Mr. Slocum, who had partly risen from the chair, sank back into
his seat. "Good God!" he said, turning very pale. "Are you mad?"
Mr. Taggett realized the cruel shock which the pronouncing of that
name must have caused Mr. Slocum. Mr. Taggett had meditated his line
of action, and had decided that the most merciful course was
brusquely to charge young Shackford with the crime, and allow Mr.
Slocum to sustain himself for a while with the indignant disbelief
which would be natural to him, situated as he was. He would then in a
manner be prepared for the revelations which, if suddenly presented,
would crush him.
If Mr. Taggett was without imagination, as he claimed, he was not
without a certain feminine quickness of sympathy often found in
persons engaged in professions calculated to blunt the finer
sensibilities. In his intercourse with Mr. Slocum at the Shackford
house, Mr. Taggett had been won by the singular gentleness and
simplicity of the man, and was touched by his misfortune.
After his exclamation, Mr. Slocum did not speak for a moment or
two, but with his elbows resting on the edge of the desk sat
motionless, like a person stunned. Then he slowly lifted his face, to
which the color had returned, and making a movement with his right
hand as if he were sweeping away cobwebs in front of him rose from
the chair.
"You are simply mad," he said, looking Mr. Taggett squarely and
calmly in the eyes. "Are you aware of Mr. Richard Shackford's
character and his position here?"
"Precisely."
"Do you know that he is to marry my daughter?"
"I am very sorry for you, sir."
"You may spare me that. It is quite unnecessary. You have fallen
into some horrible delusion. I hope you will be able to explain it."
"I am prepared to do so, sir."
"Are you serious?"
"Very serious, Mr. Slocum."
"You actually imagine that Richard Shackford--Pshaw! It's simply
impossible!"
"I am too young a man to wish even to seem wiser than you, but my
experience has taught me that nothing is impossible."
"I begin to believe so myself. I suppose you have grounds, or
something you consider grounds, for your monstrous suspicion. What
are they? I demand to be fully informed of what you have been doing
in the yard, before you bring disgrace upon me and my family by
inconsiderately acting on some wild theory which perhaps ten words
can refute."
"I should be in the highest degree criminal, Mr. Slocum, if I were
to make so fearful an accusation against any man unless I had the
most incontestable evidence in my hands."
Mr. Taggett spoke with such cold-blooded conviction that a chill
crept over Mr. Slocum, in spite of him.
"What is the nature of this evidence?"
"Up to the present stage, purely circumstantial."
"I can imagine that," said Mr. Slocum, with a slight smile.
"But so conclusive as to require no collateral evidence. The
testimony of an eye-witness of the crime could scarcely add to my
knowledge of what occurred that Tuesday night in Lemuel Shackford's
house."
"Indeed, it is all so clear! But of course a few eye-witnesses
will turn up eventually," said Mr. Slocum, whose whiteness about the
lips discounted the assurance of his sarcasm.
"That is not improbable," returned Mr. Taggett.
"And meanwhile what are the facts?"
"They are not easily stated. I have kept a record of my work day
by day, since the morning I entered the yard. The memoranda are
necessarily confused, the important and the unimportant being jumbled
together; but the record as it stands will answer your question more
fully than I could, even if I had the time--which I have not--to go
over the case with you. I can leave these notes in your hands, if you
desire it. When I return from New York"--
"You are going to New York!" exclaimed Mr. Slocum, with a start.
"When?"
"This evening."
"If you lay a finger on Richard Shackford, you will make the
mistake of your life, Mr. Taggett!"
"I have other business there. Mr. Shackford will be in Stillwater
to-morrow night. He engaged a state-room on the Fall River boat this
morning."
"How can you know that?"
"Since last Tuesday none of his movements have been unknown to
me."
"Do you mean to say that you have set your miserable spies upon
him?" cried Mr. Slocum.
"I should not state the fact in just those words," Mr. Taggett
answered. "The fact remains."
"Pardon me," said Mr. Slocum. "I am not quite myself. Can you
wonder at it?"
"I do not wonder."
"Give me those papers you speak of, Mr. Taggett. I would like to
look through them. I see that you are a very obstinate person when
you have once got a notion into your head. Perhaps I can help you out
of your error before it is irreparable." Then, after hesitating a
second, Mr. Slocum added, "I may speak of this to my daughter?
Indeed, I could scarcely keep it from her."
"Perhaps it is better she should be informed."
"And Mr. Shackford, when he returns to-morrow?"
"If he broaches the subject of his cousin's death, I advise you to
avoid it."
"Why should I?"
"It might save you or Miss Slocum some awkwardness,--but you must
use your own discretion. As the matter stands it makes no difference
whether Mr. Shackford knows his position to-day or to-morrow. It is
too late for him to avail himself of the knowledge. Otherwise, of
course, I should not have given myself away in this fashion."
"Very well," said Mr. Slocum, with an impatient movement of his
shoulders; "neither I nor my daughter will open our lips on this
topic. In the mean while you are to take no further steps without
advising me. That is understood?"
"That is perfectly understood," returned Mr. Taggett, drawing a
narrow red note-book from the inner pocket of his workman's blouse,
and producing at the same time a small nickel-plated door-key. "This
is the key of Mr. Shackford's private workshop in the extension. I
have not been able to replace it on the mantel-shelf of his
sitting-room in Lime Street. Will you have the kindness to see that
it is done at once?"
A moment later Mr. Slocum stood alone in the office, with Mr.
Taggett's diary in his hand. It was one of those costly little
volumes--gilt-edged and bound in fragrant crushed Levant
morocco--with which city officials are annually supplied by a
community of grateful taxpayers.
The dark crimson of the flexible covers, as soft and slippery to
the touch as a snake's skin, was perhaps the fitting symbol of the
darker story that lay coiled within. With a gesture of repulsion, as
if some such fancy had flitted through his mind, Mr. Slocum tossed
the note-book on the desk in front of him, and stood a few minutes
moodily watching the _reflets_ of the crinkled leather as the
afternoon sunshine struck across it. Beneath his amazement and
indignation he had been chilled to the bone by Mr. Taggett's brutal
confidence. It was enough to chill one, surely; and in spite of
himself Mr. Slocum began to feel a certain indefinable dread of that
little crimson-bound book.
Whatever it contained, the reading of those pages was to be a
repellent task to him; it was a task to which he could not bring
himself at the moment; to-night, in the privacy of his own chamber,
he would sift Mr. Taggett's baleful fancies. Thus temporizing, Mr.
Slocum dropped the volume into his pocket, locked the office door
behind him, and wandered down to Dundon's drug-store to kill the
intervening hour before supper-time. Dundon's was the aristocratic
lounging place of the village,--the place where the only genuine
Havana cigars in Stillwater were to be had, and where the favored
few, the initiated, could get a dash of hochheimer or cognac with
their soda-water.
At supper, that evening, Mr. Slocum addressed scarcely a word to
Margaret, and Margaret was also silent. The days were dragging
heavily with her; she was missing Richard. Her own daring travels had
never extended beyond Boston or Providence; and New York, with
Richard in it, seemed drearily far away. Mr. Slocum withdrew to his
chamber shortly after nine o'clock, and, lighting the pair of candles
on the dressing-table, began his examination of Mr. Taggett's
memoranda.
At midnight the watchman on his lonely beat saw those two candles
still burning.