"Is it true?"
Mart smiled more broadly. "Olga'll take my hair off if I don't agree
with her," he said.
"Let's see your shoes, Brenner?"
Without hesitation Mart lifted one heavy boot and then the other for
Munn's inspection. The other silent men leaned forward to examine them.
"Nothing but pieces of seaweed," said Cottrell Hampstead.
Munn eyed them. Then he turned to look at the floor.
"Those are about the size of your tracks, Brenner. But they were made
in red clay. How do you account for that?"
"Tobey wears my shoes," said Brenner.
Mrs. Brenner gasped. She advanced to Munn.
"What you asking all these questions for?" she pleaded.
Munn did not answer her. After a moment he asked, "Did you hear a scream
this afternoon?"
"Yes," she answered.
"How long after the screaming did your son come in?"
She hesitated. What was the best answer to make? Bewildered, she tried
to decide. "Ten minutes or so," she said.
"Just so," agreed Munn. "Brenner, when did you come in?"
A trace of Mart's sullenness rose in his face. "I told you that once,"
he said.
"I mean how long after Tobey?"
"I dunno," said Mart.
"How long, Mrs. Brenner?"
She hesitated again. She scented a trap. "Oh, 'bout ten to fifteen
minutes, I guess," she said.
Suddenly she burst out passionately, "What you hounding us for? We don't
know nothing about the man on the hill. You ain't after the rest of the
folks in the village like you are after us. Why you doing it? We ain't
done nothing."
Munn made a slight gesture to Roamer, who rose and went to the door, and
opened it. He reached out into the darkness. Then he turned. He was
holding something in his hand, but Mrs. Brenner could not see what it
was.
"You chop your wood with a short, heavy ax, don't you, Brenner?" said
Munn.
Brenner nodded.
"It's marked with your name, isn't it?"
Brenner nodded again.
"_Is this the ax?_"
Mrs. Brenner gave a short, sharp scream. Red and clotted, ever the
handle marked with bloody spots, the ax was theirs.
Brenner started to his feet. "God!" he yelped, "that's where that ax
went! Tobey took it!" More calmly he proceeded. "This afternoon before I
went down on the beach I thought I'd chop some wood on the hill. But the
ax was gone. So after I'd looked sharp for it and couldn't find it, I
gave it up."
"Tobey didn't do it!" Mrs. Brenner cried thinly. "He's as harmless as a
baby! He didn't do it! He didn't do it!"
"How about those clay tracks, Mrs. Brenner? There is red clay on the
hill where the man was killed. There is red clay on your floor." Munn
spoke kindly.
"Mart tracked in that clay. He changed shoes with Tobey. I tell you
that's the truth." She was past caring for any harm that might befall
her.
Brenner smiled with a wide tolerance. "It's likely, ain't it, that I'd
change into shoes as wet as these?"
"Those tracks are Mart's!" Olga reiterated hysterically.
"They lead into your son's room, Mrs. Brenner. And we find your ax not
far from your door, just where the path starts for the hill." Munn's
eyes were grave.
The old woman in the corner began to whimper, "Blood and trouble! Blood
and trouble all my days! Red on his hands! Dripping! Olga! Blood!"
"But the road to the beach begins there too," Mrs. Brenner cried, above
the cracked voice, "and Tobey saw his pa before he came home. He said he
did. I tell you, Mart was on the hill. He put on Tobey's shoes. Before
God I'm telling you the truth."
Dick Roamer spoke hesitatingly, "Mebbe the old woman's right, Munn.
Mebbe those tracks are Brenner's."
Mrs. Brenner turned to him in wild gratitude.
"You believe me, don't you?" she cried. The tears dribbled down her
face. She saw the balance turning on a hair. A moment more and it might
swing back. She turned and hobbled swiftly to the shelf. Proof! More
proof! She must bring more proof of Tobey's innocence!
She snatched up his box of butterflies and came back to Munn.
"This is what Tobey was doin' this afternoon!" she cried in triumph. "He
was catchin' butterflies! That ain't murder, is it?"
"Nobody catches butterflies in a fog," said Munn.
"Well, Tobey did. Here they are." Mrs. Brenner held out the box. Munn
took it from her shaking hand. He looked at it. After a moment he turned
it over. His eyes narrowed. Mrs. Brenner turned sick. The room went
swimming around before her in a bluish haze. She had forgotten the blood
on her hand that she had wiped off before Mart came home. Suppose the
blood had been on the box.
The sheriff opened the box. A bruised butterfly, big, golden, fluttered
up out of it. Very quietly the sheriff closed the box, and turned to
Mrs. Brenner.
"Call your son," he said.
"What do you want of him? Tobey ain't done nothing. What you tryin' to
do to him?"
"There is blood on this box, Mrs. Brenner."
"Mebbe he cut himself." Mrs. Brenner was fighting. Her face was chalky
white.
"In the box, Mrs. Brenner, _is a gold watch and chain_. The man who was
killed, Mrs. Brenner, had a piece of gold chain to match this in his
buttonhole. _The rest of it had been torn off._"
Olga made no sound. Her burning eyes turned toward Mart. In them was all
of a heart's anguish and despair.
"Tell 'em, Mart! Tell 'em he didn't do it!" she finally pleaded.
Mart's face was inscrutable.
Munn rose. The other men got to their feet.
"Will you get the boy or shall I?" the sheriff said directly to Mrs.
Brenner.
With a rush Mrs. Brenner was on her knees before Munn, clutching him
about the legs with twining arms. Tears of agony dripped over her seamed
face.
"He didn't do it! Don't take him! He's my baby! He never harmed anybody!
He's my baby!" Then with a shriek, as Munn unclasped her arms, "Oh, my
God! My God!"
Munn helped her to her feet. "Now, now, Mrs. Brenner, don't take on so,"
he said awkwardly. "There ain't going to be no harm come to your boy.
It's to keep him from getting into harm that I'm taking him. The village
is a mite worked up over this murder and they might get kind of upset if
they thought Tobey was still loose. Better go and get him, Mrs.
Brenner."
As she stood unheeding, he went on, "Now, don't be afraid. Nothing'll
happen to him. No jedge would sentence him like a regular criminal. The
most that'll happen will be to put him some safe place where he can't do
himself nor no one else any more harm."
But still Mrs. Brenner's set expression did not change.
After a moment she shook off his aiding arm and moved slowly to Tobey's
door. She paused there a moment, resting her hand on the latch, her eyes
searching the faces of the men in the room. With a gesture of dreary
resignation she opened the door and entered, closing it behind her.
Tobey lay in his bed asleep. His rumpled hair was still damp from the
fog. His mother stroked it softly while her slow tears dropped down on
his face with its expression of peaceful childhood.
"Tobey!" she called. Her voice broke in her throat. The tears fell
faster.
"Huh?" He sat up, blinking at her.
"Get into your clothes, now! Right away!" she said.
He stared at her tears. A dismal sort of foreboding seemed to seize upon
him. His face began to pucker. But he crawled out of his bed and began
to dress himself in his awkward fashion, casting wistful and wondering
glances in her direction.
She watched him, her heart growing heavier and heavier. There was no
one to protect Tobey. She could not make those strangers believe that
Mart had changed shoes with Tobey. Neither could she account for the
blood-stained box and the watch with its length of broken chain. But if
Tobey had been on the beach he had not been on the hill, and if he
hadn't been on the hill he couldn't have killed the man they claimed he
had killed. Mart had been on the hill. Her head whirled. Some place
fate, destiny, something had blundered. She wrung her knotted hands
together.
Presently Tobey was dressed. She took him by the hand. Her own hand was
shaking, and very cold and clammy. Her knees were weak as she led him
toward the door. She could feel them trembling so that every step was an
effort. And her hand on the knob had barely strength to turn it. But
turn it she did and opened the door.
"Here he is!" she cried chokingly. She freed her hand and laid it on his
shoulder.
"Look at him," she moaned. "He couldn't 'a' done it. He's--he's just a
boy!"
Sheriff Munn rose. His men rose with him.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Brenner," he said. "Terrible sorry. But you can see how
it is. Things look pretty black for him."
He paused, looked around, hesitated for a moment. Finally he said,
"Well, I guess we'd better be getting along."
Mrs. Brenner's hand closed with convulsive force on Tobey's shoulder.
"Tobey!" she screamed desperately, "where was you this afternoon? All
afternoon?"
"On the beach," mumbled Tobey, shrinking into himself.
"Tobey! Tobey! Where'd you get blood on the box?"
He looked around. His cloudy eyes rested on her face helplessly.
"I dunno," he said.
Her teeth were chattering now; she laid her hand on his other shoulder.
"Try to remember, Tobey. Try to remember. Where'd you get the watch, the
pretty watch that was in your box?"
He blinked at her.
"The pretty bright thing? Where did you get it?"
His eyes brightened. His lips trembled into a smile.
"I found it some place," he said. Eagerness to please her shone on his
face.
"But where? What place?" The tears again made rivulets on her cheeks.