II

No man in all New York was ever more interested than myself in the

Hasbrouck affair, when it was the one and only topic of interest at

a period when news was unusually scarce. But, together with many such

inexplicable mysteries, it had passed almost completely from my mind,

when it was forcibly brought back, one day, by a walk I took through

Lafayette Place.

At sight of the long row of uniform buildings, with their pillared

fronts and connecting balconies every detail of the crime which had

filled the papers at the time with innumerable conjectures returned to

me with extraordinary clearness, and, before I knew it, I found myself

standing stockstill in the middle of the block with my eye raised to the

Hasbrouck house and my ears--or rather my inner consciousness, for no

one spoke I am sure--ringing with a question which, whether the echo of

some old thought or the expression of a new one, so affected me by the

promise it held of some hitherto unsuspected clue, that I hesitated

whether to push this new inquiry then or there by an attempted interview

with Mrs. Hasbrouck, or to wait till I had given it the thought which

such a stirring of dead bones rightfully demanded.

You know what that question was. I shall have communicated it to you, if

you have not already guessed it, before perusing these lines:

“Who uttered the scream which gave the first alarm of Mr. Hasbrouck’s

violent death?”

I was in a state of such excitement as I walked away--for I listened

to my better judgment as to the inadvisability of my disturbing Mrs.

Hasbrouck with these new inquiries--that the perspiration stood out on

my forehead. The testimony she had given at the inquest recurred to me,

and I remembered as distinctly as if she were then speaking, that she

had expressly stated that she did not scream when confronted by the

sight of her husband’s dead body. But someone had screamed and that

very loudly. Who was it, then? One of the maids, startled by the sudden

summons from below, or someone else--some involuntary witness of the

crime, whose testimony had been suppressed at the inquest, by fear or

influence?

The possibility of having come upon a clue even at this late day so

fired my ambition that I took the first opportunity of revisiting

Lafayette Place. Choosing such persons as I thought most open to my

questions, I learned that there were many who could testify to having

heard a woman’s shrill scream on that memorable night, just prior to the

alarm given by old Cyrus, but no one who could tell from whose lips it

had come. One fact, however, was immediately settled. It had not been

the result of the servant-women’s fears. Both of the girls were positive

that they had uttered no sound, nor had they themselves heard any

till Cyrus rushed to the window with his wild cries. As the scream,

by whomever given, was uttered before they descended the stairs, I was

convinced by these assurances that it had issued from one of the front

windows, and not from the rear of the house, where their own rooms lay.

Could it be that it had sprung from the adjoining dwelling, and that--

I remembered who had lived there and was for ringing the bell at once.

But, missing the doctor’s sign, I made inquiries and found that he had

moved from the block. However, a doctor is soon found, and in less than

fifteen, minutes I was at the door of his new home, where I asked, not

for him, but for Mrs. Zabriskie.

It required some courage to do this, for I had taken particular notice

of the doctor’s wife at the inquest, and her beauty, at that time, had

worn such an aspect of mingled sweetness and dignity that I hesitated

to encounter it under any circumstances likely to disturb its pure

serenity. But a clue once grasped cannot be lightly set aside by a true

detective, and it would have taken more than a woman’s frowns to stop me

at this point.

However, it was not with frowns she received me, but with a display of

emotion for which I was even less prepared. I had sent up my card and I

saw it trembling in her hand as she entered the room. As she neared me,

she glanced at it, and with a show of gentle indifference which did not

in the least disguise her extreme anxiety, she courteously remarked:

“Your name is an unfamiliar one to me. But you told my maid that your

business was one of extreme importance, and so I have consented to see

you. What can an agent from a private detective office have to say to

me?”

Startled by this evidence of the existence of some hidden skeleton in

her own closet, I made an immediate attempt to reassure her.

“Nothing which concerns you personally,” said I. “I simply wish to

ask you a question in regard to a small matter connected with Mr.

Hasbrouck’s violent death in Lafayette Place, a couple of years ago.

You were living in the adjoining house at the time I believe, and it has

occurred to me that you might on that account be able to settle a point

which has never been fully cleared up.”

Instead of showing the relief I expected, her pallor increased and her

fine eyes, which had been fixed curiously upon me, sank in confusion to

the floor.

“Great heaven!” thought I. “She looks as if at one more word from me,

she would fall at my feet in a faint. What is this I have stumbled

upon!”

“I do not see how you can have any question to ask me on that subject,”

she began with an effort at composure which for some reason disturbed

me more than her previous open display of fear. “Yet if you have,” she

continued, with a rapid change of manner that touched my heart in spite

of myself, “I shall, of course, do my best to answer you.”

There are women whose sweetest tones and most charming smiles only serve

to awaken distrust in men of my calling; but Mrs. Zabriskie was not

of this number. Her face was beautiful, but it was also candid in its

expression, and beneath the agitation which palpably disturbed her, I

was sure there lurked nothing either wicked or false. Yet I held fast by

the clue which I had grasped as it were in the dark, and without knowing

whither I was tending, much less whither I was leading her, I proceeded

to say:

“The question which I presume to put to you as the next door neighbour

of Mr. Hasbrouck is this: Who was the woman who on the night of

that gentleman’s assassination screamed out so loudly that the whole

neighbourhood heard her?”

The gasp she gave answered my question in a way she little realized, and

struck as I was by the impalpable links that had led me to the threshold

of this hitherto unsolvable mystery, I was about to press my advantage

and ask another question, when she quickly started forward and laid her

hand on my lips.

Astonished, I looked at her inquiringly, but her head was turned

aside, and her eyes, fixed upon the door, showed the greatest anxiety.

Instantly I realized what she feared. Her husband was entering the

house, and she dreaded lest his ears should catch a word of our

conversation.

Not knowing what was in her mind, and unable to realize the importance

of the moment to her, I yet listened to the advance of her blind husband

with an almost painful interest. Would he enter the room where we were,

or would he pass immediately to his office in the rear? She seemed to

wonder too, and almost held her breath as he neared the door, paused,

and stood in the open doorway, with his ear turned towards us.

As for myself, I remained perfectly still, gazing at his face in mingled

surprise and apprehension. For besides its beauty, which was of a marked

order, as I have already observed, it had a touching expression which

irresistibly aroused both pity and interest in the spectator. This may

have been the result of his affliction, or it may have sprung from some

deeper cause; but, whatever its source, this look in his face produced a

strong impression upon me and interested me at once in his personality.

Would he enter; or would he pass on? Her look of silent appeal showed

me in which direction her wishes lay, but while I answered her glance

by complete silence, I was conscious in some indistinct way that the

business I had undertaken would be better furthered by his entrance.

The blind have often been said to possess a sixth sense in place of the

one they have lost. Though I am sure we made no noise, I soon perceived

that he was aware of our presence. Stepping hastily forward he said, in

the high and vibrating tone of restrained passion:

“Zulma, are you there?”

For a moment I thought she did not mean to answer, but knowing doubtless

from experience the impossibility of deceiving him, she answered with a

cheerful assent, dropping her hand as she did so from before my lips.

He heard the slight rustle which accompanied the movement, and a look

I found it hard to comprehend flashed over his features, altering his

expression so completely that he seemed another man.

“You have someone with you,” he declared, advancing another step, but

with none of the uncertainty which usually accompanies the movements

of the blind. “Some dear friend,” he went on, with an almost sarcastic

emphasis and a forced smile that had little of gaiety in it.

The agitated and distressed blush which answered him could have but one

interpretation. He suspected that her hand had been clasped in mine, and

she perceived his thought and knew that I perceived it also.

Drawing herself up, she moved towards him, saying in a sweet womanly

tone:

“It is no friend, Constant, not even an acquaintance. The person whom I

now present to you is a representative from some detective agency. He is

here upon a trivial errand which will soon be finished, when I will join

you in the office.”

I knew she was but taking a choice between two evils, that she would

have saved her husband the knowledge of my calling as well as of my

presence in the house, if her self-respect would have allowed it; but

neither she nor I anticipated the effect which this introduction of

myself in my business capacity would produce upon him.

“A detective,” he repeated, staring with his sightless eyes, as if, in

his eagerness to see, he half hoped his lost sense would return. “He can

have no trivial errand here; he has been sent by God Himself to--”

“Let me speak for you,” hastily interposed his wife, springing to his

side and clasping his arm with a fervour that was equally expressive

of appeal and command. Then turning to me, she explained: “Since Mr.

Hasbrouck’s unaccountable death, my husband has been labouring under

an hallucination which I have only to mention, for you to recognize its

perfect absurdity. He thinks--oh! do not look like that, Constant; you

know it is an hallucination which must vanish the moment we drag it into

broad daylight--that he--he, the best man in all the world, was himself

the assailant of Mr. Hasbrouck.”

“Good God!”

“I say nothing of the impossibility of this being so,” she went on in a

fever of expostulation. “He is blind, and could not have delivered such

a shot even if he had desired to; besides, he had no weapon. But the

inconsistency of the thing speaks for itself, and should assure him that

his mind is unbalanced and that he is merely suffering from a shock that

was greater than we realized. He is a physician and has had many such

instances in his own practice. Why, he was very much attached to Mr.

Hasbrouck! They were the best of friends, and though he insists that he

killed him, he cannot give any reason for the deed.”

At these words the doctor’s face grew stern, and he spoke like an

automaton repeating some fearful lesson:

“I killed him. I went to his room and deliberately shot him. I had

nothing against him, and my remorse is extreme. Arrest me and let me

pay the penalty of my crime. It is the only way in which I can obtain

peace.”

Shocked beyond all power of self-control by this repetition of what she

evidently considered the unhappy ravings of a madman, she let go his arm

and turned upon me in frenzy.

“Convince him!” she cried. “Convince him by your questions that he never

could have done this fearful thing.”

I was labouring under great excitement myself, for as a private agent

with no official authority such as he evidently attributed to me in the

blindness of his passion, I felt the incongruity of my position in the

face of a matter of such tragic consequence. Besides, I agreed with her

that he was in a distempered state of mind, and I hardly knew how

to deal with one so fixed in his hallucination and with so much

intelligence to support it. But the emergency was great, for he was

holding out his wrists in the evident expectation of my taking him into

instant custody; and the sight was killing his wife, who had sunk on the

floor between us, in terror and anguish.

“You say you killed Mr. Hasbrouck,” I began. “Where did you get your

pistol, and what did you do with it after you left his house?”

“My husband had no pistol; never had any pistol,” put in Mrs. Zabriskie,

with vehement assertion. “If I had seen him with such a weapon--”

“I threw it away. When I left the house, I cast it as far from me as

possible, for I was frightened at what I had done, horribly frightened.”

“No pistol was ever found,” I answered with a smile, forgetting for the

moment that he could not see. “If such an instrument had been found in

the street after a murder of such consequence, it certainly would have

been brought to the police.”

“You forget that a good pistol is valuable property,” he went on

stolidly. “Someone came along before the general alarm was given; and

seeing such a treasure lying on the sidewalk, picked it up and carried

it off. Not being an honest man, he preferred to keep it to drawing the

attention of the police upon himself.”

“Hum, perhaps,” said I; “but where did you get it. Surely you can tell

where you procured such a weapon, if, as your wife intimates, you did

not own one.”

“I bought it that selfsame night of a friend; a friend whom I will

not name, since he resides no longer in this country. I--” He paused;

intense passion was in his face; he turned towards his wife, and a low

cry escaped him, which made her look up in fear.

“I do not wish to go into any particulars,” said he. “God forsook me

and I committed a horrible crime. When I am punished, perhaps peace will

return to me and happiness to her. I would not wish her to suffer too

long or too bitterly for my sin.”

“Constant!” What love was in the cry! It seemed to move him and turn his

thoughts for a moment into a different channel.

“Poor child!” he murmured, stretching out his hands by an irresistible

impulse towards her. But the change was but momentary, and he was soon

again the stern and determined self-accuser. “Are you going to take me

before a magistrate?” he asked. “If so, I have a few duties to perform

which you are welcome to witness.”

This was too much; I felt that the time had come for me to disabuse his

mind of the impression he had unwittingly formed of me. I therefore said

as considerately as I could:

“You mistake my position, Dr. Zabriskie. Though a detective of some

experience, I have no connection with the police and no right to intrude

myself in a matter of such tragic importance. If, however, you are as

anxious as you say to subject yourself to police examination, I will

mention the same to the proper authorities, and leave them to take such

action as they think best.”

“That will be still more satisfactory to me,” said he; “for though I

have many times contemplated giving myself up, I have still much to

do before I can leave my home and practice without injury to others.

Good-day; when you want me you will find me here.”

He was gone, and the poor young wife was left crouching on the floor

alone. Pitying her shame and terror, I ventured to remark that it was

not an uncommon thing for a man to confess to a crime he had never

committed, and assured her that the matter would be inquired into very

carefully before any attempt was made upon his liberty.

She thanked me, and slowly rising, tried to regain her equanimity; but

the manner as well as the matter of her husband’s self-condemnation

was too overwhelming in its nature for her to recover readily from her

emotions.

“I have long dreaded this,” she acknowledged. “For months I have

foreseen that he would make some rash communication or insane avowal.

If I had dared, I would have consulted some physician about this

hallucination of his; but he was so sane on other points that I

hesitated to give my dreadful secret to the world. I kept hoping that

time and his daily pursuits would have their effect and restore him to

himself. But his illusion grows, and now I fear that nothing will

ever convince him that he did not commit the deed of which he accuses

himself. If he were not blind I would have more hope, but the blind have

so much time for brooding.”

“I think he had better be indulged in his fancies for the present,” I

ventured. “If he is labouring under an illusion it might be dangerous to

cross him.”

“If?” she echoed in an indescribable tone of amazement and dread. “Can

you for a moment harbour the idea that he has spoken the truth?”

“Madam,” I returned, with something of the cynicism of my calling, “what

caused you to give such an unearthly scream just before this murder was

made known to the neighbourhood?”

She stared, paled, and finally began to tremble, not, as I now believe,

at the insinuation latent in my words, but at the doubts which my

question aroused in her own breast.

“Did I?” she asked; then with a burst of candour which seemed

inseparable from her nature, she continued: “Why do I try to mislead you

or deceive myself? I did give a shriek just before the alarm was raised

next door; but it was not from any knowledge I had of a crime having

been committed, but because I unexpectedly saw before me my husband whom

I supposed to be on his way to Poughkeepsie. He was looking very pale

and strange, and for a moment I thought I stood face to face with his

ghost. But he soon explained his appearance by saying that he had

fallen from the train and had only been saved by a miracle from being

dismembered; and I was just bemoaning his mishap and trying to calm him

and myself, when that terrible shout was heard next door of ‘Murder!

murder!’ Coming so soon after the shock he had himself experienced, it

quite unnerved him, and I think we can date his mental disturbance from

that moment. For he began immediately to take a morbid interest in the

affair next door, though it was weeks, if not months, before he let a

word fall of the nature of those you have just heard. Indeed it was

not till I repeated to him some of the expressions he was continually

letting fall in his sleep, that he commenced to accuse himself of crime

and talk of retribution.”

“You say that your husband frightened you on that night by appearing

suddenly at the door when you thought him on his way to Poughkeepsie. Is

Dr. Zabriskie in the habit of thus going and coming alone at an hour so

late as this must have been?”

“You forget that to the blind, night is less full of perils than the

day. Often and often has my husband found his way to his patients’

houses alone after midnight; but on this especial evening he had Leonard

with him. Leonard was his chauffeur, and always accompanied him when he

went any distance.”

“Well, then,” said I, “all we have to do is to summon Leonard and hear

what he has to say concerning this affair. He will surely know whether

or not his master went into the house next door.”

“Leonard has left us,” she said. “Dr. Zabriskie has another chauffeur

now. Besides (I have nothing to conceal from you), Leonard was not with

him when he returned to the house that evening or the doctor would not

have been without his portmanteau till the next day. Something--I have

never known what--caused them to separate, and that is why I have no

answer to give the doctor when he accuses himself of committing a deed

that night so wholly out of keeping with every other act of his life.”

“And have you never asked Leonard why they separated and why he allowed

his master to come home alone after the shock he had received at the

station?”

“I did not know there was any reason for my doing so till long after he

had left us.”

“And when did he leave?”

“That I do not remember. A few weeks or possibly a few days after that

dreadful night.”

“And where is he now?”

“Ah, that I have not the least means of knowing. But,” she objected, in

sudden distrust, “what do you want of Leonard? If he did not follow Dr.

Zabriskie to his own door, he could tell us nothing that would convince

my husband that he is labouring under an illusion.”

“But he might tell us something which would convince us that Dr.

Zabriskie was not himself after the accident; that he--”

“Hush!” came from her lips in imperious tones. “I will not believe that

he shot Mr. Hasbrouck even if you prove him to have been insane at the

time. How could he? My husband is blind. It would take a man of very

keen sight to force himself into a house closed for the night, and kill

a man in the dark at one shot.”

“On the contrary, it is only a blind man who could do this,” cried a

voice from the doorway. “Those who trust to eyesight must be able to

catch a glimpse of the mark they aim at, and this room, as I have been

told, was without a glimmer of light. But the blind trust to sound, and

as Mr. Hasbrouck spoke--”

“Oh!” burst from the horrified wife, “is there no one to stop him when

he speaks like that?”