TRYING TO FORGE HIS OWN FETTERS.
“What were your personal sensations while all this was taking place? How
did you feel about it all?” asked Nick.
“That is one of the strangest features of the case, Mr. Carter,” replied
Danton, “for while I seemed to know all about everything, as correctly
as if I had seen the crime committed, it never once occurred to me that
I was myself the guilty party. That aspect of the case was not impressed
upon me till afterward.”
“When did it first occur to you?”
“Wait, and I will tell you. Through all that I did from the moment I
discovered that Orizaba was dead until I began to put on my street
clothes, I seem to have acted mechanically, as if I were really two
beings, one of which was watching the other, passively. The finding of
the wound on the back of his neck, the discovery of the open casket, the
broken needle and the empty cork handle--none of those things seemed to
surprise me at all, until I had begun the operation of dressing, and was
in fact half-dressed, when it all came over me with a suddenness that
made me stagger back against the wall like--well, as if I had received a
blow in the face.”
“What came over you? What made you stagger?”
“The thought that perhaps I might have committed that horrible deed in
my sleep.”
“No, sir! Disabuse your mind of any such thought as that, now and
forever. You did not do murder in your sleep.”
“Well, I know that I did not do it at all, then.”
“Certainly you know that. Others do not and will not. But you may rest
assured that no person on earth will ever believe that you did it in
your sleep, and I least of all. And was that all that came over you and
made you stagger back against the wall?”
“No; not all.”
“Well, what else?”
“The thought of Mercedes.”
“What had the thought of your sister to do with it?” asked Nick.
“It was the thought of what she would think of the matter that brought
home to me the possibility that I had committed the crime in my sleep.”
“How so?”
“Simply because I have more than once told Mercedes--in jest of course,
only she did not always believe that I was in jest--that some day I
would kill Orizaba.”
“Indeed. You have often made that threat to her, have you?”
“A hundred times; perhaps more. Very often. I have even showed her the
needle.”
“Ah! The needle again. You say you have shown it to your sister?”
“Yes; twice.”
“And she knew where you kept it?”
“Certainly.”
“Where did you obtain it?”
“It was given to me three years ago in Paris. It has a grewsome history,
but whether it is true or not, I do not know. I only know that I was
told that it had for years been the favorite sort of weapon for a
famous--or rather an infamous--murderer, who was at last beheaded for
his crimes. It was said that this needle was found in his possession
when he was last captured.”
“A French criminal named Cadillac. I know of him. The story is doubtless
true. But to return to your sister. Why did you show her the needle and
threaten to use it on your cousin?”
“Mr. Carter, if you don’t mind, I would much prefer that you do not
refer to Orizaba as my cousin. At best the relationship was so far
removed that it cannot be considered, and I really doubt if there was
any at all. I think he was an impostor, and whether he was or not, and
notwithstanding the fact that he is dead and I am not sure that I did
not kill him in my sleep, or somehow, I know he was a scoundrel of the
worst sort. I hope I did not kill him, but I can truthfully say that I
am glad that he is dead. Don’t call him my cousin.”
“Very well. Now let us return to your sister.”
“Well?”
“Why did you show the needle to her and threaten to use it on Orizaba?”
“The answer to that question belongs to the other story.”
“Never mind. Let me have it now.”
“Mercedes has known, ever since we have had any knowledge of Orizaba,
that I hated him. In a word, my hatred of him has arisen chiefly because
of his determined court paid to her. I have known all along that he was
totally unworthy of her, but----”
“Then why did you not put a stop to his attentions at once?”
“Because Mercedes would not permit it.”
“Ah!”
“For some reason she chose to defend him always--that is, whenever I
attacked him.”
“Do you mean by that, that she favored his suit?”
“No; I do not mean that, for that is what she did not do. I have never
thought that she favored him, and yet on more than one occasion she has
constituted herself a sort of quasi protectress over him whenever we
have had our accustomed three-cornered fight at the home concerning
him.”
“What do you mean by accustomed three-cornered fight?”
“I refer to wordy battles which often took place among my mother, my
sister, and myself concerning Orizaba. These were usually begun in
raillery, but always ended in bitter words.”
“And on such occasions you say that your sister championed Orizaba?”
“Championed is not the word; it is too strong. She took his part, if
that expression can be said to mean anything.”
“I understand. Now let us return to the room, and to the moment when you
staggered back against the wall with the thought in your mind that your
sister would believe that you had carried out your threat and killed
Orizaba. Was there any other reason than those you have mentioned why it
should suddenly have occurred to you that she would think you guilty of
the crime?”
“Yes. One other.”
“What was that?”
“Merely the fact that the very last words I uttered to Mercedes before I
left the house last night to attend the banquet referred to such a
possibility.”
“How? In what manner? Explain.”
“She came into my room just as I was on the point of leaving it to come
here to the city for the banquet. When she entered the room I was seated
at my desk engaged in addressing the envelope of a letter I had just
written, and which I wished to post when I went out. The casket in which
I kept the needle was open on the desk before me----”
“How did that happen?”
“I had opened it to get out a diamond stud which I was then wearing, and
I had not yet closed and locked the casket and returned it to its
place.”
“Well? Mercedes entered the room; what then?”
“She expressed the wish that I would enjoy myself at the banquet, and
also the hope that I would drink less wine than usual. I replied that
when she and my mother decided to rid the house of Orizaba I would be
willing to give up wine altogether, and that the mere fact that he was
to be present at the banquet was sufficient to make me get drunk, and I
closed my remarks by taking Cadillac’s needle from the casket and
holding it up to her view.
“‘As surely as there is a kingdom of heaven,’ I said, ‘I’ll jab this
thing into his vertebra some day if he hangs around here much longer.
I’ve had about all of him that I can stand.’”
“What reply did she make?”
“None whatever. She rose and left the room. Five minutes later I left
the house and came to New York.”
“But you returned the needle to the casket?”
“Certainly.”
“Did you lock the casket?”
“I did.”
“You are positive of that?”
“Certainly.”
“And the desk itself?”
“I am equally positive that I locked that also.”
“Well, now let us return again to the moment when after the discovery of
Orizaba’s death you staggered back against the wall. What did you do
next, after that?”
“I finished my dressing with all the haste I could command. I put the
cork handle of Cadillac’s needle in my pocket. I locked the casket and
put it away again. I locked the desk. I tiptoed around the room with
great care, and as far as I was able to do so in my more or less dazed
condition, I left things exactly as I supposed they were before I
returned there from the banquet. Then I came out of the house silently,
hurried to the station, caught the four-ten train for the city, and here
I am.”
“Did you suppose that you could cover up the fact that you had returned
to the house in company with the man who is now dead?”
“I supposed so at the time I attempted to accomplish it; I know now that
such a thing would be impossible. There is the cab driver who took us to
the station here in the city; there is the good-natured conductor who
knows me, who waked me when we were approaching our station; he has
waked me many times in the same manner and he would not forget it. There
is the conductor who came down on the four-ten train, who expressed
unbounded surprise because I was going to the city so early in the
morning. He had never seen me going in that direction at that time of
day before, and he even asked me, jokingly, if there was anybody dead at
the house, and I, like a fool, replied to him.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him yes; that Orizaba was dead.”
Nick Carter almost laughed, so bright was the smile that suffused his
face.
“It seems to you now that it was a foolish thing for you to do, to tell
the conductor that Orizaba was dead,” he said, “but I will assure you
that it was in reality the most sensible thing you have done in this
whole affair. Now, two or three more questions, and then we will start
at once for the Fells. We should be able to get there, I think, before
the body of Ramon Orizaba is discovered, since it is not likely that any
one will enter your room at this hour in the morning.”