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

MR. MANSELL sat in his cell, the prey of gloomy and perturbed thought. He knew Mr. Orcutt was dead; he had been told of it early in the morning by his jailer, but of the circumstances which attended that death he knew nothing, save that the lawyer had been struck by a limb falling from a tree in his own garden.

The few moments during which the court had met for the purpose of re-adjournment had added but little to his enlightenment. A marked reserve had characterized the whole proceedings; and though an indefinable instinct had told him that in some mysterious way his cause had been helped rather than injured by this calamity to his counsel, he found no one ready to volunteer those explanations which his great interest in the matter certainly demanded. The hour, therefore, which he spent in solitude upon his return to prison was one of great anxiety, and it was quite a welcome relief when the cell door opened and the keeper ushered in a strange gentleman. Supposing it to be the new counsel he had chosen at haphazard from a list of names that had been offered him, Mr. Mansell rose. But a second glance assured him he had made a mistake in supposing this person to be a lawyer, and stepping back he awaited his approach with mingled curiosity and reserve.

The stranger, who seemed to be perfectly at home in the narrow quarters in which he found himself, advanced with a frank air.

"My name is Gryce," said he, "and I am a detective. The District Attorney, who, as you know, has been placed in a very embarrassing situation by the events of the last two days, has accepted my services in connection with those of the two men already employed by him, in the hope that my greater experience may assist him in determining which, of all the persons who have been accused, or who have accused themselves, of murdering Mrs. Clemmens, is the actual perpetrator of that deed. Do you require any further assurance of my being in the confidence of Mr. Ferris than the fact that I am here, and in full liberty to talk with you?"

"No," returned the other, after a short but close study of his visitor.

"Very well, then," continued the detective, with a comfortable air of ease, "I will speak to the point; and the first thing I will say is, that upon looking at the evidence against you, and hearing what I have heard from various sources since I came to town, I know you are not the man who killed Mrs. Clemmens. To be sure, you have declined to explain certain points, but I think you can explain them, and if you will only inform me——"

"Pardon me," interrupted Mr. Mansell, gravely; "but you say you are a detective. Now, I have no information to give a detective."

"Are you sure?" was the imperturbable query.

"Quite," was the quick reply.

"You are then determined upon going to the scaffold, whether or no?" remarked Mr. Gryce, somewhat grimly.

"Yes, if to escape it I must confide in a detective."

"Then you do wrong," declared the other; "as I will immediately proceed to show you. Mr. Mansell, you are, of course, aware of the manner of Mr. Orcutt's death?"

"I know he was struck by a falling limb."

"Do you know what he was doing when this occurred?"

"No."

"He was escorting Miss Dare down to the gate."

The prisoner, whose countenance had brightened at the mention of his lawyer, turned a deadly white at this.

"And—and was Miss Dare hurt?" he asked.

The detective shook his head.

"Then why do you tell me this?"

"Because it has much to do with the occasion of my coming here, Mr. Mansell," proceeded Mr. Gryce, in that tone of completely understanding himself which he knew so well how to assume with men of the prisoner's stamp. "I am going to speak to you without circumlocution or disguise. I am going to put your position before you just as it is. You are on trial for a murder of which not only yourself, but another man, was suspected. Why are you on trial instead of him? Because you were reticent in regard to certain matters which common-sense would say you ought to be able to explain. Why were you reticent? There can be but one answer. Because you feared to implicate another person, for whose happiness and honor you had more regard than for your own. Who was that other person? The woman who stood up in court yesterday and declared she had herself committed this crime. What is the conclusion? You believe, and have always believed, Miss Dare to be the assassin of Mrs. Clemmens."

The prisoner, whose pallor had increased with every word the detective uttered, leaped to his feet at this last sentence.

"You have no right to say that!" he vehemently asseverated. "What do you know of my thoughts or my beliefs? Do I carry my convictions on my sleeve? I am not the man to betray my ideas or feelings to the world."

Mr. Gryce smiled. To be sure, this expression of silent complacency was directed to the grating of the window overhead, but it was none the less effectual on that account. Mr. Mansell, despite his self-command, began to look uneasy.

"Prove your words!" he cried. "Show that these have been my convictions!"

"Very well," returned Mr. Gryce. "Why were you so long silent about the ring? Because you did not wish to compromise Miss Dare by declaring she did not return it to you, as she had said. Why did you try to stop her in the midst of her testimony yesterday? Because you saw it was going to end in confession. Finally, why did you throw aside your defence, and instead of proclaiming yourself guilty, simply tell how you were able to reach Monteith Quarry Station in ninety minutes? Because you feared her guilt would be confirmed if her statements were investigated, and were willing to sacrifice every thing but the truth in order to save her."

"You give me credit for a great deal of generosity," coldly replied the prisoner. "After the evidence brought against me by the prosecution, I should think my guilt would be accepted as proved the moment I showed that I had not left Mrs. Clemmens' house at the time she was believed to be murdered."

"And so it would," responded Mr. Gryce, "if the prosecution had not seen reason to believe that the moment of Mrs. Clemmens' death has been put too early. We now think she was not struck till some time after twelve, instead of five minutes before."

"Indeed?" said Mr. Mansell, with stern self-control.

Mr. Gryce, whose carelessly roving eye told little of the close study with which he was honoring the man before him, nodded with grave decision.

"You could add very much to our convictions on this point," he observed, "by telling what it was you saw or heard in Mrs. Clemmens' house at the moment you fled from it so abruptly."

"How do you know I fled from it abruptly?"

"You were seen. The fact has not appeared in court, but a witness we might name perceived you flying from your aunt's door to the swamp as if your life depended upon the speed you made."

"And with that fact added to all the rest you have against me, you say you believe me innocent?" exclaimed Mr. Mansell.

"Yes; for I have also said I believe Mrs. Clemmens not to have been assaulted till after the hour of noon. You fled from the door at precisely five minutes before it."

The uneasiness of Mr. Mansell's face increased, till it amounted to agitation.

"And may I ask," said he, "what has happened to make you believe she was not struck at the moment hitherto supposed?"

"Ah, now," replied the detective, "we come down to facts." And leaning with a confidential air toward the prisoner, he quietly said: "Your counsel has died, for one thing."

Astonished as much by the tone as the tenor of these words, Mr. Mansell drew back from his visitor in some distrust. Seeing it, Mr. Gryce edged still farther forward, and calmly continued:

"If no one has told you the particulars of Mr. Orcutt's death, you probably do not know why Miss Dare was at his house last evening?"

The look of the prisoner was sufficient reply.

"She went there," resumed Mr. Gryce, with composure, "to tell him that her whole evidence against you had been given under the belief that you were guilty of the crime with which you had been charged; that by a trick of my fellow-detectives, Hickory and Byrd, she had been deceived into thinking you had actually admitted your guilt to her; and that she had only been undeceived after she had uttered the perjury with which she sought to save you yesterday morning."

"Perjury?" escaped involuntarily from Craik Mansell's lips.

"Yes," repeated the detective, "perjury. Miss Dare lied when she said she had been to Mrs. Clemmens' cottage on the morning of the murder. She was not there, nor did she lift her hand against the widow's life. That tale she told to escape telling another which she thought would insure your doom."

"You have been talking to Miss Dare?" suggested the prisoner, with subdued sarcasm.

"I have been talking to my two men," was the unmoved retort, "to Hickory and to Byrd, and they not only confirm this statement of hers in regard to the deception they played upon her, but say enough to show she could not have been guilty of the crime, because at that time she honestly believed you to be so."

"I do not understand you," cried the prisoner, in