Never had there assembled beneath the roof of the Dunlap mansion since
the old house was constructed, a company so entirely uncomfortable as
that around the table in the library on the night that Walter Burton
dined for the last time with Mr. Dunlap.
John Dunlap’s mind was filled with doubts concerning what was his duty
with regard to Burton, having due consideration for the memory of his
deceased brother, and as to what would have been the wish of that beloved
brother under existing circumstances. Recognizing, as John Dunlap did,
the influence that his personal antipathy for Burton had upon his
conduct, he was nervous and uncomfortable.
Burton felt the restraint imposed upon him irksome, even for the time of
this brief and final visit to the home where his best emotions had been
aroused, and the purest delights of his artificial existence enjoyed. He
was anxious to be gone, to be free, to forget, and was impatient of delay.
Jack Dunlap, pale and somewhat thin, still carrying his arm bound to
his breast, felt the weight of the responsibility resting upon him in
releasing Lucy’s husband from a promise that for months had held him near
her should the husband’s presence be required at any moment, and was
correspondingly silent and meditative.
Nervous, expectant and fearful, David Chapman sat only half attentive
to what was said or done around him. His ears were strained to catch
the first sound that announced the coming of the visitors which he now
dreaded.
“The terms of the settlement of my interest in your house, Mr. Dunlap,
are entirely too liberal to me, and I only accept them because of my
anxiety to be freed from the cares of business at the earliest possible
moment, and am unwilling to await the report of examining accountants,”
said Walter Burton as he glanced over the paper submitted to him by
Chapman.
“Do you expect to leave the city at once?” asked Mr. Dunlap in a
hesitating, doubtful voice.
“Yes, I will make a tour through the Southern States, probably go to
California and may return and take a trip to Europe. I have promised
Captain Dunlap to keep your house informed of my movements and address at
all times, and shall immediately respond, by promptly returning, if my
presence in Boston be called for,” replied Burton.
“I confess, Burton, that my mind is not free from doubt as to the
propriety of allowing you to withdraw from our house. I should like to
act as my brother James would have done. His wishes are as binding upon
me now as when he lived,” said Mr. Dunlap in a low and troubled voice.
“It is needless to rehearse the painful story of the last few months,
Mr. Dunlap. Had your brother lived he must have perceived the total
vanity of some of his most cherished wishes regarding the union of his
granddaughter and myself. Heirs to his name and estate must be impossible
from that union under the unalterable conditions. My wife’s dementia and
her irrational aversion to my presence would have influenced him as it
does you and me, and—I might as well say it—I am aware of the fact and
realize the naturalness of the sentiment. I am _persona non grata_ here.”
There was a tinge of bitterness in the closing sentence and Burton
accompanied it with a defiant manner that evinced much concealed
resentment.
As Burton ceased speaking, the eyes of the four men sitting at the table
turned to the door, hearing it open. The footman who had opened it had
hardly crossed the threshold when he was pushed aside by the firm hand of
Chief of Detectives O’Brien, who, in full uniform, followed by a man in
citizens’ dress carrying a bundle under his arm, entered the room.
Mr. Dunlap hurriedly arose and advancing with outstretched hand exclaimed,
“Why! Chief, this is an unexpected pleasure—”
“Mr. Dunlap, stop a moment.” There was a look in the official’s eyes that
froze Mr. Dunlap’s welcome on his lips and nailed him to the spot on
which he stood. Chapman glanced at Burton, on whom O’Brien’s gaze was
fastened. Burton had risen and stood trembling like an aspen leaf without
a single shade of color left in cheeks or lips. Jack Dunlap’s face
flushed somewhat indignantly as he rose and walked forward to the side of
his kinsman.
“With all due regard for that high respect I entertain for you, Mr.
Dunlap, it has become my painful duty to enter your house tonight in my
official capacity and arrest one accused of the most serious crime known
to the law.” While O’Brien was speaking he moved toward the table, never
removing his eyes from Burton.
“What do you mean, sir?” cried Jack in a wrathful voice, interposing
himself between O’Brien and the table.
“Stand aside, Captain Dunlap!” said the Chief sternly. Quickly stepping
to Burton’s side and placing his hand on his shoulder he said,
“Walter Burton, I arrest you in the name of the Commonwealth, on the
charge of murder.”
With a movement too quick even for a glance to catch, the Chief jerked
Burton’s hands together and snapped a pair of handcuffs on the wrists of
the rapidly collapsing man.
The eyes of all present were fixed, in stupified amazement, on O’Brien
and Burton, and had not seen what stood in the open doorway until a low
moan caused Jack to turn his head. He saw then the figure of Lucy slowly
sinking to the floor.
Lucy in her wanderings about the house was passing through the hall when
the uniformed officer entered. Attracted by the unusual spectacle of a
man in a blue coat ornamented with brass buttons, she had followed the
policeman and overheard all that he had said, and seen what he had done.
“I will furnish bail in any amount, O’Brien,” exclaimed Mr. Dunlap,
staying the two officers by stepping before them as they almost carried
Burton, unable to walk, from the room.
“Please stand aside, Mr. Dunlap,” said the Chief kindly.
“Don’t make it harder than it is now for me to do my duty,” and gently
pushing the old gentleman aside, O’Brien and his assistant bore Burton
from the library and the Dunlap mansion.
“Help me, quick! Lucy has fainted!” called Jack, who, crippled as he was,
could not raise the unconscious wife of Burton.
When Mr. Dunlap reached Jack’s bending figure, Lucy opened her eyes,
gazed about wildly for an instant, gasped for breath as if suffocating,
and suddenly sprang unassisted to her feet, as if shot upward by some
hidden mechanism.
“Walter! My husband! Where is he? Where is grandfather? What has
happened?” she cried out, in a confused way, as one just aroused from a
sound sleep.
Jack and Mr. Dunlap stared at her for a moment in wonderment; then
something in her eyes gave them the gladsome tidings, in this their hour
of greatest trouble, that reason had resumed its sway over loved Lucy’s
mind; she was restored to sanity. The shock had been to her heart and
restored her senses, as a similar shock had deprived her of them. The
experts had predicted correctly.
“Walter is in trouble, danger. I heard that policeman say murder! Save my
husband, Jack! Uncle John! Where is my grandfather?”
Jack finally gathered enough of his scattered composure to reply somehow
to the excited young woman. He said all that he dared say so soon after
the return of reason to her distracted head.
“Be calm, Cousin Lucy! Your grandfather is absent from the city. You have
been ill. Your Uncle John and I will do all in our power to aid Walter if
he be in danger.”
She turned her eyes toward her Uncle John and regarded him steadily for
the space of a minute, and then she whirled about and faced Jack, crying
out in clear and ringing tones,
“I will not trust Uncle John. He dislikes Walter and always has, but you!
you, Jack Dunlap, I trust next to my God and my good grandfather. Will
you promise to aid Walter?”
“I promise, Lucy. Now be calm,” said Jack gently.
There was no madness now in Lucy’s bright, gleaming, hazel eyes; womanly
anxiety as a wife was superb in its earnestness. She was grand, sublime
as with the majestic grace of a queen of tragedy she swept close to her
cousin, then raising herself to her greatest height, with her hand
extended upward, pointing to heaven, she commanded as a sovereign might
have done.
“Swear to me, Jack Dunlap, by God above us and your sacred honor, that
you will stop at nothing in the effort to save my husband. Swear!”
“I swear,” said the sailor simply as he raised his hand.
The woman’s manner, speech, and the scene did not seem strange to
those who stood about her. She was suddenly aroused to reason to find
the object of her tenderest love in direst danger; her stay, prop and
reliance, her grandfather, unaccountably absent. In that trying stress of
circumstances, the intensity of the feeling within her wrought-up soul
found expression in excessive demands and exaggerated attitudes.
“Now go! my Jack; hurry after Walter and help him,” she urged as with
nervous hands she pushed him toward the door.
Next morning, when the newspapers made the startling announcement that
a member of the firm of J. Dunlap, Boston’s oldest and wealthiest
business house, had been arrested on the charge of that nameless crime
and the murder of the Malloy girl, the entire city was stunned by the
intelligence.
A crowd quickly gathered around the city jail. Threatful mutterings
were heard as the multitude increased in numbers about the prison. When
Malloy came and his neighbors clustered about the infuriated father of
the outraged victim, that slow and slumbering wrath that lies beneath the
calm, deceptive surface of the New England character began to make itself
evident. “Tear down the gates!” “Lynch the fiend,” and such expressions
were heard among the men, momentarily growing louder, as the cool
exterior of the Northern nature gave away.
Soon many seafaring men were seen moving among the most excited of the
mob, saying as they passed from one group to another, “It’s not true! You
know the Dunlaps too well!” “Keep quiet, it’s a lie!” “Dunlap offered a
reward for the arrest of the villain; it can’t be as the papers say!”
One sailor-man, who carried a crippled arm, mounted a box and made a
speech, telling the people there must be a mistake and begging them
to be quiet. When he said that his name was Dunlap, the seafaring men
began to cheer for “Skipper Jack,” and the mob joined in. Seeing one of
the Dunlap name so calm, honest and brave in their very midst, the mob
began to doubt, and shaking their heads the people moved gradually away
and dispersed, persuaded that naught connected with the worthy Dunlap
name could cause such foul wrong and disgrace to the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts.
The best legal talent of New England was retained that day for the
defense of Burton. When they had examined the circumstantial evidence
against Burton they frankly told Jack Dunlap that an alibi, positively
established, alone could save the accused man.
The unselfish sailor sought the seclusion of his cabin on board his ship,
that lay at anchor in the harbor, there to ponder over the terrible
information given him by the leading lawyers of Boston.
Uncomplainingly the man had resigned his hope of the greatest joy that
could come to his strong, unselfish soul—Lucy’s love. For the sake of
her whom he loved he had concealed his suffering. He had smothered the
sorrow that well nigh wrenched the heart out of his bosom, that he might
minister to her in the hour of her mental affliction. He had shed his
blood in shielding with his breast the man whom she had selected in his
stead. All this he had done as ungrudgingly and gladly as he had tended
her slightest bidding when as wee maid she had ruled him.
Love demanded of this great heart the final and culminating sacrifice.
Could he, would he offer up his honor on the altar of his love?
To this knight by right of nature, honor and truth were dearer far than
his blood or his life. Would he surrender the one prize he cherished
highest for his hopeless love’s sake?
“I will swear that you were aboard my ship with me every hour
of the night on which the crime of which you stand accused
was committed. An absolute alibi alone can save you. May
God forgive you! May God forgive me! and may the people of
Massachusetts pardon
Perjured Jack Dunlap.”
Such was the letter sent by the sailor, by well paid and trusty hand,
to the successful suitor for Lucy’s hand, now closely mewed within the
prison walls of Boston’s strongest jail.
Could any man’s love be greater than the love of him who sent that
letter?