“And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong.”
So singular an effect did Mrs. Bransford’s letter have upon Mr. George
Aughinbaugh that he went red and white by turns, and became incoherent
in excited endeavor to say a number of different things at one and the
same time; so that Mr. John Wesley Pringle was moved to break off in
his reading, to push Mr. Aughinbaugh into a chair, and to administer
first aid to the distracted from a leather-covered bottle.
“Take a sip o’ this. One swallow will make you simmer,” he said
earnestly. “Old Doctor Pringle’s Priceless Prescription, a sovereign
remedy for rattlesnake bites, burns, boils, sprains and bruises, fits,
freckles and housemaid’s sore knee; excellent for chilblains, sunburn,
congestion of the currency, inflammation of the ego, corns, verbosity,
insomnia, sleeplessness, lying awake and bad dreams, punctuality,
fracture of the Decalogue, forgetfulness, painful memory, congenital
pip, the pangs of requited affection, mange, vivacity, rush of words to
the head, old age and lockjaw.
“I know that Jeff is in one big difficulty, and I see that you
understand what his letter means, which is more than I do. Speak up!
Say, state and declare what lies heavy on your mind. Tell us about it.
If you can’t talk make signs.”
Neither this speech nor the restorative served wholly to dispel
Aughinbaugh’s bewilderment. He looked at Mr. Pringle in foggy
confusion, holding fast to the panacea, as if that were the one point
on which he was quite clear. Seeing which, Mr. Pringle, somewhat
exasperated, renewed his eulogy with increased energy and eloquence.
“It is also much used in cases of total depravity, contributory
negligence, propinquities, clergyman’s sore throat, equilateral
strangulation and collar galls, veracity, pessimism, Scylla and
Charybdis, stuttering, processions of equine oxen and similar
phenomena, insubordination, altitude, consanguinity, chalcedony,
irritation of the Ephemeridæ, symmetry, vocalization, mammalia,
clairvoyance, inertia, acrimony, persecution, paresis, paraphernalia,
perspective, perspiration, tyranny, architecture and entire absence
of mind--take another dose!” He cast an appealing glance around. “I
can’t get at what Jeff’s trying to say,” declared Mr. Pringle with some
asperity, “but if I could, I’m damned if I couldn’t tell it! Speak up!
Play it out on the typewriter.”
Acting upon this hint, Aughinbaugh turned to the typewriter and
clattered furiously on the keys. He took off two sheets and spread them
on the table, face to face, so that one sheet covered all of the other
but the first two lines. “There!” he said, pointing. Beebe read aloud:
“‘_Now is the time for all good men and true to come to the aid of
the party._
_A quick move by the enemy will jeopardize six fine gunboats._’”
“He spoke twice--once in each letter,” said George Aughinbaugh, “of
learning to use the typewriter. He gave a speed sentence that he had
made up, containing the entire alphabet. These are similar sentences,
used by nearly every one who learns to typewrite. Jeff was familiar
with them. He practised the first one by the hour. I gave him the
second one the last night he was here. He is calling on us to come to
his help; he is warning us to be careful, that one unconsidered move on
our part, ‘a quick move,’ will be dangerous to him. Taken in connection
with the other allusions in his letter, and to things that I know
outside of his letter, it probably means that such a quick move might
be fatal to him. He is imprisoned--not legally; secretly--and in great
danger. Of course, parts of his letter are only padding to introduce
and join plausibly the vital allusions so that his captors would allow
the letter to go. The allusions are not consecutive. When he speaks
of----”
“Hold on, old man; you’re getting all balled up again,” said Pringle.
“Suppose, first of all, you tell us, as clearly as you can, exactly
what you understand him to mean, just as if he had written it to you
direct, without any parables. Then you can explain to us how you got at
it, afterwards.”
George walked the room, rearranged his thoughts and, in the process,
mastered his agitation.
Finally he faced the three friends and said: “He is in prison, in
Juarez, the victim of a conspiracy. He is in utmost danger; he is
closely guarded; the persons involved have such powerful reasons for
holding him that they would kill him rather than allow him to be
rescued. What we do must be done with the greatest caution; his guards
must not have the slightest suspicion that a rescue is attempted, or
planned, or possible, till it is carried out. In addition to this he
tells us that we are to communicate with him by means of the personal
columns of the El Paso papers----”
“I got that,” said Pringle, “but that is about all I did get. Of
course, we all figured it out that we were to come to you for
instructions, and that there was something about a typewriter we
wanted to look into. That was plain enough. There, I’m talking with my
mouth. Go on!”
“And, in his great danger and distress, he sends you--to Mr. Pringle
first, and then to all of you--a last and tenderest farewell, and the
strong assurance of his faith that you will do for him all that men can
do.”
“Good God!” exclaimed Leo. “And was there no hint of who it was that
had done this?”
“There was!” said Aughinbaugh, with sparkling eyes. “It was two
well-known, wealthy and influential El Paso men--the Honorable S. S.
Thorpe and Sam Patterson.”
“Show me!” said Pringle--“though I begin to see.”
“Half the letter is taken up by comment on the play of Julius Cæsar,
which he and I had been reading together,” said George. “He tells us
plainly, over and over, in different words, to look in it for meanings
beneath the surface. You remember that?”
“Yes,” said Billy.
“Well, the play hinges upon the conspiracy of Brutus and Cassius--a
conspiracy carried out on the Ides of March. Look!” He moved the paper
to expose another line:
_Remember March, the Ides of March remember!_
“Not till then did I remember that the sixteenth of March, the day
on which Jeff disappeared, was--not indeed the Ides of March, the
fifteenth, but devilish close to it, close enough. So what he says is:
‘George, remember--think carefully--remember exactly what took place
the day you saw me last.’
“He left my rooms just before midnight. And at midnight exactly, as
sworn to by many people, at a spot about a mile from here--at a spot
which Jeff might have reached at just that time--something happened: a
street fight in which two men were killed, and the survivor, Captain
Charles Tillotson, was wounded. Have you, by any chance, read the
evidence in the Tillotson case?”
“Every word of it,” said Billy. “We read the full account of the trial
at Escondido yesterday, while we were waiting for the train.”
“Good! Good! That simplifies matters. Think closely--keep in your minds
the evidence given at that trial--while I follow Jeff up after he left
my door. He must have gone somewhere, you know--and he said he was
going home. He usually took the car, but I have already told you that
he didn’t that night.
“Now, my rooms are two blocks north of the street-car line; Jeff’s
were three blocks south, and a long way up toward town. The corner
of Colorado and Franklin, where the fight took place, was on one of
the several routes he might have taken. And, if he had chosen that
particular way, he would have reached the scene of the shooting
precisely in time to get mixed up in it. I ought, by all means, to
have thought of that before, but I didn’t--till my wits were sharpened
trying to make out Jeff’s letter.
“Tillotson, you remember, claims that Krouse shot him without cause or
warning; that he, himself, only fired in self-defense; that a fourth
man killed Broderick--a fourth man who mysteriously disappeared, as
Jeff did.
“Thorpe and Patterson, on the contrary, swore that Tillotson made the
attack, not upon Krouse but upon Broderick. Few have ever doubted that
evidence, because it was not likely that a man of Broderick’s known and
deadly quickness could be shot twice without firing a shot himself,
except by a man who took him by surprise.
“But, if Tillotson tells the truth, Thorpe and Patterson lied; and
there is a conspiracy for you. And if Tillotson tells the truth, a
fourth man did kill Broderick--who more likely than Jeff Bransford, who
disappeared, due at that time and place?”
“You mean, possibly due at that time and place,” interrupted Billy.
“And how do you account for Jeff’s taking Broderick at a disadvantage?
It seems to me you are giving him a poor character.”
“Possibly due at that time and place,” corrected Aughinbaugh, “but
certainly disappeared--like Tillotson’s fourth man. As to taking
Broderick unawares--wait till you hear Jeff’s story. I can suggest one
solution, however--which holds only if there was a conspiracy to murder
Tillotson, which, failing, took the turn of hanging him instead.
Assassins in ambush are not entitled to the usual courtesies. If Jeff
happened along and observed an ambuscade, he would be likely to waive
ceremony.”
“But Thorpe and Patterson have good characters, haven’t they?” asked
Pringle.
“Good reputations,” said George tartly. “Though it is whispered that
Thorpe, as a young man, was habitually careless with firearms. But
Tillotson also bore an excellent reputation, minus the whispering. It
is at least half as probable that two men of good repute should turn
perjurers over-night, as that one should. Broderick had a very bad
reputation and Krouse had no reputation at all. In fact, that is the
only reason a few cling to their belief in Tillotson’s innocence. No
motive or reason of any kind is assigned for Tillotson’s unprovoked
attack upon Krouse, as alleged. But the enmity of Thorpe and Tillotson
was of common knowledge. It is also rumored that both had been paying
marked attention to the same lady. Here are two possible motives for
a conspiracy: hatred and jealousy. Of the two dead men, Broderick was
a led captain, a bravo, a proven tool for any man who had a handle to
him; the other man was unknown.”
“The cab driver told the same story,” said Pringle. “Was he an enemy of
Tillotson?”
“He did,” agreed George. “He also ran away. When he came back, the next
day, he accounted for himself by saying that he was scared. That sounds
queer to me. Timid people may drive cabs, but timid people do not drive
cabs in El Paso. The life is too hilarious. But, if he wasn’t scared,
why did he run away? But again, Jeff Bransford wouldn’t get scared----”
“You’re all wrong there,” said Pringle. “Me--I’ve been scared stiff,
lots of times. And anyhow--how could any fourth man get away? The
neighborhood turned out at once--and they didn’t see him.”
“Jeff Bransford wouldn’t be scared enough to run away, nor you either,”
amended George. “If you did that, you wouldn’t want anybody to believe
you under oath. Come back now. How did the fourth man get away, if he
was Jeff Bransford and wouldn’t run away, no matter what he had done?
To figure it out, suppose you knew it was Jeff, but didn’t know how
he got away--you see? He went in that cab! If the driver was really
so timid, why did he ever come back to mix in the trouble of a murder
trial? To help hang Tillotson. And his evidence was needed because
Thorpe and Patterson were known foes to Tillotson--while he was not.
“If they lied, if the whole thing was a put-up job, if they carried
Jeff off in the cab, probably wounded----”
“It strikes me,” said Leo, “that there are a fatal number of ‘ifs’
and ‘buts’ in your theory. Given a series of four even chances, each
of which you are to win, and each of which, to count for you, is
contingent upon your winning each of the other three, and your chances
are not one in eight but one in two hundred and fifty-six.”
“This is not a game of dice, Mr. Ballinger,” retorted Aughinbaugh.
“This letter is not the result of chance, but purposed and planned
by an unusual man--who had ten days in which to study it out. I have
only touched on a few of his significant allusions and stopped to put
forward the complete theory based on them all. If you will be patient I
will now show you how he unmistakably denounces these men.”
“I’m sorry,” said Billy, “but I have to acknowledge that I agree with
Leo. A theory based upon too many probabilities becomes improbable for
that very reason. Too many ‘ifs’!”
“There is no ‘if’ about Jeff’s disappearance,” rejoined George hotly.
“That we know. There is no ‘if’ about this letter, written in his own
hand long after, written to a non-existent wife, in care of Billy
Beebe; written under no conceivable conditions and for no conceivable
purpose except to convey information under the very eyes of a vigilant
jailer; a wanton and senseless folly, that could serve no purpose but
to stir us to cruel and useless alarm, if it does not carry to us
this information. When two hundred and fifty-six grossly improbable
things point each to a common center, the grossness of each separate
improbability makes the designed pointing just so much more convincing.
You won’t let me go on. By Heavens, we are discussing the laws of
evidence and lower mathematics, instead of deciphering this letter!”
“Let Mr. Aughinbaugh be!” said Pringle. “Jeff said, once and again,
that George would tell us what to do. We know two very significant
truths, and only two: Jeff left Mr. Aughinbaugh’s rooms a few minutes
before midnight. He should have reached his own rooms just after
midnight; he didn’t. There are the contradicting events, apparently
giving each other the lie; there, and not at another time. If Thorpe
and his striker lied--and men do lie, even politicians--Jeff is
accounted for. And it is the weakness of a lie that it is no real
thing, but an appearance botched upon the very truth. When in doubt,
search for the joint. The lie is compressed by hard facts into these
few minutes. George is looking in the right place, George knows what to
do; go on, George! That will be all from the Great Objectors.”