"This is a most damnable outrage!" he cried hotly the moment he espied Mount Hope's burly sheriff.

"I am mighty sorry to have interfered with your plans, John—just mighty sorry." The sheriff's tone was meant to soothe and conciliate. "But you see we are counting on you to throw some light on the McBride murder."

"So that's it! I tell you, Conklin, I consider that I have been treated with utter discourtesy; I've been a virtual prisoner here over night!"

"That's too bad, John," said the sheriff sympathetically, "but we didn't know where a wire would reach you, so there didn't seem any other way than this—"

"Well, what do you want with me?" demanded North, with rather less heat than had marked his previous speech.

"They got the idea back home that you can help in the McBride matter," explained the sheriff again. "I see that you know he's been murdered."

"Yes, I knew that before I left Mount Hope," rejoined North.

"Did you, though?" said the sheriff briefly, and this admission of North's appeared to furnish him with food for reflection.

"Well, what do I know that will be of use to you?" asked North impatiently.

"You ain't to make any statement to me, John," returned the sheriff hastily.

"Do you mean you expect me to go back to Mount Hope?" inquired North in a tone of mingled wonder and exasperation.

The sheriff nodded.

"That's the idea, John," he said placidly.

"What if I refuse to go back?"

The sheriff looked pained.

"Oh, you won't do that—what's the use?"

"Do you mean—" began North savagely, but Conklin interposed.

"Never mind what I mean, that's a good fellow; say you'll take the next train back with me; it will save a lot of, bother!"

"But I strongly object to return to Mount Hope!" said North.

"Be reasonable—" urged the sheriff.

"This is an infernal outrage!" cried North.

"I'm sorry, John, but make it easy for me, make it easy for yourself; we'll have a nice friendly trip and you will be back here by the first of the week."

For a moment North hesitated. He had so many excellent reasons why he did not wish to return to Mount Hope, but he knew that there was something back of Mr. Conklin's mild eye and yet milder speech.

"Well, John?" prompted the sheriff encouragingly.

"I suppose I'll go with you," said North grudgingly.

"Of course you will," agreed the sheriff.

He had never entertained any doubts on this point.

It was ten o'clock Saturday morning when North and the sheriff left the east-bound express at Mount Hope and climbed into the bus that was waiting for them.

North's annoyance had given place to a certain humorous appreciation of the situation. His plans had gone far astray in the past forty-eight hours, and here he was back in Mount Hope. Decidedly his return, in the light of his parting with Elizabeth, was somewhat in the nature of an anticlimax.

They were driven at once to the court-house. There in his office they found Moxlow with the coroner and North was instantly aware of restraint in the manner of each as they greeted him, for which he could not account.

"Sit down, North," said Moxlow, indicating a chair.

"Now what is it?" North spoke pleasantly as he took his seat. "I've been cursing you two all the way home from Chicago."

"I am sorry you were subjected to any annoyance in the matter, but it couldn't be helped," said Moxlow.

"I'm getting over my temper," replied North. "Fire away with your questions!"

The prosecuting attorney glanced at his fellow official.

"You are already acquainted with the particulars of the shocking tragedy that has occurred here?" said Taylor with ponderous dignity.

"Yes," said North soberly. "And when I think of it, I am more than willing to help you in your search for the guilty man."

"You knew of the murder before you left town?" remarked Moxlow casually.

"Yes."

"But you weren't on the Square or in the store Thanksgiving night?" said Moxlow.

"No, I dined with General Herbert." The prosecuting attorney elevated his eyebrows. "I must have been on my way there when the crime was discovered; I was returning home perhaps a little after eleven when I met a man who stopped me to tell me of the murder—"

"You were with Mr. McBride Thanksgiving afternoon, were you not?" Moxlow now asked.

"Yes."

"What was the hour, can you state?"

"About half past four, I should say; certainly no later than that. I went there on a matter of business, to dispose of some bonds Mr. McBride had agreed to take off my hands; I was with him, maybe twenty minutes."

"What were those bonds?"

"Local gas bonds."

"How many were there in the lot you sold?"

"Five."

"He paid you the money for them?"

"Yes, a thousand dollars."

"Do you know, we haven't unearthed those bonds yet?" said the doctor.

Moxlow frowned slightly.

"I suppose they were taken," said North.

"But it will be a dangerous thing, to attempt to realize on them," snapped Moxlow.

"Decidedly," agreed North.

"You left McBride's store at, say, five o'clock?" said Moxlow.

"Not later than that—see here, Moxlow, what are you driving at?" demanded North, with some show of temper.

For an instant Moxlow hesitated, then he said:

"The truth is, North, there is not a clue to go on, and we are thrashing this thing over in the hope that we may sooner or later hit on something that will be of service to us."

"Oh, all right," said North, with a return of good nature.

"During your interview with McBride you were not interrupted, no one came into the store?"

"No one; we were alone the entire time."

"And you saw no one hanging about the place as you left it?"

"Not that I can remember; if I did it made no impression on me."

"But didn't you see Shrimplin?" asked Moxlow quickly.

"Oh, come, Moxlow, you can't play the sleuth,—that was afterward, you know it was!"

"Afterward—"

"Yes, just as I was starting for the general's place, fully an hour later."

"In the meantime you had been where—"

"From McBride's store I went to my rooms. I remained there until it was time to start for the Herberts', and as I intended to walk out I started earlier than I otherwise should have done."

"Then you were coming from your rooms when you met Shrimplin?"

"Yes, it was just six o'clock when I stopped to speak to him."

"Shrimplin was the only person you met as you crossed the Square?"

"As far as I can remember now, I saw no one but Shrimp."

"And just where did you meet him, North?" asked Moxlow.

"On the corner, near McBride's store."

"Do you know whether he had just driven into the Square or not?"

"No, I, don't know that; it was snowing hard and I came upon him suddenly."

"You continued on your way out of town after speaking with him, North?"

"Yes."

"And later, at eleven o'clock, as you were returning to town you met a stranger, probably a countryman, you say, who told you that McBride had been murdered?"

"Yes, you have that all straight."

"On your return to town you went where?"

"To my rooms again and finished packing."

"Did that take you two hours?"

"No, but I had a lot of things to see to there."

"What?" asked Moxlow.

"Oh, papers to destroy, and things of that sort that kept me pretty busy until train-time."

"You walked to the depot?"

"Yes, I was too late for the hotel bus; in fact, I barely caught the train. I just had time to jump aboard as it pulled out."

"Excuse me a moment, North!" said Moxlow as he rose from his chair.

He quitted the room and North heard him pass down the hall.

"It's a bad business," said Taylor.

"And you haven't a suspicion as to the guilty man?"

"No, as Moxlow says, we haven't a clue to go on. It's incredible though, isn't it, that a crime like that could have been committed here almost in broad daylight, and its perpetrator get away without leaving a trace behind?"

"It is incredible," agreed North, and they lapsed into silence.

North thought of Elizabeth. He would slip out to Idle Hour that afternoon or evening; he couldn't leave Mount Hope without seeing her. The coroner drummed on his desk; he wondered what had taken Moxlow from the room in such haste. The prosecuting attorney's brisk step sounded in the hall again, and he reentered the room and resumed his chair.

"Just one or two more questions, North, and then I guess we'll have to let you go," he said. "You have been on very friendly terms with the murdered man for some time, have you not?"

"He was very kind to me on numerous occasions."

"In a business way, perhaps?"

"Largely in a business way, yes."

"It—pardon me—usually had to do with raising money, had it not?"

North laughed.

"It had."

"You were familiar with certain little peculiarities of his, were you not, his mistrust of banks for instance?"

"Yes, he had very little confidence in banks, judging from what he said of them."

"Did he ever tell you that he had large sums of money hidden away about the store?"

"Never."

"But always when you had business dealings with him he gave you the ready money, very rarely a check?"

"Never in all my experience a check, always the cash."

"Yet the sums involved were usually considerable?"

"In one or two instances they reached a thousand dollars, if you call that considerable."

"And he always had the money on hand?"

"Well, I can't quite say that; it always involved a preliminary discussion of the transaction; I had to see him and tell him what I wanted and then go again after the money. It was as if he wished me to think he did not keep any large sum about him at the store."

"Did he ever, in talking with you, express any apprehension of robbery or violence?"

"No, never."

"You had spoken to him about those bonds before?"

"Yes, Monday I saw him and asked him if he would take them off my hand."

"And he gave you to understand that if you would wait a day or two he would buy the bonds."

North nodded.

"Hadn't you learned prior to going to the store that McBride had just received three thousand dollars in cash from Atkinson?"

"Yes, I knew that,—Langham told me."

"So that it is reasonable to suppose that McBride had at least four thousand dollars in his safe Thursday afternoon."

"I suppose it is, but I saw only the thousand he paid me for the bonds."

"That came from the safe?"

"Yes."

"I guess that's all for the present, North."

"Do you mean you shall want to see me again?" asked North, rising.

"Yes, you won't leave town to-day; the inquest is to be held this afternoon, you will probably be wanted then, so hold yourself in readiness."

"I hope you will arrange to get through with me as soon as possible, Moxlow!"

"We won't put you to any unnecessary inconvenience if we can help it," returned Moxlow, with a queer cold smile.

"Thank you," said North and quitted the room.

He sauntered out into the street; he was disposed to consider Mr. Moxlow as something of a fool, as a rank amateur in the present crisis. He turned into the Square and halted for an instant before the dingy store that had been the scene of the recent tragedy. People on the street paused when they had passed and turned to stare after him, but North was unaware of this, as he was unaware that his name had come to be the one most frequently mentioned in connection with the McBride murder. Suddenly he quickened his step; just ahead of him was Marshall Langham.

"Hello, Marsh!" he said, and stepped eagerly forward with extended hand.

The lawyer paused irresolutely and turned on him a bloated face, but there was no welcome in the sullen glance.

"Marsh—"

Langham's lips twitched and an angry murmur came from them, but the words were indistinct.

"What's wrong?" asked North, falling back a step in astonishment.

"Yes, what's wrong!" said Langham in a hoarse whisper. "Hell! You have nerve to stick out your hand to me—you have bigger nerve to ask me that,—get out of my way!" and he pushed past North and strode down the street without a single backward glance.



CHAPTER TWELVE

JOE TELLS HIS STORY

The inquest was held late Saturday afternoon in the bleak living-room of the McBride house. The coroner had explained the manner in which the murdered man had come to his death, and as he finished he turned to Moxlow. The prosecuting attorney shifted his position slightly, thrust out his long legs toward the wood-stove, and buried his hands deep in his trousers pockets, then he addressed the jury.

They were there, he told them, to listen to certain facts that bore on the death of Archibald McBride. If, after hearing these facts, they could say they pointed to any person or persons as being implicated in the murder, they were to name the person or persons, and he would see that they were brought before the grand jury for indictment. They were to bear in mind, however, that no one was on trial, and that no one was accused of the crime about to be investigated, yet they must not forget that a cold-blooded murder had been committed; human hands had raised the weapon that had crushed out the life of the old merchant, human intelligence had made choice of the day and hour and moment for that brutal deed; the possibility of escape had been nicely calculated, nothing had been left to chance. He would venture the assertion that if the murderer were ever found he would prove to be no ordinary criminal.

All this Moxlow said with judicial deliberation and with the lawyer's careful qualifying of word and phrase.

Shrimplin was the first witness. He described in his own fashion the finding of Archibald McBride's body. Then a few skilful questions by Moxlow brought out the fact of his having met John North on the Square immediately before his own gruesome discovery. The little lamplighter was excused, and Colonel Harbison took his: place. He, in his turn, quickly made way for Andy Gilmore. Moxlow next interrogated Atkinson, Langham's client, who explained the nature of his business relations with McBride which had terminated in the payment of three thousand dollars to him on Thanksgiving afternoon, the twenty-seventh of November.

"You are excused, Mr. Atkinson," said Moxlow.

For an instant his eyes roved over the room; they settled on Marshall Langham, who stood near the door leading into the hall. By a gesture he motioned him to the chair Atkinson had vacated.

Langham's testimony was identical with that which he had already given in the informal talk at Moxlow's office; he told of having called on Archibald McBride with his client and, urged on by Moxlow, described his subsequent conversation with North.

Up to this point John North had felt only an impersonal interest in the proceedings, but now it flashed across him that Moxlow was seeking to direct suspicion toward him. How well the prosecuting attorney was succeeding was apparent. North realized that he had suddenly become the most conspicuous person in the room; whichever way he turned he met the curious gaze of his townsmen, and each pair of eyes seemed to hold some portentous question. As if oblivious of this he bent forward in his chair and followed Moxlow's questions and Langham's replies with the closest attention. And as he watched Langham, so Gilmore watched him.

"That will do, Mr. Langham. Thank you," said Moxlow at last.

North felt sure he would be the next witness, and he was not mistaken. Moxlow's examination, however, was along lines quite different from those he had anticipated. The prosecuting attorney's questions wholly concerned themselves with the sale of the gas bonds to McBride; each detail of that transaction was gone into, but a very positive sense of relief had come to North. This was not what he had expected and dreaded, and he answered Moxlow's queries frankly, eagerly, for where his relations with the old merchant were under discussion he had nothing to hide. Finally Moxlow turned from him with a characteristic gesture.

"That's all," he said.

Again his glance wandered over the room. It became fixed on a grayish middle-aged man seated at Gilmore's elbow.

"Thomas Nelson," he called.

This instantly revived North's apprehensions. Nelson was the janitor of the building in which he had roomed. He asked himself what could be Moxlow's purpose in examining him.

There was just one thing North feared, and that—the bringing of Evelyn Langham's name into the case. How this could happen he did not see, but the law dug its own channels and sometimes they went far enough afield. While this was passing through his mind, Nelson was sworn and Moxlow began his examination.

Mr. Nelson was in charge of the building on the corner of Main Street and the Square,—he referred to the brick building on the southeast corner? The witness answered in the affirmative, and Moxlow's next question brought out the fact that for some weeks the building had had only two tenants; John North and Andrew Gilmore.

What was the exact nature of his duties? The witness could hardly say; he was something of a carpenter for one thing, and at the present time was making certain repairs in the vacant store-room on the ground floor. Did he take care of the entrance and the two halls? Yes. Had he anything to do with the rooms of the two tenants on the first floor? Yes. What?

Sometimes he swept and dusted them and he was supposed to look after the fires. He carried up the coal, Moxlow suggested? Yes. He carried out the ashes? Again yes. Moxlow paused for a moment. Was he the only person who ever carried out the ashes? Yes. What did he do with the ashes? He emptied them into a barrel that stood in the yard back of the building. And what became of them then? Whenever necessary, the barrel was carted away and emptied. How long did it usually take to fill the barrel? At this season of the year one or two weeks. When was it emptied last? A week ago, perhaps, the witness was not quite sure about the day, but it was either Monday or Tuesday of the preceding week. And how often did the ashes from the fireplaces in Mr. North's and Mr. Gilmore's rooms find their way into the barrel? Every morning he cleaned out the grates the first thing, and usually before Mr. North or Mr. Gilmore were up.

Again Moxlow paused and glanced over the room. He must have been aware that to his eager audience the connection between Mr. North's and Mr. Gilmore's fireplaces and the McBride murder, was anything but clear.

"Did you empty the ashes from the fireplaces in the apartments occupied by Mr. North and Mr. Gilmore on Friday morning?" he asked.

"Yes; that is, I took up the ashes in Mr. North's rooms."

"But not in Mr. Gilmore's?"

"No, sir, I didn't go into his rooms Friday morning."

"Why was that,—was there any reason for it?"

"Yes, I knew that Mr. Gilmore's rooms had not been occupied Thursday night; that was the night of the murder, and he was at McBride's house," explained the witness.

"But you emptied the grate in Mr. North's rooms?"

"Yes, sir."

"And disposed of the ashes in the usual way?"

"Yes, sir."

"In the barrel in the yard back of the building?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you notice anything peculiar about the ashes from Mr. North's rooms on Friday morning?"

The witness looked puzzled.

"Hadn't Mr. North burnt a good many papers in his grate?"

"Oh, yes, but then he was going away."

"That will do,—you are excused," interposed Moxlow quickly.

The sheriff was next sworn. Without interruption from Moxlow he told his story. He had made a thorough search of the ash barrel described by the witness Thomas Nelson, and had come upon a number of charred fragments of paper.

"We think these may be of interest to the coroner's jury," said Moxlow quietly.

He drew a small pasteboard box from an inner pocket of his coat and carefully arranged its contents on the table before him. In all there were half a dozen scraps of charred or torn paper displayed; one or two of these fragments were bits of envelopes on which either a part or all of the name was still decipherable. North, from where he sat, was able to recognize a number of these as letters which he had intended to destroy that last night in his rooms; but the refuse from his grate and the McBride murder still seemed poles apart; he could imagine no possible connection.

The president of Mount Hope's first national bank was the next witness called. He was asked by Moxlow to examine a Mount Hope Gas Company bond, and then the prosecuting attorney placed in his hands a triangular piece of paper which he selected from among the other fragments on the table.

"Mr. Harden, will you kindly tell the jury of what, in your opinion, that bit of paper in your hand was once a part?" said Moxlow.

Very deliberately the banker put on his glasses, and then with equal deliberation began a careful examination of the scrap of paper.

"Well?" said Moxlow.

"A second, please!" said the banker.

But the seconds grew into minutes before he was ready to risk an opinion.

"We are waiting on you, Mr. Harden," said Moxlow at length.

"I should say that this is a marginal fragment of a Gas Company bond," said the banker slowly. "Indeed there can be no doubt on the point. The paper is the same, and these lines in red ink are a part of the decoration that surrounds the printed matter. No,—there is no doubt in my mind as to what this paper is."

"What part of the bond is it?" asked Moxlow.

"The lower right-hand corner," replied the banker promptly. "That is why I hesitated to identify it; with this much of the upper left-hand corner for instance, I should not have been in doubt."

"Excused," said Moxlow briefly.

The room became blank before John North's eyes as he realized that a chain of circumstantial evidence was connecting him with the McBride murder. He glanced about at a score of men—witnesses, officials, and jury, and felt their sudden doubt of him, as intangibly but as certainly as he felt the dead presence just beyond the closed door.

"We have one other witness," said Moxlow.

And Joe Montgomery, seeming to understand that he was this witness, promptly quitted his chair at the back of the room and, cap in hand, slouched forward and was duly sworn by the coroner.

If Mr. Montgomery had shown promptness he had also evinced uneasiness, since his fear of the law was as rock-ribbed as his respect for it. He was not unfamiliar with courts, though never before had he appeared in the character of a witness; and he had told himself many times that day that the business in which he had allowed Mr. Gilmore to involve him carried him far behind his depths. Now his small blue eyes slid round in their sockets somewhat fearfully until they rested on Mr. Gilmore, who had just taken up his position at Marshall Langham's elbow. The gambler frowned and the handy-man instantly shifted his gaze. But the prosecuting attorney's first questions served to give Joe a measure of ease; this was transitory, however, as he seemed to stand alone in the presence of some imminent personal danger when Moxlow asked:

"Where were you on the night of the twenty-seventh of November at six o'clock?"

Joe stole a haunted glance in the direction of Gilmore. Moxlow repeated his question.

"Boss, I was in White's woodshed," answered Montgomery.

"Tell the jury what you saw," said Moxlow.

"Well, I seen a good deal," evaded the handy-man, shaking his great head.

"Go on!" urged Moxlow impatiently.

"It was this way," said Joe. "I was lookin' out into the alley through a crack in the small door where they put in the coal; right across the alley is the back of McBride's store and the sheds about his yard—" the handy-man paused and mopped his face with his ragged cap.

At the opposite end of the room Gilmore placed a hand on Langham's arm. The lawyer had uttered a smothered exclamation and had made a movement as if about to quit his seat. The gambler pushed him back.

"Sit tight, Marsh!" he muttered between his teeth.

Mr. Montgomery, taking stock of his courage, prepared to adventure further with his testimony.

"All at once as I stood by that door lookin' out into the alley, I heard a kind of noise in old man McBride's yard. It sounded like something heavy was bein' scraped across the frozen ground, say a box or barrel. Then I seen a man's derby hat come over the edge of the shed, and next the man who was under that hat drawed himself up; he come up slow and cautious until he was where he could throw himself over on to the roof. He done that, squatted low, and slid down the roof toward the alley. There was some snow and he slid easy. He was lookin' about all the time like he wasn't anxious to be seen. Well, boss, he never seen me, and he never seen no one else, so he dropped off, kind of givin' himself a shove out from the eaves, and fetched up against White's woodshed. He was pantin' like he'd run a mile, and I heard him say in a whisper, 'Oh, my God!'—just like that,—'Oh, my God!'" The handy-man paused with this grotesque mimicry of terror.

"And then?" prompted Moxlow, in the breathless silence.

"And then he took off up the alley as if all hell was whoopin' after him!"

Again Montgomery's ragged cap served him in lieu of a handkerchief, and as he swabbed his blotched and purple face he shot a swift furtive glance in Gilmore's direction. So far he had told only the truth, but he was living in terror of Moxlow's next question.

"Can you describe the man who crossed the roof,—for instance, how was he dressed?" said Moxlow, with slow deliberation.

"He had on a derby hat and a dark overcoat," answered Montgomery after a moment's pause.

He was speaking for Gilmore now, and his grimy lists closed convulsively about the arms of his chair.

"Did you see his face?" asked Moxlow.

"Yes—" the monosyllable was spoken unwillingly, but with a kind of dogged resolution.

"Was it a face you knew?"

Montgomery looked at Gilmore, whose fierce insistent glance was bent compellingly on him. The recollection of the gambler's threats and promises flashed through his mind.

"Was it a face you knew?" repeated Moxlow.

The handy-man gave him a sudden glare.

"Yes," he said in a throaty whisper.

"How could you tell in the dark?"



"It wasn't so terrible dark, with the snow on the ground. And I was so close to him I could have put an apple in his pocket," Joe explained.

"Who was the man?" asked Moxlow.

"I thought he looked like John North," said Montgomery.

There was the silence of death in the room.

"You thought it was John North?" began Moxlow.

"Yes."

"When he spoke, you thought you recognized North's voice?"

"Yes."

"Were you sure?"

"I was pretty sure, boss—"

"Only pretty sure?"

"I thought it was Mr. North,—it looked like Mr. North, and I thought it was him,—I thought so then and I think so now," said Montgomery desperately.

"Are you willing to swear positively that it was John North?" demanded Moxlow.

"No—" said the handy-man, "No,—I only say I thought it was John North. He looked like John North, and I thought it was John North,—I'd have said it was John North, but it all happened in a minute. I wasn't thinkin' I'd ever have to say who it was I seen on the shed!"

"But your first distinct impression was that it was John North?"

"Yes."

"You have known John North for years?"

"All his life."

"Had you seen him recently?"

"I seen him Thanksgiving day along about four o'clock crossing the Square."

"How was he dressed, did you notice?"

"He was dressed like the man in the alley,—he had on a black derby hat and a dark brown overcoat."

"That's all," said Moxlow quietly.

The coroner and the jury drew aside and began a whispered consultation. In the vitiated atmosphere of that overcrowded room, heavy as it was with the stifling heat and palpably dense with the escaping smoke from the cracked wood-stove, men coughed nervously with every breath they drew, but their sense of physical discomfort was unheeded in their tense interest in the developments of the last few moments. The jury's deliberation was brief and then the coroner announced its verdict.

North heard the doctor's halting words without at once grasping their meaning. A long moment of silence followed, and then a man coughed, and then another, and another; this seemed to break the spell, for suddenly the room buzzed with eager whisperings.

North's first definite emotion was one of intense astonishment. Were they mad? But the faces turned toward him expressed nothing beyond curiosity. His glance shifted to the official group by the table. These good-natured commonplace men who, whether they liked him or not, had invariably had a pleasant word for him, instantly took on an air of grim aloofness. Conklin, the fat jolly sheriff; the coroner; Moxlow, the prosecuting attorney in his baggy trousers and seam-shining coat,—why, he had known these men all his life, he had met them daily,—what did they mean by suspecting him! The mere suspicion was a monstrous wrong! His face reddened; he glanced about him haughtily.

Now at a sign from the coroner, Conklin placed his fat hands on the arms of his chair and slowly drew himself out of its depths, then he crossed to North. The young fellow rose, and turned a pale face toward him.

"John," said the sheriff gently, "I have an unpleasant duty to perform."

In spite of himself the pallor deepened on North's face.

"I understand," he said in a voice that was low and none too steady.

During this scene Moxlow's glance had been centered on North in a fixed stare of impersonal curiosity, now he turned with quick nervous decision and snatching up his shabby hat from the table, left the room.

Langham had preceded him by a few moments, escaping unobserved when there were eyes only for North.

"I am ready, Conklin."

And a moment later North and the sheriff passed out into the twilight. Neither spoke until they came to the court-house Square.

"We'll go in this way, John!" said the sheriff in a tone that was meant to be encouraging, but failed.

They ascended the court-house steps, and went down the long corridor to the rear of the building. Here they passed out through wide doors and into a narrow yard that separated the court-house from the jail. Crossing this sandy strip they entered the sheriff's office. Conklin paused; North gazed at him inquiringly.

"It's too bad, John," said the sheriff.

Then without further words he led North to a door opposite that by which they had entered. It opened on a long brick-paved passageway, at the end of which was a flight of narrow stairs. Ascending these North found himself in another long hall. Conklin paused before the first of three doors on the right and pushed it open.

"I guess this will do, John!" he said.

North stepped quickly in and glanced about him. The room held an iron bedstead, a wooden chair and, by the window which overlooked the jail yard and an alley beyond, a wash-stand with a tin basin and pitcher.

"Say, ain't you going to see a lawyer?" asked the sheriff. "He may be able to get you out of this, you can't tell—"

"Can you send a message to young Watt Harbison for me?" interrupted North.

"Certainly, but you don't call him much of a lawyer, do you? I tell you, John, you want a good lawyer; what's the matter with Marsh Langham?"

"Watt will do for the present. He can tell me the one or two things I need to know now," rejoined North indifferently.

"All right, I'll send for him then."

The sheriff quitted the room, closing and locking the door after him. North heard his footsteps die out in the long passage. At last he was alone! He threw himself down on the cot for manhood seemed to forsake him.

"My God,—Elizabeth—" he groaned and buried his face in his hands.

The law had lifted a sinister finger and leveled it at him.



CHAPTER THIRTEEN

LIGHT IN DARKNESS

The expression on General Herbert's face was one of mingled doubt and impatience.

"You must be mistaken, Thompson!" he was saying to his foreman, who had, with the coming of night, returned from an errand in town.

"General, there's no mistake; every one was talking about it! Looks like the police had something to go on, too—"

He hesitated, suddenly remembering that John North had been a frequent guest at Idle Hour.

"I had heard that Mr. North was wanted as a witness," observed the general.

"No, they say Moxlow had his eye on him from the start!" rejoined the foreman with repressed enthusiasm for Moxlow.

The general sensed the enthusiasm and was affected unpleasantly by it.

"It would be a great pity if Mr. Moxlow should be so unfortunate as to make a fool of himself!" he commented with unusual acidity. "What else did you hear?"

"Not much, General, only just what I've told you—that they've arrested North, and that young Watt Harbison's been trying to get him out on bail, but they've refused to accept bond in his case. Don't that look like they thought the evidence was pretty strong against him—"

"Well, they, might have arrested you or me," said the general. "That signifies nothing."

He moved off in the direction of the house, and Thompson, after a backward glance at his retreating figure, entered the barn. Out of sight of his foreman, the general's sturdy pace lagged. That young man had been at Idle Hour entirely too often; he had thought so all along, and now he was very sure of it!

"This comes of being too kind," he muttered.

Then he paused suddenly—but no, that was absurd—utterly absurd; Elizabeth would have told him! He was certain of this, for had she not told him all her secrets? But suppose—suppose—and again he put the idea from him.

He found Elizabeth in the small, daintily furnished sitting-room which Mrs. Herbert had called her "boudoir", and seated himself, none too gently, in a fragile gilt chair which his bulk of bone and muscle threatened to wreck. Elizabeth glanced up from Their Wedding Journey, which she was reading for the second time.

"What is it, father?" she asked, for his feeling of doubt and annoyance was plainly shown in his expressive face.

"Thompson has just come out from town—he says that John North has been arrested for the McBride murder—"

The book slipped from Elizabeth's hand and fell to the floor; the smile with which she had welcomed her father faded from her lips; she gazed at him with pale face and wide eyes. The general instantly regretted that he had spoken with such cruel abruptness.

"You don't think it is true?" she asked in a whisper.

"Thompson seemed to know what he was talking about."

"It's monstrous!" she cried.

"If North is innocent—" began the general.

"Father!" She regarded him with a look of horror and astonishment. "You don't like him! It's that, isn't it?" she added after a moment's silence.

"I don't like any one who gets into a scrape such as this!" replied the general with miserable and unnecessary heat.

"But it wasn't his fault—he couldn't help it!"

"I don't suppose he could," replied her father grimly.

She rose and came close to his side.

"Father!" she said in a tone of entreaty, placing a hand on his arm.

"What is it, dear?"

There was both tenderness and concern in his keen gray eyes as he glanced up into her troubled face.

"I want you to go to him—to Mr. North, I mean. I want you to tell him how sorry you are; I want him to know—I—" she paused uncertainly.

Perhaps for the first time in her life she was not quite sure of her father's sympathy. She dreaded his man's judgment in this crisis.

"Now seriously, Elizabeth, don't you think I'd better keep away from him? I can do nothing—"

"Oh, how cowardly that would be!" she cried. "How cowardly!"

The old general winced at this. He was far from being a coward, but appearances had their value in his eyes; and even, in its least serious aspect, young North's predicament was not pleasant to contemplate.

"But there is nothing I can do, Elizabeth; why should I become involved?" he urged.

"Then you must go to him from me!" she cried.

"Child—child; what are you saying!" cried the general.

"Either you must go to him, or I shall go!" she said with fine firmness.

Her father groaned.

"Be frank with me, Elizabeth. Has North ever told you that he cared for you?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"Before he went away—I mean that last night he was here."

"I feared as much!" he muttered. "And you, dear?" he continued gently.

"He said we might have to wait a long time—or I should have told you! He went away because he was too poor—"

There was a pause.

"Do you care for him, Elizabeth?" her father asked at length. "Do you wish me to understand that you are committed—are—"

"Yes," she answered quite simply.

"You are sure it is not just pity—you are sure, Elizabeth? For you know, right or wrong, he will probably come out of this with his reputation smirched."

"But he is innocent!"

"That is not quite the point!" urged the general. "We must see things as they are. You must understand what it may mean to you in the future, to have given your love to a man who has fallen under such suspicion. There will always be those who will remember this against him."

"But I shall know!" she said proudly.

"And that will be enough—you will ask no more than that, Elizabeth?"

"If my faith in him has never been shaken, could I ask more?"

He looked at her wistfully. Her courage he comprehended. It was fine and true, like her sweet unspoiled youth; in its presence he felt a sudden sense of age and loneliness. He asked himself, had he lived beyond his own period of generous enthusiasm?

"It would be a poor kind of friendship, a poorer kind of love, if we did not let him know at once that this has not changed our—our, regard for him!" she said softly.

"It is not your ready sympathy; you are quite certain it is not that, Elizabeth?"

"I am sure, father—sure of myself as I am of him! You say he has been arrested, does that mean—" and she hesitated.

"It means, my dear, that he is in jail," answered the general as he came slowly to his feet.

She gave a little cry, and running to him hid her face against his arm.

"In jail!" she moaned, and her imagination and her ignorance clothed the thought with indescribable horrors.

"Understand, dear, he isn't even indicted yet and he may not be! It's bad enough, of course, but it might be a great deal worse. Now what am I to tell him for you?"

"Wait," she said, slipping from his side. "I will write him—"

"Write your letter then," said her father. "I'll order the horses at once," he added, as he quitted the room.

Ten minutes later when he drove up from the stables, Elizabeth met him at the door.

"After you have seen him, father, come home at once, won't you?" she said as she handed him her letter.

"Yes, I am only going for this," he replied.

It was plain that his errand had not grown less distasteful to him. Perhaps Elizabeth was aware of this, for she reached up and passed an arm about his neck.

"I don't believe any girl ever had such a father!" she whispered softly.

"I suppose I should not be susceptible to such manifest flattery," said the general, kissing her, "but I find I am! There, you keep up your courage! This old father of yours is a person of such excellent sense that he is going to aid and abet you in this most outrageous folly; I expect, even, that in time, my interest in this very foolish young man will be only second to your own, my dear!"

As he drove away he turned in his seat to glance back at the graceful girlish figure standing in the shelter of Idle Hour's stone arched vestibule, and as he did so there was a flutter of something white, which assured him that her keen eyes were following him and would follow him until the distance and the closing darkness intervened, and hid him from her sight.

"I hope it will come out all right!" he told himself and sighed.

If it did not come out all right, where was his peace of mind; where was the calm, where the long reposeful days he had so valued? But this thought he put from him as unworthy. After all Elizabeth's happiness was something he desired infinitely more than he desired his own. But why could it not have been some one else? Why was it North; what unkind fate had been busy there?

"She sees more in him than I could ever see!" he said aloud, as he touched his horse with the whip.

Twenty minutes later he drove up before the court-house, hitched and blanketed his horse, and passing around the building, now dark and deserted, reached the entrance to the jail. In the office he found Conklin at his desk. The sheriff was rather laboriously engaged in making the entry in his ledger of North's committal to his charge, a formality which, out of consideration for his prisoner's feelings, he had dispensed with at the time of the arrest.

"I wish to see Mr. North. I suppose I may?" his visitor said, after he had shaken hands with Conklin.

"Certainly, General! Want to go up, or shall I bring him down here to you?"

"I'd prefer that—I'd much prefer that!" answered the general hastily.

He felt that it would be something to tell Elizabeth that the interview had taken place in the sheriff's office.

"All right, just as you say; have a chair." And Conklin left the room.

The general glanced about him dubiously. Had it not been for his deep love for Elizabeth he could have wished himself anywhere else and charged with any other mission. He dropped heavily into a chair. North's arrest, and the results of that arrest as he now saw them in that cheerless atmosphere, loomed large before his mind's eye. He reflected that a trial for murder was a horrible and soul-racking experience. He devoutly and prayerfully hoped that it would not come to this in North's case.

His meditation was broken in on by the sound of echoing steps in the brick-paved passageway, and then North and Conklin entered the room. On their entrance the general quitted his chair and advanced to meet the young fellow, whose hand he took in silence. The sheriff glanced from one to the other; and understanding that there might be something intimate and personal in their relation, he said:

"I'll just step back into the building, General; when you and Mr. North have finished your talk, you can call me."

"Thank you!" said General Herbert, and Conklin withdrew, leaving the two alone.

There was an awkward pause as they faced each other. The older man was the first to speak.

"I regret this!" he said at length.

"Not more than I do!" rejoined North, with a fleeting sense of humor.

He wondered what it was that had brought Elizabeth's father there.

"What's the matter with Moxlow, anyhow?" the general demanded.

He glanced sharply into North's face. He saw that the young fellow was rather pale, but otherwise his appearance was unchanged.

"All the evidence seems to point my way," said North, and added a trifle nervously: "I don't understand it—it isn't clear to me by any means! It came so suddenly, and I was totally unprepared to meet the situation. I had talked to Moxlow in the morning, but he had let drop nothing that led me to suppose I was under suspicion. Of course I am not afraid. I know that it will come out all right in the end—"

"Do you want anything, North? Is there anything I can do for you?" asked General Herbert almost roughly.

"Thank you, but apparently there is nothing that any one can do just now," said North quietly.

The color was creeping back into his face.

"Well, we can't sit idle! Look here, you tried for bail, I understand?"

"Yes, but it has been refused."

"Do you know when the grand jury sits?"

"Next week. Of course my hope is that it won't go beyond that; I don't see how it can!"

"Why didn't you send for me at once?" asked the older man with increasing bruskness. He took a turn about the room. "What does it all mean? What do you know about McBride's death?" he continued, halting suddenly.

"Absolutely nothing," said North.

And for an instant the two men looked straight into each other's eyes.

"You are sure you don't need anything—money, for instance?" the general asked, shifting his glance.

"I am quite sure, but I am very grateful to you all the same—"

"Of course the evidence against you is purely circumstantial?"

"I believe so—yes," answered North. "But there are points I don't understand."

"I am coming in to-morrow morning to see you, and talk the whole thing over with you, North."

"I shall be very glad to talk matters over with you, General," said North.

"I wish I could do something for you to-night!" the general said with real feeling, for he realized the long evening, and the longer night that were before the young fellow.

There was a pause. The general could not bring himself to speak of Elizabeth, and North lacked the courage to ask concerning her.

"I heard through one of my men of your arrest. He brought word of it to the farm," the farmer said at length.

"Miss Herbert knows—of course you told her—"

"Yes, North; yes, she knows!" her father replied. "She knows and she urged me to come!"

He saw North's face light up with a sudden look of joy.

"She urged you to come?" repeated North.

"Yes—I think she would have come herself if I had not been willing."

"I am glad she did not!" said North quickly.

"Of course! I told her it would only distress you."

"It would only distress her—which is all that is worth considering," rejoined North.

"That's so!" said the general, approaching the young man and resting a brown and muscular hand on his shoulder.

"She has told you?" asked North.

The older man nodded.

"Yes, she's told me," he said briefly.

"I can't ask if it was pleasant news at this time," said North. "What do you wish me to do?" he continued. "She must forget what was said that night, and I, too, will endeavor to forget—tell her that." He passed a shaking hand before his face.

"I've a note here for you, North—" General Herbert was fumbling in his pocket—"from Elizabeth. Don't you be too quick to decide!"

"With your permission," said North as he took the letter.

He tore it open, and Elizabeth's father, watching him, saw the expression of his face change utterly, as the lines of tense repression faded from it. It was clear that for the moment all else was lost in his feeling of great and compelling happiness. Twice he read the letter before he could bring himself to replace it in its envelope. As he did so, he caught the general's eyes fixed on him. For a moment he hesitated, then he said with the frankness that was habitual to him:

"I think you should know just what that letter means to me. It is brave and steadfast—just as she is; no, you were right, I can't decide—I won't!"

"I wouldn't," said the general. There was a pause and then he added, "After all, it is not given to every woman to show just how deep her faith is in the man she loves. It would be too bad if you could not know that!"

"The situation may become intolerable, General Herbert! Suppose I am held for the murder—suppose a long trial follows; think what she will suffer, the uncertainty, the awful doubt of the outcome, although she knows,—she must know I am innocent."

"Of course, of course!" cried the general hastily, for these were points he did not wish to discuss.

"It's a serious matter when you consider the possibility of an indictment," said North soberly enough.

"That's true; yet we mustn't count the cost now, or at any future time. But I promised Elizabeth I'd come back at once. What shall I say to her, North?"

"Tell her that her letter has changed the whole aspect of things for me. You must try to make her feel the fresh hope she has given me," John replied, extending his hand.

"Conklin!" called the general. He took North's hand. "Good night; I'm infinitely sorry to leave you here, North, but I suppose it can't be helped—"

The sheriff entered the room while he was yet speaking.

"Finished your chat, General?" he asked.

"Yes, thank you, Conklin. Good night. Good night, North," and Elizabeth's father hurried from the room.

For a moment North stood silent, staring absently at the door that had just closed on the general's burly figure. He still held Elizabeth's letter in his hand. In fancy he was seeing her as she had bent above it, her face tender, compassionate; and then there rose the vision of that crowded room with its palpable atmosphere, its score of curious faces all turned toward him in eager expectation. In the midst of these unworthy surroundings, her face, beautiful and high bred, eluded him; the likeness, even as he saw it, was lost, nor could he call it back.

Slowly but certainly that day's experience was fixing itself unalterably in his memory. He caught the pungent reek from the wood-stove, and mingling with it the odor of strong cheap tobacco filled his nostrils again; he was left with the very dregs of sordid shameful things.

The sheriff touched him on the arm.



CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE GAMBLER'S THEORY

Gilmore, leaving his apartment, paused to light a cigar, then sauntered down the steps and into the street. As he did so he saw Marshall Langham come from the post-office, half a block distant, and hurry across the Square. Gilmore strode after him.

"Oh, say, Marsh, I want to see you!" he called when he had sufficiently reduced the distance that separated him from his friend.

Instantly Langham paused, turning a not too friendly face toward the gambler.

"You want to see me?" he asked.

"Didn't I say so?" demanded Gilmore, as he gained a place at his side. "Where are you going, to the office?"

"Yes, I have some letters to answer," and Langham quickened his pace.

Gilmore kept his place at the lawyer's elbow. For a moment there was silence between them, and then Gilmore said:

"You got away from McBride's in a hurry Saturday; why didn't you wait and see the finish?"

Langham made no answer to this, and Gilmore, after another brief silence, turned on him with an unexpected question:

"How would you like to be in North's shoes, Marsh?" As he spoke, the gambler rested a hand on Langham's shoulder. He felt him shrink from the physical contact. "Gives you a chill just to think of it, doesn't it?" he said. "I suppose Moxlow believes there's the making of a pretty strong case against him; eh, Marsh?"

"I don't know; I can't tell what he thinks," said Langham briefly.

"But in North's place, back there in the jail in one of those brand-new iron cages over the yard, how would you feel? That's what I want to know!"

Langham met his glance for an instant and then his eyes fell. He sensed the insinuation that was back of Gilmore's words.

"Can't you put yourself in his place, with the evidence, such as it is, all setting against you?"

"I'm due at the office," said the lawyer suddenly.

Gilmore took his arm.

"If North didn't kill McBride, who did?" he persisted.

"Why do you ask me such questions?" demanded Langham resentfully.

"My lord—can't we consider the matter?" asked the gambler laughing.

"What's the use? Here, I've got to go to the office, Andy—" and he sought to release himself, but Gilmore retained his hold.

"I suppose you are going to see North?" he asked.

Langham came to a sudden stop.

"What's that?" he asked hoarsely.

"You have been his intimate for years; surely you are too good a friend to turn your back on him now!"

"If he wants me, he'll send for me!" muttered Langham.

"Do you mean you aren't going to him, Marsh?" asked the gambler with well simulated astonishment.

"He knows where I'm to be found," said Langham, striding forward again, "and, damn it, this is no concern of yours!"

"Well, by thunder!" ejaculated Gilmore.

"I don't need any points from you, Andy!" said Langham, with a sullen sidelong glance at his companion.

They had crossed the Square, and Langham now halted at the curb.

"Good-by, Andy!" he said, and shook himself free of the other's detaining hand.

"Hold on a minute, Marsh!" objected Gilmore.

"Well, what is it, can't you see I am in a hurry?"

"Oh, nothing here, Marsh—" and striding forward, Gilmore disappeared in the building before which they had paused.

For an instant Langham hesitated, and then he followed the gambler.

A step or two in advance of him, Gilmore mounted the stairs, and passing down the hall entered Langham's office. Langham followed him into the room; he closed the door, and without a glance at Gilmore removed his hat and overcoat and hung them up on a nail back of the door; the gambler meanwhile had drawn an easy chair toward the open grate at the far end of the room, before which he now established himself with apparent satisfaction.

"I suppose the finding of the coroner's jury doesn't amount to much," he presently said but without looking in Langham's direction.

The lawyer did not answer him. He crossed to his desk which filled the space between the two windows overlooking the Square.

"You're damn social!" snarled Gilmore over his shoulder.

"I told you I was busy," said Langham, and he began to finger the papers on his desk.

Gilmore swung around in his chair and faced him.

"So you won't see him—North, I mean?" he queried. "Well, you're a hell of a friend, Marsh. You've been as thick as thieves, and now when he's up against it good and hard, you're the first man to turn your back on him!"

Seating himself, Langham took up his pen and began to write. Gilmore watched him in silence for a moment, a smile of lazy tolerance on his lips.

"Suppose North is acquitted, Marsh; suppose the grand jury doesn't hold him," he said at length; "will the search for the murderer go on?"

The pen slipped from Langham's fingers to the desk.

"Look here, I don't want to discuss North or his affairs with you. It's nothing to me; can't you get that through your head?"

"As his friend—" began Gilmore.

"Get rid of that notion, too!"

"That's what I wanted to hear you say, Marsh! So you're not his friend?"

"No!" exclaimed Langham briefly, and his shaking fingers searched among the papers on his desk for the pen he had just dropped.

"So you're not his friend any more?" repeated Gilmore slowly. "Well, I expect when a fellow gets hauled up for murder it's asking a good deal of his friends to stand by him! Do you know, Marsh, I'm getting an increased respect for the law; it puts the delinquents to such a hell of a lot of trouble. It's a good thing to let alone! I'm thinking mighty seriously of cutting out the games up at my rooms; what would you think of my turning respectable, Marsh? Would you be among the first to extend the warm right hand of fellowship?"

"Oh, you are respectable enough, Andy!" said Langham.

He seemed vastly relieved at the turn the conversation had taken. He leaned back in his chair and thrust his hands in his trousers pockets.

"Say, why can't I put myself where I want to be? What's the matter with my style, anyhow? It's as good as yours any day, Marsh; and no one ever saw me drunk—that is a whole lot more than can be said of you; and yet you stand in with the best people, you go to houses where I'd be thrown out if I as much as stuck my nose inside the door!"

"Your style's all right, Andy!" Langham hastened to assure him.

"Well, it's as good as yours any day!"

"Better!" said Langham, laughing.

"Well, what's the matter with it, then?" persisted Gilmore.

"There's a good deal of it sometimes, it's rather oppressive—" said the lawyer.

"I'll fix that," said Gilmore shortly.

"I would if I wanted what you seem to think you want," replied Langham chuckling.

"Marsh, I'm dead serious; I'm sick of being outside all the good things. I know plenty of respectable fellows, fellows like you; but I want to know respectable women; why can't I?"

"If you hanker for it, you can; it's up to you, Andy," said Langham.

The gambler appeared very ingenuous in this new role of his.

"Look here, Marsh, I've never asked anything of you, and you must admit that I've done you one or two good turns; now I'm going to ask a favor of you and I don't expect to be refused; fact is, I ain't going to take a refusal—"

"What is it, Andy?" asked Langham cautiously, "I want you to introduce me to your wife."

"The hell you do!" ejaculated Langham.

The gambler's brow darkened.

"What do you mean by that?" he demanded angrily.

"Nothing, I was only thinking of Mrs. Langham's probable attitude in the matter, that was all."

"You mean you think she won't want to meet me?" and in spite of himself Gilmore's voice sounded strained and unnatural.

"I'm sure she won't," said Langham with cruel candor.

"Well," observed Gilmore coolly, "I'm going to put my case in your hands, Marsh; you come to my rooms, you drink my whisky, and smoke my cigars and borrow my money; now I'm going to make a new deal with you. I'm going to know your wife. I like her style—she and I'll get on fine together, once we know each other. You make it plain to her that I'm your friend, your best friend, about your only friend!"

"You fool—" began Langham.

Gilmore quitted his chair at a bound and strode to Langham's side.

"None of that, Marsh!" he protested sternly, placing a heavy hand on Langham's shoulder. "I see we got to understand each other, you and me! You don't take hints; I have to bang it into you with a club or you don't see what I'm driving at—"

"I've paid you all I owe you, Gilmore!" said Langham conclusively. "You can't hold that over me any longer."

"I don't want to!" retorted Gilmore quietly.

"You kept your thumb on me good and hard while you could!"

"Not half so hard as I am going to if you try to get away from me now—"

"What do you mean by these threats?" cried Langham.

The gambler laughed in his face.

"You've paid me all you owe me, but I want to ask you just one question. Where did you get the money?"

"That," said Langham, steadying himself by a mighty effort, "is none of your business!"

"Think not?" and again Gilmore laughed, but before his eyes, fierce, compelling, Langham's glance wavered and fell.

"I got the money from my father," he muttered huskily.

"You're a liar!" said the gambler. "I know where you got that money, and you know I know." There was a long pause, and then Gilmore jerked out:

"But don't you worry about that. In your own fashion you have been my friend, and it's dead against my creed to go back on a friend unless he tries to throw me down; so don't you make the mistake of doing that, or I'll spoil your luck! You think you got North where you want him; don't you be too sure of that! There's one person, just one, who can clear him, at least there's only one who is likely to try, and I'll tell you who it is—it's your wife—" For an instant Langham thought Gilmore had taken leave of his senses, but the gambler's next question filled him with vague terror.

"Where was she late that afternoon, do you know?"

"What afternoon?" asked Langham.

Gilmore gave him a contemptuous glance.

"Thanksgiving afternoon, the afternoon of the murder," he snapped.

"She was at my father's, she dined there," said Langham slowly.

"That may be true enough, but she didn't get there until after six o'clock—I'll bet you what you like on that, and I'll bet you, too, that I know where she was from five to six. Do you take me up? No? Of course you don't! Well, I'll tell you all the same. She was in North's rooms—"

"You lie, damn you!" cried Langham, springing to his feet. He made an ineffectual effort to seize Gilmore by the throat, but the gambler thrust him aside with apparent ease.

"Don't try that or you'll get the worst of it, Marsh; you've been soaking up too much whisky to be any good at that game with me!" said Gilmore.



His manner was cool and determined. He took Langham roughly by the shoulders and threw him back in his chair. The lawyer's face was ghastly in the gray light that streamed in through the windows, but he had lost his sense of personal fear in another and deeper and less selfish emotion. Yet he realized the gambler's power over him, the power of a perfect and absolute knowledge of his most secret and hidden concerns.

Gilmore surveyed him with a glance of quiet scorn.

"It was about half past five when she turned up at North's rooms. He had just come up the stairs ahead of her; I imagine he knew she was coming. I guess I could tell you a few things you don't know! All during the summer and fall they've been meeting on the quiet—" he laughed insolently. "Oh, you have been all kinds of a fool, Marsh; I guess you've got on to the fact at last. And I don't wonder you are anxious to see North hang, and that you won't go near him; I'd kill him if I stood in your place. But maybe we can fix it so the law will do that job for you. It seems to have the whip-hand with him just now. Well, he was the whole thing with your wife when she went away this fall and then he began to take up with the general's girl—sort of to keep his hand in, I suppose—the damn fool! For she ain't a patch on your wife. I guess Mrs. Langham had been tipped off to this new deal—that's what brought her back to Mount Hope in such a hurry, and she went to his rooms to have it out with him and learn just where she stood. I was in my bedroom and I could hear them talking through the partition. It wasn't peaches and cream, for she was rowing all right!"

"It's a lie!" cried Langham, and he strove to rise to his feet, but Gilmore's strong hand kept him in his chair.

"No, I don't lie, Marsh, you ought to know that by this time; but there's just one point you want to get through your head; with your wife's help North can prove an alibi. He won't want to compromise her, or himself with the Herbert girl, for that matter; but how long do you think he's going to keep his mouth shut with the gallows staring him in the face? I'm willing to go as far in this matter as the next, but you got to do your part and pay the price, or I'll throw you down so hard you'll never get over the jar!" His heavy jaws protruded. "Now, I've a notion I want to know your wife. I like her style. I guess you can trust her with me—you ain't afraid of that, are you?"

"Take your hands off me!" cried Langham, struggling fiercely.

He tore at the gambler's wrists, but Gilmore only laughed his tantalizing laugh.

"Oh, come, Marsh, let's get back to the main point. If North's indicted and your wife's summoned as a witness, she's got to chip in with us, she's got to deny that she was in his room that day—you got to see to that, I can't do everything—"

"On your word—"

"Well, you needn't quote me to her—it wouldn't help my standing with her—but ask her where she was between half past five and six the day of the murder; and mind this, you must make her understand she's got to keep still no matter what happens! Put aside the notion that North won't summon her; wait until he is really in danger and then see how quick he squeals!"

"She may have gone to his rooms," said Langham chokingly, "but that doesn't prove anything wrong—"

"Oh, come, Marsh, you ain't fool enough to feel that way about it—"

"Let me up, Gilmore!"

"No, I won't; I'm trying to make you see things straight for your own good. What's the matter, anyhow; don't you and your wife get on?"

Langham's face was purple with rage and shame, while his eyes burned with a murderous hate. Rude hands had uncovered his hidden sore; yet ruder speech was making mock of the disgraceful secret. It was of his wife that this coarse bully was speaking! That what he said was probably true—Evelyn herself had admitted much—did not in the least ease the blow that had crushed his pride and self-respect. He lay back in his chair, limp and panting under Gilmore's strong hands. Where was his own strength of heart and arm that he should be left powerless in this moment of unspeakable degradation?

"It behooves you to do something more than soak up whisky," said the gambler. "You must find out what took your wife to North's rooms, and you must make her keep quiet no matter what happens. If you go about it right it ought to be easy, for they had some sort of a row and he's mixed up with the Herbert girl; you got that to go on. Now, the question is, is she mad enough to see him go to the penitentiary or hang without opening her mouth to save him? Come, you should know something about her by this time; I would, if I had been married to her as long as you have."

Suddenly he released Langham and fell back a step. The lawyer staggered to his feet, adjusting his collar and cravat which Gilmore's grasp on his throat had disarranged. He glanced about him with a vague notion of obtaining some weapon that would put him on an equality with his more powerful antagonist, but nothing offered, and he took a step toward the door.

"Don't be a fool, Marsh," said the gambler coldly. "I'm going to change my tactics with you. I'm not going to wear myself out keeping your nose pointed in the right direction; you must do something for yourself, you drunken fool!"

Langham took another step toward the door, but his eyes—the starting bloodshot eyes of a hunted animal—still searched the room for some weapon. Except for the heavy iron poker by the grate, there was nothing that would serve his purpose, and he must pass the gambler to reach that. Still fumbling with his collar he paused irresolutely, midway of the room. Pride and self-respect would have taken him from the place but hate and fear kept him there.

Gilmore threw himself down in a chair before the fire and lit a cigar. In spite of himself Langham watched him, fascinated. There was such conscious power and mastery in everything the gambler did, that he felt the various purposes that were influencing him collapse with miserable futility. What was the use of struggling?

"You can do as you blame please in this matter, Marsh," said the gambler at length. "I haven't meant to offend you or insult you, but if you want to see it that way—all right, it suits me. You needn't look about you, for you won't find any sledges here; you ought to know that."

"What do you mean—" asked Langham in a whisper.

"Draw up a chair and sit down, Marsh, and we'll thrash this thing out if it takes all night. Here, have a cigar!" for Langham had drawn forward a chair. With trembling fingers he took the cigar the gambler handed him. "Now light up," said Gilmore. He watched Langham strike a match, watched his shaking hands as he brought its flame to the cigar's end. "That's better," he said as the first puff of smoke left Langham's colorless lips. "So you think you want to know what I mean, eh? Well, I'm going to take you into my confidence, Marsh, and just remember you can't possibly reach the poker without having me on top of you before you get to it! You were pretty sober for you the afternoon of the murder, not more than half shot, we'll say, but later on when you hunted me up at the McBride house, you were as drunk as you will ever be, and slobbering all sorts of foolishness!"

He puffed his cigar in silence for a moment. Langham's had gone out and he was nervously chewing the end of it.

"What did I say?" he asked at length.

"Oh, all sorts of damn nonsense. You're smart enough sober, but get you drunk and you ain't fit to be at large!"

"What did I say?" repeated Langham.

"Better let me forget that," rejoined Gilmore significantly. "And look here, Marsh, I was sweating blood Saturday when they had Nelson on the stand, but it's clear he had no suspicion that my rooms were occupied on the night of the murder. You were blue about the gills while Moxlow was questioning him, and I don't wonder; as I tell you, I wasn't comfortable myself, for I knew well enough how that bit of burnt bond got into the ash barrel—"

"Hush! For God's sake—" whispered Langham in uncontrollable terror.

Gilmore laughed.

"My lord, man, you got to keep your nerve! Look here, Mount Hope ain't going to talk of anything but the McBride murder; you are going to hear it from morning to night, and that's one of the reasons you got to keep sober. You've done your best so far to queer yourself, and unless you listen to reason you may do it yet."

"I don't know what you mean—" said Langham.

"Don't you, Marsh? Well, I got just one more surprise in store for you, but I'll keep it to myself a while longer before I spring it on you."

He was thinking of Joe Montgomery's story; if Langham did not prove readily tractable, that should be the final weapon with which he would beat him into submission. Presently he said:

"I've all along had my own theory about old man McBride's murder, and now I'm going to see what you think of it, Marsh."

An icy hand seemed to be clutching Langham's heart. Gilmore's cruel smiling eyes noted his suffering. He laughed.

"Of course, I don't think North killed McBride, not for one minute I don't; in fact, it's a dead moral certainty he didn't!" He leaned forward in his chair and looked into his companion's eyes. For an instant Langham met his glance without flinching and then his eyes shifted and sought the floor. "I'll bet," said Gilmore's cool voice, "I'll bet you what you like I could put my hand on the man who did the murder!" and as he spoke he reached out and by an apparently accidental gesture, rested his hand on Langham's shoulder. "You wouldn't like to risk any money on that little bet, eh, Marsh?" He sank back in his chair and applied himself to his cigar in silence, but his eyes never left Langham's face.

Presently he took the cigar from between his strong even teeth. "Now, I'm going to give you my theory," he said. "I want to see what you think of it—but remember always, I believe in letting well enough alone! They got North caged in one of those nice new cells down at the jail and that suits me all right! My theory is that the man who killed McBride was needing money mighty badly and he went to McBride as a sort of a last chance. He found the old fellow alone in the office—understand, he didn't go there with any fixed purpose of killing him, his ideas had not carried him that far—he was willing to borrow the money if the old man would lend it to him. He probably needed quite a sum, say two or three thousand dollars, and the need was urgent, you must keep that in mind and then you'll see perfectly how it all happened. Possibly my man was of the sort who don't fancy disagreeable interviews and had put off going to the store until the last moment, but once he had settled that point with himself he was determined he wouldn't come away without the money. The old fellow, however, took a different view of the situation; he couldn't see why he should lend any money, especially when the borrower was vague on the matter of security.

"Well, I guess they talked quite a while there at the back of the store, McBride standing in the doorway of the office all the time. At last it got to my man that he wasn't to have the money. But there was trouble ahead of him if he didn't get it and he wouldn't give up; he kept on making promises—urging his need—and his willingness and ability to meet his obligations. He was like a starving man in the presence of food, for he knew McBride had the money in his safe and the safe door was open. His need seemed the only need in all the world, and it came to him that since McBride would not lend him the money he wanted, why not take it from him anyhow? He couldn't see consequences, he could only realize that he must have two or three thousand dollars! Perhaps he got a glimmer of reason just here, and if he did he was pretty badly frightened to think that he should even consider violence; he turned away to leave McBride and the old man followed him a ways down the store, explaining why they couldn't do business."

Gilmore paused. His cigar had gone out; now he struck a match, but he did not take his eyes from Langham's face. He did not speak at once even when his cigar was lighted.

Great beads of perspiration stood thick on Langham's brow, his hair was damp and clammy. He was living that unspeakable moment over again, with all its madness and horror. He saw himself as he had walked scowling toward the front of the store; he had paused irresolutely with his hand on the door-knob and then had turned back. The old merchant was standing close by the scales, a tall gaunt figure in the waning light of day.

"Why do you tell me you can't do it?" he had demanded with dull anger. "You have the money, I know that!"

"I didn't tell you I couldn't do it, Mr. Langham, I merely intimated that I wouldn't," the old man had rejoined dryly.

"You have the money in your safe!"

"What if I have? It's mine to do with as I think proper."

"A larger sum than I want—than I need!"

"Quite likely."

A furious gust of passion had laid hold of him, the consciousness of his necessity, all-compelling and relentless, swept through his brain. Money he must have!—his success, his happiness, everything depended on it, and what could money mean to this feeble old man whose days were almost spent?

"I want you to let me have two thousand dollars!" he had insisted, as he placed his hand on the old merchant's shoulder. "Get it for me; I swear I'll pay it back. I'll give you such security as I can—my note—"

McBride had laughed dryly at this, and he turned on his heel as though to reenter the office. Langham shot a quick glance about him; the store was empty, the street before it deserted; he saw through the dingy windows the swirling scarfs of white that the wind sent flying across the Square. Now was his time if ever! Bitter resentment urged him on—it was a monstrous thing that those who could, would not help him!

Near the scales was an anvil, and leaning against the anvil-block was a heavy sledge. As the old merchant turned from him, he had caught up the sledge and had struck him a savage blow on the head. McBride had dropped to the floor without cry or groan.

Langham passed his hand before his eyes to blot out the vision of that still figure on the floor, and a dry sob burst from his lips.

"Eh, did you speak, Marsh?" asked Gilmore.

"No," said Langham in a whisper.

Gilmore laughed.

"You are seeing just how it all happened, Marsh. There was a sledge by the anvil that stood near those scales, and when the old fellow wouldn't come to time, my man lost all restraint and snatched it up, and a second later McBride was dead. After that my man had things all his own way. He went through the safe and took what was useful to him,—and those damn bonds of North's which weren't useful,—and skipped by the side door and out over the shed roof and down the alley, just as Joe said."

Gilmore paused, and flicked away a bit of cigar ash that had lodged in a crease of his coat.

"That's the whole story of the McBride murder. Now what do you think of my theorizing, Marsh; how does it strike you?"

But Langham did not answer him. The gambler's words had brought it all back; he was living again the agony of that first conscious moment when he realized the thing he had done. He remembered his hurried search for the money, and his flight through the side door; he remembered crossing the shed roof and the panic that had seized him as he dropped into the alley beyond, unseen, safe as he supposed. A debilitating reaction, such as follows some tremendous physical effort, had quickly succeeded. He had wandered through the deserted streets seeking control of himself in vain. Finally he had gone home. Evelyn was at his father's and the servant absent for the day. He had let himself in with his latchkey and had gone at once to the library. There he fell to pacing to and fro; ten—twenty minutes had passed, when the sudden noisy clamor of the town bell had taken him, cowering, to the window; but the world beyond was a vaguely curtained white.

He raised his heavy bloodshot eyes and looked into the gambler's smiling face. He realized the futility of his act, since it had placed him irrevocably in Gilmore's power. He had endured unspeakable anguish all to no purpose, since Gilmore knew; knew with the certitude of an eye-witness. And there the gambler sat smiling and at ease, torturing him with his cunning speech.



CHAPTER FIFTEEN

LOVE THAT ENDURES

A melancholy wind raked the bare hills which rose beyond the flats, and found its way across half the housetops in Mount Hope to the solitary window that gave light and air to John North's narrow cell. For seven long days, over the intervening housetops, he had been observing those undulating hills, gazing at them until they seemed like some great live thing continually crawling along the horizon's rim, and continually disappearing in the distance. Now he was watching their misted shapes sink deep into the twilight.

North, by his counsel, had waved the usual preliminary hearing before the mayor, his case had gone at once to the grand jury, he had been indicted and his trial was set for the February term of court. Watt Harbison had warned him that he might expect only this, yet his first feeling of astonished horror remained with him.

As he stood by his window he was recalling the separate events of the day. The court room had been crowded to the verge of suffocation; when he entered it a sudden hush and a mighty craning of necks had been his welcome, and he had felt his cheeks redden and pale with a sense of shame at his hapless plight. Those many pairs of eyes that were fixed on him seemed to lay bare his inmost thoughts; he had known no refuge from their pitiless insistence.

In that close overheated room the vitiated air had slowly mounted to the brain; soon a third of the spectators nodded in their chairs scarcely able to keep awake; others moved restlessly with a dull sense of physical discomfort, while the law, expressing itself in archaic terms, wound its way through a labyrinth of technicalities, and reached out hungrily for his very life.

He knew that he would be given every opportunity to establish his innocence, but he could not rid himself of the ugly disconcerting belief that a man hunt was on, and that he, the hunted creature, was to be driven from cover to cover while the state drew its threads of testimony about him strand by strand, until they finally reached his very throat, choking, strangling, killing!

He thought of Elizabeth and was infinitely sorry. She must forget him, she must go her way and leave him to go his—or the law's. He could face the ruin of his own life, but it must stop there! He wondered what they were saying and doing at Idle Hour; he wondered what the whole free world was doing, while he stood there gazing from behind his bars at the empurpled hills in the distance.

He fell to pacing the narrow limits of his room; four steps took him to the door, then he turned and four steps took him back to his starting-point, the barred window. Presently a footfall sounded in the corridor, a key was fitted in the heavy lock, and the door was opened by Brockett, the sheriff's deputy, a round-faced, jolly, little man with a shiny bald head and a closely cropped gray mustache.

"You've got visitors, John!" said Brockett cheerfully, pausing in the doorway.

North turned on him swiftly.

"The general and Miss Herbert,—you see your friends ain't forgot you! You'll want to see them, I suppose, and you'd rather go down in the office, wouldn't you?"

"I should much prefer it!" said North.

His first emotion had been one of keen delight, but as he followed Brockett down the corridor the memory of what he was, and where he was, came back to him. He had no right to demand anything of love or friendship,—guilty or innocent mattered not at all! They were nearing the door now beyond which stood Elizabeth and her father, and North paused, placing a hand on the deputy's arm. The spirit of his renunciation had been strong within him, but another feeling was stronger still, he found; an ennobling pride in her devotion and trust. What a pity the finer things of life were so often the impractical! He pushed past the deputy and entered the office.

Elizabeth came toward him with hands extended. Her cheeks were quite colorless but the smile that parted her lips was infinitely tender and compassionate.

"You should not have come here!" North said, almost reproachfully, as his hands closed about hers.

General Herbert stood gravely regarding the two, and his glance when it rested on North was troubled and uncertain. The difficulties which beset this luckless fellow were only beginning, and what would the end be?

"Father!"

Elizabeth had turned toward him, and he advanced with as brave a show of cordiality as he could command; but North read and understood the look of pain in his frank gray eyes.

"You agree with me that she should never have come here," North said quietly. "But you couldn't refuse her!" he added, and his glance went back to Elizabeth.

"Under the circumstances it was right for her to come!" said the general. But in his heart he was none too sure.

"I couldn't remain away after to-day; I had been waiting for that stupid jury to act—" She ended abruptly with a little laugh that became a sob, and her father rested a large and gentle hand upon her shoulder.

"There, dear, I told you all along it wouldn't do to count on any jury!"

"My affairs are worth considering only as they affect you, Elizabeth!" said North. "I was thinking of you when Brockett came to tell me you were here. Won't you go away from Mount Hope? I want you to forget,—no—" for she was about to speak; "wait until I have finished;—even if I am acquitted this will always be something discreditable in the eyes of the world, it's going to follow me through life! It is going to be hard for me to bear, it will be doubly hard for you, dear. I want your father to take you away and keep you away until this thing is settled. I don't want your name linked with mine; that's why I am sorry you came here, that's why you must never come here again."

"You mustn't ask me to go away from Mount Hope, John!" said Elizabeth. "I am ready and willing to face the future with you; I was never more willing than now!"

"You don't understand, Elizabeth!" said North. "We are just at the beginning. The trial, and all that, is still before us—long days of agony—"

"And you would send me away when you will most need me!" she said, with gentle reproach.

"I wish to spare you—"

"But wherever I am, it will be the same!"

"No, no,—you must forget—!"

"If I can't,—what then?" she asked, looking up into his face.

"I want you to try!" he urged.

She shook her head.

"Dear, I have lived through all this; I have asked myself if I really cared so much that nothing counted against the little comfort I might be to you; so much that the thought of what I am to you would outweigh every other consideration, and I am sure of myself. If I were not, I should probably wish to escape from it all. I am as much afraid of public opinion as any one, and as easily hurt, but my love has carried me beyond the point where such things matter!"

"My dear! My dear! I am not worthy of such love."

"You must let me be the judge of that."

"Suppose the verdict is—guilty?" he asked.

"No,—no, it will never be that!" But the color left her cheeks.

"I don't suppose it will be," agreed North hastily.

It was a cruel thing to force this doubt on her.

"You won't send me away, John?" she entreated. "If I were to leave Mount Hope now it would break my heart! I—we—my father and I, wish every one to know that our confidence in you is unshaken."

North turned to the general with a look of inquiry, of appeal. Something very like a sigh escaped the older man's lips, but he squared his shoulders manfully for the burdens they must bear. He said quietly:

"Let us consider a phase of the situation that Elizabeth and I have been discussing this afternoon. Watt Harbison is no doubt doing all he can for you; but he was at Idle Hour last night, and said he would, himself, urge on you the retention of some experienced criminal lawyer. He suggested Ex-judge Belknap; I approve of this suggestion—"

But North shook his head.

"Oh, yes, John, it must be Judge Belknap!" cried Elizabeth. "Watt says it must be, and father agrees with him!"

"But I haven't the money, dear. His retainer would probably swallow up all I have left."

"Leave Belknap to me, North!" interposed the general.

North's face reddened.

"You are very kind, and I—I appreciate it all,—but don't you see I can't do that?" he faltered.

"Don't be foolish, John. You must reconsider this determination; as a matter of fact I have taken the liberty of communicating with Belknap by wire; he will reach Mount Hope in the morning. We are vitally concerned, North, and you must accept help—money—whatever is necessary!"

The expression on North's face softened, and tears stood in his eyes.

"I knew you would prove reasonable," continued the general, and he glanced at Elizabeth.

She was everything to him. He could have wished that North was almost any one else than North; and in spite of himself this feeling gave its color to their interview, something of his wonted frankness was lacking. It was his unconscious protest.

"Very well, then, I will see Judge Belknap, and some day—when I can—" said North, still struggling with his emotion and his pride.

"Oh, don't speak of that!" exclaimed General Herbert hastily.

"This miserable business could not have happened at a worse time for me!" said the young fellow with bitterness.