plaintive reproach somewhat out of keeping with his costume of "potent,
grave, and reverend signior." "I came over from Hollowell on purpose,
because Carrie intimated that you were going to make one final effort to
see your father. Edith is here too," he murmured, thrusting his face
alarmingly near mine. "She would not stay away, though we were all
afraid she might betray herself; her emotions are so quick. Poor child!
_she_ never doubted you; and if my suspicions are correct----"
"Edith?" I interrupted,--"Edith?" An Edith was the last person I
desired to meet under these circumstances. "Where is she?" I tremulously
inquired, starting aside in some dismay at the prospect of encountering
this unknown quantity of love and devotion.
But my companion, seizing me by the arm, drew me back. "She is not far
away; of that you may be sure. But it will never do for you to try and
hunt her up. You would not know her in her mask. Besides, if you remain
still she will come to you."
That was just what I feared, but upon looking round and seeing no
suspicious-looking damsel anywhere near me, I concluded to waive my
apprehensions on her account and proceed to the development of an idea
that had been awakened by the old gentleman's words.
"You are right," I acquiesced, edging, in my turn, toward the curtained
recess of a window near by. "Let us wait here, and meantime you shall
tell me what your suspicions are, for I feel the time has come for the
truth to be made known, and who could better aid me in proclaiming it
than you who have always stood my friend?"
"That is true," he murmured, all eagerness at once. Then in a lower tone
and with a significant gesture: "There _is_ something, then, which has
never been made known? Edith was right when she said you did not steal
the bonds out of your father's desk?"
As he paused and looked me in the face, I was obliged to make some
reply. I chose one of the non-committal sort.
"Don't ask me!" I murmured, turning away with every appearance of
profound agitation.
He did not suspect the ruse.
"But, my boy, I shall have to ask you; if I am to help you out of this
scrape, I must know the truth. Yet if it is as I suspect, I can see why
you should hesitate even now. You are a generous fellow, Joe, but even
generosity can be carried past its proper limits."
"Uncle," I exclaimed, leaning over him and whispering tremulously in his
ear, "what are your suspicions? If I hear you give utterance to them,
perhaps it will not be so hard for me to speak."
He hesitated, looked all about us with a questioning glance, put his
mouth to my ear, and whispered:
"If I should use the name of Hartley in connection with what I have to
say, would you be so very much surprised?"
With a quick semblance of emotion, I drew back.
"You think--" I tremulously commenced, and as suddenly broke off.
"That it was he who did it, and that you, knowing how your father loved
him and built his hopes upon him, bore the blame of it yourself."
"Ha!" I exclaimed, with a deep breath as of relief. The suspicions of
Uncle Joe were worth hearing.
He seemed to be satisfied with the ejaculation, and with an increase of
eagerness in his tone, went quickly on:
"Am I not right, my boy? Is not this the secret of your whole conduct
from that dreadful day to this?"
"Don't ask me," I again pleaded, taking care, however, to draw a step
nearer and exclaim in almost the same breath: "Why should you think it
must necessarily have been one of us? What did _you_ know that you
should be so positive it was either he or I who committed this
dishonest action?"
"What did I know? Why, what everybody else did. That your father,
hearing a noise in his study one night, rose up quietly and slipped to
the door of communication in time to hear a stealthy foot leave the room
and proceed down the hall toward the apartment usually occupied by you
and your brother; that, alarmed and filled with vague distrust, he at
once lit the lamp, only to discover his desk had been forcibly broken
into and a number of coupon bonds taken out; that, struck to the heart,
he went immediately to the room where you and your brother lay, found
him lying quiet, and to all appearance asleep, while you looked flushed
and with difficulty met his eye; that without hesitation he thereupon
accused you of theft, and began to search the apartment; that he found
the bonds, as we both know, in a cupboard at the head of your bed, and
when you were asked if you had put them there you remained silent, and
neither then nor afterward made any denial of being the one who stole
them."
A mournful "Yes" was all the reply I ventured upon.
"Now it never seemed to occur to your father to doubt your guilt. The
open window and the burglar's jimmy found lying on the floor of the
study, being only so many proofs, to his mind, of your deep calculation
and great duplicity. But I could not help thinking, even on that
horrible morning, that your face did not wear a look of guilt so much as
it did that of firm and quiet resolution. But I was far from suspecting
the truth, my boy, or I should never have allowed you to fall a victim
to your father's curse, and be sent forth like a criminal from home and
kindred. If only for Edith's sake I would have spoken--dear, trusting,
faithful girl that she is!"
"But--but--" I brokenly ejaculated, anxious to gain as much of the truth
as was possible in the few minutes allotted me; "what has awakened your
suspicions at this late day? Why should you doubt Hartley now, if you
did not then?"
"Well, I cannot really say. Perhaps Edith's persistent aversion to your
brother has had something to do with it. Then he has grown cold and
hard, while you have preserved your boyish freshness and affection. I--I
don't like him, that is the truth; and with my dislike arose doubts,
and--and--well, I cannot tell how it is, but I will believe you if you
say he was the one to blame in this matter; and what is more, your
father will believe you too; for he does not feel the same satisfaction
in Hartley's irreproachable character that he used to, and--and--"
A sudden movement in the crowd stopped him. A tall, graceful-looking
woman clad entirely in white had just entered the room and seemed to be
making her way toward us.
"There is Edith!" he declared. "She is hunting for the yellow domino
ornamented with black that she has been told conceals her lover. Shall I
go and fetch her here, or will you wait until she spies you of her own
accord?"
"I will wait," I uneasily replied, edging nearer to the window with the
determination of using it as a means of escape if my companion only gave
me the chance. "See! she is in the hands of an old Jew, who seems to be
greatly taken with the silver trimmings on her sleeves. Suppose you
improve the opportunity to slip away," I laughingly suggested. "Lovers'
meetings are not usually of an order to interest third parties."
"Aren't they, you rogue!" retorted the old gentleman, giving me a jocose
poke in the ribs. "Well, well, I suppose you are right. But you have not
told me--"
"I will tell you every thing in an hour," I hastily assured him. "I am
going to meet my father in the library, and after he has heard the
truth, you shall be admitted and all will be explained."
"That is only fair," he replied. "Your father has the first rights, of
course. But Joe, my boy, remember I am not over and above patient of
disposition, and don't keep me waiting too long." And with an
affectionate squeeze of my hand, he stepped out from the recess where we
stood and made his way once more into the throng.
No sooner had he left my side than I threw up the window. "Now is the
time for the real Joe to appear upon the scene," was my mental
decision. "I have done for him what he as a gentleman would probably
never do for himself--pumped this old party and got every thing in trim
for Hartley's discomfiture. But the courting business is another matter;
also the interview with the outraged father in the library. That cannot
be done by proxy; so here goes for a change of actors."
And with reckless disregard of consequences, I prepared to jump from the
window, when a sudden light flashed over the lawn beneath and I saw I
was at least twelve feet from the ground.
"Well," I exclaimed, drawing hastily back; "such a leap as that is too
much to expect of any man!" And with the humiliating consciousness of
being caught in a trap, I proceeded to close the window.
"Joe!"
'Twas a low whisper, but how thrilling! Turning, I greeted, with the
show of fervor I considered necessary to the occasion, the white-veiled
lady who had glided into my retreat.
"Did you think I was never coming, Joe? Everybody who could get in my
way certainly managed to do so. Then Hartley is so suspicious, and
followed me with his eyes so persistently, I did not dare show my
designs too plainly. It is only this minute he left my side. If you had
been anywhere else I do not know as I should have succeeded even now in
getting a word with you--oh!"
This exclamation was called forth by a sudden movement that took place
near us. The curtain was drawn back and a tall man dressed in a black
domino glanced in, gave us a scrutinizing look, bowed, and dropped the
curtain again.
"Hartley," she whisperingly explained.
I took her by the hand; there was no help for it; gesture and a
lover-like demeanor must, in this case, supply the place of speech.
"Hush!" she entreated. (Not that I had spoken.) "I dare not stay. When
you have seen your father, perhaps I will have courage to join you; but
now it would be better for me to go." And her eyes roamed toward the
curtain, while the little hand I held in mine grew cold and slightly
trembled.
I pressed that little hand, but, as you may well believe, did not urge
her to remain. Yet she did not seem in a hurry to depart, and I do not
know what complications might have ensued, if another movement in the
curtain had not reawakened her fears and caused her, notwithstanding her
evident reluctance, to start quickly away.
I did not linger long behind her. Scarcely had the curtain fallen from
her hand than I stepped hastily forth. But alas for my hopes of escape!
No sooner had I joined the group of merry-makers circling about the open
door, than I felt a touch on my arm, and looking up, saw before me the
Black Domino. The hour of ten had struck and my guide to the library was
at hand. There was no alternative left me but to follow him.
III.
AN UNEXPECTED CALAMITY.
Five minutes passed, during which I threaded more laughing groups and
sauntered down more mysterious passage-ways than I would care to count.
Still the mysterious Black Domino glided on before me, leading me from
door to door till my patience was nearly exhausted, and I had well-nigh
determined to give him the slip and make my way at once to the garden,
and the no-doubt-by-this-time-highly-impatient Joe.
But before I had the opportunity of carrying out this scheme, the
ominous Black Domino paused, and carelessly pointing to a door at the
termination of a narrow corridor, bowed, and hastily withdrew.
"Now," said I, as soon as I found myself alone, "shall I proceed with
this farce, or shall I end it? To go on means to interview Mr. Benson,
acquaint him with what has come to my knowledge during the last half
hour in which I have so successfully personified his son, and by these
means perhaps awake him to the truth concerning this serious matter of
Joseph's innocence or Hartley's guilt; while to stop now implies nothing
more nor less than a full explanation with his son, a man of whose
character, manners, and disposition I know little or nothing."
Either alternative presented infinite difficulties, but of the two the
former seemed to me more feasible and less embarrassing. At all events,
in talking with Mr. Benson, I should not have the sensibilities of a
lover to contend with, and however unfortunate in its results our
interview might be, would be at the mercy of old blood instead of young,
a point always to be considered in a case where one's presumption has
been carried beyond the bounds of decorum.
Unlocking the door, I stepped, as I had been told I should, into a small
room adjoining the library. All around me were books. Even the door by
which I had entered was laden with them, so that when it was closed, all
vestige of the door itself disappeared. Across the opening into the
library stood a screen, and it was not until I had pushed this somewhat
aside that I was able to look into that room.
My first glance assured me it was empty. Stark and bare of any occupant,
the high-backed chairs loomed in the funereal gloom, while on the table,
toward which I inadvertently glanced, stood a decanter with a solitary
wineglass at its side. Instantly I remembered what had been told me
concerning that glass, and stepping forward, I took it up and looked at
it.
Immediately I heard, or thought I heard, an exclamation uttered
somewhere near me. But upon glancing up and down the room and perceiving
no one, I concluded I was mistaken, and deliberately proceeded to
examine the wineglass and assure myself that no wine had as yet been
poured upon the powder I found in it. Satisfied at last that Mr. Benson
had not yet taken his usual evening potion, I put the glass back and
withdrew again to my retreat.
I do not think another minute could have elapsed, before I heard a step
in the room behind me. A door leading into an adjoining apartment had
opened and Mr. Benson had come in. He passed immediately to the table,
poured out the wine upon the powder, and drank it off without a moment's
hesitation. I heard him sigh as he put the glass down.
With a turn of my hand I slipped off both domino and mask, and prepared
to announce my presence by tapping on the lintel of the door beside
which I stood. But a sudden change in Mr. Benson's lofty figure startled
me. He was swaying, and the arms which had fallen to his side were
moving with a convulsive action that greatly alarmed me. But almost
instantly he recovered himself, and paced with a steady step toward the
hall door, which at that moment resounded with a short loud knock.
"Who is there?" he asked, with every appearance of his usual sternness.
"Hartley," was the reply.
"Are you alone?" the old gentleman again queried, making a move as if to
unlock the door.
"Carrie is with me; no one else," came in smothered accents from
without.
Mr. Benson at once turned the key, but no sooner had he done so than he
staggered back. For an instant or two of horror he stood oscillating
from side to side, then his frame succumbed, and the terrified eyes of
his children beheld his white head lying low, all movement and
appearance of life gone from the form that but a moment before towered
so proudly before them.
With a shriek, the daughter flung herself down at his side, and even the
cheek of Hartley Benson grew white as he leaned over his father's
already inanimate body.
"He is dead!" came in a wild cry from her lips. "See! he does not
breathe. Oh! Hartley, what could have happened? Do you think that Joe--"
"Hush!" he exclaimed, with a furtive glance around him. "He may be here;
let me look. _If Joe has done this_--" He did not continue, but rose,
and with a rapid tread began to cross the floor in my direction.
In a flash I realized my situation. To be found by him now, without a
domino, and in the position of listener, would be any thing but
desirable. But I knew of no way of escape, or so for the moment it
seemed. But great emergencies call forth sudden resources. In the quick
look I inadvertently threw around me, I observed that the _portière_
hanging between me and the library was gathered at one side in very
heavy folds. If I could hide behind them perhaps I might elude the
casual glance he would probably cast into my place of concealment. At
all events it was worth trying, and at the thought I glided behind the
curtain. I was not disappointed in my calculations. Arrived at the door,
he looked in, perceived the domino lying in a heap on the floor, and
immediately drew back with an exclamation of undoubted satisfaction.
"He is gone," said he, crossing back to his sister's side. Then in a
tone of mingled irony and bitterness, hard to describe, cried aloud with
a glance toward the open door: "He has first killed his father and then
fled. Fool that I was to think he could be trusted!"
A horrified "Hartley!" burst from his sister's lips and a suppressed but
equally vehement "Villain!" from mine; but neither of us had time for
more, for almost at the same instant the room filled with frightened
guests, among which I discerned the face and form of the old servant
Jonas, and the flowing robes and the white garments of Uncle Joe and the
graceful Edith.
To describe the confusion that followed would be beyond my powers,
especially as my attention was at the time not so much directed to the
effect produced by this catastrophe, as to the man whom, from the moment
Mr. Benson fell to the floor, I regarded as my lawful prey. He did not
quake and lose his presence of mind in this terrible crisis. He was
gifted with too much self-control to betray any unseemly agitation even
over such a matter as his father's sudden death. Once only did I detect
his lip tremble, and that was when an elderly gentleman (presumably a
doctor) exclaimed after a careful examination of the fallen man:
"This is no case of apoplexy, gentlemen!"
Then indeed Mr. Hartley Benson shivered, and betrayed an emotion for
which I considered myself as receiving a due explanation when, a few
minutes later, I observed the same gentleman lay his hand upon the
decanter and glass that stood on the table, and after raising them one
after the other to his nose, slowly shake his head, and with a furtive
look around him, lock them both in a small cupboard that opened over the
mantel-piece.
IV.
IN THE LIBRARY.
Mr. Benson was really dead. The fact being announced, most of the guests
withdrew. In ten minutes after he fell, the room was comparatively
clear. Only the various members of the family, together with the
gentleman I have already mentioned, remained behind; and, even of these,
the two ladies were absent, they having followed the body into the
adjoining room, where it had been reverently carried by the attached
Jonas and another servant whose face I did not see.
"A most unlooked-for catastrophe," burst from the lips of Uncle Joe.
"Did you ever suspect he was a victim to heart disease?" he now asked,
this time with looks directed toward the doctor.
"No," came from that gentleman in a short, sharp way, which made Hartley
Benson's pale face flush, though his eye did not waver from its steady
solemn look toward the door through which his father's form had just
been carried. "Mr. Benson was sound through and through a month ago. I
know, because I examined him previous to his making his will. There was
no heart disease then; that I am ready to take my oath upon."
Hartley Benson's rigid look unfastened itself from the door and turned
slowly toward the sombre face of the speaker, while Uncle Joe, with an
increased expression of distress, looked slowly around as if he half
hoped, half feared to behold his favorite nephew advance upon them from
some shadowy corner.
"My father consulted you, then?" said the former, in his slow, reserved
way. "Did not that evince some suspicion of disease on his part?"
"Possibly; a man in a despondent frame of mind will often imagine he has
some deadly complaint or other. But he was quite sound; too sound, he
seemed to think. Your father was not a happy man, Mr. Benson."
There was meaning in the tone, and I was not surprised to observe
Hartley draw back. "Why," said he, "do you think--"
"I think nothing," broke in the doctor; "only"--and here he brought down
his hand vigorously upon the table--"there has been prussic acid in the
glass from which Mr. Benson drank this evening. The smell of bitter
almonds is not to be mistaken."
An interval of silent horror followed this announcement, then a vehement
"Great Heaven!" broke from the lips of Uncle Joe, while Hartley Benson,
growing more and more rigid in his bearing, fixed his eyes on the
doctor's face and barely ejaculated:
"Poison?"
"I say this," continued the doctor, too intent upon his own theory to
notice either the growth of a terrible fear on the face of Uncle Joe, or
the equally remarkable expression of subdued expectation on that of the
son, "because long experience has taught me the uselessness of trying to
hide such a fact as suicide, and also because, being the coroner of the
county, it is my duty to warn you that an investigation will have to
take place which will require certain precautions on my part, such as
the sealing up of his papers, etc."
"That is true," came from the lips of both brother and son, over whom a
visible change had passed at the word "suicide."
"But I cannot think--" the former began in an agitated voice.
"That my father would do such a deed," interposed the latter. "It does
not seem probable, and yet he was a very wretched man, and grief will
often drive the best of us to despair."
Uncle Joe gave his nephew a strange look, but said no more. The doctor
went quietly on:
"I do not know what your father's troubles were, but that he committed
suicide I greatly fear, unless it can be proved the acid was taken by
mistake, a conclusion which does not seem probable, for from the smell
of the decanter it is evident the acid was mixed with the wine, in which
I now remember advising him to take the nightly powder I prescribed to
him for quite a trivial disorder a few days ago. The only thing that
puzzles me is, why, if he meditated death, he should have troubled
himself to take this powder. And yet it is certain he did take it, for
there is still some of the sediment of it remaining in the bottom of the
glass."
"He took the powder because it was already in the glass," broke in
Hartley, in a heavy tone of voice. "My sister put it there before she
went up stairs to dress. I think she was afraid he would forget it. My
father was very careless about small matters."
"He was careful enough not to poison any one else in the family," quoth
the doctor. "There was scarcely a drop left in the decanter; he took the
whole dose."
"I beg your pardon, sirs, but is it suicide you are talking about?"
cried a voice suddenly over their shoulders, making them all start.
Jonas, the servant, had entered from the inner room, and unseen by all
but myself, had been listening to the last few words as if his life
depended upon what they had to say. "If it is, why I have a bit of an
observation of my own to make that may help you to settle the matter."
"You! What have you to say?" quoth the doctor, turning in surprise at
the confident tone of voice in which the man spoke.
"Not much, I am sure," cried Hartley, to whom the appearance at that
moment of his father's old servant was evidently most unwelcome.
"That is for you to judge, gentlemen. I can only tell you what I've
seen, and that not ten minutes ago. Mr. Hartley, do you mind the man in
the yellow dress that was flitting about the parlors all the evening?"
"Good heavens!" burst in uncontrollable agitation from Uncle Joe; and he
caught his nephew by the arm with a look that called back the old rigid
expression to the latter's face.
"Yes," was the quiet reply; "I remember seeing such a person."
"Well, sirs, I don't know as you will think any thing of it, but a
little while ago I was walking up and down the balcony outside there,
when I happened to look into this room, and I saw that man in the yellow
dress leaning over this very table, looking into the wineglass Miss
Carrie had put there for master. He had it in his hand, and his head was
down very close to it, but what he did to it or to the decanter either,
I am sure, sirs, I don't know, for I was that frightened at seeing this
spectre in the room master had kept locked all day, that I just slipped
off the balcony and ran round the house to find Mr. Hartley. But you
wasn't in the parlors, sir, nor Miss Carrie neither, and when I got to
this room, there was master lying dead on the floor, and everybody
crowding around him horror-struck."
"Humph!" ejaculated the doctor, looking at Uncle Joe, who had sunk in a
heap into the arm-chair his nephew abstractedly pushed toward him.
"You see, sirs," Jonas resumed, with great earnestness, "Mr. Benson, for
some reason or other, had been very particular about keeping his own
room to-day. The library door was locked as early as six this morning,
and he would let no one in without first asking who was there. That's
why I felt so dumbfoundered at seeing this yellow man in the room;
besides----"