THE TRAGEDY AT THE SEA WALL
The dark, muffled figure of a man leaned against a section of the
old wall that edged the lake--the figure of a man who prayed with
all his soul that his vigil might be in vain. If she came, all was
over.
He was not armed. He had thrown his revolver away a week before. His
only desire now was to learn the extent of her duplicity. If she
obeyed the call of the letter then there could be no doubt that
she was coming at the call of the lover. His hands twitched and
he shivered as if with a dreadful chill. His heart was shouting a
warning to her, but his head was urging her to come and have done
with it all.
He was there early--long before the hour named in the decoy. His
eyes never left the sidewalk that ran past his own home, but a short
distance from the Drive. They stared without blinking across that
dark border, through the circle of light from the arc lamp and far
into the shadows of blackness beyond. It was very dark where he
stood. The lake had battered through the sea wall for many rods
at this particular point and no one ventured out beyond the bridle
path for fear of slipping down into the cavities that had been
washed out by the waves. His station was on the edge of the piles
of stone and cement that had been tossed up to await the pleasure
of the park commissioners.
For a while, he tried to take Jane's future into consideration,
but it was impossible to substitute anything before his own wrongs.
David Cable was not the kind of man who would go on living with a
faithless wife for the sake of appearances. He was not an apologist.
Time and circumstance and the power of true love would adjust the
affair of Jane and Graydon Bansemer. This was HIS affair. Time
could not adjust it for him.
At last he saw a woman's figure hurrying down the street. The wild,
eager hope that the light from the electric lamp would prove it
to be other than that of his wife was quickly dispelled. His worst
fears were true, His Frances--his wife of more than a score of
years, his pretty sweetheart through all those days, was false to
him! As he fell back against the wall something seemed to snap in
his breast; a groan of misery arose to his lips.
With eyes which saw red with rage and anguish, he watched
the hesitating approach of the woman. She stopped at the corner
and looked up and down the Drive, peering intently into the dark
shadows by the lake. The sky was overcast; no stars peeped through
its blackness. With uncertain, halting steps she crossed the boulevard,
still glancing about as if in search of someone. He moved forward
unconsciously, almost blindly, and she caught a glimpse of his tall,
dark figure. He was not unlike Bansemer in height and carriage. As
she drew near, his legs trembled and tears of despair flooded his
eyes.
A savage desire to grasp her by the throat and hurl her into the
waters beyond the break came over him with irresistible power. Then
came the pitiable collapse which conquered the murderous impulses
and left him weak and broken for the moment. With a sob he turned
and leaned upon the wall, his back to her, his face buried in his
tense arms--crushed, despised, dishonoured! Kill her? The horror of
it swept his brain clear for an instant. Kill his pretty Frances?
Kill Jane's mother? How could he think of it?
It was a long time before the wretched man knew that she was standing
close behind him and was speaking to him. The sound of her voice
came through the noise of his pounding heart as if it were far
away and gentle. But what was it that she was saying? Her voice
was angry, suppressed, condemning.
"You may take it or refuse it, just as you please," were the first
words his turbulent senses distinguished. "I can pay no more than
that for your silence. The other is impossible. I will not discuss
it again with you." She paused as if waiting for him to respond.
"To-night I shall tell my husband everything--the whole story. I
cannot endure the suspense any longer. I will not live in fear of
you another hour. My only reason for coming out here to-night is to
plead with you to spare your son and Jane. I am not asking anything
for myself. It would break Jane's heart if Graydon should refuse
to marry her. You must have a heart somewhere in that--" But the
words became jumbled in the ears of her listener. From time to time
his mind grasped such sentences as these, paralysing in their
bitterness: "I have the letters of adoption.... David will not believe
what you say.... He loves me and he loves Jane.... I am willing
to pay all that I have to keep it from Graydon and Jane.... But
I intend to tell my husband. I will not deceive him any longer....
He will understand even though he should hate me for it. He will
love Jane although she is not his own child."
David Cable seemed frozen to the spot. His brain was clearing; he
was grasping the full importance of every sentence that rushed from
her impassioned lips. The last appalling words fell like the blow
of a club in the hands of a powerful man. He was dazed, stunned,
senseless. It seemed to him that his breath had ceased to come and
that his whole body had turned to stone. His wide staring eyes saw
nothing ahead of him.
"Well, what have you to say?" she was demanding. "Why have you
asked me to come out here? You have my final answer. What have you
to say? Are you going to tell Graydon that Jane is not our child?
I must know."
"Not our child?" came from the palsied lips of David Cable, so
low and lifeless that the sound was lost in the swish of the water
below. The intermittent red signal in the lighthouse far out in the
lake blinked back at him, but to him it was a steady, vivid glare.
"Do you hear me? I have lied to my husband for the last time!"
There was almost a tone of victory in the voice, now. "Do you hear
me? You don't dare! David will not believe you--he will believe
my--"
A terrible oath choked back the hopeful words in the woman's throat.
Murder had come back into the man's heart.
"You lie!"
"David!"
"Yes, it's David! Liar! Whose child is she? Tell me?"
"David! David! For God's sake, hear me! There was no wrong, I swear
it!"
"She's not my child and there's no wrong!" The sardonic laugh that
followed was that of a raging maniac. "You've fooled me, you fiend!
You devil!"
At that word and with one look at her husband's terribly distorted
features, Frances Cable shrank back with a single terrified cry,
turned from him and fled madly for her life. With the spring of the
wild beast, Cable rushed after her, cursing her with every breath.
In a few yards he had almost reached her, his hands outstretched
to grasp her neck. But, at that instant, the frightened woman's
strength suddenly gave way; her knees received the fall of the limp
body. For a second she seemed huddled in a posture of prayer, then
toppled over, slipped easily forward through a fissure in the wall
and plunged headforemost into the chugging waters below.
In the lives even of the best of men there are moments when the
human instincts are annihilated and supplanted by those of the
beast. Likewise, have there been instances in which the bravest
have been tried in the furnace and found wanting, while conversely,
the supposedly cowards have proved to be heroes. Therefore, since
no two situations can occur at a different time and yet have precisely
similar conditions, it behooves us to forbear judging, lest we be
judged, and to approach the following incident in this man's career
as if we ourselves dwelt under a covering of glass.
From the time of his marriage up to this moment no man could have
fought better the bitter struggle of life than David Cable; yet,
now, in this hour--his hour of travail and temptation, he piteously
succumbed. Cowardice, the most despicable of all emotions, held
him in her grasp.
He sank exhausted against the wall, his eyes fixed upon the black
hole through which his wife had disappeared; then, the stony glare
changed suddenly to a look of realisation--horrible, stupefying.
He crept to the edge and peered intently into the water, not six
feet below, his eyes starting from his head.
Black, sobbing water, darkness impenetrable! The instinctive fear
of apprehension caused him to look in every direction for possible
eye-witnesses. Every drop of blood in his body seemed turned to ice
with horror. Down there in that black, chill water lay the body of
his wife, the woman he had loved through all these trying years,
and he her murderer!
Terrified, trembling, panting, he tried to force himself into the
water with the vague hope of saving her, after all; but even as
he looked wildly about for help, a shout ready to spring from his
dry throat, the natural dread of the accused facing his accuser
took possession of him. Fear, abject fear, held him in grasp; he
could not shout.
A man was running across the drive towards him--a long loping figure
that covered the ground rapidly. With a last horrified look in the
water, David Cable, craven for the moment, turned and fled through
the night along the broken sea wall--fled aimlessly, his eyes
unseeing, his feet possessed of wings. He knew not whither he ran,
only that he was an assassin fleeing from the horrors behind.
Over the narrow strip of ground sped the long, eager figure that had
darted from the shadow of the homes across the street. In hoarse,
raucous tones he shouted after the fleeing man:
"Stop! Wait! Halt!"
He dashed up to the spot where he had seen two figures but a moment
before, the full horror of what had happened striking him for the
first time. The man was Elias Droom, and he had been an eye-witness
to the dim, indistinct tragedy at the sea wall.
His presence is easily explained. He knew of Bansemer's telephone
message to Mrs. Cable, together with his threat to expose her on
the following morning. It was only natural that she should make a
final plea---that night, of course. The old clerk realised the danger
of an encounter between his employer and his victim at a time so
intense as this. He could not know that Bansemer would visit the
Cable home that evening, but he suspected that such would be the
case. It was his duty to prevent the meeting, if possible.
Bansemer would go too far, argued the old man; he must be stopped.
That is why he lurked in the neighbourhood to turn Bansemer back
before he could enter the home of David Cable.
He saw Mrs. Cable leave the house and go towards the lake. Following
some distance behind he saw her cross the Drive and make her way
to the sea wall. Slinking along in the shadow of the buildings,
cursing his luck and Bansemer jointly, he saw the two forms come
together out there by the lake.
"Too late, curse him for a fool," Droom had muttered to himself.
"He ought to know this is bad business just now. She's come out to
meet him, too. Worse. It's my duty to look out for him as long as
he employs me. I'm doing my best and I can't help it if he betrays
himself. I'd like to see him--but I can't go back on him while I'm
taking money from him. Look at that!"
He chuckled softly as he saw the two figures approach each other.
For all that he knew they might be contemplating a fond and loving
embrace, and he was not undeceived until he saw one of the figures
separate itself, run from the other and go plunging to the earth.
As he started up in surprise, the other figure leaned forward and
then straightened itself quickly. Droom did not hesitate. He dashed
across the street, conscious that something dreadful had happened.
His instant thought was that Bansemer had lost his temper and had
struck the woman down.
The flight of the man was proof positive. He called him to stop,
certain that it was Bansemer. The runner turned his face towards
him for a moment. The light from the street may have deceived Elias
Droom's eyes, but the face of the assailant was not that of James
Bansemer. Droom stopped short and looked after the man, paralysed
with amazement. Then he gave a snorting laugh at his own stupidity;
of course, it was Bansemer. Who else could it be?
Arriving at the spot where he had last seen the couple, he was
amazed to find no one there. He realised, with horror, that the
woman must have been struck down; had fallen or had been thrown
into the lake.
The gaunt old clerk groaned bitterly as he threw himself upon the
wall and peered over into the water. He listened for the cries and
struggles of the woman. Gradually his eyes solved the situation.
He saw the row of piles beyond the break in the sea wall and the
swishing pool inside. Every incoming wave sent a flood of water
between the sturdy posts and into the cut of the wall.
Without a moment's hesitation he dropped into this seething prison,
confident that the woman's body could be found there. A single
glance had shown him that he could crawl upward through the break
to safety and he knew that the water below was not dangerously
deep.
A minute later he was scrambling out of this angry, icy water, up
through the fissure, bearing in his long arms the inert form of
Frances Cable. He had found her half-submerged in the pool, every
sweep of the waves through the sieve-like posts covering her
completely.
He dropped the body on the ground after reaching the level and
took a quick shuddering glance about. Two men had stopped on the
opposite of the Drive. He hesitated a second and then shouted to
them. They stood stockstill in alarm. Before they could respond to
his second shout, Elias Droom was tearing the woman's watch from
her belt and the rings from her fingers. His strong, nervous hands
found the necklace that she wore and it broke beneath their sudden
jerk. Cunningly he tossed the necklace upon the ground and trampled
it with his heel. The watch and rings went flying across the wall
and far out into the lake.
"This woman has been slugged!" he shouted. He did not know how
much of the tragedy these men had witnessed. Boldness was his cue
for the moment; stealth could follow later. "She's been in the
water. I'm afraid it's murder. The man who did it went that way.
Yell for the police!"
If the assailant was James Bansemer, Droom was doing his duty by
him. If it was another, he was doing his duty by society.