FURTHER CONSIDERATION OF CLEWS.
Having allowed Ashley to digest the food for thought furnished by the
detective, the latter resumes his story:
“Upon my return from Ashfield I called upon Cyrus Felton, found him at
his residence and interviewed him in his library for fully an hour. When
I introduced myself as a detective he started visibly. In place of the
extreme agitation which characterized his testimony at the inquest, he
betrayed a nervousness rather peculiar, to say the least, in one whose
knowledge of the crime embraced only what he related to the coroner.
“I questioned him minutely, avoiding any direct query that would be
likely to arouse his suspicions. To my question, ‘When did you last see
Mr. Hathaway?’ he replied that it was on the afternoon of Memorial Day,
when the Grand Army post marched to the cemetery.
“‘And before that—when?’
“He hesitated a few moments and answered that he had last talked with
the cashier several days, probably a week, before the tragedy.
“‘Your relations with Mr. Hathaway were always of a friendly nature?’
“‘Eminently so.’
“The answer was straightforward and the look that accompanied it was
open and direct, the only one, by the way, during the entire interview.
Of course I was not at the time aware of the unharmonious interview
which, as Miss Hathaway reported to you, occurred at her father’s house
on the evening preceding Memorial Day. Lie No. 1, conceding that he told
the truth about the note which he received from the cashier on the
evening of the tragedy.
“‘Now, this revolver of Mr. Hathaway’s, what sort of a weapon was it,
Mr. Felton?’ I asked. He gave me a half-startled look and I fancied that
his gaze strayed for an instant to the safe set in the wall of his
library. It flashed upon me that the lost gun was concealed behind the
steel door of that same safe.
“‘The revolver,’ he said, in an absent sort of way; ‘oh, it was an
ordinary affair, 32 caliber, I believe they called it, nickeled and with
a pearl handle. I had often seen it lying in Mr. Hathaway’s drawer, but
so far as I know it was never used.’
“‘Would you recognize that revolver if you should see it again, Mr.
Felton?’
“‘I don’t know as I could positively identify it. Revolvers are so much
alike, are they not?’ I nodded, and again his eyes shifted toward the
door of his safe.
“Well, as I say, I talked with him for about an hour, most of the
interview dealing with the forgery case of two years ago, in which our
mysterious friend, Ernest Stanley, figured as the principal. But of that
more later.
“It was about 5 o’clock when I called at Felton’s house, and the supper
bells of the neighborhood were ringing when I left. Instead of going to
the hotel I struck down a side street to the river road, for a smoke and
a stroll, and a chance to run the Hathaway case over in my mind.
“Half a mile below the village there is quite a stretch of road without
any houses along it. The cemetery is on one side, the river on the
other. I was sprawling on the stone wall that skirts the city of the
dead and looking toward the village, when I saw a figure rapidly
approaching. ‘Cyrus Felton or I’m a goat!’ I exclaimed, and rolled out
of sight behind the wall. My eyesight is keen and I could not mistake
the tall, lank form of the bank president. ‘What the deuce is he doing
down this road at an hour when he should be peacefully eating his
supper?’ I wondered.
“When Felton passed around the bend in the road I sprung over the wall
and followed at a cautious distance. He looked around once or twice, and
I had to dodge behind a tree each time. Suddenly he stopped and walked
out upon the bank of the river, while I again took up a position behind
my friendly stone wall.
“Our banker walked to the edge of the river, and, with his hands clasped
behind him, stared at the water, now and then casting a look up and down
the road.
“‘Heavens! Is he going to commit suicide?’ I thought. Surely my mild
catechism had not driven him to such an extremity. My fears were shortly
allayed. He suddenly thrust his hand into his coat pocket, and,
withdrawing some object, hurled it into the stream. It sunk with a small
splash. I was too far away to more than guess what the object was.
Felton remained on the bank for several minutes, gazing at the surface
of the river, then suddenly wheeled and started toward the village. As
he passed me I fancied he looked a bit more relieved in mind.
“After he was out of sight I walked over to the river and marked as near
as possible the spot where he had stood. The river at that point is
deep, and I fear that the bottom is muddy, as the stream makes a sharp
bend and spreads into a broad lagoon, with little or no current.”
“You intend to go a-fishing?” queries Ashley.
“At daylight, if we can get a boat of some sort.”
“And if our search is rewarded by the finding of a revolver—the
revolver—what then?”
“Then I think we shall have a case against Cyrus Felton stronger than we
shall make out against any one else. I can see by your face that you are
only half convinced of that fact,” continues Barker. “You are more
inclined to suspect the younger Felton than the elder, eh?”
“Well,” argues the newspaper man, “in the case of Ralph Felton there is
a motive, an evil temper, and what is usually regarded as confession of
guilt—flight.”
“Good. Let us look over young Felton’s case,” says the detective. “Ralph
Felton, we know, is possessed of an evil temper and a disposition to
bullyrag a young lady who is sensible enough not to love him. We know
also that he gambles with traveling men who put up here, and drinks more
or less. As the good people of this town regard Ralph as a model young
man, his indulgence in cards and wine on the quiet shows a broad streak
of deception in his character.
“His inclinations toward gayety were not cultivated in his native town.
Previous to a twelvemonth ago four or five years of his life were spent
in New York, Chicago and other cities. His occupation during a share of
that time was that of representative and selling agent for the granite
company in which his father is the principal stock owner. He was
apparently wild and reckless, for a year ago he returned to Raymond and
through the efforts of his father was given the position of bookkeeper
in the bank, a position which does not usually pay much. It would appear
that the elder Felton had enacted the role of the prodigal’s father.
“While Ralph Felton was ‘down country’ he fell in love with a pretty
face, and upon its possessor he squandered all his means and more. When
Ralph returned to Raymond the woman wrote to him demanding money and a
fulfillment of pledges. The former he had not; of the latter he had no
thought, as he had become desperately enamored of Helen Hathaway. Unable
to obtain satisfaction by a correspondence, the woman visited Raymond
the afternoon of Memorial Day, registered as ‘Isabel Winthrop,’ and sent
word to Ralph that a lady desired to see him. He went to her. The
interview between the pair was not harmonious. Sounds of a quarrel came
from the room, and once or twice the word ‘money’ was used. Half an hour
or so from the time he entered the hotel Ralph left with a flushed
countenance, first pledging the clerk to say nothing of his feminine
caller.
“He has essayed promises with her, but something substantial is demanded
to back them up. He must have money, but where is it to be secured? No
use to apply to his father, that he well knows. The more he racks his
brain the more desperate becomes the situation. Then a wild thought
comes to him. The bank! There must be a large amount of money in the
safe. The county bonds mature the next day. He knows, we will
assume—perhaps the knowledge is accidental—the combination of the safe.
“Ralph returns to the hotel, and, with a calmness born of a desperate
resolve, informs ‘Isabel Winthrop’ that he has arranged for the needed
funds, and reiterates his promises for the future. As dusk comes on he
leaves the hotel unobserved by the clerk, goes to the bank, opens the
front door and locks it behind him, and proceeds to the cashier’s office
in the rear, wherein open the doors to the vault.
“As with a trembling hand he twists the combination of the vault he
hears the sound of a key in the outer door. He springs to his feet and
casts a startled glance about him. There is no egress from the room save
by the way he came. Ah! The closet! He secretes himself in the dark
closet at the farther end of the room, and at that instant Roger
Hathaway enters.
“‘The cashier,’ murmurs the prisoner in the closet, as through the
partially open door he watches Hathaway light his desk lamp. ‘He has
dropped in to get some papers and will soon be gone,’ thinks Ralph. But
to the latter’s despair the cashier opens the vault, takes out the big
ledger, and settles down apparently to an evening’s work.
“Here is a nice predicament, but there is nothing to be done except wait
until the cashier finishes his evening’s work and goes home. Half an
hour or more goes by. The closet is dusty and Ralph is seized with an
irresistible desire to sneeze. The explosion, a half-smothered one,
occurs, and the cashier looks about him in surprise and wonder. But he
continues his work. Suddenly Felton sees him seize a pad of writing
paper, scratch off a brief note and leave the room to find a messenger.
Has the cashier suspected the presence of some person in the bank
besides himself and has he taken this means to summon assistance? As
this thought flashes upon him young Felton becomes desperate, but as he
watches the face of the cashier, who returns calmly to his writing, he
convinces himself that he is mistaken.
“Again that cursed inclination to sneeze, which in vain he attempts to
smother. This time there is no mistake. The cashier rises to his feet
and glances about the room in alarm. His eyes finally rest on the partly
opened door of the dark closet. Hathaway is a man of nerve. He opens the
right-hand drawer of his desk, takes out and cocks his revolver and
walks deliberately toward the closet.
“All this is seen by Ralph, and his plan to rob the bank is succeeded by
a desire to escape from the building unrecognized. To accomplish this
the cashier must be overpowered. So when the latter flings open the
closet door the man within reaches out, grasps the revolver arm and
draws the cashier into the darkness of the closet. Then ensues a fierce
struggle, for Roger Hathaway, though old, is still a powerful man. This
would account for the old ledgers that were toppled over into the
office, and for the marks on the body of the murdered man.
“During the struggle the revolver is discharged and the bullet enters
the cashier’s heart. The doctors in the case tell me that the course of
the bullet was such that the leaden missile might have come from a
pistol discharged during such a struggle as I have described. But to
continue:
“Ralph Felton draws the limp form of the cashier out into the office and
lays it upon the floor. A moment’s examination shows him that the man is
dead, and he realizes his frightful position. Then the thought occurs to
him that, if he carries out his original plan of robbing the bank, the
crime will be ascribed to burglars. So he fills his pockets with what
money and securities are in the safe, closes the door to the cashier’s
office behind him and leaves the bank, with the front door unlocked or
ajar.”
“Unless—” interrupts Ashley.
“Unless what?”
“Unless,” says the newspaper man, leaning back in his chair and blowing
a cloud of smoke ceilingward—“unless Ralph Felton, when he rose from his
examination of the body, was suddenly confronted by his father, who had
come to the bank in response to the summons sent by the cashier!”
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