MR. PARMALEE TURNS UP TRUMPS.
Mr. G. W. Parmalee went down to Dobbsville, Maine, and reposed again in
the bosom of his family. He went to work on the paternal acres for
awhile, gave that up in disgust, set up once more a picture-gallery,
and took the portraits of the ladies and gentlemen of Dobbsville at
fifty cents a head.
Mr. Parmalee was fast becoming a misanthrope. His speculation had
failed, his love was lost; nothing lay before him but a long and dreary
existence spent in immortalizing in tin-types the belles and beaus of
Dobbsville.
Sometimes a fit of penitence overtook him when his thoughts reverted to
the desolate young creature, worse than widowed, dragging out life in
New York.
"I'd ought to tell her," Mr. Parmalee thought. "It ain't right to let
her keep on thinking that her husband murdered her. But then it goes
awfully against a feller's grain to peach on the girl he meant to
marry. Still----"
The remorseful reflection haunted him, do what he would. He took to
dreaming of the young baronet, too. Once he saw him in his shroud,
lying dead on the stone terrace, and at sight of him the corpse had
risen up, ghastly in its grave clothes, and, pointing one quivering
finger at him, said, in an awful voice:
"G. W. Parmalee, it is you who have done this!"
And Mr. Parmalee had started up in bed, the cold sweat standing on his
brow like a shower of pease.
"I won't stand this, by thunder!" thought the artist next morning, in a
fit of desperation. "I'll write up to New York this very day and tell
her all, so help me Bob!"
But "_l'homme propose_"--you know the proverb. Squire Brown, who lived
half a mile off, and had never heard of Harriet in his life, altered
Mr. Parmalee's plans.
The worthy squire, jogging along in his cart from market, came upon the
artist, sitting on the top rail of the gate, whittling, and looking
gloomily dejected.
"Hi! George, my boy!" cried out the squire, "what's gone wrong? You
look as dismal as a graveyard!"
"W-a-a-l!" drawled the artist, who wasn't going to tell his troubles on
the house-tops, "there ain't nothin' much to speak of. It's the
all-fired dullness of this pesky one-horse village, where there ain't
nothin' stirrin', 'cept flies in fly-time, from one year's end to
t'other."
"See what comes of traveling," said Squire Brown. "If you had stayed
at home, instead of flying round England, you'd have been as right as a
trivet. My 'pinion is, you've been and left a gal behind. Here's a
London paper for you. My missus gets 'em every mail. Perhaps you'll
see your gal's name in the list of marriages."
Mr. Parmalee took the paper chucked at him with languid indifference.
"Any news?" he asked.
"Lots--just suited to your complaint. A coal mine in Cornwall's been
and caved in and buried alive fifteen workmen; there's been a horrid
riot in Leeds; and a baronet in Devonshire is sentenced to be hung for
murdering his wife."
Mr. Parmalee gave one yell--one horrid yell, like a Comanche
war-whoop--and leaped off the fence.
"What did you say?" he roared. "A baronet in Devonshire for murdering
his wife?"
"Thunder!" ejaculated Squire Brown. "You didn't know him, did you?
Maybe you took his picture when in England? Yes, a baronet, and his
name it's Sir Everard Kingsland."
With an unearthly groan, Mr. Parmalee tore open the paper.
"They haven't hanged him yet, have they?" he gasped. "Oh, good Lord
above! what have I done?"
Squire Brown stared, a spectacle of dense bewilderment.
"You didn't do the murder, I hope?" he asked.
The squire rode away, and Mr. Parmalee sat for a good hour, half
stupefied over the account. The paper contained a resume of the trial,
from first to last--dwelling particularly on Miss Silver's evidence,
and ending with the sentence of the court.
The paper dropped from the artist's paralyzed hand. He covered his
face and sat in a trance of horror and remorse. His mother came to
call him to dinner, and as he looked up in answer to her call, she
started back with a scream at sight of his unearthly face.
"Lor' a-massy, George Washington! what ever has come to you?"
"Pack up my clean socks and shirts, mother," he said. "I'm going back
to England by the first steamer."
Late next evening Mr. Parmalee reached New York. Early the following
morning he strode up to the brownstone mansion of Mr. Denover and
sharply rang the bell.
"Is Lady--I mean, is Mr. Denover's niece to home?"
The servant ushered him into the drawing-room.
"Who shall I say?"
Mr. Parmalee handed her his card.
"Give her that. Tell her it's a matter of life and death."
The servant stared, took the pasteboard and vanished. Ten minutes
after, and Harriet, in a white morning robe, pale and terrified,
hurried in.
"Mr. Parmalee, has anything--have you heard---- Oh, what is it?"
"It is this, Lady Kingsland: your husband has been arrested and tried
for your murder!"
She clasped her hands together and sunk into a seat. She did not cry
out or exclaim. She sat aghast.
"He has been tried and condemned, and----"
He could not finish the sentence, out of pity for that death-like face.
But she understood him, and a scream rang through the house which those
who heard it might never forget.
"Oh, my God! he is condemned to be hanged!"
"He is," said Mr. Parmalee; "but we'll stop 'em. Now, don't you go and
excite yourself, my lady, because you'll need all your strength and
presence of mind in this here emergency. There's a steamer for
Liverpool to-morrow. I secured our passage before I ever came here."
"May the great God grant we be in time! Oh, my love! my darling! my
husband! I never thought of this. Let me but save you, and I am ready
to die!"
"Only hear her!" cried the electrified artist, "talking like that about
the man she thinks stabbed her. I do believe she loves him yet."
"With my whole heart. I would die this instant to save him. I love
him as dearly as when I stood beside him at the altar a blessed bride."
"Well, I'll be darned," burst out Mr. Parmalee, "if this don't beat all
creation! Now, then, what would you give to know it was not Sir
Everard who stabbed you that night?"
"Not Sir Everard? But I saw him; I heard him speak. He did it in a
moment of madness, Mr. Parmalee, and Heaven only knows what anguish and
remorse he has suffered since."
"I hope so," said Mr. Parmalee. "I hope he's gone through piles of
agony, for I don't like a bone in his body, if it comes to that. But,
I repeat, it was not your husband who stabbed you on the stone terrace
that dismal night. It was--it was Sybilla Silver!"
"What?"
"Yes, ma'am--sounds incredible, but it's a fact. She rigged out in a
suit of Sir Everard's clothes, mimicked his voice, and did the deed. I
saw her face when she pitched you over the rail as plain as I see
your'n this minute, and I'm ready to swear to it through all the courts
in Christendom. She hated you like pisen, and the baronet, too, and
she thinks she's put an end to you both; but if we don't give her an
eye-opener pretty soon, my name ain't Parmalee."
She sunk on her knees and held up her clasped hands.
"Thank God! thank God! thank God!"
Next day they sailed for England. The passage was all that could be
desired, even by the impatience of Harriet.
They arrived in Liverpool. Mr. Parmalee and his companion posted full
speed down to Devonshire. In the luminous dusk of the soft May evening
they reached Worrel, Harriet's thick veil hiding her from every eye.
"We'll go to Mr. Bryson's first," said Parmalee, Bryson being Sir
Everard's lawyer. "We're in the very nick of time; to-morrow morning
at day-dawn is fixed for----"
"Oh, hush!" in a voice of agony; "not that fearful word!"
They reached the house of Mr. Bryson. He sat over his eight-o'clock
cup of tea, with a very gloomy face. He had known Sir Everard all his
life--he had known his beautiful bride, so passionately beloved. He
had bidden the doomed baronet a last farewell that afternoon.
"He never did it," said he to himself. "There is a horrible mystery
somewhere. He never did it--I could stake my life on his
innocence--and he is to die to-morrow, poor fellow! That missing man,
Parmalee, did it, and that fierce young woman with the big black eyes
and deceitful tongue was his aider and abettor. If I could only find
that man!"
A servant entered with a card, "G. W. Parmalee." The lawyer rose with
a cry.
"Good Heaven above! It can't be! It's too good to be true! He never
would rush into the lion's den in this way. John Thomas, who gave you
this?"
"Which the gentleman is in the droring-room, sir," responded John
Thomas, "as likewise the lady."
Mr. Bryson rushed for the drawing-room, flung wide the door, and
confronted Mr. Parmalee.
"Good-evening, squire," said the American.
"You here!" gasped the Sawyer--"the man for whom we have been scouring
the kingdom!"
"You'd oughter scoured the Atlantic," replied the artist, with infinite
calm. "I've been home to see my folks. I suppose you wanted me to
throw a little light on that 'ere horrid murder?"
"I suspect you know more of that murder than any other man alive!" said
the lawyer.
"Do tell! Well, now, I ain't a-going to deny it--I do know all about
it, squire."
"What?"
"Precisely! Yes, sir. I saw the deed done."
"You did? Good heavens!"
"Don't swear, squire. Yes, I saw the stab given, with that 'ere long
knife; and it wasn't the baronet did it, either, though you're going to
hang him for it to-morrow."
"In Heaven's name, man, who did the deed?"
"Sybilla Silver!"
"I knew it--I thought it--I said it! The she-devil! Poor, poor Lady
Kingsland!"
"Ma'am," said the American, turning to his veiled companion, "perhaps
it will relieve Mr. Bryson's gushing bosom to behold your face. Jest
lift that 'ere veil."
"All-merciful Heaven! the dead alive! Lady Kingsland!"