I MAKE A PROMISE TO POLLY
The next few days were a nightmare to me. Even now I cannot think of
that horrible period of suspense and doubt without a shudder. The
coroner set to work immediately upon his preliminary investigation, and
every bit of evidence that turned up only seemed to make the proof
stronger against Radnor.
It is strange how ready public opinion is to believe the worst of a man
when he is down. No one appeared to doubt Rad's guilt, and feeling ran
high against him. Colonel Gaylord was a well-known character in the
countryside, and in spite of his quick temper and rather imperious
bearing he had been a general favorite. At the news of his death a wave
of horror and indignation swept through the valley. Among the roughs in
the village I heard not infrequent hints of lynching; and even among
the more conservative element, the general opinion seemed to be that
lawful hanging was too honorable a death for the perpetrator of so
brutal a crime.
I have never been able to understand the quick and general belief in the
boy's guilt, but I have always suspected that the sheriff did not do all
in his power to quiet the feeling. It was to a large extent, however,
the past reasserting itself. Though Radnor's record was not so black as
it was painted, still, it was not so white as it should have been.
People shook their heads and repeated stories of how wild he had been as
a boy, and how they had always foreseen some such end as this. Reports
of the quarrels with his father were told and retold until they were
magnified beyond all recognition. The old scandals about Jeff were
revived again, and the general opinion seemed to be that the Gaylord
boys were degenerates through and through. Rad's personal friends stood
by him staunchly; but they formed a pitifully small minority compared to
the general sensation-seeking public.
I visited Radnor in the Kennisburg jail on the morning of my uncle's
funeral and found him quite broken in spirit. He had had time to think
over the past, and with his father lying dead at Four-Pools, it had not
been pleasant thinking. Now that it was too late, he seemed filled with
remorse over his conduct toward the old man, and he dwelt continually on
the fact of his having been unwilling to make up the quarrel of the
night before the murder. In this mood of contrition he mercilessly
accused himself of things I am sure he had never done. I knew that the
jailer was listening to every word outside, and I became unspeakably
nervous for fear he would say something which could be twisted into an
incriminating confession. He did not seem to comprehend in the least the
danger of his own position; he was entirely taken up with the horror of
his father's death. As I was leaving, however, he suddenly grasped my
hand with tears in his eyes.
"Tell me, Arnold, do people really believe me guilty?"
I knew by "people" he meant Polly Mathers; but I had not had an
opportunity to speak with her alone since the day of the tragedy.
"I haven't talked to anyone but the sheriff," I returned.
"Mattison would be glad enough to prove it," Radnor said bitterly, and
he turned his back and stood staring through the iron bars of the
window, while I went out and the jailer closed the door and locked it.
All through the funeral that afternoon I could scarcely keep my eyes
from Polly Mathers's face. She appeared so changed since the day of the
picnic that I should scarcely have known her for the same person; it
seemed incredible that three days could make such a difference in a
bright, healthy, vigorous girl. All her youthful vivacity was gone; she
was pale and spiritless with deep rings beneath her eyes and the lids
red with crying. After the services were over, I approached her a moment
as she stood in her black dress aloof from the others at the edge of the
little family burying-ground. She greeted me with a tremulous smile, and
then as her glance wandered back to the pile of earth that two men were
already shoveling into the grave, her eyes quickly filled with tears.
"I loved him as much as if he were my own father," she cried, "and it's
my fault that he's dead. I made him go!"
"No, Polly, it is not your fault," I said decisively. "It was a thing
which no one could foresee and no one could help."
She waited a moment trying to steady her voice, then she looked up
pleadingly in my face.
"Radnor is innocent; tell me you believe it."
"I am sure he is innocent," I replied.
"Then you can clear him--you're a lawyer. I know you can clear him!"
"You may trust me to do my best, Polly."
"I hate Jim Mattison!" she exclaimed, with a flash of her old fire. "He
swears that Rad is guilty and that he will prove him so. Rad may have
done some bad things, but he's a good man--better than Jim Mattison ever
thought of being."
"Polly," I said with a touch of bitterness, "I wish you might have
realized that truth earlier. Rad is at heart as splendid a chap as ever
lived, and his friends ought never to have allowed him to go astray."
She looked away without answering, and then in a moment turned back to
me and held out her hand.
"Good-by. When you see him again please tell him what I said."
As she turned away I looked after her, puzzled. I was sure at last that
she was in love with Radnor, and I was equally sure that he did not know
it; for in spite of his sorrow at his father's death and of the
suspicion that rested on him, I knew that he would not have been so
completely crushed had he felt that she was with him. Why must this come
to him now too late to do him any good, when he had needed it so much
before? I felt momentarily enraged at Polly. It seemed somehow as if the
trouble might have been avoided had she been more straightforward. Then
at the memory of her pale face and pleading eyes I relented. However
thoughtless she had been before, she was changed now; this tragedy had
somehow made a woman of her over night. When Radnor came at last to
claim her, they would each, perhaps, be worthier of the other.
I returned to the empty house that night and sat down to look the facts
squarely in the face. I had hitherto been so occupied with the necessary
preparations for the funeral, and with instituting a search for Cat-Eye
Mose, that I had scarcely had time to think, let alone map out any
logical plan of action. Radnor was so stunned by the blow that he could
barely talk coherently, and as yet I had had no satisfactory interview
with him.
Immediately after the Colonel's death, I had very hastily run over his
private papers, but had found little to suggest a clue. Among some old
letters were several from Nannie's husband, written at the time of her
sickness and death; their tone was bitter. Could the man have
accomplished a tardy revenge for past insults? I asked myself. But
investigation showed this theory to be most untenable. He was still
living in the little Kansas village where she had died, had married
again, and become a peaceful plodding citizen. It required all his
present energy to support his wife and children--I dare say the brief
episode of his first marriage had almost faded from his mind. There was
not the slightest chance that he could be implicated.
I sifted the papers again, thoroughly and painstakingly, but found
nothing that would throw any light upon the mystery. While I was still
engaged with this task, a message came from the coroner saying that the
formal inquest would begin at ten o'clock the next morning in the
Kennisburg court-house. This gave me no chance to plan any sort of
campaign, and I could do little more than let matters take their course.
I hoped however that in the progress of the inquest, some clue would be
brought to light which would render Radnor's being remanded for trial
impossible.
So far, I had to acknowledge, the evidence against him appeared
overwhelming. A motive was supplied in the fact that the Colonel's death
would leave him his own master and a rich man. The well-known fact of
their frequent quarrels, coupled with Radnor's fierce temper and
somewhat revengeful disposition, was a very strong point in his
disfavor; added to this, the suspicious circumstances of the day of the
tragedy--the fact that he was not with the rest of the party when the
crime must have been committed, the alleged print of his boots and the
finding of the match box, his subsequent perturbed condition--everything
pointed to him as the author of the crime. It was a most convincing
chain of circumstantial evidence.
Considering the data that had come to light, there seemed to be only one
alternative, and that was that Cat-Eye Mose had committed the murder. I
clung tenaciously to this belief; but I found, in the absence of any
further proof or any conceivable motive, that few people shared it with
me. The marks of his bare feet proved conclusively that he had been, in
whatever capacity, an active participator in the struggle.
"He was there to aid his master," the sheriff affirmed, "and being a
witness to the crime, it was necessary to put him out of the way."
"Why hide the body of one and not the other?" I asked.
"To throw suspicion on Mose."
This was the universal opinion; no one, from the beginning, would listen
to a word against Mose. In his case, as well as in Radnor's, the past
was speaking. Through all his life, they said, he had faithfully loved
and served the Colonel, and if necessity required, he would willingly
have died for him.
But for myself, I continued to believe in the face of all opposition,
that Mose was guilty. It was more a matter of feeling with me than of
reasoning. I had always been suspicious of the fellow; a man with eyes
like that was capable of anything. The objection which the sheriff
raised that Colonel Gaylord was both larger and stronger than Mose and
could easily have overcome him, proved nothing to my mind. Mose was a
small man, but he was long-armed and wirey, doubtless far stronger than
he looked; besides, he had been armed, and the nature of his weapon was
clear. The floor of the cave was strewn with scores of broken
stalactites; nothing could have made a more formidable weapon than one
of these long pieces of jagged stone used as a club.
As to the motive for the crime, who could tell what went on in the slow
workings of his mind? The Colonel had struck him more than
once--unjustly, I did not doubt--and though he seemed at the moment to
take it meekly, might he not have been merely biding his time? His final
revenge may have been the outcome of many hoarded grievances that no one
knew existed. The fellow was more than half insane. What more likely
than that he had attacked his master in a fit of animal passion; and
then, terrified at the result, escaped to the woods? That seemed to me
the only plausible explanation.
No facts had come out concerning the ha'nt or the robbery, and I do not
think that either was connected in the public mind with the murder. But
to my mind the death of Colonel Gaylord was but the climax of the long
series of events which commenced on the night of my arrival with the
slight and ludicrous episode of the stolen roast chicken. I had been
convinced at the time that Mose was at the bottom of it, and I was
convinced now that he was also at the bottom of the robbery and the
murder. How Radnor had got drawn into the muddle of the ha'nt, I could
not fathom; but I suspected that Mose had hoodwinked him as he had the
rest of us.
Assuming that my theory was right, then Mose was hiding; and all my
energies from the beginning had been bent toward his discovery. The low
range of mountains which lay between Four-Pools Plantation and the Luray
valley was covered thickly with woods and very sparsely settled. Mose
knew every foot of the ground; he had wandered over these mountains for
days at a time, and must have been familiar with many hiding places. It
was in this region that I hoped to find him.
Immediately after the Colonel's death I had offered a large reward
either for Mose's capture, or for any information regarding his
whereabouts. His description had been telegraphed all up and down the
valley and every farmer was on the alert. Bands of men had been formed
and the woods scoured for him, but as yet without result. I was hourly
expecting, however, that some clue would come to light.
The sheriff, on the other hand, in pursuance of his theory that Mose had
been murdered, had been no less indefatigable in his search for the
body. The river had been dragged, the cave and surrounding woods
searched, but nothing had been found. Mose had simply vanished from the
earth and left no trace.
To my disappointment the morning still brought no news; I had hoped to
have something definite before the inquest opened. I rode into
Kennisburg early in order to hold a conference with Radnor, and get from
him the facts in regard to his own and Mose's connection with the ha'nt.
My former passivity in the matter struck me now as almost criminal;
perhaps had I insisted in probing it to the bottom, my uncle might have
been living still. I entered Radnor's cell determined not to leave it
until I knew the truth.
But I met with an unexpected obstacle. He refused absolutely to discuss
the question.
"Radnor," I cried at last, "are you trying to shield any one? Do you
know who killed your father?"
"I know no more about who killed my father than you do."
"Do you know about the ha'nt?"
"Yes," he said desperately, "I do; but it is not connected with either
the robbery or the murder and I cannot talk about it."
I argued and pleaded but to no effect. He sat on his cot, his head in
his hands staring at the floor, stubbornly refusing to open his lips. I
gave over pleading and stormed.
"It's no use, Arnold," he said finally. "I won't tell you anything about
the ha'nt; it doesn't enter into the case."
I sat down again and patiently outlined my theory in regard to Mose.
"It is impossible," he declared. "I have known Mose all my life, and I
have never yet known him to betray a trust. He loved my father as much
as I did, and if my life depended on it, I should swear that he was
faithful."
"Rad," I beseeched, "I am not only your attorney, I am your friend;
whatever you say to me is as if it had never been said. I _must_ know
the truth."
He shook his head.
"I have nothing to say."
"You have _got_ to have something to say," I cried. "You have got to go
on the stand and make an absolutely open and straightforward statement
of everything bearing on the case. You have got to appear anxious to
find and punish the man who murdered your father. You have got to gain
public sympathy, and before you go on the stand you owe it to yourself
and me to leave nothing unexplained between us."
He raised his eyes miserably to mine.
"Must I go on?" he asked. "Can't I refuse to testify--I don't see that
they can punish me for contempt of court; I'm already in prison."
"They can hang you," said I, bluntly.
He buried his face in his hands with a groan.
"Arnold," he pleaded, "don't make me face all those people. You can see
what a state my nerves are in; I haven't slept for three nights." He
held out his hand to show me how it trembled. "I can't talk--I don't
know what I'm saying. You don't know what you're urging me to do."
My anger at his stubbornness vanished in a sudden spasm of pity. The
poor fellow was scarcely more than a boy! Though I was completely in the
dark as to what he was holding back and why he was doing it, yet I felt
instinctively that his motives were honorable.
"Rad," I said, "it would help your cause to be open with me, and if you
are remanded for trial before the grand jury you must in the end tell me
everything. But now I will not insist. Probably nothing will come up
about the ha'nt. I can of course refuse to let you speak on the ground
of incriminating evidence, but that is the last stand I wish to take. We
must gain public opinion on our side and to that end you must testify
yourself. You must force every person present to believe that you are
incapable of telling a falsehood--I believe that already and so does
Polly Mathers."
Radnor's face flushed and a quick light sprang into his eyes.
"What do you mean?"
I repeated what Polly had said and I added my own interpretation. The
effect was electrical. He straightened his shoulders with an air of
trying to throw off his despondency.
"I'll do my best," he promised. "Heaven knows I'd like to know the truth
as well as you--this doubt is simply hell!"
A knock sounded on the door and a sheriff's officer informed us that the
hearing was about to begin.
"You haven't explained your actions on the day of the murder," I said
hurriedly. "I must have a reason."
"That's all right--it will come out. If you just keep 'em off the ha'nt,
I'll clear everything else."
"If you do that," said I, immeasurably relieved, "there'll be no danger
of your being held for trial." I rose and held out my hand. "Courage, my
boy; remember that you are going to prove your innocence, not only for
your own, but for Polly's sake."