IN the charming place in which he found himself there were so many
sympathetic faces that he felt more than ever convinced of the certainty
of making himself heard.
It was a bad blow, at first, to find that he had not been arrested
for murder; but Ascham, who had come to him at once, explained that he
needed rest, and the time to “review” his statements; it appeared that
reiteration had made them a little confused and contradictory. To
this end he had willingly acquiesced in his removal to a large quiet
establishment, with an open space and trees about it, where he had
found a number of intelligent companions, some, like himself, engaged
in preparing or reviewing statements of their cases, and others ready to
lend an interested ear to his own recital.
For a time he was content to let himself go on the tranquil current of
this existence; but although his auditors gave him for the most part
an encouraging attention, which, in some, went the length of really
brilliant and helpful suggestion, he gradually felt a recurrence of his
old doubts. Either his hearers were not sincere, or else they had
less power to aid him than they boasted. His interminable conferences
resulted in nothing, and as the benefit of the long rest made itself
felt, it produced an increased mental lucidity which rendered inaction
more and more unbearable. At length he discovered that on certain days
visitors from the outer world were admitted to his retreat; and he wrote
out long and logically constructed relations of his crime, and furtively
slipped them into the hands of these messengers of hope.
This occupation gave him a fresh lease of patience, and he now lived
only to watch for the visitors’ days, and scan the faces that swept by
him like stars seen and lost in the rifts of a hurrying sky.
Mostly, these faces were strange and less intelligent than those of his
companions. But they represented his last means of access to the world,
a kind of subterranean channel on which he could set his “statements”
afloat, like paper boats which the mysterious current might sweep out
into the open seas of life.
One day, however, his attention was arrested by a familiar contour,
a pair of bright prominent eyes, and a chin insufficiently shaved. He
sprang up and stood in the path of Peter McCarren.
The journalist looked at him doubtfully, then held out his hand with a
startled deprecating, “_Why--?_”
“You didn’t know me? I’m so changed?” Granice faltered, feeling the
rebound of the other’s wonder.
“Why, no; but you’re looking quieter--smoothed out,” McCarren smiled.
“Yes: that’s what I’m here for--to rest. And I’ve taken the opportunity
to write out a clearer statement--”
Granice’s hand shook so that he could hardly draw the folded paper from
his pocket. As he did so he noticed that the reporter was accompanied by
a tall man with grave compassionate eyes. It came to Granice in a wild
thrill of conviction that this was the face he had waited for...
“Perhaps your friend--he _is_ your friend?--would glance over it--or
I could put the case in a few words if you have time?” Granice’s voice
shook like his hand. If this chance escaped him he felt that his last
hope was gone. McCarren and the stranger looked at each other, and the
former glanced at his watch.
“I’m sorry we can’t stay and talk it over now, Mr. Granice; but my
friend has an engagement, and we’re rather pressed--”
Granice continued to proffer the paper. “I’m sorry--I think I could have
explained. But you’ll take this, at any rate?”
The stranger looked at him gently. “Certainly--I’ll take it.” He had his
hand out. “Good-bye.”
“Good-bye,” Granice echoed.
He stood watching the two men move away from him through the long light
hall; and as he watched them a tear ran down his face. But as soon as
they were out of sight he turned and walked hastily toward his room,
beginning to hope again, already planning a new statement.
Outside the building the two men stood still, and the journalist’s
companion looked up curiously at the long monotonous rows of barred
windows.
“So that was Granice?”
“Yes--that was Granice, poor devil,” said McCarren.
“Strange case! I suppose there’s never been one just like it? He’s still
absolutely convinced that he committed that murder?”
“Absolutely. Yes.”
The stranger reflected. “And there was no conceivable ground for the
idea? No one could make out how it started? A quiet conventional sort of
fellow like that--where do you suppose he got such a delusion? Did you
ever get the least clue to it?”
McCarren stood still, his hands in his pockets, his head cocked up in
contemplation of the barred windows. Then he turned his bright hard gaze
on his companion.
“That was the queer part of it. I’ve never spoken of it--but I _did_ get
a clue.”
“By Jove! That’s interesting. What was it?”
McCarren formed his red lips into a whistle. “Why--that it wasn’t a
delusion.”
He produced his effect--the other turned on him with a pallid stare.
“He murdered the man all right. I tumbled on the truth by the merest
accident, when I’d pretty nearly chucked the whole job.”
“He murdered him--murdered his cousin?”
“Sure as you live. Only don’t split on me. It’s about the queerest
business I ever ran into... _Do about it?_ Why, what was I to do? I
couldn’t hang the poor devil, could I? Lord, but I was glad when they
collared him, and had him stowed away safe in there!”
The tall man listened with a grave face, grasping Granice’s statement in
his hand.
“Here--take this; it makes me sick,” he said abruptly, thrusting the
paper at the reporter; and the two men turned and walked in silence to
the gates.