While Isabel sat over the stove in the cold, austere parlor of the
Warren house, with its ancient furniture, the never failing photograph
album, and those huge pink shells on the mantle-shelf without which
no rural home used to be complete--waiting for she scarcely knew
what--strange things were going forward in the home of the Fairchilds.
On the forenoon of this same day, Thursday, there had been a gathering
in the office of the Thessaly _Banner of Liberty_. It was the
publication day of the paper, but for once it went to press without
enlisting even the most careless scrutiny, let alone the solicitude, of
its editor-proprietor. He had more serious business on hand. Closeted
with him in the little editorial room, whose limited space had rarely
before been so taxed, were Beekman, Ansdell, the District Attorney,
the Sheriff, and the younger of the dead man’s two New York partners, a
shrewd, silent, long-faced man. Seth had desired to be of the party but
his brother had sent him off, to return after dinner.
These men gravely discussed some subjects with which our readers are
familiar, and some now first brought to light. John had a letter from
Annie, sent by hand the previous evening, detailing the strange things
Milton had said to her about the black mare. Ansdell and Mr. Hubbard,
the partner, recited how they had discovered that Albert Fairchild, on
the preceding Monday, sold $16,000 worth of government bonds, and the
abortive effort he made to so arrange the transfer that it would not be
traced. Beekman recalled how the black mare had balked on the edge of
the gulf the day after the murder--for they all thus characterized it
now. Later, the Coroner came in by appointment, and in the presence of
the dreaded District Attorney was meekness itself. He even heard that
two physicians were to go out with the party, and make an examination,
without taking offence.
After the noon-day dinner the gathering was reinforced by the two
doctors and by Seth, the latter devoured by curiosity and vexed at being
kept so long in the dark. Soon after, all of the party save the Sheriff
made their way to the Fairchild house, driving by twos or threes, and at
intervals, to avoid exciting suspicion. It was after the arrival of the
last division that Ansdell met Isabel, and advised her to stay away from
the house for a time.
The two surgeons and the Coroner went silently into the parlor, and
closed the door behind them. In the living-room Ansdell, Hubbard, John,
and the District Attorney took chairs around the stove, having given
word that Milton, who was off on the other side of the hill, arranging
the sale of some apples, should be sent in to them when he arrived,
which could not be very long now. In the kitchen, opening back from the
living-room as this in turn did from the parlor, Seth and Beekman sat
with the three women of the household.
These latter had been told that something was going on, or rather had
inferred it from being forbidden to leave the room, and were agog with
puzzled excitement. They had no clue, save a vague understanding that
important personages were in the front portions of the house, but Alvira
and Melissa stole unhappy glances toward Seth, in uneasy fear that the
worst suspicions born of Samantha’s recital were to be realized in fact.
Aunt Sabrina, sitting with her shawl wrapped about her gaunt shoulders,
and with her feet on a piece of wood in the oven, did not know of this
story which gave point to the other women’s anxiety, but was in misery
between a deep yearning to learn what had happened, and a pessimistic
conviction that it must be another addition to the Fairchilds’ load of
calamities.
They heard Milton drive up presently, and hail Dana with instructions to
put the horse out, and a query concerning the several strange vehicles
under the shed. Then he came into the kitchen, stamping his feet with
the cold, and walking straight to the stove to warm his hands. It was
growing dark in the low room, and he did not recognize Beekman.
Seth delivered his errand, saying that his brother John wished to see
Milton, as soon as he returned, in the living-room. The hired man
gave the speaker a curious glance, and, after a moment or two of hand
warming, went in to learn what was wanted.
Almost as he closed the door behind him, the Sheriff entered the kitchen
from the outside, and after an interrogative glance toward Beekman,
which the latter answered by a nod, drew up a chair leisurely by the
stove.
“Who’d a thought it ’d a turned out so cold, ‘fore the moon changed?”
he asked of the company collectively. “Hev yeh got any cider abaout
handy? ’N’ a daoughnut, tew, ef yeh don’t mine.”
While Melissa was in the cellar, the Sheriff, who was a Spartacus man
and a stranger to both Seth and the females, asked of Beekman: “What did
yeh agree on fer a sign?”
“Th’ shakin’ of th’ stove.”
Seth had been annoyed all day at the pains taken by John to keep the
facts of the enterprise now in hand from him, and he displayed so much
of this pique in the glance he now cast from the Sheriff to Beekman,
that the latter felt impelled to speak:
“P’raps you disremember my askin’ yeh ’t’ other day ’baout whether
yer brother had much money on him that night. Well, we’ve settled thet
point. He did hev’--’n’ ’twas a considerable sum tew--‘baout sixteen
thaousan’ dollars.”
“No!” Seth’s exclamation was of incredulous surprise.
“Yes, sixteen thaousan’. We knaow it.”
“Oh! I remember now,” said Seth, searching his impressions of the night.
“I remember that when I said he might fail to be nominated, he slapped
his breast two or three times as if he had something in the pocket. By
George! I wonder----”
“Yeh needn’t waste no more time wond’rin’. Thet was it! ’N’ d’yeh
knaow what he was goin’ to dew with thet money? No, yeh daon’t! He was
agoin’ to buy me! I wouldn’t say this afore aoutsiders; I dunnao’s I’d
say it to yeou ef your paper wa’n’t so dum fond o’ pitchin’ into me fer
a boss, ’n’ a machine man ez yeh call it, ’n’ thet kine o’ thing.
Yer brother hed th’ same idee o’ me thet your paper’s got. He was wrong.
They tell me ther air’ some country caounties in th’ State where money
makes th’ mare gao. But Jay ain’t one of ’em. Yer brother wanted to
git into Congress. Ther was nao chance fer him in New York City. He come
up here ’n’ he worked things pooty fine, I’m baoun’ to say, but he
slipped up on me. Bribes may dew in yer big cities, but they won’t go
daown in Jay. I don’t b’lieve they’s ez much of it done anywhere ez
folks think, nuther.”
“But this money, then, was----”
“Lemme go on! P’raps this ’d never be’n faound aout, ef yer brother
hadn’t made mistake number tew in pickin’ aout the wust ’n’ meanest
cuss in th’ caounty to be his gao-between. I kin tell mean cusses when
I see ’em, ’n’ this feller he had was jest _the_ dirtiest scalawag I
ever did see. I kin stan’ a scoundrel in a way ef he’s bright abaout it,
but this was a reg’lar, natchul born fool. Somehaow in th’ kentry, these
men don’t seem to hev no sense. Ef they’re goin’ to rob a man, or set
his barns afire, or kill him, they dew it in the darnedest, clumsiest
saort o’ way, so they’re sure to git faound aout the minute anybody
looks an inch beyond his nose into th’ thing. It makes a man ashamed to
be a kentry-man to see th’ foolish way these here blockheads git caught,
ev’ry time.”
The women had been listening intently to this monologue. They looked
at one another now, with the light of a strange new suspicion in their
eyes.
“Who is this man? Who are you talking about?” Seth asked eagerly.
At that moment the sound of a stove being shaken vigorously came from
the living-room. The Sheriff rose to his feet, and strode toward the
door of this room.
“I’ll shaow him to yeh in th’ jerk of a lamb’s tail,” he said.
*****
The conversation in the living-room, after Milton entered, had been
trivial for a time, then all at once very interesting. He had been
disagreeably surprised at finding three men with John, but had taken
a seat, his big hands hanging awkwardly over his knees, and had been
reassured somewhat by the explanation that Mr. Hubbard, the dead man’s
partner, was anxious to hear all he could about the sad occurrence. The
District Attorney he did not know by sight, and he did not recognize
Ansdell, who stood looking out of the window, softly drumming on the
panes.
Milton told a lot of details, about Albert’s return, about hitching up
the grays for him, about how the news was received at the Convention and
the like, all recited with verbose indirectness, and at great length.
Once he stopped, his attention being directed to a slight sound in the
parlor, and looked inquiry. John promptly explained that it was the
undertaker, and the hired man went on.
At last the District Attorney, who had hitherto been silent, asked
quietly:
“You went back to the stable--to your own room--after Mr. Fairchild
drove away?”
“Yes, ’n’ went to bed.”
“Did you hear any one enter the stables afterward?”
“No, nary a soul.”
“There is a black mare in the stables, used under the saddle. Was she
taken out that night?”
“Not thet I knaow of. Why?”
“Well, there seems to be a pretty positive story that she was. She was
seen on the road, in fact, late that night, coming from the ravine.
The rider was not recognized, but the mare was. How do you account for
that?”
“Tain’t none o’ my business to ’caount for it.” Milton did not like
the tendency of the conversation.
“No, I know that, but we are interested in finding out. I don’t think
you know me--I am the District Attorney--and I shall take particular
pains to find out.”
A gulf suddenly yawned before Milton’s feet, and he made a prompt, bold
attempt to leap it. “I didn’t like to say nothin’ ’baout it, bein’ as
it’s in th’ fam’ly”--he cast an uneasy glance at John here--“but Seth
Fairchild rides th’ mare a good deal. I did hear somebody saddlin’ th’
mare, but I took it fer granted it was him, ’n’ sao I didn’t git up.
It’d be jes like him, I said to myself, to go ridin’ in th’ moonshine.
He’s thet sort of a feller, naow ain’t he, John?”
The sound of his own voice frightened Milton as he went on, and his
closing appeal to the brother for corroboration carried the nervous
accent of fear. John did not answer, but rose and walked over to join
Ansdell at the window.
“Of caourse,” Milton began, in a lower voice, to which he sought to give
a confidential tone, “I don’t wan’ to say nothin’ agin Seth. Of caourse,
he’s John’s brother, ‘n’----”
The words were cut short by the rolling back of one of the parlor doors,
and the entrance of the three doctors. The Coroner, who came last,
pulled the door shut again. The older of the other two came to the
District Attorney and said, with deliberate distinctness:
“We are both prepared to swear that Mr. Fairchild’s death was caused by
a gunshot wound in the head.”
It was then that John sprang to the stove, and shook its grate
vehemently.
At sight of the Sheriff, who advanced upon him with a directness which
left no ambiguity as to his purpose, Milton rose excitedly from his
chair, cast a swift scared glance around the company, and then, while
the handcuffs were being snapped upon his wrists, began to whimper.
“I didn’t do it! It’s a put-up job! It’s them brothers o’ his thet allus
hankered after his money, ’n’ naow they got it they’re tryin’ to put
the thing on me. ’N’ his wife, tew, thet stuck-up city gal, she----”
“Come naow, yeou better shut up,” said the Sheriff sententiously. “Th’
more yeh say th’ wuss it’ll be fer yeh.”
Most of the men present averted their gaze during the brief period of
alternate threats and cringing, of rough curses and frenzied fawning on
the Sheriff, the District Attorney, and even the Coroner, which ensued;
but Mr. Hubbard watched it all carefully with evident interest.
“That is a very curious type of criminal,” he said, as the Sheriff and
his prisoner left the room; “very curious indeed! I never saw a murderer
before who had so little nerve, and funked so absolutely when he was
confronted with detection. Why, I’ve seen men, guilty as guilty could
be, who would deceive even their own lawyers. But such a simpleton as
that--he’s not worth his rope.”
“That is because you are a city man,” explained the District Attorney.
“You don’t know the kind of murderers we raise here in the country. The
chances are that your city assassin would be tortured by remorse, if
he escaped discovery, and that he committed the deed in a moment of
passion. But the rural murderer (I am speaking of native Americans,
now) plans the thing in cold blood, and goes at it systematically, with
nerves like steel. He generally even mutilates the body, or does some
other horrible thing, which it makes everybody’s blood boil to think of.
And so long as he isn’t found out, he never dreams of remorse. He has no
more moral perspective than a woodchuck. But when detection does
come, it knocks him all in a heap. He blubbers, and tries to lay it on
somebody else, and altogether acts like a cur--just as this fellow ’s
doing now, for instance.”
A hubbub of shrieks and sobs rose from the kitchen as he finished this
sentence, and they with one accord moved toward the door.
The Sheriff, with an eye to his promise to the two men in the kitchen,
had led the livid and slinking wretch out to the centre of the room,
where the dim candles had now been lighted, and, forcing him to hold up
his hands so that the manacles might be fully visible, said to Seth:
“Here yeh air! I said I’d shaow him to yeh! Here is the whelp thet did
th’ mischief. Look at him!”
There was a second of dead silence, as the several listeners took in the
significance of his words, and of the spectacle.
The silence was broken by an inarticulate, indescribable cry from
Aunt Sabrina. Then came with startling swiftness a confusion of moving
bodies, of screams, and the rattling of the handcuffs’ chain, which no
one could follow. When the intervention of the Sheriff and Beekman had
restored quiet, it was discovered that the old lady, with an agility of
which none could have supposed her capable, had snatched a potato
knife from the table, and made a savage attempt to wreak the family’s
vengeance upon Milton. She had not succeeded in inflicting any injury,
save a slight cut on one of his pinioned hands, and Seth now with some
difficulty persuaded her to leave the room.
It fell to Alvira’s lot to bind up the bleeding hand--for Melissa,
undertaking the task, was too nervous and trembling to perform it.
A little dialogue, in hushed whispers, which only imperfectly reached
even the sentinel Sheriff, ensued:
“Sao this is what yeh’ve come tew!”
“It’s all a lie!”
“Oh, don’t tell _me!_ Ef you’d be’n contented with yer lot in life,
’n’ hadn’t tried to swell yerself up like a toad in a puddle, this
wouldn’t a happen’d. But nao, yeh poor fewl, yeh must set yerself up to
_be_ somebody! ’N’ naow where air yeh?”
Words with which to answer rose to Milton’s bloodless lips, but he could
not give them utterance. He could not even look at her, but in a dazed
way stared at the hand, which he held so that she could wind the bandage
in spite of the gyves.
“I didn’t use to think yeh was aout-’n-aout bad,” she continued,
more slowly; “they was a time when yeh might a made a decent man o’
yerself--ef yeh’d kep’ yer word to me.”
This time he did not make an effort to answer.
The task of sustaining the talk alone was too great for her. The tears
came into her eyes, and blinded the last touches to the bandage. As
it was completed, the Sheriff put his hand roughly on the prisoner’s
shoulder. The meaning of this movement spread over her mind, and
appalled her. With a gesture of decision she stood on tiptoe, lifted
her face up to Milton’s, and kissed him. Then, as he was led away, she
turned to the onlookers, and said defiantly, between incipient sobs:
“I daon’t keer! Ef t’ was th’ last thing I ever done in my life, I’d dew
it. We was--engaged--once’t on a time!”