him?"

"Uncle Archibald took no more of this medicine, certainly. That is, I

saw no more of it in the house. But he never talked of poisons, that

is, publicly or in my presence."

"Not at the table?"

"Not after that night, sir."

"He had before?"

"Only incidentally. He had laughed at some of Dr. Bennett's remarks,

and once I heard him mention the danger of taking an overdose of the

remedy that was doing him so much good. It was while jesting with me

upon my refusal to allow anyone else to portion it out for him."

"That was your duty, then?"

"Assuredly."

"Were you in the habit of preparing his glass when alone or in the

presence of his sons?"

"As it happened, sir. I had but one dread; that of miscounting the

drops."

"And he took no more of this medicine after that especial night?"

"No, sir. He asked Dr. Bennett for a narcotic of less dangerous

properties, and was given chloral."

"Did you hear any remarks made on this change?"

"None."

"What became of the phial which held the remainder of this medicine

marked 'Poison'?"

"I emptied it out at my uncle's request."

"You were your uncle's nurse, then, typewriter, and friend?"

"He trusted me, sir, in all these capacities."

"Did he trust you with his business concerns?"

"Not at all. I merely wrote letters to his dictation."

"Did you know, or have you ever heard, the value of his estate?"

"I have never even asked myself whether he counted his fortune by

thousands or millions."

The dignity, the simplicity, with which this was said made it an

impressive termination to a very painful examination. As I noted the

effect it produced, I was in hopes that she would be allowed to retire

for the day. But the coroner had other views. With a hesitancy that

more or less prepared us for what was to come, he addressed her again,

saying quietly:

"I have spared you a public reading of certain portions of your

uncle's letter, referring to yourself and the wishes he openly

cherished in your behalf. In return, will you inform me if you are

engaged to marry any one of these young men?"

The thrill, the start given to the witnesses' bench by this pointed

question, communicated itself to officer and spectator. In George's

fiery flush and Alfred's sudden paleness, emotions could be seen at

work of sufficient significance to draw every eye; though few present,

I dare say, ascribed these emotions to their rightful sources. To

myself, divided as I was in feeling between the anxiety I could not

but feel as her lawyer to see her parry a question too personal not to

be humiliating, and the interest with which, as her lover, I awaited a

response which would solve my own doubts and make clear my own

position, there was something in the attitude of both these men

strongly suggestive of a like uncertainty. Were her feelings, then, as

much of a mystery to them as they were to me? Did George fear to hear

her say she was engaged to Alfred, and Alfred dread to hear her admit

that she was irrevocably pledged to George? If so, what a situation

had been evolved by this question publicly put by a city functionary!

No wonder the young girl dropped her eyes before venturing a reply.

But the spirit of self-protection, always greater in woman than in man

where heart secrets are involved, gave her strength to meet this

crisis with a baffling serenity. Raising her patient eyes, she replied

with a sweet composure which acted like a tonic upon the agitated

hearts about her:

"There is no such engagement. I have lived in their house like a

sister. Their father was my mother's brother."

Another man than Coroner Frisbie would have let her go, but this

honest, if kindly, official was strangely tenacious when he had a

point to gain. Flushing himself, for her look was directed quite

steadily upon him, he gravely repeated:

"Do you mean to say that no words of love ever passed between you and

any of these gentlemen?"

This was too much. Expecting to see her recoil, possibly break down, I

eagerly looked her way for the permission to interfere, which she

might now be ready to give me. But with a proud lift of her head she

showed herself equal to the emergency, and her answer, given simply

and with no attempt at subterfuge, restored her at once to the

dignified position we all dreaded to see her lose.

"I mean to say nothing but the truth. Mr. George Gillespie has more

than once honoured me by making me an offer of his hand. But I did not

consider myself in a position to accept it."

Dr. Frisbie showed her no quarter.

"And your cousin Alfred?"

"Alfred?" Her eyes no longer met those of the coroner or anyone else

in that cruel crowd. "He," she stammered proudly, "has never

interfered with whatever claims his brother may have been supposed to

have upon my favour."

It was a statement to awaken turmoil in more than one of the uneasy

hearts behind her. George bounded to his feet, though he quickly

subsided again into his seat, ashamed of this betrayal, or fearful of

the effect it might have upon his brother. Alfred, on the contrary,

sat still, but the bitterness visible in his smile spoke volumes, and,

seeing it, the whole crowd recognised what had long been apparent to

myself, that these two brothers were rivals in the love they bore this

woman, and that it was through her desire to shield the one she

favoured, that she made the first false move which had drawn the

attention of the police to the doubtful position held by Mr.

Gillespie's sons.

That her choice had fallen upon the man who had not interfered with

his brother's rights seemed only too probable, and I expected the

coroner to force this acknowledgment from her lips, but he grew

considerate all at once and inquired instead if Mr. Gillespie had been

made aware of his elder son's wishes. She replied to this by saying:

"They were no secret in the house"; and, with a look, begged him to

spare her.

But this man was inexorable.

"And did he approve of the match?"

"He did."

"Yet you failed to engage yourself?"

This she deemed already answered.

"If the younger brother had pressed his suit for your hand, do you

think that under the circumstances your uncle would have sanctioned

such rivalry?"

This, perhaps, she could not answer. At all events she was as silent

as before.

"Miss Meredith," proceeded her tormentor, utterly oblivious or

entirely careless of the suffering he caused her, "do you know whether

your uncle and his youngest son ever had any words on this subject?"

Her hands involuntarily flew out in piteous entreaty.

"Ask this question of the only person who can answer it," she cried.

"I only know that I have been treated with great respect in the house

of my uncle."

With that, the proceedings closed for the day.

XIV

A SUDDEN TURN

Dr. Frisbie's point had been made. As we separated to our several

destinations for the night, it was with the universally expressed

conviction that this young girl, for all her beauty and attractive

qualities, had been an apple of discord in her uncle's house, and that

in this fact, rather than in an impatient desire to enjoy the wealth

of a man who was never close with his sons, the unnatural crime we

were considering had originated.

The evidence elicited from the first witness called to the stand on

the following morning tended to substantiate this conclusion.

Nellie Stryker, an old inmate of the Gillespie house, answered the

coroner's questions with great reluctance. She had been maid to Mrs.

Gillespie, nurse to all the children, and a trusted servant in the

household ever since the latter grew beyond her care. Of the attempts

made upon her master's life, the last of which had been only too

successful, she knew little and that only by hearsay, but she was not

quite so ignorant concerning a certain conversation which had been

held one morning in Mr. Gillespie's room between that gentleman and

his youngest son. She was sitting at her needle in the adjoining

dressing-closet, and, whether her presence there was unsuspected by

her master or simply ignored, they both talked quite freely and she

heard every word.

Urged to repeat this conversation, the good old soul showed a

shamefaced reluctance which bore out her reputation for honesty and

discretion. But she was not allowed to escape the examination set for

her. After repeated questions and a show of extreme patience on the

part of the coroner, she admitted that the topic discussed was the

state of Mr. Alfred's affections. This young gentleman, as was

publicly known, had lately engaged himself to a Southern lady of great

pride and high social distinction; and his present disagreement with

his father arose out of his wish to break this engagement. His father

had no patience with such fickleness, and their words ran high.

Finally, Alfred threatened to follow his own wishes in the matter,

whether it gave satisfaction all round or no; declaring that he had

been a fool to tie himself to a girl he cared nothing about, but that

he would be a still greater one if he let the mistake of a moment mar

his happiness for life. But the old gentleman's sense of honour was

very keen, and he continued to urge the claims of the Southern lady,

till his son impetuously blurted out:

"I thought you wanted one of us to marry Hope?"

This caused a break in the conversation.

"Do you care for Hope?" the old gentleman asked. "I thought it was

well understood in this house that George, not you, was to be given

the first opportunity of winning her."

The oath with which Alfred answered was shocking to Nellie's ears,

and affected her so deeply that she heard nothing more till these

words caught her attention:

"George has everything he wants; unlimited indulgence in each and

every fancy, the liking of all the men, and the love of all the women.

I am not so fortunate; I am neither a favourite with my mates nor the

petted darling of their sisters; I like my ease, but I could give that

up for Hope. She is the only woman I have ever seen capable of

influencing me. I have been quite a different man since she came into

the house. If that is love, it is a very strong love; such love as

makes a man out of a nobody. Father, let me have this darling girl for

my wife. George does not care for her,--not as I do. He would be a

better fellow if he did."

Mr. Gillespie seemed quite upset. He loved this son as the apple of

his eye, and would very possibly have been glad to see the matter so

adjusted, but it did not tally with his idea of what people had a

right to expect from his sons, and he told Alfred so in rather strong

language.

"Can you remember that language?" asked the coroner.

She tried to make him believe, and herself too, no doubt, that her

memory would not serve her to this extent; but her honesty eventually

triumphed over her devotion to the family interests, and she finally

admitted that the old gentleman had said:

"While I live I will not put up with rivalry of any kind between my

sons. George is fond of Hope, and I long ago gave him my permission to

woo and marry her. That you are the child of my heart shall not make

me blind to the rights of one I loved before you ever saw the light.

Were I to permit such shilly-shallying, George would have a right to

reproach me with his wasted life. No; the influence which you call so

great must be exerted in his behalf rather than yours. He needs it,

Alfred, as much, if not more than you do. As to your present

engagement, you may break it or you may keep it, but do not expect me

to uphold you in any love-making with your brother's choice till Hope

has openly signified her absolute refusal of his attentions. This she

is not likely to do; George has too many conspicuous attractions."

"She has refused him once."

"Not because her fancy was caught by his younger brother, but because

she wished to see some reformation in his habits. In this she was

perfectly right. George will have to change his mode of life very

materially before he can be regarded as worthy of such a wife."

"The same might be said of me; but I am no George. I am anxious to

make such a change. Yet you give me no encouragement in my efforts,

and even deny me the opportunity of winning her affections."

"You were not the first to enter the field. Your older brother has the

prior right, and, as I view the matter, the only right, to approach

Hope in the attitude of a lover."

The oaths which this excited turned the poor old listener cold. Alfred

could not see the justice of his brother's course, and stormed away

about fairness being shown to the young girl herself, who possibly

looked upon the matter in another light than he did.

"Then you have been making love to her on the sly!" vociferated Mr.

Gillespie, totally forgetting himself.

But this the young man denied. If he understood her better than others

did, it was because he loved her better. He was positive that she did

not care for his brother, and all but certain she did care for

himself. At all events he flattered himself to this extent. This

called forth a few more bitter words from his father, and Alfred went

out, banging the door behind him.

"And did you see any change in the manner of Mr. Gillespie towards his

sons after this misunderstanding with Alfred?"

The witness appeared to weigh her words; but, when she answered, it

was evident her care arose from a desire to present the subject

fairly.

"I thought Mr. Gillespie talked less and looked about him more. And

the young gentlemen seemed conscious of this change in him, for they

were very careful not to show their feelings too plainly in his

presence."

"Yet there was a manifested distrust between them?"

"I fear so."

"Amounting to animosity?"

"That I cannot say. I never heard them exchange hard words; only

neither of them would leave the field open to the other. If Mr. George

stayed home, Mr. Alfred found some excuse for doing so also; and if

Mr. Alfred showed a disposition to linger in the parlour, Mr. George

brought in his friends and made a social evening of it."

"And is this all you can tell us?"

"On this topic? Yes."

"You never saw Miss Meredith speaking apart to either of these two

men?"

"No, sir; on the contrary, she appeared to avoid all private

conversation with any of them."

"Nor ever heard either of these men swear he would have Miss Meredith

for his wife, no matter who stood in the way, or what means were taken

to stop him?"

"Oh, I once heard Mr. Alfred make use of some violent expressions as I

was passing his door, but I can not be sure he spoke the precise words

you mention. He falls into fits of anger at times and then is liable

to forget himself. But his ill-temper does not last, sir. It is quite

unusual for him to show unkindness for any length of time."

After the close of this examination, so painful to the witnesses and

so humiliating to the three persons whose most cherished feelings were

thus exposed to the public eye, the three sons of Mr. Gillespie were

called up, one after the other, and questioned.

Leighton made the best impression. Not being involved in the delicate

question which had just come up, he had no blushes to conceal nor any

secret animosities to hold in check. George, on the contrary, seemed

to have reached a state of exasperation which made it difficult for

him to preserve any semblance of self-possession. He stammered when

he talked, and looked much more like having it out with his brother in

a hand-to-hand fight than submitting to an examination tending to

incriminate one or both of them on a charge of murder. Alfred showed

less bitterness, possibly because he felt securer in his position

towards the woman whose beauty had occasioned this rivalry. Of the

facts brought out by their accumulated testimony I need say little.

They added nothing to the general knowledge, and the inquiry adjourned

with promise of still more serious work for the morrow.

Hitherto the evidence had been of a nature to show, first, that a

crime had been committed, and, secondly, that the relations between

Alfred and his father had been such as to occasion a desire on the

former's part to be free from the watchful eye of one who stood

between him and any attempt he might make to win the affections of the

woman upon whom he had set his heart. On this morning the testimony

took a turn, and an endeavour was made to show a positive connection

between Alfred Gillespie and the drug which had ended his father's

life,--or so it appeared at the time. The visit he paid to the

dining-room during the fatal hour preceding his father's death was

brought out, and the acknowledgment reached that he went there in

search of his missing pencil.

Then the detectives were called to the stand and requested to relate

the circumstances connected with the finding of a certain cork and

phial, the one under the edge of the dining-room rug, and the other

under the clock on the mantel-shelf. These aforementioned articles

were then produced, and after positive declaration had been made that

they had not been allowed to come in contact since falling into the

hands of the police, they were severally handed down to the jury, who

immediately proceeded to satisfy themselves that the scent of bitter

almonds was nearly as marked in one as the other. This point having

been reached and universal expectation raised, Sweetwater handed up

another article to the coroner, saying:

"In this box, which is as nearly air-tight as I could procure offhand,

I caused to be placed, as soon as possible after finding it, the

pencil which we came upon in our search of the dining-room floor. Like

the phial and the cork, it was kept isolated in a perfectly clean

glass till this box could be procured, and, with this fact in mind,

may I ask you to open the box and hand the pencil round among the

jury?"

Instantly a great stir took place in the whole body of spectators.

Necks were stretched, heads were craned, and a general sigh swept from

end to end of the room as the coroner wrenched the cover from the box,

lifted out the pencil, raised it to his nose, and then passed it down

to the jury. Only one person in sight failed to follow these

significant movements with looks of curious interest; and that was the

unhappy man who thus saw the finger of suspicion, which had been

simply wavering in his direction, settle into immobility and point

inexorably towards him. A white face and a sinking heart were shown by

Alfred Gillespie at that moment; and in the features of Hope,

disclosed for one instant under the stress of her mortal anxiety, I

saw his anxiety reflected as in a mirror.

The jury whispered together with nods and significant looks as this

small pencil passed from hand to hand--I had almost said from nose to

nose. Then silence was restored, and the coroner, with a sudden change

of manner startling to observe in one whose bearing and tone reflected

his feelings almost too openly, called an expert in poisons to the

stand.

His testimony established three facts: that the smell of prussic acid

is unmistakable; that this poison, though volatile in its character,

preserves its own individual odour for a long time if not subjected to

too much air; and, lastly, that if the pencil smelt of the bottle, the

pocket in which they both had lain would also give out the same odour

of bitter almonds.

When the expert was seated, Detective Sweetwater was called back. And

then for the first time I noticed a large package encumbering the

coroner's desk. As this package was being unrolled, I stole a look at

the witness, who, from his assured air, evidently had the thread of

Alfred's future destiny in his hand, and was astonished to see how

attractive a very plain man can sometimes become.

Perhaps I have not spoken of this young detective's plainness. It was

so marked and of such an unrelieved type that, after once seeing the

man, you could never again think of him without recalling his lank

frame and inharmonious features.

Yet as he stood there, calm amidst the tremor of this throng, his eye

sparkled with such intelligence that I trembled for the man whose

cause he was expected to damage with his testimony. Seeing that my

feelings were shared by those about me, I glanced back at the

coroner's table to see what the unrolling of that package had

revealed, and saw, hanging from the coroner's hands, three vests,

which he proceeded to display, one by one, before the witness.

"What are these?" he asked, with a stern look down the room,

calculated to suppress any too open demonstration of interest.

"Vests; the property of the three gentlemen members of the present

Gillespie household; in other words, those severally worn by Messrs.

George, Leighton, and Alfred Gillespie on the evening of their

father's death."

"How do you know these particular vests to be the ones then worn?"

"From their material and cut, of which I took especial note at the

time."

"No other way?"

"Yes, sir. Foreseeing the difficulties which might arise if it ever

became necessary to distinguish the vests then worn from the half

dozen others which we should doubtless find in their well-supplied

wardrobes, I took the precaution of secretly running my finger over a

freshly inked pen before taking hold of their vests in the search I

had been commanded to make of their persons. If the marks of my finger

can be seen on the white linings of the vests now in your hand, you

may be sure they are the ones subjected to my search on that night, as

I communicated my intention to no one and have since been exceedingly

careful not to take anyone into my confidence concerning this little

trick."

The coroner turned the vests. On the back of each a black spot was

plainly visible to the remotest observer in the room. A murmur of

mingled admiration and suspense responded to this discovery, and the

coroner turned again to Sweetwater.

"May I ask," said he, "if you are in a position to tell us to which of

these young gentlemen these several vests belong?"

"The Messrs. Gillespie can be trusted to identify their own property,"

was the answer. "But I doubt if you will consider this a necessary

formality. There is no scent of bitter almonds lingering about any of

these pockets. There was none on that night. This I made it my

especial business to ascertain." And he glanced at Alfred as much as

to say, "Thank me for doing you what justice I can."

Such surprise followed this unexpected acknowledgment from one whose

manner had given promise of a very different result, that it was hard

to tell where the effect was greatest. Hope's veil was shifted again,

and the three brothers looked up simultaneously and with an equal show

of relief.

But their countenances fell again as they noted the witness still on

the stand--waiting.

My countenance fell too, or rather my heart began to throb

apprehensively as I now perceived the face and form of Mr. Gryce

slowly appearing round the corner of a certain jut in the wall where

he had held himself partially concealed during most of the day's

proceedings. If this sagacious but sickly old detective thought it

worth his while to come forward, I thought it worth mine to note upon

whom or on what his glance first fell. But I had forgotten his habit,

known to most men who have had anything to do with this celebrated

detective. He had looks for nothing save the umbrella he rolled round

and round between his palms; though his face--if this indicated

anything--was turned towards the seat where the three Gillespies sat,

rather than towards the witness with whose testimony past, present,

and to come he was probably fully acquainted.

Meantime the coroner was speaking.

"When you failed to find the tell-tale scent of bitter almonds

tainting the pockets of any of the clothes worn by these young

gentlemen at the time you searched them, what did you do?"

"As soon as opportunity offered, that is, as soon as I found myself

unobserved, I searched the wardrobes of these young gentlemen for

other vests and pockets."

"Ah, and did you come upon any article of clothing giving signs of

having at any time come in contact with this pencil or this bottle?"

"I found _that_," he returned, indicating a fourth garment, which the

coroner now deftly drew forth from the paper where it had hitherto

lain concealed.

This garment was a vest like the others, and, like them, of a plain

and inconspicuous pattern. As it was lifted into sight, a groan was

heard which seemed to spring from the united breasts of the three

young men behind him. Then one bounded to his feet.

"That is my vest," he shouted. "What damned villain says there is

anything the matter with it?"

It was George. The two other brothers had shrunk back out of sight.

XV

THE MISSING POCKET

The excitement was intense. To see suspicion thus suddenly, and, I

must say, deftly, shifted from the man hitherto regarded guilty to one

whom nobody had seemed inclined to doubt, was to experience an emotion

of no ordinary nature. I was so affected by it that I quite forgot

myself, and stared first at the vest thus recognised by its owner,

then at the witness, who was calmly awaiting an opportunity to speak,

with deep bewilderment only cut short by the coroner's abrupt words:

"Where did you find this vest I now hold up before you?"

"In the closet of the dressing-room adjoining the apartment where Mr.

George Gillespie is said to sleep."

"Does this dressing-room communicate with the hall or with any other

room than the said Mr. Gillespie's sleeping apartment?"

"No."

"Is it a large room or a small one; a mere closet or a place big

enough for a man to turn about in with ease and do such a thing, say,

as change his vest without being seen too plainly by persons in the

adjoining room?"

"It is a six-by-ten room, sir. If anyone chose to do what you suggest

in the especial corner where the wardrobe stands, he certainly would

run little chance of being seen by anyone sitting near the fireplace

of the sleeping apartment."

"Why do you speak of the fireplace?"

"Because the evidences are strong that this was where Mr. Gillespie's

three friends were sitting when he came up from below, with the

half-empty bottle of sherry in his hands."

"What evidences do you allude to?"

"The fact that we found four chairs standing there about a table

strewn with cards. I did not see the gentlemen in their seats."

"But you did see this vest hanging on one of the nails in the

wardrobe?"

"Yes, sir."

"A near nail or a remote one?"

"The remotest in the closet."

"Very good. _Now, what is the matter with this vest?_"

"It lacks a pocket."

Ah! So that was it!

The coroner turned the vest in his hand.

"What pocket?"

"The lower right-hand one, the one where a gentleman usually carries a

pen, knife, or pencil."

"What has happened to it? How could a pocket be lost from a vest?"

"It has been cut out."

"Cut out!"

"Yes, sir; we found an open knife lying on the dresser, and if you

will look again at the vest you will see that the missing pocket was

slit from it with a very hasty jerk."

"I avow----" shouted the voice of the owner from the seats behind.

But the infuriated man who thus attempted to speak was quickly

silenced.

"You will be allowed to explain later," remonstrated the coroner. "At

present we are listening to Mr. Sweetwater. Witness, what course did

you pursue after coming upon this vest?"

"I endeavoured to ascertain if its owner had gone into his

dressing-room after coming up from the room below."

Here we heard sobs; but they were only a child's, and the inquiry went

on.

"Did you succeed?"

"I request you to call up Mr. James Baxter as a more direct witness."

His request being complied with, Mr. James Baxter came forward, and

expectancy rose to fever-point. He was one of the three gentlemen

whose voices I had heard over the cards that were being played in

George Gillespie's room during the hour his father had succumbed to

poison. I recognised him at once from his burly figure and weak voice;

having noticed this eccentricity at our first meeting. He was not

sober then, but he was very sober now, and the effect he produced was,

on the whole, favourable.

Glancing at George as if in apology, and receiving a tiger's glare in

return, he waited with a certain _sang froid_ for the inevitable

question. It came quickly and with a peremptoriness which showed that

the coroner now felt himself on safe ground.

"Where were you sitting when George Gillespie left you to go

downstairs for wine?"

"At the card-table near the fire, with my face towards the

dressing-room at the other end of the room."

"Had wine been passed then, or any spirituous liquors?"

"No."

"You were all in a perfectly sober condition therefore?"

"Tolerably so. Two of us had had dinner at Delmonico's, but I had been

dining at home and was dry. That is why Mr. Gillespie went down for

the wine."

"What did you do while he was downstairs?"

"Bet on the Jack about to be turned up."

"How much money passed?"

"Oh, ten dollars or so."

"And when your host returned, what did you do?"

"I guess we drank."

"Did he drink too?"

"I did not notice. He put the bottle down and went into his

dressing-room. When he came back he stood a minute by the fire, then

he sat down. He may have drank then. I didn't observe."

"What did he do at the fire? Was he warming himself? It was not a cold

night."

"I don't know what he did. I saw a sudden burst of flame, but that was

all. I was busy dealing the cards."

"You saw a flame shoot up. Was there wood or coal in the grate?"

"Deuce take me if I remember. I wasn't thinking of the fire. I only

knew we were roasting hot and more than once made some movement

towards shifting the table further off, but we got too interested in

the cards to bother about it."

"It must have been a lively game. Were you too interested in shuffling

and dealing to notice why Mr. Gillespie went to his dressing-room?"

"Yes, I never thought anything about it."

"You didn't watch him, then?"

"No."

"Cannot say whether or not he went towards his wardrobe?"

"No."

"Or, perhaps, whether the door between you was closed or not?"

"He didn't close the door; I should have noticed that."

"How long was he in that room?"

"I can't say. Long enough for me to drink my wine and shuffle the

cards. Before I had dealt them he had set down."

"One question more. Can you truthfully assert he did not cross his

dressing-room before your eyes, change his vest in the corner where

the wardrobe stands, and come back in the same coat, but with a

different vest on?"

"No. I cannot even say what kind of clothes he wore that night. I am

no dude, and all vests, so long as they are not striped or plaid, are

alike to me."

This remark, which was facetious only from the humorous contrast

between the small and highpitched voice and the large and stalwart

figure of the speaker, caused a smile to appear on several faces. But

this expression was soon replaced by one more befitting the occasion,

as a change in witnesses once more occurred and Hewson appeared upon

the stand. This old servant of the family was loath to look at the

vest held out before him, and seemed desirous of denying that he had

noticed what his young master had worn at dinner that night. But his

precision and habitual attention to details were too well known for

him to succeed in any evasion, and he was forced to declare that the

vest with the thumb mark on the lining was not the one Mr. George had

worn at dinner.

This was a fatal admission and George's case was looking very black,

when a sudden cry mingled with a burst of childish sobs was heard in

the room, and little Claire, breaking away from the restraining hands

that sought to hold her back, rushed out in face of coroner and jury,

and stretching out her arms to her father, cried:

"Uncle George didn't cut the pocket out of his vest. I did. I--I

wanted a little bag for my beads, and Hetty wouldn't make me one; so I

stole into uncle's room and snipped out the little pocket. It was

before grandpa died, and I'm so--so sorry."

She fell into her father's arms and was crushed, nay, strained against

that father's breast. Never had a child's naughtiness brought a more

perfect joy; while from floor to ceiling of the great room, cries and

shouts of relief went up from the surcharged hearts of the spectators

which for once the coroner failed to rebuke.

Possibly he was as much touched as anyone. There was so much natural

impulse, so much spontaneity in the child's words and actions, that no

one could doubt her candour or the fact that this outburst had been

prompted by her own contrition.

Even Mr. Gryce accepted the explanation without demur, though he must

have realised that it demolished at a blow the case he had so

carefully reared against the oldest son of Mr. Gillespie. He was even

seen to smile benignantly and with a kind of soothing tenderness on

the knob of his umbrella before he rested his chin upon it in quiet

contemplation.

Hope, who had made an impetuous movement as the child flew by her, let

her eye fall for a moment on the curly head almost nestled out of

sight in the paternal embrace. Then with a glance at George, scarcely

long enough to note the relief this childish hand had brought him, she

let her eye travel slowly on to Alfred, who, biting his lips to keep

down the flush which these rapidly succeeding events had called up,

did not catch her look, precious as it doubtless would have been to

him.

Then and not till then did her gaze seek mine.

Alas! this recognition of my interest, so eagerly anticipated and so

patiently waited for, was inspired by no deeper sentiment than a

desire to gather my present idea of the situation and what was now to

be expected from the baffled officials.

If my answering look conveyed undue confidence in the outcome, I had

certainly sufficient excuse for it in the attitude of those about me.

The explanation which George was able to give of the causes which had

led to his changing his vest on the evening in question were received

with respect, if not with favour, and as it was natural enough to gain

credence, enthusiasm in his regard rose to such a pitch that it

presently became evident that it would be next to impossible to push

the case farther before this jury.

Indeed, the reaction was so strong that after some futile attempts to

reopen the inquiry on fresh lines, the coroner finally gave in and

called for the jury's verdict.

It was, as might be expected:

"Death from the effects of prussic acid, administered by some hand

unknown."

XVI

IN THE PARLOUR AT MRS. PENRHYN'S

Meantime, the will of Mr. Gillespie had been admitted to probate; but

as he had never made any secret of his intentions, and the share and

share alike of his sons had been left without a disturbing codicil,

little help was afforded by its terms in settling the harassing

problem which more than ever occupied the minds of the community and

presented itself as an almost unanswerable puzzle to the police.

Even Mr. Gryce, whose sagacity no one could doubt, showed how

unpromising the affair looked to him by the line of care which now

made its appearance on his forehead; a forehead which had remained

singularly unclouded till now, notwithstanding his sixty or more years

of experience with such knotty problems.

This I had occasion to note in an interview I held with him some few

days after the rendering of the abovementioned verdict.

He had sought me with the intention of satisfying himself that the

ground had been thoroughly gone over, and no possible clue had been

ignored. But he gained nothing new from me, not even my secret, and

went away at last, looking older and more careworn than my first view

of his benevolent and naturally composed countenance had led me to

expect.

But while moved by this to consider the seriousness with which these

men regarded their duty, I was much more deeply impressed by the

corresponding marks of secret disturbance which I presently discovered

in my own countenance. For, in my case, the trouble indicated did not

depend upon the settlement of an exciting case, but was the result of

a lasting impression made upon me by a woman who gave little sign of

sharing a passion likely to prove the one absorbing experience of my

life. Do what I would, I could not forget her or the position she held

among these three men. Was she still the object of George's attentions

or--worse still--of Alfred's passionate hopes? Did she respond to the

latter's devotion, or was she still restrained by doubts of an

innocence not yet entirely proved?

I longed to know. I longed to see for myself how she bore all these

uncertainties.

But no excuse offered itself for a second intrusion upon her privacy,

even if I had been sure I should find her still living with her

cousins; and in this unrest and state of anxious waiting, the days

went by, till suddenly I heard it casually mentioned at the Club that

Miss Meredith was with a distant connection of the Gillespies in

Fifty-seventh Street.

This was like fire to tow. Without waiting to question my own motives

or to ask whether it would be for my happiness or misery to see her

again, I called at the Penrhyn mansion and inquired for Miss

Meredith.

To my great relief and consequent delight she consented to receive me,

and I presently found myself seated in a choice little reception-room

awaiting her coming. Only then did I begin to realise my own temerity.

With what words should I accost her? How open conversation without

suggesting griefs I was burning to make her forget? I had no time to

decide. She was at the door and in the room before my mind could frame

the simplest greeting; and, once brought face to face with her, I

forgot everything but herself and the irresistible charm which her

presence exerted over me.

She had been weeping, and I could not but see that the sight of my

face recalled scenes suggestive of the deepest suffering. In my dismay

I found my tongue and attempted some conventional expressions of

good-will. These she no sooner heard than she cut me short by an

irrepressible exclamation.

"Pray,--" she entreated. "You have been with me during a time of too

much misery for such formalities as these to pass between us." Then,

before I could protest, "What is wanted of me now? I know you desire

explanations of some kind; everybody does who approaches me; even my

best friends. Yet I unburdened myself of everything I knew that first

night."

I may have looked hurt. I certainly felt so; but she did not notice

this result of her abrupt attack; she was too full of the feverish

anxiety roused by the subject she had herself introduced.

"But you are a just man and a good one," she went on. "I do not need

to be told so; I see it in your face. _You_ will be honest with me,

and will at least acquaint me with the motive underlying any questions

you may put. Others deceive me, and lead me into confidences they

afterwards turn against me or against those I have reason to be true

to, though I was the first to betray them."

Her cheek, so pale at her entrance, was burning red now, and she spoke

quickly, almost disconnectedly. I saw that she needed rallying, and

smiled.

"Now it is you who are pressing the subject you abhor. I have not

asked you anything; I shall not. I have not come here to satisfy

either my curiosity or the demands of the law. I am here to inquire

after your health and to renew my offer of service. May I be excused

for my interest in yourself? It is involuntary on my part and so

sincere that your uncle, were he living, could not object to it."

Soothed by my voice as much as by my words, she sat down and

endeavoured to open conversation. But there was a constraint in her

manner which convinced me that she was labouring under a too vivid

remembrance of the scene where we had last met.

"What a position is mine!" burst at last from her lips. "I have three

natural protectors, yet I do not know of an arm on which I can place

my hand with implicit confidence. This is my reason for being in this

house; and why I hail with eagerness, too great eagerness, perhaps,

the prospect of a friend."

It was an appeal for which I found myself poorly prepared, especially

as it was made with such simplicity and in such evident disregard of

the feelings which made my presence there of such import to myself.

It recalled to me her position; and remembering that she was a

comparative stranger in town, and that since her coming she had been

all in all to her uncle in capacities which had kept her much at home

and out of the society where she might have made friends and found

support in this dreadful emergency, I composed myself, and, leaning

forward, took her hand in mine with a respect she could not but feel,

since it permeated my whole being.

"I am a stranger to you," was my plea, "notwithstanding the vivid

experiences which have brought us together. You know little of me

beyond my name and the fact that my one wish, since first seeing you,

has been to serve you and save you from every possible annoyance. This

must be obvious to you, or you would not have accepted me so

unhesitatingly for your lawyer. Will you add to this title--a title

which you have yourself given me, the more personal one you have just

mentioned? Will you let me be the friend you need? You can find no

truer one."

She broke into a confused stammering, amid which I heard: "I will. You

give me confidence." Then she sat still, her hand trembling in mine

and her eyes shining with a new light. It was an innocent one, that of

a child who has stumbled on a protector in the dark; but to me it was

the very glow of heaven, the first ray of promise by means of which I

could discern, even in fancy, the fairy-land of my dreams. Was it any

wonder it intoxicated me? Forgetting that I had not been to her all

that she had been to me for the last few weeks; forgetting everything

but that she was an unhappy woman whom I passionately loved, I gazed

in her face as a man gazes at a woman but once in a lifetime.

She did not lower her eyes; would that she had! but met my looks with

a half smile whose open and indulgent kindness should have warned me

to recover my ground while it was safe. But a sudden madness had

seized me, and seeing simply that it was a smile, I found it

impossible to realise in the frenzy of the moment that the feelings I

had hitherto ascribed to her were true. She had liked, not loved her

cousins. They had been good to her, and in return she had given them a

cousinly regard which in one instance, perhaps, approached the warmth

of love. But it was a love far from necessary to her life--or so I

dared dream; while my passion for her was a part of my being, so close

a part that I felt forced to speak and claim her as my own in this

hour of her greatest trouble and perplexity. Before I knew it; before

she had time to restrain me by word or look, I was pouring out my soul

before her. Not in the respectful, measured way I had foreseen when

looking forward to this hour, but wildly, hotly, as a man speaks when

the treasure of his life is to be won by one strong effort.

It was sudden; it was perhaps unwarranted; but my sincerity moved her.

That was perhaps why she listened so patiently, and it was to this

recognition of my candid regard I attribute the look of wistfulness

which crept over her features when I ceased.

"Oh!" she murmured, "why cannot I accept the love of this good man?"

And, rising up, she walked away from me to the other end of the room.

Breathlessly I watched her; breathlessly I noted her walk, the droop

of her head, the agitated working of her hands. Would my good angel

stand by me and turn her trembling heart my way, or must I prepare

myself to see her pause, turn, and come back to me with denial in her

looks? The suspense of that moment I shall never forget. It has never

been repeated in my experience. Never since have I suffered so much in

any one moment.

Suddenly it was all over. She turned and I read my doom in her

sorrowing face.

"You are good," she cried, "and it would be an infinite rest to be

lifted out of the agony I am in and be cared for by someone I could

perfectly trust. But I cannot accept a devotion which fails to awaken

in me aught but simple gratitude and friendliness. Unfortunately for

me, and perhaps unfortunately for him whom I cannot trust myself to

name, I have given my whole heart--" She choked back the words with a

certain wildness. Then she faced me with mournful dignity and avowed

calmly, and with a certain finality which caused my hopes to sink back

into the depths from which they had so inconsiderately sprung, "I have

fixed my heart where perhaps I should not. Pity me, but do not blame."

_I_ blame, _I!_ who had committed the same folly, was suffering from

the same mistake!

"He may be the one true heart amongst them. Sometimes I think he is;

sometimes I think his faults are blemishes upon a nature noble enough

for any love and worship; then doubt comes, horrible, corroding doubt,

and I see in him a fiend, a monster, a being too dreadful to

contemplate, much less dream of and adore. Oh, if I did but know----"

"You shall know!" I burst forth, forgetting my own misery in hers. "I

have been selfish in urging my personal wishes upon you when I should

have been occupied with yours. Henceforth I shall think only of you.

To see you happy, to see you at peace, shall be my joy and prove my

consolation. I cannot rejoice at the task, if task it can be called,

but from this day on my energies shall be devoted to the settling of

that doubt which, while it exists, robs you of all peace of mind. If

Alfred is the guiltless man we are fain to believe him, you shall know

it. I feel that it is possible to prove him so, and my feelings have

often been very reliable guides in difficult undertakings."

She was startled; she was more than startled; she was alarmed. "I

don't understand you," she cried. "What can you do? If the one guilty

heart among my cousins refuses to respond to the appeal made to it by

my uncle, how can you hope to move so callous a soul to a sense of its

duty?"

"I cannot. With the hand of the law raised in threat against him, he

would be throwing away his life to proclaim his guilt to anyone now.

It would be folly on our part to expect it. But there are other means

by which this question may be settled. We do not gather figs of thorns

or grapes of thistles. Consider, then, in which of these three breasts

the thorns are found thickest; and, if uncertainty yet remains, to

which of your cousins your uncle's death offered the greatest

release."

"Have I not already asked myself these questions? Have I not repeated

them over and over in my own mind till their ceaseless repetition has

well-nigh maddened me? I think I know George, yet I dare not say he

has a heart incapable of crime. I think I know Alfred and I think I

know Leighton; but what certainty can this imaginary knowledge give me

of the integrity of men who hide their best impulses under wild ways

or cloud them with plausible hypocrisies? There is not an open soul

among the three; and unless one of them consents to confess his crime,

we can never feel sure of the two true men who are guiltless. That is,

I never can. I should be haunted by doubts just as I am to-day, and to

be doubt-haunted is misery, the depth of which you cannot judge unless

you know my history."

"And that I cannot ask for--" I began.

"Yet why should I keep it from you? You have earned my confidence. You

are, and are likely to remain, my only friend; then why should I hold

back facts well known to those who come in daily contact with me? I am

unfortunate in having a father who is no father to me. From earliest

childhood till I left him to come to New York, I had never received

from either parent a caress which was more than a formality. My

father's lack of sympathy rose from the mortal disappointment he

suffered when, of his two children, it was the girl and not the boy

who survived the illness which prostrated both. My mother--but I will

not talk of her; she has been dead a dozen years--only you will

believe me when I say that all tokens of affection were lacking to my

childhood and that the first word expressive of warmth and protection

came to me from the cousin who met me at the train the day I entered

upon my new life in my dear uncle's home. Do you wonder this

unexpected tenderness blinded me a little to faults which I had no

reason then to think would ever develop into anything worse?"

I rose to leave; my self-control was not strong enough for me to bear

up against these repeated attacks. As I did so, I said:

"Miss Meredith, you have heard my promise. May I be prospered in my

undertaking, for success in it means not only satisfaction to myself

but great relief to you. Why do you tremble?"

"I fear--I dread your interference. Sometimes I wish never to know the

truth. You will call me inconsistent, unreasonable. Indeed, I know I

am; but what can you expect from a girl upon whom the blessing of God

has never rested?"

This was a new phase in her nature, the more distressing to me, that,

knowing little of women, I did not understand her. She saw the effect

of her outburst, and melted immediately.

"This is a bad return for your generosity," she cried. "Ascribe it to

my weakness and the dread I feel lest he----"

"The guilty man," I interposed, "is not a subject for sympathy. But he

whom you love is not the guilty man," I bravely assured her. "Take my

word and my hope for that. A man who could win your regard has no such

black spot in his breast."

And, bowing over her hand, I escaped before she could propound any of

the many questions my declared purpose was likely to call up.