hear you say that. I was purposely careful not to lay emphasis on the
facts you allude to. I wished you to draw your own inferences, without
any aid from me. The police did find traces of a second horse and
cutter having passed through the club-house grounds. It was snowing
hard, and these traces were speedily obliterated, but Hexford and
Clarke saw them in time to satisfy themselves that they extended from
the northern clump of trees to the upper gateway where they took the
direction of the Hill.”
“That is not all. A grip-sack, packed for travelling, was in Mr.
Ranelagh’s cutter, showing that his story of an intended journey was
not without some foundation.”
“Yes. We have retained that grip-sack. It is not the only proof we
have of his intention to leave the city for a while. He had made other
arrangements, business arrangements--But that’s neither here nor there.
No one doubts that he planned an elopement with the beautiful Carmel;
the question is, was his disappointment followed by the murder of the
woman who stood in his way?”
District Attorney Fox (you will have guessed his identity before now)
took his time, deliberating carefully with himself before venturing
to reply. Then when the coroner’s concealed impatience was about to
disclose itself, he quietly remarked:
“I suppose that no conclusion can be drawn from the condition of the
body when our men reached it. I judge that it was still warm.”
“Yes, but so it would have been if she had met her fate several minutes
earlier than was supposed. Clarke and Hexford differ about the length
of time which intervened between the moment when the former looked into
the room from the outside and that of their final entrance. But whether
it was five minutes or ten, the period was long enough to render their
testimony uncertain as to the exact length of time she had lain there
dead. Had I been there--But it’s useless to go into that. Let us take
up something more tangible.”
“Very good. Here it is. Of the six bottles of spirits which were
surreptitiously taken from the club-house’s wine-vault, four were found
standing unopened on the kitchen table. Where are the other two?”
“That’s it! That’s the question I have put myself ever since I
interrogated the steward and found him ready to swear to the
correctness of his report and the disappearance of these two bottles.
Ranelagh did not empty them, or the bottles themselves would have been
found somewhere about the place. Now, who did?”
“No one within the club-house precincts. They were opened and emptied
elsewhere. There’s our clew and if the man you’ve got up from New York
is worth his salt, he has his task ready to hand.”
“A hard task for a stranger--and such a stranger! Not very
prepossessing, to say the least. But he has a good eye, and will get
along with the boys all right. Nothing assertive about him; not enough
go, perhaps. Would you like to see him?”
“In a moment. I want to clear my mind in reference to these bottles.
Only some one addicted to drink would drag those six bottles out of
that cold, unlighted cellar.”
“Yes, and a connoisseur at that. The two missing bottles held the
choicest brand in the whole stock. They were kept far back too--hidden,
as it were, behind the other bottles. Yet they were hauled to the front
and carried off, as you say, and by some one who knows a good thing in
spirits.”
“What was in the four bottles found on the kitchen table?”
“Sherry, whiskey, and rum. Two bottles of rum and one each of sherry
and whiskey.”
“The thief meant to carry them all off, but had not time.”
“The _gentleman_ thief! No common man such as we are looking for,
would make choice of just those bottles. So there we are again!
Contradictions in every direction.”
“Don’t let us bother with the contradictions, but just follow the clew.
Those bottles, full or empty, must be found. You know the labels?”
“Yes, and the shape and colour of the bottles, both of which are
peculiar.”
“Good! Now let us see your detective.”
But Sweetwater was not called in yet. Just as Coroner Perry offered to
touch his bell, the door opened and Mr. Clifton was ushered in. Well
and favourably known to both men, he had no difficulty in stating his
business and preferring his request.
“I am here in the interests of Elwood Ranelagh,” said he. “He is
willing to concede, and so am I, that under the circumstances his
arrest was justifiable, but not his prolonged detention. He has
little excuse to offer for the mistakes he has made, or the various
offences of which he has been guilty. His best friends must condemn his
hypocrisy and fast-and-loose treatment of Miss Cumberland; but he vows
that he had no hand in her violent death, and in this regard I feel not
only bound but forced to believe him. At all events, I am going to act
on that conviction, and have come here to entreat your aid in clearing
up one or two points which may affect your own opinion of his guilt.
“As his counsel I have been able to extract from him a fact or two
which he has hitherto withheld from the police. Reticent as he has
shown himself from the start,--and considering the character of the two
women involved in this tragedy, this cannot be looked upon as entirely
to his discredit,--he has confided to me a circumstance, which in
the excitement attendant on Miss Carmel Cumberland’s sudden illness,
may have escaped the notice of the family and very naturally, of the
police. It is this:
“The ring which Miss Cumberland wore as the sign and seal of her
engagement to him was not on her hand when he came upon her, as he
declares he did, dead. It was there at dinner-time--a curious ring
which I have often noted myself and could accurately describe if
required. If she took it off before starting for The Whispering Pines,
it should be easily found. But if she did not, what a clew it offers to
her unknown assailant! Up till now, Mr. Ranelagh has been anticipating
receiving this ring back in a letter, written before she left her home.
But he has heard of no such letter, and doubts now if you have. May I
ask if he is correct in this surmise?”
“We know of no such letter. None has come to his rooms,” replied the
coroner.
“I thought not. The whereabouts of this ring, then, is still to be
determined. You will pardon my having called your attention to it.
As Mr. Ranelagh’s legal adviser, I am very anxious to have that ring
found.”
“We are glad to receive your suggestion,” replied the district
attorney. “But you must remember that some of its force is lost by its
having originated with the accused.”
“Very true; but Mr. Ranelagh was only induced to speak of this matter
after I had worked with him for an hour. There is a mystery in his
attitude which I, for one, have not yet fathomed. You must have noticed
this also, Coroner Perry? Your inquest, when you hold it, will reveal
some curious facts; but I doubt if it will reveal the secret underlying
this man’s reticence. That we shall have to discover for ourselves.”
“He has another secret, then, than the one involving his arrest as a
suspected murderer?” was the subtle conclusion of the district attorney.
“Yes, or why does he balk so at the simplest inquiries? I have my
notion as to its nature; but I’m not here to express notions unless you
call my almost unfounded belief in him a notion. What I want to present
to you is fact, and fact which can be utilised.”
“In the cause of your client!”
“Which is equally the cause of justice.”
“Possibly. We’ll search for the ring, Mr. Clifton.”
“Meanwhile, will you cast your eye over these fragments of a note which
Mr. Ranelagh says he received from Miss Carmel Cumberland while waiting
on the station platform for her coming.”
Taking an envelope from his pocket, Mr. Clifton drew forth two small
scraps of soiled and crumpled paper, one of which was the half of
another envelope presenting very nearly the following appearance:
As he pointed this out, he remarked:
“Elwood is not so common a baptismal name, that there can be any doubt
as to the person addressed.”
The other scraps, also written in pencil and by the same hand,
contained but two or three disconnected words; but one of those words
was _Adelaide_.
“I spent an hour and a half in the yards adjoining the station before
I found those two bits,” explained the young lawyer with a simple
earnestness not displeasing to the two seasoned men he addressed.
“One was in hiding under a stacked-up pile of outgoing freight, and
the other I picked out of a cart of stuff which had been swept up in
the early morning. I offer them in corroboration of Mr. Ranelagh’s
statement that the ‘_Come!_’ used in the partially consumed letter
found in the clubhouse chimney was addressed to Miss Carmel Cumberland
and not to Adelaide, and that the place of meeting suggested by this
word was the station platform, and not the spot since made terrible by
death.”
“You are acquainted with Miss Carmel Cumberland’s handwriting?”
“If I am not, the town is full of people who are. I believe these words
to have been written by Carmel Cumberland.”
Mr. Fox placed the pieces back in their envelope and laid the whole
carefully away.
“For a second time we are obliged to you,” said he.
“You can cancel the obligation,” was the quick retort, “by discovering
the identity of the man who in derby hat and a coat with a very high
collar, left the grounds of The Whispering Pines just as Mr. Ranelagh
drove into them. I have no facilities for the job, and no desire to
undertake it.”
He had endeavoured to speak naturally, if not with an off-hand air; but
he failed somehow--else why the quick glance of startled inquiry which
Dr. Perry sent him from under his rather shaggy eyebrows.
“Well, we’ll undertake that, too,” promised the district attorney.
“I can ask no more,” returned Charles Clifton, arising to depart. “The
confronting of that man with Ranelagh will cause the latter to unseal
his lips. Before you have finished with my client, you will esteem him
much more highly than you do now.”
The district attorney smiled at what seemed the callow enthusiasm of
a youthful lawyer; but the coroner who knew his district well, looked
very thoughtfully down at the table before which he sat, and failed
to raise his head until the young man had vanished from the room and
his place had been taken by another of very different appearance and
deportment. Then he roused himself and introduced the newcomer to
the prosecuting attorney as Caleb Sweetwater, of the New York police
department.
Caleb Sweetwater was no beauty. He was plain-featured to the point
of ugliness; so plain-featured that not even his quick, whimsical
smile could make his face agreeable to one who did not know his many
valuable qualities. His receding chin and far too projecting nose
were not likely to create a favourable impression on one ignorant of
his cheerful, modest, winsome disposition; and the district attorney,
after eyeing him for a moment with ill-concealed disfavour, abruptly
suggested:
“You have brought some credentials with you, I hope.”
“Here is a letter from one of the department. Mr. Gryce wrote it,” he
added, with just a touch of pride.
“The letter is all right,” hastily remarked Dr. Perry on looking it
over. “Mr. Sweetwater is commended to us as a man of sagacity and
becoming reserve.”
“Very good. To business, then. The sooner we get to work on this new
theory, the better. Mr. Sweetwater, we have some doubts if the man we
have in hand is the man we really want. But first, how much do you know
about this case?”
“All that’s in the papers.”
“Nothing more?”
“Very little. I’ve not been in town above an hour.”
“Are you known here?”
“I don’t think so; it’s my first visit this way.”
“Then you are as ignorant of the people as they are of you. Well, that
has its disadvantages.”
“And its advantages, if you will permit me to say so, sir. I have no
prejudices, no preconceived notions to struggle against. I can take
persons as I find them; and if there is any deep family secret to
unearth, it’s mighty fortunate for a man to have nothing stand in the
way of his own instincts. No likings, I mean--no leanings this way or
that, for humane or other purely unprofessional reasons.”
The eye of District Attorney Fox stole towards that of his brother
official, but did not meet it. The coroner had turned his attention
to the table again, and, while betraying no embarrassment, was not
quite his usual self. The district attorney’s hand stole to his chin,
which he softly rubbed with his lean forefinger as he again addressed
Sweetwater.
“This tragedy--the most lamentable which has ever occurred in this
town--is really, and without exaggeration, a tragedy in high life. The
lady who was strangled by a brute’s clutch, was a woman of the highest
culture and most estimable character. Her sister, who is supposed
to have been the unconscious cause of the crime, is a young girl of
blameless record. Of the man who was seen bending over the victim with
his hands on her throat, we cannot speak so well. He has the faults
and has lived the life of a social favourite. Gifted in many ways, and
popular with both men and women, he has swung on his course with an
easy disregard of the claims of others, which, while leaving its traces
no doubt in many a humble and uncomplaining heart, did not attract
notice to his inherent lack of principle, until the horrors of this
tragedy lifted him into public view stripped of all his charms. He’s
an egotist, of the first water; there is no getting over that. But did
he strangle the woman? He says not; that he was only following some
extraordinary impulse of the moment in laying his thumbs on the marks
he saw on Miss Cumberland’s neck. A fantastic story--told too late,
besides, for perfect credence, and not worthy of the least attention
if--”
The reasons which followed are too well known to us for repetition.
Sweetwater listened with snapping eyes to all that was said; and
when he had been given the various clews indicating the presence of
a third--and as yet unknown--party on the scene of crime, he rose
excitedly to his feet and, declaring that it was a most promising case,
begged permission to make his own investigations at The Whispering
Pines, after which he would be quite ready to begin his search for the
man in the derby hat and high coat-collar, whose love for wine was so
great that he chose and carried off the two choicest bottles that the
club-house contained.
“A hardy act for any man, gentleman or otherwise, who had just
strangled the life out of a fine woman like that. If he exists and the
whole story is not a pure fabrication of the entrapped Ranelagh, he
shouldn’t be hard to find. What do you say, gentlemen? He shouldn’t be
hard to find.”
“_We_ have not found him,” emphasised the district attorney, with the
shortest possible glance at the coroner’s face.
“Then the field is all before me,” smiled Sweetwater. “Wish me luck,
gentlemen. It’s a blind job, but that’s just in my line. A map of the
town, a few general instructions, and I’m off.”
Mr. Fox turned towards the coroner, and opened his lips; but closed
them again without speaking. Did Sweetwater notice this act of
self-restraint? If he did, he failed to show it.
X
“I CAN HELP YOU”
A subtle knave; a finder out of occasions;
That has an eye can stamp and counterfeit
Advantages though true advantage never presents
Itself; A devilish knave!
_Othello_.
A half hour spent with Hexford in and about the club-house, and
Sweetwater was ready for the road. As he made his way through the
northern gate, he cast a quick look back at the long, low building he
had just left, with its tall chimneys and rows of sightless windows,
half hidden, half revealed by the encroaching pines. The mystery of
the place fascinated him. To his awakened imagination, there was a
breathless suggestion in it--a suggestion which it was his foremost
wish, just now, to understand.
And those pines--gaunt, restless, communicative! ready with their
secret, if one could only interpret their language. How their heads
came together as their garrulous tongues repeated the tale, which would
never grow old to them until age nipped their hoary heads and laid them
low in the dust, with their horror half expressed, their gruesome tale
unfinished.
“Witnesses of it all,” commented the young detective as he watched
the swaying boughs rising and dipping before a certain window. “They
were peering into that room long before Clarke stole the glimpse which
has undone the unfortunate Ranelagh. If I had their knowledge, I’d do
something more than whisper.”
Thus musing, thus muttering, he plodded up the road, his insignificant
figure an unpromising break in the monotonous white of the wintry
landscape. But could the prisoner who had indirectly speeded this young
detective on his present course, have read his thoughts and rightly
estimated the force of his purpose, would he have viewed with so much
confidence the entrance of this unprepossessing stranger upon the
no-thoroughfare into which his own carefully studied admissions had
blindly sent him?
As has been said before, this road was an outlying one and but little
travelled save in the height of summer. Under ordinary circumstances
Sweetwater would have met not more than a half-dozen carts or sledges
between the club-house gates and the city streets. But to-day, the road
was full of teams carrying all sorts of incongruous people, eager for
a sight of the spot made forever notorious by a mysterious crime. He
noted them all; the faces of the men, the gestures of the women; but he
did not show any special interest till he came to that portion of the
road where the long line of half-buried fences began to give way to a
few scattered houses. Then his spirit woke, and he became quick, alert,
and persuasive. He entered houses; he talked with the people. Though
evidently not a dissipated man, he stopped at several saloons, taking
his time with his glass and encouraging the chatter of all who chose to
meet his advances. He was a natural talker and welcomed every topic,
but his eye only sparkled at one. This he never introduced himself;
he did not need to. Some one was always ready with the great theme;
and once it was started, he did not let the conversation languish till
every one present had given his or her quota of hearsay or opinion to
the general fund.
It seemed a great waste of time, for nobody had anything to say worth
the breath expended on it. But Sweetwater showed no impatience, and
proceeded to engage the attention of the next man, woman, or child he
encountered with undiminished zest and hopefulness.
He had left the country road behind, and had entered upon the jumble
of sheds, shops, and streets which marked the beginnings of the town
in this direction, when his quick and experienced eye fell on a woman
standing with uncovered head in an open doorway, peering up the street
in anxious expectation of some one not yet in sight. He liked the air
and well-kept appearance of the woman; he appreciated the neatness of
the house at her back and gauged at its proper value the interest she
displayed in the expected arrival of one whom he hoped would delay
that arrival long enough for him to get in the word which by this time
dropped almost unconsciously from his lips.
But a second survey of the woman’s face convinced him that his ordinary
loquaciousness would not serve him here. There was a refinement in
her aspect quite out of keeping with the locality in which she lived,
and he was hesitating how to proceed, when fortune favoured him by
driving against his knees a small lad on an ill-directed sled, bringing
him almost to the ground and upsetting the child who began to scream
vociferously.
It was the woman’s child, for she made instantly for the gate which,
for some reason, she found difficulty in opening. Sweetwater, seeing
this, blessed his lucky stars. He was at his best with children, and
catching the little fellow up, he soothed and fondled him and finally
brought him with such a merry air of triumph straight to his mother’s
arms, that confidence between them was immediately established and
conversation started.
He had in his pocket an ingenious little invention which he had
exhibited all along the road as an indispensable article in every
well-kept house. He wanted to show it to her, but it was too cold a day
for her to stop outside. Wouldn’t she allow him to step in and explain
how her work could be materially lessened and her labour turned to play
by a contrivance so simple that a child could run it?
It was all so ridiculous in face of this woman’s quiet intelligence,
that he laughed at his own words, and this laughter, echoed by the
child and in another instant by the mother, made everything so pleasant
for the moment that she insensibly drew back while he pulled open the
gate, only remarking, as she led the way in:
“I was looking for my husband. He may come any minute and I’m afraid he
won’t care much about contrivances to save me work--that is, if they
cost very much.”
Sweetwater, whose hand was in his pocket, drew it hastily out.
“You were watching for your husband? Do you often stand in the open
doorway, looking for him?”
Her surprised eyes met his with a stare that would have embarrassed the
most venturesome book agent, but this man was of another ilk.
“If you do,” he went on imperturbably, but with a good-humoured smile
which deepened her favourable impression of him, “how much I would give
if you had been standing there last Tuesday night when a certain cutter
and horse went by on its way up the hill.”
She was a self-contained woman, this wife of a master mechanic in one
of the great shops hard by; but her jaw fell at this, and she forgot to
chide or resist her child when he began to pull her towards the open
kitchen door.
Sweetwater, sensitive to the least change in the human face, prayed
that the husband might be detained, if only for five minutes longer,
while he, Sweetwater, worked this promising mine.
“You _were_ looking out,” he ventured. “And you _did_ see that horse
and cutter. What luck! It may save a man’s life.”
“Save!” she repeated, staggering back a few steps and dragging the
child with her. “Save a man’s life! What do you mean by that?”
“Not much if it was any cutter and any horse, and at any hour. But if
it was the horse and cutter which left The Whispering Pines at ten or
half past ten that night, then it may mean life and death to the man
now in jail under the dreadful charge of murder.”
Catching up her child, she slid into the kitchen and sat down with it,
in the first chair she came to. Sweetwater following her, took up his
stand in the doorway, unobtrusive, but patiently waiting for her to
speak. The steaming kettles and the table set for dinner gave warning
of the expected presence for which she had been watching, but she
seemed to have forgotten her husband; forgotten everything but her own
emotions.
“Who are you?” she asked at length. “You have not told me your real
business.”
“No, madam, and I ask your pardon. I feared that my real business, if
suddenly made known to you, might startle, perhaps frighten you. I
am a detective on the look-out for evidence in the case I have just
mentioned. I have a theory that a most important witness in the same,
drove by here at the hour and on the night I have named. I want to
substantiate that theory. Can you help me?”
A sensitiveness to, and quick appreciation of, the character of those
he addressed was one of Sweetwater’s most valuable attributes. No
glossing of the truth, however skillfully applied, would have served
him with this woman so well as this simple statement, followed by its
equally simple and direct inquiry. Scrutinising him over the child’s
head, she gave but a casual glance at the badge he took pains to show
her, then in as quiet and simple tones as he had himself used, she made
this reply:
“I can help you some. You make it my duty, and I have never shrunk
from duty. A horse and cutter did go by here on its way uphill, last
Tuesday night at about eleven o’clock. I remember the hour because I
was expecting my husband every minute, just as I am now. He had some
extra work on hand that night which he expected to detain him till
eleven or a quarter after. Supper was to be ready at a quarter after.
To surprise him I had beaten up some biscuits, and I had just put them
in the pan when I heard the clock strike the hour. Afraid that he would
come before they were baked, I thrust the pan into the oven and ran
to the front door to look out. It was snowing very hard, and the road
looked white and empty, but as I stood there a horse and cutter came in
sight, which, as it reached the gate, drew up in a great hurry, as if
something was the matter. Frightened, because I’m always thinking of
harm to my husband whose work is very dangerous, I ran out bare-headed
to the gate, when I saw why the man in the sleigh was making me such
wild gestures. His hat had blown off, and was lying close up against
the fence in front of me. Anxious always to oblige, I made haste to
snatch at it and carry it out to its owner. I received a sort of thank
you, and would never have remembered the occurrence if it had not
been for that murder and if--” She paused doubtfully, ran her fingers
nervously over her child’s head, looked again at Sweetwater waiting
expectantly for her next word, and faltered painfully--“if I had not
recognised the horse.”
Sweetwater drew a deep breath; it was such a happy climax. Then, as she
showed no signs of saying more, asked as quietly as his rapidly beating
heart permitted:
“Didn’t you recognise the man?”
Her answer was short but as candid as her expression.
“No. The snow was blinding; besides he wore a high collar, in which his
head was sunk down almost out of sight.”
“But the horse--”
“Was one which is often driven by here. I had rather not tell you whose
it is. I have not told any one, not even my husband, about seeing it on
the road that night. I couldn’t somehow. But if it will save a man’s
life and make clear who killed that good woman, ask any one on the
Hill, in what stable you can find a grey horse with a large black spot
on his left shoulder, and you will know as much about it as I do. Isn’t
that enough, sir? Now, I must dish up my dinner.”
“Yes, yes; it’s almost enough. Just one question, madam. Was the hat
what folks call a derby? Like this one, madam,” he explained, drawing
his own from behind his back.
“Yes, I think so. As well as I can remember, it was like that. I’m
afraid I didn’t do it any good by my handling. I had to clutch it
quick and I’m sure I bent the brim, to say nothing of smearing it with
flour-marks.”
“How?” Sweetwater had started for the door, but stopped, all eagerness
at this last remark.
“I had been cutting out biscuits, and my hands were white with flour,”
she explained, simply. “But that brushes off easily; I don’t suppose it
mattered.”
“No, no,” he hastily assented. Then while he smiled and waved his hand
to the little urchin who had been his means of introduction to this
possibly invaluable witness, he made one final plea and that was for
her name.
“Eliza Simmons,” was the straightforward reply; and this ended the
interview.
The husband, whose anticipated approach had occasioned all this
abruptness, was coming down the hill when Sweetwater left the gate. As
this detective of ours was as careful in his finish as in all the rest
of his work, he called out as he went by:
“I’ve just been trying to sell a wonderful contrivance of mine to the
missus. But it was no go.”
The man looked, smiled, and went in at his own gate with the air of one
happy in wife, child, and home.
Sweetwater went on up the hill. Towards the top, he came upon a
livery-stable. Stopping in his good-humoured way, he entered into talk
with a man loitering inside the great door. Before he left him, he had
asked him these questions:
“Any grey horse in town?”
“Yes, _one_.”
“I think I’ve seen it--has a patch of black on its left shoulder.”
“Yes.”
“Whose is it? I’ve a mighty curiosity about the horse. Looks like a
trick horse.”
“I don’t know what you mean by that. It belongs to a respectable
family. A family you must have heard about if you ever heard anything.
There’s a funeral there to-day--”
“Not Miss Cumberland’s?” exclaimed Sweetwater, all agog in a moment.
“Yes, Miss Cumberland’s. I thought you might have heard the name.”
“Yes, I’ve heard it.”
The tone was dry, the words abrupt, but the detective’s heart was
dancing like a feather. The next turn he took was toward the handsome
residence district crowning the hill.
XI
IN THE COACH HOUSE
All things that we ordained festival
Turn from their office to black funeral;
Our instruments to melancholy bells;
Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast;
And all things change them to the contrary.
_Romeo and Juliet_.
Fifteen minutes later, he stood in a finely wooded street before an
open gateway guarded by a policeman. Showing his badge, he passed in,
and entered a long and slightly curved driveway. As he did so, he took
a glance at the house. It was not as pretentious as he expected, but
infinitely more inviting. Low and rambling, covered with vines, and
nestling amid shrubbery which even in winter gave it a habitable air,
it looked as much the abode of comfort as of luxury, and gave--in
outward appearance at least--no hint of the dark shadow which had so
lately fallen across it.
The ceremonies had been set for three o’clock, and it was now half past
two. As Sweetwater reached the head of the driveway, he saw the first
of a long file of carriages approaching up the street.
“Lucky that my business takes me to the stable,” thought he. “What is
the coachman’s name? I ought to remember it. Ah--Zadok! Zadok Brown.
There’s a combination for you!”
He had reached this point in his soliloquy (a bad habit of his, for
it sometimes took audible expression) when he ran against another
policeman set to guard the side door. A moment’s parley, and he left
this man behind; but not before he had noted this door and the wide and
hospitable verandah which separated it from the driveway.
“I am willing to go all odds that I shall find that verandah the most
interesting part of the house,” he remarked, in quiet conviction, to
himself, as he noted its nearness to the stable and the ease with which
one could step from it into a vehicle passing down the driveway.
It had another point of interest, or, rather the wing had to which
it was attached. As his eye travelled back across this wing, in his
lively walk towards the stable, he caught a passing glimpse of a
nurse’s face and figure in one of its upper windows. This located the
sick chamber, and unconsciously he hushed his step and moved with the
greatest caution, though he knew that this sickness was not one of the
nerves, and that the loudest sound would fail to reach ears lapsed in a
blessed, if alarming, unconsciousness.
Once around the corner, he resumed a more natural pace, and perceiving
that the stable-door was closed but that a window well up the garden
side was open, he cast a look towards the kitchen windows at his back,
and, encountering no watchful eye, stepped up to the former one and
peered in.
A man sat with his back to him, polishing a bit of harness. This was
probably Zadok, the coachman. As his interest was less with him than
with the stalls beyond, he let his eye travel on in their direction,
when he suddenly experienced a momentary confusion by observing the
head and shoulders of Hexford leaning towards him from an opposite
window--in much the same fashion, and certainly with exactly the same
intent, as himself. As their glances crossed, both flushed and drew
back, only to return again, each to his several peep-hole. Neither
meant to lose the advantage of the moment. Both had heard of the grey
horse and wished to identify it; Hexford for his own satisfaction,
Sweetwater as the first link of the chain leading him into the
mysterious course mapped out for him by fate. That each was more or
less under the surveillance of the other did not trouble either.
There were three stalls, and in each stall a horse stamped and
fidgeted. Only one held their attention. This was a mare on the
extreme left, a large grey animal with a curious black patch on its
near shoulder. The faces of both men changed as they recognised this
distinguishing mark, and instinctively their eyes met across the width
of the open space separating them. Hexford’s finger rose to his mouth,
but Sweetwater needed no such hint. He stood, silent as his own shadow,
while the coachman rubbed away with less and less purpose, until his
hands stood quite still and his whole figure drooped in irresistible
despondency. As he raised his face, moved perhaps by that sense of a
watchful presence to which all of us are more or less susceptible, they
were both surprised to see tears on it. The next instant he had started
to his feet and the bit of harness had rattled from his hands to the
floor.
“Who are you?” he asked, with a touch of anger, quite natural under the
circumstances. “Can’t you come in by the door, and not creep sneaking
up to take a man at disadvantage?”
As he spoke, he dashed away the tears with which his cheeks were still
wet.
“I thought a heap of my young mistress,” he added, in evident apology
for this display of what such men call weakness. “I didn’t know that it
was in me to cry for anything, but I find that I can cry for her.”
Hexford left his window, and Sweetwater slid from his; next minute they
met at the stable door.
“Had luck?” whispered the local officer.
“Enough to bring me here,” acknowledged the other.
“Do you mean to this house or to this stable?”
“To this stable.”
“Have you heard that the horse was out that night?”
“Yes, she was out.”
“Who driving?”
“Ah, that’s the question!”
“This man can’t tell you.”
A jerk of Hexford’s thumb in Zadok’s direction emphasised this
statement.
“But I’m going to talk to him, for all that.”
“He wasn’t here that night; he was at a dance. He only knows that the
mare was out.”
“But I’m going to talk to him.”
“May I come in, too? I’ll not interrupt. I’ve just fifteen minutes to
spare.”
“You can do as you please. I’ve nothing to hide--from you, at any rate.”
Which wasn’t quite true; but Sweetwater wasn’t a stickler for truth,
except in the statements he gave his superiors.
Hexford threw open the stable-door, and they both walked in. The
coachman was not visible, but they could hear him moving about above,
grumbling to himself in none too encouraging a way.
Evidently he was in no mood for visitors.
“I’ll be down in a minute,” he called out, as their steps sounded on
the hardwood floor.
Hexford sauntered over to the stalls. Sweetwater stopped near the
doorway and glanced very carefully about him. Nothing seemed to escape
his eye. He even took the trouble to peer into a waste-bin, and was
just on the point of lifting down a bit of broken bottle from an open
cupboard when Brown appeared on the staircase, dressed in his Sunday
coat and carrying a bunch of fresh, hot-house roses.
He stopped midway as Sweetwater turned towards him from the cupboard,
but immediately resumed his descent and was ready with his reply when
Hexford accosted him from the other end of the stable:
“An odd beast, this. They don’t drive her for her beauty, that’s
evident.”
“She’s fast and she’s knowing,” grumbled the coachman. “Reason enough
for overlooking her spots. Who’s that man?” he grunted, with a drop of
his lantern jaws, and a slight gesture towards the unknown interloper.
“Another of us,” replied Hexford, with a shrug. “We’re both rather
interested in this horse.”
“Wouldn’t another time do?” pleaded the coachman, looking gravely down
at the flowers he held. “It’s most time for the funeral and I don’t
feel like talking, indeed I don’t, gentlemen.”
“We won’t keep you.” It was Sweetwater who spoke. “The mare’s company
enough for us. She knows a lot, this mare. I can see it in her eye. I
understand horses; we’ll have a little chat, she and I, when you are
gone.”
Brown cast an uneasy glance at Hexford.
“He’d better not touch her,” he cautioned. “He don’t know the beast
well enough for that.”
“He won’t touch her,” Hexford assured him. “She does look knowing,
don’t she? Would like to tell us something, perhaps. Was out _that_
night, I’ve heard you say. Curious! How did you know it?”
“I’ve said and said till I’m tired,” Brown answered, with sudden heat.
“This is pestering a man at a very unfortunate time. Look! the people
are coming. I must go. My poor mistress! and poor Miss Carmel! I liked
’em, do ye understand? Liked ’em--and I do feel the trouble at the
house, I do.”
His distress was so genuine that Hexford was inclined to let him go;
but Sweetwater with a cock of his keen eye put in his word and held the
coachman where he was.
“The old gal is telling me all about it,” muttered this sly, adaptable
fellow. He had sidled up to the mare and their heads were certainly
very close together. “Not touch her? See here!” Sweetwater had his
arm round the filly’s neck and was looking straight into her fiery
and intelligent eye. “Shall I pass her story on?” he asked, with a
magnetic smile at the astonished coachman, which not only softened him
but seemed to give the watchful Hexford quite a new idea of this gawky
interloper.
“You’ll oblige _me_ if you can put her knowledge into words,” the man
Zadok declared, with one fascinated eye on the horse and the other on
the house where he evidently felt that his presence was wanted. “She
was out that night, and I know it, as any coachman would know, who
doesn’t come home stone drunk. But where she was and who took her, get
her to tell if you can, for I don’t know no more ’n the dead.”
“The dead!” flashed out Sweetwater, wheeling suddenly about and
pointing straight through the open stable-door towards the house where
the young mistress the old servant mourned, lay in her funeral casket.
“Do you mean her--the lady who is about to be buried? Could _she_ tell
if her lips were not sealed by a murderer’s hand?”
“She!” The word came low and awesomely. Rude and uncultured as the man
was, he seemed to be strangely affected by this unexpected suggestion.
“I haven’t the wit to answer that,” said he. “How can we tell what
she knew. The man who killed her is in jail. _He_ might talk to some
purpose. Why don’t you question him?”
“For a very good reason,” replied Sweetwater, with an easy good-nature
that was very reassuring. “He was arrested on the spot; so that it
wasn’t he who drove this mare home, unharnessed her, put her back in
her stall, locked the stable-door and hung up the key in its place in
the kitchen. Somebody else did _that_.”
“That’s true enough, and what does it show? That the mare was out on
some other errand than the one which ended in blood and murder,” was
the coachman’s unexpected retort.
“Is that so?” whispered Sweetwater into the mare’s cocked ear.
“She’s not quite ready to commit herself,” he drawled, with another
enigmatical smile at the lingering Zadok. “She’s keeping something
back. Are you?” he pointedly inquired, leaving the stalls and walking
briskly up to Zadok.
The coachman frowned and hastily retreated a step; but in another
moment he leaped in a rage upon Sweetwater, when the sight of the
flowers he held recalled him to himself and he let his hand fall again
with the quiet remark:
“You’re overstepping your dooty. I don’t know who you are or what you
want with me, but you’re overstepping your dooty.”
“He’s right,” muttered Hexford. “Better let the fellow go. See! one of
the maids is beckoning to him.”
“He shall go, and welcome, if he will tell me where he gets his taste
for this especial brand of whiskey.” Sweetwater had crossed to the
cupboard and taken down the lower half of the broken bottle which had
attracted his notice on his first entrance, and was now holding it out,
with a quizzical look at the departing coachman.
Hexford was at his shoulder with a spring, and together they inspected
the label still sticking to it--which was that of the very rare and
expensive spirit found missing from the club-house vault.
“This is a find,” muttered Hexford into his fellow detective’s ear.
Then, with a quick move towards Zadok, he shouted out:
“You’d better answer that question. Where did this bit of broken bottle
come from? They don’t give you whiskey like this to drink.”
“That they don’t,” muttered the coachman, not so much abashed as they
had expected. “And I wouldn’t care for it if they did. I found that bit
of bottle in the ash-barrel outside, and fished it out to put varnish
in. I liked the shape.”
“Broken this way?”
“Yes; it’s just as good.”
“Is it? Well, never mind, run along. We’ll close the stable-door for
you.”
“I’d rather do it myself and carry in the key.”
“Here then; we’re going to the funeral, too. You’d like to?” This
latter in a whisper to Sweetwater.
The answer was a fervent one. Nothing in all the world would please
this protean-natured man quite so well.
XII
“LILA--LILA!”
O, treble woe Fall ten times treble on that cursed head, Whose wicked
deed thy most ingenious sense Depriv’d thee of!--Hold off the earth
awhile, Till I have caught her once more in my arms.
_Hamlet_.
“Let us enter by the side door,” suggested Sweetwater, as the two moved
towards the house. “And be sure you place me where I can see without
being seen. I have no wish to attract attention to myself, or to be
identified with the police until the necessity is forced upon me.”
“Then we won’t go in together,” decided Hexford. “Find your own
place; you won’t have any difficulty. A crowd isn’t expected. Miss
Cumberland’s condition forbids it.”
Sweetwater nodded and slid in at the side door.
He found himself at once in a narrow hall, from the end of which opened
a large room. A few people were to be seen in this latter place, and
his first instinct was to join them; but finding that a few minutes yet
remained before the hour set for the services, he decided to improve
them by a rapid glance about this hall, which, for certain reasons
hardly as yet formulated in his own mind, had a peculiar interest for
him.
The most important object within view, according to his present
judgment, was the staircase which connected it with the floor above;
but if you had asked his reason for this conclusion, he would not have
told you, as Ranelagh might have done, that it was because it was the
most direct and convenient approach to Carmel Cumberland’s room. His
thoughts were far from this young girl, intimately connected as she
was with this crime; which shows through what a blind maze he was
insensibly working. With his finger on the thread which had been put
in his hand, he was feeling his way along inch by inch. It had brought
him to this staircase, and it led him next to a rack upon which hung
several coats and a gentleman’s hat.
He inspected the former and noted that one was finished with a high
collar; but he passed the latter by--it was not a derby. The table
stood next the rack, and on its top lay nothing more interesting than a
clothes-brush and one or two other insignificant objects; but, with his
memory for details, he had recalled the keys which one of the maids had
picked up somewhere about this house, and laid on a hall table. If this
were the hall and this the table, then was every inch of the latter’s
simple cloth-covered top of the greatest importance in his eyes.
He had no further time for even these cursory investigations; Hexford’s
step could be heard on the verandah, and Sweetwater was anxious to
locate himself before the officer came in. Entering the room before
him, he crossed to the small group clustered in its further doorway.
There were several empty chairs in sight; but he passed around them
all to a dark and inconspicuous corner, from which, without effort, he
could take in every room on that floor--from the large parlour in which
the casket stood, to the remotest region of the servants’ hall.
The clergyman had not yet descended, and Sweetwater had time to
observe the row of little girls sitting in front of the bearers, each
with a small cluster of white flowers in her hand. Miss Cumberland’s
Sunday-school class, he conjectured, and conjectured rightly. He also
perceived that some of these children loved her.
Near them sat a few relatives and friends. Among these was a very, very
old man, whom he afterwards heard was a great-uncle and a centenarian.
Between him and one of the little girls, there apparently existed a
strong sympathy; for his hand reached out and drew her to him when
the tears began to steal down her cheeks, and the looks which passed
between the two had all the appeal and all the protection of a great
love.
Sweetwater, who had many a soft spot in his breast, felt his heart
warm at this one innocent display of natural feeling in an assemblage
otherwise frozen by the horror of the occasion. His eyes dwelt
lingeringly on the child, and still more lingeringly on the old, old
man, before passing to that heaped-up mound of flowers, under which lay
a murdered body and a bruised heart. He could not see the face, but the
spectacle was sufficiently awe-compelling without that.
Would it have seemed yet more so, had he known at whose request the
huge bunch of lilies had been placed over that silent heart?
The sister sick, the brother invisible, there was little more to hold
his attention in this quarter; so he let it roam across the heads
of the people about him, to the distant hall communicating with the
kitchen.
Several persons were approaching from this direction, among them Zadok.
The servants of the house, no doubt, for they came in all together
and sat down, side by side, in the chairs Sweetwater had so carefully
passed by. There were five persons in all: two men and three women.
Only two interested him--Zadok, with whom he had already made a
superficial acquaintance and had had one bout; and a smart, bright-eyed
girl with a resolute mouth softened by an insistent dimple, who struck
him as possessing excellent sense and some natural cleverness. A girl
to know and a girl to talk to, was his instantaneous judgment. Then he
forgot everything but the solemnity of the occasion, for the clergyman
had entered and taken his place, and a great hush had fallen upon the
rooms and upon every heart there present.
“_I am the resurrection and the life_.”
Never had these consoling words sounded more solemn than when they
rang above the remains of Adelaide Cumberland, in this home where she
had reigned as mistress ever since her seventeenth year. The nature of
the tragedy which had robbed the town of one of its most useful young
women; the awful fate impending over its supposed author,--a man who
had come and gone in these rooms with a spell of fascination to which
many of those present had themselves succumbed--the brooding sense
of illness, if not of impending death, in the room above; gave to
these services a peculiar poignancy which in some breasts of greater
susceptibility than the rest, took the form of a vague expectancy
bordering on terror.
Sweetwater felt the poignancy, but did not suffer from the terror. His
attention had been attracted in a new direction, and he found himself
watching, with anxious curiosity, the attitude and absorbed expression
of a good-looking young man whom he was far from suspecting to be the
secret representative of the present suspect, whom nobody could forget,
yet whom nobody wished to remember at this hallowed hour.
Had this attitude and this absorption been directed towards the casket
over which the clergyman’s words rose and fell with ever increasing
impressiveness, he might have noted the man but would scarcely
have been held by him. But this interest, sincere and strong as it
undoubtedly was, centred not so much in the services, careful as he
was to maintain a decorous attitude towards the same, but in the faint
murmurs which now and then came down from above where unconsciousness
reigned and the stricken brother watched over the delirious sister,
with a concentration and abandonment to fear which made him oblivious
of all other duties, and almost as unconscious of the rites then being
held below over one who had been as a mother to him, as the sick girl
herself with her ceaseless and importunate “Lila! Lila!” The detective,
watching this preoccupied stranger, shared in some measure his secret
emotions, and thus was prepared for the unexpected occurrence of a few
minutes later.
No one else had the least forewarning of any break in the services.
There had been nothing in the subdued but impressive rendering of the
prayers to foreshadow a dramatic episode; yet it came, and in this
manner:
The final words had been said, and the friends present invited to look
their last on the calm face which, to many there, had never worn so
sweet a smile in life. Some had hesitated; but most had obeyed the
summons, among them Sweetwater. But he had not much time in which to
fix those features in his mind; for the little girls, who had been
waiting patiently for this moment, now came forward; and he stepped
aside to watch them as they filed by, dropping as they did so, a
tribute of fragrant flowers upon the quiet breast. They were followed
by the servants, among whom Zadok had divided his roses. As the last
cluster fell from the coachman’s trembling hand, the undertaker
advanced with the lid, and, pausing a moment to be sure that all were
satisfied, began to screw it on.
Suddenly there was a cry, and the crowd about the door leading into
the main hall started back, as wild steps were heard on the stairs and
a young man rushed into the room where the casket stood, and advanced
upon the officiating clergyman and the astonished undertaker with a
fierceness which was not without its suggestion of authority.
“Take it off!” he cried, pointing at the lid which had just been
fastened down. “I have not seen her--I must see her. Take it off!”
It was the brother, awake at last to the significance of the hour!
The clergyman, aghast at the sacrilegious look and tone of the
intruder, stepped back, raising one arm in remonstrance, and
instinctively shielding the casket with the other. But the undertaker
saw in the frenzied eye fixed upon his own, that which warned him
to comply with the request thus harshly and peremptorily uttered.
Unscrewing the lid, he made way for the intruder, who, drawing near,
pushed aside the roses which had fallen on the upturned face, and,
laying his hand on the brow, muttered a few low words to himself. Then
he withdrew his hand, and without glancing to right or left, staggered
back to the door amid a hush as unbroken as that which reigned behind
him in that open casket. Another moment and his white, haggard face and
disordered figure would be blotted from sight by the door-jamb.
The minister recovered his poise and the bearers their breath; the men
stirred in their seats and the women began to cast frightened looks
at each other, and then at the children, some of whom had begun to
whimper, when in an instant all were struck again into stone. The young
man had turned and was facing them all, with his hands held out in a
clench which in itself was horrible.
“If they let the man go,” he called out in loud and threatening tones,
“I will strangle him with these two hands.”
The word, and not the shriek which burst irrepressibly from more
than one woman before him, brought him to himself. With a ghastly
look on his bloated features, he scanned for one moment the row of
deeply shocked faces before him, then tottered back out of sight, and
fled towards the staircase. All thought that an end had come to the
harrowing scene, and minister and people faced each other once more;
when, loud and sharp from above, there rang down the shrill cry of
delirium, this time in articulate words which even the children could
understand:
“Break it open, I say! break it open, and see if her heart is there!”
It was too awful. Men and women and children leaped to their feet
and dashed away into the streets, uttering smothered cries and wild
ejaculations. In vain the clergyman raised his voice and bade them
respect the dead; the rooms were well-nigh empty before he had finished
his appeal. Only the very old uncle and the least of the children
remained of all who had come there in memory of their departed
kinswoman and friend.
The little one had fled to the old man’s arms before he could rise, and
was now held close to his aged and shaking knees, while he strove to
comfort her and explain.
Soon these, too, were gone, and the casket was refastened and carried
out by the shrinking bearers, leaving in those darkened rooms a trail
of desolation which was only broken from time to time by the now faint
and barely heard reiteration of the name of her who had just been borne
away!
“Lila! Lila!”
XIII
“WHAT WE WANT IS HERE”
I’ll tell you, by the way,
The greatest comfort in the world.
You said
There was a clew to all.
Remember, Sweet,
He said there was a clew!
I hold it.
Come!
_A Blot in the ’Scutcheon._
Sweetwater, however affected by this scene, had not lost control
of himself or forgotten the claims of duty. He noted at a glance
that, while the candid looking stranger, whose lead he had been
following, was as much surprised as the rest at the nature of the
interruption--which he had possibly anticipated and for which he was
in some measure prepared--he was, of all present, the most deeply
and peculiarly impressed by it. No element of fear had entered into
his emotion; nor had it been heightened by any superstitious sense.
Something deeper and more important by far had darkened his thoughtful
eye and caused that ebb and flow of colour in a cheek unused, if
Sweetwater read the man aright, to such quick and forcible changes.
Sweetwater took occasion, likewise, while the excitement was at its
height, to mark what effect had been made on the servants by the action
and conduct of young Cumberland. “They know him better than we do,” was
his inner comment; “what do they think of his words, and what do they
think of him?”
It was not so easy to determine as the anxious detective might wish.
Only one of them showed a simple emotion, and that one was, without
any possibility of doubt, the cook. She was a Roman Catholic, and was
simply horrified by the sacrilege of which she had been witness. There
was no mistaking her feelings. But those of the other two women were
more complex.
So were those of the men. Zadok specially watched each movement of
his young master with open mistrust; and very nearly started upright,
in his repugnance and dismay, when that intruding hand fell on the
peaceful brow of her over whose fate, to his own surprise, he had been
able to shed tears. Some personal prejudice lay back of this or some
secret knowledge of the man from whose touch even the dead appeared to
shrink.
And the women! Might not the same explanation account for that curious
droop of the eye with which the two younger clutched at each other’s
hands, to keep from screaming, and interchanged whispered words which
Sweetwater would have given considerable out of his carefully cherished
hoard to have heard.
It was impossible to tell, at present; but he was confident that it
would not be long before he understood these latter, at least. He had
great confidence in his success with women, homely as he was. He was
not so sure of himself with men; and he felt that some difficulties
and not a few pitfalls lay between him and, for instance, the
uncommunicative Zadok. “But I’ve the whole long evening before me,” he
added in quiet consolation to himself. “It will be a pity if I can’t
work some of them in that time.”
The last thing he had remarked, before Carmel’s unearthly cry had sent
the horrified guests in disorder from the house, was the presence of
Dr. Perry in a small room which Sweetwater had supposed empty, until
the astonishing events I have endeavoured to describe brought its
occupant to the door. What the detective then read in the countenance
of the family’s best friend, he kept to himself; but his own lost a
trace of its former anxiety, as the official slipped back out of sight
and remained so, even after the funeral cortege had started on its
course.
Plans had been made for carrying the servants to the cemetery, and,
despite the universal disturbance consequent upon these events, these
plans were adhered to. Sweetwater watched them all ride away in the
last two carriages.
This gave him the opportunity he wanted. Leaving his corner, he looked
up Hexford, and asked who was left in the house.
“Dr. Perry, Mr. Clifton, the lawyer, Mr. Cumberland, his sick sister,
and the nurse.”
“Mr. Cumberland! Didn’t he go to the grave?”
“Did you expect him to, after _that_?”
Sweetwater’s shoulders rose, and his voice took on a tone of
indifference.
“There’s no telling. Where is he now, do you think? Upstairs?”
“Yes. It seems he spends all his time in a little alcove opposite
his sister’s door. They won’t let him inside, for fear of disturbing
the patient; so he just sits where I’ve told you, doing nothing but
listening to every sound that comes through the door.”
“Is he there now?”
“Yes, and shaking just like a leaf. I walked by him a moment ago and
noticed particularly.”
“Where’s his room? In sight of the alcove you mention?”
“No; there’s a partition or two between. If you go up by the side
staircase, you can slip into it without any one seeing you. Coroner
Perry and Mr. Clifton are in front.”
“Is the side door locked?”
“No.”
“Lock it. The back door, of course, is.”
“Yes, the cook attended to that.”
“I want a few minutes all by myself. Help me, Hexford. If Dr. Perry has
given you no orders, take your stand upstairs where you can give me
warning if Mr. Cumberland makes a move to leave his post, or the nurse
her patient.”
“I’m ready; but I’ve been in that room and I’ve found nothing.”
“I don’t know that I shall. You say that it is near the head of the
stairs running up from the side door?”
“Just a few feet away.”
“I would have sworn to that fact, even if you hadn’t told me,” muttered
Sweetwater.
Five minutes later, he had slipped from sight; and for some time not
even Hexford knew where he was.
“Dr. Perry, may I have a few words with you?”
The coroner turned quickly. Sweetwater was before him; but not the same
Sweetwater he had interviewed some few hours before in his office. This
was quite a different looking personage. Though nothing could change
his features, the moment had come when their inharmonious lines no
longer obtruded themselves upon the eye; and the anxious, nay, deeply
troubled official whom he addressed, saw nothing but the ardour and
quiet self-confidence they expressed.
“It’ll not take long,” he added, with a short significant glance in the
direction of Mr. Clifton.
Dr. Perry nodded, excused himself to the lawyer and followed the
detective into the small writing-room which he had occupied during
the funeral. In the decision with which Sweetwater closed the door
behind them there was something which caused the blood to mount to the
coroner’s brow.
“You have made some discovery?” said he.
“A very important one,” was the quick, emphatic reply. And in a few
brief words the detective related his interview with the master
mechanic’s wife on the highroad. Then with an eager, “Now let me show
you something,” he led the coroner through the dining-room into the
side hall, where he paused before the staircase.
“Up?” queried the coroner, with an obvious shrinking from what he might
encounter above.
“No,” was the whispered reply. “What we want is _here_.” And, pushing
open a small door let into the under part of the stairway (if Ranelagh
in his prison cell could have seen and understood this movement!), he
disclosed a closet and in that closet a coat or two, and one derby hat.
He took down the latter and, holding it out to the light, pointed to a
spot on the under side of its brim.
The coroner staggered as he saw it, and glanced helplessly about him.
He had known this family all their lives and the father had been his
dearest friend. But he could say nothing in face of this evidence. The
spot was a flour-mark, in which could almost be discerned the outline
of a woman’s thumb.
XIV
THE MOTIONLESS FIGURE
’S blood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy
could find it out.
_Hamlet_.
“The coat is here, too,” whispered Sweetwater, after a moment of
considerate silence. “I had searched the hall-rack for them; I had
searched his closets; and was about owning myself to be on a false
trail, when I spied this little door. We had better lock it, now, had
we not, till you make up your mind what to do with this conclusive bit
of evidence.”
“Yes, lock it. I’m not quite myself, Sweetwater. I’m no stranger to
this house, or to the unfortunate young people in it. I wish I had not
been re-elected last year. I shall never survive the strain if--” He
turned away.
Sweetwater carefully returned the hat to its peg, turned the key in the
door, and softly followed his superior back into the dining-room, and
thence to their former retreat.
“I can see that it’s likely to be a dreadful business,” he ventured
to remark, as the two stood face to face again. “But we’ve no choice.
Facts are facts, and we’ve got to make the best of them. You mean me to
go on?”
“Go on?”
“Following up the clews which you have yourself given me? I’ve only
finished with one; there’s another--”
“The bottles?”
“Yes, the bottles. I believe that I shall not fail there if you’ll give
me a little time. I’m a stranger in town, you remember, and cannot be
expected to move as fast as a local detective.”
“Sweetwater, you have but one duty--to follow both clews as far as they
will take you. As for my duty, that is equally plain, to uphold you in
all reasonable efforts and to shrink at nothing which will save the
innocent and bring penalty to the guilty. Only be careful. Remember
the evidence against Ranelagh. You will have to forge an exceedingly
strong chain to hold your own against the facts which have brought this
recreant lover to book. You see--O, I wish that poor girl could get
ease!” he impetuously cried, as “Lila! Lila!” rang again through the
house.
“There can never be any ease for her,” murmured Sweetwater. “Whatever
the truth, she’s bound to suffer if ever she awakens to reality again.
Do you agree with the reporters that she knew why and for what her
unhappy sister left this house that night?”
“If not, why this fever?”
“That’s sound.”
“_She_--” the coroner was emphatic, “_she_ is the only one who is
wholly innocent in this whole business. Consider her at every point.
Her life is invaluable to every one concerned. But she must not be
roused to the fact; not yet. Nor must he be startled either; you know
whom I mean. Quiet does it, Sweetwater. Quiet and a seeming deference
to his wishes as the present head of the house.”
“Is the place his? Has Miss Cumberland made a will?”
“Her will will be read to-morrow. For to-night, Arthur Cumberland’s
position here is the position of a master.”
“I will respect it, sir, up to all reasonable bounds. I don’t think
he meditates giving any trouble. He’s not at all impressed by our
presence. All he seems to care about is what his sister may be led to
say in her delirium.”
“That’s how you look at it?” The coroner’s tone was one of gloom. Then,
after a moment of silence: “You may call my carriage, Sweetwater. I can
do nothing further here to-day. The atmosphere of this house stifles
me. Dead flowers, dead hopes, and something worse than death lowering
in the prospect. I remember my old friend--this was his desk. Let us
go, I say.”
Sweetwater threw open the door, but his wistful look did not escape the
older man’s eye.
“You’re not ready to go? Wish to search the house, perhaps.”
“Naturally.”
“It has already been done in a general way.”
“I wish to do it thoroughly.”
The coroner sighed.
“I should be wrong to stand in your way. Get your warrant and the house
is yours. But remember the sick girl.”
“That’s why I wish to do the job my self.”
“You’re a good fellow, Sweetwater.” Then as he was passing out, “I’m
going to rely on you to see this thing through, quietly if you can,
openly and in the public eye if you must. The keys tell the tale--the
keys and the hat. If the former had been left in the club-house and
the latter found without the mark set on it by the mechanic’s wife,
Ranelagh’s chances would look as slim to-day as they did immediately
after the event. But with things as they are, he may well rest easily
to-night; the clouds are lifting for him.”
Which shows how little we poor mortals realise what makes for the peace
even of those who are the nearest to us and whose lives and hearts we
think we can read like an open book.
The coroner gone, Sweetwater made his way to the room where he had last
seen Mr. Clifton. He found it empty and was soon told by Hexford that
the lawyer had left. This was welcome news to him; he felt that he had
a fair field before him now; and learning that it would be some fifteen
minutes yet before he could hope to see the carriages back, he followed
Hexford upstairs.
“I wish I had your advantages,” he remarked as they reached the upper
floor.
“What would you do?”
“I’d wander down that hall and take a long look at things.”
“You would?”
“I’d like to see the girl and I’d like to see the brother when he
thought no one was watching him.”
“Why see the girl?”
“I don’t know. I’m afraid that’s just curiosity. I’ve heard she was a
wonder for beauty.”
“She was, once.”
“And not now?”
“You cannot tell; they have bound up her cheeks with cloths. She fell
on the grate and got burned.”
“But I say that’s dreadful, if she was so beautiful.”
“Yes, it’s bad, but there are worse things than that. I wonder what she
meant by that wild cry of ‘Tear it open! See if her heart is there?’
Tear what open? the coffin?”
“Of course. What else could she have meant?”
“Well! delirium is a queer thing; makes a fellow feel creepy all over.
I don’t reckon on my nights here.”
“Hexford, help me to a peep. I’ve got a difficult job before me and I
need all the aid I can get.”
“Oh, there’s no trouble about that! Walk boldly along; he won’t
notice--”
“_He won’t notice_?”
“No, he notices nothing but what comes from the sick room.”
“I see.” Sweetwater’s jaw had fallen, but it righted itself at this
last word.
“Listening, eh?”
“Yes--as a fellow never listened before.”
“Expectant like?”
“Yes, I should call it expectant.”
“Does the nurse know this?”
“The nurse is a puzzler.”
“How so?”
“Half nurse and half--but go see for yourself. Here’s a package to take
in,--medicine from the drug store. Tell her there was no one else to
bring it up. She’ll show no surprise.”
Muttering his thanks, Sweetwater seized the proffered package, and
hastened with it down the hall. He had been as far as the turn before,
but now he passed the turn to find, just as he expected, a closed door
on the left and an open alcove on the right. The door led into Miss
Cumberland’s room; the alcove, circular in shape and lighted by several
windows, projected from the rear of the extension, and had for its
outlook the stable and the huge sycamore tree growing beside it.
Sweetwater’s fingers passed thoughtfully across his chin as he remarked
this and took in the expressive outline of its one occupant. He could
not see his face; that was turned towards the table before which he
sat. But his drooping head, rigid with desperate thinking; his relaxed
hand closed around the neck of a decanter which, nevertheless, he did
not lift, made upon Sweetwater an impression which nothing he saw
afterwards ever quite effaced.
“When I come back, that whiskey will be half gone,” thought he, and
lingered to see the tumbler filled and the first draught taken.
But no. The hand slowly unclasped and fell away from the decanter; his
head sank forward until his chin rested on his breast; and a sigh,
startling to Sweetwater, fell from his lips. Hexford was right; only
one thing could arouse him.
Sweetwater now tried that thing. He knocked softly on the sick-room
door.
This reached the ear oblivious to all else. Young Cumberland started
to his feet; and for a moment Sweetwater saw again the heavy features
which, an hour before, had produced such a repulsive effect upon him in
the rooms below. Then the nerveless figure sank again into place, with
the same constraint in its lines, and the same dejection.
Sweetwater’s hand, lifted in repetition of his knock, hung suspended.
He had not expected quite such indifference as this. It upset his
calculations just a trifle. As his hand fell, he reminded himself of
the coroner’s advice to go easy. “Easy it is,” was his internal reply.
“I’ll walk as lightly as if eggshells were under my feet.”
The door was opened to him, this time. As it swung back, he saw, first,
a burst of rosy color as a room panelled in exquisite pink burst upon
his sight; then the great picture of his life--the bloodless features
of Carmel, calmed for the moment into sleep.
Perfect beauty is so rare, its effect so magical! Not even the
bandage which swathed one cheek could hide the exquisite symmetry
of the features, or take from the whole face its sweet and natural
distinction. Frenzy, which had distorted the muscles and lit the eyes
with a baleful glare, was lacking at this moment. Repose had quieted
the soul and left the body free to express its natural harmonies.
Sweetwater gazed at the winsome, brown head over the nurse’s shoulder,
and felt that for him a new and important factor had entered into this
case, with his recognition of this woman’s great beauty. How deep
a factor, he was far from suspecting, or he would not have met the
nurse’s eye with quite so cheery and self-confident a smile.
“Excuse the intrusion,” he said. “We thought you might need these
things. Hexford signed for them.”
“I’m obliged to you. Are you--one of them?” she sharply asked.
“Would it disturb you if I were? I hope not. I’ve no wish to seem
intrusive.”
“What do you want? Something, I know. Give it a name before there’s a
change there.”
She nodded towards the bed, and Sweetwater took advantage of the
moment to scrutinise more closely the nurse herself. She was a robust,
fine-looking woman, producing an impression of capability united to
kindness. Strength of mind and rigid attendance to duty dominated the
kindness, however. If crossed in what she considered best for her
patient, possibly for herself, she could be severe, if not biting, in
her speech and manner. So much Sweetwater read in the cold, clear eye
and firm, self-satisfied mouth of the woman awaiting his response to
the curt demand she had made.
“I want another good look at your patient, and I want your confidence
since you and I may have to see much of each other before this matter
is ended. You asked me to speak plainly and I have done so.”
“You are from headquarters?”
“Coroner Perry sent me.” Throwing back his coat, he showed his badge.
“The coroner has returned to his office. He was quite upset by the
outcry which came from this room at an unhappy moment during the
funeral.”
“I know. It was my fault; I opened the door just for an instant, and in
that instant my patient broke through her torpor and spoke.”
She had drawn him in, by this time, and, after another glance at her
patient, softly closed the door behind him.
“I have nothing to report,” said she, “but the one sentence everybody
heard.”
Sweetwater took in the little memorandum book and pencil which hung at
her side, and understood her position and extraordinary amenability to
his wishes. Unconsciously, a low exclamation escaped him. He was young
and had not yet sunk the man entirely in the detective.
“A cruel necessity to watch so interesting a patient, for anything but
her own good,” he remarked. Yet, because he was a detective as well
as a man, his eye went wandering all over the room as he spoke until
it fell upon a peculiar-looking cabinet or closet, let into the wall
directly opposite the bed. “What’s that?” he asked.
“I don’t know; I can’t make it out, and I don’t like to ask.”
Sweetwater examined it for a moment from where he stood; then crossed
over, and scrutinised it more particularly. It was a unique specimen.
What it lacked in height--it could not have measured more than a foot
from the bottom to the top--it made up in length, which must have
exceeded five feet. The doors, of which it had two, were both tightly
locked; but as they were made of transparent glass, the objects
behind them were quite visible. It was the nature of these objects
which made the mystery. The longer Sweetwater examined them, the less
he understood the reason for their collection, much less for their
preservation in a room which in all other respects, expressed the
quintessence of taste.
At one end he saw a stuffed canary, not perched on a twig, but lying
prone on its side. Near it was a doll, with scorched face and limbs
half-consumed. Next this, the broken pieces of a china bowl and what
looked like the torn remnants of some very fine lace. Further along,
his eye lighted on a young girl’s bonnet, exquisite in colour and
nicety of material, but crushed out of all shape and only betraying its
identity by its dangling strings. The next article, in this long array
of totally unhomogeneous objects, was a metronome, with its pendulum
wrenched half off and one of its sides lacking. He could not determine
the character of what came next, and only gave a casual examination to
the rest. The whole affair was a puzzle to him, and he had no time for
puzzles disconnected with the very serious affair he was engaged in
investigating.
“Some childish nonsense,” he remarked, and moved towards the door.
“The servants will be coming back, and I had rather not be found here.
You’ll see me again--I cannot tell just when. Perhaps you may want to
send for me. If so, my name is Sweetwater.”
His hand was on the knob, and he was almost out of the room when he
started and looked back. A violent change in the patient had occurred.
Disturbed by his voice or by some inner pulsation of the fever which
devoured her, Carmel had risen from the pillow and now sat, staring
straight before her with every feature working and lips opened as if to
speak. Sweetwater held his breath, and the nurse leaped towards her and
gently encircled her with protecting arms.
“Lie down,” she prayed; “lie down. Everything is all right: I am
looking after things. Lie down, little one, and rest.”
The young girl drooped, and, yielding to the nurse’s touch, sank slowly
back on the pillow; but in an instant she was up again, and flinging
out her hand, she cried out loudly just as she had cried an hour before:
“Break it open! Break the glass and look in. Her heart should be
there--her heart--her heart!”
“Go, or I cannot quiet her!” ordered the nurse, and Sweetwater turned
to obey.
But a new obstacle offered. The brother had heard this cry, and now
stood in the doorway.
“Who are you?” he impatiently demanded, surveying Sweetwater in sudden
anger.
“I brought up the drugs,” was the quiet explanation of the ever-ready
detective. “I didn’t mean to alarm the young lady, and I don’t think I
did. It’s the fever, sir, which makes her talk so wildly.”
“We want no strangers here,” was young Cumberland’s response.
“Remember, nurse, no strangers.” His tone was actually peremptory.
Sweetwater observed him in real astonishment as he slid by and made his
quiet escape. He was still more astonished when, on glancing towards
the alcove, he perceived that, contrary to his own prognostication, the
whiskey stood as high in the decanter as before.
“I’ve got a puzzler this time,” was his comment, as he made his way
downstairs. “Even Mr. Gryce would say that. I wonder how I’ll come out.
Uppermost!” he finished in secret emphasis to himself. “_Uppermost_! It
would never do for me to fail in the first big affair I’ve undertaken
on my own account.”
XV
HELEN SURPRISES SWEETWATER
Lurk, lurk.
_King Lear_.
The returning servants drove up just as Sweetwater reached the lower
floor. He was at the side door when they came in, and a single glance
convinced him that all had gone off decorously at the grave, and that
nothing further had occurred during their absence to disturb them.
He followed them as they filed away into the kitchen, and, waiting till
the men had gone about their work, turned his attention to the girls
who stood about very much as if they did not know just what to do with
themselves.
“Sit, ladies,” said he, drawing up chairs quite as if he were doing the
honours of the house. Then with a sly, compassionate look into each
woe-begone face, he artfully remarked: “You’re all upset, you are, by
what Mr. Cumberland said in such an unbecoming way at the funeral. He’d
like to strangle Mr. Ranelagh! Why couldn’t he wait for the sheriff. It
looks as if that gentleman would have the job, all right.”
“Oh! don’t!” wailed out one of the girls, the impressionable,
warm-hearted Maggie. “The horrors of this house’ll kill me. I can’t
stand it a minute longer. I’ll go--I’ll go to-morrow.”
“You won’t; you’re too kind-hearted to leave Mr. Cumberland and his
sister in their desperate trouble,” Sweetwater put in, with a decision
as suggestive of admiration as he dared to assume.
Her eyes filled, and she said no more. Sweetwater shifted his attention
to Helen. Working around by her side, he managed to drop these words
into her ear:
“She talks most, but she doesn’t feel her responsibilities any more
than you do. I’ve had my experience with women, and you’re of the sort
that stays.”
She rolled her eyes towards him, in a slow, surprised way, that would
have abashed most men.
“I don’t know your name, or your business here,” said she; “but I do
know that you take a good deal upon yourself when you say what I shall
do or shan’t do. I don’t even know, myself.”
“That’s because your eye is not so keen to your own virtues as--well, I
won’t say as mine, but as those of any appreciative stranger. I can’t
help seeing what you are, you know.”
She turned her shoulder but not before he caught a slight disdainful
twitch of her rosy, non-communicative mouth.
“Ah, ah, my lady, not quick enough!” thought he; and, with the most
innocent air in the world, he launched forth in a tirade against the
man then in custody, as though his guilt were an accepted fact and
nothing but the formalities of the law stood between him and his final
doom. “It must make you all feel queer,” he wound up, “to think you
have waited on him and seen him tramping about these rooms for months,
just as if he had no wicked feelings in his heart and meant to marry
Miss Cumberland, not to kill her.”
“Oh, oh,” Maggie sobbed out. “And a perfect gentleman he was, too. I
can’t believe no bad of him. He wasn’t like--” Her breath caught, and
so suddenly that Sweetwater was always convinced that the more cautious
Helen had twitched her by her skirt. “Like--like other gentlemen who
came here. It was a kind word he had or a smile. I--I--” She made no
attempt to finish but bounded to her feet, pulling up the more sedate
Helen with her. “Let’s go,” she whispered, “I’m afeared of the man.”
The other yielded and began to cross the floor behind the impetuous
Maggie.
Sweetwater summoned up his courage.
“One moment,” he prayed. “Will you not tell me, before you go, whether
the candlestick I have noticed on the dining-room mantel is not one of
a pair?”
“Yes, there were two--_once_,” said Helen, resisting Maggie’s effort to
drag her out through the open door.
“_Once_,” smiled Sweetwater; “by which you mean, three days ago.”
A lowering of her head and a sudden make for the door.
Sweetwater changed his tone to one of simple inquiry.
“And was that where they always stood, the pair of them, one on each
end of the dining-room mantel?”
She nodded; involuntarily, perhaps, but decisively.
Sweetwater hid his disappointment. The room mentioned was a
thoroughfare for the whole family. Any member of it could have taken
the candlestick.
“I’m obliged to you,” said he; and might have ventured further had she
given him the opportunity. But she was too near the door to resist the
temptation of flight. In another moment she was gone, and Sweetwater
found himself alone with his reflections.
They were not altogether unpleasing. He was sure that he read the
evidences of struggle in her slowly working lips and changing impulses.
“So, so!” thought he. “The good seed has found its little corner of
soil. I’ll leave it to take root and sprout. Perhaps the coroner will
profit by it. If not, I’ve a way of coaxing tender plants which should
bring this one to fruit. We’ll see.”
The moon shone that night, much to Sweetwater’s discomforture. As he
moved about the stable-yard, he momentarily expected to see the window
of the alcove thrown up and to hear Mr. Cumberland’s voice raised in
loud command for him to quit the premises. But no such interruption
came. The lonely watcher, whose solitary figure he could just discern
above the unshaded sill, remained immovable, with his head buried in
his arms, but whether in sleep or in brooding misery, there was naught
to tell.
The rest of the house presented an equally dolorous and forsaken
appearance. There were lights in the kitchen and lights in the
servants’ rooms at the top of the house, but no sounds either of
talking or laughing. All voices had sunk to a whisper, and if by chance
a figure passed one of the windows, it was in a hurried, frightened
way, which Sweetwater felt very ready to appreciate.
In the stable it was no better. Zadok had bought an evening paper,
and was seeking solace from its columns. Sweetwater had attempted the
sociable but had been met by a decided rebuff. The coachman could
not forget his attitude before the funeral and nothing, not even the
pitcher of beer the detective proposed to bring in, softened the
forbidding air with which this old servant met the other’s advances.
Soon Sweetwater realised that his work was over for the night and
planned to leave. But there was one point to be settled first. Was
there any other means of exit from these grounds save that offered by
the ordinary driveway?
He had an impression that in one of his strolls about, he had detected
the outlines of a door in what looked like a high brick wall in the
extreme rear. If so, it were well worth his while to know where that
door led. Working his way along in the shadow cast by the house and
afterward by the stable itself, he came upon what was certainly a
wall and a wall with a door in it. He could see the latter plainly
from where he halted in the thick of the shadows. The moonlight shone
broadly on it, and he could detect the very shape and size of its
lock. It might be as well to try that lock, but he would have to cross
a very wide strip of moonlight in order to do so, and he feared to
attract attention to his extreme inquisitiveness. Yet who was there to
notice him at this hour? Mr. Cumberland had not moved, the girls were
upstairs, Zadok was busy with his paper, and the footman dozing over
his pipe in his room over the stable. Sweetwater had just come from
that room, and he knew.
A quiet stable-yard and a closed door only ten feet away! He glanced
again at the latter, and made up his mind. Advancing in a quiet,
sidelong way he had, he laid his hand on the small knob above the
lock and quickly turned it. The door was unlocked and swung under his
gentle push. An alley-way opened before him, leading to what appeared
to be another residence street. He was about to test the truth of this
surmise when he heard a step behind him, and turning, encountered the
heavy figure of the coachman advancing towards him, with a key in his
hand.
Zadok was of an easy turn, but he had been sorely tried that day, and
his limit had been reached.
“You snooper!” he bawled. “What do you want here? Won’t the run of the
house content ye? Come! I want to lock that door. It’s my last duty
before going to bed.”
Sweetwater assumed the innocent.
“And I was just going this way. It looks like a short road into town.
It is, isn’t it?”
“No! Yes,” growled the other. “Whichever it is, it isn’t your road
to-night. That’s private property, sir. The alley you see, belongs to
our neighbours. No one passes through there but myself and--”
He caught himself in time, with a sullen grunt which may have been the
result of fatigue or of that latent instinct of loyalty which is often
the most difficult obstacle a detective has to encounter.
“And Mr. Ranelagh, I suppose you would say?” was Sweetwater’s easy
finish.
No answer; the coachman simply locked the door and put the key in his
pocket.
Sweetwater made no effort to deter him. More than that he desisted from
further questions though he was dying to ask where this key was kept at
night, and whether it had been in its usual place on the evening of the
murder. He had gone far enough, he thought. Another step and he might
rouse this man’s suspicion, if not his enmity. But he did not leave
the shadows into which he again receded until he had satisfied himself
that the key went into the stable with the coachman, where it probably
remained for this night, at least.
It was after ten when Sweetwater re-entered the house to say good night
to Hexford. He found him on watch in the upper hall, and the man,
Clarke, below. He had a word with the former:
“What is the purpose of the little door in the wall back of the stable?”
“It connects these grounds with those of the Fultons. The Fultons live
on Huested Street.”
“Are the two families intimate?”
“Very. Mr. Cumberland is sweet on the young lady there. She was at the
funeral to-day. She fainted when--you know when.”
“I can guess. God! What complications arise! You don’t say that any
woman can care for _him_?”
Hexford gave a shrug. He had seen a good deal of life.
“He uses that door, then?” Sweetwater pursued, after a minute.
“Probably.”
“Did he use it that night?”
“He didn’t visit _her_”
“Where did he go?”
“We can’t find out. He was first seen on Garden Street, coming home
after a night of debauch. He had drunk hard. Asked where he got the
liquor, he maundered out something about a saloon; but none of the
places which he usually frequents had seen him that night. I have tried
them all and some that weren’t in his books. It was no good.”
“That door is supposed to be locked at night. Zadok says that’s his
duty. Was it locked that night?”
“Can’t say. Perhaps the coroner can. You see the inquiry ran in such a
different direction, at first, that a small matter like that may have
been overlooked.”
Sweetwater subdued the natural retort, and, reverting to the subject of
the saloons, got some specific information in regard to them. Then he
passed thoughtfully down-stairs, only to come upon Helen who was just
extinguishing the front-hall light.
“Good night!” he said, in passing.
“Good night, Mr. Sweetwater.”
There was something in her tone which made him stop and look back. She
had stepped into the library and was blowing out the lamp there. He
paused a moment and sighed softly. Then he started towards the door,
only to stop again and cast another look back. She was standing in one
of the doorways, anxiously watching him and twisting her fingers in and
out in an irresolute way truly significant in one of her disposition.
He felt his heart leap.
Returning softly, he took up his stand before her, looking her straight
in the eye.
“Good night,” he repeated, with an odd emphasis.
“Good night,” she answered, with equal force and meaning.
But the next moment she was speaking rapidly, earnestly.
“I can’t sleep,” said she. “I never can when I’m not certain of my
duty. Mr. Ranelagh is an injured man. Ask what was said and done at
their last dinner here. I can’t tell you. I didn’t listen and I didn’t
see what happened, but it was something out of the ordinary. Three
broken wineglasses lay on the tablecloth when I went in to clear away.
I heard the clatter when they fell and smashed, but I said nothing. I
have said nothing since; but I know there was a quarrel, and that Mr.
Ranelagh was not in it, for his glass was the only one which remained
unbroken. Am I wrong in telling you? I wouldn’t if--if it were not
for Mr. Ranelagh. He didn’t do right by Miss Cumberland, but he don’t
deserve to be in prison; and so would Miss Carmel tell you if she knew
what was going on and could speak. _She_ loved him and--I’ve said
enough; I’ve said enough,” the agitated girl protested, as he leaned
eagerly towards her. “I couldn’t tell the priest any more. Good night.”
And she was gone.
He hesitated a moment, then pursued his way to the side door, and so
out of the house into the street. As he passed along the front of the
now darkened building, he scanned it with a new interest and a new
doubt. Soon he returned to his old habit of muttering to himself. “We
don’t know the half of what has taken place within those walls during
the last four weeks,” said he. “But one thing I will solve, and that is
where this miserable fellow spent the hours between this dinner they
speak of and the time of his return next day. Hexford has failed at it.
Now we’ll see what a blooming stranger can do.”
XVI
62 CUTHBERT ROAD
Tush! I will stir about,
And all things will be well, I warrant thee.
_Romeo and Juliet_.
He was walking south and on the best lighted and most beautiful street
in town, but his eyes were forever seeking a break in the long line of
fence which marked off the grounds of a seemingly interminable stretch
of neighbouring mansions, and when a corner was at last reached, he
dashed around it and took a straight course for Huested Street, down
which he passed with quickened steps and an air of growing assurance.
He was soon at the bottom of the hill where the street, taking a turn,
plunged him at once into a thickly populated district. As this was
still the residence quarter, he passed on until he gained the heart
of the town and the region of the saloons. Here he slackened pace and
consulted a memorandum he had made while talking to Hexford. “A big
job,” was his comment, sorry to find the hour quite so late. “But I’m
not bound to finish it to-night. A start is all I can hope for, so here
goes.”
It was not his intention to revisit the places so thoroughly overhauled
by the police. He carried another list, that of certain small groceries
and quiet unobtrusive hotels where a man could find a private room
in which to drink alone; it being Sweetwater’s conviction that in
such a place, and in such a place only, would be found the tokens of
those solitary hours spent by Arthur Cumberland between the time of
his sister’s murder and his reappearance the next day. “Had they been
spent in his old haunts or in any of the well-known drinking saloons
of the city, some one would have peached on him before this,” he went
on, in silent argument with himself. “He’s too well known, too much of
a swell for all his lowering aspect and hang-dog look, to stroll along
unnoticed through any of the principal streets, so soon after the news
of his sister’s murder had set the whole town agog. Yet he was not seen
till he struck Garden Street, a good quarter of a mile from his usual
resorts.”
Here, Sweetwater glanced up at the corner gas-lamp beneath which
he stood, and seeing that he was in Garden Street, tried to locate
himself in the exact spot where this young man had first been seen on
the notable morning in question. Then he looked carefully about him.
Nothing in the street or its immediate neighbourhood suggested the low
and secret den he was in search of.
“I shall have to make use of the list,” he decided, and asked the first
passer-by the way to Hubbell’s Alley.
It was a mile off. “That settles it,” muttered Sweetwater. “Besides, I
doubt if he would go into an _alley_. The man has sunk low, but hardly
so low as that. What’s the next address I have? Cuthbert Road. Where’s
that?”
Espying a policeman eyeing him with more or less curiosity from the
other side of the street, he crossed over and requested to be directed
to Cuthbert Road.
“Cuthbert Road! That’s where the markets are. They’re closed at this
time of night,” was the somewhat suspicious reply.
Evidently the location was not a savoury one.
“Are there nothing but markets there?” inquired Sweetwater, innocently.
It was his present desire not to be recognised as a detective even by
the men on beat. “I’m looking up a friend. He keeps a grocery or some
kind of small hotel. I have his number, but I don’t know how to get to
Cuthbert Road.”
“Then turn straight about and go down the first street, and you’ll
reach it before the trolley-car you see up there can strike this
corner. But first, sew up your pockets. There’s a bad block between you
and the markets.”
Sweetwater slapped his trousers and laughed.
“I wasn’t born yesterday,” he cried; and following the officer’s
directions, made straight for the Road. “Worse than the alley,” he
muttered; “but too near to be slighted. I wonder if I shouldn’t have
borrowed somebody’s old coat.”
It had been wiser, certainly. In Garden Street all the houses had been
closed and dark, but here they were open and often brightly lighted and
noisy from cellar to roof. Men, women, and frequently children, jostled
him on the pavement, and he felt his pockets touched more than once.
But he wasn’t Caleb Sweetwater of the New York department of police
for nothing. He laughed, bantered, fought his way through and finally
reached the quieter region and, at this hour, the almost deserted
one, of the markets. Sixty-two was not far off, and, pausing a moment
to consider his course, he mechanically took in the surroundings. He
was surprised to find himself almost in the open country. The houses
extending on his left were fronted by the booths and stalls of the
market but beyond these were the fields. Interested in this discovery,
and anxious to locate himself exactly, he took his stand under a
favouring gas-lamp, and took out his map.
What he saw, sent him forward in haste. Shops had now taken the place
of tenements, and as these were mostly closed, there were very few
persons on the block, and those were quiet and unobtrusive. He reached
a corner before coming to 62 and was still more interested to perceive
that the street which branched off thus immediately from the markets
was a wide and busy one, offering both a safe and easy approach to
dealer and customer. “I’m on the track,” he whispered almost aloud in
his secret self-congratulation. “Sixty-two will prove a decent quiet
resort which I may not be above patronising myself.”
But he hesitated when he reached it. Some houses invite and some repel.
This house repelled. Yet there was nothing shabby or mysterious about
it. There was the decent entrance, lighted, but not too brilliantly; a
row of dark windows over it; and, above it all, a sloping roof in which
another sparkle of light drew his attention to an upper row of windows,
this time, of the old dormer shape. An alley ran down one side of the
house to the stables, now locked but later to be thrown open for the
use of the farmers who begin to gather here as early as four o’clock.
Nothing wrong in its appearance, everything ship-shape and yet--“I
shall find some strange characters here,” was the Sweetwater comment
with which our detective opened the door and walked into the house.
It was an unusual hour for guests, and the woman whom he saw bending
over a sort of desk in one corner of the room he strode into, looked up
hastily, almost suspiciously.
“Well, and what is your business?” she asked, with her eye on his
clothes, which while not fashionable, were evidently of the sort not
often seen in that place.
“I want a room,” he tipsily confided to her, “in which I can drink and
drink till I cannot see. I’m in trouble I am; but I don’t want to do
any mischief; I only want to forget. I’ve money, and--” as he saw her
mouth open, “and I’ve the stuff. Whiskey, just whiskey. Give me a room.
I’ll be quiet.”
“I’ll give you nothing.” She was hot, angry, and full of distrust.
“This house is not for such as you. It’s a farmer’s lodging; honest
men, who’d stare and go mad to see a feller like you about. Go along, I
tell you, or I’ll call Jim. He’ll know what to do with you.”
“Then, he’ll know mor’n I do myself,” mumbled the detective, with a
crushed and discouraged air. “Money and not a place to spend it in! Why
can’t I go in there?” he peevishly inquired with a tremulous gesture
towards a half-open door through which a glimpse could be got of a neat
little snuggery. “Nobody’ll see me. Give me a glass and leave me till I
rap for you in the morning. That’s worth a fiver. Don’t you think so,
missus?--And we’ll begin by passing over the fiver.”
“No.”
She was mighty peremptory and what was more, she was in a great hurry
to get rid of him. This haste and the anxious ear she turned towards
the hall enlightened him as to the situation. There was some one within
hearing or liable to come within hearing, who possibly was not so stiff
under temptation. Could it be her husband? If so, it might be worth his
own while to await the good man’s coming, if only he could manage to
hold his own for the next few minutes.
Changing his tactics, he turned his back on the snuggery and surveyed
the offended woman, with just a touch of maudlin sentiment.
“I say,” he cried, just loud enough to attract the attention of any one
within ear-shot. “You’re a mighty fine woman and the boss of this here
establishment; that’s evident. I’d like to see the man who could say
no to you. He’s never sat in that ’ere cashier’s seat where you be; of
that I’m dead sure. He wouldn’t care for fivers if you didn’t, nor for
tens either.”
She was really a fine woman for her station, and a buxom, powerful one,
too. But her glance wavered under these words and she showed a desire,
with difficulty suppressed, to use the strength of her white but brawny
arms, in shoving him out of the house. To aid her self-control, he, on
his part, began to edge towards the door, always eyeing her and always
speaking loudly in admirably acted tipsy unconsciousness of the fact.
“I’m a man who likes my own way as well as anybody,” were the words
with which he sought to save the situation, and further his own
purposes. “But I never quarrel with a woman. Her whims are sacred to
me. I may not believe in them; they may cost me money and comfort; but
I yield, I do, when they are as strong in their wishes as you be. I’m
going, missus --I’m going--Oh!”
The exclamation burst from him. He could not help it. The door behind
him had opened, and a man stepped in, causing him so much astonishment
that he forgot himself. The woman was big, bigger than most women who
rule the roost and do the work in haunts where work calls for muscle
and a good head behind it. She was also rosy and of a make to draw the
eye, if not the heart. But the man who now entered was small almost to
the point of being a manikin, and more than that, he was weazen of face
and ill-balanced on his two tiny, ridiculous legs. Yet she trembled
at his presence, and turned a shade paler as she uttered the feeble
protest:
“Jim!”
“Is she making a fool of herself?” asked the little man in a voice as
shrill as it was weak. “Do your business with me. Women are no good.”
And he stalked into the room as only little men can.
Sweetwater took out his ten; pointed to the snuggery, and tapped his
breast-pocket. “Whiskey here,” he confided. “Bring me a glass. I don’t
mind your farmers. They won’t bother me. What I want is a locked door
and a still mouth in your head.”
The last he whispered in the husband’s ear as the wife crossed
reluctantly back to her books.
The man turned the bill he had received, over and over in his hand;
then scrutinised Sweetwater, with his first show of hesitation.
“You don’t want to kill yourself?” he asked.
Sweetwater laughed with a show of good humour that appeared to relieve
the woman, if it did not the man.
“Oh, that’s it,” he cried. “That’s what the missus was afraid of, was
it? Well, I vow! And ten thousand dollars to my credit in the bank!
No, I don’t want to kill myself. I just want to booze to my heart’s
content, with nobody by to count the glasses. You’ve known such fellers
before, and that cosey, little room over there has known them, too.
Just add me to the list; it won’t harm you.”
The man’s hand closed on the bill. Sweetwater noted the action out of
the corner of his eye, but his direct glance was on the woman. Her back
was to him, but she had started as he mentioned the snuggery and made
as if to turn; but thought better of it, and bent lower over her books.
“I’ve struck the spot,” he murmured, exultantly to himself. “This is
the place I want and here I’ll spend the night; but not to booze my
wits away, oh, no.”
Nevertheless it was a night virtually wasted. He learned nothing more
than what was revealed by that one slight movement on the part of the
woman.
Though the man came in and sat with him for an hour, and they drank
together out of the flask Sweetwater had brought with him, he was as
impervious to all Sweetwater’s wiles and as blind to every bait he
threw out, as any man the young detective had ever had to do with.
When the door closed on him, and Sweetwater was left to sit out the
tedious night alone, it was with small satisfaction to himself, and
some regret for his sacrificed bill. The driving in of the farmers and
the awakening of life in the market, and all the stir it occasioned
inside the house and out, prevented sleep even if he had been inclined
that way. He had to swallow his pill, and he did it with the best
grace possible. Sooner than was expected of him, sooner than was wise,
perhaps, he was on his feet and peering out of the one small window
this most dismal day room contained. He had not mistaken the outlook.
It gave on to the alley, and all that was visible from behind the
curtains where he stood, was the high brick wall of the neighbouring
house. This wall had not even a window in it; which in itself was a
disappointment to one of his resources. He turned back into the room,
disgusted; then crept to the window again, and, softly raising the
sash, cast one of his lightning glances up and down the alley. Then he
softly let the sash fall again and retreated to the centre of the room,
where he stood for a moment with a growing smile of intelligence and
hope on his face. He had detected close against the side of the wall,
a box or hand-cart full of empty bottles. It gave him an idea. With an
impetuosity he would have criticised in another man, he flung himself
out of the room in which he had been for so many hours confined, and
coming face to face with the landlady standing in unexpected watch
before the door, found it a strain on his nerves to instantly assume
the sullen, vaguely abused air with which he had decided to leave the
house. Nevertheless, he made the attempt, and if he did not succeed to
his own satisfaction, he evidently did to hers, for she made no effort
to stop him as he stumbled out, and in her final look, which he managed
with some address to intercept, he perceived nothing but relief. What
had been in her mind? Fear for him or fear for themselves? He could
not decide until he had rummaged that cart of bottles. But how was he
to do this without attracting attention to himself in a way he still
felt, to be undesirable. In his indecision, he paused on the sidewalk
and let his glances wander vaguely over the busy scene before him.
Before be knew it, his eye had left the market and travelled across
the snow-covered fields to a building standing by itself in the far
distance. Its appearance was not unfamiliar. Seizing hold of the first
man who passed him, he pointed it out, crying:
“What building is that?”
“That? That’s The Whispering Pines, the country club-house, where--”
He didn’t wait for the end of the sentence, but plunged into the
thickest group of people he could find, with a determination greater
than ever to turn those bottles over before he ate.
His manner of going about this was characteristic. Lounging about
the stalls until he found just the sort of old codger he wanted, he
scraped up an acquaintance with him on the spot, and succeeded in
making himself so agreeable that when the old fellow sauntered back to
the stables to take a look at his horse, Sweetwater accompanied him.
Hanging round the stable-door, he kept up his chatter, while sizing up
the bottles heaped in the cart at his side. He even allowed himself to
touch one or two in an absent way, and was meditating an accidental
upset of the whole collection when a woman he had not seen before,
thrust her head out of a rear window, shouting sharply:
“Leave those bottles alone. They’re waiting for the old clothes man. He
pays us money for them.”
Sweetwater gaped and strolled away. He had used his eyes to purpose,
and was quite assured that the bottle he wanted was not there. But
the woman’s words had given him his cue, and when later in the day a
certain old Jew peddler went his rounds through this portion of the
city, a disreputable-looking fellow accompanied him, whom even the
sharp landlady in Cuthbert Road would have failed to recognise as the
same man who had occupied the snuggery the night before. He was many
hours on the route and had many new experiences with human nature. But
he gained little else, and was considering with what words he should
acknowledge his defeat at police headquarters, when he found himself
again at the markets and a minute later in the alley where the cart
stood, with the contents of which he had busied himself earlier in the
day.
He had followed the peddler here because he had followed him to every
other back door and alley. But he was tired and had small interest
in the cart which looked quite undisturbed and in exactly the same
condition as when he turned his back upon it in the morning. But when
he drew nearer and began to lend a hand in removing the bottles to the
waggon, he discovered that a bottle had been added to the pile, and
that this bottle bore the label which marked it as being one of the two
which had been taken from the club-house on the night of the murder.
XVII
“MUST I TELL THESE THINGS?”
Had I but died an hour before this chance,
I had liv’d a blessed time; for from this instant,
There’s nothing serious in mortality:
All is but toys; renown, and grace is dead;
The wine of life is drawn, and the lees
Is left this vault to brag of.
_Macbeth_.
The lamp in the coroner’s room shone dully on the perturbed faces of
three anxious men. They had been talking earnestly and long, but were
now impatiently awaiting the appearance of a fourth party, as was shown
by the glances which each threw from time to time towards the door
leading into the main corridor.
The district attorney courted the light, and sat where he would be the
first seen by any one entering. He had nothing to hide, being entirely
engrossed in his duty.
Further back and rather behind the lamp than in front of it stood
or sat, as his restlessness prompted, Coroner Perry, the old friend
of Amasa Cumberland, with whose son he had now to do. Behind him,
and still further in the shadow, could be seen the quiet figure of
Sweetwater. All counted the minutes and all showed relief--the coroner
by a loud sigh--when the door finally opened and an officer appeared,
followed by the lounging form of Adelaide’s brother.
Arthur Cumberland had come unwillingly, and his dissatisfaction did
not improve his naturally heavy countenance. However, he brightened a
little at sight of the two men sitting at the table, and, advancing,
broke into speech before either of the two officials had planned their
questions.
“I call this hard,” he burst forth. “My place is at home and at the
bedside of my suffering sister, and you drag me down here at nine
o’clock at night to answer questions about things of which I am
completely ignorant. I’ve said all I have to say about the trouble
which has come into my family; but if another repetition of the same
things will help to convict that scoundrel who has broken up my home
and made me the wretchedest dog alive, then I’m ready to talk. So, fire
ahead, Dr. Perry, and let’s be done with it.”
“Sit down,” replied the district attorney, gravely, with a gesture
of dismissal to the officer. “Mr. Cumberland, we have spared you up
to this time, for two very good reasons. You were in great trouble,
and you appeared to be in the possession of no testimony which
would materially help us. But matters have changed since you held
conversation with Dr. Perry on the day following your sister’s decease.
You have laid that sister away; the will which makes you an independent
man for life has been read in your hearing; you are in as much ease of
mind as you can be while your remaining sister’s life hangs trembling
in the balance; and, more important still, discoveries not made before
the funeral, have been made since, rendering it very desirable for
you to enter into particulars at this present moment, which were not
thought necessary then.”
“Particulars? What particulars? Don’t you know enough, as it is, to
hang the fellow? Wasn’t he seen with his fingers on Adelaide’s throat?
What can I tell you that is any more damaging than that? Particulars!”
The word seemed to irritate him beyond endurance. Never had he looked
more unprepossessing or a less likely subject for sympathy, than when
he stumbled into the chair set for him by the district attorney.
“Arthur!”
The word had a subtle ring. The coroner, who uttered it, waited to
watch its effect. Seemingly it had none, after the first sullen glance
thrown him by the young man; and the coroner sighed again, but this
time softly, and as a prelude to the following speech:
“We can understand,” said he, “why you should feel so strongly against
one who has divided the hearts of your sisters, and played with one,
if not with both. Few men could feel differently. You have reason for
your enmity and we excuse it; but you must not carry it to the point
of open denunciation before the full evidence is in and the fact of
murder settled beyond all dispute. Whatever you may think, whatever we
may think, it has not been so settled. There are missing links still to
be supplied, and this is why we have summoned you here and ask you to
be patient and give the district attorney a little clearer account of
what went on in your own house, before you broke up that evening and
you went to your debauch, and your sister Adelaide to her death at The
Whispering Pines.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” He brought his fist down on the table
with each word. “Nothing went on. That is,--”
“Something went on at dinner-time. It was not a usual meal,” put in the
district attorney. “You and your sisters--”
“Stop!” He was at that point of passion which dulls the most
self-controlled to all sense of propriety.
“Don’t talk to me about that dinner. I want to forget that dinner. I
want to forget everything but the two things I live for--to see that
fellow hanged, and to--” The words choked him, and he let his head
fall, but presently threw it up again. “That dastard, whom may God
confound, passed a letter across Adelaide into Carmel’s hand,” he
panted out. “I saw him, but I didn’t take it in; I wasn’t thinking. I
was--”
“Who broke the glasses?” urged his relentless inquisitor. “One at your
plate, one at Carmel’s, and one at the head of the board where sat your
sister Adelaide?”
“God! Must I tell these things?” He had started to his feet and his
hand, violent in all it did, struck his forehead impulsively, as he
uttered this exclamation. “Have it, then! Heaven knows I think of it
enough not to be afraid to speak it out in words. Adelaide”--the name
came with passion, but once uttered, produced its own calming effect,
so that he went on with more restraint--“Adelaide never had much
patience with me. She was a girl who only saw one way. ‘The right! the
right!’ was what she dinned into my ears from the time I was a small
boy and didn’t know but that all youngsters were brought up by sisters.
I grew to hate what she called ‘the right,’ I wanted pleasure, a free
time, and a good drink whenever the fancy took me. You know what I
am, Dr. Perry, and everybody in town knows; but the impulse which has
always ruled me was not a downright evil one; or if it was, I called
it natural independence, and let it go at that. But Adelaide suffered.
I didn’t understand it and I didn’t care a fig for it, but she _did_
suffer. God forgive me!”
He stopped and mopped his forehead. Sweetwater moved a trifle on his
seat, but the others--men who had passed the meridian of life, who
had known temptations, possibly had succumbed to them, from time to
time--sat like two statues, one in full light and the other in as dark
a shadow as he could find.
“That afternoon,” young Cumberland presently resumed, “she was keyed up
more than usual. She loved Ranelagh,--damn him!--and he had played or
was playing her false. She watched him with eyes that madden me, now,
when I think of them. She saw him look at Carmel, and she saw Carmel
look at him. Then her eyes fell on me. I was angry; angry at them all,
and I wanted a drink. It was not her habit to have wine on the table;
but sometimes, when Ranelagh was there, she did. She was a slave to
Ranelagh, and he could make her do whatever he wished, just as he can
make you and everybody else.”
Here he shot insolent glances at his two interlocutors, one of whom
changed colour--which, happily, he did not see. “‘Ring the bell,’ I
ordered, ‘and have in the champagne. I want to drink to your marriage
and the happy days in prospect for us all,’ It was brutal and I
knew it; but I was reckless and wild for the wine. So, I guess, was
Ranelagh, for he smiled at her, and she rang for the champagne. When
the glasses had been set beside each plate, she turned towards Carmel.
‘We will all drink,’ she said, ‘to my coming marriage,’ This made
Carmel turn pale; for Adelaide had never been known to drink a drop
of liquor in her life. I felt a little queer, myself; and not one
of us spoke till the glasses were filled and the maid had left the
dining-room and shut the door.
“Then Adelaide rose. ‘We will drink standing,’ said she, and never
had I seen her look as she did then. I thought of my evil life
when I should have been watching Ranelagh; and when she lifted the
glass to her lips and looked at me, almost as earnestly as she did
at Ranelagh,--but it was a different kind of earnestness,--I felt
like--like--well, like the wretch I was and always had been; possibly,
always will be. She drank;--we wouldn’t call it drinking, for she just
touched the wine with her lips; but to her it was debauch. Then she
stood waiting, with the strangest gleam in her eyes, while Ranelagh
drained his glass and I drained mine. Ranelagh thought she wanted some
sentiment, and started to say something appropriate; but his eye fell
on Carmel, who had tried to drink and couldn’t, and he bungled over his
words and at last came to a pause under the steady stare of Adelaide’s
eyes.
“‘Never mind, Elwood,’ she said; ‘I know what you would like to
say. But that’s not what I am thinking of now. I am thinking of my
brother, the boy who will soon be left to find his way through life
without even the unwelcome restraint of my presence. I want him to
remember this day. I want him to remember me as I stand here before
him with this glass in my hand. You see wine in it, Arthur; but I see
poison--poison--nothing else, for one like you who cannot refuse a
friend, cannot refuse your own longing. Never from this day on shall
another bottle be opened under my roof. Carmel, you have grieved as
well as I over what has passed for pleasure in this house. Do as I do,
and may Arthur see and remember.’
“Her fingers opened; the glass fell from her hand, and lay in broken
fragments beside her plate. Carmel followed suit, and, before I knew
it, my own fingers had opened, and my own glass lay in pieces on the
table-cloth beneath me. Only Ranelagh’s hand remained steady. He did
not choose to please her, or he was planning his perfidy and had
not caught her words or understood her action. She held her breath,
watching that hand; and I can hear the gasp yet with which she saw him
set his glass down quietly on the board. That’s the story of those
three broken glasses. If she had not died that night, I should be
laughing at them now; but she did die and I don’t laugh! I curse--curse
her recreant lover, and sometimes myself! Do you want anything more of
me? I’m eager to be gone, if you don’t.”
The district attorney sought out and lifted a paper from the others
lying on the desk before him. It was the first movement he had made
since Cumberland began his tale.
“I’m sorry,” said he, with a rapid examination of the paper in his
hand, “but I shall have to detain you a few minutes longer. What
happened after the dinner? Where did you go from the table?”
“I went to my room to smoke. I was upset and thirsty as a fish.”
“Have you liquor in your room?”
“Sometimes.”
“Did you have any that night?”
“Not a drop. I didn’t dare. I wanted that champagne bottle, but
Adelaide had been too quick for me. It was thrown out--wasted--I do
believe, wasted.”
“So you did not drink? You only smoked in your room?”
“Smoked one cigar. That was all. Then I went down town.”
His tone had grown sulky, the emotion which had buoyed him up till now,
seemed suddenly to have left him. With it went the fire from his eye,
the quiver from his lip, and it is necessary to add, everything else
calculated to awaken sympathy. He was simply sullen now.
“May I ask by which door you left the house?”
“The side door--the one I always take.”
“What overcoat did you wear?”
“I don’t remember. The first one I came to, I suppose.”
“But you can surely tell what hat?”
They expected a violent reply, and they got it.
“No, I can’t. What has my hat got to do with the guilt of Elwood
Ranelagh?”
“Nothing, we hope,” was the imperturbable answer. “But we find it
necessary to establish absolutely just what overcoat and what hat you
wore down street that night.”
“I’ve told you that I don’t remember.” The young man’s colour was
rising.
“Are not these the ones?” queried the district attorney, making a sign
to Sweetwater, who immediately stepped forward, with a shabby old
ulster over his arm, and a battered derby in his hand.
The young man started, rose, then sat again, shouting out with angry
emphasis:
“_No!_”
“Yet you recognise these?”
“Why shouldn’t I? They’re mine. Only I don’t wear them any more.
They’re done for. You must have rooted them out from some closet.”
“We did; perhaps you can tell us what closet.”
“I? No. What do I know about my old clothes? I leave that to the women.”