The coachman frowned and hastily retreated a step; but in another moment he leaped in a rage upon Sweetwater, when the sight of the flowers he held recalled him to himself and he let his hand fall again with the quiet remark:

"You're overstepping your dooty. I don't know who you are or what you want with me, but you're overstepping your dooty."

"He's right," muttered Hexford. "Better let the fellow go. See! one of the maids is beckoning to him."

"He shall go, and welcome, if he will tell me where he gets his taste for this especial brand of whiskey." Sweetwater had crossed to the cupboard and taken down the lower half of the broken bottle which had attracted his notice on his first entrance, and was now holding it out, with a quizzical look at the departing coachman.

Hexford was at his shoulder with a spring, and together they inspected the label still sticking to it—which was that of the very rare and expensive spirit found missing from the club-house vault.

"This is a find," muttered Hexford into his fellow detective's ear. Then, with a quick move towards Zadok, he shouted out:

"You'd better answer that question. Where did this bit of broken bottle come from? They don't give you whiskey like this to drink."

"That they don't," muttered the coachman, not so much abashed as they had expected. "And I wouldn't care for it if they did. I found that bit of bottle in the ash-barrel outside, and fished it out to put varnish in. I liked the shape."

"Broken this way?"

"Yes; it's just as good."

"Is it? Well, never mind, run along. We'll close the stable-door for you."

"I'd rather do it myself and carry in the key."

"Here then; we're going to the funeral, too. You'd like to?" This latter in a whisper to Sweetwater.

The answer was a fervent one. Nothing in all the world would please this protean-natured man quite so well.



XII

"LILA—LILA!"

O, treble woe Fall ten times treble on that cursed head, Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense Depriv'd thee of!—Hold off the earth awhile, Till I have caught her once more in my arms.

Hamlet.

"Let us enter by the side door," suggested Sweetwater, as the two moved towards the house. "And be sure you place me where I can see without being seen. I have no wish to attract attention to myself, or to be identified with the police until the necessity is forced upon me."

"Then we won't go in together," decided Hexford. "Find your own place; you won't have any difficulty. A crowd isn't expected. Miss Cumberland's condition forbids it."

Sweetwater nodded and slid in at the side door.

He found himself at once in a narrow hall, from the end of which opened a large room. A few people were to be seen in this latter place, and his first instinct was to join them; but finding that a few minutes yet remained before the hour set for the services, he decided to improve them by a rapid glance about this hall, which, for certain reasons hardly as yet formulated in his own mind, had a peculiar interest for him.

The most important object within view, according to his present judgment, was the staircase which connected it with the floor above; but if you had asked his reason for this conclusion, he would not have told you, as Ranelagh might have done, that it was because it was the most direct and convenient approach to Carmel Cumberland's room. His thoughts were far from this young girl, intimately connected as she was with this crime; which shows through what a blind maze he was insensibly working. With his finger on the thread which had been put in his hand, he was feeling his way along inch by inch. It had brought him to this staircase, and it led him next to a rack upon which hung several coats and a gentleman's hat.

He inspected the former and noted that one was finished with a high collar; but he passed the latter by—it was not a derby. The table stood next the rack, and on its top lay nothing more interesting than a clothes-brush and one or two other insignificant objects; but, with his memory for details, he had recalled the keys which one of the maids had picked up somewhere about this house, and laid on a hall table. If this were the hall and this the table, then was every inch of the latter's simple cloth-covered top of the greatest importance in his eyes.

He had no further time for even these cursory investigations; Hexford's step could be heard on the verandah, and Sweetwater was anxious to locate himself before the officer came in. Entering the room before him, he crossed to the small group clustered in its further doorway. There were several empty chairs in sight; but he passed around them all to a dark and inconspicuous corner, from which, without effort, he could take in every room on that floor—from the large parlour in which the casket stood, to the remotest region of the servants' hall.

The clergyman had not yet descended, and Sweetwater had time to observe the row of little girls sitting in front of the bearers, each with a small cluster of white flowers in her hand. Miss Cumberland's Sunday-school class, he conjectured, and conjectured rightly. He also perceived that some of these children loved her.

Near them sat a few relatives and friends. Among these was a very, very old man, whom he afterwards heard was a great-uncle and a centenarian. Between him and one of the little girls, there apparently existed a strong sympathy; for his hand reached out and drew her to him when the tears began to steal down her cheeks, and the looks which passed between the two had all the appeal and all the protection of a great love.

Sweetwater, who had many a soft spot in his breast, felt his heart warm at this one innocent display of natural feeling in an assemblage otherwise frozen by the horror of the occasion. His eyes dwelt lingeringly on the child, and still more lingeringly on the old, old man, before passing to that heaped-up mound of flowers, under which lay a murdered body and a bruised heart. He could not see the face, but the spectacle was sufficiently awe-compelling without that.

Would it have seemed yet more so, had he known at whose request the huge bunch of lilies had been placed over that silent heart?

The sister sick, the brother invisible, there was little more to hold his attention in this quarter; so he let it roam across the heads of the people about him, to the distant hall communicating with the kitchen.

Several persons were approaching from this direction, among them Zadok. The servants of the house, no doubt, for they came in all together and sat down, side by side, in the chairs Sweetwater had so carefully passed by. There were five persons in all: two men and three women. Only two interested him—Zadok, with whom he had already made a superficial acquaintance and had had one bout; and a smart, bright-eyed girl with a resolute mouth softened by an insistent dimple, who struck him as possessing excellent sense and some natural cleverness. A girl to know and a girl to talk to, was his instantaneous judgment. Then he forgot everything but the solemnity of the occasion, for the clergyman had entered and taken his place, and a great hush had fallen upon the rooms and upon every heart there present.

"I am the resurrection and the life."

Never had these consoling words sounded more solemn than when they rang above the remains of Adelaide Cumberland, in this home where she had reigned as mistress ever since her seventeenth year. The nature of the tragedy which had robbed the town of one of its most useful young women; the awful fate impending over its supposed author,—a man who had come and gone in these rooms with a spell of fascination to which many of those present had themselves succumbed—the brooding sense of illness, if not of impending death, in the room above; gave to these services a peculiar poignancy which in some breasts of greater susceptibility than the rest, took the form of a vague expectancy bordering on terror.

Sweetwater felt the poignancy, but did not suffer from the terror. His attention had been attracted in a new direction, and he found himself watching, with anxious curiosity, the attitude and absorbed expression of a good-looking young man whom he was far from suspecting to be the secret representative of the present suspect, whom nobody could forget, yet whom nobody wished to remember at this hallowed hour.

Had this attitude and this absorption been directed towards the casket over which the clergyman's words rose and fell with ever increasing impressiveness, he might have noted the man but would scarcely have been held by him. But this interest, sincere and strong as it undoubtedly was, centred not so much in the services, careful as he was to maintain a decorous attitude towards the same, but in the faint murmurs which now and then came down from above where unconsciousness reigned and the stricken brother watched over the delirious sister, with a concentration and abandonment to fear which made him oblivious of all other duties, and almost as unconscious of the rites then being held below over one who had been as a mother to him, as the sick girl herself with her ceaseless and importunate "Lila! Lila!" The detective, watching this preoccupied stranger, shared in some measure his secret emotions, and thus was prepared for the unexpected occurrence of a few minutes later.

No one else had the least forewarning of any break in the services. There had been nothing in the subdued but impressive rendering of the prayers to foreshadow a dramatic episode; yet it came, and in this manner:

The final words had been said, and the friends present invited to look their last on the calm face which, to many there, had never worn so sweet a smile in life. Some had hesitated; but most had obeyed the summons, among them Sweetwater. But he had not much time in which to fix those features in his mind; for the little girls, who had been waiting patiently for this moment, now came forward; and he stepped aside to watch them as they filed by, dropping as they did so, a tribute of fragrant flowers upon the quiet breast. They were followed by the servants, among whom Zadok had divided his roses. As the last cluster fell from the coachman's trembling hand, the undertaker advanced with the lid, and, pausing a moment to be sure that all were satisfied, began to screw it on.

Suddenly there was a cry, and the crowd about the door leading into the main hall started back, as wild steps were heard on the stairs and a young man rushed into the room where the casket stood, and advanced upon the officiating clergyman and the astonished undertaker with a fierceness which was not without its suggestion of authority.

"Take it off!" he cried, pointing at the lid which had just been fastened down. "I have not seen her—I must see her. Take it off!"

It was the brother, awake at last to the significance of the hour!

The clergyman, aghast at the sacrilegious look and tone of the intruder, stepped back, raising one arm in remonstrance, and instinctively shielding the casket with the other. But the undertaker saw in the frenzied eye fixed upon his own, that which warned him to comply with the request thus harshly and peremptorily uttered. Unscrewing the lid, he made way for the intruder, who, drawing near, pushed aside the roses which had fallen on the upturned face, and, laying his hand on the brow, muttered a few low words to himself. Then he withdrew his hand, and without glancing to right or left, staggered back to the door amid a hush as unbroken as that which reigned behind him in that open casket. Another moment and his white, haggard face and disordered figure would be blotted from sight by the door-jamb.

The minister recovered his poise and the bearers their breath; the men stirred in their seats and the women began to cast frightened looks at each other, and then at the children, some of whom had begun to whimper, when in an instant all were struck again into stone. The young man had turned and was facing them all, with his hands held out in a clench which in itself was horrible.

"If they let the man go," he called out in loud and threatening tones, "I will strangle him with these two hands."

The word, and not the shriek which burst irrepressibly from more than one woman before him, brought him to himself. With a ghastly look on his bloated features, he scanned for one moment the row of deeply shocked faces before him, then tottered back out of sight, and fled towards the staircase. All thought that an end had come to the harrowing scene, and minister and people faced each other once more; when, loud and sharp from above, there rang down the shrill cry of delirium, this time in articulate words which even the children could understand:

"Break it open, I say! break it open, and see if her heart is there!"

It was too awful. Men and women and children leaped to their feet and dashed away into the streets, uttering smothered cries and wild ejaculations. In vain the clergyman raised his voice and bade them respect the dead; the rooms were well-nigh empty before he had finished his appeal. Only the very old uncle and the least of the children remained of all who had come there in memory of their departed kinswoman and friend.

The little one had fled to the old man's arms before he could rise, and was now held close to his aged and shaking knees, while he strove to comfort her and explain.

Soon these, too, were gone, and the casket was refastened and carried out by the shrinking bearers, leaving in those darkened rooms a trail of desolation which was only broken from time to time by the now faint and barely heard reiteration of the name of her who had just been borne away!

"Lila! Lila!"



XIII

"WHAT WE WANT IS HERE"

I'll tell you, by the way, The greatest comfort in the world. You said There was a clew to all. Remember, Sweet, He said there was a clew! I hold it. Come!

A Blot in the 'Scutcheon.

Sweetwater, however affected by this scene, had not lost control of himself or forgotten the claims of duty. He noted at a glance that, while the candid looking stranger, whose lead he had been following, was as much surprised as the rest at the nature of the interruption—which he had possibly anticipated and for which he was in some measure prepared—he was, of all present, the most deeply and peculiarly impressed by it. No element of fear had entered into his emotion; nor had it been heightened by any superstitious sense. Something deeper and more important by far had darkened his thoughtful eye and caused that ebb and flow of colour in a cheek unused, if Sweetwater read the man aright, to such quick and forcible changes.

Sweetwater took occasion, likewise, while the excitement was at its height, to mark what effect had been made on the servants by the action and conduct of young Cumberland. "They know him better than we do," was his inner comment; "what do they think of his words, and what do they think of him?"

It was not so easy to determine as the anxious detective might wish. Only one of them showed a simple emotion, and that one was, without any possibility of doubt, the cook. She was a Roman Catholic, and was simply horrified by the sacrilege of which she had been witness. There was no mistaking her feelings. But those of the other two women were more complex.

So were those of the men. Zadok specially watched each movement of his young master with open mistrust; and very nearly started upright, in his repugnance and dismay, when that intruding hand fell on the peaceful brow of her over whose fate, to his own surprise, he had been able to shed tears. Some personal prejudice lay back of this or some secret knowledge of the man from whose touch even the dead appeared to shrink.

And the women! Might not the same explanation account for that curious droop of the eye with which the two younger clutched at each other's hands, to keep from screaming, and interchanged whispered words which Sweetwater would have given considerable out of his carefully cherished hoard to have heard.

It was impossible to tell, at present; but he was confident that it would not be long before he understood these latter, at least. He had great confidence in his success with women, homely as he was. He was not so sure of himself with men; and he felt that some difficulties and not a few pitfalls lay between him and, for instance, the uncommunicative Zadok. "But I've the whole long evening before me," he added in quiet consolation to himself. "It will be a pity if I can't work some of them in that time."

The last thing he had remarked, before Carmel's unearthly cry had sent the horrified guests in disorder from the house, was the presence of Dr. Perry in a small room which Sweetwater had supposed empty, until the astonishing events I have endeavoured to describe brought its occupant to the door. What the detective then read in the countenance of the family's best friend, he kept to himself; but his own lost a trace of its former anxiety, as the official slipped back out of sight and remained so, even after the funeral cortege had started on its course.

Plans had been made for carrying the servants to the cemetery, and, despite the universal disturbance consequent upon these events, these plans were adhered to. Sweetwater watched them all ride away in the last two carriages.

This gave him the opportunity he wanted. Leaving his corner, he looked up Hexford, and asked who was left in the house.

"Dr. Perry, Mr. Clifton, the lawyer, Mr. Cumberland, his sick sister, and the nurse."

"Mr. Cumberland! Didn't he go to the grave?"

"Did you expect him to, after that?"

Sweetwater's shoulders rose, and his voice took on a tone of indifference.

"There's no telling. Where is he now, do you think? Upstairs?"

"Yes. It seems he spends all his time in a little alcove opposite his sister's door. They won't let him inside, for fear of disturbing the patient; so he just sits where I've told you, doing nothing but listening to every sound that comes through the door."

"Is he there now?"

"Yes, and shaking just like a leaf. I walked by him a moment ago and noticed particularly."

"Where's his room? In sight of the alcove you mention?"

"No; there's a partition or two between. If you go up by the side staircase, you can slip into it without any one seeing you. Coroner Perry and Mr. Clifton are in front."

"Is the side door locked?"

"No."

"Lock it. The back door, of course, is."

"Yes, the cook attended to that."

"I want a few minutes all by myself. Help me, Hexford. If Dr. Perry has given you no orders, take your stand upstairs where you can give me warning if Mr. Cumberland makes a move to leave his post, or the nurse her patient."

"I'm ready; but I've been in that room and I've found nothing."

"I don't know that I shall. You say that it is near the head of the stairs running up from the side door?"

"Just a few feet away."

"I would have sworn to that fact, even if you hadn't told me," muttered Sweetwater.

Five minutes later, he had slipped from sight; and for some time not even Hexford knew where he was.

"Dr. Perry, may I have a few words with you?"

The coroner turned quickly. Sweetwater was before him; but not the same Sweetwater he had interviewed some few hours before in his office. This was quite a different looking personage. Though nothing could change his features, the moment had come when their inharmonious lines no longer obtruded themselves upon the eye; and the anxious, nay, deeply troubled official whom he addressed, saw nothing but the ardour and quiet self-confidence they expressed.

"It'll not take long," he added, with a short significant glance in the direction of Mr. Clifton.

Dr. Perry nodded, excused himself to the lawyer and followed the detective into the small writing-room which he had occupied during the funeral. In the decision with which Sweetwater closed the door behind them there was something which caused the blood to mount to the coroner's brow.

"You have made some discovery?" said he.

"A very important one," was the quick, emphatic reply. And in a few brief words the detective related his interview with the master mechanic's wife on the highroad. Then with an eager, "Now let me show you something," he led the coroner through the dining-room into the side hall, where he paused before the staircase.

"Up?" queried the coroner, with an obvious shrinking from what he might encounter above.

"No," was the whispered reply. "What we want is here." And, pushing open a small door let into the under part of the stairway (if Ranelagh in his prison cell could have seen and understood this movement!), he disclosed a closet and in that closet a coat or two, and one derby hat. He took down the latter and, holding it out to the light, pointed to a spot on the under side of its brim.

The coroner staggered as he saw it, and glanced helplessly about him. He had known this family all their lives and the father had been his dearest friend. But he could say nothing in face of this evidence. The spot was a flour-mark, in which could almost be discerned the outline of a woman's thumb.



XIV

THE MOTIONLESS FIGURE

'S blood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out.

Hamlet.

"The coat is here, too," whispered Sweetwater, after a moment of considerate silence. "I had searched the hall-rack for them; I had searched his closets; and was about owning myself to be on a false trail, when I spied this little door. We had better lock it, now, had we not, till you make up your mind what to do with this conclusive bit of evidence."

"Yes, lock it. I'm not quite myself, Sweetwater. I'm no stranger to this house, or to the unfortunate young people in it. I wish I had not been re-elected last year. I shall never survive the strain if—" He turned away.

Sweetwater carefully returned the hat to its peg, turned the key in the door, and softly followed his superior back into the dining-room, and thence to their former retreat.

"I can see that it's likely to be a dreadful business," he ventured to remark, as the two stood face to face again. "But we've no choice. Facts are facts, and we've got to make the best of them. You mean me to go on?"

"Go on?"

"Following up the clews which you have yourself given me? I've only finished with one; there's another—"

"The bottles?"

"Yes, the bottles. I believe that I shall not fail there if you'll give me a little time. I'm a stranger in town, you remember, and cannot be expected to move as fast as a local detective."

"Sweetwater, you have but one duty—to follow both clews as far as they will take you. As for my duty, that is equally plain, to uphold you in all reasonable efforts and to shrink at nothing which will save the innocent and bring penalty to the guilty. Only be careful. Remember the evidence against Ranelagh. You will have to forge an exceedingly strong chain to hold your own against the facts which have brought this recreant lover to book. You see—O, I wish that poor girl could get ease!" he impetuously cried, as "Lila! Lila!" rang again through the house.

"There can never be any ease for her," murmured Sweetwater. "Whatever the truth, she's bound to suffer if ever she awakens to reality again. Do you agree with the reporters that she knew why and for what her unhappy sister left this house that night?"

"If not, why this fever?"

"That's sound."

"She—" the coroner was emphatic, "she is the only one who is wholly innocent in this whole business. Consider her at every point. Her life is invaluable to every one concerned. But she must not be roused to the fact; not yet. Nor must he be startled either; you know whom I mean. Quiet does it, Sweetwater. Quiet and a seeming deference to his wishes as the present head of the house."

"Is the place his? Has Miss Cumberland made a will?"

"Her will will be read to-morrow. For to-night, Arthur Cumberland's position here is the position of a master."

"I will respect it, sir, up to all reasonable bounds. I don't think he meditates giving any trouble. He's not at all impressed by our presence. All he seems to care about is what his sister may be led to say in her delirium."

"That's how you look at it?" The coroner's tone was one of gloom. Then, after a moment of silence: "You may call my carriage, Sweetwater. I can do nothing further here to-day. The atmosphere of this house stifles me. Dead flowers, dead hopes, and something worse than death lowering in the prospect. I remember my old friend—this was his desk. Let us go, I say."

Sweetwater threw open the door, but his wistful look did not escape the older man's eye.

"You're not ready to go? Wish to search the house, perhaps."

"Naturally."

"It has already been done in a general way."

"I wish to do it thoroughly."

The coroner sighed.

"I should be wrong to stand in your way. Get your warrant and the house is yours. But remember the sick girl."

"That's why I wish to do the job my self."

"You're a good fellow, Sweetwater." Then as he was passing out, "I'm going to rely on you to see this thing through, quietly if you can, openly and in the public eye if you must. The keys tell the tale—the keys and the hat. If the former had been left in the club-house and the latter found without the mark set on it by the mechanic's wife, Ranelagh's chances would look as slim to-day as they did immediately after the event. But with things as they are, he may well rest easily to-night; the clouds are lifting for him."

Which shows how little we poor mortals realise what makes for the peace even of those who are the nearest to us and whose lives and hearts we think we can read like an open book.

The coroner gone, Sweetwater made his way to the room where he had last seen Mr. Clifton. He found it empty and was soon told by Hexford that the lawyer had left. This was welcome news to him; he felt that he had a fair field before him now; and learning that it would be some fifteen minutes yet before he could hope to see the carriages back, he followed Hexford upstairs.

"I wish I had your advantages," he remarked as they reached the upper floor.

"What would you do?"

"I'd wander down that hall and take a long look at things."

"You would?"

"I'd like to see the girl and I'd like to see the brother when he thought no one was watching him."

"Why see the girl?"

"I don't know. I'm afraid that's just curiosity. I've heard she was a wonder for beauty."

"She was, once."

"And not now?"

"You cannot tell; they have bound up her cheeks with cloths. She fell on the grate and got burned."

"But I say that's dreadful, if she was so beautiful."

"Yes, it's bad, but there are worse things than that. I wonder what she meant by that wild cry of 'Tear it open! See if her heart is there?' Tear what open? the coffin?"

"Of course. What else could she have meant?"

"Well! delirium is a queer thing; makes a fellow feel creepy all over. I don't reckon on my nights here."

"Hexford, help me to a peep. I've got a difficult job before me and I need all the aid I can get."

"Oh, there's no trouble about that! Walk boldly along; he won't notice—"

"He won't notice?"

"No, he notices nothing but what comes from the sick room."

"I see." Sweetwater's jaw had fallen, but it righted itself at this last word.

"Listening, eh?"

"Yes—as a fellow never listened before."

"Expectant like?"

"Yes, I should call it expectant."

"Does the nurse know this?"

"The nurse is a puzzler."

"How so?"

"Half nurse and half—but go see for yourself. Here's a package to take in,—medicine from the drug store. Tell her there was no one else to bring it up. She'll show no surprise."

Muttering his thanks, Sweetwater seized the proffered package, and hastened with it down the hall. He had been as far as the turn before, but now he passed the turn to find, just as he expected, a closed door on the left and an open alcove on the right. The door led into Miss Cumberland's room; the alcove, circular in shape and lighted by several windows, projected from the rear of the extension, and had for its outlook the stable and the huge sycamore tree growing beside it.

Sweetwater's fingers passed thoughtfully across his chin as he remarked this and took in the expressive outline of its one occupant. He could not see his face; that was turned towards the table before which he sat. But his drooping head, rigid with desperate thinking; his relaxed hand closed around the neck of a decanter which, nevertheless, he did not lift, made upon Sweetwater an impression which nothing he saw afterwards ever quite effaced.

"When I come back, that whiskey will be half gone," thought he, and lingered to see the tumbler filled and the first draught taken.

But no. The hand slowly unclasped and fell away from the decanter; his head sank forward until his chin rested on his breast; and a sigh, startling to Sweetwater, fell from his lips. Hexford was right; only one thing could arouse him.

Sweetwater now tried that thing. He knocked softly on the sick-room door.

This reached the ear oblivious to all else. Young Cumberland started to his feet; and for a moment Sweetwater saw again the heavy features which, an hour before, had produced such a repulsive effect upon him in the rooms below. Then the nerveless figure sank again into place, with the same constraint in its lines, and the same dejection.

Sweetwater's hand, lifted in repetition of his knock, hung suspended. He had not expected quite such indifference as this. It upset his calculations just a trifle. As his hand fell, he reminded himself of the coroner's advice to go easy. "Easy it is," was his internal reply. "I'll walk as lightly as if eggshells were under my feet."

The door was opened to him, this time. As it swung back, he saw, first, a burst of rosy color as a room panelled in exquisite pink burst upon his sight; then the great picture of his life—the bloodless features of Carmel, calmed for the moment into sleep.

Perfect beauty is so rare, its effect so magical! Not even the bandage which swathed one cheek could hide the exquisite symmetry of the features, or take from the whole face its sweet and natural distinction. Frenzy, which had distorted the muscles and lit the eyes with a baleful glare, was lacking at this moment. Repose had quieted the soul and left the body free to express its natural harmonies.

Sweetwater gazed at the winsome, brown head over the nurse's shoulder, and felt that for him a new and important factor had entered into this case, with his recognition of this woman's great beauty. How deep a factor, he was far from suspecting, or he would not have met the nurse's eye with quite so cheery and self-confident a smile.

"Excuse the intrusion," he said. "We thought you might need these things. Hexford signed for them."

"I'm obliged to you. Are you—one of them?" she sharply asked.

"Would it disturb you if I were? I hope not. I've no wish to seem intrusive."

"What do you want? Something, I know. Give it a name before there's a change there."

She nodded towards the bed, and Sweetwater took advantage of the moment to scrutinise more closely the nurse herself. She was a robust, fine-looking woman, producing an impression of capability united to kindness. Strength of mind and rigid attendance to duty dominated the kindness, however. If crossed in what she considered best for her patient, possibly for herself, she could be severe, if not biting, in her speech and manner. So much Sweetwater read in the cold, clear eye and firm, self-satisfied mouth of the woman awaiting his response to the curt demand she had made.

"I want another good look at your patient, and I want your confidence since you and I may have to see much of each other before this matter is ended. You asked me to speak plainly and I have done so."

"You are from headquarters?"

"Coroner Perry sent me." Throwing back his coat, he showed his badge. "The coroner has returned to his office. He was quite upset by the outcry which came from this room at an unhappy moment during the funeral."

"I know. It was my fault; I opened the door just for an instant, and in that instant my patient broke through her torpor and spoke."

She had drawn him in, by this time, and, after another glance at her patient, softly closed the door behind him.

"I have nothing to report," said she, "but the one sentence everybody heard."

Sweetwater took in the little memorandum book and pencil which hung at her side, and understood her position and extraordinary amenability to his wishes. Unconsciously, a low exclamation escaped him. He was young and had not yet sunk the man entirely in the detective.

"A cruel necessity to watch so interesting a patient, for anything but her own good," he remarked. Yet, because he was a detective as well as a man, his eye went wandering all over the room as he spoke until it fell upon a peculiar-looking cabinet or closet, let into the wall directly opposite the bed. "What's that?" he asked.

"I don't know; I can't make it out, and I don't like to ask."

Sweetwater examined it for a moment from where he stood; then crossed over, and scrutinised it more particularly. It was a unique specimen. What it lacked in height—it could not have measured more than a foot from the bottom to the top—it made up in length, which must have exceeded five feet. The doors, of which it had two, were both tightly locked; but as they were made of transparent glass, the objects behind them were quite visible. It was the nature of these objects which made the mystery. The longer Sweetwater examined them, the less he understood the reason for their collection, much less for their preservation in a room which in all other respects, expressed the quintessence of taste.

At one end he saw a stuffed canary, not perched on a twig, but lying prone on its side. Near it was a doll, with scorched face and limbs half-consumed. Next this, the broken pieces of a china bowl and what looked like the torn remnants of some very fine lace. Further along, his eye lighted on a young girl's bonnet, exquisite in colour and nicety of material, but crushed out of all shape and only betraying its identity by its dangling strings. The next article, in this long array of totally unhomogeneous objects, was a metronome, with its pendulum wrenched half off and one of its sides lacking. He could not determine the character of what came next, and only gave a casual examination to the rest. The whole affair was a puzzle to him, and he had no time for puzzles disconnected with the very serious affair he was engaged in investigating.

"Some childish nonsense," he remarked, and moved towards the door. "The servants will be coming back, and I had rather not be found here. You'll see me again—I cannot tell just when. Perhaps you may want to send for me. If so, my name is Sweetwater."

His hand was on the knob, and he was almost out of the room when he started and looked back. A violent change in the patient had occurred. Disturbed by his voice or by some inner pulsation of the fever which devoured her, Carmel had risen from the pillow and now sat, staring straight before her with every feature working and lips opened as if to speak. Sweetwater held his breath, and the nurse leaped towards her and gently encircled her with protecting arms.

"Lie down," she prayed; "lie down. Everything is all right: I am looking after things. Lie down, little one, and rest."

The young girl drooped, and, yielding to the nurse's touch, sank slowly back on the pillow; but in an instant she was up again, and flinging out her hand, she cried out loudly just as she had cried an hour before:

"Break it open! Break the glass and look in. Her heart should be there—her heart—her heart!"

"Go, or I cannot quiet her!" ordered the nurse, and Sweetwater turned to obey.

But a new obstacle offered. The brother had heard this cry, and now stood in the doorway.

"Who are you?" he impatiently demanded, surveying Sweetwater in sudden anger.

"I brought up the drugs," was the quiet explanation of the ever-ready detective. "I didn't mean to alarm the young lady, and I don't think I did. It's the fever, sir, which makes her talk so wildly."

"We want no strangers here," was young Cumberland's response. "Remember, nurse, no strangers." His tone was actually peremptory.

Sweetwater observed him in real astonishment as he slid by and made his quiet escape. He was still more astonished when, on glancing towards the alcove, he perceived that, contrary to his own prognostication, the whiskey stood as high in the decanter as before.

"I've got a puzzler this time," was his comment, as he made his way downstairs. "Even Mr. Gryce would say that. I wonder how I'll come out. Uppermost!" he finished in secret emphasis to himself. "Uppermost! It would never do for me to fail in the first big affair I've undertaken on my own account."



XV

HELEN SURPRISES SWEETWATER

Lurk, lurk.

King Lear.

The returning servants drove up just as Sweetwater reached the lower floor. He was at the side door when they came in, and a single glance convinced him that all had gone off decorously at the grave, and that nothing further had occurred during their absence to disturb them.

He followed them as they filed away into the kitchen, and, waiting till the men had gone about their work, turned his attention to the girls who stood about very much as if they did not know just what to do with themselves.

"Sit, ladies," said he, drawing up chairs quite as if he were doing the honours of the house. Then with a sly, compassionate look into each woe-begone face, he artfully remarked: "You're all upset, you are, by what Mr. Cumberland said in such an unbecoming way at the funeral. He'd like to strangle Mr. Ranelagh! Why couldn't he wait for the sheriff. It looks as if that gentleman would have the job, all right."

"Oh! don't!" wailed out one of the girls, the impressionable, warm-hearted Maggie. "The horrors of this house'll kill me. I can't stand it a minute longer. I'll go—I'll go to-morrow."

"You won't; you're too kind-hearted to leave Mr. Cumberland and his sister in their desperate trouble," Sweetwater put in, with a decision as suggestive of admiration as he dared to assume.

Her eyes filled, and she said no more. Sweetwater shifted his attention to Helen. Working around by her side, he managed to drop these words into her ear:

"She talks most, but she doesn't feel her responsibilities any more than you do. I've had my experience with women, and you're of the sort that stays."

She rolled her eyes towards him, in a slow, surprised way, that would have abashed most men.

"I don't know your name, or your business here," said she; "but I do know that you take a good deal upon yourself when you say what I shall do or shan't do. I don't even know, myself."

"That's because your eye is not so keen to your own virtues as—well, I won't say as mine, but as those of any appreciative stranger. I can't help seeing what you are, you know."

She turned her shoulder but not before he caught a slight disdainful twitch of her rosy, non-communicative mouth.

"Ah, ah, my lady, not quick enough!" thought he; and, with the most innocent air in the world, he launched forth in a tirade against the man then in custody, as though his guilt were an accepted fact and nothing but the formalities of the law stood between him and his final doom. "It must make you all feel queer," he wound up, "to think you have waited on him and seen him tramping about these rooms for months, just as if he had no wicked feelings in his heart and meant to marry Miss Cumberland, not to kill her."

"Oh, oh," Maggie sobbed out. "And a perfect gentleman he was, too. I can't believe no bad of him. He wasn't like—" Her breath caught, and so suddenly that Sweetwater was always convinced that the more cautious Helen had twitched her by her skirt. "Like—like other gentlemen who came here. It was a kind word he had or a smile. I—I—" She made no attempt to finish but bounded to her feet, pulling up the more sedate Helen with her. "Let's go," she whispered, "I'm afeared of the man."

The other yielded and began to cross the floor behind the impetuous Maggie.

Sweetwater summoned up his courage.

"One moment," he prayed. "Will you not tell me, before you go, whether the candlestick I have noticed on the dining-room mantel is not one of a pair?"

"Yes, there were two—once," said Helen, resisting Maggie's effort to drag her out through the open door.

"Once," smiled Sweetwater; "by which you mean, three days ago."

A lowering of her head and a sudden make for the door.

Sweetwater changed his tone to one of simple inquiry.

"And was that where they always stood, the pair of them, one on each end of the dining-room mantel?"

She nodded; involuntarily, perhaps, but decisively.

Sweetwater hid his disappointment. The room mentioned was a thoroughfare for the whole family. Any member of it could have taken the candlestick.

"I'm obliged to you," said he; and might have ventured further had she given him the opportunity. But she was too near the door to resist the temptation of flight. In another moment she was gone, and Sweetwater found himself alone with his reflections.

They were not altogether unpleasing. He was sure that he read the evidences of struggle in her slowly working lips and changing impulses.

"So, so!" thought he. "The good seed has found its little corner of soil. I'll leave it to take root and sprout. Perhaps the coroner will profit by it. If not, I've a way of coaxing tender plants which should bring this one to fruit. We'll see."

The moon shone that night, much to Sweetwater's discomforture. As he moved about the stable-yard, he momentarily expected to see the window of the alcove thrown up and to hear Mr. Cumberland's voice raised in loud command for him to quit the premises. But no such interruption came. The lonely watcher, whose solitary figure he could just discern above the unshaded sill, remained immovable, with his head buried in his arms, but whether in sleep or in brooding misery, there was naught to tell.

The rest of the house presented an equally dolorous and forsaken appearance. There were lights in the kitchen and lights in the servants' rooms at the top of the house, but no sounds either of talking or laughing. All voices had sunk to a whisper, and if by chance a figure passed one of the windows, it was in a hurried, frightened way, which Sweetwater felt very ready to appreciate.

In the stable it was no better. Zadok had bought an evening paper, and was seeking solace from its columns. Sweetwater had attempted the sociable but had been met by a decided rebuff. The coachman could not forget his attitude before the funeral and nothing, not even the pitcher of beer the detective proposed to bring in, softened the forbidding air with which this old servant met the other's advances.

Soon Sweetwater realised that his work was over for the night and planned to leave. But there was one point to be settled first. Was there any other means of exit from these grounds save that offered by the ordinary driveway?

He had an impression that in one of his strolls about, he had detected the outlines of a door in what looked like a high brick wall in the extreme rear. If so, it were well worth his while to know where that door led. Working his way along in the shadow cast by the house and afterward by the stable itself, he came upon what was certainly a wall and a wall with a door in it. He could see the latter plainly from where he halted in the thick of the shadows. The moonlight shone broadly on it, and he could detect the very shape and size of its lock. It might be as well to try that lock, but he would have to cross a very wide strip of moonlight in order to do so, and he feared to attract attention to his extreme inquisitiveness. Yet who was there to notice him at this hour? Mr. Cumberland had not moved, the girls were upstairs, Zadok was busy with his paper, and the footman dozing over his pipe in his room over the stable. Sweetwater had just come from that room, and he knew.

A quiet stable-yard and a closed door only ten feet away! He glanced again at the latter, and made up his mind. Advancing in a quiet, sidelong way he had, he laid his hand on the small knob above the lock and quickly turned it. The door was unlocked and swung under his gentle push. An alley-way opened before him, leading to what appeared to be another residence street. He was about to test the truth of this surmise when he heard a step behind him, and turning, encountered the heavy figure of the coachman advancing towards him, with a key in his hand.

Zadok was of an easy turn, but he had been sorely tried that day, and his limit had been reached.

"You snooper!" he bawled. "What do you want here? Won't the run of the house content ye? Come! I want to lock that door. It's my last duty before going to bed."

Sweetwater assumed the innocent.

"And I was just going this way. It looks like a short road into town. It is, isn't it?"

"No! Yes," growled the other. "Whichever it is, it isn't your road to-night. That's private property, sir. The alley you see, belongs to our neighbours. No one passes through there but myself and—"

He caught himself in time, with a sullen grunt which may have been the result of fatigue or of that latent instinct of loyalty which is often the most difficult obstacle a detective has to encounter.

"And Mr. Ranelagh, I suppose you would say?" was Sweetwater's easy finish.

No answer; the coachman simply locked the door and put the key in his pocket.

Sweetwater made no effort to deter him. More than that he desisted from further questions though he was dying to ask where this key was kept at night, and whether it had been in its usual place on the evening of the murder. He had gone far enough, he thought. Another step and he might rouse this man's suspicion, if not his enmity. But he did not leave the shadows into which he again receded until he had satisfied himself that the key went into the stable with the coachman, where it probably remained for this night, at least.

It was after ten when Sweetwater re-entered the house to say good night to Hexford. He found him on watch in the upper hall, and the man, Clarke, below. He had a word with the former:

"What is the purpose of the little door in the wall back of the stable?"

"It connects these grounds with those of the Fultons. The Fultons live on Huested Street."

"Are the two families intimate?"

"Very. Mr. Cumberland is sweet on the young lady there. She was at the funeral to-day. She fainted when—you know when."

"I can guess. God! What complications arise! You don't say that any woman can care for him?"

Hexford gave a shrug. He had seen a good deal of life.

"He uses that door, then?" Sweetwater pursued, after a minute.

"Probably."

"Did he use it that night?"

"He didn't visit her"

"Where did he go?"

"We can't find out. He was first seen on Garden Street, coming home after a night of debauch. He had drunk hard. Asked where he got the liquor, he maundered out something about a saloon; but none of the places which he usually frequents had seen him that night. I have tried them all and some that weren't in his books. It was no good."

"That door is supposed to be locked at night. Zadok says that's his duty. Was it locked that night?"

"Can't say. Perhaps the coroner can. You see the inquiry ran in such a different direction, at first, that a small matter like that may have been overlooked."

Sweetwater subdued the natural retort, and, reverting to the subject of the saloons, got some specific information in regard to them. Then he passed thoughtfully down-stairs, only to come upon Helen who was just extinguishing the front-hall light.

"Good night!" he said, in passing.

"Good night, Mr. Sweetwater."

There was something in her tone which made him stop and look back. She had stepped into the library and was blowing out the lamp there. He paused a moment and sighed softly. Then he started towards the door, only to stop again and cast another look back. She was standing in one of the doorways, anxiously watching him and twisting her fingers in and out in an irresolute way truly significant in one of her disposition.

He felt his heart leap.

Returning softly, he took up his stand before her, looking her straight in the eye.

"Good night," he repeated, with an odd emphasis.

"Good night," she answered, with equal force and meaning.

But the next moment she was speaking rapidly, earnestly.

"I can't sleep," said she. "I never can when I'm not certain of my duty. Mr. Ranelagh is an injured man. Ask what was said and done at their last dinner here. I can't tell you. I didn't listen and I didn't see what happened, but it was something out of the ordinary. Three broken wineglasses lay on the tablecloth when I went in to clear away. I heard the clatter when they fell and smashed, but I said nothing. I have said nothing since; but I know there was a quarrel, and that Mr. Ranelagh was not in it, for his glass was the only one which remained unbroken. Am I wrong in telling you? I wouldn't if—if it were not for Mr. Ranelagh. He didn't do right by Miss Cumberland, but he don't deserve to be in prison; and so would Miss Carmel tell you if she knew what was going on and could speak. She loved him and—I've said enough; I've said enough," the agitated girl protested, as he leaned eagerly towards her. "I couldn't tell the priest any more. Good night."

And she was gone.

He hesitated a moment, then pursued his way to the side door, and so out of the house into the street. As he passed along the front of the now darkened building, he scanned it with a new interest and a new doubt. Soon he returned to his old habit of muttering to himself. "We don't know the half of what has taken place within those walls during the last four weeks," said he. "But one thing I will solve, and that is where this miserable fellow spent the hours between this dinner they speak of and the time of his return next day. Hexford has failed at it. Now we'll see what a blooming stranger can do."



XVI

62 CUTHBERT ROAD

Tush! I will stir about, And all things will be well, I warrant thee.

Romeo and Juliet.

He was walking south and on the best lighted and most beautiful street in town, but his eyes were forever seeking a break in the long line of fence which marked off the grounds of a seemingly interminable stretch of neighbouring mansions, and when a corner was at last reached, he dashed around it and took a straight course for Huested Street, down which he passed with quickened steps and an air of growing assurance.

He was soon at the bottom of the hill where the street, taking a turn, plunged him at once into a thickly populated district. As this was still the residence quarter, he passed on until he gained the heart of the town and the region of the saloons. Here he slackened pace and consulted a memorandum he had made while talking to Hexford. "A big job," was his comment, sorry to find the hour quite so late. "But I'm not bound to finish it to-night. A start is all I can hope for, so here goes."

It was not his intention to revisit the places so thoroughly overhauled by the police. He carried another list, that of certain small groceries and quiet unobtrusive hotels where a man could find a private room in which to drink alone; it being Sweetwater's conviction that in such a place, and in such a place only, would be found the tokens of those solitary hours spent by Arthur Cumberland between the time of his sister's murder and his reappearance the next day. "Had they been spent in his old haunts or in any of the well-known drinking saloons of the city, some one would have peached on him before this," he went on, in silent argument with himself. "He's too well known, too much of a swell for all his lowering aspect and hang-dog look, to stroll along unnoticed through any of the principal streets, so soon after the news of his sister's murder had set the whole town agog. Yet he was not seen till he struck Garden Street, a good quarter of a mile from his usual resorts."

Here, Sweetwater glanced up at the corner gas-lamp beneath which he stood, and seeing that he was in Garden Street, tried to locate himself in the exact spot where this young man had first been seen on the notable morning in question. Then he looked carefully about him. Nothing in the street or its immediate neighbourhood suggested the low and secret den he was in search of.

"I shall have to make use of the list," he decided, and asked the first passer-by the way to Hubbell's Alley.

It was a mile off. "That settles it," muttered Sweetwater. "Besides, I doubt if he would go into an alley. The man has sunk low, but hardly so low as that. What's the next address I have? Cuthbert Road. Where's that?"

Espying a policeman eyeing him with more or less curiosity from the other side of the street, he crossed over and requested to be directed to Cuthbert Road.

"Cuthbert Road! That's where the markets are. They're closed at this time of night," was the somewhat suspicious reply.

Evidently the location was not a savoury one.

"Are there nothing but markets there?" inquired Sweetwater, innocently. It was his present desire not to be recognised as a detective even by the men on beat. "I'm looking up a friend. He keeps a grocery or some kind of small hotel. I have his number, but I don't know how to get to Cuthbert Road."

"Then turn straight about and go down the first street, and you'll reach it before the trolley-car you see up there can strike this corner. But first, sew up your pockets. There's a bad block between you and the markets."

Sweetwater slapped his trousers and laughed.

"I wasn't born yesterday," he cried; and following the officer's directions, made straight for the Road. "Worse than the alley," he muttered; "but too near to be slighted. I wonder if I shouldn't have borrowed somebody's old coat."

It had been wiser, certainly. In Garden Street all the houses had been closed and dark, but here they were open and often brightly lighted and noisy from cellar to roof. Men, women, and frequently children, jostled him on the pavement, and he felt his pockets touched more than once. But he wasn't Caleb Sweetwater of the New York department of police for nothing. He laughed, bantered, fought his way through and finally reached the quieter region and, at this hour, the almost deserted one, of the markets. Sixty-two was not far off, and, pausing a moment to consider his course, he mechanically took in the surroundings. He was surprised to find himself almost in the open country. The houses extending on his left were fronted by the booths and stalls of the market but beyond these were the fields. Interested in this discovery, and anxious to locate himself exactly, he took his stand under a favouring gas-lamp, and took out his map.

What he saw, sent him forward in haste. Shops had now taken the place of tenements, and as these were mostly closed, there were very few persons on the block, and those were quiet and unobtrusive. He reached a corner before coming to 62 and was still more interested to perceive that the street which branched off thus immediately from the markets was a wide and busy one, offering both a safe and easy approach to dealer and customer. "I'm on the track," he whispered almost aloud in his secret self-congratulation. "Sixty-two will prove a decent quiet resort which I may not be above patronising myself."

But he hesitated when he reached it. Some houses invite and some repel. This house repelled. Yet there was nothing shabby or mysterious about it. There was the decent entrance, lighted, but not too brilliantly; a row of dark windows over it; and, above it all, a sloping roof in which another sparkle of light drew his attention to an upper row of windows, this time, of the old dormer shape. An alley ran down one side of the house to the stables, now locked but later to be thrown open for the use of the farmers who begin to gather here as early as four o'clock. Nothing wrong in its appearance, everything ship-shape and yet—"I shall find some strange characters here," was the Sweetwater comment with which our detective opened the door and walked into the house.

It was an unusual hour for guests, and the woman whom he saw bending over a sort of desk in one corner of the room he strode into, looked up hastily, almost suspiciously.

"Well, and what is your business?" she asked, with her eye on his clothes, which while not fashionable, were evidently of the sort not often seen in that place.

"I want a room," he tipsily confided to her, "in which I can drink and drink till I cannot see. I'm in trouble I am; but I don't want to do any mischief; I only want to forget. I've money, and—" as he saw her mouth open, "and I've the stuff. Whiskey, just whiskey. Give me a room. I'll be quiet."

"I'll give you nothing." She was hot, angry, and full of distrust. "This house is not for such as you. It's a farmer's lodging; honest men, who'd stare and go mad to see a feller like you about. Go along, I tell you, or I'll call Jim. He'll know what to do with you."

"Then, he'll know mor'n I do myself," mumbled the detective, with a crushed and discouraged air. "Money and not a place to spend it in! Why can't I go in there?" he peevishly inquired with a tremulous gesture towards a half-open door through which a glimpse could be got of a neat little snuggery. "Nobody'll see me. Give me a glass and leave me till I rap for you in the morning. That's worth a fiver. Don't you think so, missus?—And we'll begin by passing over the fiver."

"No."

She was mighty peremptory and what was more, she was in a great hurry to get rid of him. This haste and the anxious ear she turned towards the hall enlightened him as to the situation. There was some one within hearing or liable to come within hearing, who possibly was not so stiff under temptation. Could it be her husband? If so, it might be worth his own while to await the good man's coming, if only he could manage to hold his own for the next few minutes.

Changing his tactics, he turned his back on the snuggery and surveyed the offended woman, with just a touch of maudlin sentiment.

"I say," he cried, just loud enough to attract the attention of any one within ear-shot. "You're a mighty fine woman and the boss of this here establishment; that's evident. I'd like to see the man who could say no to you. He's never sat in that 'ere cashier's seat where you be; of that I'm dead sure. He wouldn't care for fivers if you didn't, nor for tens either."

She was really a fine woman for her station, and a buxom, powerful one, too. But her glance wavered under these words and she showed a desire, with difficulty suppressed, to use the strength of her white but brawny arms, in shoving him out of the house. To aid her self-control, he, on his part, began to edge towards the door, always eyeing her and always speaking loudly in admirably acted tipsy unconsciousness of the fact.

"I'm a man who likes my own way as well as anybody," were the words with which he sought to save the situation, and further his own purposes. "But I never quarrel with a woman. Her whims are sacred to me. I may not believe in them; they may cost me money and comfort; but I yield, I do, when they are as strong in their wishes as you be. I'm going, missus —I'm going—Oh!"

The exclamation burst from him. He could not help it. The door behind him had opened, and a man stepped in, causing him so much astonishment that he forgot himself. The woman was big, bigger than most women who rule the roost and do the work in haunts where work calls for muscle and a good head behind it. She was also rosy and of a make to draw the eye, if not the heart. But the man who now entered was small almost to the point of being a manikin, and more than that, he was weazen of face and ill-balanced on his two tiny, ridiculous legs. Yet she trembled at his presence, and turned a shade paler as she uttered the feeble protest:

"Jim!"

"Is she making a fool of herself?" asked the little man in a voice as shrill as it was weak. "Do your business with me. Women are no good." And he stalked into the room as only little men can.

Sweetwater took out his ten; pointed to the snuggery, and tapped his breast-pocket. "Whiskey here," he confided. "Bring me a glass. I don't mind your farmers. They won't bother me. What I want is a locked door and a still mouth in your head."

The last he whispered in the husband's ear as the wife crossed reluctantly back to her books.

The man turned the bill he had received, over and over in his hand; then scrutinised Sweetwater, with his first show of hesitation.

"You don't want to kill yourself?" he asked.

Sweetwater laughed with a show of good humour that appeared to relieve the woman, if it did not the man.

"Oh, that's it," he cried. "That's what the missus was afraid of, was it? Well, I vow! And ten thousand dollars to my credit in the bank! No, I don't want to kill myself. I just want to booze to my heart's content, with nobody by to count the glasses. You've known such fellers before, and that cosey, little room over there has known them, too. Just add me to the list; it won't harm you."

The man's hand closed on the bill. Sweetwater noted the action out of the corner of his eye, but his direct glance was on the woman. Her back was to him, but she had started as he mentioned the snuggery and made as if to turn; but thought better of it, and bent lower over her books.

"I've struck the spot," he murmured, exultantly to himself. "This is the place I want and here I'll spend the night; but not to booze my wits away, oh, no."

Nevertheless it was a night virtually wasted. He learned nothing more than what was revealed by that one slight movement on the part of the woman.

Though the man came in and sat with him for an hour, and they drank together out of the flask Sweetwater had brought with him, he was as impervious to all Sweetwater's wiles and as blind to every bait he threw out, as any man the young detective had ever had to do with. When the door closed on him, and Sweetwater was left to sit out the tedious night alone, it was with small satisfaction to himself, and some regret for his sacrificed bill. The driving in of the farmers and the awakening of life in the market, and all the stir it occasioned inside the house and out, prevented sleep even if he had been inclined that way. He had to swallow his pill, and he did it with the best grace possible. Sooner than was expected of him, sooner than was wise, perhaps, he was on his feet and peering out of the one small window this most dismal day room contained. He had not mistaken the outlook. It gave on to the alley, and all that was visible from behind the curtains where he stood, was the high brick wall of the neighbouring house. This wall had not even a window in it; which in itself was a disappointment to one of his resources. He turned back into the room, disgusted; then crept to the window again, and, softly raising the sash, cast one of his lightning glances up and down the alley. Then he softly let the sash fall again and retreated to the centre of the room, where he stood for a moment with a growing smile of intelligence and hope on his face. He had detected close against the side of the wall, a box or hand-cart full of empty bottles. It gave him an idea. With an impetuosity he would have criticised in another man, he flung himself out of the room in which he had been for so many hours confined, and coming face to face with the landlady standing in unexpected watch before the door, found it a strain on his nerves to instantly assume the sullen, vaguely abused air with which he had decided to leave the house. Nevertheless, he made the attempt, and if he did not succeed to his own satisfaction, he evidently did to hers, for she made no effort to stop him as he stumbled out, and in her final look, which he managed with some address to intercept, he perceived nothing but relief. What had been in her mind? Fear for him or fear for themselves? He could not decide until he had rummaged that cart of bottles. But how was he to do this without attracting attention to himself in a way he still felt, to be undesirable. In his indecision, he paused on the sidewalk and let his glances wander vaguely over the busy scene before him. Before be knew it, his eye had left the market and travelled across the snow-covered fields to a building standing by itself in the far distance. Its appearance was not unfamiliar. Seizing hold of the first man who passed him, he pointed it out, crying:

"What building is that?"

"That? That's The Whispering Pines, the country club-house, where—"

He didn't wait for the end of the sentence, but plunged into the thickest group of people he could find, with a determination greater than ever to turn those bottles over before he ate.

His manner of going about this was characteristic. Lounging about the stalls until he found just the sort of old codger he wanted, he scraped up an acquaintance with him on the spot, and succeeded in making himself so agreeable that when the old fellow sauntered back to the stables to take a look at his horse, Sweetwater accompanied him. Hanging round the stable-door, he kept up his chatter, while sizing up the bottles heaped in the cart at his side. He even allowed himself to touch one or two in an absent way, and was meditating an accidental upset of the whole collection when a woman he had not seen before, thrust her head out of a rear window, shouting sharply:

"Leave those bottles alone. They're waiting for the old clothes man. He pays us money for them."

Sweetwater gaped and strolled away. He had used his eyes to purpose, and was quite assured that the bottle he wanted was not there. But the woman's words had given him his cue, and when later in the day a certain old Jew peddler went his rounds through this portion of the city, a disreputable-looking fellow accompanied him, whom even the sharp landlady in Cuthbert Road would have failed to recognise as the same man who had occupied the snuggery the night before. He was many hours on the route and had many new experiences with human nature. But he gained little else, and was considering with what words he should acknowledge his defeat at police headquarters, when he found himself again at the markets and a minute later in the alley where the cart stood, with the contents of which he had busied himself earlier in the day.

He had followed the peddler here because he had followed him to every other back door and alley. But he was tired and had small interest in the cart which looked quite undisturbed and in exactly the same condition as when he turned his back upon it in the morning. But when he drew nearer and began to lend a hand in removing the bottles to the waggon, he discovered that a bottle had been added to the pile, and that this bottle bore the label which marked it as being one of the two which had been taken from the club-house on the night of the murder.



XVII

"MUST I TELL THESE THINGS?"

Had I but died an hour before this chance, I had liv'd a blessed time; for from this instant, There's nothing serious in mortality: All is but toys; renown, and grace is dead; The wine of life is drawn, and the lees Is left this vault to brag of.

Macbeth.

The lamp in the coroner's room shone dully on the perturbed faces of three anxious men. They had been talking earnestly and long, but were now impatiently awaiting the appearance of a fourth party, as was shown by the glances which each threw from time to time towards the door leading into the main corridor.

The district attorney courted the light, and sat where he would be the first seen by any one entering. He had nothing to hide, being entirely engrossed in his duty.

Further back and rather behind the lamp than in front of it stood or sat, as his restlessness prompted, Coroner Perry, the old friend of Amasa Cumberland, with whose son he had now to do. Behind him, and still further in the shadow, could be seen the quiet figure of Sweetwater. All counted the minutes and all showed relief—the coroner by a loud sigh—when the door finally opened and an officer appeared, followed by the lounging form of Adelaide's brother.

Arthur Cumberland had come unwillingly, and his dissatisfaction did not improve his naturally heavy countenance. However, he brightened a little at sight of the two men sitting at the table, and, advancing, broke into speech before either of the two officials had planned their questions.

"I call this hard," he burst forth. "My place is at home and at the bedside of my suffering sister, and you drag me down here at nine o'clock at night to answer questions about things of which I am completely ignorant. I've said all I have to say about the trouble which has come into my family; but if another repetition of the same things will help to convict that scoundrel who has broken up my home and made me the wretchedest dog alive, then I'm ready to talk. So, fire ahead, Dr. Perry, and let's be done with it."

"Sit down," replied the district attorney, gravely, with a gesture of dismissal to the officer. "Mr. Cumberland, we have spared you up to this time, for two very good reasons. You were in great trouble, and you appeared to be in the possession of no testimony which would materially help us. But matters have changed since you held conversation with Dr. Perry on the day following your sister's decease. You have laid that sister away; the will which makes you an independent man for life has been read in your hearing; you are in as much ease of mind as you can be while your remaining sister's life hangs trembling in the balance; and, more important still, discoveries not made before the funeral, have been made since, rendering it very desirable for you to enter into particulars at this present moment, which were not thought necessary then."

"Particulars? What particulars? Don't you know enough, as it is, to hang the fellow? Wasn't he seen with his fingers on Adelaide's throat? What can I tell you that is any more damaging than that? Particulars!" The word seemed to irritate him beyond endurance. Never had he looked more unprepossessing or a less likely subject for sympathy, than when he stumbled into the chair set for him by the district attorney.

"Arthur!"

The word had a subtle ring. The coroner, who uttered it, waited to watch its effect. Seemingly it had none, after the first sullen glance thrown him by the young man; and the coroner sighed again, but this time softly, and as a prelude to the following speech:

"We can understand," said he, "why you should feel so strongly against one who has divided the hearts of your sisters, and played with one, if not with both. Few men could feel differently. You have reason for your enmity and we excuse it; but you must not carry it to the point of open denunciation before the full evidence is in and the fact of murder settled beyond all dispute. Whatever you may think, whatever we may think, it has not been so settled. There are missing links still to be supplied, and this is why we have summoned you here and ask you to be patient and give the district attorney a little clearer account of what went on in your own house, before you broke up that evening and you went to your debauch, and your sister Adelaide to her death at The Whispering Pines."

"I don't know what you mean." He brought his fist down on the table with each word. "Nothing went on. That is,—"

"Something went on at dinner-time. It was not a usual meal," put in the district attorney. "You and your sisters—"

"Stop!" He was at that point of passion which dulls the most self-controlled to all sense of propriety.

"Don't talk to me about that dinner. I want to forget that dinner. I want to forget everything but the two things I live for—to see that fellow hanged, and to—" The words choked him, and he let his head fall, but presently threw it up again. "That dastard, whom may God confound, passed a letter across Adelaide into Carmel's hand," he panted out. "I saw him, but I didn't take it in; I wasn't thinking. I was—"

"Who broke the glasses?" urged his relentless inquisitor. "One at your plate, one at Carmel's, and one at the head of the board where sat your sister Adelaide?"

"God! Must I tell these things?" He had started to his feet and his hand, violent in all it did, struck his forehead impulsively, as he uttered this exclamation. "Have it, then! Heaven knows I think of it enough not to be afraid to speak it out in words. Adelaide"—the name came with passion, but once uttered, produced its own calming effect, so that he went on with more restraint—"Adelaide never had much patience with me. She was a girl who only saw one way. 'The right! the right!' was what she dinned into my ears from the time I was a small boy and didn't know but that all youngsters were brought up by sisters. I grew to hate what she called 'the right,' I wanted pleasure, a free time, and a good drink whenever the fancy took me. You know what I am, Dr. Perry, and everybody in town knows; but the impulse which has always ruled me was not a downright evil one; or if it was, I called it natural independence, and let it go at that. But Adelaide suffered. I didn't understand it and I didn't care a fig for it, but she did suffer. God forgive me!"

He stopped and mopped his forehead. Sweetwater moved a trifle on his seat, but the others—men who had passed the meridian of life, who had known temptations, possibly had succumbed to them, from time to time—sat like two statues, one in full light and the other in as dark a shadow as he could find.

"That afternoon," young Cumberland presently resumed, "she was keyed up more than usual. She loved Ranelagh,—damn him!—and he had played or was playing her false. She watched him with eyes that madden me, now, when I think of them. She saw him look at Carmel, and she saw Carmel look at him. Then her eyes fell on me. I was angry; angry at them all, and I wanted a drink. It was not her habit to have wine on the table; but sometimes, when Ranelagh was there, she did. She was a slave to Ranelagh, and he could make her do whatever he wished, just as he can make you and everybody else."

Here he shot insolent glances at his two interlocutors, one of whom changed colour—which, happily, he did not see. "'Ring the bell,' I ordered, 'and have in the champagne. I want to drink to your marriage and the happy days in prospect for us all,' It was brutal and I knew it; but I was reckless and wild for the wine. So, I guess, was Ranelagh, for he smiled at her, and she rang for the champagne. When the glasses had been set beside each plate, she turned towards Carmel. 'We will all drink,' she said, 'to my coming marriage,' This made Carmel turn pale; for Adelaide had never been known to drink a drop of liquor in her life. I felt a little queer, myself; and not one of us spoke till the glasses were filled and the maid had left the dining-room and shut the door.

"Then Adelaide rose. 'We will drink standing,' said she, and never had I seen her look as she did then. I thought of my evil life when I should have been watching Ranelagh; and when she lifted the glass to her lips and looked at me, almost as earnestly as she did at Ranelagh,—but it was a different kind of earnestness,—I felt like—like—well, like the wretch I was and always had been; possibly, always will be. She drank;—we wouldn't call it drinking, for she just touched the wine with her lips; but to her it was debauch. Then she stood waiting, with the strangest gleam in her eyes, while Ranelagh drained his glass and I drained mine. Ranelagh thought she wanted some sentiment, and started to say something appropriate; but his eye fell on Carmel, who had tried to drink and couldn't, and he bungled over his words and at last came to a pause under the steady stare of Adelaide's eyes.

"'Never mind, Elwood,' she said; 'I know what you would like to say. But that's not what I am thinking of now. I am thinking of my brother, the boy who will soon be left to find his way through life without even the unwelcome restraint of my presence. I want him to remember this day. I want him to remember me as I stand here before him with this glass in my hand. You see wine in it, Arthur; but I see poison—poison—nothing else, for one like you who cannot refuse a friend, cannot refuse your own longing. Never from this day on shall another bottle be opened under my roof. Carmel, you have grieved as well as I over what has passed for pleasure in this house. Do as I do, and may Arthur see and remember.'

"Her fingers opened; the glass fell from her hand, and lay in broken fragments beside her plate. Carmel followed suit, and, before I knew it, my own fingers had opened, and my own glass lay in pieces on the table-cloth beneath me. Only Ranelagh's hand remained steady. He did not choose to please her, or he was planning his perfidy and had not caught her words or understood her action. She held her breath, watching that hand; and I can hear the gasp yet with which she saw him set his glass down quietly on the board. That's the story of those three broken glasses. If she had not died that night, I should be laughing at them now; but she did die and I don't laugh! I curse—curse her recreant lover, and sometimes myself! Do you want anything more of me? I'm eager to be gone, if you don't."

The district attorney sought out and lifted a paper from the others lying on the desk before him. It was the first movement he had made since Cumberland began his tale.

"I'm sorry," said he, with a rapid examination of the paper in his hand, "but I shall have to detain you a few minutes longer. What happened after the dinner? Where did you go from the table?"

"I went to my room to smoke. I was upset and thirsty as a fish."

"Have you liquor in your room?"

"Sometimes."

"Did you have any that night?"

"Not a drop. I didn't dare. I wanted that champagne bottle, but Adelaide had been too quick for me. It was thrown out—wasted—I do believe, wasted."

"So you did not drink? You only smoked in your room?"

"Smoked one cigar. That was all. Then I went down town."

His tone had grown sulky, the emotion which had buoyed him up till now, seemed suddenly to have left him. With it went the fire from his eye, the quiver from his lip, and it is necessary to add, everything else calculated to awaken sympathy. He was simply sullen now.

"May I ask by which door you left the house?"

"The side door—the one I always take."

"What overcoat did you wear?"

"I don't remember. The first one I came to, I suppose."

"But you can surely tell what hat?"

They expected a violent reply, and they got it.

"No, I can't. What has my hat got to do with the guilt of Elwood Ranelagh?"

"Nothing, we hope," was the imperturbable answer. "But we find it necessary to establish absolutely just what overcoat and what hat you wore down street that night."

"I've told you that I don't remember." The young man's colour was rising.

"Are not these the ones?" queried the district attorney, making a sign to Sweetwater, who immediately stepped forward, with a shabby old ulster over his arm, and a battered derby in his hand.

The young man started, rose, then sat again, shouting out with angry emphasis:

"No!"

"Yet you recognise these?"

"Why shouldn't I? They're mine. Only I don't wear them any more. They're done for. You must have rooted them out from some closet."

"We did; perhaps you can tell us what closet."

"I? No. What do I know about my old clothes? I leave that to the women."

The slight faltering observable in the latter word conveyed nothing to these men.

"Mr. Cumberland,"—the district attorney was very serious,—"this hat and this coat, old as they are, were worn into town from your house that night. This we know, absolutely. We can even trace them to the club-house."

Mechanically, not spontaneously this time, the young man rose to his feet, staring first at the man who had uttered these words, then at the garments which Sweetwater still held in view. No anger now; he was too deeply shaken for that, too shaken to answer at once—too shaken to be quite the master of his own faculties. But he rallied after an interval during which these three men devoured his face, each under his own special anxiety, and read there possibly what each least wanted to see.

"I don't know anything about it," were the words with which Arthur Cumberland sought to escape from the net which had been thus deftly cast about him. "I didn't wear the things. Anybody can tell you what clothes I came home in. Ranelagh may have borrowed—"

"Ranelagh wore his own coat and hat. We will let the subject of apparel drop, and come to a topic on which you may be better qualified to speak. Mr. Cumberland, you have told us that you didn't know at the time, and can't remember now, where you spent that night and most of the next morning. All you can remember is that it was in some place where they let you drink all you wished and leave when the fancy took you, and not before. It was none of your usual haunts. This seemed strange to your friends, at the time; but it is easier for us to understand, now that you have told us what had occurred at your home-table. You dreaded to have your sister know how soon you could escape the influence of that moment. You wished to drink your fill and leave your family none the wiser. Am I not right?"

"Yes; it's plain enough, isn't it? Why harp on that string? Don't you see that it maddens me? Do you want to drive me to drink again?"

The coroner interposed. He had been very willing to leave the burden of this painful inquiry to the man who had no personal feelings to contend with; but at this indignant cry he started forward, and, with an air of fatherly persuasion, remarked kindly:

"You mustn't mind the official tone, or the official persistence. There is reason for all that Mr. Fox says. Answer him frankly, and this inquiry will terminate speedily. We have no wish to harry you—only to get at the truth."

"The truth? I thought you had that pat enough. The truth? The truth about what? Ranelagh or me? I should think it was about me, from the kind of questions you ask."

"It is, just now," resumed the district attorney, as his colleague drew back out of sight once more. "You cannot remember the saloon in which you drank. That's possible enough; but perhaps you can remember what they gave you. Was it whiskey, rum, absinthe, or what?"