II

"The girl's beauty has imposed on you."

"I don't think so. I should be sorry to think myself so weak. I simply

credit her story more than I do that of Quimby."

"But his is supported by several witnesses. Hers has no support at all."

"That is what strikes me as so significant. This man Quimby understands

himself. Who are his witnesses? His wife and his head man. There is

nobody else. In the half-hour which has just passed I have searched

diligently for some disinterested testimony supporting his assertion,

but I have found none. No one knows anything. Of the three persons

occupying rooms in the extension last night, two were asleep and the

third overcome with drink. The maids won't talk. They seem uneasy, and I

detected a sly look pass from the one to the other at some question I

asked, but they won't talk. There's a conspiracy somewhere. I'm as sure

of it as that I am standing here."

"Nonsense! What should there be a conspiracy about? You would make this

old woman an important character. Now we know that she wasn't. Look at

the matter as it presents itself to an unprejudiced mind. A young and

susceptible girl falls in love with a man, who is at once a gentleman

and a scamp. She may have tried to resist her feelings, and she may not

have. Your judgment and mine would probably differ on this point. What

she does _not_ do is to let her mother into her confidence. She sees the

man--runs upon him, if you will, in places or under circumstances she

cannot avoid--till her judgment leaves her and the point of catastrophe

is reached. Then, possibly, she awakens, or what is more probable, seeks

to protect herself from the penetration and opposition of his friends

by meetings less open than those in which they had lately indulged. She

says that she left the house to escape seeing him again last night. But

this is not true. On the contrary, she must have given him to understand

where she was going, for she had an interview with him in the woods

before she came upon her mother. He acknowledges to the interview. I

have just had a talk with him over the telephone."

"Then you know his name?"

"Yes, of course, she had to tell me. It's young Maxwell. I suspected it

from the first."

"Maxwell!" Mr. Hammersmith's cheek showed an indignant colour. Or was it

a reflection from the setting sun? "You called him a scamp a few minutes

ago. A scamp's word isn't worth much."

"No, but it's evidence when on oath, and I fancy he will swear to the

interview."

"Well, well, say there was an interview."

"It changes things, Mr. Hammersmith. It changes things. It makes

possible a certain theory of mine which accounts for all the facts."

"It does!"

"Yes. I don't think this girl is really responsible. I don't believe she

struck her mother or is deliberately telling a tissue of lies to cover

up some dreadful crime. I consider her the victim of a mental

hallucination, the result of some great shock. Now what was the shock?

I'll tell you. This is how I see it, how Mr. Quimby sees it, and such

others in the house as have ventured an opinion. She was having this

conversation with her lover in the woods below here when her mother came

in sight. Surprised, for she had evidently not expected her mother to be

so prompt, she hustled her lover off and hastened to meet the

approaching figure. But it was too late. The mother had seen the man,

and in the excitement of the discovery and the altercation which

undoubtedly followed, made such a sudden move, possibly of indignant

departure, that her foot was caught by one of the roots protruding at

this point and she fell her whole length and with such violence as to

cause immediate death. Now, Mr. Hammersmith, stop a minute and grasp the

situation. If, as I believe at this point in the inquiry, Miss Demarest

had encountered a passionate opposition to her desires from this upright

and thoughtful mother, the spectacle of this mother lying dead before

her, with all opposition gone and the way cleared in an instant to her

wishes, but cleared in a manner which must haunt her to her own dying

day, was enough to turn a brain already heated with contending emotions.

Fancies took the place of facts, and by the time she reached this house

had so woven themselves into a concrete form that no word she now utters

can be relied on. This is how I see it, Mr. Hammersmith, and it is on

this basis I shall act."

Hammersmith made an effort and, nodding slightly, said in a restrained

tone:

"Perhaps you are justified. I have no wish to force my own ideas upon

you; they are much too vague at present. I will only suggest that this

is not the first time the attention of the police has been drawn to this

house by some mysterious occurrence. You remember the Stevens case?

There must have been notes to the amount of seven thousand dollars in

the pile he declared had been taken from him some time during the day

and night he lodged here."

"Stevens! I remember something about it. But they couldn't locate the

theft here. The fellow had been to the fair in Chester all day and

couldn't swear that he had seen his notes after leaving the grounds."

"I know. But he always looked on Quimby as the man. Then there is the

adventure of little Miss Thistlewaite."

"I don't remember that."

"It didn't get into the papers; but it was talked about in the

neighbourhood. She is a quaint one, full of her crotchets, but

clear--clear as a bell where her interests are involved. She took a

notion to spend a summer here--in this house, I mean. She had a room in

one of the corners overlooking the woods, and professing to prefer

Nature to everything else, was happy enough till she began to miss

things--rings, pins, a bracelet and, finally, a really valuable chain.

She didn't complain at first--the objects were trivial, and she herself

somewhat to blame for leaving them lying around in her room, often

without locking the door. But when the chain went, the matter became

serious, and she called Mr. Quimby's attention to her losses. He advised

her to lock her door, which she was careful to do after that, but not

with the expected result. She continued to miss things, mostly jewelry

of which she had a ridiculous store. Various domestics were dismissed,

and finally one of the permanent boarders was requested to leave, but

still the thefts went on till, her patience being exhausted, she

notified the police and a detective was sent: I have always wished I had

been that detective. The case ended in what was always considered a

joke. Another object disappeared while he was there, and it having been

conclusively proved to him that it could not have been taken by way of

the door, he turned his attention to the window which it was one of her

freaks always to keep wide open. The result was curious. One day he

spied from a hiding-place he had made in the bushes a bird flying out

from that window, and following the creature till she alighted in her

nest he climbed the tree and searched that nest. It was encrusted with

jewels. The bird was a magpie and had followed its usual habits,

but--the chain was not there, nor one or two other articles of decided

value. Nor were they ever found. The bird bore the blame; the objects

missing were all heavy and might have been dropped in its flight, but I

have always thought that the bird had an accomplice, a knowing fellow

who understood what's what and how to pick out his share."

The coroner smiled. There was little conviction and much sarcasm in that

smile. Hammersmith turned away. "Have you any instructions for me?" he

said.

"Yes, you had better stay here. I will return in the morning with my

jury. It won't take long after that to see this thing through."

The look he received in reply was happily hidden from him.