The Murderer Chuckles.
Even the clearest and most perfect circumstantial evidence is likely to
be at fault, after all, and therefore ought to be received with great
caution. Take the case of any pencil, sharpened by any woman: if you
have witnesses, you will find she did it with a knife; but if you take
simply the aspect of the pencil, you will say she did it with her
teeth.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar.
The weeks dragged along, no friend visiting the jailed twins but their
counsel and Aunt Patsy Cooper, and the day of trial came at last--the
heaviest day in Wilson's life; for with all his tireless diligence he
had discovered no sign or trace of the missing confederate.
"Confederate" was the term he had long ago privately accepted for that
person--not as being unquestionably the right term, but as being at
least possibly the right one, though he was never able to understand why
the twins did not vanish and escape, as the confederate had done,
instead of remaining by the murdered man and getting caught there.
The court-house was crowded, of course, and would remain so to the
finish, for not only in the town itself, but in the country for miles
around, the trial was the one topic of conversation among the people.
Mrs. Pratt, in deep mourning, and Tom with a weed on his hat, had seats
near Pembroke Howard, the public prosecutor, and back of them sat a
great array of friends of the family. The twins had but one friend
present to keep their counsel in countenance, their poor old sorrowing
landlady. She sat near Wilson, and looked her friendliest. In the
"nigger corner" sat Chambers; also Roxy, with good clothes on, and her
bill of sale in her pocket. It was her most precious possession, and she
never parted with it, day or night. Tom had allowed her thirty-five
dollars a month ever since he came into his property, and had said that
he and she ought to be grateful to the twins for making them rich; but
had roused such a temper in her by this speech that he did not repeat
the argument afterward. She said the old Judge had treated her child a
thousand times better than he deserved, and had never done her an
unkindness in his life; so she hated these outlandish devils for killing
him, and shouldn't ever sleep satisfied till she saw them hanged for it.
She was here to watch the trial, now, and was going to lift up just one
"hooraw" over it if the County Judge put her in jail a year for it. She
gave her turbaned head a toss and said, "When dat verdic' comes, I's
gwine to lif' dat roof, now, I tell you."
Pembroke Howard briefly sketched the State's case. He said he would show
by a chain of circumstantial evidence without break or fault in it
anywhere, that the principal prisoner at the bar committed the murder;
that the motive was partly revenge, and partly a desire to take his own
life out of jeopardy, and that his brother, by his presence, was a
consenting accessory to the crime; a crime which was the basest known to
the calendar of human misdeeds--assassination; that it was conceived by
the blackest of hearts and consummated by the cowardliest of hands; a
crime which had broken a loving sister's heart, blighted the happiness
of a young nephew who was as dear as a son, brought inconsolable grief
to many friends, and sorrow and loss to the whole community. The utmost
penalty of the outraged law would be exacted, and upon the accused, now
present at the bar, that penalty would unquestionably be executed. He
would reserve further remark until his closing speech.
He was strongly moved, and so also was the whole house; Mrs. Pratt and
several other women were weeping when he sat down, and many an eye that
was full of hate was riveted upon the unhappy prisoners.
Witness after witness was called by the State, and questioned at length;
but the cross-questioning was brief. Wilson knew they could furnish
nothing valuable for his side. People were sorry for Pudd'nhead; his
budding career would get hurt by this trial.
Several witnesses swore they heard Judge Driscoll say in his public
speech that the twins would be able to find their lost knife again when
they needed it to assassinate somebody with. This was not news, but now
it was seen to have been sorrowfully prophetic, and a profound sensation
quivered through the hushed court-room when those dismal words were
repeated.
The public prosecutor rose and said that it was within his knowledge,
through a conversation held with Judge Driscoll on the last day of his
life, that counsel for the defense had brought him a challenge from the
person charged at this bar with murder; that he had refused to fight
with a confessed assassin--"that is, on the field of honor," but had
added significantly, that he would be ready for him elsewhere.
Presumably the person here charged with murder was warned that he must
kill or be killed the first time he should meet Judge Driscoll. If
counsel for the defense chose to let the statement stand so, he would
not call him to the witness stand. Mr. Wilson said he would offer no
denial. [Murmurs in the house--"It is getting worse and worse for
Wilson's case."]
Mrs. Pratt testified that she heard no outcry, and did not know what
woke her up, unless it was the sound of rapid footsteps approaching the
front door. She jumped up and ran out in the hall just as she was, and
heard the footsteps flying up the front steps and then following behind
her as she ran to the sitting-room. There she found the accused standing
over her murdered brother. [Here she broke down and sobbed. Sensation in
the court.] Resuming, she said the persons entering behind her were Mr.
Rogers and Mr. Buckstone.
Cross-examined by Wilson, she said the twins proclaimed their innocence;
declared that they had been taking a walk, and had hurried to the house
in response to a cry for help which was so loud and strong that they had
heard it at a considerable distance; that they begged her and the
gentlemen just mentioned to examine their hands and clothes--which was
done, and no blood stains found.
Confirmatory evidence followed from Rogers and Buckstone.
The finding of the knife was verified, the advertisement minutely
describing it and offering a reward for it was put in evidence, and its
exact correspondence with that description proved. Then followed a few
minor details, and the case for the State was closed.
Wilson said that he had three witnesses, the Misses Clarkson, who would
testify that they met a veiled young woman leaving Judge Driscoll's
premises by the back gate a few minutes after the cries for help were
heard, and that their evidence, taken with certain circumstantial
evidence which he would call the court's attention to, would in his
opinion convince the court that there was still one person concerned in
this crime who had not yet been found, and also that a stay of
proceedings ought to be granted, in justice to his clients, until that
person should be discovered. As it was late, he would ask leave to defer
the examination of his three witnesses until the next morning.
The crowd poured out of the place and went flocking away in excited
groups and couples, talking the events of the session over with vivacity
and consuming interest, and everybody seemed to have had a satisfactory
and enjoyable day except the accused, their counsel, and their old-lady
friend. There was no cheer among these, and no substantial hope.
In parting with the twins Aunt Patsy did attempt a good-night with a gay
pretense of hope and cheer in it, but broke down without finishing.
Absolutely secure as Tom considered himself to be, the opening
solemnities of the trial had nevertheless oppressed him with a vague
uneasiness, his being a nature sensitive to even the smallest alarms;
but from the moment that the poverty and weakness of Wilson's case lay
exposed to the court, he was comfortable once more, even jubilant. He
left the court-room sarcastically sorry for Wilson. "The Clarksons met
an unknown woman in the back lane," he said to himself--"that is his
case! I'll give him a century to find her in--a couple of them if he
likes. A woman who doesn't exist any longer, and the clothes that gave
her her sex burnt up and the ashes thrown away--oh, certainly, he'll
find her easy enough!" This reflection set him to admiring, for the
hundredth time, the shrewd ingenuities by which he had insured himself
against detection--more, against even suspicion.
"Nearly always in cases like this there is some little detail or other
overlooked, some wee little track or trace left behind, and detection
follows; but here there's not even the faintest suggestion of a trace
left. No more than a bird leaves when it flies through the air--yes,
through the night, you may say. The man that can track a bird through
the air in the dark and find that bird is the man to track me out and
find the Judge's assassin--no other need apply. And that is the job that
has been laid out for poor Pudd'nhead Wilson, of all people in the
world! Lord, it will be pathetically funny to see him grubbing and
groping after that woman that don't exist, and the right person sitting
under his very nose all the time!" The more he thought the situation
over, the more the humor of it struck him. Finally he said, "I'll never
let him hear the last of that woman. Every time I catch him in company,
to his dying day, I'll ask him in the guileless affectionate way that
used to gravel him so when I inquired how his unborn law-business was
coming along, 'Got on her track yet--hey, Pudd'nhead?'" He wanted to
laugh, but that would not have answered; there were people about, and he
was mourning for his uncle. He made up his mind that it would be good
entertainment to look in on Wilson that night and watch him worry over
his barren law-case and goad him with an exasperating word or two of
sympathy and commiseration now and then.
Wilson wanted no supper, he had no appetite. He got out all the
finger-prints of girls and women in his collection of records and pored
gloomily over them an hour or more, trying to convince himself that that
troublesome girl's marks were there somewhere and had been overlooked.
But it was not so. He drew back his chair, clasped his hands over his
head, and gave himself up to dull and arid musings.
Tom Driscoll dropped in, an hour after dark, and said with a pleasant
laugh as he took a seat--
"Hello, we've gone back to the amusements of our days of neglect and
obscurity for consolation, have we?" and he took up one of the glass
strips and held it against the light to inspect it. "Come, cheer up, old
man; there's no use in losing your grip and going back to this
child's-play merely because this big sunspot is drifting across your
shiny new disk. It'll pass, and you'll be all right again,"--and he laid
the glass down. "Did you think you could win always?"
"Oh, no," said Wilson, with a sigh, "I didn't expect that, but I can't
believe Luigi killed your uncle, and I feel very sorry for him. It makes
me blue. And you would feel as I do, Tom, if you were not prejudiced
against those young fellows."
"I don't know about that," and Tom's countenance darkened, for his
memory reverted to his kicking; "I owe them no good will, considering
the brunette one's treatment of me that night. Prejudice or no
prejudice, Pudd'nhead, I don't like them, and when they get their
deserts you're not going to find me sitting on the mourner's bench."
He took up another strip of glass, and exclaimed--
"Why, here's old Roxy's label! Are you going to ornament the royal
palaces with nigger paw-marks, too? By the date here, I was seven months
old when this was done, and she was nursing me and her little nigger
cub. There's a line straight across her thumb-print. How comes that?"
and Tom held out the piece of glass to Wilson.
"That is common," said the bored man, wearily. "Scar of a cut or a
scratch, usually"--and he took the strip of glass indifferently, and
raised it toward the lamp.
All the blood sunk suddenly out of his face; his hand quaked, and he
gazed at the polished surface before him with the glassy stare of a
corpse.
"Great Heavens, what's the matter with you, Wilson? Are you going to
faint?"
Tom sprang for a glass of water and offered it, but Wilson shrank
shuddering from him and said--
"No, no!--take it away!" His breast was rising and falling, and he moved
his head about in a dull and wandering way, like a person who had been
stunned. Presently he said, "I shall feel better when I get to bed; I
have been overwrought to-day; yes, and over worked for many days."
"Then I'll leave you and let you to get to your rest. Good-night, old
man." But as Tom went out he couldn't deny himself a small parting gibe:
"Don't take it so hard; a body can't win every time; you'll hang
somebody yet."
Wilson muttered to himself, "It is no lie to say I am sorry I have to
begin with you, miserable dog though you are!"
He braced himself up with a glass of cold whisky, and went to work
again. He did not compare the new finger-marks unintentionally left by
Tom a few minutes before on Roxy's glass with the tracings of the marks
left on the knife-handle, there being no need for that (for his trained
eye), but busied himself with another matter, muttering from time to
time, "Idiot that I was!--Nothing but a girl would do me--a man in
girl's clothes never occurred to me." First, he hunted out the plate
containing the finger-prints made by Tom when he was twelve years old,
and laid it by itself; then he brought forth the marks made by Tom's
baby fingers when he was a suckling of seven months, and placed these
two plates with the one containing this subject's newly (and
unconsciously) made record.
"Now the series is complete," he said with satisfaction, and sat down to
inspect these things and enjoy them.
But his enjoyment was brief. He stared a considerable time at the three
strips, and seemed stupefied with astonishment. At last he put them down
and said, "I can't make it out at all--hang it, the baby's don't tally
with the others!"
He walked the floor for half an hour puzzling over his enigma, then he
hunted out two other glass plates.
He sat down and puzzled over these things a good while, but kept
muttering, "It's no use; I can't understand it. They don't tally right,
and yet I'll swear the names and dates are right, and so of course they
ought to tally. I never labeled one of these thing carelessly in my
life. There is a most extraordinary mystery here."
He was tired out, now, and his brains were beginning to clog. He said he
would sleep himself fresh, and then see what he could do with this
riddle. He slept through a troubled and unrestful hour, then
unconsciousness began to shred away, and presently he rose drowsily to a
sitting posture. "Now what was that dream?" he said, trying to recall
it; "what was that dream?--it seemed to unravel that puz--"
He landed in the middle of the floor at a bound, without finishing the
sentence, and ran and turned up his light and seized his "records." He
took a single swift glance at them and cried out--
"It's so! Heavens, what a revelation! And for twenty-three years no man
has ever suspected it!"