It was on the morning succeeding that night, that Lem Pawlett and
Squire Bodley made the discovery of the murder of Jacob Van Deust, as
has already been described. As the reader will remember, the neighbors
assembled about the corpse of the murdered man, believed that they had
grounds for suspecting Peter Van Deust of the assassination of his
brother, and even discussed the advisability of his arrest. He,
unconscious of the ugly rumors afloat about him, and regardless of the
dark looks of those by whom he was surrounded, lay upon his face in
his room, weeping as one without hope for the lifelong companion so
cruelly reft from his side. He had never known, until death parted
them, how dear to him was his gentle-hearted brother and how very
lonely the world would be without him. And every unkind passionate
word he had uttered, and every selfish thought to which the evil
promptings of avarice had given birth in his heart, since that unlucky
fortune came them, seemed now to rise up before him like an accusing
ghost, so that the old man, burying his face in his hands, sobbed
aloud:
"Oh, Jacob, Jacob! I am so sorry for it all."
Perhaps the spirit freed from that weak lump of clay in the crimson
pool, might have heard the cry and, knowing the true meaning and the
penitence of the sorrowing heart, have well forgiven; but a neighbor,
leaning against the door-post and peering curiously in at the
grief-stricken old man, turned quickly to his comrade without the
threshold and exclaimed in a low excited whisper:
"Gosh! Joe. He's just as good as owned up that he did it, and says
he's 'sorry for it' now, 'cause he's scared of being found out."
And then by the time this had been repeated to a half-dozen--as it was
in little more than as many minutes--those who heard the story last,
learned that Peter had just made to somebody a full confession of
having murdered his brother. But in the very height of the excitement
to which this gave rise, Lem Pawlett, who was still prying about the
room, with something of an instinctive detective genius guiding his
movements, made an important discovery.
Drawing aside the figured chintz curtains that hung close over the
back window of the dead man's room, he noticed that a mud-wasp's nest
of clay had fallen to the sill, from the place where the insect had
stuck it in the angle of the sash and frame of the window, two or
three feet above. Knowing how firmly the ingenious little builders of
those houses are accustomed to place them, he recognized that some
unusual violence must have been employed to break it loose. That it
had not been intentionally knocked down was probable, else the clay
would not have been left littering the window sill. That the mischief
had been freshly done, was manifest. He tried the sash, and found that
it could easily be lifted. Its only fastening had been a nail, thrust
into a hole in the frame above the sash; but rust had corroded the
nail to merely a thin rotten wire. The head of it came off in his
fingers, when he felt it, and he observed that it had been broken,
with what seemed a fresh fracture, just where it entered the frame. It
must, he thought, have been broken by some one lifting the sash from
without, as a person opening the window from the inside would have
been likely to pull it out first, as a matter of convenience. He
raised the sash fully, and uttered an exclamation of surprise, the
first sound that had called anybody's attention to his investigations.
There, plain to be seen in the soft black wood of the old sill, were
two deep dents that appeared to have been made by some flat,
square-edged metal instrument, an inch wide. The one beneath that side
of the sash upon which the nail was broken off, was a little the
deepest. Upon the bottom of the sash, on the outer side, were two deep
impressions corresponding with the dents in the sill, and seemingly
made by the same instrument, which, as Lem judged, was some sort of a
stout chisel, used as a lever. All the marks were fresh.
The loose earth of the little garden just beneath the window, where
the drip of the eaves had kept it soft and damp, showed the treading
there of feet shod in high-heeled and square-toed shoes, or boots,
such as might have been made for city wear, and not at all like those
worn in the country. Following those tracks, they led Lem, and the
crowd now at his elbow, to a point where the weight of a person
crossing the rickety old "worm" fence had broken a rotten rail; and,
near by, one of the high-heeled shoes had trodden down the stem of a
lily that was in its path. The fracture of the rail was fresh, and the
lily, broken from its stem and lying on the humid earth, was not yet
withered. But the high heel had crushed one of its snowy petals.
In the lane, outside the fence, the tracks were lost.
The importance of these discoveries was at once apparent, even to the
dullest of comprehension; and there was no longer a question in the
minds of any but that the murder had been committed by some burglar
who had entered through the window, and that old Peter was innocent.
The reflection that there was in the community some one capable of
such an awful deed, or that somebody from the wicked world outside had
come among them to strike so terrible a blow, sent a thrill of mingled
horror and fear through all present.
"Gracious alive!" exclaimed a very old man, whose hollow cheeks,
sunken and bleary eyes, white hair, and tottering limbs suggested that
the least possible thing of which he could be robbed was his remnant
of life, "we are none of us safe in our beds with such goings on!"
"No. But the man who did this must be found and punished," responded
Lem Pawlett, excitedly.
"Sake's a mercy! Who can ever find out such things? The man that did
it isn't going to tell on hisself!"
"God's finger will point him out," said Squire Bodley, solemnly.
"Well, maybe so. But--I dunno," murmured the old man, whose faith in
Providence seemed somewhat shaky.
Squire Bodley picked out a jury, and announced to all assembled that
he would hold the inquest at his office in the village one week from
that date, at six o'clock in the afternoon, at which time he hoped any
person who might meanwhile become cognizant of any new facts that
might have even the smallest possible bearing upon the subject to be
investigated, would come before him and make them known. And--as it is
always the theory among country people that a crime among them must
have been perpetrated by some one from the nearest city--he exhorted
all to use their utmost diligence to learn whether any suspicious
strangers had lately been seen in the neighborhood.
That afternoon he despatched a message to New York, requesting the
assistance of an experienced professional detective, to aid in
dissipating the mystery that seemed to overhang the murder of poor
old Jacob Van Deust, who, on the second day after his death, was laid
away among the dust of many other Van Deusts in the village graveyard.