One detail more. When I stared on my own descent I found why the leggings, with
which I had been provided, were so indispensable. I was not allowed to ride;
indeed, riding down those steep declivities was impossible. No horse could
preserve his balance with a rider on his back. I slid, so did my horse, and
only in the valley beneath did we come together again.
VIII.
ARREST
The success of this interview provoked other attempts on the part of the
reporters who now flocked into the Southwest. Ere long particulars began to
pour in of Mr. Fairbrother’s painful journey south, after his illness set in.
The clerk of the hotel in El Moro, where the great mine-owner’s name was found
registered at the time of the murder, told a story which made very good reading
for those who were more interested in the sufferings and experiences of the
millionaire husband of the murdered lady than in those of the unhappy but
comparatively insignificant man upon whom public opinion had cast the odium of
her death.
It seems that when the first news came of the great crime which had taken place
in New York, Mr. Fairbrother was absent from the hotel on a prospecting tour
through the adjacent mountains. Couriers had been sent after him, and it was
one of these who finally brought him into town. He had been found wandering
alone on horseback among the defiles of an untraveled region, sick and almost
incoherent from fever. Indeed, his condition was such that neither the courier
nor such others as saw him had the heart to tell him the dreadful news from New
York, or even to show him the papers. To their great relief, he betrayed no
curiosity in them. All he wanted was a berth in the first train going south,
and this was an easy way for them out of a great responsibility. They listened
to his wishes and saw him safely aboard, with such alacrity and with so many
precautions against his being disturbed that they have never doubted that he
left El Moro in total ignorance, not only of the circumstances of his great
bereavement, but of the bereavement itself.
This ignorance, which he appeared to have carried with him to the Placide, was
regarded by those who knew him best as proving the truth of the affirmation
elicited from him in the pauses of his delirium of the genuineness of the stone
which had passed from his hands to those of his wife at the time of their
separation; and, further despatches coming in, some private and some official,
but all insisting upon the fact that it would be weeks before he would be in a
condition to submit to any sort of examination on a subject so painful, the
authorities in New York decided to wait no longer for his testimony, but to
proceed at once with the inquest.
Great as is the temptation to give a detailed account of proceedings which were
of such moment to myself, and to every word of which I listened with the
eagerness of a novice and the anguish of a woman who sees her lover’s
reputation at the mercy of a verdict which may stigmatize him as a possible
criminal, I see no reason for encumbering my narrative with what, for the most
part, would be a mere repetition of facts already known to you.
Mr. Durand’s intimate and suggestive connection with this crime, the
explanations he had to give of this connection, frequently bizarre and, I must
acknowledge, not always convincing,—nothing could alter these nor change
the fact of the undoubted cowardice he displayed in hiding Mrs. Fairbrother’s
gloves in my unfortunate little bag.
As for the mystery of the warning, it remained as much of a mystery as ever.
Nor did any better success follow an attempt to fix the ownership of the
stiletto, though a half-day was exhausted in an endeavor to show that the
latter might have come into Mr. Durand’s possession in some of the many visits
he was shown to have made of late to various curio-shops in and out of New York
City.*
* Mr. Durand’s visits to the curio-shops, as explained by him, were made with a
view of finding a casket in which to place his diamond. This explanation was
looked upon with as much doubt as the others he had offered where the situation
seemed to be of a compromising character.
I had expected all this, just as I had expected Mr. Grey to be absent from the
proceedings and his testimony ignored. But this expectation did not make the
ordeal any easier, and when I noticed the effect of witness after witness
leaving the stand without having improved Mr. Durand’s position by a jot or
offering any new clue capable of turning suspicion into other directions, I
felt my spirit harden and my purpose strengthen till I hardly knew myself. I
must have frightened my uncle, for his hand was always on my arm and his
chiding voice in my ear, bidding me beware, not only for my own sake and his,
but for that of Mr. Durand, whose eye was seldom away from my face.
The verdict, however, was not the one I had so deeply dreaded. While it did not
exonerate Mr. Durand, it did not openly accuse him, and I was on the point of
giving him a smile of congratulation and renewed hope when I saw my little
detective—the one who had spied the gloves in my bag at the
ball—advance and place his hand upon his arm.
The police had gone a step further than the coroner’s jury, and Mr. Durand was
arrested, before my eyes, on a charge of murder.
IX.
THE MOUSE NIBBLES AT THE NET
The next day saw me at police headquarters begging an interview from the
inspector, with the intention of confiding to him a theory which must either
cost me his sympathy or open the way to a new inquiry, which I felt sure would
lead to Mr. Durand’s complete exoneration.
I chose this gentleman for my confidant, from among all those with whom I had
been brought in contact by my position as witness in a case of this magnitude,
first, because he had been present at the most tragic moment of my life, and
secondly, because I was conscious of a sympathetic bond between us which would
insure me a kind hearing. However ridiculous my idea might appear to him, I was
assured that he would treat me with consideration and not visit whatever folly
I might be guilty of on the head of him for whom I risked my reputation for
good sense.
Nor was I disappointed in this. Inspector Dalzell’s air was fatherly and his
tone altogether gentle as, in reply to my excuses for troubling him with my
opinions, he told me that in a case of such importance he was glad to receive
the impressions even of such a prejudiced little partizan as myself. The word
fired me, and I spoke.
“You consider Mr. Durand guilty, and so do many others, I fear, in spite of his
long record for honesty and uprightness. And why? Because you will not admit
the possibility of another person’s guilt,—a person standing so high in
private and public estimation that the very idea seems preposterous and little
short of insulting to the country of which he is an acknowledged ornament.”
“My dear!”
The inspector had actually risen. His expression and whole attitude showed
shock. But I did not quail; I only subdued my manner and spoke with quieter
conviction.
“I am aware,” said I, “how words so daring must impress you. But listen, sir;
listen to what I have to say before you utterly condemn me. I acknowledge that
it is the frightful position into which I threw Mr. Durand by my officious
attempt to right him which has driven me to make this second effort to fix the
crime on the only other man who had possible access to Mrs. Fairbrother at the
fatal moment. How could I live in inaction? How could you expect me to weigh
for a moment this foreigner’s reputation against that of my own lover? If I
have reasons—”
“Reasons!”
“—reasons which would appeal to all; if instead of this person’s having
an international reputation at his back he had been a simple gentleman like Mr.
Durand,—would you not consider me entitled to speak?”
“Certainly, but—”
“You have no confidence in my reasons, Inspector; they may not weigh against
that splash of blood on Mr. Durand’s shirt-front, but such as they are I must
give them. But first, it will be necessary for you to accept for the nonce Mr.
Durand’s statements as true. Are you willing to do this?”
“I will try.”
“Then, a harder thing yet,—to put some confidence in my judgment. I saw
the man and did not like him long before any intimation of the evening’s
tragedy had turned suspicion on any one. I watched him as I watched others. I
saw that he had not come to the ball to please Mr. Ramsdell or for any pleasure
he himself hoped to reap from social intercourse, but for some purpose much
more important, and that this purpose was connected with Mrs. Fairbrother’s
diamond. Indifferent, almost morose before she came upon the scene, he
brightened to a surprising extent the moment he found himself in her presence.
Not because she was a beautiful woman, for he scarcely honored her face or even
her superb figure with a look. All his glances were centered on her large fan,
which, in swaying to and fro, alternately hid and revealed the splendor on her
breast; and when by chance it hung suspended for a moment in her forgetful hand
and he caught a full glimpse of the great gem, I perceived such a change in his
face that, if nothing more had occurred that night to give prominence to this
woman and her diamond, I should have carried home the conviction that interests
of no common import lay behind a feeling so extraordinarily displayed.”
“Fanciful, my dear Miss Van Arsdale! Interesting, but fanciful.”
“I know. I have not yet touched on fact. But facts are coming, Inspector.”
He stared. Evidently he was not accustomed to hear the law laid down in this
fashion by a midget of my proportions.
“Go on,” said he; “happily, I have no clerk here to listen.”
“I would not speak if you had. These are words for but one ear as yet. Not even
my uncle suspects the direction of my thoughts.”
“Proceed,” he again enjoined.
Upon which I plunged into my subject.
“Mrs. Fairbrother wore the real diamond, and no imitation, to the ball. Of this
I feel sure. The bit of glass or paste displayed to the coroner’s jury was
bright enough, but it was not the star of light I saw burning on her breast as
she passed me on her way to the alcove.”
“Miss Van Arsdale!”
“The interest which Mr. Durand displayed in it, the marked excitement into
which he was thrown by his first view of its size and splendor, confirm in my
mind the evidence which he gave on oath (and he is a well-known diamond expert,
you know, and must have been very well aware that he would injure rather than
help his cause by this admission) that at that time he believed the stone to be
real and of immense value. Wearing such a gem, then, she entered the fatal
alcove, and, with a smile on her face, prepared to employ her fascinations on
whoever chanced to come within their reach. But now something happened. Please
let me tell it my own way. A shout from the driveway, or a bit of snow thrown
against the window, drew her attention to a man standing below, holding up a
note fastened to the end of a whip-handle. I do not know whether or not you
have found that man. If you have—” The inspector made no sign. “I judge
that you have not, so I may go on with my suppositions. Mrs. Fairbrother took
in this note. She may have expected it and for this reason chose the alcove to
sit in, or it may have been a surprise to her. Probably we shall never know the
whole truth about it; but what we can know and do, if you are still holding to
our compact and viewing this crime in the light of Mr. Durand’s explanations,
is that it made a change in her and made her anxious to rid herself of the
diamond. It has been decided that the hurried scrawl should read, ‘Take
warning. He means to be at the ball. Expect trouble if you do not give him the
diamond,’ or something to that effect. But why was it passed up to her
unfinished? Was the haste too great? I hardly think so. I believe in another
explanation, which points with startling directness to the possibility that the
person referred to in this broken communication was not Mr. Durand, but one
whom I need not name; and that the reason you have failed to find the
messenger, of whose appearance you have received definite information, is that
you have not looked among the servants of a certain distinguished visitor in
town. Oh,” I burst forth with feverish volubility, as I saw the inspector’s
lips open in what could not fail to be a sarcastic utterance, “I know what you
feel tempted to reply. Why should a servant deliver a warning against his own
master? If you will be patient with me you will soon see; but first I wish to
make it clear that Mrs. Fairbrother, having received this warning just before
Mr. Durand appeared in the alcove,—reckless, scheming woman that she
was!—sought to rid herself of the object against which it was directed in
the way we have temporarily accepted as true. Relying on her arts, and possibly
misconceiving the nature of Mr. Durand’s interest in her, she hands over the
diamond hidden in her rolled-up gloves, which he, without suspicion, carries
away with him, thus linking himself indissolubly to a great crime of which
another was the perpetrator. That other, or so I believe from my very heart of
hearts, was the man I saw leaning against the wall at the foot of the alcove a
few minutes before I passed into the supper-room.”
I stopped with a gasp, hardly able to meet the stern and forbidding look with
which the inspector sought to restrain what he evidently considered the
senseless ravings of a child. But I had come there to speak, and I hastily
proceeded before the rebuke thus expressed could formulate itself into words.
“I have some excuse for a declaration so monstrous. Perhaps I am the only
person who can satisfy you in regard to a certain fact about which you have
expressed some curiosity. Inspector, have you ever solved the mystery of the
two broken coffee-cups found amongst the debris at Mrs. Fairbrother’s feet? It
did not come out in the inquest, I noticed.”
“Not yet,” he cried, “but—you can not tell me anything about them!”
“Possibly not. But I can tell you this: When I reached the supper-room door
that evening I looked back and, providentially or otherwise—only the
future can determine that—detected Mr. Grey in the act of lifting two
cups from a tray left by some waiter on a table standing just outside the
reception-room door. I did not see where he carried them; I only saw his face
turned toward the alcove; and as there was no other lady there, or anywhere
near there, I have dared to think—”
Here the inspector found speech.
“You saw Mr. Grey lift two cups and turn toward the alcove at a moment we all
know to have been critical? You should have told me this before. He may be a
possible witness.”