HENRY IS HARD TO HANDLE
Burton found Henry Underwood in prison quite as calm and saturnine as
he had been in the garden.
"Have you made any arrangement for counsel?" he asked, after shaking
hands.
"Counsel? You mean a lawyer? No."
"Is there some one you would prefer?"
"Do I have to have one?"
"Oh, yes! That's one of the rules of the game."
"Suppose I just don't play?" suggested Henry.
Burton laughed in spite of himself.
"Then the court will appoint some young lawyer to practise on you.
You'd better make your own selection. For one thing you want a lawyer
to arrange to bail you out. This is a bailable offence, you
understand, and you don't want to stay in this hole any longer than is
necessary."
"Nevertheless, I shall stay for the present," said Henry coolly. "I do
not want to be bailed out."
"Why not?" demanded Burton. "In the name of wonder, why not?"
"For one thing, I will ask no favors of any one. I will not be put in
the attitude of suppliant."
"If you will pardon my frankness," said Burton, "that is pig-headed
nonsense. But aside from that point, you won't need to do anything
about it. Your lawyer will attend to it. And I herewith offer to put
up any bond that may be required, so your pride is saved. It is I who
am the suppliant!"
Henry looked neither surprised nor grateful. "I told you that I was
not going to let myself be bailed out," he said with some impatience.
"Now that they have shut me up in here, they at least can't accuse me
of the next thing that happens."
"Oh, I see! Well, if you have the nerve for it, I am not sure that
isn't a good plan," said Burton thoughtfully. "It will certainly
eliminate you as a factor, if anything more does happen. Of course if
the person who seems bent on implicating you should be shrewd enough
to keep quiet for a while, it would not have the effect you wish for.
Have you thought of that possibility?"
"I'm out of it," said Henry shortly. "That's all I care about. And
here I am going to stay until they get tired and let me out to get rid
of me."
"I am really very glad you can take that attitude," said Burton. He
spoke sincerely, for the young man's manner contained no personal
offence in spite of his brusqueness, and Burton was the least vain of
men. "It leaves us free to work on the outside,--and of course you
understand that I am going to work for you. Now, I want your help so
far as you can give it to me. I want to know if you have any idea who
is at the bottom of these occurrences,--any knowledge or any
suspicion."
"No."
"Of course you must have given a good deal of thought to it, in the
course of all these years. You have never had a glimmering of an idea
as to who it is that is persecuting you?"
Henry smiled sardonically. "My mother says it is no
persecution,--merely the punishment for my evil temper. I suppose you
have heard that I have an evil temper?"
"Yes. It gave me a fellow-feeling for you. I have an evil temper
myself, at bottom. But as for punishment, what I want to get at is the
human agency. It seems incredible that you should have never, in your
own mind, had a suspicion of the guilty party."
"What I may have thought in my own mind is neither here nor there,"
said Henry, knitting his black brows together.
"Have you an enemy, then?"
Henry shrugged his shoulders. "I have no friends."
"Then you absolutely refuse to give me any help?"
"I absolutely refuse to give you what I don't possess," said Henry
impatiently.
Burton waited a moment, then he asked suddenly: "Did Selby give you
back your knife, before he left the surgery the other night?"
The look that had flashed instantaneously into Henry's eyes at the
mention of that name gave Burton all the information he needed as to
Henry's power of hating one man at least. But the answer to his
question was abrupt and positive.
"No."
"Did you notice what he did with it,--whether he gave it to your
father, or left it on the mantel, or anywhere else?"
"I didn't notice."
"But you are positive that he didn't give it to you and that you
didn't unconsciously drop it into your own pocket?"
"Of course I am positive. I wouldn't be unconscious in connection with
anything that Selby was concerned in. If he came near enough to me to
hand me anything, I would be conscious of the fact, you may be sure.
Why?"
"That knife has been found near the Sprigg house."
Henry frowned.
"The last I saw of that knife, it was in Selby's hands," Burton
continued. "Well, what of it?"
"How did it come to be under the Sprigg ruins? You must help me to
work that out. You are suspected of firing the house,--you know that,
don't you?"
Henry's eyes fell. "Who says so?" he asked doggedly, but without
spirit. "Selby does."
But this time he drew nothing. Henry merely shrugged his shoulders.
"The knife is the only direct link with you," Burton went on.
"Therefore we must explain the knife. How did it get there?"
"What do I know about it? Or about anything?" Henry asked impatiently.
But Burton was persistent. "There are two possible theories," he said,
watching Henry as he spoke. "The knife may have been left in the
surgery when the committee departed, and the incendiary may have found
it there and carried it off. I have reasons for believing that some
one tried to enter--or rather, _did_ enter--that room in the night.
Or, as an alternative theory, Selby may have carried it away with him,
either intentionally or unconsciously, and then dropped it near the
Sprigg house,--either intentionally or unconsciously."
Henry listened with little softening of the bitterness in his face.
"There is another possible theory," he said, with something like a
sneer. "I may be lying when I say he didn't give the knife back to
me."
"That is of course possible," said Burton calmly, "but I don't believe
it. At any rate I'll try out the other theories first. Now, here's
another point. Did you buy a ball of stout twine at Proctor's the
other day?"
Henry stared. "Why do you ask that?"
"Because Proctor said that he had sold you the cord that Hadley was
tied up with. He claimed to identify it. Did you buy it of him?"
"I bought a ball of cord,--yes."
"What did you do with it?"
"I used it to tie up some heavy vines in the back yard."
"Did you use all of it?"
"No."
"What did you do with the rest,--the ball?"
Henry considered. "I don't remember. I may have left it on the ground
where I was working."
"You can't be sure about it?"
"No." Henry spoke with an exasperating indifference. It might have
been Burton whose honor was involved, and Henry merely an uninterested
bystander. Burton looked at him in great perplexity. His desire to
help the man out was not lessened, but he felt baffled by the mask of
reserve which Henry refused to lay aside. He so greatly disliked being
placed in the attitude of forcing his proffers of assistance upon an
unwilling recipient that only the thought of Leslie Underwood kept him
from wishing to drop the matter then and there. But he did remember,
and he put his pride in his pocket.
"All these matters are for your attorney," he said at last. "If there
is any one whom you would rather have or would rather not have, I wish
you'd tell me. I do not want to involve your feelings unnecessarily,
and I shall certainly have to confer with your father on the subject."
Henry frowned, but after a moment's hesitation he took a pencil from
his pocket and wrote a name and address on a leaf which he tore from a
memorandum book.
"I think they would be as good as anybody, if I have to have some
one," he said.
Burton took the paper, but he hardly glanced at the name, so
interested was he in the pencil with which Henry wrote. It was a short
flat pencil, such as carpenters use, and it made the broad black mark
that Burton already knew from the mysterious missives of warning.
"Do you always use that sort of a pencil?" he asked.
Henry bent his black brows in a look of resentful inquiry.
"What if I do?"
"Because it is unusual, and leaves a peculiar mark, easily identified,
and because I am assuming that you would rather be cleared than
convicted," said Burton, exasperated into impatience. "When it is
common report that you are the author of the anonymous messages which
appear either in the typewriting of the machine in your house or in
that broad black pencil, there certainly is every reason for finding
out who is sufficiently familiar with your ways to imitate them so
skilfully. Or is it common knowledge that you use a carpenter's
pencil?"
"It is not uncommon for people to use it for things that are to stand
weathering," said Henry, reluctantly. "I use it in my work in the
garden."
"Is your custom in the matter generally known?"
"How can I tell?"
"Just for instance,--does Selby know?"
But Henry was guarding his expression now. He shook his head with
rather an elaborate affectation of lack of interest. "I'm sure I
couldn't say."
"Selby might carry a carpenter's pencil," mused Burton, "but he would
be too shrewd to use it. Who would know your ways? Who comes
frequently and familiarly to your house? Does Selby--again, just for
instance,--have access to your house?"
"No," said Henry coldly. "He never comes there. That is, he never
comes to our part of the house. He comes now and then to see Ben
Bussey about work, but he goes to the back door."
"The back hall that runs by the door of the surgery?"
"Yes," said Henry. He turned away, as though to mark the end of the
conversation, and Burton refrained from pressing him further.
Burton left the jail a good deal perplexed as to what he really did
think of things by this time. He had jumped so enthusiastically to the
conclusion the night before that Henry was innocent that he could not
easily relinquish that hope, and yet certainly Henry had not cared at
all to help him to establish it as a fact. He seemed more than
unwilling to make any admission that would throw suspicion on Selby,
and yet, if there were anything in expression, he hated Selby. Was it
possible that just because he hated Selby he was so scrupulous not to
implicate him? The idea struck Burton at first merely as a paradox,
but the more he thought about it, the more he began to believe he had
hit upon the truth. It was exactly the sort of Quixotism of which the
doctor would have been guilty. Perhaps Henry was not so unlike his
father as he appeared. If he knew or guessed, for instance, that Miss
Hadley was wavering between himself and Selby, it was not difficult to
understand that he would have considered it anything but "sporting" to
involve his rival in the obloquy which had fallen upon himself. Well,
if Miss Hadley were the key that would unlock Henry's heart,--or his
lips,--he must try Miss Hadley again. Perhaps she could be moved to
pity. He swerved out of his way to call again upon the banker's
daughter.
Miss Hadley was in the drawing-room, and she received him this time
with an evident embarrassment and hesitation which he attributed to
her lingering resentment at his former urgency. But he had already
taken her measure. She was one of the people who must never be allowed
to exercise free will. She needed a master to keep her from making a
fool of herself. He determined at once to assume what he wanted her to
believe.
"I have just been to see Mr. Underwood," he said. "He is a fine
fellow,--but you found that out before the rest of the town did!
However, everybody will know it one of these days. We are going to
have all this misunderstanding and mystery cleared up, and you will
have a chance to be proud of him publicly. But just now, while he is
so unhappy, you must help to cheer him up. Don't you think you might
go and see him and tell him that you believe in him? It would mean a
great deal to him. You would seem like an angel of mercy to him."
He had talked rapidly, pressing his plan with a sort of urgency that
he would never have dared to use, for instance, with Leslie Underwood.
Almost he assumed that she would have no opinion to offer if only he
didn't give her time to consider! But she drew away from him with a
look of absolute dismay that was not in the character he had outlined
for her.
"I couldn't think of it,--not at all," she stammered.
"But you know you are engaged--"
"Oh, no!" she gasped.
"Well, practically you are," he persisted calmly.
"And you know that it would mean more to him--"
"I don't know what you mean at all," she exclaimed desperately, and
unconsciously she glanced at the drawn curtains that separated the
drawing-room from a room in the rear.
Burton bit his lip. He certainly had been rashly foolish to assume
that he was speaking tête-à-tête with Miss Hadley. Who was in the back
room? Her father? If he understood Mr. Hadley's temperament, he would
have burst into the room to demand an explanation by this time. Could
it possibly be Selby who was eavesdropping? If it were, he would give
him something for his pains!
"Mr. Underwood has enemies," he said calmly. "Mr. Selby, for instance,
is not friendly to him. Of course you know that, and you will
understand that anything he may say to you about his rival ought to be
discounted. I don't need to suggest to you which is the more worthy of
faith and credit. One is a gentleman, the other isn't. Of course there
could never for a moment be a question of counting the two men equal."
And then, fearful from the terrified dismay on her face that if he
kept on she would say something that would give the situation away, he
switched the conversation off upon tracks of glittering generality,
and spun it out as long as he dared. If it really were Selby in the
back room waiting for him to go, he was going to give him his money's
worth! He even ventured on a form of open flattery which he guessed
would make Selby furious and which certainly made Miss Hadley stare at
him in innocent amazement. When the lengthening shadows forced him at
last to take his leave, he took it with a lingering deliberation that
measured out exasperation to his hidden enemy drop by drop.
He went immediately to his own room in the hotel, which, it will be
remembered, overlooked the Hadley house, and sat down by the open
window to read the evening papers. There was no reason, surely, why he
should not sit by his own window! He had to wait nearly half an hour,
but he was rewarded. At the end of that time Selby came out of the
house and, with a dark glance toward the hotel, hurried up the street.
Burton laughed softly, but after a while he began to wonder just what
he had gained by his absurd punishment of the eavesdropper. Nothing,
probably, except a malicious satisfaction which was not particularly
creditable to him. He instinctively disliked Selby; but unless Selby
could be shown to have an active hand in the mysterious disturbances
which had been laid at Henry's door, he had no quarrel with him. It
was questionable wisdom to antagonize Selby unnecessarily at this
stage of the proceedings. However, the first thing to do now was to
see Dr. Underwood and consult with him as to the steps to be taken for
securing legal counsel.
It was noticeable that the necessity of calling at the Red House
immediately lightened the burden of the day's affairs.