I
"What door is that? You've opened all the others; why do you pass that
one by?"
"Oh, that! That's only Number 3. A mere closet, gentlemen," responded
the landlord in a pleasant voice. "To be sure, we sometimes use it as a
sleeping-room when we are hard pushed. Jake, the clerk you saw below,
used it last night. But it's not on our regular list. Do you want a peep
at it?"
"Most assuredly. As you know, it's our duty to see every room in this
house, whether it is on your regular list or not."
"All right. I haven't the key of this one with me. But--yes, I have.
There, gentlemen!" he cried, unlocking the door and holding it open for
them to look inside. "You see it no more answers the young lady's
description than the others do. And I haven't another to show you. You
have seen all those in front, and this is the last one in the rear.
You'll have to believe our story. The old lady never put foot in this
tavern."
The two men he addressed peered into the shadowy recesses before them,
and one of them, a tall and uncommonly good-looking young man of
stalwart build and unusually earnest manner, stepped softly inside. He
was a gentleman farmer living near, recently appointed deputy sheriff on
account of a recent outbreak of horse-stealing in the neighbourhood.
"I observe," he remarked, after a hurried glance about him, "that the
paper on these walls is not at all like that she describes. She was very
particular about the paper; said that it was of a muddy pink colour and
had big scrolls on it which seemed to move and crawl about in whirls as
you looked at it. This paper is blue and striped. Otherwise----"
"Let's go below," suggested his companion, who, from the deference with
which his most casual word was received, was evidently a man of some
authority. "It's cold here, and there are several new questions I should
like to put to the young lady. Mr. Quimby,"--this to the landlord, "I've
no doubt you are right, but we'll give this poor girl another chance. I
believe in giving every one the utmost chance possible."
"My reputation is in your hands, Coroner Golden," was the quiet reply.
Then, as they both turned, "my reputation against the word of an
obviously demented girl."
The words made their own echo. As the third man moved to follow the
other two into the hall, he seemed to catch this echo, for he
involuntarily cast another look behind him as if expectant of some
contradiction reaching him from the bare and melancholy walls he was
leaving. But no such contradiction came. Instead, he appeared to read
confirmation there of the landlord's plain and unembittered statement.
The dull blue paper with its old-fashioned and uninteresting stripes
seemed to have disfigured the walls for years. It was not only grimy
with age, but showed here and there huge discoloured spots, especially
around the stovepipe-hole high up on the left-hand side. Certainly he
was a dreamer to doubt such plain evidences as these. Yet----
Here his eye encountered Quimby's, and pulling himself up short, he
hastily fell into the wake of his comrade now hastening down the narrow
passage to the wider hall in front. Had it occurred to him to turn again
before rounding the corner--but no, I doubt if he would have learned
anything even then. The closing of a door by a careful hand--the
slipping up behind him of an eager and noiseless step--what is there in
these to re-awaken curiosity and fix suspicion? Nothing, when the man
concerned is Jacob Quimby; nothing. Better that he failed to look back;
it left his judgment freer for the question confronting him in the room
below.
Three Forks Tavern has been long forgotten, but at the time of which I
write it was a well-known but little-frequented house, situated just
back of the highway on the verge of the forest lying between the two
towns of Chester and Danton in southern Ohio. It was of ancient build,
and had all the picturesquesness of age and the English traditions of
its original builder. Though so near two thriving towns, it retained its
own quality of apparent remoteness from city life and city ways. This in
a measure was made possible by the nearness of the woods which almost
enveloped it; but the character of the man who ran it had still more to
do with it, his sympathies being entirely with the old, and not at all
with the new, as witness the old-style glazing still retained in its
ancient doorway. This, while it appealed to a certain class of summer
boarders, did not so much meet the wants of the casual traveller, so
that while the house might from some reason or other be overfilled one
night, it was just as likely to be almost empty the next, save for the
faithful few who loved the woods and the ancient ways of the
easy-mannered host and his attentive, soft-stepping help. The building
itself was of wooden construction, high in front and low in the rear,
with gables toward the highway, projecting here and there above a strip
of rude old-fashioned carving. These gables were new, that is, they were
only a century old; the portion now called the extension, in the
passages of which we first found the men we have introduced to you, was
the original house. Then it may have enjoyed the sunshine and air of the
valley it overlooked, but now it was so hemmed in by yards and
outbuildings as to be considered the most undesirable part of the house,
and Number 3 the most undesirable of its rooms; which certainly does not
speak well for it.
But we are getting away from our new friends and their mysterious
errand. As I have already intimated, this tavern with the curious name
(a name totally unsuggestive, by the way, of its location on a perfectly
straight road) had for its southern aspect the road and a broad expanse
beyond of varied landscape which made the front rooms cheerful even on a
cloudy day; but it was otherwise with those in the rear and on the north
end. They were never cheerful, and especially toward night were
frequently so dark that artificial light was resorted to as early as
three o'clock in the afternoon. It was so to-day in the remote parlour
which these three now entered. A lamp had been lit, though the daylight
still struggled feebly in, and it was in this conflicting light that
there rose up before them the vision of a woman, who seen at any time
and in any place would have drawn, if not held, the eye, but seen in her
present attitude and at such a moment of question and suspense, struck
the imagination with a force likely to fix her image forever in the
mind, if not in the heart, of a sympathetic observer.
I should like to picture her as she stood there, because the impression
she made at this instant determined the future action of the man I have
introduced to you as not quite satisfied with the appearances he had
observed above. Young, slender but vigorous, with a face whose details
you missed in the fire of her eye and the wonderful red of her young,
fresh but determined mouth, she stood, on guard as it were, before a
shrouded form on a couch at the far end of the room. An imperative _Keep
back!_ spoke in her look, her attitude, and the silent gesture of one
outspread hand, but it was the _Keep back!_ of love, not of fear, the
command of an outraged soul, conscious of its rights and instinctively
alert to maintain them.
The landlord at sight of the rebuke thus given to their intrusion,
stepped forward with a conciliatory bow.
"I beg pardon," said he, "but these gentlemen, Doctor Golden, the
coroner from Chester, and Mr. Hammersmith, wish to ask you a few more
questions about your mother's death. You will answer them, I am sure."
Slowly her eyes moved till they met those of the speaker.
"I am anxious to do so," said she, in a voice rich with many emotions.
But seeing the open compassion in the landlord's face, the colour left
her cheeks, almost her lips, and drawing back the hand which she had
continued to hold outstretched, she threw a glance of helpless inquiry
about her which touched the younger man's heart and induced him to say:
"The truth should not be hard to find in a case like this. I'm sure the
young lady can explain. Doctor Golden, are you ready for her story?"
The coroner, who had been silent up till now, probably from sheer
surprise at the beauty and simple, natural elegance of the woman caught,
as he believed, in a net of dreadful tragedy, roused himself at this
direct question, and bowing with an assumption of dignity far from
encouraging to the man and woman anxiously watching him, replied:
"We will hear what she has to say, of course, but the facts are well
known. The woman she calls mother was found early this morning lying on
her face in the adjoining woods quite dead. She had fallen over a
half-concealed root, and with such force that she never moved again. If
her daughter was with her at the time, then that daughter fled without
attempting to raise her. The condition and position of the wound on the
dead woman's forehead, together with such corroborative facts as have
since come to light, preclude all argument on this point. But we'll
listen to the young woman, notwithstanding; she has a right to speak,
and she shall speak. Did not your mother die in the woods? No
hocus-pocus, miss, but the plain unvarnished truth."
"Sirs,"--the term was general, but her appeal appeared to be directed
solely to the one sympathetic figure before her, "if my mother died in
the wood--and, for all I can say, she may have done so--it was not till
after she had been in this house. She arrived in my company, and was
given a room. I saw the room and I saw her in it. I cannot be deceived
in this. If I am, then my mind has suddenly failed me;--something which
I find it hard to believe."
"Mr. Quimby, did Mrs. Demarest come to the house with Miss Demarest?"
inquired Mr. Hammersmith of the silent landlord.
"She says so," was the reply, accompanied by a compassionate shrug which
spoke volumes. "And I am quite sure she means it," he added, with kindly
emphasis. "But ask Jake, who was in the office all the evening. Ask my
wife, who saw the young lady to her room. Ask anybody and everybody who
was around the tavern last night. I'm not the only one to say that Miss
Demarest came in alone. All will tell you that she arrived here without
escort of any kind; declined supper, but wanted a room, and when I
hesitated to give it to her, said by way of explanation of her lack of a
companion that she had had trouble in Chester and had left town very
hurriedly for her home. That her mother was coming to meet her and would
probably arrive here very soon. That when this occurred I was to notify
her; but if a gentleman called instead, I was to be very careful not to
admit that any such person as herself was in the house. Indeed, to avoid
any such possibility she prayed that her name might be left off the
register--a favour which I was slow in granting her, but which I finally
did, as you can see for yourselves."
"Oh!" came in indignant exclamation from the young woman before them. "I
understand my position now. This man has a bad conscience. He has
something to hide, or he would not take to lying about little things
like that. I never asked him to allow me to leave my name off the
register. On the contrary I wrote my name in it and my mother's name,
too. Let him bring the book here and you will see."
"We have seen," responded the coroner. "We looked in the register
ourselves. Your names are not there."
The flush of indignation which had crimsoned her cheeks faded till she
looked as startling and individual in her pallor as she had the moment
before in her passionate bloom.
"Not there?" fell from her lips in a frozen monotone as her eyes grew
fixed upon the faces before her and her hand went groping around for
some support.
Mr. Hammersmith approached with a chair.
"Sit," he whispered. Then, as she sank slowly into an attitude of
repose, he added gently, "You shall have every consideration. Only tell
the truth, the exact truth without any heightening from your
imagination, and, above all, don't be frightened."
She may have heard his words, but she gave no sign of comprehending
them. She was following the movements of the landlord, who had slipped
out to procure the register, and now stood holding it out toward the
coroner.
"Let her see for herself," he suggested, with a bland, almost fatherly,
air.
Doctor Golden took the book and approached Miss Demarest.
"Here is a name very unlike yours," he pointed out, as her eye fell on
the page he had opened to. "Annette Colvin, Lansing, Michigan."
"That is not my name or writing," said she.
"There is room below it for your name and that of your mother, but the
space is blank, do you see?"
"Yes, yes, I see," she admitted. "Yet I wrote my name in the book! Or is
it all a monstrous dream!"
The coroner returned the book to the landlord.
"Is this your only book?" he asked.
"The only book."
Miss Demarest's eyes flashed. Hammersmith, who had watched this scene
with intense interest, saw, or believed that he saw, in this flash the
natural indignation of a candid mind face to face with arrant knavery.
But when he forced himself to consider the complacent Quimby he did not
know what to think. His aspect of self-confidence equalled hers. Indeed,
he showed the greater poise. Yet her tones rang true as she cried:
"You made up one plausible story, and you may well make up another. I
demand the privilege of relating the whole occurrence as I remember it,"
she continued with an appealing look in the one sympathetic direction.
"Then you can listen to him."
"We desire nothing better," returned the coroner.
"I shall have to mention a circumstance very mortifying to myself," she
proceeded, with a sudden effort at self-control, which commanded the
admiration even of the coroner. "My one adviser is dead," here her eyes
flashed for a moment toward the silent form behind her. "If I make
mistakes, if I seem unwomanly--but you have asked for the truth and you
shall have it, all of it. I have no father. Since early this morning I
have had no mother. But when I had, I found it my duty to work for her
as well as for myself, that she might have the comforts she had been
used to and could no longer afford. For this purpose I sought a
situation in Chester, and found one in a family I had rather not name."
A momentary tremor, quickly suppressed, betrayed the agitation which
this allusion cost her. "My mother lived in Danton (the next town to the
left). Anybody there will tell you what a good woman she was. I had
wished her to live in Chester (that is, at first; later, I--I was glad
she didn't), but she had been born in Danton, and could not accustom
herself to strange surroundings. Once a week I went home, and once a
week, usually on a Wednesday, she would come and meet me on the
highroad, for a little visit. Once we met here, but this is a
circumstance no one seems to remember. I was very fond of my mother and
she of me. Had I loved no one else, I should have been happy still, and
not been obliged to face strangers over her body and bare the secrets of
my heart to preserve my good name. There is a man, he seems a thousand
miles away from me now, so much have I lived since yesterday. He--he
lived in the house where I did--was one of the family--always at
table--always before my eyes. He fancied me. I--I might have fancied him
had he been a better man. But he was far from being of the sort my
mother approved, and when he urged his suit too far, I grew frightened
and finally ran away. It was not so much that I could not trust him,"
she bravely added after a moment of silent confusion, "but that I could
not trust myself. He had an unfortunate influence over me, which I
hated while I half yielded to it."
"You ran away. When was this?"
"Yesterday afternoon at about six. He had vowed that he would see me
again before the evening was over, and I took that way to prevent a
meeting. There was no other so simple,--or such was my thought at the
time. I did not dream that sorrows awaited me in this quiet tavern, and
perplexities so much greater than any which could have followed a
meeting with him that I feel my reason fail when I contemplate them."
"Go on," urged the coroner, after a moment of uneasy silence. "Let us
hear what happened after you left your home in Chester."
"I went straight to the nearest telegraph office, and sent a message to
my mother. I told her I was coming home, and for her to meet me on the
road near this tavern. Then I went to Hudson's and had supper, for I had
not eaten before leaving my employer's. The sun had set when I finally
started, and I walked fast so as to reach Three Forks before dark. If my
mother had got the telegram at once, which I calculated on her doing, as
she lived next door to the telegraph office in Danton, she would be very
near this place on my arrival here. So I began to look for her as soon
as I entered the woods. But I did not see her. I came as far as the
tavern door, and still I did not see her. But farther on, just where the
road turns to cross the railroad-track, I spied her coming, and ran to
meet her. She was glad to see me, but asked a good many questions which
I had some difficulty in answering. She saw this, and held me to the
matter till I had satisfied her. When this was done it was late and
cold, and we decided to come to the tavern for the night. _And we came!_
Nothing shall ever make me deny so positive a fact. _We came_, and this
man received us."
With her final repetition of this assertion, she rose and now stood
upright, with her finger pointing straight at Quimby. Had he cringed or
let his eyes waver from hers by so much as a hair's breadth, her
accusation would have stood and her cause been won. But not a flicker
disturbed the steady patience of his look, and Hammersmith, who had made
no effort to hide his anxiety to believe her story, showed his
disappointment with equal frankness as he asked:
"Who else was in the office? Surely Mr. Quimby was not there alone?"
She reseated herself before answering. Hammersmith could see the effort
she made to recall that simple scene. He found himself trying to recall
it, too--the old-fashioned, smoke-begrimed office, with its one long
window toward the road and the glass-paned door leading into the hall of
entrance. They had come in by that door and crossed to the bar, which
was also the desk in this curious old hostelry. He could see them
standing there in the light of possibly a solitary lamp, the rest of the
room in shadow unless a game of checkers were on, which evidently was
not so on this night. Had she turned her head to peer into those
shadows? It was not likely. She was supported by her mother's presence,
and this she was going to say. By some strange telepathy that he would
have laughed at a few hours before, he feels confident of her words
before she speaks. Yet he listens intently as she finally looks up and
answers:
"There was a man, I am sure there was a man somewhere at the other end
of the office. But I paid no attention to him. I was bargaining for two
rooms and registering my name and that of my mother."
"Two rooms; why two? You are not a fashionable young lady to require a
room alone."
"Gentlemen, I was tired. I had been through a wearing half-hour. I knew
that if we occupied the same room or even adjoining ones that nothing
could keep us from a night of useless and depressing conversation. I did
not feel equal to it, so I asked for two rooms a short distance apart."
An explanation which could at least be accepted. Mr. Hammersmith felt an
increase of courage and scarcely winced as his colder-blooded companion
continued this unofficial examination by asking:
"Where were you standing when making these arrangements with Mr.
Quimby?"
"Right before the desk."
"And your mother?"
"She was at my left and a little behind me. She was a shy woman. I
usually took the lead when we were together."
"Was she veiled?" the coroner continued quietly.
"I think so. She had been crying----" The bereaved daughter paused.
"But don't you know?"
"My impression is that her veil was down when we came into the room. She
may have lifted it as she stood there. I know that it was lifted as we
went upstairs. I remember feeling glad that the lamps gave so poor a
light, she looked so distressed."
"Physically, do you mean, or mentally?"
Mr. Hammersmith asked this question. It seemed to rouse some new train
of thought in the girl's mind. For a minute she looked intently at the
speaker, then she replied in a disturbed tone:
"Both. I wonder----" Here her thought wavered and she ceased.
"Go on," ordered the coroner impatiently. "Tell your story. It
contradicts that of the landlord in almost every point, but we've
promised to hear it out, and we will."
Rousing, she hastened to obey him.
"Mr. Quimby told the truth when he said that he asked me if I would have
supper, also when he repeated what I said about a gentleman, but not
when he declared that I wished to be told if my mother should come and
ask for me. My mother was at my side all the time we stood there
talking, and I did not need to make any requests concerning her. When
we went to our rooms a woman accompanied us. He says she is his wife. I
should like to see that woman."
"I am here, miss," spoke up a voice from a murky corner no one had
thought of looking in till now.
Miss Demarest at once rose, waiting for the woman to come forward. This
she did with a quick, natural step which insensibly prepared the mind
for the brisk, assertive woman who now presented herself. Mr.
Hammersmith, at sight of her open, not unpleasing face, understood for
the first time the decided attitude of the coroner. If this woman
corroborated her husband's account, the poor young girl, with her
incongruous beauty and emotional temperament, would not have much show.
He looked to see her quailing now. But instead of that she stood firm,
determined, and feverishly beautiful.
"Let her tell you what took place upstairs," she cried. "She showed us
the rooms and carried water afterward to the one my mother occupied."
"I am sorry to contradict the young lady," came in even tones from the
unembarrassed, motherly-looking woman thus appealed to. "She thinks that
her mother was with her and that I conducted this mother to another room
after showing her to her own. I don't doubt in the least that she has
worked herself up to the point of absolutely believing this. But the
facts are these: She came alone and went to her room unattended by any
one but myself. And what is more, she seemed entirely composed at the
time, and I never thought of suspecting the least thing wrong. Yet her
mother lay all that time in the wood----"
"Silence!"
This word was shot at her by Miss Demarest, who had risen to her full
height and now fairly flamed upon them all in her passionate
indignation. "I will not listen to such words till I have finished all I
have to say and put these liars to the blush. My mother _was_ with me,
and this woman witnessed our good-night embrace, and then showed my
mother to her own room. I watched them going. They went down the hall to
the left and around a certain corner. I stood looking after them till
they turned this corner, then I closed my door and began to take off my
hat. But I wasn't quite satisfied with the good-night which had passed
between my poor mother and myself, and presently I opened my door and
ran down the hall and around the corner on a chance of finding her room.
I don't remember very well how that hall looked. I passed several doors
seemingly shut for the night, and should have turned back, confused, if
at that moment I had not spied the landlady's figure, your figure,
madam, coming out of one room on your way to another. You were carrying
a pitcher, and I made haste and ran after you and reached the door just
before you turned to shut it. Can you deny that, or that you stepped
aside while I ran in and gave my mother another hug? If you can and do,
then you are a dangerous and lying woman, or I----But I won't admit
that I'm not all right. It is you, base and untruthful woman, who for
some end I cannot fathom persist in denying facts on which my honour, if
not my life, depends. Why, gentlemen, you, one of you at least, have
heard me describe the very room in which I saw my mother. It is
imprinted on my mind. I didn't know at the time that I took especial
notice of it, but hardly a detail escaped me. The paper on the wall----"
"We have been looking through the rooms," interpolated the coroner. "We
do not find any papered with the muddy pink you talk about."
She stared, drew back from them all, and finally sank into a chair. "You
do not find----But you have not been shown them all."
"I think so."
"You have not. There _is_ such a room. I could not have dreamed it."
Silence met this suggestion.
Throwing up her hands like one who realises for the first time that the
battle is for life, she let an expression of her despair and desolation
rush in frenzy from her lips:
"It's a conspiracy. The whole thing is a conspiracy. If my mother had
had money on her or had worn valuable jewelry, I should believe her to
have been a victim of this lying man and woman. As it is, I don't trust
them. They say that my poor mother was found lying ready dressed and
quite dead in the wood. That may be true, for I saw men bringing her
in. But if so, what warrant have we that she was not lured there,
slaughtered, and made to seem the victim of accident by this
unscrupulous man and woman? Such things have been done; but for a
daughter to fabricate such a plot as they impute to me is past belief,
out of Nature and impossible. With all their wiles, they cannot prove
it. I dare them to do so; I dare any one to do so."
Then she begged to be allowed to search the house for the room she so
well remembered. "When I show you that," she cried, with ringing
assurance, "you will believe the rest of my story."
"Shall I take the young lady up myself?" asked Mr. Quimby. "Or will it
be enough if my wife accompanies her?"
"We will all accompany her," said the coroner.
"Very good," came in hearty acquiescence.
"It's the only way to quiet her," he whispered in Mr. Hammersmith's ear.
The latter turned on him suddenly.
"None of your insinuations," he cried. "She's as far from insane as I am
myself. We shall find the room."
"You, too," fell softly from the other's lips as he stepped back into
the coroner's wake. Mr. Hammersmith gave his arm to Miss Demarest, and
the landlady brought up the rear.
"Upstairs," ordered the trembling girl. "We will go first to the room I
occupied."
As they reached the door, she motioned them all back, and started away
from them down the hall. Quickly they followed. "It was around a
corner," she muttered broodingly, halting at the first turning. "That is
all I remember. But we'll visit every room."
"We have already," objected the coroner, but meeting Mr. Hammersmith's
warning look, he desisted from further interference.
"I remember its appearance perfectly. I remember it as if it were my
own," she persisted, as door after door was thrown back and as quickly
shut again at a shake of her head. "Isn't there another hall? Might I
not have turned some other corner?"
"Yes, there is another hall," acquiesced the landlord, leading the way
into the passage communicating with the extension.
"Oh!" she murmured, as she noted the increased interest in both the
coroner and his companion; "we shall find it here."
"Do you recognise the hall?" asked the coroner as they stepped through a
narrow opening into the old part.
"No, but I shall recognise the room."
"Wait!" It was Hammersmith who called her back as she was starting
forward. "I should like you to repeat just how much furniture this room
contained and where it stood."
She stopped, startled, and then said:
"It was awfully bare; a bed was on the left----"
"On the left?"
"She said the left," quoth the landlord, "though I don't see that it
matters; it's all fancy with her."
"Go on," kindly urged Hammersmith.
"There was a window. I saw the dismal panes and my mother standing
between them and me. I can't describe the little things."
"Possibly because there were none to describe," whispered Hammersmith in
his superior's ear.
Meanwhile the landlord and his wife awaited their advance with studied
patience. As Miss Demarest joined him, he handed her a bunch of keys,
with the remark:
"None of these rooms are occupied to-day, so you can open them without
hesitation."
She stared at him and ran quickly forward. Mr. Hammersmith followed
speedily after. Suddenly both paused. She had lost the thread of her
intention before opening a single door.
"I thought I could go straight to it," she declared. "I shall have to
open all the doors, as we did in the other hall."
"Let me help you," proffered Mr. Hammersmith. She accepted his aid, and
the search recommenced with the same results as before. Hope sank to
disappointment as each door was passed. The vigour of her step was gone,
and as she paused heartsick before the last and only remaining door, it
was with an ashy face she watched Mr. Hammersmith stoop to insert the
key.
He, on his part, as the door fell back, watched her for some token of
awakened interest. But he watched in vain. The smallness of the room,
its bareness, its one window, the absence of all furniture save the
solitary cot drawn up on the right (not on the left, as she had said),
seemed to make little or no impression on her.
"The last! the last! and I have not found it. Oh, sir," she moaned,
catching at Mr. Hammersmith's arm, "am I then mad? Was it a dream? Or is
this a dream? I feel that I no longer know." Then, as the landlady
officiously stepped up, she clung with increased frenzy to Mr.
Hammersmith, crying, with positive wildness, "_This_ is the dream! The
room I remember is a real one and my story is real. Prove it, or my
reason will leave me. I feel it going--going----"
"Hush!" It was Hammersmith who sought thus to calm her. "Your story _is_
real and I will prove it so. Meanwhile trust your reason. It will not
fail you."
He had observed the corners of the landlord's hitherto restrained lips
settle into a slightly sarcastic curl as the door of this room closed
for the second time.