Chapter VI: Book TWO: Sweetwater to the Front (2)

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.