"Will that excuse crime?" asked the magistrate severely.
Doctor Louis did not reply.
"No," said the magistrate, "it aggravates it. Admit such a defence,
and let it serve as a palliation of guilt, and the whole moral fabric
is destroyed. What weighs heavily against the prisoner is his evident
disinclination to reveal all he knows in connection with the hours he
passed in the forest on the night of his brother's death. He is
concealing something, and he seeks refuge in equivocation. When I
accused him of this his confusion increased. I asked him whether his
meeting with his brother was accidental or premeditated, and he was
unable or unwilling to give me a satisfactory reply. He made a remark
to which he evidently wished me to attach importance. 'There are
matters between me and my brother,' he said, 'which it would be
difficult, perhaps impossible, for an unsympathetic person to
understand.' 'I am such a person,' I said. 'Undoubtedly,' was his
reply; 'you are seeking to convict me out of my own mouth of a crime I
did not commit.' 'I am seeking to elicit the truth,' I said. 'Have
these mysterious matters between you and your brother of which you
speak any bearing upon his death?' Observe, that out of regard for the
prisoner's feelings I used the word death instead of murder; but he
corrected me. 'They have,' he said, 'a distinct bearing upon his
murder.' 'And you cannot explain them to me?' I asked. 'I cannot,' he
replied. 'You expect me, however, to place credence in what you say?'
I asked. 'I do not,' he said; 'it is so strange even to me that, if
you were in possession of the particulars, I should scarcely be
justified in expecting you to believe me.' After that there was, of
course, but little more to be said on the point. If a criminal chooses
to intrench himself behind that which he is pleased to call a mystery,
but which is simply an absurd invention for the purpose of putting
justice off the track, he must take the consequences. Before our
interview was ended it occurred to me to ask him whether he intended
to persist in a concealment of his so-called mystery. He considered a
little, and said that he would speak of it to one person, and to one
person only. Upon that I inquired the name of the person, saying that
I would seek him and send him to the prisoner. Emilius refused to
mention the name of the person. Another mystery. As you may imagine,
this did not dispose me more favourably towards him, and I left him to
his meditations."
"Having," said Doctor Louis, "a thorough belief in his guilt."
"There is not a shadow of doubt in my mind," said the magistrate.
"You once entertained an esteem for him."
"True; but it only serves to prove how little we really know of each
other. This mask that we wear, and which even in private we seldom
remove, hides so much!"
"So much that is evil?"
"That is my meaning."
"You are growing pessimistic," said Doctor Louis sadly.
"Late events and a larger experience are driving me in that
direction," replied the magistrate.
"Have you any objection to granting me a private interview with
Emilius?"
"None whatever. You have but to name your own time."
"May Mr. Carew see him also?"
"If he wishes."
In this conversation Gabriel Carew had borne no share. This was due to
an absolute fairness on Carew's part. Prejudiced as he was against
Emilius, he was aware that he could say nothing in favour of the
accused, and he did not wish to pain Doctor Louis by expressing what
he felt. When the magistrate left them, Doctor Louis said, "The one
person to whom Emilius is willing to confide is either you or myself."
To this view Gabriel Carew did not subscribe. In his remarks to Doctor
Louis he touched lightly but firmly upon the instinctive aversion
which, from the first, he and the brothers had felt towards each
other, and said that this aversion, on the part of Emilius, must have
been strengthened rather than modified by the opinions he had felt it
his duty to express with respect to Emilius's dealings with Patricia.
"But he behaved honourably to her," contended Doctor Louis, and
endeavoured to win Carew to a more favourable judgment of the unhappy
man. He was not successful.
"There are sentiments," said Carew, "which it would be folly to
struggle against. Emilius was always my enemy, and is still more so
now. If he wishes to see me I will go to him. Not otherwise."
Shortly afterwards Doctor Louis had an interview with Emilius.
"I thought you might come to me," said the prisoner, but he refused
the hand which Doctor Louis held out to him. "Not till I am free," he
said, "and pronounced innocent of this horrible charge."
"You will be--soon," said Doctor Louis with inward sinking, the
evidence was so black against Emilius.
"I scarcely dare to hope it," said Emilius gloomily. "A fatality dogs
our family. It destroyed my father and his brother; it has destroyed
Eric; it will destroy me."
"Under any circumstances," said Doctor Louis, not pursuing the theme,
"I should have endeavoured to see you, but there is a special reason
for my present visit. The magistrate by whom you have been examined
informed me that there is a certain matter in connection with this
deplorable event which you will disclose to one person only. Am I
he--and should you make the disclosure, is it likely to serve you?"
"I was not quite exact," said Emilius, "when I made that statement to
the magistrate, in answer to a question he put to me. There were,
indeed, two persons in my mind--but you are the first, by right."
"And the other--is it Gabriel Carew?"
"Yes, it is he--though I doubt whether he would come of his own free
will. He bears me no friendship."
"He is an honourable, upright man," said Doctor Louis. "Though you
have not been drawn to each other, as I hoped would be the case, I am
sure he would be willing to serve you if it were in his power."
"Does he believe me to be innocent?" Doctor Louis was silent. "Then
why should he be willing to serve me? You are mistaken. But it is not
of this I wish to speak. What I have to disclose will be received with
sympathy by you, who knew and loved my poor father, and who are
acquainted with all the particulars of his strange story. Related to
any other than yourself it would be regarded as the ravings of a
maniac, or as a wild and impotent invention to help me to freedom. For
this reason I held my tongue in the presence of the magistrate."
"Before hearing it," said Doctor Louis, "I ought to say that, though I
am groping in the dark, I can understand dimly why you would not
confide in an officer of the law. But I cannot understand why you
should be willing to confide in Gabriel Carew. I speak in the light of
your belief that Carew bears you no friendship."
"I cannot explain myself to you," said Emilius, "and should most
likely fail in the attempt with Mr. Carew. But there are promptings
which a man sometimes feels it a duty to obey, and this is one of
them. I perceive that you do not receive these apparent
inconsistencies with favour. It is natural. But reflect. Had you not,
through your close intimacy and almost brotherly friendship with my
father, been made familiar with his story--had it been related to you
as a stranger, would you not have received it with incredulity, would
you not have refused to believe it?" Doctor Louis nodded. "A wild
effort of imagination could alone have invented it--had it not
happened. But it was true, in the teeth of improbabilities and
inconsistencies. For his sake you will bear with me, for his sake you
will be indulgent and merciful to his unhappy son."
Doctor Louis was inexpressibly moved. He again offered Emilius his
hand, who again refused it.
"Circumstantial evidence," he said, "is so strong against me that I
fear I have played out my part in the active world. Should my fears be
confirmed, I shall ask you to render me an inestimable service.
Meanwhile, there is that which should not be concealed from you, my
father's dearest friend, and mine. It relates chiefly to the murder of
my brother. That part of my story which affects my wife, Patricia, may
be briefly passed over. I have known her for nearly five years, and
grew insensibly to love her. It is only lately that my poor Eric made
her acquaintanceship, and surrendered his heart to her. I should have
been frank with him; I should have spoken of my love for Patricia
instead of concealing it. It may be that it would not have averted his
doom and mine, for when men are pursued by an inexorable fate, there
are a thousand roads open for its execution. Why did I not go frankly
to Patricia's father, and ask him for his daughter's hand? It is a
question that may well be asked, but there is some difficulty in
answering it. Chiefly, I think, it was Patricia who guided me here,
and who desired to keep our love locked in our breasts. She feared her
father; he is a man of stern and fixed ideas, and, once resolved, is
difficult to move. His daughter, he declared, should marry in her own
station in life; never would he consent to her marrying a gentleman.
Patricia chose to consider me one, and had a genuine and honest dread
that her father would tear her from me if he discovered our love. I
did not argue with her; I simply agreed to all she said. We were
married in secret, at her wish; and when concealment was no longer
possible, we fled. This flight was not undertaken in haste; it was
discussed and deliberately planned. We hoped for her father's pardon
when he discovered that his intervention would be useless. I was for
an earlier revealment to Martin Hartog of his daughter's union with
me, but I yielded to Patricia's pleadings. She had a deep,
unconquerable fear of her father's curse. 'It would kill me,' she
said; and I believed it would.
"This is the end to which love has led us. I will speak now of my
brother Eric."