Now I don't believe if I gave you twenty guesses you'd know what I did
when I heard those words--burst out crying.
It wasn't because I wanted Cokesbury to be executed; it wasn't because I
wanted the reward; it wasn't even that I was so crazy to have Jack Reddy
exonerated--it was just because I was so disappointed--so _foiled_--that
I couldn't seem to bear it.
I cried so hard I didn't know what I was doing, and I suppose that's the
reason I leaned on Babbitts' shoulder, it being the nearest thing handy.
He brought me to my senses, patting me on the arm and saying sort of
soothing as if he was comforting a child who'd broken her doll:
"There, there--don't cry--it'll be all right soon. We'll get the right
man. Don't take it to heart that way."
Then I began to laugh, for it did seem so comical--me crying because
Cokesbury wasn't a murderer, and Babbitts telling me not to take it to
heart as if I'd been disappointed in not seeing the electrocution. The
laughter and tears got mixed up together and I don't know where I'd have
landed if I hadn't seen he was getting frightened and wanted to call
Mrs. Galway. That pulled me up, and I got a hold on myself. In a few
minutes we were sitting side by side in front of the stove, the storm
over, all but a little hiccupy kind of sob, that came upon me unexpected
at intervals.
For the next hour we sat there without moving while Babbitts told me
Cokesbury's story.
I'll put down what he said as near his words as I can remember it. The
way he told it was better than any of the newspaper accounts, even his,
though he got a raise of salary for the way he'd handled it:
"Cokesbury says he didn't kill Sylvia Hesketh and I believe him and so
do the Whitneys. Besides the corroborative evidence is absolutely
convincing. He's not a murderer but he's a coward--no good at all--and
that explains why he didn't come out after the crime and tell what he
knew. Instead he got in a panic, lost what little nerve he had, and was
skipping out to Europe when you nabbed him.
"He was in love with Sylvia Hesketh, if you call that sort of thing
love. Anyway, instead of being simply what you might describe as a beau
of hers, he was mad about her. I fancy even she, poor girl, didn't
realize the passion she'd kindled, but was like a child playing with a
dynamite bomb. It appears she saw more of him than anybody guessed.
After the first flirtation at Bar Harbor, he came down to Cokesbury
Lodge nearly every Sunday and used to meet her in the woods and on the
side roads, and make dates with her for theaters and concerts in town.
He kept it quiet for he knew without being told that the Doctor wouldn't
stand for it. His hope was that, willful and unstable as he knew her to
be, he'd eventually win her by his persistence and devotion.
"It was one of those situations that may end in nothing or may end as
this one did in a tragedy. The girl was foolhardy and flirtatious; the
man infatuated. Very quickly he got on to the fact that he was not the
only victim of her beauty and her wiles. He watched and questioned and
found out about the other men. Of them he soon saw that Reddy was the
favored one and a deadly jealousy seized him, for Reddy might have
attracted any woman.
"When he tried to find out from her how she stood with Reddy he could
get no satisfaction. She'd tell him one thing one day and another the
next. She kept them all guessing, but it didn't mean to any of the
others what it meant to Cokesbury. All through October he spied and
queried, and learnt that she was meeting Reddy in his car and going off
for long jaunts with him. He says he was half mad with jealousy and
fear, but he hid it from her.
"That's the way things were when he sent the phone message that you
caught. You sized him up just right. When she told him she had a date
that was a secret, he got a premonition of the truth, the way a man does
when his reason is under the dominion of his emotions. He felt certain
she was going off with Reddy, and the brakes that he'd kept down till
then were lifted. He determined he'd find out and if it was true stop
them if the skies fell.
"And now here comes the queer part of the story. If anybody'd guessed it
a lot of things that were dark would have been as clear as daylight. He
_did_ keep the date you heard him make on the phone."
"How could he? He had no car, or horse, or anything."
"Only part of that's true--he had no car, or horse, but he _did_ have
something."
"What?"
"An aeroplane."