Lambert's predecessor in the district-surgeoncy of Doppersdorp had an
odd hobby--viz., a mania for taking in newspapers representing, not only
all parts of the British Empire, but other sections, wild or tame, of
the known world. Now, nothing is so cumbersome and space-devouring as
files of old newspapers, wherefore those accumulated by Dr Simpson had,
by the time of that estimable practitioner's departure, come to take up
the whole available space afforded, by two fair-sized rooms.
At this time, however, it occurred to Lambert that he had custodied this
bulky collection of bygone journalism about long enough, wherefore, he
wrote to his predecessor suggesting its removal. But the answer he
received was to the effect that the cost and trouble of such removal
would be too great, and that he might consider these musty old files
henceforward his own property, the merit of which endowment being
somewhat negative, in that it empowered the recipient to destroy the
cumbersome gift; and to such destruction Lambert forthwith resolved to
proceed, yet by degrees; for it could not be that among all these
records he should fail to find other than a great deal of highly
interesting and, from time to time, strange and startling matter. So
Lambert would frequently lug in some dusty old file, which, having duly
shaken and in a measure cleansed, he constituted a companion to his
evening pipe. For reading matter was deplorably lacking in
Doppersdorp--the contents of the "public library," so called, consisting
mainly of ancient and heavy novels, soporific and incomplete, or the
biographies of divines, sour of habit and of mind narrow as the "way"
they were supposed to indicate.
Lambert had his reward, for these old records reaching back a decade--
two decades--judiciously scanned, were interesting, undeniably so.
There were representative papers issued in the Australian colonies, in
New Zealand, in India and America, and in no end of lands beside.
Lambert resolved, before accomplishing his projected wholesale
destruction, to scissor out such incidents as were worth preserving, and
to set up a scrap book; the main difficulty about this resolve lying in
the formidable mass of matter from which he felt called upon to select.
But while solving this problem, Lambert was destined to receive a shock,
and one of considerable power and magnitude.
He was seated alone one evening, looking through such an old file. The
paper was an American one, published in some hardly known Western
township. Its contents were racy, outspoken, very; and seemed of the
nature to have been written by the left hand of the editor, while the
right grasped the butt of the ever-ready "gun." But in turning a sheet
of this Lambert suddenly came upon that which made him leap in his
chair, and stare as though his eyes were about to drop from his head to
the floor. This is what he read:--
"The Crime of Stillwell's Flat.
Portrait of the Accused.
Sordid Affair.
He Tomahawks his Partner for the sake of Four Hundred Dollars.
The Man with the Double Scar.
Clever Arrest."
Such were some of the headings in bold capitals, which, distributed down
the column, about summed up the facts of the case, but only cursory
attention did Lambert at first pay to these. Not by them had his eye
been originally attracted, but by the portrait which headed the column.
For this portrait, mere pen-and-ink sketch as it originally had been,
was a most vivid and unmistakable likeness of Roden Musgrave.
Yes, there it was, the same clear-cut features, the same carriage of the
head--the artist seemed not merely to have caught his expression, but
even the characteristics of his very attitude. And--surer, more
convincing than all--the same double scar beneath the lower lip. Two
men might wear the same marvellous resemblance to each other, but no two
men could possibly do so to the extent of both being marked with that
peculiar double scar. That, at any rate, rendered the identity
complete, and beyond all room for doubt.
"The man with the double scar!" repeated Lambert to himself. "Holy
Moses! Am I drunk, or dreaming? No. It's him all right," passing his
hand over his eyes in a semi-dazed manner. "No two people could be so
extraordinarily alike, and Musgrave's is the sort of face that can't
have many `doubles' in the world. Now to see what they say about it."
Breathlessly he ran his eye down the column. The facts, as reported,
fully justified the opening definition of the crime as a sordid one, if
proved against the accused; and that there might be no mistake whatever
as to the identity of that critically situated personage with the
present assistant magistrate of Doppersdorp, he figured in the trial,
simply and without disguise, under the name of Roden Musgrave.
With dazed eyes, Lambert read on. Briefly summed up, the heads of the
affair were these. Two prospectors established themselves on a claim
together at Stillwell's Flat, a lonely spot beneath a northern spur of
the Black Hills. Their names were respectively, John Denton and Roden
Musgrave, and both were supposed to be Englishmen. One morning Denton
was found in the slab hut occupied by the pair, with his head cleft
nearly in twain, and beside him a bloodstained axe, and worse still, his
throat was cut from ear to ear. The wandering cattlemen, by whom the
discovery was made, described the place as like a slaughter-yard. A
ferocious and brutal crime, indeed! The motive? Robbery, of course.
The dead man, who was something of a gambler, was known to have taken
back from the nearest township upwards of four hundred dollars he had
won, and of this sum no trace could be found. The perpetrator?
Denton's partner, of course, who had disappeared.
Had disappeared to some purpose, too; for a long and vigorous search
failed to elicit the slightest clue to his whereabouts, and as the
searchers were mostly experienced plainsmen, it was concluded that he
was no longer above ground, had probably been killed or captured by the
Sioux, who were "bad" about there just at that time.
Then, a couple of months later, when the affair was beginning to fade
out of mind, possibly eclipsed by some other and similar tragedy such as
from time to time occurs to relieve the monotony of life in the "wild
and woolly West," the missing man was unexpectedly arrested on board a
Mississippi steamboat--arrested simply and solely on the identification
of that double scar, for his description had been so far circulated--
arrested and sent back for trial. And lucky indeed for him that a long
enough period had elapsed to enable the excitement to die down; for, had
he been found during the first days of it, he would probably have had no
trial at all. He would almost certainly have been lynched. Not that it
could matter in the long ran. The crime was not only a sordid and
brutal one, it was also a clumsy one; in fact, about the clumsiest on
record. The murderer had knotted the noose round his own neck. No
loophole of escape had he, and, this being so, public opinion was, for
once, in favour of the law being allowed to vindicate itself. Such
vindication there was no need to anticipate in short and summary
fashion.
Lambert, his pulses beating, his hands trembling with excitement,
rapidly turned over the sheets of the file. What if the report of the
trial should be missing? That would be too vexatious. Yet that it had
ended favourably to the accused was clear, since here he was. Stay!
Had he escaped prior to it being held? Lambert felt that if that were
so, why then, he held in his hand not only the prospects and social
position of his enemy but the latter's very life. Yet it could not be,
since Musgrave had made no attempt at changing his name. And then, for
the first time, it occurred to Lambert to glance at the date of the
file. The affair had taken place just ten years previously.
Ten years? Why, the portrait might have been taken that day. Ten
years? Ah, the accused might have been found guilty on a lesser count,
and sentenced to imprisonment only. That indeed would be the best of
all, and Lambert fairly thrilled with delight over the prospect of
breaking the news to Mona Ridsdale that the man she had preferred to
himself was only an ex-gaol bird who had "done time," and who would, of
course, now that he was unmasked, be promptly kicked out of the
Government Service. Would he never find what he wanted? Ah! There it
was.
"The Stillwell's Flat Murder.
Trial of the Accused.
Lawyer Schofield's Eloquent Defence.
Judge McClellar sums up.
Verdict of Acquittal.
The boys talk about Lynching."
Acquittal? Down went poor Lambert's house of cards, crumpled in the
dust. His discovery could not damage his enemy now. Still, as he read
the final report of the trial and its result, he thought he saw light.
For the acquittal, under the circumstances, and obtained as it had been,
amounted to a verdict of "not proven" far more than to one of "not
guilty."
And the way in which it had been arrived at was ingenious. The evidence
against the accused was merely presumptive; indeed, it was no evidence
at all. He admitted having quarrelled with the deceased and left him,
but totally denied the murder. Moreover, he had satisfactorily
explained his movements since. Why had he not returned when wanted?
Ah, well now. It was not completely outside knowledge that innocent men
had before then been sacrificed at times of popular clamour. But there
were two cards which the lawyer for the defence held in his hands, and
upon which he mainly relied. The axe-blow which had slain the murdered
man had split his head nearly in two, yet his throat had been cut. Now
the latter act was quite superfluous, was, in fact, an act of deliberate
and cold-blooded barbarity, to which his client, even if he did the
killing, would hardly be likely to bring himself. The fact of the dead
man's throat being cut pointed to murderers of a very different type.
Everybody knew that the tribal mark of the Sioux was cutting the throat,
which never failed to distinguish the victims of their barbarity. Well,
the Sioux were "bad" around there just then, and Stillwell's Flat was a
lonely place; in fact, it was in following the trail of several Indians
who had run off some of their steers, that those very cattlemen had
happened upon the spot. True, the man was not scalped, but possibly the
Indian murderers had been alarmed, and decamped before completing that
revolting essential to their barbarous work.
But the trump card of all, and one most skilfully played by the
advocate, was this:--His client had served in the recent Indian war,
might not the murderers have marked him out as the object of their
vengeance, and have mistaken his partner for him? He had been one of
that little band of heroes, under the command of General Forsyth, who
only the previous year had "stood off" overwhelming forces of the enemy;
and who with no other rampart than their own dead horses, and no other
food than the putrefying flesh of the animals, had managed to hold their
own for seven days against the fiercest and most persistent onslaughts
known to Plains history. Moreover, he was one of those who had
volunteered to break through at night, braving certain death, and almost
certain death by torture, in order to make his way to Fort Wallace, and
bring relief to the besieged handful of scouts. Was this the man to
commit such a foul and sordid murder for the sake of a few dollars? Was
this man, who had fought so bravely to defend their frontier, to be
sacrificed to such a preposterous suspicion, to be allowed to suffer for
the crime almost certainly committed by representatives of that savage
enemy, to withstand whom he had so often and so freely risked his life?
With the battle of the Arickaree Fork fresh in their memories, not one
who heard him could be of any two minds as to the sort of verdict he
would be given.
This clever drawing of a red herring across the trail of the main issue
answered. Lawyer Schofield's eloquence had its reward. He obtained his
verdict, and his client was acquitted.
But it was not a spontaneous verdict, not a triumphant acquittal. Long
and earnestly did the jury debate, and when at last the accused walked
forth a free man, he was received with a silence that was ominous. The
lawyer, of course, was quite right to do his best for his client, and
his strong appeal to sentiment was specious, if successful. But nobody
believed overmuch in the theory he had sprung. If the Sioux had killed
John Denton, they would have run off all his possessions, probably have
fired the slab hut, instead of relieving him of his cash alone. Nor
would they have left him his scalp. No. To the frontier community that
Indian theory would not wash. Justice had been defeated, and Roden
Musgrave had few, if any, friends. But when there sallied forth
stealthily that night a band of dissatisfied and justice loving
citizens, well-armed, and bearing in its midst an ominous coil of rope,
the man who had been acquitted that day was not to be found. Nor, in
fact, were they destined ever to set eyes upon him again.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This, set forth in a voluminous report extending over many columns, was
the substance of what Lambert read, and, as he grasped all the details,
he realised that, although powerless to effect material ruin, there was
still that about the equivocal nature of the acquittal which would be
sufficient to damage his rival irreparably from a social point of view.
Throw mud enough and a great deal of it is sure to stick, is a trite
axiom. The crime was an exceptionally brutal one, and the bare
suspicion of it still clinging to a man was enough. To do him justice,
Lambert himself felt a repulsion towards one who could ever have
colourably lain under so horrible a suspicion, which was not altogether
the outcome of his hatred of this particular individual. What would
Mona think of it? What action would Musgrave's superior take in the
matter? Surely no man could continue to hold an official position with
such a stigma clinging to him. Musgrave would be called upon to resign,
of course. And then an uneasy misgiving assailed the plotter's mind,
and there loomed up ugly visions of suits for slander, defamation, what
not. The man had stood his trial and had been acquitted. It would be a
ticklish matter spreading the story around.
The more he looked at it the less he liked it. Nothing was easier than
to start this kind of ball rolling, nothing on earth more difficult than
to stop its progress once it was fairly in motion. Lambert wanted to
see the end of this thing; to which effect he resolved to sleep upon it.
Having accordingly slept upon it, he decided that two heads were better
than one. If anybody in Doppersdorp were competent to carry this affair
through, that individual was Sonnenberg.
Not for a moment did it occur to Lambert that he was about to perpetrate
a wholly mean and dishonourable act, or if it did, he excused it on the
ground that all's fair in love and war. Musgrave had cut him out in a
certain quarter; Musgrave had had his day; now he, Lambert, was going to
have his. He was not quite fool enough to suppose that he could walk
into Mona's heart over, figuratively speaking, the other's dead body;
nevertheless he would tumble down their own fair house of cards, would,
in fact, separate them; and from this purpose he never swerved.
Sonnenberg, when put in possession of this new weapon against their
common enemy, fairly howled with delight; when he saw the portrait, and
read the report of the case, his exultation knew no bounds.
"We have him! we have him, by God!" he yelled. "Ha, ha! I shall get
the value of my fifteen pounds now. This is worth fifty of the
gun-selling trap."
"But, wait now. Let's be careful," urged Lambert. "It's an awkward
thing, you know, spreading about a story of this kind. Might get
ourselves into trouble, eh?"
"Trouble? Trouble be damned! By to-night, or to-morrow at latest, it
shall be all over the district. Even if we did render ourselves liable
to any action by passing it on--which we don't--there's a better way of
doing it."
"What is it?"
"Why, filter it through Chandler. It won't take long to run through
him."
"By Jove, the very thing!" cried Lambert.