Chapter VI: Uncertainty

I staggered back. “What, murdered? Doctor Gaskell murdered! What’s that about Lewis? You wait right there, Rufe, till I get dressed.”

Without waiting to see whether he would obey, I turned from the window and groped excitedly for my trousers. From the look of him, I fancied that the constable would be glad of some guidance, even from me; he seemed as flustered and at sea as poor Lewis himself.

I dragged on my trousers over my pajamas, thrust bare feet into a pair of slippers, and hurried out into the hall, my coat on my arm.

“Uncle George!”

It was a very shaky, frightened little voice. Dorothy, swathed in a blue woolen robe, looking like a sleepy schoolgirl, with her black hair in braids, clutched at my arm.

“Uncle George, what is it? What’s happened? You can’t go out like that--you’ll catch your death!”

I must have presented an odd figure: bare-ankled, suspenders hanging about my hips, a lavender pajama coat much in evidence. But I was too upset to laugh at myself.

“Let me go, child; there’s something wrong outside.”

I had some vague thought of shielding her but her big eyes widened, as she grew very white.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Lewis! Lewis is hurt--Lewis is killed, and you’re afraid to tell me!”

“No, no! It’s Gaskell--Doctor Gaskell’s been hurt. I don’t know what has happened, but I’m going to find out. Let me go, child. Lewis is all right, I tell you. Look out of the window, and you can see him.”

Then I broke away, to limp and stumble down the stairs at top speed, hoping I had pacified her; hoping she might go back to bed; hoping I could settle this thing, get Wakefield away from the window before Dorothy could hear that her fiancé was accused of murder.

I plunged out of the door and raced around to the east side of the house. Here I found Lewis and the constable, side by side, staring silently at nothing. They turned to me helplessly.

“Well!” I began impatiently. “What is it? What’s happened? Don’t stand there staring like dummies--tell me!”

Their befuddlement angered me; though, indeed, what with excitement, rheumatic twinges, and the breathless hurry of my coming, I fear I was in little better case myself.

My nephew sighed heavily, as if awakened from an evil dream. “Come along, unk,” he invited.

“Yeah,” said the gigantic constable, “c’m’ on, an’ see what he done!”

I followed them along the little winding path, through the pines and into the tangle of scrub oaks; there I stopped, gasping. Before me, supine, inert, lay the body of Doctor Gaskell. His face was deadly white, his features sharpened curiously. He was fully dressed, and one hand still clutched a small black bag. He lay on his back among the thick bushes, his feet still in the little path. In the very center of his body, just above the belt, was a horrid, gaping wound, about which his white shirt was all tattered and stained.

Needlessly I knelt and put my hand over his heart. It was quite still; and his skin was cold already. I rose stiffly.

“Good heavens,” I said. “Lewis----”

“Yeah, Lewis! I sh’d think so,” declared the constable. “George, ain’t this terrible?” He gripped the boy’s shoulder. “What’d ye do it f’r, huh?”

Lewis shook off his hand. “I--I didn’t,” he said thickly. His lips were stiff, and his tongue seemed unmanageable. “I didn’t--or, anyway, I didn’t know.” He groaned aloud. “I don’t know what happened. I thought I saw a quail, and I cocked the gun and started to raise it, and then I stumbled, and it went off. He must have been coming through the bushes; I never saw him, or heard him--or anything. He never made a sound! I supposed I was all alone out here until I heard Rufe yell; then I jumped and looked round, and there he was--dead! You believe me, don’t you, unk?”

“Huh?” asked Wakefield. “Sounds kinda fishy t’ me.” He pointed down at the body accusingly. “Hit plumb center,” he pronounced. “With a shotgun, too; anybody c’d see that. An’ right close up! See th’ powder marks? Musta seed him!”

“He didn’t, either!” I put in. “I was watching from that window up there; I saw Lewis raise his gun and trip, just like he said. Gaskell wasn’t in sight, or anybody else!”

“Huh!” asked the constable again. “We-ell, it’s kinda queer, anyways; ’specially after th’ way Doc Parker here was talkin’ in to Olsen’s yestiddy. Yeah”--as I shrunk from the memory of the boy’s careless threats--“I was there and heerd ’im m’self, making threats agin’ Doc Gaskell. I reckon you’ll have a right smart o’ explainin’ t’ do, Parker!”

“Well,” I said, “don’t let’s argue about it now. We’ll have to look after the body, and--whatever it is they do when anybody’s found dead this way.”

I looked questioningly at the constable, and he stared blankly back. The habitual fierceness of his huge face was marred somewhat by a shifting, uncertain eye. He fingered his chin irresolutely, and gazed about as for inspiration.

I scratched my head. Plainly there was no help in him. “I suppose,” I began doubtfully, “I suppose the coroner ought to be notified and the sheriff----”

Wakefield brightened. Here was a chance to shift unwanted responsibility. “Th’ sheriff? Yeah!” he said. “Sure! I’ll go phone ’im right away.”

He started off, then paused and turned back. “I--I s’pose I’d oughta ’rest ’im, hadn’t I?” he asked, looking at me as for advice on the matter. “I’d oughta ’rest ’im an’ take ’im to th’ lockup first, mebbe.”

For all the gravity of the situation, I had to laugh. He was so ludicrously inept, this huge, ferocious-looking constable.

“Nonsense!” said I. “Lewis won’t run away. I’ll be responsible for him. We’ll come along while you phone; that’ll be the best way. And, when Redden comes, you can turn my nephew right over to him.”

“We-ell. If you think that’s th’ best way.” Then the constable started toward Fort House.

“No, not in there,” I said. “It would upset Miss McGregor terribly. She’s an invalid, you know.” Really, it was Dorothy whom I wished to spare. “We’d better go across to Gaskell’s house.”

That started a new doubt in Mr. Wakefield’s slow mind. He stopped again. “I don’t know as we’d oughta leave th’ body there all alone,” he declared. “Mebbe we better go back an’----”

“Nonsense!” I exclaimed. “We can go back and wait there as soon as you’ve notified Sheriff Redden. Come along, now!” Then I dragged him on by main force.

Fortunately, Mrs. Gaskell was away, so we had not to break the dreadful news to her. A frightened colored maid, just opening the back door, for it was still early, showed us to the telephone, and Wakefield called for the county jail.

We claimed Pinelands for the county seat, but the courthouse and jail of Carabas County were not in the town. When the new buildings were projected some ten years before there was a bitter rivalry between Pinelands and Smyrna, five miles off, for the honor of possessing them. And finally, to settle this, the jail and courthouse were built upon the dividing line of the two townships, over two miles from either village. This singular arrangement, of course, pleased neither contingent. But there our courthouse stood, alone in the wilderness, and I know of one other similar case in North Carolina.

The sheriff lived in the jail, which made this a long-distance call. We had to wait for ten minutes or so to get a connection.

“Hello!” said Wakefield. “Hello! Th’ jail?... Gimme th’ high sheriff. Huh?... This here’s Rufe Wakefield, over to Pinelands.... Yeah, Const’ble Wakefield. Hello, sheriff?... They’s been a killin’ here--Doc Gaskell’s done been shot.... Huh?... Yeah, I got th’ feller did it.... Huh?... Bring ’im out there? Nossir! I ain’t got no author’ty outside th’ corporation, an’, anyways, I ain’t a-goin’ to.... Huh?... Nossir!... Huh?”

I pushed him aside; I could see that he was getting nowhere. “Hello! Sheriff?... George Uhlman speaking.... Yes, Doctor Parker’s uncle. We just found Doctor Gaskell out here in the bushes, near his house, dead. He’d been killed with a shotgun. We don’t know how it happened; looks like an accident. Wakefield thinks my nephew did it, but I don’t! Anyway, it’s not clear, and it needs investigation. There’s nobody here fit to take charge. Will you come right over, please?”

“W’y sure!” came the sheriff’s high, whining falsetto. “I s’posed f’om Rufe it wa’n’t nothin’, on’y just a plain killin’. Be over directly. You sent f’r th’ coroner?”

“No; we just found the body.”

“Aw right! I’ll git Doc Burgess f’om Smyrna an’ carry him over there. Git started soon as I c’n git my clothes on.” His shrill voice took on an injured note. “Wisht you-all’d have y’r killin’s later in the day!”

We went out into the fresh, bright morning, and walked toward the pine grove. Even now Pinelands was scarcely awake. Thin curls of smoke began lazily to mount from a chimney here and there; a colored servant or two hurried up the street, fresh from Jimtown, across the creek. In an hour they would be serving breakfast; the orderly life of Pinelands would begin behind those white colonnaded house fronts, which were now so still. It came to me as a shock, that peaceful life should be going on all about, when I seemed caught into the whirl of another world altogether--a fantastic, unreal world of sudden death and police officers and all the sordid routine of criminal investigation. Perhaps I felt the whole affair as deeply as Lewis did. I was fond of my nephew.

We passed under Aunt Mary’s window, and I could hear Miss Christie’s undisturbed snoring. There was no sound from Miss McGregor herself, although the quail still whistled piercingly. I wondered if she could really be asleep--if, perhaps, the bobwhites disturbed her less than she fancied. Surely, with the shouting which had followed that fateful explosion of Peter McGregor’s shotgun, even a sound sleeper might well have been awakened.

But one, at least, in Fort House, was stirring. As we passed the corner of the old place Dorothy ran out, breathless, hastily dressed, but distractingly pretty. Her thick braids were coiled carelessly on her head; as she came toward us she thrust a hairpin home.

“Oh, Lewis! What is it, boy? What’s happened? I just know it’s something terrible!”

“There, there, honey!” With a vast effort the boy shook himself into a semblance of calm, and put an arm about her protectingly. “It’s nothing! There’s been an accident, and Doctor Gaskell is hurt.”

“Hurt?” She drew away from him a little, looking deep into his eyes. “Oh, boy, boy! You didn’t quarrel with him again?”

“No. I--I didn’t know he was there, dear. I never saw or heard a thing. And the gun went off, and----”

“Did you hit him? Is he hurt badly? Where is he? Can’t I help?”

“Nobody can help him now,” I told her gravely. “The only way you can help is to go back in the house and try to keep this from Aunt Mary as long as you can. No!” I caught her sharply back, as she would have run down the path. “You can’t do anything there; you must keep away.”

She stared at me in agony. “You--you mean he’s dead?” She seemed unable to understand; her face was quite blank. Indeed, all of us seemed helplessly confused that fateful morning. I look back now and see how we might have risen to the occasion, how we might have handled the situation efficiently; but then we all seemed bound by the same nightmare, gripped by that terrible helplessness of dreams, so that we could only stare and gape. After all, it was no wonder! Doctor William Gaskell had been killed in a very sudden and dreadful fashion--and my nephew, Lewis Parker, was supposed to have killed him, however unintentionally. And we loved the boy.

“We-ell,” said Dorothy uncertainly, “I’ll try and be good. You come with me, Lewis, please.”

“I--I’m needed here,” he began, but Constable Wakefield’s stentorian voice drowned his evasion.

“He’s gotta stay right with me, ma’am,” he declared. “He’s under arrest, he is, f’r murder!” He inflated his huge chest importantly, then shrank suddenly back, fumbling at his hip, as my nephew turned upon him. “Here, here! None o’ that, now!”

“You fool!” said the boy. “I’ve a good mind to break your head--blurting out that way.”

“Quit, quit!” The constable tried to hide his vast bulk behind me, and his voice shook. Here was a desperate criminal, a red-handed murderer, threatening him! I read the thought in the sickly face of him. “You-all make him quit! Resistin’ a officer’s serious, Parker!”

Lewis had forgotten him already. His eyes were all for Dorothy. “It--it was an accident!” he declared piteously. “Dorothy--honey--you believe me, don’t you? I never even saw him; I supposed he was home in bed. Oh, honey, you don’t think I really meant to shoot him?”

The girl’s eyes shone, and she brushed the thought away with a magnificent gesture. “Of course not! But, Lewis, boy, arrested! W-will they put you in j-jail, dearest? They won’t keep you there, will they? Why, our wedding’s only two days off!”

“Come, dear,” I urged. “Run in, now. See, people are coming already. It’s only a formality”--how I hoped it was not a lie--“just a form. He’ll be out again and back in time for dinner. You go look after Aunt Mary and be brave.”

She turned away obediently, her slender shoulders shaking with sobs; then she came back to kiss the boy, and fled. I sighed with relief as she vanished into the house. “Come on, Wakefield, let’s get it over,” I suggested.

Already the news had spread. Perhaps it had been the telephone operator, perhaps the mysterious wireless of small-town gossip. Anyhow men and boys had begun to collect, to hang in whispering groups along the road. A few bolder spirits advanced, full of questions, and followed us back along the path to where Gaskell’s body still lay.

“How come?” asked one man of the constable, who stood beside Lewis, still rubbing his chin with unsteady fingers. He had made no move to lift the dead man.

“How come? Doc Parker, here, done it with his shotgun just now. I as good as seen him!”

The constable’s statement was relayed from one whispering group to another. The crowd gathered, came closer, jostling and shoving through the scrub for a better look. A little murmur started somewhere and grew into a menacing growl: “Killed Doc Gaskell! Shot ’im down deliberate! Dirty coward!” A high, excited voice from the rear shouted: “He ought to be lynched!”

At that sinister suggestion the crowd began to mill. The mutter of unfriendly voices deepened, grew more ominous. “Git a rope!” exclaimed another. Suddenly there was an outburst of howls, shrill, bitter, inhuman, like the baying of hounds. “Git a rope! Git a rope! Hang ’im--lynch ’im!”

Pushing and crowding, they drew closer, surrounding us and the body, treading down the bushes, thrusting aside saplings. I looked into a circle of flushed, ugly faces. The crowd had become a mob.

Constable Wakefield straightened to the full of his six feet two, thrust out his official chest and glowered at them fiercely. “Stand back, boys!” he ordered. “Don’t interfere with th’ law!”

His authoritative way had its effect for an instant; then some one laughed. “Yah, Rufe! ’Member when Ralph Satterfield took y’r star off of yuh that day? Knock his block off, fellers; take ’is gun away, if he starts anythin’. He ain’t got the nerve to shoot.” Wakefield had now produced a huge and ancient pistol.

The big man paled, and his small eyes shifted uncertainly. His heavy, bullying voice quavered. “Now, now, boys,” he said, suddenly pacific, “don’t do nothin’ you’ll be sorry for.”

“Gr-r-r-r!” The crowd swayed forward. Lewis, very white, clenched his fists and crouched, prepared to sell his life dearly. I stood in front of him; I would come to grips with Nate Buford who was nearest me; I could hold him back for a minute, at least. And, even in that breathless moment, I had to grin to myself to think of pitting my puny, rheumatic sixty-odd years against the wrath of a mob.

Presently the crowd began to waver. “Beat it!” shouted some one from the rear. Those nearest us shifted, looked over shoulders, then stepped back, each trying to hide behind his fellows and look like an innocent bystander. A wide lane opened, and along it a shrunken, undistinguished figure advanced toward us. It was a little old man, stooped and bent, whose rheumy, red-rimmed eyes peered mildly from beneath a wide, flapping hat brim; his lean, leathery face, seamed by a thousand wrinkles, was made ludicrous by the merest wisp of straggling white mustache; the gnarled, calloused hands swung empty at his sides. It was High Sheriff Redden, and glad I was to see him.

He came on through the shrinking, melting crowd and stood with us, peering down at Doctor Gaskell’s quiet body. “H’m,” said he. “Daid, ain’t he?”

He spoke in a quavering, cracked falsetto. Then he turned and ran a mild, watery eye over the throng, stroking his ridiculous, wispy mustache the while. “Seems like I heerd some racketin’ round here,” he went on in that grotesque, squeaky whine. “You-all c’n go home now. Git! Scatter!”

His bent, shrunken form contrasted absurdly with the constable’s massiveness; his voice, to the constable’s roar, was a penny whistle to a pipe organ. His rheumy eyes were mild, almost timid; his gnarled hands were empty.

But none withstood him. The crowd melted fast, each man looking, or trying to look, as if he’d just stopped for a minute and was ready to go, anyway. Presently Lewis and I stood alone with the constable, the sheriff, and the dead man.

I conceived a sincere respect for High Sheriff Redden.