murder, with the words, “Done by some one unknown,” blazoned to the
world, and stating that twenty-eight stabs had been planted in the
body of the girl, and also announcing a grievously erroneous theory
of the deed. The wounds upon the girl were chiefly in the back, as if
the first assault had been made while she was stooping over her work,
her wreath, perhaps; but afterward, as she despairingly confronted
her assailant, the remaining stabs were given, while she could yet
see the rapid lifting and falling of his arm. It is not an assured
belief in the police theory of the deed, that she was killed upon
the spot where she was discovered; and what specific reasons they
have on that point, I cannot readily get hold of, unless it be based
upon the fact that, had she been attacked only a few paces from a
frequented road, her cries would have exposed the culprit to the risk
of detection, and of that he naturally would have considered; and in
that view the theory has some force, for it certainly was a better
place in which to conceal the body dead, than attack it living. All
around this spot, the trees, as I have previously described, grew
densely, and a new visitor could easily lose his way, so that the
deed may have been perpetrated in the wood, and the corpse drawn to
the concealing formation of the rocks, as they were away from the
path, and not very likely to be visited. However near the truth may
be the theory of the police, there was evidence discovered at the
time the body was revealed of a struggle, and a violent one, at that
very spot among the rocks. There was a sapling bent and broken at the
westward end of the rock, and its breaking was recent,—not done by
any strong current of air, for there had been none, and if there had
been, no wind would break that pliant stem and leave the vulnerable
trees untouched. Had nothing of importance happened at this very
spot, we would have to look for an explanation somewhere else, if
we deemed it of importance. It evidently had been broken within a
few days. Was it broken by some one who had visited the spot ere it
was invaded by the two strangers on that Sunday when the body was
discovered? That is hardly possible, for if it had been so, the body
would have been seen, and the fact disclosed at once of her murder.
Was it broken in the struggle that ensued between the murderer and
his victim? How could she break so tough a bough? Why should he? But
at all events, there it was, some four feet from her body. I saw it,
and testify to its being there, and to the fracture being of recent
date. It might have been broken by the man as he ascended from the
road to the rock, for it stood where he might grasp it in his ascent;
but that could hardly be; and there was no need to break it to give
passage to her body if it was drawn from the spot where she fell,
farther off. It was evidence of something that had happened, but a
testimony of nothing that could properly and naturally attach itself
to the murder. Cattle could not have done it, for they never were
permitted in these woods, though a lad, who guarded a drove down on
the pasture lands below the hill, was examined upon the idea that
a madman had committed the deed in his frenzy, and he happened to
be not of the sound order of brains. He was exempted from further
suspicion, as well he might be.
The spot on which she lay was the convexity of an abrupt whale-backed
rock, running some fifteen feet east and west, and guarding any
object at its base from the sight of persons passing along the road.
Crumbled flints abounded thereabout, and a hard and cruel bed it was
for a sleeper, dead or alive. When I first visited it there were
no marks of so terrific a scene as must have been enacted in her
killing, save the doubtful sapling that lay broken and prostrate; but
above the spot where her piteous head had fallen, some pious visitor
had placed a cross, with a card affixed, that informed the public of
the name of the poor sufferer, and a prayer in her behalf.
One week after the discovery of the body of the boy, the thick
coppice and bushes that had concealed him were stripped away as
memorials of the incident, and the ground about trampled by more than
a thousand people; while the slimy mud oozed up as if eager to suck
in more of the ghastly nutriment that had flown so freely in the
first and final struggle of his death.
IX.
SUSPICION.
As a matter of course, several arrests were made after the delivery
of the verdict by the coroner, and rumor plied her busy trade with
an increased variety of tones. Our rural neighborhood rose at once
into the importance of a public spectacle; and full-orbed curiosity
roved the highways, questioning all kinds of people with all kinds of
interrogatories.
There is always a plentiful supply of ready-made murderers in almost
every well and long-established settlement,—men who look cross and
act cross; who come home at mysterious hours and in mysterious
ways, with slouched hats and shabby shirt-collars; who are not
often if ever seen in church; suspicious fellows; just the sort of
fellows to be talked about whenever anything bad has happened; but,
perhaps, after all said and done, as good as their neighbors, indeed,
sometimes better than the gossips who prate so lavishly about them.
But they serve a purpose; and to that purpose some of them were
put at once; and they bore it, and will have to bear it again. It
is pretty much a matter of clothing. One day the whole thing was
out,—the murderer was known. A neighbor’s farm-hand had fallen in
with another neighbor’s farm-hand, steering his ox-cart upon some
errand of slothful industry, and from the ox-driver he had learned
that the said driver, on the noon of the murder-day, had met the boy
and girl (boy and girl described) on the road between Mr. Motley’s
house on the hill and the blood-stained rock, and soon afterward he
was overtaken by, or he met, a swarthy man with a black mustache,
heated and in haste, pursuing the same line of travel on which he
had met the children. Yes, he could identify that man. He looked
eager and fierce, with his dark skin and twisted moustache; and
those were the real children, and he their murderer. He had seen the
lambs, and he had looked upon the wolf. This story bore the semblance
of possibility; and we were all prepared to hear of an arrest and
identification. By night, however, the narrative had undergone some
modification, but not losing in the vigor and picturesqueness of the
original drawing,—rather otherwise. I immediately sought out the
author of the bulletin, intending, if there was any substance in it
after thorough investigation, to report the facts without delay to
the proper authority.
True, the clodpoll had seen two children on that road; but it turned
out, on cross-examination, that he saw them on the day after the
murder; but the portrait of the eager and mysterious swarth, with his
curled mustache, had been inserted by the more imaginative brain of
the man who repeated the intelligence. So all that card-castle of
discovery fell to pieces. Then, again, a gallant and bullet-maimed
officer was put under the ban; and wonderful items grew into robust
legends, that would have delighted the immortal Sylvanus Cobb,
Senior. The bloody tunic of the man of Mars had been washed by the
terror-stricken nymph of soap-suds, and she was, inasmuch as she had
“talked” of that red evidence, forthwith discharged from the wash-tub
of the family. This belief in the guilt of the maimed officer took
such emphasis of accusation as to enforce from his friends a proof
that he was, on the day of the murder, far away in a Virginia city,
engaged, among other things, in writing his name in a lady’s album.
One evening, after the Sunday’s discovery,—it might have been ten
days,—as I was riding up the hill that led to Mr. Motley’s mansion
gateway, and when I had reached the summit, I came upon a young man
standing a little off the main road. He stood there but a moment;
but in that moment I saw that his eyes swept in that section of his
view which embraced the accursed trees of Bussey’s blood-dyed hill,
but with no look of white affright in them; and then, with his one
arm swinging,—the other maimed in some battle-field of the South,—he
went onward to the gate. That was the officer who had with one arm
committed those dual murders, even while he wrote his name in the
album of a lady in the old city down in the Southern country.
From such things does the monster Gossip make up a verdict, driving
in shame the innocent to a defence, while giving to the one of guilt
the benefit of an arrested search, or a postponed accusation. Driven
from this stronghold of suspicion, away went greedy Accusation down
among the shanties of the Irish workmen, along the line of the
railroad; but nothing there was brought to light beyond the existence
of pigs, poverty, and all the other poetries of Hibernian habitations.
In the midst of this confusion of assertion and contradiction, of
hope and disappointment, a luckless house-painter, of a religions
turn of mind, and a taste perhaps of fluidical enjoyment, fell into
the hands of the inquisitors, and, at the time, it must be confessed,
with some circumstances attendant on his movements and position
that gave color to the theory of his criminality. At his house the
boy and girl had boarded last; from his house they started on their
terrible adventure; and it was said that he was engaged on that day
to do some work at or about May’s wood; and so they linked him with
the two pools of blood out in the shades of the fearful woods. There
was a judicial examination; but naught came out of it to warrant
his detention, and so he was sent about his business rejoicing,
with a clear skirt, and a eulogistic letter from the clergyman
of his parish. The incident seemed rather to have worked to the
advantage of the window-sash artist; and, in the full enjoyment of
his acquittal, and the continued performance of his grave religious
duties, this history must leave him.
And yet another. A young fellow was arrested, and lodged in the
county jail at Dedham, of whom there was not the slightest doubt of
his being the man. When arrested, it was proved that he had been
absent from work on the fatal day; that his hands were scratched,
and his clothes spotted with blood; and that he had been drunk on
that night, driven, it was religiously and philosophically construed,
into that beastly condition by the reproaches of his conscience.
Ah, he was the very man! He looked, in his dimness of drunk and
tatterdemalionism of garb, like a real Simon-pure unadulterated
murderer. The rope was ready, and the coming carpenter dreamed of
a gallows on which he was to swing. But the rope had not yet been
twisted, and the carpenter had only dreamed; for it was established
as follows of his biography: He had been absent from work because
he had no work to attend to; he had been drunk because he loved bad
whiskey and good company; he was scratched and blood-tinted because
his valor and his bottle had led him, at an ill-reputed tavern,
some two or three miles up the road, to attempt the vindication or
assertion of his philosophic, philanthropic, political, or religious
opinions and dogmas, by quotations from the library of his fists and
muscles. So he, too, got out of the clutches of the law, and stands,
or staggers, now, ready at any moment to be arrested upon the same
grounds for any similar offence, or other offence, that his neighbors
may think him fit for.
There was one other case of suspicion, but no arrest; and as it
illustrates the uncertainty of circumstantial evidence somewhat,
and is a little singular, I will relate it. A young fellow of
variegated habits worked in a large rifle establishment near one of
the city limits, distant from the scene of the murders some four or
five miles. One of his habits was to rove into the suburbs, seeking
his recreation according to his fancy. This fact was a strong
circumstance against him; for at that time the theory of the twofold
character of the crime had not been relinquished. Up to the period
of the murders, this youth was the life of the establishment where
he was employed, full of tricks, and jokes, and happy, ceaseless
good-humor. On the morning of the 12th of June, he was absent at
roll-call; but at _one o’clock in the afternoon he was there and
answered to his name_. Whatever had happened, a great change had
come over him. He was no more the jubilant and frolicsome madcap of
the day before, but sullen to moroseness, and his face was strongly
sunburnt, and altogether his whole appearance and behavior indicated
a transformation as singular as it was sudden. When questioned,
he admitted that he had been in the woods somewhere, but would
speak no more upon the subject. In search of any, the slightest
clue to the discovery of the mystery, the police soon came into the
possession of these facts, and suspicion fell darkly around him. Upon
farther inquiry, it appeared that he had converted two files into
poniards,—one he had given to a friend, the other he had kept. The
day afterward, while the police were making these investigations,
and keeping him, as they thought, unconscious of the fact, he
disappeared, and has not been heard of from that day to this. One
of the dirks when applied to the wounds fitted exactly. I have seen
the one he had given to his comrade, now in the desk of the chief. A
long, ugly weapon it is, sharp at the point, and double-edged, equal
to a bowie-knife ere yet it has arrived at the point of complete
perfection of destruction.
_But he was not the man._ Why he fled we may conjecture. Doubtless
he had heard of the advance of the authorities upon his steps, and
feeling that appearances were against him on the first blush of the
investigation, and not being logically disposed to examine into the
importance of minutes and hours wherein lay his absolute defence, he
fled affrighted at his dangerous position. He was innocent, because
he answered his name at _one o’clock_. Had he done those murders he
never could have reached his workshop at that hour unless he had
hired the magic of a necromancer, or been mounted on the fleetest
horse that ever won a race; for the murders were accomplished soon
after one o’clock. Had he not answered to his name at the hour
mentioned, he would have been arrested, though still he would not
have been guilty. _It was another man who did those deeds._
X.
WAS IT A GHOST?
And after that a heavy silence fell over the mysterious murders of
the Joyce children. The officers of justice, to whom I spoke during
that time, looked wise and watchful, and held to the belief that the
malefactor would yet be found.
I come now to a portion of my story that I assure my reader is,
in every respect, true. I know that only one-eighth, or even a
lesser moiety of the world, will give me credence; not that they
will directly question my plighted word, but they will question
the philosophy of which my experience is a phase; but who knows
but that it may be an actual substantiation? So assured was I that
no deception was practised upon me, that it was only the other day
that I made a statement of it to Mr. Kurtz, the chief of police, to
whom I had occasion to speak of my design to write a narrative of my
knowledge and experience in relation to the unhappy incidents of the
murder, putting it to his discretion whether I should go on and give
my writing to the public. I had some misgiving as to the propriety of
saying anything of such importance while it remained in its present
apparent quiescence; and though it is not essential to my purpose to
repeat our conversation, I feel at liberty to say that he favored my
design most cordially. But with regard to my revelation to him of
what I shall soon put my reader in possession of, he did not evince
that unpleasant scepticism which so often borders upon the insolent,
and listened to my narration with the evidences of a respect that at
least bore the semblance of belief. I must confess, however, that he
somewhat startled me when, at the conclusion of my recital, he put to
me this practical question: “_Do you think you could recognize the
man?_” That question, the reader will perceive anon, was somewhat of
a staggerer; but I rallied under the belief that the head dealer in
the positive had not quite grasped the peculiar significance of my
revelation, and since then I have seen something—a something which he
has in his desk, and which may appear hereafter—that would, if I deem
it necessary to test my idea, perhaps enable me to say to him, “I
can.”
It was quite three weeks after the blood of the unhappy Joyce
children had been mixed with the leaves and oozings of that
mysterious wood,—when everything was falling back, in our country
side, to the old order of simple occurrences,—that, upon a still and
clear night, I went out of the cottage where I still lived, and,
taking the two dogs with me, strolled down through the stable-yard,
and past the garden, until I came to the brow of the hill that
formed the apex of my friend’s grass-lands. The brow of the hill
was flat all about me, commencing its declension some hundred and
fifty feet eastwardly from where I stopped, and at the base running
off into a meadow, the opposite side of which was overlooked by the
Bussey wood; and, from where I stood, several pines rose out of the
even surface of the forest, marking, as with an uplifted hand spread
out, the place where the murder of the girl had been done. I have to
be particular in my description seemingly to tediousness, but the
singularity of what transpired leaves me no choice; for better, on
such a matter, not to speak at all than not to speak explicitly. I
resume. The grass was short on the brow of the hill, not over a few
inches in length, improving in quality as the descent reached the
valley. There was a tree near me; but that I left behind, putting it
in my rear some ten paces, when I stopped. On my left was Motley’s
wood,—so often mentioned,—drawing up with its intense shadows, close
to the dividing wall. From the wall to where I stood all was clear
and distinct, save where the shadows, or, more properly speaking,
the shade fell over the ground, though in that shade there was a
secondary light which artists and all thorough students of nature
will recognize. The wall and the wood on my left ran down to that
corner at the creek, which was only a short distance, about fifty
feet, from the spot where the boy had fallen. Some two hundred and
fifty yards away, and close to the corner just mentioned, was a
clump of trees, and then straight before me, without an intervening
object, the dark wood and the hand-like pines, that gloomed, in
deeper gloom than night itself imparts, with all her shadows, over
the gory rock of the girl’s death-bed. My purpose was simply to
take the cooler air from the winnowing trees; for the room where
I had been sitting with the family was oppressive with lamp-light
and the encased atmosphere. I had become so accustomed to the dread
localities, that habit had destroyed, with the first surprise and
horror, all the keen sensations of a mysterious and indescribable
neighborhoodism to the scene. Indeed, I had begun to look upon the
whole affair as a story that had been told to me by some such person
as the “Ancient Mariner.” Had it been otherwise, I never could have
been induced to stay another moment in that house. I beg to assure
everybody that when, at that hour of half-past eight o’clock, I left
the parlor to stroll to the brow of the meadow hill, I did not have
one thought in my head that connected itself with the murders. Other
affairs had turned up, in which I was personally interested, and
my mind, though not dwelling upon them at the moment, felt, if it
felt anything at all, the reverberations of mental discussions upon
the topics I have just spoken of as of personal interest. I think
now, remembering everything, that if I had any peculiar sensation,
it was not superior to that of the two dogs who kept close to my
heels,—for I was there to enjoy the sensuous and physical boon of
air; they, indeed, governed by a higher motive, the society of man.
I was, consequently, if I may say so with perfect self-respect,
in a complete condition of animal existence, and not prepared for
or expecting anything beyond the ordinary condition of animal
and vegetable life. I was, in fine, nearly upon a level with the
inanimate existences around and about me. I am unwillingly compelled
to remind the reader that it was the habit of my host, who did
business in the city, of leaving the train at Laurel Hill Station,
at nine o’clock, as a general thing, and keeping the main road until
he got to the bottom of the hill near to where the brook, so often
mentioned, crosses the road, entered the lowlands at the outskirts
of Bussey’s wood, and thence following the path which led by the
boy’s murder-place, and up the hill-side covered by the Motley wood,
keeping close to the wall until he reached that point of the wall
near which I was standing, passed over it, and was home. It must
also be borne in mind that the two dogs loved their master with a
steadfast affection; in the case of the serene Jack it was a very
jump-about, capering, stump-tail, demonstrative love. Whenever they
saw him in the distance nearing home, or knew by instinct that he was
approaching, though for the moment hidden by the intervening trees
or rocks, they would break away from my minor and only temporary
bonds, and rush to meet him exultingly, and then ensued a scene of
wild confusion and barbaric dog-taming. These two facts remembered, I
will advance with my narrative.
[Illustration: MAP OF THE LOCALITIES.
1. Steam-Car Line.
G. Horse-Car Line.
2. Motley-House.
3. Gate leading into Pasture and Bussey Wood.
4, 4, 4, 4. Returning route of my host.
5. Bridge over public road.
6. Spot where the Boy’s body was found.
7. Arch Bridge.
8. Flat Bridge.
9. Where I stood.
10. Where the Apparition stood.
11. Where the Girl’s body was discovered.
12. The Gate on Dedham Wood.
13, 13. Public road to Dedham.
14, 14, 14, 14, 14. Bussey’s Wood.
15. Motley’s Wood.
16. The Wall.
17. Fence between Bussey’s Wood and the Howard property.
Arrow. The Creek.
- - - - - - My route at night to the Murder-Rock.]