"Ah, Tate! Come right in; the party hasn't started yet!"
The newcomer was a short, thick-set man, clean-shaven, with coarse dark
hair streaked with gray. The hand he gave the men in succession as they
gathered about him for Burgess's introduction was broad and heavy. He
offered it limply, with an air of embarrassment.
"Governor Eastman, Mr. Tate; that's your seat by the governor, Tate,"
said Burgess. "We were just listening to some old stories from some of
these fellows, so you haven't missed anything. I hope they didn't need
me at that tile meeting; I never attend night meetings: they spoil my
sleep, which my doctor says I've got to have."
"Night meetings," said the Governor, "always give me a grouch the next
morning. A party like this doesn't, of course!"
"Up in the country where I live we still stick to lodge meeting as an
excuse when we want a night off," Tate remarked.
They laughed more loudly than was necessary to put him at ease. He
refused Burgess's offer of food and drink and when someone started a
political discussion they conspired to draw him into it. He was County
Chairman of the party not then in power and complained good-naturedly to
the governor of the big plurality Eastman had rolled up in the last
election. He talked slowly, with a kind of dogged emphasis, and it was
evident that politics was a subject to his taste. His brown eyes, they
were noting, were curiously large and full, with a bilious tinge in the
white. He met a glance steadily, with, indeed, an almost disconcerting
directness.
Where the governor sat became, by imperceptible degrees, the head of the
table as he began seriously and frankly discussing the points of
difference between the existing parties, accompanied by clean-cut
characterizations of the great leaders.
There was nothing to indicate that anything lay behind his talk; to all
appearances his auditors were absorbed in what he was saying. Tate had
accepted a cigar, which he did not light but kept twisting slowly in his
thick fingers.
"We Democrats have had to change our minds about a good many things,"
the governor was saying. "Of course we're not going back to Jefferson"
(he smiled broadly and waited for them to praise his magnanimity in
approaching so near to an impious admission), "but the world has spun
around a good many times since Jefferson's day. What I think we
Democrats do and do splendidly is to keep dose to the changing current
of public opinion; sometimes it seems likely to wash us down, as in the
free-silver days; but we give, probably without always realizing it, a
chance for the people to express themselves on new questions, and if
we've stood for some foolish policies at times the country's the better
for having passed on them. These great contests dear the air like a
storm, and we all go peacefully about our business afterward."
As he continued they were all covertly watching Tate, who dropped his
cigar and began playing with the pencil before him, absently winding and
unwinding it upon the string that held it to the tablet. They were
feigning an absorption in the governor's recital which their quick,
nervous glances at Tate's hand belied. Burgess had pushed back his chair
to face the governor more comfortably and was tying knots in his napkin.
Now and then Tate nodded solemnly in affirmation of something the
governor said, but without lifting his eyes from the pencil. His broad
shoulders were bent over the table, and the men about him were
reflecting that this was probably an attitude into which his heavy body
often relaxed when he was pondering deeply.
Wearying of the pencil--a trifle of the dance-card variety--he dropped
it and drew his own from his waistcoat pocket. Then, after looking up to
join in a laugh at some indictment of Republicanism expressed in droll
terms by the governor, he drew the tablet closer and, turning his head
slightly to one side, drew a straight line. Burgess frowned as several
men changed position the better to watch him. The silence deepened, and
the governor's voice rose with a slight oratorical ring. Through a
half-open window floated the click of billiard balls in the room below.
The governor having come down to the Wilson Administration, went back to
Cleveland, whom he praised as a great leader and a great president. In
normal circumstances there would have been interruptions and questions
and an occasional gibe; and ordinarily the governor, who was not noted
for loquacity, would not have talked twenty minutes at a stretch without
giving an opportunity to his companions to break in upon him. He was
talking, as they all knew, to give Tate time to draw the odd device
which it was his habit to sketch when deeply engrossed.
The pencil continued to move over the paper; and from time to time Tate
turned the pad and scrutinized his work critically. The men immediately
about him watched his hand, wide-eyed, fascinated. There was something
uncanny and unreal in the situation: it was like watching a wild animal
approaching a trap and wholly unmindful of its danger. The square box
which formed the base of the device was traced clearly; the arcs which
were its familiar embellishment were carefully added. The governor,
having exhausted Cleveland, went back to Jackson, and Tate finished a
second drawing, absorbed in his work and rarely lifting his eyes.
Seeing that Tate had tired of this pastime, the governor brought his
lecture to an end, exclaiming:
"Great Scott, Burgess! Why haven't you stopped me! I've said enough here
to ruin me with my party, and you hadn't the grace to shut me off."
"I'm glad for one," said Tate, pushing back the pad, "that I got in time
to hear you; I've never known before that any Democrat could be so
broad-minded!"
"The governor loosens up a good deal between campaigns," said Burgess,
rising. "And now, let's go into the library where the chairs are
easier."
The governor rose with the others, but remained by his chair, talking to
Tate, until the room cleared, and then resumed his seat.
"This is perfectly comfortable; let's stay here, Mr. Tate. Burgess,
close the door, will you."
Tate, hesitated, looked at his watch, and glanced at Burgess, who sat
down as though wishing to humor the governor, and lighted a cigar.
"Mr. Tate," said the governor unhurriedly, "if I'm not mistaken, you are
George Avery's brother-in-law."
Tate turned quickly, and his eyes widened in surprise.
"Yes," he answered in slow, even tones; "Avery married my sister."
"Mr. Tate, I have in my pocket a pardon all ready to sign, giving Avery
his liberty. His case has troubled me a good deal; I don't want to sign
this pardon unless I'm reasonably sure of Avery's innocence. If you were
in my place, Mr. Tate, would you sign it?"
The color went out of the man's face and his jaw fell; but he recovered
himself quickly.
"Of course, governor, it would be a relief to me, to my sister, all of
us, if you could see your way to pardoning George. As you know, I've
been doing what I could to bring pressure to bear on the Board of
Pardons: everything that seemed proper. Of course," he went on
ingratiatingly, "we've all felt the disgrace of the thing."
"Mr. Tate," the governor interrupted, "I have reason to believe that
there was a third man at Avery's bungalow the night Reynolds was killed.
I've been at some pains to satisfy myself of that. Did that ever occur
to you as a possibility?"
"I suspected that all along," Tate answered, drawing his handkerchief
slowly across his face. "I never could believe George Avery guilty; he
wasn't that kind of man!"
"I don't think he was myself," the governor replied. "Now, Mr. Tate, on
the night of the murder you were not at home, nor on the next day when
your sister called you on the long-distance telephone. You were in
Louisville, were you not?"
"Yes, certainly; I was in Louisville."
"As a matter of fact, Mr. Tate, you were not in Louisville! You were at
Avery's bungalow that night, and you left the quarry station on a
freight train that was sidetracked on the quarry switch to allow the
Chicago train to pass. You rode to Davos, which you reached at two
o'clock in the morning. There you registered under a false name at the
Gerber House, and went home the next evening pretending to have been at
Louisville. You are a bachelor, and live in rooms over your bank, and
there was no one to keep tab on your absences but your clerks, who
naturally thought nothing of your going to Louisville, where business
often takes you. You were there two days ago, I believe. But that has
nothing to do with this matter. When you heard that Reynolds was dead
and Avery under suspicion you answered your sister's summons and hurried
to Torrenceville."
"I was in Louisville; I was in Louisville, I tell you!" Tate uttered the
words in convulsive gasps. He brushed the perspiration from his forehead
impatiently and half rose.
"Please sit down, Mr. Tate. You had had trouble a little while before
that with Reynolds about some stock in a creamery concern in your county
that he promoted. You thought he had tricked you, and very possibly he
had. The creamery business had resulted in a bitter hostility between
you: it had gone to such an extent that he had refused to see you again
to discuss the matter. You brooded over that until you were not quite
sane where Reynolds was concerned: I'll give you the benefit of that.
You asked your brother-in-law to tell you when Reynolds was going to see
him, and he obligingly consented. We will assume that Avery, a good
fellow and anxious to aid you, made a meeting possible. Reynolds wasn't
to know that you were to be at the bungalow--he wouldn't have gone if he
had known it--and Avery risked the success of his own negotiations by
introducing you into his house, out of sheer good will and friendship.
You sat at a table in the bungalow living-room and discussed the matter.
Some of these things only I have guessed at; the rest of it----"
"It's a lie; it's all a damned lie! This was a scheme to get me here:
you and Burgess have set this up on me! I tell you I wasn't at the
quarry; I never saw Reynolds there that night or any other time. My God,
if I had been there,--if Avery could have put it on me, would he be
doing time for it?"
"Not necessarily, Mr. Tate. Let us go back a little. It had been in your
power once to do Avery a great favor, a very great favor. That's true,
isn't it?"
Tate stared, clearly surprised, but his quivering lips framed no answer.
"You had known him from boyhood, and shortly after his marriage to your
sister it had been in your power to do him a great favor; you had helped
him out of a hole and saved the quarry for him. It cost me considerable
money to find that out, Mr. Tate, and not a word of help have I had from
Avery: be sure of that! He had been guilty of something just a little
irregular--in fact, the forging of your name to a note--and you had
dealt generously with him, out of your old-time friendship, we will say,
or to spare your sister humiliation."
"George was in a corner," said Tate weakly but with manifest relief at
the turn of the talk. "He squared it all long ago."
"It's natural, in fact, instinctive, for a man to protect himself, to
exhaust all the possibilities of defense when the law lays its hand upon
him. Avery did not do so, and his meek submission counted heavily
against him. But let us consider that a little. You and Reynolds left
the bungalow together, probably after the interview had added to your
wrath against him, but you wished to renew the talk out of Avery's
hearing and volunteered to guide Reynolds to the station where the
Chicago train was to stop for him. You didn't go back, Mr. Tate----"
"Good God, I tell you I wasn't there! I can prove that I was in
Louisville; I tell you----"
"We're coming bade to your alibi in a moment," said the governor
patiently. "We will assume--merely assume for the moment--that you said
you would take the train with Reynolds and ride as far as Ashton, where
the Midland crosses and you would get an early morning train home. Avery
went to sleep at the bungalow wholly ignorant of what had happened; he
was awakened in the morning with news that Reynolds had been killed by
blows on the head inflicted near the big derrick where you and
Reynolds--I am assuming again--had stopped to argue your grievances.
Avery--shocked, dazed, not comprehending his danger and lying there in
the bungalow prostrated and half-crazed by the horror of the
thing--waited: waited for the prompt help he expected from the only
living person who knew that he had not left the bungalow. He knew you
only as a kind, helpful friend, and I dare say at first he never
suspected you! It was the last thing in the world he would have
attributed to you, and the possibility of it was slow to enter his
anxious, perturbed mind. He had every reason for sitting tight in those
first hideous hours, confident that the third man at that bungalow
gathering would come forward and establish his innocence with a word. As
is the way in such cases, efforts were made to fix guilt upon others;
but Avery, your friend, the man you had saved once, in a fine spirit of
magnanimity, waited for you to say the word that would dear him. But you
never said that word, Mr. Tate. You took advantage of his silence; a
silence due, we will say, to shock and horror at the catastrophe and to
his reluctance to believe you guilty of so monstrous a crime or capable
of allowing him, an innocent man, to suffer the penalty for it."
Tate's big eyes were bent dully upon the governor. He averted his gaze
slowly and reached for a glass of water, but his hand shook so that he
could not lift it, and he glared at it as though it were a hateful
thing.
"I wasn't there! Why----" he began with an effort at bravado; but the
words choked him and he sat swinging his head from side to side and
breathing heavily.
The governor went on in the same low, even tone he had used from the
beginning:
"When Avery came to himself and you still were silent, he doubtless
saw that, having arranged for you to meet Reynolds at the
bungalow--Reynolds, who had been avoiding you--he had put himself in the
position of an accessory before the fact and that even if he told the
truth about your being there he would only be drawing you into the net
without wholly freeing himself. At best it was an ugly business, and
being an intelligent man he knew it. I gather that you are a secretive
man by nature; the people who know you well in your own town say that of
you. No one knew that you had gone there and the burden of the whole
thing was upon Avery. And your tracks were so completely hidden: you had
been at such pains to sneak down there to take advantage of the chance
Avery made for you to see Reynolds and have it out with him about the
creamery business, that suspicion never attached to you. You knew Avery
as a good fellow, a little weak, perhaps, as you learned from that
forgery of your name ten years earlier; and it would have been his word
against yours. I'll say to you, Mr. Tate, that I've lain awake nights
thinking about this case, and I know of nothing more pitiful, my
imagination can conjure nothing more horrible, than the silent suffering
of George Avery as he waited for you to go to his rescue, knowing that
you alone could save him."
"I didn't do it, I didn't do it!" Tate reiterated in a hoarse whisper
that died away with a queer guttural sound in his throat.
"And now about your alibi, Mr. Tate: the alibi that you were never even
called on to establish." The governor reached for the tablet and held it
before the man's eyes, which focused upon it slowly, uncomprehendingly.
"Now," said the governor, "you can hardly deny that you drew that
sketch, for I saw you do it with my own eyes. I'm going to ask you, Mr.
Tate, whether this drawing isn't also your work?"
He drew out the sheet of paper he had shown the others earlier in the
evening and placed it beside the tablet. Tate jumped to his feet,
staring wild-eyed, and a groan escaped him. The governor caught his arm
and pushed him bade into his chair.
"You will see that is Avery's letterhead that was used in the quarry
office. As you talked there with Reynolds that night you played with a
pencil as you did here a little while ago and without realizing it you
were creating evidence against yourself that was all I needed to
convince me absolutely of your guilt. I have three other sheets of
Avery's paper bearing the same figure that you drew that night at the
quarry office; and I have others collected in your own office within a
week! As you may be aware, the power of habit is very strong. For years,
no doubt, your subconsciousness has carried that device, and in moments
of deep abstraction with wholly unrelated things your hand has traced
it. Even the irregularities in the outline are identical, and the size
and shading are precisely the same. I ask you again, Mr. Tate, shall I
sign the pardon I brought here in my pocket and free George Avery?"
The sweat dripped from Tate's forehead and trickled down his cheeks in
little streams that shone in the light. His collar had wilted at the
fold, and he ran his finger round his neck to loosen it. Once, twice, he
lifted his head defiantly, but, meeting the governor's eyes fixed upon
him relentlessly, his gaze wavered. He thrust his hand under his coat
and drew out his pencil and then, finding it in his fingers, flung it
away, and his shoulders drooped lower.