Hand and Ring by Anna Katharine Green (good book club books TXT) 📖

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lying upon the floor of her dining-room in a dying condition. That such a witness exists I have no doubt. A street in which there are six houses, every one of which has to be passed by the person entering Widow Clemmens' gate, must produce one individual, at least, who can swear to what I want. To be sure, all whom I have questioned so far say that they were either eating dinner at the time or were in the kitchen serving it up; but, for all that, there were plenty who saw the tramp, and two women, at least, who are ready to take their oath that they not only saw him, but watched him long enough to observe him go around to the Widow Clemmens' kitchen door and turn about again and come away as if for some reason he had changed his mind about entering. Now, if there were two witnesses to see all that, there must have been one somewhere to notice that other person, known or unknown, who went through the street but a few minutes before the tramp. At all events, I believe such a witness can be found, and I mean to have him if I call up every man, woman, and child who was in the lane at the time. But a little foreknowledge helps a coroner wonderfully, and if you will aid me by making judicious inquiries round about, time will be gained, and, perhaps, a clue obtained that will lead to a direct knowledge of the perpetrator of this crime."

"But," inquired the detective, willing, at least, to discuss the subject with the coroner, "is it absolutely necessary that the murderer should have advanced from the street? Is there no way he could have reached the house from the back, and so have eluded the gaze of the neighbors round about?"

"No; that is, there is no regular path there, only a stretch of swampy ground, any thing but pleasant to travel through. Of course a man with a deliberate purpose before him might pursue that route and subject himself to all its inconveniences; but I would scarcely expect it of one who—who chose such an hour for his assault," the coroner explained, with a slight stammer of embarrassment that did not escape the detective's notice. "Nor shall I feel ready to entertain the idea till it has been proved that no person, with the exception of those already named, was seen any time during that fatal half-hour to advance by the usual way to the widow's house."

"Have you questioned the tramp, or in any way received from him an intimation of the reason why he did not go into the house after he came to it?"

"He said he heard voices quarrelling."

"Ah!"

"Of course he was not upon his oath, but as the statement was volunteered, we have some right to credit it, perhaps."

"Did he say"—it was Mr. Byrd now who lost a trifle of his fluency—"what sort of voices he heard?"

"No; he is an ignorant wretch, and is moreover thoroughly frightened. I don't believe he would know a cultivated from an uncultivated voice, a gentleman's from a quarryman's. At all events, we cannot trust to his discrimination."

Mr. Byrd started. This was the last construction he had expected to be put upon his question. Flushing a trifle, he looked the coroner earnestly in the face. But that gentleman was too absorbed in the train of thought raised by his own remark to notice the look, and Mr. Byrd, not feeling any too well assured of his own position, forbore to utter the words that hovered on his tongue.

"I have another commission for you," resumed the coroner, after a moment. "Here is a name which I wish you would look at——"

But at this instant a smart tap was heard at the door, and a boy entered with the expected telegram from New York. Dr. Tredwell took it, and, after glancing at its contents with an annoyed look, folded up the paper he was about to hand to Mr. Byrd and put it slowly back into his pocket. He then referred again to the telegram.

"It is not what I expected," he said, shortly, after a moment of perplexed thought. "It seems that the superintendent is not disposed to accommodate me." And he tossed over the telegram.

Mr. Byrd took it and read:

"Expect a suitable man by the midnight express. He will bring a letter."

A flush mounted to the detective's brow.

"You see, sir," he observed, "I was right when I told you I was not the man."

"I don't know," returned the other, rising. "I have not changed my opinion. The man they send may be very keen and very well-up in his business, but I doubt if he will manage this case any better than you would have done," and he moved quietly toward the door.

"Thank you for your too favorable opinion of my skill," said Mr. Byrd, as he bowed the other out. "I am sure the superintendent is right. I am not much accustomed to work for myself, and was none too eager to take the case in the first place, as you will do me the justice to remember. I can but feel relieved at this shifting of the responsibility upon shoulders more fitted to bear it."

Yet, when the coroner was gone, and he sat down alone by himself to review the matter, he found he was in reality more disappointed than he cared to confess. Why, he scarcely knew. There was no lessening of the shrinking he had always felt from the possible developments which an earnest inquiry into the causes of this crime might educe. Yet, to be severed in this way from all professional interest in the pursuit cut him so deeply that, in despite of his usual good-sense and correct judgment, he was never nearer sending in his resignation than he was in that short half-hour which followed the departure of Dr. Tredwell. To distract his thoughts, he at last went down to the bar-room.

VI. THE SKILL OF AN ARTIST.

A hit, a very palpable hit.—Hamlet.

HE found it occupied by some half-dozen men, one of whom immediately attracted his attention, by his high-bred air and total absorption in the paper he was reading. He was evidently a stranger, and, though not without some faint marks of a tendency to gentlemanly dissipation, was, to say the least, more than ordinarily good-looking, possessing a large, manly figure, and a fair, regular-featured face, above which shone a thick crop of short curly hair of a peculiarly bright blond color. He was sitting at a small table, drawn somewhat apart from the rest, and was, as I have said, engrossed with a newspaper, to the utter exclusion of any apparent interest in the talk that was going on at the other end of the room. And yet this talk was of the most animated description, and was seemingly of a nature to attract the attention of the most indifferent. At all events Mr. Byrd considered it so; and, after one comprehensive glance at the elegant stranger, that took in not only the personal characteristics I have noted, but also the frown of deep thought or anxious care that furrowed a naturally smooth forehead, he passed quietly up the room and took his stand among the group of loungers there assembled.

Mr. Byrd was not unknown to the habitués of that place, and no cessation took place in the conversation. They were discussing an occurrence slight enough in itself, but made interesting and dramatic by the unconscious enthusiasm of the chief speaker, a young fellow of indifferent personal appearance, but with a fervid flow of words and a knack at presenting a subject that reminded you of the actor's power, and made you as anxious to watch his gesticulations as to hear the words that accompanied them.

"I tell you," he was saying, "that it was just a leaf out of a play. I never saw its equal off the stage. She was so handsome, so impressive in her trouble or anxiety, or whatever it was that agitated her, and he so dark, and so determined in his trouble or anxiety, or whatever it was that agitated him. They came in at different doors, she at one side of the depot and he at another, and they met just where I could see them both, directly in the centre of the room. 'You!' was her involuntary cry, and she threw up her hands before her face just as if she had seen a ghost or a demon. An equal exclamation burst from him, but he did not cover his eyes, only stood and looked at her as if he were turned to stone. In another moment she dropped her hands. 'Were you coming to see me?' came from her lips in a whisper so fraught with secret horror and anguish that it curdled my blood to hear it. 'Were you coming to see me?' was his response, uttered in an equally suppressed voice and with an equal intensity of expression. And then, without either giving an answer to the other's question, they both shrank back, and, turning, fled with distracted looks, each by the way they had come, the two doors closing with a simultaneous bang that echoed through that miserable depot like a knell. There were not many folks in the room just at that minute, but I tell you those that were looked at each other as they had not done before and would not be likely to do again. Some unhappy tragedy underlies such a meeting and parting, gentlemen, and I for one would rather not inquire what."

"But the girl—the man—didn't you see them again before you left?" asked an eager voice from the group.

"The young lady," remarked the other, "was on the train that brought me here. The gentleman went the other way."

"Oh!" "Ah!" and "Where did she get off?" rose in a somewhat deafening clamor around him.

"I did not observe. She seemed greatly distressed, if not thoroughly overcome, and observing her pull down her veil, I thought she did not relish my inquiring looks, and as I could not sit within view of her and not watch her, I discreetly betook myself into the smoking-car, where I stayed till we arrived at this place."

"Hum!" "Ha!" "Curious!" rose in chorus once more, and then, the general sympathies of the crowd being exhausted, two or three or more of the group sauntered up to the bar, and the rest sidled restlessly out of the room, leaving the enthusiastic speaker alone with Mr. Byrd.

"A strange scene!" exclaimed the latter, infusing just enough of seeming interest into his usually nonchalant tone to excite the vanity of the person he addressed, and make him more than ever ready to talk. "I wish I had been in your place," continued Mr. Byrd, almost enthusiastically. "I am sure I could have made a picture of that scene that would have been very telling in the gazette I draw for."

"Do you make pictures for papers?" the young fellow inquired, his respect visibly rising.

"Sometimes," the imperturbable detective replied, and in so doing told no more than the truth. He had a rare talent for off-hand sketching, and not infrequently made use of it to increase the funds of the family.

"Well, that is something I would like to do," acknowledged the youth, surveying the other over with curious eyes. "But I hav'n't a cent's worth of talent for it. I can see a scene in my mind now—this one for instance—just as plain as I can see you; all the details of it, you know, the way they stood, the clothes they wore, the looks on their faces, and all that, but when I try to put it on paper, why, I just