Chapter XX: Ruth's Letter

When Lem reached the humble hotel on Pearl Street, at which he put up, he found a letter addressed to him in the clerk's rack. It had arrived while he was out that afternoon. No need for him to open it to know who it came from. One glance at the superscription was enough for him to see that Ruth's chubby little hand had guided the pen. Retiring to his little room he opened the missive, trimmed his solitary candle, and with a countenance of happy anticipation sat himself down to read.

"DEAR OLD LEM," she wrote, "I'm beginning to think that you are away an awful long time, and I'm getting real anxious about you sometimes. Perhaps you have found some handsome city lady that you think you like ever so much better than me, and have no idea of coming back to the village. If so, just mention the fact while I have some chance left. I hear that Deacon Harkins is looking out for a fourth wife, and who knows--But there, I won't plague you any more, you big, good-hearted, stupid dear. I know you won't fall in love with anybody but your little Ruth, any more than she will with somebody else than her big Lem, and I can answer for her. But there! I haven't much time to write about you and I, for I've got something real serious to tell you, something that may be a great deal of help to you in what you are trying to do; that is, supposing you are trying what you started for, and not just to capture the handsome city lady. Mary has been to see Dorn in jail, and had a talk with him about the little elderly gentleman, and he has remembered something more than he told you that makes us both sure we have seen him, and would know him again; and it's a wonder to me that he didn't think of telling you, for he's a man you couldn't mistake. But then you men are all so flighty and slow to think about things, and you never get them right until a woman takes them in hand."

Lem scratched his head, looked perplexed, reread the long sentence, and then muttered to himself:

"Ah, yes! I see. Dorn has remembered something more--and it's the little elderly gentleman she and Mary have seen--and it's a wonder Dorn didn't think of telling me that something he has remembered--and the little elderly gentleman is a man I couldn't mistake. Yes, it's all clear now." And he read on:

"I remember him just as well as if I saw him only yesterday, and I'll tell you exactly how he looked. He wore a wig, very dark brown, nearly black, and very neatly brushed; and he had a shirt bosom with a frill--like those queer old heroes of the revolution in our pictorial book of American History; and his tall silk hat had a very wide crape around it; and he had a funny little breast-pin in his frill that looked like a square of glass with gray hair under it, and little pearls around it, like grandmother's brooch. He had on a stock, a very wide, stiff stock, that kept his head up very straight; and when he bowed he moved as if he was only hinged in the middle. He spoke very deliberately, and seemed to be afraid somebody would snap him up right off if he didn't say exactly the right word, and he appeared to be too cautious ever to say anything positive. He spoke of the Van Deusts as 'supposed to be brothers,' and when Dorn asked him what time it was, he looked at his watch and replied that, 'according to his information and belief it was eleven minutes past ten.'"

"Now I'm sure, Lem, that such peculiarities as his must mark him out; so that when you know them you will have little difficulty in finding him. Do your best, darling, and make haste, for the time is getting terribly short for poor Dorn and dear Mary,--and yet it seems awful long to

"Your own little

"RUTH."

"This is serious. This merits consideration and dissection," said Lem to himself, spreading the letter on the table before him, and squaring himself to go at it as a study. It was nearly morning when he felt that he had fully mastered all its contents, and threw himself on his bed for a short and troubled sleep.

But the earliest lawyers on the street--those who snatch a subsistence from the dregs and scum of humanity thrown up daily by the currents of misfortune and vice, upon the strands of the police courts--saw "the Mad Avenger" already prowling about the vicinity of their offices long before the hour at which the civil and principal criminal courts would be opened for business. When the judicial mills commenced their grinding, he was within sound of their clatter, and from one to another he wandered, anxiously and wearily, as was his custom. When the day's grist was completed, and the grinders hurried away to their respective offices to prepare more grain for the morrow's grinding, he mechanically followed them.

It was getting late in the afternoon; he had not yet seen anybody approximating to the picture he had in his mind's eye--the portrait drawn by Ruth--and he was just arrived at that period of the day when he always felt most sick with disappointment, and most sorely tempted to give up the seemingly useless pursuit and go home. He stopped before the little hand-cart of a street fruit vender, which was drawn up to the curbstone, to buy an apple. While he made the purchase he heard the voice of a man, who halted just behind him, saying quickly:

"Ah! I was just coming up to see you. Are you in Fordyce vs. Baxter?"

"Not having been advised by my clerk," said a precise and deliberate speaker in reply, "that any papers in an action so entitled had been deposited in his hands, and having no other knowledge of such action than your present mention of its title, I believe that I am justified in saying, sir, that to the best of my information and belief--"

"Aha!" shouted Lem, wheeling around and seeing before him the living original of Ruth's very exact sketch--"You're the man I'm looking for!"

"What the--the--the--mischief do you mean, sir," exclaimed the little gentleman, warding off the hand that Lem stretched out to clutch his collar.

"It's the Mad Avenger," said, laughingly, the gentleman interested in Fordyce vs. Baxter. "He will ask you, in a moment, if you know the Van Deusts of Easthampton."

"Of course I will," retorted Lem, growing hot and angry, "I don't know why you call me the Mad Avenger--my name is Lemuel Pawlett, and I do want to know, for very serious reasons, if this gentleman is acquainted with the Van Deusts of Easthampton."

"And I reply that I am," answered Mr. Holden, sufficiently perturbed by the immediate excitement to forget his customary caution and make a positive statement without qualification.

"Oh! The deuce you are! Then there really are Van Deusts of Easthampton!" exclaimed the other lawyer, with genuine surprise and beginning to feel an interest in the affair.

"Thank God! I have found you, sir. Thank God!" ejaculated Lem, fervently, "for I believe you can be the means of saving an innocent man's life."

"Bless my soul!" gasped Mr. Holden--"But, here! This is no place for a consultation. Come up to my office;" and he began elbowing his way through the crowd that had already gathered.

"But _are_ you in Fordyce vs. Baxter?" called after him the gentleman whose lucky inquiry had brought to Lem the good fortune of this meeting.

"No," Mr. Holden answered, still moving off.

"Then remember that you are retained for the plaintiff!"

"See Anderson about it," shouted back the little gentleman, disappearing with Lem in the big doorway of the stairs leading to his office.

It was with profound astonishment and genuine sorrow that the worthy lawyer heard of the murder of Jacob Van Deust, for he had achieved quite a liking for the younger of the two brothers.

"But," said he, "I am tempted to say that it seems to me somewhat strange that I have not been notified of the fact by the surviving brother."

"Old Peter is greatly broken down, sir; more shaken by the loss of his brother than any one would have believed he could be, seeing how hard and selfish he always used to seem."

"Ah!" replied Mr. Holden, meditatively, his eyes resting upon the mourning band of his hat on the table before him. "The rupture of life-long ties gives deep pain. We are such creatures of habit, if nothing more. We miss a face to which we have long been accustomed; a voice that we had thought was only in our ears, when it was in our hearts all the while. When the grave covers that face and there is only silence, or the sadness of its own echoes in the lonely heart, the world is no longer the same--But, there!--Don't talk about it any more. You have not yet told me how I can, as you said in the street, save the life of an innocent man."

"The man arrested for that murder, perpetrated at or about midnight, as is supposed, is the one you found in the road suffering from the consequences of a severe fall, and whom you helped to leave Long Island, in a disabled condition, nearly two hours earlier that night than Mr. Van Deust was killed."

"Ah! If I did not know of what the police are capable, I should be surprised at it."

"You know he is innocent, sir; and I know it, and Ruth, and Mary, his sweetheart; we all know it. But they would hang him if we couldn't prove it."

The reaction from his long sustained anxiety, the present excitement and his joyful emotion over finding the man upon whom he looked as Dorn's saviour, so affected the poor fellow that he cried like a schoolboy.

"Yes," assented Mr. Holden reflectively, "that is practically what the law seems to require sometimes--and it is hardly ever an easy thing to do. But, come, my good fellow! Leave that crying for the girls you mentioned and give me all the facts you possess bearing on the case."

"I--I--can't help it, sir. Don't mind me--I'll be over it directly. I know it's weak, and foolish,--but I've been worked up so, fearing I wouldn't find you in time."

In a few minutes Lem recovered his self-control, and then it took but a very short time for the skilful lawyer to elicit every detail of the progress of Dorn's case. Lem was surprised at seeing him smile when the discovery of the handkerchief, the strongest point against the accused, as it was deemed, was mentioned, but did not dare to ask him why he did so. When the narration was concluded, Mr. Holden asked:

"When is his trial to come off?"

"On Tuesday next, sir."

"Tuesday next. H'm. Prosecution will take up first day; defence not be reached before Wednesday--and this is Thursday--leaves me four days to get through what I have on hand. Oh, Mr. Anderson!"

The door opened noiselessly in response to his loud summons, and the old clerk poked in his head.

"If Mr. Sarcher comes to retain me in Fordyce _vs._ Baxter, you will decline to take his papers unless he can wait for an opinion until after next week."

"Yes, sir."

"That is all, Mr. Anderson."

"Thank you."

The clerk bowed and retired his head, again carefully closing the door. Mr. Holden turned to Lem and said, cheerily:

"With Heaven's help, young man, we will save your friend's neck."

"Oh! I'm quite satisfied you will, sir, I'm easy in my mind about it, now that I've seen you. Did you know there's a schooner goes to Sag Harbor, Tuesdays and Fridays, starting at five o'clock in the evening from Coenties Slip?"

"Yes, I know. I have taken it before, and will again, God willing, next Tuesday evening. Go home, see your friend and his sweetheart, and cheer them up, especially the girl. Tell them I'll--well, no; on second thoughts, you'd better say nothing about my evidence that you can avoid;--he would tell his counsel who must be, metaphorically speaking, an ass, or he would have kept his client quiet at the preliminary examination--and it might get to the other side. That might do harm. It is always unwise to let your antagonist in law know your weapons."