THE ARREST
Sam Carter loitered down the street after leaving the bank, and when
Harry King approached, he turned with his ready smile and accosted
him.
"Pleasant day. I see you're a stranger here, and I thought I might get
an item from you. Carter's my name, and I'm doing the reporting for
the _Mercury_. Be glad to make your acquaintance. Show you round a
little."
Harry was nonplussed for a moment. Such things did not use to occur in
this old-fashioned place as running about the streets picking up items
from people and asking personal questions for the paper to exploit the
replies. He looked twice at Sam Carter before responding.
"Thank you, I--I've been here before. I know the place pretty well."
"Very pretty place, don't you think so? Mean to stop for some time?"
"I hardly know as yet." Harry King mused a little, then resolved to
break his loneliness by accepting the casual acquaintance, and to
avoid personalities about himself by asking questions about the town
and those he used to know, but whom he preferred not to see. It was an
opportunity. "Yes, it is a pretty place. Have you been here long?"
"I've been here--let's see. About three years--maybe a little less.
You must have been away from Leauvite longer than that, I judge. I've
never left the place since I came and I never saw you before. No
wonder I thought you a stranger."
"I may call myself one--yes. A good many changes since you came?"
"Oh, yes. See the new courthouse? It's a beauty,--all solid
stone,--cost fifty thousand dollars. The _Mercury_ had a great deal to
do with bringing it about,--working up enthusiasm and the like,--but
there is a great deal of depression just now, and taxes running up.
People think government is taking a good deal out of them for such
public buildings, but, Lord help us! the government is needing money
just now as much as the people. It's hard to be public spirited when
taxes are being raised. You have people here?"
"Not now--no. Who's mayor here now?"
"Harding--Harding of the iron works. He makes a good one, too.
There's the new courthouse. The jail is underneath at the back. See
the barred windows? No breaking out of there. Three prisoners did
break out of the old one during the year this building was under
construction,--each in a different way, too,--shows how badly they
needed a new one. Quite an ornament to the square, don't you think
so?"
"The jail?"
"No, no,--The building as a whole. Better go over it while you're
here."
"I may--do so--yes."
"Staying some time, I believe you said."
"Did I? I may have said so."
"Staying at the hotel, I believe?"
"Yes, and here we are." Harry King stood an instant--undecided.
Certain things he wished to know, but had not the courage to ask--not
on the street--but maybe seated on the veranda he could ask this
outsider, in a casual way. "Drop in with me and have a smoke."
"I will, thank you. I often run in,--in the way of business,--but I
haven't tried it as a stopping place. Meals pretty good?"
"Very good." They took seats at the end of the piazza where Harry King
led the way. The sun was now low, but the air was still warm enough
for comfort, and no one was there but themselves, for it lacked an
hour to the return of the omnibus and the arrival of the usual loafers
who congregated at that time.
"You've made a good many acquaintances since you came, no doubt?"
"Well--a good many--yes."
"Know the Craigmiles?"
"The Craigmiles? There's no one there to know--now--but the Elder. Oh,
his wife, of course, but she stays at home so close no one ever sees
her. They're away now, if you want to see them."
"And she never goes out--you say?"
"Never since I've been in the town. You see, there was a tragedy in
the family. Just before I came it happened, and I remember the town
was all stirred up about it. Their son was murdered."
Harry King gave a quick start, then gathered himself up in strong
control and tilted his chair back against the wall.
"Their son murdered?" he asked. "Tell me about it. All you know."
"That's just it--nobody knows anything. They know he was murdered,
because he disappeared completely. The young man was called Peter
Junior, after his father, of course--and he was the one that was
murdered. They found every evidence of it. It was there on the bluff,
above the wildest part of the river, where the current is so strong no
man could live a minute in it. He would be dashed to death in the
flood, even if he were not killed in the fall from the brink, and that
young man was pushed over right there."
"How did they know he was pushed over?"
"They knew he was. They found his hat there, and it was bloody, as if
he had been struck first, and a club there, also bloody,--and it is
believed he was killed first and then pushed over, for there is the
place yet, after three years, where the earth gave way with the weight
of something shoved over the edge. Well, would you believe it--that
old man has kept the knowledge of it from his wife all this time. She
thinks her son quarreled with his father and went off, and that he
will surely return some day."
"And no one in the village ever told her?"
"All the town have helped the old Elder to keep it from her. You'd
think such a thing impossible, wouldn't you? But it's the truth. The
old man bribed the _Mercury_ to keep it out, and, by jiminy, it was
done! Here, in a town of this size where every one knows all about
every one else's affairs--it was done! It seems people took an
especial interest in keeping it from her, yet every one was talking
about it, and so I heard all there was to hear. Hallo! What are you
doing here?"
This last remark was addressed to Nels Nelson, who appeared just
below them and stood peering up at them through the veranda railing.
"I yust vaiting for Meestair Stiles. He tol' me vait for heem here."
"Mr. Stiles? Who's he?"
"Dere he coomin'."
As he spoke G. B. Stiles came through the hotel door and walked
gravely up to them. Something in his manner, and in the expectant,
watchful eye of the Swede, caused them both to rise. At the same
moment, Kellar, the sheriff, came up the front steps and approached
them, and placing his hand on Harry King's shoulder, drew from his
pocket a pair of handcuffs.
"Young man, it is my duty to arrest you. Here is my badge--this is
quite straight--for the murder of Peter Craigmile, Jr."
The young man neither moved nor spoke for a moment, and as he stood
thus the sheriff took him by the arm, and roused him. "Richard
Kildene, you are under arrest for the murder of your cousin, Peter
Craigmile, Jr."
With a quick, frantic movement, Harry King sprang back and thrust both
men violently from him. The red of anger mounted to his hair and
throbbed in his temples, then swept back to his heart, and left him
with a deathlike pallor.
"Keep back. I'm not Richard Kildene. You have the wrong man. Peter
Craigmile was never murdered."
The big Swede leaped the piazza railing and stood close to him, while
the sheriff held him pinioned, and Sam Carter drew out his notebook.
"You know me, Mr. Kellar,--stand off, I say. I am Peter Craigmile.
Look at me. Put away those handcuffs. It is I, alive, Peter Craigmile,
Jr."
"That's a very clever plea, but it's no go," said G. B. Stiles, and
proceeded to fasten the irons on his wrists.
"Yas, I know you dot man keel heem, all right. I hear you tol' some
von you keel heem," said the Swede, slowly, in suppressed excitement.
"You're a very good actor, young man,--mighty clever,--but it's no go.
Now you'll walk along with us if you please," said Mr. Kellar.
"But I tell you I don't please. It's a mistake. I am Peter Craigmile,
Jr., himself, alive."
"Well, if you are, you'll have a chance to prove it, but evidence is
against you. If you are he, why do you come back under an assumed name
during your father's absence? A little hitch there you did not take
into consideration."
"I had my reasons--good ones--I--came back to confess to
the--un--un--witting--killing of my cousin, Richard." He turned from
one to the other, panting as if he had been running a race, and threw
out his words impetuously. "I tell you I came here for the very
purpose of giving myself up--but you have the wrong man."
By this time a crowd had collected, and the servants were running from
their work all over the hotel, while the proprietor stood aloof with
staring eyes.
"Here, Mr. Decker, you remember me--Elder Craigmile's son? Some of you
must remember me."
But the proprietor only wagged his head. He would not be drawn into
the thing. "I have no means of knowing who you are--no more than Adam.
The name you wrote in my book was Harry King."
"I tell you I had my reasons. I meant to wait here until the
Elder's--my father's return and--"
"And in the meantime we'll put you in a quiet little apartment, very
private, where you can wait, while we look into things a bit."
"You needn't take me through the streets with these things on; I've no
intention of running away. Let me go to my room a minute."
"Yes, and put a bullet through your head. I've no intention of running
any risks now we have you," said the detective.
"Now you have who? You have no idea whom you have. Take off these
shackles until I pay my bill. You have no objection to that, have
you?"
They turned into the hotel, and the handcuffs were removed while the
young man took out his pocketbook and paid his reckoning. Then he
turned to them.
"I must ask you to accompany me to my room while I gather my toilet
necessities together." This they did, G. B. Stiles and the sheriff
walking one on either side, while the Swede followed at their heels.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded, turning suddenly upon the
stable man.
"Oh, I yust lookin' a leetle out."
"Mr. Stiles, what does this mean, that you have that man dogging me?"
"It's his affair, not mine. He thinks he has a certain interest in
you."
Then he turned in exasperation to the sheriff. "Can you give me a
little information, Mr. Kellar? What has that Swede to do with me? Why
am I arrested for the murder of my own self--preposterous! I, a man as
alive as you are? You can see for yourself that I am Elder
Craigmile's son. You know me?"
"I know the Elder fairly well--every one in Leauvite knows him, but I
can't say as I've ever taken particular notice of his boy, and,
anyway, the boy was murdered three years ago--a little over--for it
was in the fall of the year--well, that's most four years--and I must
say it's a mighty clever dodge, as Mr. Stiles says, for you to play
off this on us. It's a matter that will bear looking into. Now you sit
down here and hold on to yourself, while I go through your things.
You'll get them all, never fear."
Then Harry King sat down and looked off through the open window, and
paid no heed to what the men were doing. They might turn his large
valise inside out and read every scrap of written paper. There was
nothing to give the slightest clew to his identity. He had left the
envelope addressed to the Elder, containing the letters he had
written, at the bank, to be placed in the safety vault, and not to be
delivered until ordered to do so by himself.
As they finished their search and restored the articles to his valise,
he asked again that the handcuffs be left off as he walked through the
streets.
"I have no desire to escape. It is my wish to go with you. I only wish
I might have seen the--my father first. He could not have helped
me--but he would have understood--it would have seemed less--"
He could not go on, and the sheriff slipped the handcuffs in his
pocket, and they proceeded in silence to the courthouse, where he
listened to the reading of the warrant and his indictment in dazed
stupefaction, and then walked again in silence between his captors to
the jail in the rear.
"No one has ever been in this cell," said Mr. Kellar. "I'm doing the
best I can for you."
"How long must I stay here? Who brings accusation?"
"I don't know how long: as this is a murder charge you can't
be bailed out, and the trial will take time. The Elder brings
accusation--naturally."
"When is he expected home?"
"Can't say. You'll have some one to defend you, and then you can ask
all the questions you wish." The sheriff closed the heavy door and the
key was turned.
Then began weary days of waiting. If it had been possible to get the
trial over with, Harry would have been glad, but it made little
difference to him now, since the step had been taken, and a trial in
his case would only be a verdict, anyway--and confession was a simple
thing, and the hearing also.
The days passed, and he wondered that no one came to him--no friend of
the old time. Where were Bertrand Ballard and Mary? Where was little
Betty? Did they not know he was in jail? He did not know that others
had been arrested on the same charge and released, more than once.
True, no one had made the claim of being the Elder's own son and the
murdered man himself. As such incidents were always disturbing to
Betty, when Bertrand read the notice of the arrest in the _Mercury_,
the paper was laid away in his desk and his little daughter was spared
the sight of it this time.
But he spoke of the matter to his wife. "Here is another case of
arrest for poor Peter Junior's murder, Mary. The man claims to be
Peter Junior himself, but as he registered at the hotel under an
assumed name it is likely to be only another attempt to get the
reward money by some detective. It was very unwise for the Elder to
make it so large a sum."
"It can't be. Peter Junior would never be so cruel as to stay away all
this time, if he were alive, no matter how deeply he may have
quarreled with his father. I believe they both went over the bluff and
are both dead."
"It stands to reason that one or the other body would have been found
in that case. One might be lost, but hardly both. The search was very
thorough, even down to the mill race ten miles below."
"The current is so swift there, they might have been carried over the
race, and on, before the search began. I think so, although no one
else seems to."
"I wish the Elder would remove that temptation of the reward. It is
only an inducement to crime. Time alone will solve the mystery, and as
long as he continues to brood over it, he will go on failing in
health. It's coming to an obsession with him to live to see Richard
Kildene hung, and some one will have to swing for it if he has his
way. Now he will return and find this man in jail, and will bend every
effort, and give all his thought toward getting him convicted."
"But I thought you said they do not hang in this state."
"True--true. But imprisonment for life is--worse. I'm thinking of what
the Elder would like could he have his way."
"Bertrand--I believe the Elder is sure the man will be found and that
it will kill his wife, when she comes to know that Peter Junior was
murdered, and that is why he took her to Scotland. She told me she was
sure her son was there, or would go to see his great aunts there, and
that is why she consented to go--but I'm sure the Elder wished to get
her out of the way."
"Strange--strange," said Bertrand. "After all, it is better to
forgive. No one knows what transpired, and Richard is the real
sufferer."
"Do you suppose he'll leave Hester there, Bertrand?"
"I hardly think she would be left, but it is impossible to tell. A
son's loss is more than any other--to a mother."
"Do you think so, Bertrand? It would be hardest of all to lose a
husband, and the Elder has failed so much since Peter Junior's
death."
"Peter Junior seems to be the only one who has escaped suffering in
this tragedy. Remorse in Richard's case, and stubborn anger in the
Elder's--they are emotions that take large toll out of a man's
vitality. If ever Richard is found, he will not be the young man we
knew."
"Unless he is innocent. All this may have been an accident."
"Then why is he staying in hiding?"
"He may have felt there was no way to prove his innocence."
"Well, there is another reason why the Elder should withdraw his offer
of a reward, and when he comes back, I mean to try what can be done
once more. Everything would have to be circumstantial. He will have a
hard time to prove his nephew's guilt."
"I can't see why he should try to prove it. It must have been an
accident--at the last. Of course it might have been begun in anger, in
a moment of misunderstanding, but the nature of the boys would go to
show that it never could have been done intentionally. It is
impossible."