On Friday morning, when old Mrs. Ochiltree's cook Dinah went to wake her
mistress, she was confronted with a sight that well-nigh blanched her
ebony cheek and caused her eyes almost to start from her head with
horror. As soon as she could command her trembling limbs sufficiently to
make them carry her, she rushed out of the house and down the street,
bareheaded, covering in an incredibly short time the few blocks that
separated Mrs. Ochiltree's residence from that of her niece.
She hastened around the house, and finding the back door open and the
servants stirring, ran into the house and up the stairs with the
familiarity of an old servant, not stopping until she reached the door
of Mrs. Carteret's chamber, at which she knocked in great agitation.
Entering in response to Mrs. Carteret's invitation, she found the lady,
dressed in a simple wrapper, superintending the morning toilet of little
Dodie, who was a wakeful child, and insisted upon rising with the birds,
for whose music he still showed a great fondness, in spite of his narrow
escape while listening to the mockingbird.
"What is it, Dinah?" asked Mrs. Carteret, alarmed at the frightened face
of her aunt's old servitor.
"O my Lawd, Mis' 'Livy, my Lawd, my Lawd! My legs is trim'lin' so dat I
can't ha'dly hol' my han's stiddy 'nough ter say w'at I got ter say! O
Lawd have mussy on us po' sinners! W'atever is gwine ter happen in dis
worl' er sin an' sorrer!"
"What in the world is the matter, Dinah?" demanded Mrs. Carteret, whose
own excitement had increased with the length of this preamble. "Has
anything happened to Aunt Polly?"
"Somebody done broke in de house las' night, Mis' 'Livy, an' kill' Mis'
Polly, an' lef' her layin' dead on de flo', in her own blood, wid her
cedar chis' broke' open, an' eve'thing scattered roun' de flo'! O my
Lawd, my Lawd, my Lawd, my Lawd!"
Mrs. Carteret was shocked beyond expression. Perhaps the spectacle of
Dinah's unrestrained terror aided her to retain a greater measure of
self-control than she might otherwise have been capable of. Giving the
nurse some directions in regard to the child, she hastily descended the
stairs, and seizing a hat and jacket from the rack in the hall, ran
immediately with Dinah to the scene of the tragedy. Before the thought
of this violent death all her aunt's faults faded into insignificance,
and only her good qualities were remembered. She had reared Olivia; she
had stood up for the memory of Olivia's mother when others had seemed to
forget what was due to it. To her niece she had been a second mother,
and had never been lacking in affection.
More than one motive, however, lent wings to Mrs. Carteret's feet. Her
aunt's incomplete disclosures on the day of the drive past the hospital
had been weighing upon Mrs. Carteret's mind, and she had intended to
make another effort this very day, to get an answer to her question
about the papers which the woman had claimed were in existence. Suppose
her aunt had really found such papers,--papers which would seem to prove
the preposterous claim made by her father's mulatto mistress? Suppose
that, with the fatuity which generally leads human beings to keep
compromising documents, her aunt had preserved these papers? If they
should be found there in the house, there might be a scandal, if nothing
worse, and this was to be avoided at all hazards.
Guided by some fortunate instinct, Dinah had as yet informed no one but
Mrs. Carteret of her discovery. If they could reach the house before the
murder became known to any third person, she might be the first to
secure access to the remaining contents of the cedar chest, which would
be likely to be held as evidence in case the officers of the law
forestalled her own arrival.
They found the house wrapped in the silence of death. Mrs. Carteret
entered the chamber of the dead woman. Upon the floor, where it had
fallen, lay the body in a pool of blood, the strongly marked countenance
scarcely more grim in the rigidity of death than it had been in life. A
gaping wound in the head accounted easily for the death. The cedar chest
stood open, its strong fastenings having been broken by a steel bar
which still lay beside it. Near it were scattered pieces of old lace,
antiquated jewelry, tarnished silverware,--the various mute souvenirs of
the joys and sorrows of a long and active life.
Kneeling by the open chest, Mrs. Carteret glanced hurriedly through its
contents. There were no papers there except a few old deeds and letters.
She had risen with a sigh of relief, when she perceived the end of a
paper projecting from beneath the edge of a rug which had been
carelessly rumpled, probably by the burglar in his hasty search for
plunder. This paper, or sealed envelope as it proved to be, which
evidently contained some inclosure, she seized, and at the sound of
approaching footsteps thrust hastily into her own bosom.
The sight of two agitated women rushing through the quiet streets at so
early an hour in the morning had attracted attention and aroused
curiosity, and the story of the murder, having once become known, spread
with the customary rapidity of bad news. Very soon a policeman, and a
little later a sheriff's officer, arrived at the house and took charge
of the remains to await the arrival of the coroner.
By nine o'clock a coroner's jury had been summoned, who, after brief
deliberation, returned a verdict of willful murder at the hands of some
person or persons unknown, while engaged in the commission of a
burglary.
No sooner was the verdict announced than the community, or at least the
white third of it, resolved itself spontaneously into a committee of the
whole to discover the perpetrator of this dastardly crime, which, at
this stage of the affair, seemed merely one of robbery and murder.
Suspicion was at once directed toward the negroes, as it always is when
an unexplained crime is committed in a Southern community. The suspicion
was not entirely an illogical one. Having been, for generations, trained
up to thriftlessness, theft, and immorality, against which only thirty
years of very limited opportunity can be offset, during which brief
period they have been denied in large measure the healthful social
stimulus and sympathy which holds most men in the path of rectitude,
colored people might reasonably be expected to commit at least a share
of crime proportionate to their numbers. The population of the town was
at least two thirds colored. The chances were, therefore, in the absence
of evidence, at least two to one that a man of color had committed the
crime. The Southern tendency to charge the negroes with all the crime
and immorality of that region, unjust and exaggerated as the claim may
be, was therefore not without a logical basis to the extent above
indicated.
It must not be imagined that any logic was needed, or any reasoning
consciously worked out. The mere suggestion that the crime had been
committed by a negro was equivalent to proof against any negro that
might be suspected and could not prove his innocence. A committee of
white men was hastily formed. Acting independently of the police force,
which was practically ignored as likely to favor the negroes, this
committee set to work to discover the murderer.
The spontaneous activity of the whites was accompanied by a visible
shrinkage of the colored population. This could not be taken as any
indication of guilt, but was merely a recognition of the palpable fact
that the American habit of lynching had so whetted the thirst for black
blood that a negro suspected of crime had to face at least the
possibility of a short shrift and a long rope, not to mention more
gruesome horrors, without the intervention of judge or jury. Since to
have a black face at such a time was to challenge suspicion, and since
there was neither the martyr's glory nor the saint's renown in being
killed for some one else's crime, and very little hope of successful
resistance in case of an attempt at lynching, it was obviously the part
of prudence for those thus marked to seek immunity in a temporary
disappearance from public view.