Chapter II: Book I: The Purple Orchid (2)

Her voice, as I have before said, was unmusical though effective; but her laugh was deliciously sweet, especially when it was restrained to a mere ripple, as now.

"You will come to Springfield soon," she avowed, slipping from before him so as to leave the way to the door open.

"Amabel!" His voice was strangely husky, and the involuntary opening and shutting of his hands revealed the emotion under which he was labouring. "Do you love me? You have acknowledged it now and then, but always as if you did not mean it. Now you acknowledge that you may some day, and this time as if you did mean it. What is the truth? Tell me, without coquetry or dissembling, for I am in dead earnest, and---" He paused, choked, and turned toward the window where but a few minutes before he had taken that solemn oath. The remembrance of it seemed to come back with the movement. Flushing with a new agitation, he wheeled upon her sharply. "No, no," he prayed, "say nothing. If you swore you did not love me I should not believe it, and if you swore that you did I should only find it harder to repeat what must again be said, that a union between us can never take place. I have given my solemn promise to---"

"Well, well. Why do you stop? Am I so hard to talk to that the words will not leave your lips?"

"I have promised my father I will never marry you. He feels that he has grounds of complaint against you, and as I owe him everything---"

He stopped amazed. She was looking at him intently, that same low laugh still on her lips.

"Tell the truth," she whispered. "I know to what extent you consider your father's wishes. You think you ought not to marry me after what took place last night. Frederick, I like you for this evidence of consideration on your part, but do not struggle too relentlessly with your conscience. I can forgive much more in you than you think, and if you really love me---"

"Stop! Let us understand each other." He had turned mortally pale, and met her eyes with something akin to alarm. "What do you allude to in speaking of last night? I did not know there was anything said by us in our talk together---"

"I do not allude to our talk."

"Or--or in the one dance we had---"

"Frederick, a dance is innocent."

The word seemed to strike him with the force of a blow.

"Innocent," he repeated, "innocent?" becoming paler still as the full weight of her meaning broke gradually upon him.

"I followed you into town," she whispered, coming closer, and breathing the words into his ear. "But what I saw you do there will not prevent me from obeying you if you say: 'Follow me wherever I go, Amabel; henceforth our lives are one.'"

"My God!"

It was all he said, but it seemed to create a gulf between them. In the silence that followed, the evil spirit latent beneath her beauty began to make itself evident even in the smile which no longer called into view the dimples which belong to guileless mirth, while upon his face, after the first paralysing effect of her words had passed, there appeared an expression of manly resistance that betrayed a virtue which as yet had never appeared in his selfish and altogether reckless life.

That this was more than a passing impulse he presently made evident by lifting his hand and pushing her slowly back.

"I do not know what you saw me do," said he; "but whatever it was, it can make no difference in our relations."

Her whisper, which had been but a breath before, became scarcely audible.

"I did not pause at the gate you entered," said she. "I went in after you."

A gasp of irresistible feeling escaped him, but he did not take his eyes from her face.

"It was a long time before you came out," she went on, "but previous to that time the shade of a certain window was thrust aside, and---"

"Hush!" he commanded, in uncontrollable passion, pressing his hand with impulsive energy against her mouth. "Not another word of that, or I shall forget you are a woman or that I have ever loved you."

Her eyes, which were all she had remaining to plead with, took on a peculiar look of quiet satisfaction, and power. Seeing it, he let his hand fall and for the first time began to regard her with anything but a lover's eyes.

"I was the only person in sight at that time," she continued. "You have nothing to fear from the world at large."

"Fear?"

The word made its own echo; she had no need to emphasise it even by a smile. But she watched him as it sunk into his consciousness with an intentness it took all his strength to sustain. Suddenly her bearing and expression changed. The few remains of sweetness in her face vanished, and even the allurement which often lasts when the sweetness is gone, disappeared in the energy which now took possession of her whole threatening and inflexible personality.

"Marry me," she cried, "or I will proclaim you to be the murderer of Agatha Webb."

She had seen the death of love in his eyes.

VIII

"A DEVIL THAT UNDERSTANDS MEN"

Frederick Sutherland was a man of finer mental balance than he himself, perhaps, had ever realised. After the first few moments of stupefaction following the astounding alternative which had been given him, he broke out with the last sentence she probably expected to hear:

"What do you hope from a marriage with me, that to attain your wishes you thus sacrifice every womanly instinct?"

She met him on his own ground.

"What do I hope?" She actually glowed with the force of her secret desire. "Can you ask a poor girl like me, born in a tenement house, but with tastes and ambitions such as are usually only given to those who can gratify them? I want to be the rich Mr. Sutherland's daughter; acknowledged or unacknowledged, the wife of one who can enter any house in Boston as an equal. With a position like that I can rise to anything. I feel that I have the natural power and aptitude. I have felt it since I was a small child."

"And for that---" he began.

"And for that," she broke in, "I am quite willing to overlook a blot on your record. Confident that you will never repeat the risk of last night, I am ready to share the burden of your secret through life. If you treat me well, I am sure I can make that burden light for you."

With a quick flush and an increase of self-assertion, probably not anticipated by her, he faced the daring girl with a desperate resolution that showed how handsome he could be if his soul once got control of his body.

"Woman," he cried, "they were right; you are little less than a devil."

Did she regard it as a compliment? Her smile would seem to say so.

"A devil that understands men," she answered, with that slow dip of her dimples that made her smile so dangerous. "You will not hesitate long over this matter; a week, perhaps."

"I shall not hesitate at all. Seeing you as you are, makes my course easy. You will never share any burden with me as my wife."

Still she was not abashed.

"It is a pity," she whispered; "it would have saved you such unnecessary struggle. But a week is not long to wait. I am certain of you then. This day week at twelve o'clock, Frederick."

He seized her by the arm, and lost to everything but his rage, shook her with a desperate hand.

"Do you mean it?" he cried, a sudden horror showing itself in his face, notwithstanding his efforts to conceal it.

"I mean it so much," she assured him, "that before I came home just now I paid a visit to the copse over the way. A certain hollow tree, where you and I have held more than one tryst, conceals within its depths a package containing over one thousand dollars. Frederick, I hold your life in my hands."

The grasp with which he held her relaxed; a mortal despair settled upon his features, and recognising the impossibility of further concealing the effect of her words upon him, he sank into a chair and covered his face with his hands. She viewed him with an air of triumph, which brought back some of her beauty. When she spoke it was to say:

"If you wish to join me in Springfield before the time I have set, well and good. I am willing that the time of our separation should be shortened, but it must not be lengthened by so much as a day. Now, if you will excuse me, I will go and pack my trunks."

He shuddered; her voice penetrated him to the quick.

Drawing herself up, she looked down on him with a strange mixture of passion and elation.

"You need fear no indiscretion on my part, so long as our armistice lasts," said she. "No one can drag the truth from me while any hope remains of your doing your duty by me in the way I have suggested."

And still he did not move.

"Frederick?"

Was it her voice that was thus murmuring his name? Can the tiger snarl one moment and fawn the next?

"Frederick, I have a final word to say--a last farewell. Up to this hour I have endured your attentions, or, let us say, accepted them, for I always found you handsome and agreeable, if not the master of my heart. But now it is love that I feel, love; and love with me is no fancy, but a passion--do you hear?--a passion which will make life a heaven or hell for the man who has inspired it. You should have thought of this when you opposed me."

And with a look in which love and hatred contended for mastery, she bent and imprinted a kiss upon his forehead. Next moment she was gone.

Or so he thought. But when, after an interval of nameless recoil, he rose and attempted to stagger from the place, he discovered that she had been detained in the hall by two or three men who had just come in by the front door.

"Is this Miss Page?" they were asking.

"Yes, I am Miss Page--Amabel Page" she replied with suave politeness. "If you have any business with me, state it quickly, for I am about to leave town."

"That is what we wish to prevent," declared a tall, thin young man who seemed to take the lead. "Till the inquest has been held over the remains of Mrs. Webb, Coroner Talbot wishes you to regard yourself as a possible witness."

"Me?" she cried, with an admirable gesture of surprise and a wide opening of her brown eyes that made her look like an astonished child. "What have I got to do with it?"

"You pointed out a certain spot of blood on the grass, and--well, the coroner's orders have to be obeyed, miss. You cannot leave the town without running the risk of arrest"

"Then I will stay in it," she smiled. "I have no liking for arrests," and the glint of her eye rested for a moment on Frederick. "Mr. Sutherland," she continued, as that gentleman appeared at the dining-room door, "I shall have to impose upon your hospitality for a few days longer. These men here inform me that my innocent interest in pointing out to you that spot of blood on Mrs. Webb's lawn has awakened some curiosity, and that I am wanted as a witness by the coroner."

Mr. Sutherland, with a quick stride, lessened the distance between himself and these unwelcome intruders. "The coroner's wishes are paramount just now," said he, but the look he gave his son was not soon forgotten by the spectators.

IX

A GRAND WOMAN

There was but one topic discussed in the country-side that day, and that was the life and character of Agatha Webb.

Her history had not been a happy one. She and Philemon had come from Portchester some twenty or more years before to escape the sorrows associated with their native town. They had left behind them six small graves in Portchester churchyard; but though evidences of their affliction were always to be seen in the countenances of either, they had entered with so much purpose into the life of their adopted town that they had become persons of note there till Philemon's health began to fail, when Agatha quit all outside work and devoted herself exclusively to him. Of her character and winsome personality we can gather some idea from the various conversations carried on that day from Portchester Green to the shipyards in Sutherlandtown.

In Deacon Brainerd's cottage, the discussion was concerning Agatha's lack of vanity; a virtue not very common at that time among the women of this busy seaport.

"For a woman so handsome," the good deacon was saying "(and I think I can safely call her the finest-featured woman who ever trod these streets), she showed as little interest in dress as anyone I ever knew. Calico at home and calico at church, yet she looked as much of a lady in her dark-sprigged gowns as Mrs. Webster in her silks or Mrs. Parsons in her thousand-dollar sealskin."

As this was a topic within the scope of his eldest daughter's intelligence she at once spoke up: "I never thought she needed to dress so plainly. I don't believe in such a show of poverty myself. If one is too poor to go decent, all right; but they say she had more money than most anyone in town. I wonder who is going to get the benefit of it?"

"Why, Philemon, of course; that is, as long as he lives. He doubtless had the making of it."

"Is it true that he's gone clean out of his head since her death?" interposed a neighbour who had happened in.

"So they say. I believe widow Jones has taken him into her house."

"Do you think," asked a second daughter with becoming hesitation, "that he had anything to do with her death? Some of the neighbours say he struck her while in one of his crazy fits, while others declare she was killed by some stranger, equally old and almost as infirm."

"We won't discuss the subject," objected the deacon. "Time will show who robbed us of the greatest-hearted and most capable woman in these parts."

"And will time show who killed Batsy?" It was a morsel of a girl who spoke; the least one of the family, but the brightest. "I'm sorry for Batsy; she always gave me cookies when I went to see Mrs. Webb."

"Batsy was a good girl for a Swede," allowed the deacon's wife, who had not spoken till now. "When she first came into town on the spars of that wrecked ship we all remember, there was some struggle between Agatha and me as to which of us should have her. But I didn't like the task of teaching her the name of every pot and pan she had to use in the kitchen, so I gave her up to Agatha; and it was fortunate I did, for I've never been able to understand her talk to this day."

"I could talk with her right well," lisped the little one. "She never called things by their Swedish names unless she was worried; and I never worried her."

"I wonder if she would have worshipped the ground under your feet, as she did that under Agatha's?" asked the deacon, eying his wife with just the suspicion of a malicious twinkle in his eye.

"I am not the greatest-hearted and most capable woman in town," retorted his wife, clicking her needles as she went on knitting.

In Mr. Sprague's house on the opposite side of the road, Squire Fisher was relating some old tales of bygone Portchester days. "I knew Agatha when she was a girl," he avowed. "She had the grandest manners and the most enchanting smile of any rich or poor man's daughter between the coast and Springfield. She did not dress in calico then. She wore the gayest clothes her father could buy. her, and old Jacob was not without means to make his daughter the leading figure in town. How we young fellows did adore her, and what lengths we went to win one of her glorious smiles! Two of us, John and James Zabel, have lived bachelors for her sake to this very day; but I hadn't courage enough for that; I married and"--something between a sigh and a chuckle filled out the sentence.

"What made Philemon carry off the prize? His good looks?"

"Yes, or his good luck. It wasn't his snap; of that you may be sure. James Zabel had the snap, and he was her first choice, too, but he got into some difficulty--I never knew just what it was, but it was regarded as serious at the time--and that match was broken off. Afterwards she married Philemon. You see, I was out of it altogether; had never been in it, perhaps; but there were three good years of my life in which I thought of little else than Agatha. I admired her spirit, you see. There was something more taking in her ways than in her beauty, wonderful as that was. She ruled us with a rod of iron, and yet we worshipped her. I have wondered to see her so meek of late. I never thought she would be satisfied with a brick-floored cottage and a husband of failing wits. But no one, to my knowledge, has ever heard a complaint from her lips; and the dignity of her afflicted wife-hood has far transcended the haughtiness of those days when she had but to smile to have all the youth of Portchester at her feet."

"I suppose it was the loss of so many children that reconciled her to a quiet life. A woman cannot close the eyes of six children, one after the other, without some modification taking place in her character."

"Yes, she and Philemon have been unfortunate; but she was a splendid looking girl, boys. I never see such grand-looking women now."

In a little one-storied cottage on the hillside a woman was nursing a baby and talking at the same time of Agatha Webb.

"I shall never forget the night my first baby fell sick," she faltered; "I was just out of bed myself, and having no nearer neighbours then than now, I was all alone on the hillside, Alec being away at sea. I was too young to know much about sickness, but something told me that I must have help before morning or my baby would die. Though I could just walk across the floor, I threw a shawl around me, took my baby in my arms, and opened the door. A blinding gust of rain blew in. A terrible storm was raging and I had not noticed it, I was so taken up with the child.

"I could not face that gale. Indeed, I was so weak I fell on my knees as it struck me and became dripping wet before I could drag myself inside. The baby began to moan and everything was turning dark before me, when I heard a strong, sweet voice cry out in the roadway:

"'Is there room in this house for me till the storm has blown by? I cannot see my way down the hillside.'

"With a bursting heart I looked up. A woman was standing in the doorway, with the look of an angel in her eyes. I did not know her, but her face was one to bring comfort to the saddest heart. Holding up my baby, I cried:

"'My baby is dying; I tried to go for the doctor, but my knees bent under me. Help me, as you are a mother--I--- '

"I must have fallen again, for the next thing I remember I was lying by the hearth, looking up into her face, which was bending over me. She was white as the rag I had tied about my baby's throat, and by the way her breast heaved she was either very much frightened or very sorry.

"'I wish you had the help of anyone else,' said she. 'Babies perish in my arms and wither at my breast. I cannot touch it, much as I yearn to. But let me see its face; perhaps I can tell you what is the matter with it.'

"I showed her the baby's face, and she bent over it, trembling very much, almost as much indeed as myself.

"'It is very sick,' she said, 'but if you will use the remedies I advise, I think you can save it.' And she told me what to do, and helped me all she could; but she did not lay a finger on the little darling, though from the way she watched it I saw that her heart was set on his getting better. And he did; in an hour he was sleeping peacefully, and the terrible weight was gone from my heart and from hers. When the storm stopped, and she could leave the house, she gave me a kiss; but the look she gave him meant more than kisses. God must have forgotten her goodness to me that night when He let her die so pitiable a death."

At the minister's house they were commenting upon the look of serenity observable in her dead face.

"I have known her for thirty years," her pastor declared, "and never before have I seen her wear a look of real peace. It is wonderful, considering the circumstances. Do you think she was so weary of her life's long struggle that she hailed any release from it, even that of violence?"

A young man, a lawyer, visiting them from New York, was the only one to answer.

"I never saw the woman you are talking about," said he, "and know nothing of the circumstances of her death beyond what you have told me. But from the very incongruity between her expression and the violent nature of her death, I argue that there are depths to this crime which have not yet been sounded."

"What depths? It is a simple case of murder followed by theft. To be sure we do not yet know the criminal, but money was his motive; that is clear enough."

"Are you ready to wager that that is all there is to it?"

This was a startling proposition to the minister.

"You forget my cloth," said he.

The young man smiled. "That is true. Pardon me. I was only anxious to show how strong my conviction was against any such easy explanation of a crime marked by such contradictory features."

Two children on the Portchester road were exchanging boyish confidences.

"Do you know what I think about it?" asked one.

"Naw! How should I?"

"Wall, I think old Mrs. Webb got the likes of what she sent. Don't you know she had six children once, and that she killed every one of them?"

"Killed'em--she?"

"Yes, I heard her tell granny once all about it. She said there was a blight on her house--I don't know what that is; but I guess it's something big and heavy--and that it fell on every one of her children, as fast as they came, and killed 'em."

"Then I'm glad I ben't her child."

Very different were the recollections interchanged between two middle-aged Portchester women.

"She was drinking tea at my house when her sister Sairey came running in with the news that the baby she had left at home wasn't quite right. That was her first child, you know."

"Yes, yes, for I was with her when that baby came," broke in the other, "and such joy as she showed when they told her it was alive and well I never saw. I do not know why she didn't expect it to be alive, but she didn't, and her happiness was just wonderful to see."

"Well, she didn't enjoy it long. The poor little fellow died young. But I was telling you of the night when she first heard he was ailing. Philemon had been telling a good story, and we were all laughing, when Sairey came in. I can see Agatha now. She always had the most brilliant eyes in the county, but that day they were superbly dazzling. They changed, though, at the sight of Sairey's face, and she jumped to meet her just as if she knew what Sairey was going to say before ever a word left her lips. 'My baby!' (I can hear her yet.) 'Something is the matter with the baby!' And though Sairey made haste to tell her that he was only ailing and not at all ill, she turned upon Philemon with a look none of us ever quite understood; he changed so completely under it, just as she had under Sairey's; and to neither did the old happiness ever return, for the child died within a week, and when the next came it died also, and the next, till six small innocents lay buried in yonder old graveyard."

"I know; and sad enough it was too, especially as she and Philemon were both fond of children. Well, well, the ways of Providence are past rinding out! And now she is gone and Philemon---"

"Ah, he'll follow her soon; he can't live without Agatha."

Nearer home, the old sexton was chattering about the six gravestones raised in Portchester churchyard to these six dead infants. He had been sent there to choose a spot in which to lay the mother, and was full of the shock it gave him to see that line of little stones, telling of a past with which the good people of Sutherlandtown found it hard to associate Philemon and Agatha Webb.

"I'm a digger of graves," he mused, half to himself and half to his old wife watching him from the other side of the hearthstone. "I spend a good quarter of my time in the churchyard; but when I saw those six little mounds, and read the inscriptions over them, I couldn't help feeling queer. Think of this! On the first tiny headstone I read these words:"

STEPHEN,

Son of Philemon and Agatha Webb,

Died, Aged Six Weeks.

God be merciful to me a sinner!

"Now what does that mean? Did you ever hear anyone say?"

"No," was his old wife's answer. "Perhaps she was one of those Calvinist folks who believe babies go to hell if they are not baptised."

"But her children were all baptised. I've been told so; some of them before she was well out of her bed. 'God be merciful to me a sinner!' And the chick not six weeks old! Something queer about that, dame, if it did happen more than thirty years ago."

"What did you see over the grave of the child who was killed in her arms by lightning?"

"This:

"'And he was not, for God took him.'"

Farmer Waite had but one word to say:

"She came to me when my Sissy had the smallpox; the only person in town who would enter my doors. More than that; when Sissy was up and I went to pay the doctor's bill I found it had been settled. I did not know then who had enough money and compassion to do this for me; now I do."

Many an act of kindness which had been secretly performed in that town during the last twenty years came to light on that day, the most notable of which was the sending of a certain young lad to school and his subsequent education as a minister.

But other memories of a sweeter and more secret nature still came up likewise, among them the following:

A young girl, who was of a very timid but deeply sensitive nature, had been urged into an engagement with a man she did not like. Though the conflict this occasioned her and the misery which accompanied it were apparent to everybody, nobody stirred in her behalf but Agatha. She went to see her, and, though it was within a fortnight of the wedding, she did not hesitate to advise the girl to give him up, and when the poor child said she lacked the courage, Agatha herself went to the man and urged him into a display of generosity which saved the poor, timid thing from a life of misery. They say this was no easy task for Agatha, and that the man was sullen for a year. But the girl's gratitude was boundless.

Of her daring, which was always on the side of right and justice, the stories were numerous; so were the accounts, mostly among the women, of her rare tenderness and sympathy for the weak and the erring. Never was a man talked to as she talked to Jake Cobleigh the evening after he struck his mother, and if she had been in town on the day when Clarissa Mayhew ran away with that Philadelphia adventurer many said it would never have happened, for no girl could stand the admonition, or resist the pleading, of this childless mother.

It was reserved for Mr. Halliday and Mr. Sutherland to talk of her mental qualities. Her character was so marked and her manner so simple that few gave attention to the intellect that was the real basis of her power. The two mentioned gentlemen, however, appreciated her to the full, and it was while listening to their remarks that Frederick was suddenly startled by some one saying to him:

"You are the only person in town who have nothing to say about Agatha Webb. Didn't you ever exchange any words with her?--for I can hardly believe you could have met her eye to eye without having some remark to make about her beauty or her influence."

The speaker was Agnes Halliday, who had come in with her father for a social chat. She was one of Frederick's earliest playmates, but one with whom he had never assimilated and who did not like him. He knew this, as did everyone else in town, and it was with some hesitation he turned to answer her.

"I have but one recollection," he began, and for the moment got no farther, for in turning his head to address his young guest he had allowed his gaze to wander through the open window by which she sat, into the garden beyond, where Amabel could be seen picking flowers. As he spoke, Amabel lifted her face with one of her suggestive looks. She had doubtless heard Miss Halliday's remark.

Recovering himself with an effort, he repeated his words: "I have but one recollection of Mrs. Webb that I can give you. Years ago when I was a lad I was playing on the green with several other boys. We had had some dispute about a lost ball, and I was swearing angrily and loud when I suddenly perceived before me the tall form and compassionate face of Mrs. Webb. She was dressed in her usual simple way, and had a basket on her arm, but she looked so superior to any other woman I had ever met that I did not know whether to hide my face in her skirts or to follow my first impulse and run away. She saw the emotion she had aroused, and lifting up my face by the chin, she said: 'Little boy, I have buried six children, all of them younger than you, and now my husband and myself live alone. Often and often have I wished that one at least of these darling infants might have been spared us. But had God given me the choice of having them die young and innocent, or of growing up to swear as I have heard you to-day, I should have prayed God to take them, as He did. You have a mother. Do not break her heart by taking in vain the name of the God she reveres.' And with that she kissed me, and, strange as it may seem to you, in whatever folly or wickedness I have indulged, I have never made use of an oath from that day to this--and I thank God for it."

There was such unusual feeling in his voice, a feeling that none had ever suspected him capable of before, that Miss Halliday regarded him with astonishment and quite forgot to indulge in her usual banter. Even the gentlemen sat still, and there was a momentary silence, through which there presently broke the incongruous sound of a shrill and mocking laugh.

It came from Amabel, who had just finished gathering her bouquet in the garden outside.

X

DETECTIVE KNAPP ARRIVES

Meanwhile, in a small room at the court-house, a still more serious conversation was in progress. Dr. Talbot, Mr. Fenton, and a certain able lawyer in town by the name of Harvey, were in close discussion. The last had broken the silence of years, and was telling what he knew of Mrs. Webb's affairs.

He was a shrewd man, of unblemished reputation. When called upon to talk, he talked well, but he much preferred listening, and was, as now appeared, the safest repository of secrets to be found in all that region. He had been married three times, and could still count thirteen children around his board, one reason, perhaps, why he had learned to cultivate silence to such a degree. Happily, the time had come for him to talk, and he talked. This is what he said:

"Some fifteen years ago Philemon Webb came to me with a small sum of money, which he said he wished to have me invest for his wife. It was the fruit of a small speculation of his and he wanted it given unconditionally to her without her knowledge or that of the neighbours. I accordingly made out a deed of gift, which he signed with joyful alacrity, and then after due thought and careful investigation, I put the money into a new enterprise then being started in Boston. It was the best stroke of business I ever did in my life. At the end of a year it paid double, and after five had rolled away the accumulated interest had reached such a sum that both Philemon and myself thought it wisest to let her know what she was worth and what was being done with the money. I was in hopes it would lead her to make some change in her mode of living, which seemed to me out of keeping with her appearance and mental qualifications; while he, I imagine, looked for something more important still--a smile on the face which had somehow lost the trick of merriment, though it had never acquired that of ill nature. But we did not know Agatha; at least I did not. When she learned that she was rich, she looked at first awestruck and then heart-pierced. Forgetting me, or ignoring me, it makes no matter which, she threw herself into Philemon's arms and wept, while he, poor faithful fellow, looked as distressed as if he had brought news of failure instead of triumphant success. I suppose she thought of her buried children, and what the money would have been to her if they had lived; but she did not speak of them, nor am I quite sure they were in her thoughts when, after the first excitement was over, she drew back and said quietly, but in a tone of strong feeling, to Philemon: 'You meant me a happy surprise, and you must not be disappointed. This is heart money; we will use it to make our townsfolk happy.' I saw him glance at her dress, which was a purple calico. I remember it because of that look and because of the sad smile with which she followed his glance. 'Can we not afford now,' he ventured, 'a little show of luxury, or at least a ribbon or so for this beautiful throat of yours?' She did not answer him; but her look had a rare compassion in it, a compassion, strange to say, that seemed to be expended upon him rather than upon herself. Philemon swallowed his disappointment. 'Agatha is right,' he said to me. 'We do not need luxury. I do not know how I so far forgot myself as to mention it.' That was ten years ago, and every day since then her property has increased. I did not know then, and I do not know now, why they were both so anxious that all knowledge of their good fortune should be kept from those about them; but that it was to be so kept was made very evident to me; and, notwithstanding all temptations to the contrary, I have refrained from uttering a word likely to give away their secret. The money, which to all appearance was the cause of her tragic and untimely death, was interest money which I was delegated to deliver her. I took it to her day before yesterday, and it was all in crisp new notes, some of them twenties, but most of them tens and fives. I am free to say there was not such another roll of fresh money in town."

"Warn all shopkeepers to keep a sharp lookout for new bills in the money they receive," was Dr. Talbot's comment to the constable. "Fresh ten-and twenty-dollar bills are none too common in this town. And now about her will. Did you draw that up, Harvey?"

"No. I did not know she had made one. I often spoke to her about the advisability of her doing so, but she always put me off. And now it seems that she had it drawn up in Boston. Could not trust her old friend with too many secrets, I suppose."

"So you don't know how her money has been left?"

"No more than you do."

Here an interruption occurred. The door opened and a slim young man, wearing spectacles, came in. At sight of him they all rose.

"Well?" eagerly inquired Dr. Talbot.

"Nothing new," answered the young man, with a consequential air. "The elder woman died from loss of blood consequent upon a blow given by a small, three-sided, slender blade; the younger from a stroke of apoplexy, induced by fright."

"Good! I am glad to hear my instincts were not at fault. Loss of blood, eh? Death, then, was not instantaneous?"

"No."

"Strange!" fell from the lips of his two listeners. "She lived, yet gave no alarm."

"None that was heard," suggested the young doctor, who was from another town.

"Or, if heard, reached no ears but Philemon's," observed the constable. "Something must have taken him up-stairs."

"I am not so sure," said the coroner, "that Philemon is not answerable for the whole crime, notwithstanding our failure to find the missing money anywhere in the house. How else account for the resignation with which she evidently met her death? Had a stranger struck her, Agatha Webb would have struggled. There is no sign of struggle in the room."

"She would have struggled against Philemon had she had strength to struggle. I think she was asleep when she was struck."

"Ah! And was not standing by the table? How about the blood there, then?"

"Shaken from the murderer's fingers in fright or disgust."

"There was no blood on Philemon's fingers."

"No; he wiped them on his sleeve."

"If he was the one to use the dagger against her, where is the dagger? Should we not be able to find it somewhere about the premises?"

"He may have buried it outside. Crazy men are supernaturally cunning."

"When you can produce it from any place inside that board fence, I will consider your theory. At present I limit my suspicions of Philemon to the half-unconscious attentions which a man of disordered intellect might give a wife bleeding and dying under his eyes. My idea on the subject is---"

"Would you be so kind as not to give utterance to your ideas until I have been able to form some for myself?" interrupted a voice from the doorway.

As this voice was unexpected, they all turned. A small man with sleek dark hair and expressionless features stood before them. Behind him was Abel, carrying a hand-bag and umbrella.

"The detective from Boston," announced the latter. Coroner Talbot rose.

"You are in good time," he remarked. "We have work of no ordinary nature for you."

The man failed to look interested. But then his countenance was not one to show emotion.

"My name is Knapp," said he. "I have had my supper, and am ready to go to work. I have read the newspapers; all I want now is any additional facts that have come to light since the telegraphic dispatches were sent to Boston. Facts, mind you; not theories. I never allow myself to be hampered by other persons' theories."

Not liking his manner, which was brusque and too self-important for a man of such insignificant appearance, Coroner Talbot referred him to Mr. Fenton, who immediately proceeded to give him the result of such investigations as he and his men had been able to make; which done, Mr. Knapp put on his hat and turned toward the door.

"I will go to the house and see for myself what is to be learned there," said he. "May I ask the privilege of going alone?" he added, as Mr. Fenton moved. "Abel will see that I am given admittance."

"Show me your credentials," said the coroner. He did so. "They seem all right, and you should be a man who understands his business. Go alone, if you prefer, but bring your conclusions here. They may need some correcting."

"Oh, I will return," Knapp nonchalantly remarked, and went out, having made anything but a favourable impression upon the assembled gentlemen.

"I wish we had shown more grit and tried to handle this thing ourselves," observed Mr. Fenton. "I cannot bear to think of that cold, bloodless creature hovering over our beloved Agatha."

"I wonder at Carson. Why should he send us such a man? Could he not see the matter demanded extraordinary skill and judgment?"

"Oh, this fellow may have skill. But he is so unpleasant. I hate to deal with folks of such fish-like characteristics. But who is this?" he asked as a gentle tap was heard at the door. "Why, it's Loton. What can he want here?"

The man whose presence in the doorway had called out this exclamation started at the sound of the doctor's heavy voice, and came very hesitatingly forward. He was of a weak, irritable type, and seemed to be in a state of great excitement.

"I beg pardon," said he, "for showing myself. I don't like to intrude into such company, but I have something to tell you which may be of use, sirs, though it isn't any great thing, either."

"Something about the murder which has taken place?" asked the coroner, in a milder tone. He knew Loton well, and realised the advisability of encouragement in his case.

"The murder! Oh, I wouldn't presume to say anything about the murder. I'm not the man to stir up any such subject as that. It's about the money--or some money--more money than usually falls into my till. It--it was rather queer, sirs, and I have felt the flutter of it all day. Shall I tell you about it? It happened last night, late last night, sirs, so late that I was in bed with my wife, and had been snoring, she said, four hours."

"What money? New money? Crisp, fresh bills, Loton?" eagerly questioned Mr. Fenton.

Loton, who was the keeper of a small confectionery and bakery store on one of the side streets leading up the hill, shifted uneasily between his two interrogators, and finally addressed himself to the coroner:

"It was new money. I thought it felt so at night, but I was sure of it in the morning. A brand-new bill, sir, a--But that isn't the queerest thing about it. I was asleep, sir, sound asleep, and dreaming of my courting days (for I asked Sally at the circus, sirs, and the band playing on the hill made me think of it), when I was suddenly shook awake by Sally herself, who says she hadn't slept a wink for listening to the music and wishing she was a girl again. 'There's a man at the shop door,' cries she. 'He's a-calling of you; go and see what he wants.' I was mad at being wakened. Dreaming is pleasant, specially when clowns and kissing get mixed up in it, but duty is duty, and so into the shop I stumbled, swearing a bit perhaps, for I hadn't stopped for a light and it was as dark as double shutters could make it. The hammering had become deafening. No let up till I reached the door, when it suddenly ceased.

"'What is it?' I cried. 'Who's there and what do you want?'

"A trembling voice answered me. 'Let me in,' it said. 'I want to buy something to eat. For God's sake, open the door!'

"I don't know why I obeyed, for it was late, and I did not know the voice, but something in the impatient rattling of the door which accompanied the words affected me in spite of myself, and I slowly opened my shop to this midnight customer.

"'You must be hungry,' I began. But the person who had crowded in as soon as the opening was large enough wouldn't let me finish.

"'Bread! I want bread, or crackers, or anything that you can find easiest,' he gasped, like a man who had been running. 'Here's money'; and he poked into my hand a bill so stiff that it rattled. 'It's more than enough,' he hastened to say, as I hesitated over it, 'but never mind that; I'll come for the change in the morning.'

"'Who are you? I cried. 'You are not Blind Willy, I'm sure.'

"But his only answer was 'Bread!' while he leaned so hard against the counter I felt it shake.

"I could not stand that cry of 'Bread!' so I groped about in the dark, and found him a stale loaf, which I put into his arms, with a short, 'There! Now tell me what your name is.'

"But at this he seemed to shrink into himself; and muttering something that might pass for thanks, he stumbled towards the door and rushed hastily out. Running after him, I listened eagerly to his steps. They went up the hill."

"And the money? What about the money?" asked the coroner. "Didn't he come back for the change?"

"No. I put it in the till, thinking it was a dollar bill. But when I came to look at it in the morning, it was a twenty; yes, sirs, a twenty!"

This was startling. The coroner and the constable looked at each other before looking again at him.

"And where is that bill now?" asked the former. "Have you brought it with you?"

"I have, sir. It's been in and out of the till twenty times to-day. I haven't known what to do with it. I don't like to think wrong of anybody, but when I heard that Mrs. Webb (God bless her!) was murdered last night for money, I couldn't rest for the weight of this thing on my conscience. Here's the bill, sir. I wish I had let the old man rap on my door till morning before I had taken it from him."

They did not share this feeling. A distinct and valuable clew seemed to be afforded them by the fresh, crisp bill they saw in his hand. Silently Dr. Talbot took it, while Mr. Fenton, with a shrewd look, asked:

"What reasons have you for calling this mysterious customer old? I thought it was so dark you could not see him."

The man, who looked relieved since he had rid himself of the bill, eyed the constable in some perplexity.

"I didn't see a feature of his face," said he, "and yet I'm sure he was old. I never thought of him as being anything else."

"Well, we will see. And is that all you have to tell us?"

His nod was expressive, and they let him go.

An hour or so later Detective Knapp made his reappearance.

"Well," asked the coroner, as he came quietly in and closed the door behind him, "what's your opinion?"

"Simple case, sir. Murdered for money. Find the man with a flowing beard."

XI

THE MAN WITH A BEARD

There were but few men in town who wore long beards. A list was made of these and handed to the coroner, who regarded it with a grim smile.

"Not a man whose name is here would be guilty of a misdemeanour, let alone a crime. You must look outside of our village population for the murderer of Agatha Webb."

"Very likely, but tell me something first about these persons," urged Knapp. "Who is Edward Hope?"

"A watch repairer; a man of estimable character."

"And Sylvester Chubb?"

"A farmer who, to support his mother, wife, and seven children, works from morning till sundown on his farm, and from sundown till 11 o'clock at night on little fancy articles he cuts out from wood and sells in Boston."

"John Barker, Thomas Elder, Timothy Sinn?"

"All good men; I can vouch for every one of them."

"And John Zabel, James Zabel?"

"Irreproachable, both of them. Famous ship--builders once, but the change to iron ship-building has thrown them out of business. Pity, too, for they were remarkable builders. By the by, Fenton, we don't see them at church or on the docks any more."

"No, they keep very much to themselves; getting old, like ourselves, Talbot."

"Lively boys once. We must hunt them up, Fenton. Can't bear to see old friends drop away from good company. But this isn't business. You need not pause over their names, Knapp."

But Knapp had slipped out.

We will follow him.

Walking briskly down the street, he went up the steps of a certain house and rang the bell. A gentleman with a face not entirely unknown to us came to the door.

The detective did not pause for preliminaries.

"Are you Mr. Crane?" he asked,--"the gentleman who ran against a man coming out of Mrs. Webb's house last night?"

"I am Mr. Crane," was the slightly surprised rejoinder, "and I was run against by a man there, yes."

"Very well," remarked the detective, quietly, "my name is Knapp. I have been sent from Boston to look into this matter, and I have an idea that you can help me more than any other man here in Sutherlandtown. Who was this person who came in contact with you so violently? You know, even if you have been careful not to mention any names."

"You are mistaken. I don't know; I can't know. He wore a sweeping beard, and walked and acted like a man no longer young, but beyond that---"

"Mr. Crane, excuse me, but I know men. If you had no suspicion as to whom that person was you would not look so embarrassed. You suspect, or, at least, associate in your own mind a name with the man you met. Was it either of these you see written here?"

Mr. Crane glanced at the card on which the other had scribbled a couple of names, and started perceptibly.

"You have me," said he; "you must be a man of remarkable perspicacity."

The detective smiled and pocketed his card. The names he thus concealed were John Zabel, James Zabel.

"You have not said which of the two it was," Knapp quietly suggested.

"No," returned the minister, "and I have not even thought. Indeed, I am not sure that I have not made a dreadful mistake in thinking it was either. A glimpse such as I had is far from satisfactory; and they are both such excellent men---"

"Eight! You did make a mistake, of course, I have not the least doubt of it. So don't think of the matter again. I will find out who the real man was; rest easy."

And with the lightest of bows, Knapp drew off and passed as quickly as he could, without attracting attention, round the corner to the confectioner's.

Here his attack was warier. Sally Loton was behind the counter with her husband, and they had evidently been talking the matter over very confidentially. But Knapp was not to be awed by her small, keen eye or strident voice, and presently succeeded in surprising a knowing look on the lady's face, which convinced him that in the confidences between husband and wife a name had been used which she appeared to be less unwilling to impart than he. Knapp, consequently, turned his full attention towards her, using in his attack that oldest and subtlest weapon against the sex--flattery.