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

of these thunderbolts we have been listening to this afternoon had fallen at his feet. And he didn't get over it," Hickory went on. "He had to beg permission to go home. He said the terrible news had made him ill, and indeed he looked sick enough, and continued to look sick enough for days. He had letters from Sibley, and an invitation to attend the inquest and be present at the funeral services, but he refused to go. He was threatened with diphtheria, he declared, and remained away from the mill until the day before yesterday. Some one, I don't remember who, says he went out of town the very Wednesday he first heard the news; but if so, he could not have been gone long, for he was at home Wednesday night, sick in bed, and threatened, as I have said, with the diphtheria. Fifthly——"

"Well, fifthly?"

"I am afraid of your criticisms," laughed the rough detective. "Fifthly is the result of my poking about among Mr. Mansell's traps."

"Ah!" frowned the other, with a vivid remembrance of that picture of Miss Dare, with its beauty blotted out by the ominous black lines.

"You are too squeamish for a detective," the other declared. "Guess you're kept for the fancy business, eh?"

The look Mr. Byrd gave him was eloquent. "Go on," said he; "let us hear what lies behind your fifthly."

"Love," returned the man. "Locked in the drawer of this young gentleman's table, I found some half-dozen letters tied with a black ribbon. I knew they were written by a lady, but squeamishness is not a fault of mine, and so I just allowed myself to glance over them. They were from Miss Dare, of course, and they revealed the fact that love, as well as ambition, had been a motive power in determining this Mansell to make a success out of his invention."

Leaning back, the now self-satisfied detective looked at Mr. Byrd.

"The name of Miss Dare," he went on, "brings me to the point from which we started. I haven't yet told you what old Sally Perkins had to say to me."

"No," rejoined Mr. Byrd.

"Well," continued the other, poking with his foot the dying embers of the fire, till it started up into a fresh blaze, "the case against this young fellow wouldn't be worth very much without that old crone's testimony, I reckon; but with it I guess we can get along."

"Let us hear," said Mr. Byrd.

"The old woman is a wretch," Hickory suddenly broke out. "She seems to gloat over the fact that a young and beautiful woman is in trouble. She actually trembled with eagerness as she told her story. If I hadn't been rather anxious myself to hear what she had to say, I could have thrown her out of the window. As it was, I let her go on; duty before pleasure, you see—duty before pleasure."

"But her story," persisted Mr. Byrd, letting some of his secret irritation betray itself.

"Well, her story was this: Monday afternoon, the day before the murder, you know, she was up in these very woods hunting for witch-hazel. She had got her arms full and was going home across the bog when she suddenly heard voices. Being of a curious disposition, like myself, I suppose, she stopped, and seeing just before her a young gentleman and lady sitting on an old stump, crouched down in the shadow of a tree, with the harmless intent, no doubt, of amusing herself with their conversation. It was more interesting than she expected, and she really became quite tragic as she related her story to me. I cannot do justice to it myself, and I sha'n't try. It is enough that the man whom she did not know, and the woman whom she immediately recognized as Miss Dare, were both in a state of great indignation. That he spoke of selfishness and obstinacy on the part of his aunt, and that she, in the place of rebuking him, replied in a way to increase his bitterness, and lead him finally to exclaim: 'I cannot bear it! To think that with just the advance of the very sum she proposes to give me some day, I could make her fortune and my own, and win you all in one breath! It is enough to drive a man mad to see all that he craves in this world so near his grasp, and yet have nothing, not even hope, to comfort him.' And at that, it seems, they both rose, and she, who had not answered any thing to this, struck the tree before which they stood, with her bare fist, and murmured a word or so which the old woman couldn't catch, but which was evidently something to the effect that she wished she knew Mrs. Clemmens; for Mansell—of course it was he—said, in almost the same breath, 'And if you did know her, what then?' A question which elicited no reply at first, but which finally led her to say: 'Oh! I think that, possibly, I might be able to persuade her.' All this," the detective went on, "old Sally related with the greatest force; but in regard to what followed, she was not so clear. Probably they interrupted their conversation with some lovers' by-play, for they stood very near together, and he seemed to be earnestly pleading with her. 'Do take it,' old Sally heard him say. 'I shall feel as if life held some outlook for me, if you only will gratify me in this respect.' But she answered: 'No; it is of no use. I am as ambitious as you are, and fate is evidently against us,' and put his hand back when he endeavored to take hers, but finally yielded so far as to give it to him for a moment, though she immediately snatched it away again, crying: 'I cannot; you must wait till to-morrow.' And when he asked: 'Why to-morrow?' she answered: 'A night has been known to change the whole current of a person's affairs.' To which he replied: 'True,' and looked thoughtful, very thoughtful, as he met her eyes and saw her raise that white hand of hers and strike the tree again with a passionate force that made her fingers bleed. And she was right," concluded the speaker. "The night, or if not the night, the next twenty-four hours, did make a change, as even old Sally Perkins observed. Widow Clemmens was struck down and Craik Mansell became the possessor of the five thousand dollars he so much wanted in order to win for himself a fortune and a bride."

Mr. Byrd, who had been sitting with his face turned aside during this long recital, slowly rose to his feet. "Hickory," said he, and his tone had an edge of suppressed feeling in it that made the other start, "don't let me ever hear you say, in my presence, that you think this young and beautiful woman was the one to suggest murder to this man, for I won't hear it. And now," he continued, more calmly, "tell me why this babbling old wretch did not enliven the inquest with her wonderful tale. It would have been a fine offset to the testimony of Miss Firman."

"She said she wasn't fond of coroners and had no wish to draw the attention of twelve of her own townsfolk upon herself. She didn't mean to commit herself with me," pursued Hickory, rising also. "She was going to give me a hint of the real state of affairs; or, rather, set me working in the right direction, as this little note which she tucked under the door of my room at the hotel will show. But I was too quick for her, and had her by the arm before she could shuffle down the stairs. It was partly to prove her story was true and not a romance made up for the occasion, that I lured this woman here this afternoon."

"You are not as bad a fellow as I thought," Mr. Byrd admitted, after a momentary contemplation of the other's face. "If I might only know how you managed to effect this interview."

"Nothing easier. I found in looking over the scraps of paper which Mansell had thrown into the waste-paper basket in Buffalo, the draft of a note which he had written to Miss Dare, under an impulse which he afterward probably regretted. It was a summons to their usual place of tryst at or near this hut, and though unsigned, was of a character, as I thought, to effect its purpose. I just sent it to her, that's all."

The nonchalance with which this was said completed Mr. Byrd's astonishment.

"You are a worthy disciple of Gryce," he asserted, leading the way to the door.

"Think so?" exclaimed the man, evidently flattered at what he considered a great compliment. "Then shake hands," he cried, with a frank appeal Mr. Byrd found it hard to resist. "Ah, you don't want to," he somewhat ruefully declared. "Will it change your feelings any if I promise to ignore what happened here to-day—my trick with Miss Dare and what she revealed and all that? If it will, I swear I won't even think of it any more if I can help it. At all events, I won't tattle about it even to the superintendent. It shall be a secret between you and me, and she won't know but what it was her lover she talked to, after all."

"You are willing to do all this?" inquired Mr. Byrd.

"Willing and ready," cried the man. "I believe in duty to one's superiors, but duty doesn't always demand of one to tell every thing he knows. Besides, it won't be necessary, I imagine. There is enough against this poor fellow without that."

"I fear so," ejaculated Mr. Byrd.

"Then it is a bargain?" said Hickory.

"Yes."

And Mr. Byrd held out his hand.

The rain had now ceased and they prepared to return home. Before leaving the glade, however, Mr. Byrd ran his eye over the other's person and apparel, and in some wonder inquired:

"How do you fellows ever manage to get up such complete disguises? I declare you look enough like Mr. Mansell in the back to make me doubt even now who I am talking to."

"Oh," laughed the other, "it is easy enough. It's my specialty, you see, and one in which I am thought to excel. But, to tell the truth, I hadn't much to contend with in this case. In build I am famously like this man, as you must have noticed when you saw us together in Buffalo. Indeed, it was our similarity in this respect that first put the idea of personifying him into my head. My complexion had been darkened already, and, as for such accessories as hair, voice, manner, dress, etc., a five-minutes' study of my model was sufficient to prime me up in all that—enough, at least, to satisfy the conditions of an interview which did not require me to show my face."

"But you did not know when you came here that you would not have to show your face," persisted Mr. Byrd, anxious to understand how this man dared risk his reputation on an undertaking of this kind.

"No, and I did not know that the biggest thunderstorm of the season was going to spring up and lend me its darkness to complete the illusion I had attempted. I only trusted my good fortune—and my wits," he added, with a droll demureness. "Both had served me before, and both were likely to serve me again. And, say she had detected me in my little game, what then? Women like her don't babble."

There was no reply to make to this, and Mr. Byrd's thoughts being thus carried back to Imogene Dare and the unhappy revelations she had been led to make,