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Read books online » Mystery & Crime » Hand and Ring by Anna Katharine Green (good book club books TXT) 📖

Book online «Hand and Ring by Anna Katharine Green (good book club books TXT) 📖». Author Anna Katharine Green



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"Oh, yes, the gentleman who came yesterday. He——"

But at this moment a slight disturbance occurring in the other room, the witness paused and looked about him with that same embarrassed look before noted. "He is at the hotel now," he added, with an attempt at ease, transparent as it was futile.

The disturbance to which I have alluded was of a peculiar kind. It was occasioned by the thick-set man making the spring which, for some minutes, he had evidently been meditating. It was not a tragic leap, however, but a decidedly comic one, and had for its end and aim the recovery of a handkerchief which he had taken from his pocket at the moment when the witness uttered the name of Smith, and, by a useless flourish in opening it, flirted from his hand to the floor. At least, so the amused throng interpreted the sudden dive which he made, and the heedless haste that caused him to trip over the gentleman's hat that stood on the floor, causing it to fall and another handkerchief to tumble out. But Mr. Byrd, who had a detective's insight into the whole matter, saw something more than appeared in the profuse apologies which the thick-set man made, and the hurried manner in which he gathered up the handkerchiefs and stood looking at them before returning one to his pocket and the other to its place in the gentleman's hat. Nor was Mr. Byrd at all astonished to observe that the stand which his fellow-detective took, upon resettling himself, was much nearer the unseen gentleman than before, or that in replacing the hat, he had taken pains to put it so far to one side that the gentleman would be obliged to rise and come around the corner in order to obtain it. The drift of the questions propounded to the witness at this moment opened his eyes too clearly for him to fail any longer to understand the situation.

"Now at the hotel?" the coroner was repeating. "And came yesterday? Why, then, did you look so embarrassed when I mentioned his name?"

"Oh—well—ah," stammered the man, "because he was there once before, though his name is not registered but once in the book."

"He was? And on what day?"

"On Tuesday," asserted the man, with the sudden decision of one who sees it is useless to attempt to keep silence.

"The day of the murder?"

"Yes, sir."

"And why is his name not on the book at that time if he came to your house and put up?"

"Because he did not put up; he merely called in, as it were, and did not take a meal or hire a room."

"How did you know, then, that he was there? Did you see him or talk to him?"

"Yes, sir."

"And what did you say?"

"He asked me for directions to a certain house, and I gave them."

"Whose house?"

"The Widow Clemmens', sir."

Ah, light at last! The long-sought-for witness had been found! Coroner and jury brightened visibly, while the assembled crowd gave vent to a deep murmur, that must have sounded like a knell of doom—in one pair of ears, at least.

"He asked you for directions to the house of Widow Clemmens. At what time was this?"

"At about half-past eleven in the morning."

The very hour!

"And did he leave then?"

"Yes, sir; after taking a glass of brandy."

"And did you not see him again?"

"Not till yesterday, sir."

"Ah, and at what time did you see him yesterday?"

"At bedtime, sir. He came with other arrivals on the five o'clock train; but I was away all the afternoon and did not see him till I went into the bar-room in the evening."

"Well, and what passed between you then?"

"Not much, sir. I asked if he was going to stay with us, and when he said 'Yes,' I inquired if he had registered his name. He replied 'No.' At which I pointed to the book, and he wrote his name down and then went up-stairs with me to his room."

"And is that all? Did you say nothing beyond what you have mentioned? ask him no questions or make no allusions to the murder?"

"Well, sir, I did make some attempt that way, for I was curious to know what took him to the Widow Clemmens' house, but he snubbed me so quickly, I concluded to hold my tongue and not trouble myself any further about the matter."

"And do you mean to say you haven't told any one that an unknown man had been at your house on the morning of the murder inquiring after the widow?"

"Yes, sir. I am a poor man, and believe in keeping out of all sort of messes. Policy demands that much of me, gentlemen."

The look he received from the coroner may have convinced him that policy can be carried too far.

"And now," said Dr. Tredwell, "what sort of a man is this Clement Smith?"

"He is a gentleman, sir, and not at all the sort of person with whom you would be likely to connect any unpleasant suspicion."

The coroner surveyed the hotel-keeper somewhat sternly.

"We are not talking about suspicions!" he cried; then, in a different tone, repeated: "This gentleman, you say, is still at your house?"

"Yes, sir, or was at breakfast-time. I have not seen him since."

"We will have to call Mr. Smith as a witness," declared the coroner, turning to the officer at his side. "Go and see if you cannot bring him as soon as you did Mr. Symonds."

But here a voice spoke up full and loud from the other room.

"It is not necessary, sir. A witness you will consider more desirable than he is in the building." And the thick-set man showed himself for an instant to the coroner, then walking back, deliberately laid his hand on the elbow which for so long a time had been the centre of Mr. Byrd's wondering conjectures.

In an instant the fine, gentlemanly figure of the stranger, whom he had seen the night before in the bar-room, appeared with a bound from beyond the jamb, and pausing excitedly before the man, now fully discovered to all around as a detective, asked him, in shaking tones of suppressed terror or rage, what it was he meant.

"I will tell you," was the ready assurance, "if you will step out here in view of the coroner and jury."

With a glance that for some reason disturbed Mr. Byrd in his newly acquired complacency, the gentleman stalked hurriedly forward and took his stand in the door-way leading into the room occupied by the persons mentioned.

"Now," he cried, "what have you to say?"

But the detective, who had advanced behind him, still refrained from replying, though he gave a quick look at the coroner, which led that functionary to glance at the hotel-keeper and instantly ask:

"You know this gentleman?"

"It is Mr. Clement Smith."

A flush so violent and profuse, that even Mr. Byrd could see it from his stand outside the window, inundated for an instant the face and neck of the gentleman, but was followed by no words, though the detective at his side waited for an instant before saying:

"I think you are mistaken; I should call him now Mr. Gouverneur Hildreth!"

With a start and a face grown as suddenly white as it had but an instant before been red, the gentleman turned and surveyed the detective from head to foot, saying, in a tone of mock politeness:

"And why, if you please? I have never been introduced to you that I remember."

"No," rejoined the detective, taking from his pocket the handkerchief which he had previously put there, and presenting it to the other with a bow, "but I have read the monogram upon your handkerchief and it happens to be——"

"Enough!" interrupted the other, in a stern if not disdainful voice. "I see I have been the victim of espionage." And stepping into the other room, he walked haughtily up to the coroner and exclaimed: "I am Gouverneur Hildreth, and I come from Toledo. Now, what is it you have to say to me?"

IX. CLOSE CALCULATIONS.
Truth alone,
Truth tangible and palpable; such truth
As may be weighed and measured; truth deduced
By logical conclusion—close, severe—
From premises incontrovertible.—Moultrie.


THE excitement induced by the foregoing announcement had, in a degree, subsided. The coroner, who appeared to be as much startled as any one at the result of the day's proceedings, had manifested his desire of putting certain questions to the young man, and had begun by such inquiries into his antecedents, and his connection with Mrs. Clemmens, as elicited the most complete corroboration of all Miss Firman's statements.

An investigation into his motives for coming East at this time next followed, in the course of which he acknowledged that he undertook the journey solely for the purpose of seeing Mrs. Clemmens. And when asked why he wished to see her at this time, admitted, with some manifestation of shame, that he desired to see for himself whether she was really in as strong and healthy a condition as he had always been told; his pecuniary embarrassments being such that he could not prevent his mind from dwelling upon possibilities which, under any other circumstances, he would have been ashamed to consider.

"And did you see Mrs. Clemmens?" the coroner inquired.

"Yes, sir; I did."

"When?"

"On Tuesday, sir; about noon."

The answer was given almost with bravado, and the silence among the various auditors became intense.

"You admit, then, that you were in the widow's house the morning she was murdered, and that you had an interview with her a few minutes before the fatal blow was struck?"

"I do."

There was doggedness in the tone, and doggedness in the look that accompanied it. The coroner moved a little forward in his chair and uttered his next question with deep gravity.

"Did you approach the widow's house by the road and enter into it by means of the front door overlooking the lane?"

"I did."

"And did you meet no one in the lane, or see no one at the windows of any of the houses as you came by?"

"No, sir."

"How long did you stay in this house, and what was the result of the interview which you had with Mrs. Clemmens?"

"I stayed, perhaps, ten minutes, and I learned nothing from Mrs. Clemmens, save that she was well and hearty, and likely to live out her threescore years and ten for all hint that her conversation or appearance gave me."

He spoke almost with a tone of resentment; his eyes glowed darkly, and a thrill of horror sped through the room as if they felt that the murderer himself stood before them.

"You will tell me what was said in this interview, if you please, and whether the widow knew who you were; and, if so, whether any words of anger passed between you?"

The face of the young man burned, and he looked at the coroner and then at the jurymen, as if he would like to challenge the whole crew, but the color that showed in his face was the flush of shame, or, so thought Mr. Byrd, and in his reply, when he gave it, there was a bitterness of self-scorn that reminded the detective more of the mortification of a gentleman caught in an act of meanness than the secret alarm of a man who had been beguiled into committing a dastardly crime.

"Mrs. Clemmens was evidently a woman of some spirit," said he, forcing out his words with sullen desperation. "She may have used sharp language; I believe indeed she did; but she did not know who I was, for—for I pretended to be a seller of patent medicine, warranted to cure all ills, and she told me she had no ills, and—and—Do you want a man to disgrace himself in your presence?" he suddenly flashed out, cringing under the gaze of the many curious and unsympathetic eyes fixed upon him.

But the coroner, with a sudden assumption of severity,

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