A TERRIBLE DEED.
Wizard Hermann turned about, half-stunned from his interview with
Jessie Stirling, and went back to his laboratory, where he had
been reading a new treatise on one of his favorite hobbies--the
transmutation of the baser metals into gold. The man had no more heart
or conscience than a clam, and his interest in chemistry was greater
than his love for humanity.
The greatest aim he had in life was to prosecute to a successful issue
the two hobbies that had been the ruling passion of his life, to
invent a magic elixir of life, and to create fabulous riches to sustain
a life so lengthened in luxury.
He was mad for gold wherewith to purchase the smallest specimen of a
newly discovered mineral called radium, to which was ascribed the most
remarkable properties ever heard of, but the price of this treasure was
fabulous to a man in his situation, impoverished by a lifetime spent in
this costly and vain pursuit of the unattainable.
His great plan and hope had been to pay off the mortgage on the place,
and to immediately place another upon it, so as to invest a portion
in the new mineral, from which so much was hoped and predicted in the
scientific world.
His rage at the failure of his plan was deep and bitter. With Leola
dead, all his plans would come to naught. Old Bennett would foreclose
the mortgage and ruin him. In his old age he must go forth a beggar
into the world, friendless, and without a place to lay his head.
Through this terrible trick of fate all his plans and aspirations must
be wrecked, and science lose, perhaps, the magnificent discoveries to
which he had devoted his life.
No wonder he was filled with a blind fury against Chester Olyphant,
through whose treachery Leola’s death had come to pass, thus thwarting
all his plans for future gain.
He shut the treatise, whose reading had been so fatefully interrupted,
and went out to watch for Chester Olyphant with murder in his heart.
But while he had been talking with Jessie, and putting away his
precious treatise, time had slipped faster than he knew. Olyphant, who
had met the doctor close by in the road, had quickly returned with him,
and he had gone up to Leola’s room.
The young man, himself a prey to the bitterest anxiety, with hope and
fear commingled, was waiting in the wide, sunny hall for news, when he
came face to face with the grim master of the house, like a ravening
lion seeking for prey.
He forced a smile upon his pallid lips, and exclaimed, eagerly:
“Ah. Mr. Hermann, I have been wishing to see you, sir. I”--
He got no further, for Wizard Hermann, temporarily mad with baffled
hope and bitter resentment, suddenly raised his hand, in whose clenched
fingers gleamed a heavy iron instrument, and in an access of fury
struck unerringly at the brown, curly head bent courteously before him.
It was a blow that might have felled an ox.
Chester Olyphant, taken off guard, ignorant of the fact that he was in
the presence of one temporarily or morally insane, received the blow
full, and went down before it without a struggle, yielding up life in
one short, choking gasp, that was like a thunder-clap in the ears of
his foe.
For, all in a moment, there came over the frenzied murderer a wild
realization of his deadly crime, and bending down to peer at the still,
white face of the fallen man, he groaned in horror of his sin and its
consequences:
“Dead! dead! Why, I did not mean to strike so hard! I--I--never thought
one blow could kill! What shall I do? No one must find me here. I must
fly”--
At this incoherent moment, while he was rising from the body of his
victim, there came slouching through the wide, sunny hall the figure
of his man of all work, Joslyn, a strange, hideous, taciturn man, yet
devoted to his master’s service through many thankless years.
Joslyn stopped and stared in bewilderment, glaring at the uncanny scene.
Wizard Hermann, peering up at him in consternation, whimpered like a
beaten hound:
“I didn’t mean to hit so hard. He--he--was too easy to kill! If they
find me here they’ll hang me for murder! Save me! save me! Joslyn!”
The hideous servitor, conscious of but one thing--his master’s
peril--was quick to hear and heed.
At any moment some one might come in at the open door, and one glance
meant detection of the hideous crime his master had wrought.
Joslyn looked stupid, but his master knew it was only in looks. His
brain was keen and alert, as he had proved many a time before.
Just one moment he paused, hesitated; then his dull eyes gleamed
beneath the bushy brows, and he was prepared for action.
They were just in front of the library door, and, swooping down like
an eagle on his prey, he caught up Chester Olyphant’s limp body in his
long, wiry arms, and dragged him inside the room. Hermann staggered
after him with quaking limbs and a ghastly face; then Joslyn softly
shut and locked the door.
The two old men, who had grown gray in each other’s confidence and
service--grim old men, who had outgrown pity or interest in youth and
love and all that was sweetest in the world, now stood face to face,
and between them, on the floor, that limp body that, now cold and
senseless, had been but a little while ago a picture of manly strength
and splendor, with a heart throbbing fast with the passion of youth.
“Who saw you do it?” Joslyn demanded, gruffly.
“Not a soul!” whimpered the craven wretch. “You see, I did it in a
passion before I thought, because he”--
But Joslyn’s coarse, hairy hand, upraised, commanded silence.
“Don’t waste time now to tell why ’twas done. The thing is that you did
it, and that you must hide it or swing for it,” he said, with rough
emphasis that made his master cower again like a beaten hound.
The servant knelt down and examined the silent victim.
“Dead as a door-nail, an’ gittin’ cold a’ready! You hit him a turrible
whack, sir, on his head! Must have fractured his skull, the way it
feels.”
“I didn’t know I had such strength. I hit harder than I meant.
I--I”--began Hermann, weakly, but the man shut him off.
“No use cryin’ over spilt milk. What’s done is done, an’ now we got to
hide the corp, an’ let it go as one of the myster’ous disappearances we
read about every week in the newspapers!”
“Joslyn, how clever you are! Oh, if we can only manage it! But I cannot
think clearly. My brain’s on fire ever since Jessie came with her
terrible story, and tempted me to kill him because of the hearts he
had broken--hers and Leola’s, too, so that she wanted vengeance on him
for their wrongs. So I seized that iron wedge and went to watch for
him, and the minute he spoke to me I struck, and he fell. He’s dead,
and he deserved it. I am not sorry, only I don’t want to be found out,”
Hermann mumbled on, unheeded by the other, who stood with his brows
wrinkled in profound thought.
He chuckled, suddenly, and Hermann muttered:
“You have a thought, clever Joslyn; you will save me!”
“Perhaps so, sir, if I can work out my plan.”
“Yes, yes?”
“You know what’s under this floor, sir?”
“The underground passage where my ancestors used to hide from the
Indians--yes, yes. Can we drop him through?”
“Sure, if I can get the tools in here to rip up some flooring and put
it back. Will you stay here, locked in, while I push them into the
window, for I daren’t bring them into the hall.”
“Yes, go, quickly,” and he let him out and closed and locked the door
again, waiting, with a chill of horror at his heart, of that white and
silent thing lying at his feet.
Presently there was a noise outside the window, and he went and took in
the tools that Joslyn reached up to him. Then he admitted him, and they
went at their grewsome work of hiding the mute witness of that terrible
crime.
In the midst of their task came a light rap on the door.
“Uncle Hermann, I want you!” Jessie said, excitedly.
“I am engaged--excuse me,” he bawled, hoarsely, through the keyhole.
“All right,” she answered, after a moment’s hesitation; “I only wanted
to tell you about Leola. Doctor Barnes says she is not dead, after all,
and he is bringing her around; do you hear?”
“Yes, I hear, Jessie. Now go away, like a good girl; I cannot be
disturbed,” he assured her, turning back to Joslyn in time to see him
lift Chester Olyphant’s body and let it fall through the opening in the
floor.