THE MYSTERY
It was many days before all the bits of this strange puzzle were put
together and the full truth revealed. As the condition of the invalid
improved his memory returned to him. This wonderful effect of the
operation on his skull was noticeable first in the recollection of
trifles and disconnected events in his life. Usually he got these
confused at first but each item in the marvelous catalogue of the brain
was finally put in its right place.
His piecing together the events of his life was like the gathering up of
the broken pieces of a bowl and the successful reconstruction of it by
patiently fitting in the fragments here and there. It was a marvel and a
delight to the scouts who visited him constantly, to watch him searching
for things in the darkness, as one might say, and bringing them home to
patch together the broken picture of his past.
But how came that injury, discovered by the merest chance, which had
wrapped his early life in a blackness like the blackness of night?
Haskell never told of this connectedly, for he could neither speak of it
or think of it without becoming greatly agitated. And that tragic
occurrence was never made known to his aged mother.
But these were the facts which were gradually brought into the light.
Joe Haskell and his brother had been twins. Long before their father
died Bob Haskell had done much to bring shame and worry to the veteran
who had fought in the confederate cause, and whose end was hastened by
his dishonest, worthless son.
Hicksville proved too small for this enterprising scamp who, after
rifling the cash drawer in the railroad station, withdrew from these
scenes of limited opportunity to spread his wings in the great
metropolis of New York.
Joe and his mother never heard of him again. The stunted affections and
criminal tendencies of the one son seemed compensated for in the other,
who remained the dutiful and loving companion and support of his mother
until the great war called him. He received his training at a southern
camp and was later transferred to Camp Merritt, which was an embarkation
camp. Had it not been for a certain occurrence he would have sailed with
the swarms of boys who went across in the spring and summer of 1918. But
he never went to France.
On a pleasant Sunday morning in April of that year, Joe Blythe started
for Woodcliff to dine at the home of a family he did not know--the home
and family of Miss Bates. As we know, he never reached that hospitable
roof. We do know, however, that in an isolated shack in the woods not
far from camp were found his wallet containing his leave of absence, an
unmailed letter to his mother, and Miss Bates' card.
How came he to that shack? It was in a bypath sometimes followed by
soldiers, he said. He said he paused there to get out of a shower. This
statement was at least partly verified by the authorities who secured
reports that it did rain on that day.
Joe Blythe said that in that shack he met his brother, shabby,
desperate. Did the brother know that Joe was a soldier in the camp? Very
likely. Was he lying in wait for him in that secluded spot? That also
seems probable. That his brother attacked him, hitting him with an old
sash-weight, is certain. Who shall say what actually transpired between
these brothers in that lonely spot?
But the proven facts of Bob Haskell's career are these. He escaped from
Canada after committing burglary and a brutal murder. He tried at one
American recruiting station after another to find safety in military
service, and was rejected as unfit wherever he applied.
Neither Joe nor anyone else knows what was in the mind of this
defective, desperate, frantic wretch when he sought the neighborhood of
Camp Merritt. No one knows whether the horrible plan which he executed
had been previously conceived.
But this is certain, that he struck his brother on the head and laid him
low and took from him not only his uniform but his memory as well. One
thing he did not take, because he did not want it, and that was a little
trinket containing their mother's picture which Joe had always worn.
We may picture Joe Haskell lying in that dank, musty shack, bleeding,
unconscious, for hours. How long he lay there no man shall say. We may
picture him wandering forth, in an ill-fitting suit of civilian clothes,
demented, broken, dazed. Of his wanderings, likewise, who shall tell the
full truth? He visited a place called Blytheville and took the name of
Blythe. He visited great cities, so he said. He was in the west. He was
in jail for vagrancy. He watched some cows for a farmer. He remembered
nothing of his past. He was sheltered by the Salvation Army somewhere.
He was a wanderer over the country.
And so in time he wandered to New York. There he fell in with men who
were interested in demolishing the old camp. Probably they had no faith
in him. They did not reckon that he would fall in with a troop of scouts
who, in the good cause of pitying friendship, would make the old shacks
of the deserted reservation echo to the sound of their saws and hammers,
and the music of their merry laughter.
And the brother?
April in the terrible year of 1918 was the month of all months when
troops were sent abroad by the thousands, half equipped, untrained, as
fast as the speeding transports could carry them. It was a time of
weakening hope, of misgivings, of confusion and frantic hurry. Men, men,
men, whether they were soldiers or not, so only that they were men! Few
know of the frenzied haste in the embarkation camp those days. Few will
ever realize how near the war came to being lost.
For Bob Haskell there was no returning consciousness and only the silent
records of the War Department could speak for him, reporting his supreme
sacrifice under a name but a part of which was his own. That he lived in
camp as his brother for at least a few hours in that time of
unquestioning rush and inevitable disorder seems probable enough. That
he fell in the fighting, under the name of Joseph Haskell, we know.
So at least the uniform which he stole was not dishonored. And since he
paid for his crime with his own life, and in the way that he preferred,
may we not follow his brother's good example and let his checkered
memory rest in peace? Joe never told his mother more than this, that it
must have been his brother who was killed in France. She never knew who
struck him down.
Another episode is not so easily explained, for it is bound up with Joe
Haskell's mental condition while he was with the scouts. That is the
episode of the windmill. About that he seemed to remember but little. No
doubt the calling of the voice which he thought was his mother's was a
pure hallucination. It was like a little flash of light in his darkness.
Yet it might have been that the peculiar sounds aroused certain
memories.
One very strange fact, however, is certain, and that is that he did find
the trinket with his mother's picture on that lonely, wind-swept tower.
The voice which had called him had not mocked and deceived him. How came
that little trinket there?
The only answer that we have to this question is the theory of Pee-wee
Harris, wearer of the stalking badge, and, as his very nickname shows,
the friend of birds. He claimed that a wren, or one of the mischievous,
pilfering birds of that group had carried the locket to its nest in the
old windmill. It is true that certain birds carry such glittering
trifles to their nests and it is well known that wrens forage in old
buildings and often build in windmills. There were a few wisps of straw
to give color to Pee-wee's ingenious theory.
But when it comes to building, Pee-wee himself is a master builder of
castles in the air.
And there you are.